sad boy enthusiast

word count & rating: 9.3k, R

chapter warnings: lots and lots of swearing, mentions of death and a brief mention of suicide, typical pitt blood, guts, and gore, probably conflict of interest with how the reader and abbot's lives coinside but its fine, discussions of grief and illusions/minor flashbacks to traumatizing events involving death and blood, likely inaccurate medical talk (i am a woman with google, reddit, and a dream), reader is a little mean but we love complicated characters, banter, lots of angst, slight fluff. also sooooo not beta read but shut up about it

author's note: well, it's here. the long awaited follow up to flight risk. very similar vibes going on here when it comes to in-depth character studies and angst, but it's still going to be fun and cute and hot. WARNING: this fic will deal a lot with death, grief, and the work that's involved with overcoming it. if that's not something you're in the headspace for, totally get it. if you're ready for the ride, i'm so happy you're here to enjoy it. love you all tons! -mags

There is something so overwhelmingly exhausting about pretending to be interested in other people's issues.

It's a bitchy thing to say, and dear God, you know that, but at the end of the day, you’ve found that the only thing that's more exhausting than pretending to be interested in other people's issues is pretending to believe that you’re a good person. Because after years of that bullshit and after years of realizing the only person you were fooling was yourself, you figured that you should start embracing it. 

The world didn't always look like this. It wasn't always so gray and jaded and miserable-looking. You weren’t always that way, either. You used to be a good person, or something like one, at least. You used to care. Caring and listening to people’s issues, in all ways, shapes, and forms, has been your career for years upon years. It was easier to do so before everything. You think about before a lot.

It feels like a distant memory, something in the realm of a dream. It’s strange to think that there once was a before to begin with. It feels strange to know that you used to be a different person and that you were once more than the shit you carry around with you. It's even weirder to think that you, at one point in time, didn't have that baggage. You didn't even know it was coming. There's a piece of you that wishes you had some way to know before it all happened, simply just to appreciate life without it. There's another piece of you that knows that all of those experiences would have been tainted, though. Especially if you knew you’d end up here one day.

Here is a VA in the middle of Pittsburgh, where you’re listening to some guy named Paul talk about how much he misses the feeling of having a gun in his hand. You wish you were interested. You really do. But you’ve been stuck in your head for the last fifteen minutes, thinking about your own week and your own issues as people vent about theirs. It's probably not what your therapist envisioned for you when she ordered you to attend these 'Veteran PTSD Group Meetings' once a week, but hey, you’re here. You’re not skipping them like you used to. That's enough, right?

The meeting's small-- ten people, max-- made up of mostly men who all look to be as in their heads as you are (you feel a little guilty, but that does make you feel a bit better. You’re not the only asshole here). The guy who's leading is new, replacing your mentor, Curtis, who used to lead these meetings. You’ve got nothing against him; he mostly knows what he's doing and is a bit rougher around the edges than Curtis was, but you don’t mind. 

Curtis was moonier than this guy. He liked words like validate and phrases like we’re all on our own journeys. His vernacular had originally made you roll your eyes, but eventually, it was something you’d grown to appreciate. It was difficult to be soft without being irritating in a place like this.

This guy didn’t have much of that. He’d repeated the phrase I hear you, man approximately seven times since this had begun, and seemed to prefer to have a conversation with each person rather than counsel them. 

He introduces himself as Jack Abbot. He tells your group he was a Vet and that he’s now a doctor. Apparently, he's been in the area for a while and happened to meet Curtis at a Vet bar a couple of years ago through a mutual friend. They’d been friends. Great friends, even.

He tells you he was actually one of the last people to see Curtis before he passed. 

Your heart lurches as he drops that fact. While you’d only known Curtis for a few months, this guy had known him for years. You couldn’t imagine what he was feeling.

Two weeks ago, Curtis had been found in his bathroom, unconscious with a bottle of pills beside him. But he wasn’t unconscious. 

His cause of death had been presented to you more kindly than that. Something about losing his battle, something about mental health demons. You were well aware of the tragic irony of your PTSD support leader losing to the things he was trying to help you fight. You’d also seen it happen one too many times, especially with veterans his age. The VA stops checking in, the government stops giving a fuck about you. There’s very little support for the ones who make it out.

Jack lets you know that, as a final favor to his friend, he agreed to take over the Group in the interim. Just until they find another, preferably more qualified person to take over. He makes a joke about paying him back for something or another, because he needed to add yet another thing to his plate. 

Out of everything he says in the first couple of minutes, the real thing that sticks with you is that he didn’t introduce himself as Doctor Jack Abbot like so many in your profession do. 

At least he’s not pretentious, you think.

But, then again, you could have guessed that by the… well, everything about him.

Despite this, admittedly, you haven’t been the most welcoming to Jack. It's nothing personal, and it doesn't mean that you don't like him (something that you’re pretty sure he knows), but you can't seem to talk to him the way you talk to Curtis. You miss his stupid, sweet, moony ass.

While you’d had a meeting last week to unpack everyone’s feelings about the tragedy, you’d stayed completely silent. It wasn’t uncommon for you not to participate, but it was common for people to at least hear your voice. But you couldn’t even try to speak up. You’d just sat there and cried. You’re not like that. You haven’t been in months.

You’re not Paul, who seems to love to talk about his problems. You’re not Katie, the sweet woman four seats away from you, who brings homemade cookies to every meeting, who has no issue speaking her mind. And she’s able to be articulate about it. Asshole.

When it comes to these meetings, you prefer to speak when spoken to. You’d answer Curtis’s questions in a short, hopefully succinct way that won’t draw that much attention to yourself. You’d talk to him privately if you truly needed some sort of guidance. That was fine with him, and that was fine with you.

What's not fine with you, however, is the fact that you can feel Jack’s eyes shifting to you every ten seconds. You refuse to look away from the slightly dirty tile floor because you know that as soon as you do, he's going to ask you something. 

Paul's wrapping up his rant. Jack’s telling him that he appreciates his sharing. You want to fucking leave as soon as there's a brief silence because just as you thought—

“You,” Jack’s voice is like an alarm going off after only an hour of sleep. "The one who’s trying her hardest not to look at me right now.”

Fuck. You feel like you’re back in school, being called on by the teacher in class when you don’t know the answer. Slowly, you meet his gaze, trying your best to act like you don’t know that he’s talking about you.

A wry sort of smile tugs at his lips as you lock eyes. “Yeah, you. I see you.”

You could keel over and die. It’d certainly be a faster way to see Curtis again. When it’s clear that you’re not going to respond to him, that smile of his grows ever so slightly. "You feel like sharing today?" he asks.

You shift uncomfortably. "Not really."

"Alright," he says. It’s not sarcastic or clipped like you’d thought his response to that would be. There’s a brief pause before he asks, “Would you at least be open to introducing yourself to me?”

Your lips part, not expecting that. You figure that you should have. He’d asked about everyone’s backgrounds before talking to them, or had woven those types of questions into the conversation. If you were giving him nothing, he’d at least try for this. It makes you scowl.

You tell him your name. You say that you moved to Pittsburgh just about five weeks ago. You let him know you were a military doctor. Navy. Discharged recently as a Captain. You don’t miss the intrigue in his eyes when he leans back into his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Navy, huh?” he asks. His voice is lilted with humor as he points at himself. “Army. I was a field medic.” 

You all but groan. “I’m being counseled by a grunt?”

“Easy with the names,” he chuckles. “Last thing you want is me calling you a Squid for these next few weeks. Because I will.”

Fine. Maybe he’s kind of fun. “So, you were a field medic. You said you’re a doctor now, right?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “Didn’t become one of those until much later on. You’re a few steps ahead of me, Captain.”

You feel the corners of your mouth lift ever so slightly. “I would have done it your way,” you reply. “Less required time.”

“Yeah, but I’ll bet you had a hell of a lot less debt,” he replies.

You make a face as if to say, fair enough.

This new rapport has him comfortable enough to ask, “What were you discharged for?”

The question has you feeling as though you’ve been dunked in an ice bath. Curtis knew the answer to that coming in. You never had to talk in-depth about it in front of the group. They knew you were here for similar reasons to them-- PTSD from combat, poor mental health help from the VA, and therapist-required attendance. You’d covered what you were comfortable with ad nauseam. 

But talking about… all of that? Those were conversations for you and your therapist only. 

Jack clocks the look on your face immediately and knows he’s made a misstep. 

You swallow, shifting in your chair uncomfortably. You shift your gaze for half a second. “Next question, please.”

Jack doesn’t say anything for a while. He just nods, staring at you as if he’s trying to figure you out. There’s a piece of you that knows what he’s doing— he’s assessing a patient. You’ve done it millions of times yourself. However, there’s something about being on the receiving end of it that makes your skin crawl.

The intensity of his stare makes you feel like he can see right through you. It’s like he already knows. It’s as if he can see inside your head and has been sitting in there the entire time, simply observing. He’s got one eyebrow raised, eyes slightly narrowed, accusatory without the aggressive nature of an accusation. Hint of a smile on his face. You can't help but look away again.

You wish Curtis were here. If he were asking questions like that, maybe you’d be more inclined to answer. He'd... Well, would have understood. He always understood.

"How about..." Jack begins, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees, clasping his hands together. "...you just tell me what you're thinking about right now?"

You nearly laugh out loud. "Not sure that's gonna be what you want to hear."

He shrugs. "I don't care. Let me have it."

Your lips part at his response. You’re not sure if you should. You’re not sure if you want to. You don’t know why he's so intent on getting you to speak today, but here he is. You glance around the room at the other members of the group, who now have all decided to pay attention. Your lips twist into a scowl.

It's clear Jack’s not going to give up. You huff. He brought this one on himself.

"I'm thinking about—" You cut yourself off, clearing your throat. It echoes throughout the room. "I'm thinking about how much I miss Curtis."

You catch Paul snickering to himself out of the corner of your eye. However, you’re not expecting Jack to laugh. 

"Ouch.” He doesn't look at you any less kindly. You’re not sure how to react to that. "What's got you thinking about that?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

Yes, you do, and you hate that he can tell. The silence in the room makes your ears ring. You can't take your eyes off the chip in the tile you found. You wish you were anywhere but here or anyone but yourself. If someone else were in your position, maybe they’d know what to say to get Jack off your back right now.

You’re getting fed up with everything already (yourself, him, the situation, your life, fucking everything) and you can feel that ever-present aggravation begin to bubble up in your stomach. You remember your brief stint in anger-management training and take a deep breath, shutting your eyes as you inhale. You’ve got something to say when you exhale and your eyes open.

“I’ve just…” You meet Jack’s eyes for a brief second before you focus on the floor again. “I’ve had a really bad week. It isn’t just the stuff with Curtis, either. There’s a ton of transition happening for me right now. I don’t… do well with change, and this week, I’ve got a lot changing for me. So, Curtis being gone on top of all of that?” A sigh escapes your body as the words do. “It’s hard. Talking like this to someone I don’t know is hard. Especially this week.” Jack’s smiling when you look at him again. “I don’t mean to be rude or closed off, or whatever.”

That smile remains on his face, and when it’s clear that you’re done, he shrugs. “Don’t worry about it, kid,” he tells you. “I get it. I’m bad with change, too.” 

It’s a casual dismissal. It’s way more understanding than you had expected. Curtis would have made you stick with that feeling. Expand upon it. Explain to him why you were so uncomfortable with change. He wouldn’t have gotten into the transition of it all, but he would have been… Curtis about it. You suppose that if Jack were sticking around, you really should stop comparing the two of them. It’s easier said than done.

Before you can react to that in any way, he continues. “Can I ask you one more thing? Then you can tell me to fuck off?”

Your brows raise, too taken aback by him to do anything but agree. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

His head tilts ever so slightly. “What kind of change is happening this week?”

That you can talk about. That you’re actually excited for. 

“New job,” you reply. “Starts Monday.”

Jack’s eyes narrow for a split second before he leans back in his chair once more. “Monday?” he repeats. “Clinic? Hospital? VA? Private?”

“Hospital. I work better in a high-stress environment. Used to it.”

There’s a small smile on his lips, as if he knows the answer to the next question he’s about to ask you. “What department, Doc?”

The look on his face has you hesitating. “ED.”

You’re not expecting that small smile of his to get wider. There are no teeth shown, but the shift is noticeable. You can’t help but shake the feeling that he knows something that you don’t.

“Exciting,” he finally says. Then, he nods at you. “Well, I’m sure you’ll have a fun first day.”

Within a split second, he’s moving on to Katie, four seats away from you, asking her about the tin of cookies in her lap. 

She tells him they’re oatmeal chocolate chip, and Jack lets her know that those are his favorite.

He doesn’t ask you another question all night.

Jack’s cryptic responses make sense within the first three minutes of your first day on the job.

You’d walked into Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital fifteen minutes before your 7 AM start time, always preferring to be early, especially on the first day. Not only had you wanted to make a good impression, but years of military training had made you way more regimented than you ever thought you’d be. Five minutes early meant that you were five minutes late. You preferred never to get into that threshold. 

Throughout your extensive interview process with the hospital and its other attending doctors, you’d spoken with Doctor Michael Robinivitch the most. He’d been warm and cordial each time you’d talked, addressing each of your questions and concerns with an easy, casual professionalism that had instantly made you feel more welcome. 

He, of course, had his own questions and concerns for you— people with your background didn’t typically leave the Medical Corps to join EDs, especially in Pittsburgh. Even more, people with your personal reasons for leaving certainly didn’t bounce back as quickly as you had. You were sure your responses weren’t as easy and casual as his had been, but it seemed that they were received well enough. 

However, none of those right answers meant that you were competent at your job. Today, you had to show exactly what it was you could do. You weren’t worried about that. Proving yourself was something you could do. You were never shy about your skillset. You hadn’t been top of your class for nothing. 

But, as much as you didn’t want to admit it, now that you were here, you were a bit nervous about stepping back into this type of environment. While yes, you did work better in high-stress places and knew you could handle the different ailments and traumas that would be thrown at you, you hadn’t been in a place like this in… well, since everything.

Doctor Robinivitch (Robby, he’d told you to call him, you’d have to remember that) had voiced his apprehension about that exact thing. He’d told you that while he wasn’t worried about how you’d perform, he wanted to make sure that you were ready for all of it. You had assured him you would be. You’d understood why he’d be concerned about it, but you wouldn’t be applying for these positions unless you were sure you were ready to return. Not only would it not be fair to your patients, but it wouldn't be fair to the team. You weren’t reckless enough to risk putting anyone in that position.

He’d liked that way of thinking enough to let you know you were hired the next day. 

There was no time for nerves. There couldn’t be. You knew how this worked. The second you met Robby, the residents, and the nurses, they’d be throwing you face-first into the deep end. You couldn’t afford to wear a life jacket. You were ready for this. You had to be.

What you were not ready for, however, was to see your substitute PTSD Group leader chatting with one of the nurses as he entered something into a computer the second you walked into the ED.

Your shoes squeaked against the tile floor as you froze in place. The sound was loud enough to carry over the typical noise of the floor, and your stomach dropped the second Jack’s eyes shifted to meet yours. 

He couldn’t help but chuckle at the perplexed, mildly outraged look you wore.

Had he known? He had to have known, right? He had to have known that a new attending was starting this week, one that had come straight from the Navy, one that had the same background you’d briefly told him about. That’s what all of those questions were about. That’s why he was being so weird toward the end of your conversation.

The mild outrage on your face grows ever so slightly as he lifts a hand to wave at you. Jack can’t help the way his lips quirk up.

With a heavy sigh, you trudge your way over to the Nurses Station, clutching the strap of your bag. The blonde nurse he’s talking to turns her head to follow his gaze, peering over her glasses to get a better look at whatever’s caught his attention.

“Cap,” he greets you as you approach. “Happy first day.”

You scowl at him. “You could have told me what hospital you worked at.”

“You didn’t tell me where you were starting,” he replies, which, you suppose, is fair.

But still, you argue, “You’d pieced it together, though. Clearly. You could have said something.”

Jack shrugs. “Where’s the fun in that?”

You scoff. “This has to be some sort of conflict of interest.”

He hums something non-committal with a small smile and goes back to whatever he was logging into the computer. You send one last look at the top of his head before turning to the nurse beside him. Her eyes have been darting back and forth between you two, watching the exchange with mild intrigue. Her eyes meet yours as you introduce yourself to her, holding out your hand. “I’m the new Attending.”

“Dana,” she replies, meeting your hand with hers. “Charge Nurse.” She shoots Jack a suspicious sort of look. “I take it you two know each other?”

Jack doesn’t take his eyes off the screen, but the humor in his voice grows. “Cap’s a military friend of mine.”

It’s a simple and wildly vague answer that only makes Dana’s suspicion grow. There’s a piece of you that’s thankful that he didn’t mention the Group meetings. The other wishes he’d at least tried to come up with a story.

Still, you nod at Dana with a sigh. “Yeah. We go way back.” It comes out way more sarcastic than you’d intended, and as the words land, you send her a small smile. “It’s very nice to meet you, though.”

“Nice to meet you too,” she replies, and it’s clear that she doesn’t believe a word of your story. “Robby will be in in a few. I’ll let you two catch up.”

She raises her brows at Jack before she leaves, silently letting him know that she will be harassing him with questions about this later. 

The second she’s gone, the smile falls from your face, and you scowl at him when he finally looks at you once more. “I told you that I got a job ED at a hospital in the area, and you didn’t think to mention—”

“There are four in the area you could have been starting at,” he says breezily, straightening up from his hunched-over position. 

“I’d argue that you, of all people, would have been told that a new Naval Doc was starting here as an attending—”

“Well, you know what they say about assuming—”

“Are you gonna be this annoying for the entire shift?” you ask.

Jack snorts. “I’m nights. You only gotta worry about me for the next ten minutes.”

You can’t tell if the feeling that floods your body is relief or nerves. Despite how frustrating it was that he hadn’t told you that you’d be working at the same hospital, you couldn’t lie and say that your first-day jitters hadn’t been eased the second you saw him. Perhaps it was just that you’d seen a familiar face in a sea of strangers. 

“Oh,” you say, and by the way his eyes narrow ever so slightly, you know he’s trying to figure out your tone as well. “Well, I guess that makes sense.”

Those eyes narrow further. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said.” You shrug. “It makes sense for you. You have a very night-shift vibe to you.”

“I don’t know how to take that.”

“Take it however you want.” 

His lips quirk upward. “And if I were to say the same about you?”

“You wouldn’t be wrong,” you reply. “Used to be a night owl myself. Switched over a couple of months before I was discharged.”

“Which one do you like more?”

You glance around the floor and the chaos of the current shift change. “Ask me in a few weeks.”

Jack laughs again, but you notice that his eyes have shifted to look over your shoulder. The second he nods, you turn, straightening up as soon as you realize that Robby’s behind you. 

He holds his hand out to shake yours with a small smile. “Morning, Doc. Happy first day.”

You hope he doesn’t notice how clammy your palm is. “Thanks. Excited to get started.”

His gaze flashes to Jack. “Whatever miserable monologue he’s given you so far, ignore it.”

Jack has the audacity to look mildly offended. “I’ve been nothing but positive.”

“And I’ve got no problem ignoring him,” you say to Robby, whose brows rocket up at your rather blunt response.

Luckily, Jack’s got you covered. “She’s an old military friend,” he says with a soft smile. “She’s been ignoring me since we met.”

You can see the relief wash over Robby’s expression. “Well, I guess we’ve got something in common,” he tells you. “We’re starting Rounds in five.”

“Heard,” you reply with a single nod, smiling politely as he makes his way over to one of the computers on the opposite side of the nurse’s station. That smile drops as you glance back at Jack. The humor in his expression only grows. “You’re still not off the hook.”

“And it’s eating me up,” he quips back, voice almost sounding bored. You watch as he closes the window on his computer screen and grabs his belongings next to him. A small smile twists his lips. “Have a good first day, Cap. Can’t wait to hear all about it in Group on Wednesday.”

“Cute of you to assume that I’m coming back,” you reply. “I’m gonna write a strongly worded email to the VA to let them know their substitute group leader is an untrustworthy, deceitful liar.”

He snorts in response and shakes his head. You could reach across the counter and sock him. “Sure,” he huffs. “You show me their response on Wednesday, okay?”

He holds your gaze for another infuriating moment before chuckling to himself once more. Your eyes don’t leave him as he walks in the direction of the lockers.

There’s steam coming out of your ears by the time Rounds starts. 

Two days later, your next mandated Group meeting goes about the same as your first.

Jack continues to ‘hear you, man,’ Paul talks some more about his love for guns, and you speak just as infrequently as you did before. The only notable difference is that Katie doesn’t make cookies, and frankly, it does bum you out a little. Those were always good.

Jack seems to feel the same, given the over-dramatic sigh that escapes him at the news. “Oh, I was really looking forward to those,” he tells her. “I’ve got a shift after this. I was gonna ask if I could take the leftovers to work.”

He’s got Katie giggling softly to herself, promising she’ll make some next week, and she’ll even bring extras for him to take to the hospital. 

When the meeting wraps up, you find yourself by the dinky little snack table Jack had been setting up when you had walked in. There’s a variety of grocery store brand items scattered across the top, ranging from packs of assorted nuts to granola bars and fruit snacks.

You’re slipping three packs of fruit snacks into your jacket pocket when you hear a voice behind you. “I saw that.”

A scowl immediately takes over your lips as you drop the snacks in your pocket, turning to see Jack leaning against the table with a small smirk on his lips. 

“They’re the best thing on here,” you mutter. You wave a hand over the table. “If this is gonna be the norm for the next couple of weeks, I’m gonna stock up on the good stuff.”

He glances at your hand. “These aren’t good options?”

“They’re fine,” you say with a shrug. “Curtis usually brought ones that are better.”

There’s no venom in his voice when he replies, “Curtis seems to have done a lot of things better than I do.”

It’s an observation presented with a smile. He’s testing the waters with you. You hadn’t spoken much during the meeting; your mouth used to sport a perpetual frown rather than talk with him. However, his words almost make you feel bad. It’s then that you finally realize that he’s grieving his friend, too. Probably more so than you are. Those thoughts have your shoulders dropping, and you stare at him with the slightest bit of sympathy.

That look in your eyes has apparently made him bold enough to say, “Glad to see you made it today. Have a change of heart about attendance?”

Any sympathy instantaneously is replaced by annoyance. “Evidently.”

He doesn’t buy your one-word response for a second. “What’d that VA email say?” 

Your VA had said exactly what you’d expected them to. To be fair, you hadn’t emailed to complain about Jack or your conflict of interest. It was more of a question about the necessity of your attendance, especially now that the group leader you’d been promised was no longer there.

(It was the best reason you’d had to get out of this shit in months. You’d take what you could get.)

Their response was straight to the point. We are saddened to hear about the loss of Mr. Williams. He and his loved ones are in our thoughts and prayers. However, you have been medically mandated to complete your assigned intensive therapy and are required to attend a support group weekly. If you feel that the interim leader is insufficient for your needs, you are welcome to find groups in the area elsewhere.

Assholes. You knew they were right. You knew this plan was what was best for you. But it didn’t make them any less of assholes for not bending to your whim.

“Words like medically-mandated were used,” you finally respond. Jack seems tickled by this. “I was told that if I felt you were insufficient, I could find other groups in the area.”

“Insufficient?” He has the gall to act offended. “Well, if you’re here, I'll take it that I’m not too bad.”

“Or the closest group to me was in Brackenridge, and the idea of driving on 28 in any capacity was more painful than seeing you.” You shrug. “I’ll let you believe what you want.”

You’re surprised when Jack laughs out loud at your words, a full grin tugging at his lips. However, you’re more surprised when you realize that there’s a bit of pride bubbling up inside of you. 

No. What the hell? Don’t be happy that you made him laugh, idiot. You’re still mad at him.

“Fuck, you’re mean,” he says, but there’s no malice in his words, and that pride inside of you grows. You have to bite back a smile, but you think he sees the beginnings of it. You’re so disgusted by the feeling that it makes you want to take a cold shower. “Remind me to never actually get on your bad side.”

Instead of dwelling on all of that for too long, you change the subject after a moment of quiet passes between you. “You’re working after this?”

Jack takes the branch in stride and nods. “Heather’s covering for me until eight,” he says. “I’ve got about fifteen minutes before I need to head out, or she’ll take my other leg. You’ll be in tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow, Friday, and Sunday,” you respond. “Working Princess hours on Tuesday and then I’m off until Friday.”

He hums. “Getting the weekend shifts, huh?”

“I’m the new kid. It makes sense.” You shrug. “Not like I’ve got much to do on the weekends anyway.”

His lips purse for a split second, as if he wants to ask about your last comment. Instead, he chooses to ask, “How’d your first two days go?”

Surprisingly well, is what your honest answer was. You had no idea what to expect from your first two shifts, but you certainly hadn’t expected to perform as well as you had. To be fair, you’d been mostly shadowing Robby, but even still, it was a relief not only to have gotten your first days over with, but to have done well.

You’d been so nervous to return to a hospital environment after so much time off, but, as cliché as it sounded, it was kind of like riding a bike. There had been a hiccup here and there, but that was to be expected. You hadn’t killed anyone, hadn’t hurt anyone, and hadn’t diagnosed anyone wrong. You’d call that a win.

The ED environment was exactly what you needed and had been missing. It was fast-paced, a little stressful, and entirely rewarding. Even better, the team you’d been placed with was great, too. Everyone was competent, fun to work with, and good at what they did. You didn’t always agree with Robby’s unorthodox approaches to certain procedures, but he consistently made the right calls. His residents and students seemed to follow suit.

“Good,” is what you finally land on. The word is spoken through a sigh. “Really good, actually.”

“Yeah?” Jack hums. “Robby said the same thing. He’s pretty impressed with you so far.”

Your brows raise. “Seriously?”

He nods. “Hard praise to get, Cap. You must have done something right.”

You can’t help the way that your lips curve. “It felt nice to be back to work.”

“I’m sure,” he says. “You’ve been away for a long time, right?” 

He sees you freeze at the question. “Yeah,” you say, curt.

“Just about a year, right?” You look almost shellshocked, too uncomfortable to put the pieces together as to why he might know that. To get that expression off your face, Jack tries hand at a joke once more. “Relax. Robby told me. He didn’t tell me why.”

It takes everything in you not to snap at him. Everything about his demeanor says that he’s telling the truth, but it still rubs you the wrong way. He’s trying, you tell yourself. He’s doing his job. If Robby hadn’t told him that bit of information, Curtis probably would have. He can't help the fact that you never want to talk about the reasons you’ve been away.

A long, tough second passes before you manage to get out, “Yeah. It’s been a year.” 

It’s clunky and clipped and it nearly makes you breathless. Jack knows that’s the best he’s gonna get from you tonight. There’s a beat of silence, and he lets his words hang there, giving you room to add or expand upon them. You don’t. It doesn’t surprise him in the slightest.

You’re thankful when he doesn’t press any further. “Well, I’m glad you were here tonight.” He nods at the snack table. “If you come back next week, I’ll have a better showing.”

He offers a small, parting smile and makes his way to the now-empty circle of chairs to start folding them up. When he turns around to look at you a moment later, he’s even less surprised to find that you’re gone.

You’re not expecting to have to talk to Jack until your next meeting, and you’re fully content with that idea. You’re no stranger to politely (or not politely) ignoring your coworkers, especially those on a shift change. Unfortunately, you’re not exactly that fortunate.

Your Sunday shift ends up being the busiest one you’ve had since you began at PTMC. Robby lets you and Heather know mid-shift that he’s called in reinforcements, and you don’t have to ask who it’s going to be. You already know in your gut that it’s him.

When he clocks in, it’s chaos. He can hear machines squealing and doctors calling for help as they wheel a patient toward Trauma Two. He watches you blow past him to follow the bed. He sees the back of your head as you glove up, pointing and directing the residents around you with a certain type of command that he hasn’t seen from an Attending in years. 

Jack doesn’t take his eyes off of you when he asks Dana, “What’s going on in there?”

The concern in her voice sounds off all kinds of alarm bells for Jack. “Not sure. That’s the Aortitis patient that came in this morning.”

Jack’s moving toward the room before he knows it. 

You, on the other hand, are still trying to figure out what happened. You and Langdon had responded to the cry for help at the same time, only to find Whitaker, Mel, and a med student with the patient, panic written across all of their faces, and it’s for good reason. 

The patient had come in with an aortic infection-- something rare and something you knew your students and residents would have likely never seen before. You know you should have been keeping more of an eye on them with this type of thing. But, he had seemed okay. It didn’t appear serious enough to operate on, and he’d been responding well to the medication. There was nothing about him that could have made you anticipate this.

He’s unconscious, unresponsive, and on the verge of coding. You frantically search through your mental rolodex, attempting to understand how something like this could have happened so quickly.

“What happened?” you ask. It’s more of a demand than a question.

Whitaker doesn’t look away from the patient as he responds, “I don't know! He was complaining about the bed being uncomfortable, so Rhodes and I—” The poor med student raises her hand to identify herself. “—helped lift him to see if the sheets had bunched or something. The second we did it, he started screaming in pain and then passed out.”

Langdon looks at you with wide eyes. “Shit. The aorta probably ruptured when they moved him.”

You’re on the same page before he even says it. “Get Garcia down here now,” you order Langdon, who grabs the phone in an instant. You point at Whitaker. “And get Robby. I need an adult to help me unfuck this, right now.”

For once, you’re revealed to hear Jack’s voice behind you. “You’ve got the next best thing, Cap.” He’s already putting on gloves. “I heard what’s going on. We need to cut into him now.”

“Cut into—?” It’s the right call, but something like this needs to be done by a specialist. “We need a surgeon—”

“He’s gonna internally bleed out before Garcia gets here.”

“And he’s going to bleed out on the fucking table if we cut into him without—” Jack’s taking over before you can say anything else. A horrified gasp leaves your lips, and Jack takes a scalpel and makes an incision. “What the fuck, Abbot?”

Every machine the patient is hooked up to starts going crazy the second Jack cuts into him. There is blood everywhere. There is so much of it, and it’s coming out of him so fast. It spills all over the table and onto the floor, and for a split second, you’re rooted to the spot. 

The amount of blood, it’s… You’ve seen blood the past week, but you haven’t seen that much since… The location, too. It’s… It’s the same fucking spot. 

Luckily for you, your fellow attending is quick on his feet. He either doesn’t notice or ignores the way to lock up and springs into action. As quickly as the fear hits you, it’s gone, and you’re suddenly back in the room. If you could slap yourself awake without making a scene, you would. But instead of that, you resort to channeling a similar, sharp feeling that you’re very familiar with. 

Rage. Your vision’s now clouded by it. However, despite this, you can still see the work in front of you and the people who are relying on you. 

Awaken, don’t interfere, you tell yourself, as you have so many times before.

While it feels like minutes, only about a second has passed. You then see what Jack’s doing and pick up on the plan quickly. 

You start shouting orders at Mel, Langdon, and Rhoades, the med student. They comply immediately, and before Abbot can even ask for your assistance, you’re holding out a clamp.

His mouth opens to call for it, and you swear a hint of a smile curls at his lips when he sees it in your hand. “Thank you, Cap,” he says. 

You’re too concerned with the life-or-death situation in front of you to ream him out.

He takes the clamp in stride, and you work in tandem to attempt to save this guy’s life. Mel returns to the table with a vac to suck up the blood. Langdon’s moving in across from you, following your lead with an efficiency that should be surprising, but you’ve seen what that kid can do. 

You’ve seen what all of these people around you can do. Sure, it’s not your naval crew, and it’s certainly not your sick bay that’s staffed with the country’s best and brightest, but you were pleased to find that it’s pretty damn close. You’re fortunate to have found this place. 

Garcia’s in the room within the next thirty seconds. The patient is coding, and frankly, you wouldn’t be surprised if he died on the table. A ruptured aorta had a ninety percent mortality rate, and the chances of this guy being in that other ten percent were slim. But you’d still try.

“Did you fucking cut into him without me here?” Garcia barks out, jumping into action as soon as she enters. 

You surprise yourself when you say, “Not my call, but Abbot was right. The aorta ruptured, patient was FUBAR. We needed to at least attempt to clamp it.” 

Jack whistles. “Haven’t heard someone use FUBAR in years. Love it.”

“Fuck off. We are not friends right now,” you bite back. “You’re so fucking lucky that his tissue wasn’t too friable for that shit.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Garcia says, moving in next to you. You step back to let her in. “We finally have someone at your rank to tell you off, Abbot. Maybe you’ll listen.”

“Wishful thinking,” he replies.

It’s then that your patient flatlines. You swear out loud, directing compressions from Mel. Your next order is for a CPB. It’s automatic. Despite the fact that your stomach is in your chest and your heart’s now in your ass, you move with efficiency, doing everything you can to save this sinking ship.

There’s no more joking. The only communication is people saying the things they're doing and things that others should be doing. The chances of your patient falling into that ten percent are looking even worse. But it’s not impossible.

Within three minutes, you get his heartbeat back. While it’s a relief, that’s only half the battle. You still need to get him to stop bleeding. 

But that’s no longer your job. The rest of Garcia’s team rushes in, finally making their appearance after hearing the call. They step in to perform what is now basically open-heart surgery, and you can only offer your best wishes. 

It’s only when you feel someone bat at your shoulder that you’re taken out of autopilot. You start at the feeling and find that you’ve walked away from the table and are now standing in the corner of the room. Abbot’s next to you, taking off his gloves and gown that are covered in blood. You’re covered in blood. You knew you would be, but didn’t think it’d be this much. 

The memories you’d pushed away minutes ago suddenly come flooding back to you. You blink them away, but it’s harder this time around. 

No, you scold yourself. You still have five hours left in your shift. This can’t happen now. Save it for your miserable, dark, and empty apartment, where you have all the time in the world to relive the worst moment of your life.

“Cap?” he asks, and it’s the first word that isn’t an order that you fully process. You look at him, still slightly dazed. “You alright?”

When you can see his face clearly, that rage returns. It bubbles something awful in your chest, and it takes everything in you not to do something drastic.

“That was…” You manage to get out. He’s not sure if he should be taken back more by the genuine anger in your voice or the tears that are pricking in your eyes. “...so fucking reckless.”

“That—” He cautiously points at the table, “—was us giving that guy his best chance of making it out of here alive. You said it yourself. It was the right call.”

“But to do it like that— That abruptly—?” You shake your head. “There was no way you could have known—”

“I did know. I’ve done that before. I’ve seen it end with less of a chance than he has now,” he says. You swallow the lump in your throat. “If the tissue was friable, nothing else would have worked. That was the only thing we could have done. And look—” He points at his heart monitor. “—he seems to be doing alright so far.”

You know he’s right. You do. He has yet to be wrong about… well, fucking anything. But your brain’s too jumbled. You can’t look at him right now. You’re blinded by past and present visions of blood spilling over a table, and you being too frozen to do anything.

You take a step back from him, eyes fluttering shut for a brief moment. “Just…” A shuddering breath escapes you, and your words come out through a ragged sigh. “Stay out of my way for the rest of the shift. I need… I need a second.”

Jack watches you swing the door of Trauma Two open, and you take off across the ED floor.

You tell Dana you need five minutes, not waiting to hear her reply before walking into the bathroom and locking yourself into the first stall.

Three minutes is all you need to collect yourself and push everything down. You spend the next two fixing yourself in the mirror.

The next, you’re back on the floor. You go into the break room to grab one of your energy drinks from the fridge, letting the cool air hit your face.

You crack it open, take a sip, and you’re taking on another case thirty seconds after that.

You’re almost home free. Almost. 

Five grueling hours later, you escape from PTMC with half your sanity intact. Normally, you’d call that a win, especially after the day you had.

But before you can call it a win, before you can escape your place of work and return to your apartment, you feel someone fall into step with you.

“Fuck,” you curse, abruptly stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. You glare at Jack, clenching the strap of your go-bag tighter. “What the hell is wrong with you? You’re like a… a rash. I can’t get rid of you. You keep coming back.”

He blinks at you. “A rash?”

You all but grit your teeth. “I’m tired. I’d be meaner if I could think straight.”

“No, no,” he says. “I think it’s a decent metaphor.”

Because you can’t help yourself, “It’s a simile.”

“Naval Doc and an English major. You must have blown your fleet away.”

You’ve had enough. “Did you stop me just to piss me off again? Because it’s working.”

Jack gives you a look, and there’s enough kindness in it that it makes you feel bad. Damn it, he’s good at doing that, isn’t he? 

“Didn’t stop you to— I’m not trying to piss you off.” He sighs softly. “That’s not at all what I’ve been trying to do.”

“Then what are you trying to do?”

“I’m trying to—” He cuts himself off, wiping a hand down his face. There’s a brief moment of silence before he says, “I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. And that’s the problem.” 

That’s not at all the answer you’d been expecting. It catches you completely off guard, and you find yourself just staring at him, that pity you’d been feeling earlier now becoming more tangible. 

Before you can ask or say anything, he drops his hand and looks at you. “I’m not good at this. I know that. I—”

“Good at what?” you question.

“This… support thing. I’m trying to follow Curtis’s lead. He left this list about the group, and there were notes that said to keep an eye on you, and—”

Your lips part in what you think is half shock and half distress. “He what?”

“He was worried about what you’d do without him. If you’d shut down or stop coming or whatever. And I owe him… I don’t know how many favors. I’m just trying to be half the guy he was.” Jack doesn’t love the way you’re looking at him, but he’s pleased to find that you’re less angry than before. “I’m trying my best to follow those orders he left, y’know? But I… I feel like I keep fucking up with you, kid. I always make some sort of misstep that gets you pissed at me.”

He wasn’t wrong, per se. There had been… many missteps made on his part. But you’re honest with yourself to know that you hadn’t been the most graceful with all of this either. You weren’t exactly the easiest person to talk to. Or get through to. Or to get along with. 

You feel bad enough to throw him a bone. Crossing your arms over your chest, you mutter, “It’s not all your fault.” Jack’s eyes shoot up to meet yours in surprise. “I get pissed at a lot of people. Too easily, sometimes. That’s on me.”

He was also right about another thing. He wasn’t great at this support thing. But there was one thing that he and Curtis shared— they both fucking tried. They were consistent, and they showed up for you. They were trying. One was much more successful than the other, but still. Maybe Jack was owed the benefit of the doubt.

You both had set some pretty high expectations for who you thought this ‘Leader Jack’ would be, ones that would probably never be achieved. You begrudgingly tell him as such.

“I told you I’m not great with change. But I’m also not…” It takes everything in you to get the words out. “...being fair to you. But you’re not being fair to me.”

Jack tilts his head. “How’s that?”

“I’m treating you like you’re Curtis. Because that’s what I’m expecting you to be. Not an interim leader, but an understudy.” You sigh. It’s long and heavy and resigned. “I’m expecting you to know the lines and the directions and to act like Curtis. That’s not fair.”

Your arms unfold and fall from their position on your chest. “But I think you’re also trying to be his understudy. But you’re not,” you say. “And that’s not fair either.”

Jack takes a beat to sit with this. For the first time since you’ve met him, you see him really think. He’s always so fast. Lightning-fast decisions, quick responses. It’s one of the things you’ve actually grown to appreciate about him.

But right now, his entire thought process is broadcast before you. You can see everything written across his face as he ponders the situation, truly taking your words into consideration. 

“Okay,” he finally says. He nods as if to confirm it again. “You’re right.”

Once again, because you can’t help yourself, you say, “I know.”

A smile twists his lips. “So, where do we go from here?”

Now, it’s your turn to think. It takes way less time. 

“You be yourself. You lead me or support me or whatever the fuck,” you tell him. “And I’ll try to be… as open as I was with Curtis.”

He chuckles. “From what I’ve heard, that’s not exactly a high bar.”

“Of course that traitor would tell you that,” you grumble, and you scowl as Jack laughs again. “Well, then maybe, you’ll be better than him at something.”

The humor in Jack’s smile turns into something more sincere. “I’m sure as hell gonna try.”

You’re struck by the sentiment. He’s throwing all sorts of curveballs at you tonight, and you don’t know how to handle them. 

“It’ll be fun to watch you do so,” is what you finally land on. It’s your turn to surprise him, now. You offer a small, tight-lipped smile that nearly makes him stumble back. “I’ll see you at Group on Wednesday.”

You keep his gaze for a bit longer, then nod at him as you part. It’s an acknowledgement and a promise. 

It’s enough for Jack to call out to you and ask, “What are you doing tonight?”

If this were a cartoon, your feet would come to a squealing halt at how hard you stop in your tracks. Bewildered, you turn around to see if he’s being serious with whatever proposition he’s about to present to you.

“W-What?” you stammer, partially because you don’t believe that he’s doing this.

“There’s a decent bar down the street.” It takes physical effort for your jaw not to drop. “I know the bartender pretty well.”

You hold your hands out like that will stop the whiplash you’re feeling. “You’re asking me to get drinks with you? Right now?”

“Do you not drink?” he asks, suddenly more concerned. “Curtis didn’t mention anything about—”

“No, I— I drink,” you say. “I’m just trying to figure out what the fuck you’re doing.”

That smile of his reappears. “I’m trying to get you talk to me,” he says, as if the answer’s simple. “But I’m doing it my way. Not Curtis’s.”

“By… getting me drunk?” you question slowly.

Jack laughs, and once again, you can feel it warm you from the inside out. Gross. Stop. You’re still trying to figure out if you actually like him as a person.

“By making it casual,” he corrects. “We’ve only ever talked in high-stress environments for you. Work. Group.” His explanation eases your worries ever so slightly, but he still reads the hesitation on your face. “Plus, I’d love to buy you a drink to make up for whatever the fuck I did wrong with the aortisis patient. Maybe you’ll even tell me about it.”

When you scowl yet again at him, he relaxes. There’s just a bit of humor in your eyes to go along with it. What makes him feel better is when he realizes that you’re actually considering his offer.

At your silence, he puts his hands up in defense, knowing he should offer you a way out just in case. “If you don’t want to, you don’t gotta. I was just putting it out there.” 

The breakthrough he’s been trying for for the last two and a half weeks finally happens as you knock your head back and slump your shoulders in resignation.

“Fine. Sure,” you say, picking your go-bag up from the sidewalk. “One drink sounds fine. I could use one after today anyway.” 

Jack almost jumps for joy right then and there. He’s not sure if he believes in any type of God, but he certainly believes that Curtis is in some sort of better place and can hear him. He’s got no doubt that he made that happen.

He resorts to sending a thank you to him instead.

Frank’s alarm is an unwelcome sound at the ungodly hour of five-thirty in the morning.

You wake to it at the same time as he does. While you’d fallen asleep in his arms, you’d separated throughout the night, you on your side and he on his stomach. Though, his arm remained draped over your waist, as if he hadn’t wanted to be too far away from you.

Despite the way this makes your chest warm, it doesn’t make you any happier to be up at this hour.

The last couple of years of consistent morning shifts had your internal clock set to be alert and ready by seven, but still, this is pushing it. Your apartment’s relatively close to the hospital, and you’ve perfected your morning routine in such a way that it allows you to get out of bed by six at the earliest. 

You’re about to complain about the alarm, but the second he realizes that you’re awake, he groans into the pillow he’s claimed as his. He reaches over to your bedside table, turning the alarm off with a huff. His arm curls beneath your side when he returns, pulling you into him so that your back is against his chest.

“You set your alarm for five-thirty, you psycho?” you mutter through the dark. “What is wrong with you?”

Frank’s forehead knocks against your shoulder. “I’m bad at getting up.” His voice comes out in a low rasp. “Especially when I’m kept up past my bedtime.”

His arm tightens around you as you tiredly chuckle. “That was not my fault,” you say. “You started it. Both times.”

“Whatever,” he mutters, too tired to come up with a better response. He goes quiet, and for a moment, you think he’s fallen back to sleep. But then, he asks, “You think it’d be a bad look if I called out?”

“Incredibly bad,” is your immediate reply, and you hear him groan again. The sound vibrates against your neck, and it sends a shiver down your spine. “It’d be suspicious, too. Calling out at five-thirty on my day off? We might as well walk in together with this giant hickey on my neck.” You feel him smile against your shoulder at that, and you elbow him in the gut. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, though he doesn’t sound very sorry at all. 

If your eyes were open, you would have rolled them. “Whatever,” you repeat. “There’s a Red Bull in the fridge if you want it.”

You feel him inhale sharply, then squeeze you a little tighter. “That might be the hottest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Laughing into your pillow, you say, “Get up and do whatever it is you need to do to justify waking up at five-thirty.”

He presses his lips to the place where your neck and shoulder intersect. “I just need to shower,” he says, leadingly. “Got some time to do some other things.”

“Nice try,” you say. You have to slap his hand away as it creeps down the curve of your hip. “You woke me up early on my day off. Suffer the consequences.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and while you can’t see his face, you can picture him pouting. Then, “I won’t make you do any of the work,” he tries.

“Langdon, get out of my bed and go do your job.”

He grins at the laughter that’s accenting your voice. “Oh, man. Not the last name. You are serious.” You feel his chest rise and fall in a dramatic sigh before he gets up. “Fine. I’ll go shower. Alone.”

“Have fun,” you say through a yawn, unbothered as you pull your comforter closer to you.

Within the minutes of him showering, you’ve fallen back to sleep, and while there’s a piece of Frank that wants to wake you up to say goodbye, he decides against it. You needed to rest up. Instead, he got himself dressed in the clothes you’d lent him, pulling the sweatpants down so they looked less like floods on him. He snags the zip-up sweatshirt he’d discarded on the floor the night before, zipping it up as he walked to your kitchen to grab the Red Bull you’d promised him.

In lieu of waking you up again, he simply presses a soft kiss to your forehead, smiling to himself as the corner of your lips twitched up in your sleep. That might have been better than a goodbye.

He gets to the ED on the earlier side, a slight skip in his step despite the bags under his eyes. Collins is already in, chatting quietly with Ellis, who already looks ready to clock out. They both eye him suspiciously as he walks in, taken aback when he sends a smile toward them as he greets them. He barely greeted people in the mornings, let alone smiled at them.

When Langdon’s gone, walking in the direction of the lockers, the two attendings exchange a glance. Collins bites back a smile, nodding at her friend. “Give me a minute. I’ll report back.”

“You better,” Ellis says, staring off in Langdon’s direction in awe. “Because no fucking way.”

Collins finds him taking off his sweatshirt at his locker, unassuming of the shitstorm that’s about to be unleashed on him. Before he can grab the spare pair of scrubs he keeps in his bag, he’s being taken by the arm and pulled into the (thankfully) empty on-call room beside them. 

When Langdon gets his bearings, he finds himself staring at Collins and realizes that she’s the one who’s kidnapped him. He rips his arm from her grip. “What the hell?”

Collins’s eyes are accusatory and excited. “You slept with Risky.”

Frank blinks at her in surprise, mouth opening and shutting like a fish. “Wha—? What are you talking about, I—?” He’s convincing nobody with the way he’s stammering, but he genuinely has no idea what to say. He wasn’t expecting to be caught and interrogated so immediately— if at all. “W-What the hell makes you think that?”

“You mean besides the fact that you’re walking around this place like a guy who just got laid?” Frank’s expression shifts from surprised to unimpressed within a nanosecond. Collins glances at the shirt he’s wearing— your shirt. “Unless you’ve recently transferred and became ‘Mass Gen’s Number One Resident,’ I’d—”

He nearly rips the shirt he’s wearing off to look at it. Lo and behold, without realizing it, last night you’d thrown him the oversized shirt that your best friend throughout your Mass Gen residency had made for you for your birthday during your intern year. He’s already drafting the text he’s about to send you in his head.

“—Say you were wearing her shirt,” Collins continues, biting back a smile at how red his face has gotten. “Which, you know, I have to commend you guys for how progressive that is. You’re wearing her clothes, I mean—”

“We don’t believe in gender norms,” Frank all but snaps, and finally, Collins starts to grin at him. 

“We?” she asks with a raised brow.

Hiding his face in his hands, he sighs something long and heavy. Wearily, he asks, “Would you believe me if I said we were just hanging out and I wanted to get out of my scrubs?”

“After the way you practically skipped out of here last night to give her her badge?” Collins shakes her head. “Not a chance.”

He has to refrain from groaning. “Heather, c’mon. It’s so early, I can’t—”

“I’m not asking for details. Because trust me—” She shivers, making an audibly disgusted sound. “I don’t want them. I just need to know how close I was for the pool. I’ve got a reputation to maintain and if I lose, I—”

Langdon interrupts her by sticking out his hand. “Hold on,” he says in disbelief. “You’ve all been betting on us?”

Collins gives him a look. “You’ve been here for four years. You know how this place works. Of course, we’ve been betting on it.”

He stares at her in shock. They had been fucking betting on you two? For how long? And how long had they seen something that you two hadn’t?

He really should have anticipated it. Everything at this godforsaken hospital turned into a bet. Every single thing. Whether it was how many times Gloria would come to badger Robby per week or the good ole foreign body parlay, nothing was off the table. They had a secret, under the table bet about when Collins and Robby were going to get together, for fuck’s sake.

He didn’t think you two were as obvious as they were, but… yeah. Maybe he should have expected this.

While everyone kept things respectful, every single staff member found a way to get in on these. Each one of his coworkers had a gambling problem. 

And I’m the fucking addict, Langdon thinks.

He isn’t even able to get his question out when he asks, “How long have you been—?”

“Since you got back and started acting all weird and smiley around her,” she answers. “Risky might have been blind to it, but shit, you were so obvious.”

“Obvious?” he grunts. “I was not obvious, I—”

“I’ve been working with you for years, Langdon. And she’s one of my best friends. I know you both.” She shrugs. “It was obvious to me. Everyone else, too, but mostly me.”

He runs a hand down his face, eyes shutting in exasperation. “What’s the parlay?”

“Month, week, who made the first move, and location of that first move,” she says. At the look he gives her, Collins shrugs. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t be all over this if you weren’t involved.”

She’s got him there. But still, he mutters, “You guys have no fucking sense of boundaries.”

‘Nope,” she says. “None. Now spill.”

He stares at her for a moment, knowing he’s been fully, one-hundred-percent caught. There was no hiding from it. The evidence was right in front of her, and he wasn’t exactly the best liar. The only more compromising position he could have been caught in is if she’d found you two hooking up in the on-call room. 

Fuck. You were going to kill him.

Langdon sighs, taking all of the air in the room with him. He can’t look Collins in the eye. 

“October, yesterday, parking lot—” He shifts uncomfortably. “—I made the first move.”

Collins’s eyes widen. “Yesterday—?” she nearly shouts. “You mean this literally happened—”

“Could you please be louder?” Langdon hisses, eyes flashing to the door. Collins puts a hand over her mouth, hiding the wide grin on her face. “I don’t think the triage patients heard you.”

“Last night?” she whispers excitedly. “It happened last night?”

He goes through the five stages of grief right before her eyes. “Yeah,” he mutters. “Yes. It happened last night.”

Collins raises her hands in victory, quietly celebrating as Langdon stares at her, unimpressed. “I knew it,” she cheers. “I was dead-on. You two are so predictable, my God.”

Langdon gapes at her. “You got the whole parlay?”

“I just made it,” she replies. “I said it would happen this week. If you two had waited one more day, Mel would have won.”

“Mel? She—?” He scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest like a child. “That traitor.”

The smile hasn’t left Collins’s face. She grabs hold of his shoulders and shakes him around. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for finally doing something about your crush on her, and thank you for doing it yesterday.”

“You’re buying me and Risky lunch with your winnings,” he mutters. “Ridiculous people.”

She waves him off before she grows just a tad more serious. “While I’m happy that you stopped being a coward and made a move—” She ignores Langdon’s glare. “—I don’t know what your intentions are, but—”

His expression softens. “My intentions?”

Collins raises one hand back to his shoulder and squeezes it lightly. “I don’t know how serious you are or what you two are planning on doing with all of this,” she rephrases, “but please… be careful with this. Don’t hurt her. She’s had some tough luck with her relationships and I…” She shakes her head. “If she’s finally open to someone again, I don’t want her to get burned again.”

Langdon nods, absorbing her words. “You talking about what Klein did?”

“Uh, yeah.” She seems marginally surprised that he knows. “Did she—?”

“She told me last night,” he sighs. “What a fucking asshole.”

Collins nods slowly. “So, then you know.”

“I know,” he confirms. “And not that it’s any of this team’s business—” He sends another glare Collins’s way and she rolls her eyes. “—I’m… really trying to make this work. This isn’t some sort of one-off thing. She’s been…” He trails off, trying to come up with the right words. When he finds them, they’re not as poised or eloquent as he wanted them to be, but they get his point across. “I’m not going to fuck this up.”

It seems to satisfy Collins enough. She sends a soft smile his way. “Good.”

Before the conversation can close, Langdon is speaking up once more. “Can you—” His voice comes out weaker than he wanted, but he can’t help but feel a little shy about all of this. “Please don’t tell anyone about this. You live knowing that you won and were right, but we’re trying to keep things… slow. We don’t want the whole team freaking out about it. So, just… keep this between us. Please?”

Collins stares at him for a minute before whistling lowly. “Two pleases from you within twenty seconds,” she muses, reveling in the way he shifts uncomfortably. “That’s a record for you, Langdon. You must be serious.”

She doesn’t know if she’s ever heard him sound more sure when he says, “Yes. I’m very serious.” He lets out a deep breath. “About all of it.”

The earnestness in his voice catches her off guard. But it also makes her believe him. 

For once, Collins figures she can let him off easy.

“Fine,” she says, smiling softly at him. The sigh of relief he releases is something that can actually be heard from triage. “It’s between us.”

“Thank you,” he replies.

“But I’m not buying you lunch,” she continues, pointing at him. She starts to walk toward the door to exit. “All that money is mine.”

Langdon rolls his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Just don’t say anything.”

Before Collins leaves, she turns to face him. “I’m happy for you two,” she says, and she really does mean it. He glances up to meet her gaze. “You both deserve a win. I’m glad you woke up and realized it before it was too late.” He wants to thank her again, but Collins is eyeing him in a way he doesn’t love. “She yelled at you for ruining her date, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” he huffs. “Tore me a fucking new one.”

“Good.” She shakes her head at him, muttering to herself as she walks out. “Asking me if he was obvious and how I knew he liked her after that shit yesterday, are you kidding—”

The door shuts before he can hear the rest of it, leaving him alone in the on-call room, in your shirt, heart racing a million miles an hour. 

By the time he’s got his bearings and is freshly dressed in his spare scrubs, he’s texting you, fingers flying at an alarming speed.

6:54: collins already found us out. there was a pool going for when we’d get together. she won.

He’s surprised when a minute later, his phone vibrates in his pocket and your name appears on his screen, but he figures that internal clock you’re always going on about had woken you up.

WHAT????? HOW

and of course. those assholes WOULD

but HOW DOES SHE KNOW 

He shakes his head, typing his response as he walks into the ED. 

my shirt let her know i was mass gen’s #1 resident

Your response is immediate, and your texts arrive in an urgent succession.

FUCK OFF 

NO

I GAVE YOU THAT ONE????? I DIDN’T EVEN REALIZE

I AM SO SORRY OH MY GOD

but also… wearing my shirt to work? what are we doing langdon where is the logic

most likely to succeed my ass

Langdon audibly scoffs, the small smile on his face growing as he writes back, and you’re the one who gave it to me. that academic achievement award is screaming from the back of your closet

IT WAS DARK YOU DICKHEAD

I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I WAS GIVING YOU

collins isn’t going to tell anyone, right?

i swore her to secrecy. we’re good

oh thank god

that’s so embarrassing i’m so sorry

it’s okay. you’ll make it up to me

oh? will i??

He doesn’t notice Dana approaching him as he hovers near the nurses' station, and the sound of her dropping a chart beside him makes him jump out of his skin. 

“Who’s got you smiling like that this early?” she asks, eyeing the phone he almost dropped. 

He stares at her, at your text on his screen, and then back at her. He simply shrugs. “Just a friend of mine.”

Dana hums, and it’s clear she doesn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth. “Right,” she replies. “There’s a laceration in South Four that needs to be tended to. You can start there instead of texting like my sixteen-year-old.”

He gives her a look, but still does as he’s told. “On it,” he says, turning in the direction of South Four.

She chuckles as she watches Langdon leave, smirking as he sends his last text and slips his phone into his pocket. 

“Tell Risky I say hi,” she says to herself, shaking her head fondly. "You smitten little bastard."

word count & rating: 30k, M (18+! minors get out or i will verbally beat ur ass) warnings: still slow-burning, eventual SMUT, you know i love a little porn with plot, protected p in v, oral (f receiving), hints of a handjob, lot of kissing, tons of dirty talk (langdon cannot shut up to save his life), the rivals become friends and then lovers, major sexual tension and slightly awkward flirting, afab!reader, dana stays (!), frank gets divorced (!), mentions of addiction and sobriety, lots of swearing, banter, angst, descriptions of a previous, inappropriate but consensual workplace relationship, brief mentions of another tough, previous relationship the reader had, patient gets into a minor altercation with the reader, likely inaccurate medical talk (i am a woman with google, reddit, and a dream), not beta read please do not roast me for typos i missed author's note: well, this is part two. for those of you who missed the previous note, this was all supposed to be one fic but it's a 44k word fic and tumblr apparently has a 1,000 paragraph limit (who knew). this was the only logical way for my brain to break this one up, sorry for the weird difference in word count. if anyone wants to read it all in one part, you can find that on my ao3 linked above! hope you enjoy, i love ya all tons! -mags

MARCH 23RD, 2026. (4:30 PM)

You don’t see Frank Langdon for a long while after that. It’s like he was an illusion— something out of a nightmare that had come to life. He was back in your life for a year and then gone in an instant. The whiplash hurts just a little bit.

Despite his absence, the ED returns to normal for the most part. The new residents and med students find their place, each day a bit easier compared to their first. You find yourself drawn to each of them in a specific way, much like your friends and fellow older residents.

Whitaker becomes your shadow. He grows more confident under your supervision, often turning to you for advice when he feels he needs it. He gets closer with Robby, and you watch as your attending takes him more under his wing each day. Robby tells you that he’s glad the kid picked right when it came to looking for a mentor in his senior residents. You have to pretend that doesn’t make you want to hug him in the middle of the ED.

Santos slowly but surely turns into one of your favorite people to work with. It’s something you should have expected, but after that first day, you didn’t know what to do with her. She comes to work the next day with her head a bit tighter on her shoulders, showing you a level of respect that had been missing hours before. 

(She tells you months later, when she’s more comfortable with you, that she also had no idea what to do with you after you gently told her off. She was used to being embarrassed in front of everyone when she made an error. You hadn’t done that. She knew she had to get on your good side after that.)

You find yourself calling for her to tag along for more complicated procedures, giving her a bit more leeway than you give the others to do more high-risk things. You know exactly why you do it, and so does Collins. For the sake of your sanity, she doesn’t bring him up— she just gives you a look each time you play favorites.

Javadi stays below your radar for the most part. She continues to stick with McKay when she returns, but she warms to you when she finds out about Langdon’s nickname and why the rest of the doctors call you Risky. She’s competent when she’s not second-guessing herself and continues to surprise you when she pulls solutions for cases seemingly out of nowhere. You’re constantly telling her to speak up more.

Mel is a bit of a different story. She’s incredible at what she does. She’s a second-year resident and doesn’t require as much of your coaching or supervision. But, even though she doesn’t need it, you can’t help but keep an eye on her. It almost feels like an obligation.

In doing so, you grow to love that girl. She’s compassionate, she’s sweet, and she leaves a piece of her heart in each case she takes on. When she tells you she’s trying to get better at compartmentalizing things, you have to refrain from scolding her. She’s a breath of fresh air, and you’re excited to work with her each time you’re paired together.

Things are the same, but they feel completely different. His absence is felt. It’s something you have to keep reminding yourself of. You had always wanted to get rid of him, but now that he had left? You can’t believe you ever wanted him gone. 

However, in due time, you get used to it. You stop looking for him when things go to shit, you stop expecting to argue when you clock in, you stop it all. And it’s fine. It’s just fine.

Other things take precedence. Work overtakes your life. You date around a little. You continue to apply for fellowships. You get rejected from a lot of them despite how great they tell you your application is. A lot of them don’t like the fact that you transferred. It doesn’t matter how glowing your letter of recommendation from Robby is. 

You’re good at what you do. You know that you are. These programs are telling you so. But some of them want more from you. Those that you favored certainly seem to. You ignore the anxiety that floods your body when Robby recommends that you reach out to Klein to see if he’d write you another letter.

It has you reconsidering your career path. It was something that had always been super cut and dry in your mind. Medical school, residency, fellowship, attending. That was the path, particularly for someone as research-intensive as you were. But maybe it didn’t have to be.

It’s something you think about constantly as you continue to hear back from the programs you’ve applied for. It’s something you’re thinking about as you run your errands on your day off. 

It’s something you’re thinking about as you see Langdon for the first time in almost eight months. 

You run into him at the grocery store, of all places. And it’s about as awkward as you expect. 

He’s over by the produce, inspecting each apple he picks up with the same level of intensity he used to operate with. You’re in your own little world, headphones on and plugged into an episode of a podcast that had just been released that day. As sad as it was to say, these errands, these places you went to, and the little shops you looked around at were your time. It was your space outside of work to block out everything else and to only focus on what you needed. And you didn’t like that time being interrupted or that facade being broken.

Especially not by Langdon of all people.

You're not expecting to see him here, and you’re certainly not expecting to see him as you look up from your handwritten list to reach for a carton of berries that are diagonal from him. When you lock eyes, you feel your stomach drop and then immediately come back up your throat. You swallow what you’re feeling back down, but remain frozen in place. 

Why was he here? You’d never seen him here before. You assumed he was still in the city, but you didn’t know he lived in your neighborhood? Or did he not? Was this just a trip over to your neck of the woods for fun? Or…

Your racing mind does nothing to ease your stomach. After your last conversation with him, you don’t know where you stand. After everything that happened over the course of his last shift, you’d be surprised if he even remembered it. The only thing that gives you any sort of comfort is the look on his face and the shade of ghostly white he’d turned the second he’d seen you. At least you were on the same page.

“Hi,” you say, voice curt and slightly panicked.

His comes out the same. “Hey.”

As you completely freak out and you flash your eyes from him to the bag of fruit in his hands, the only thing you can think to say is, “That’s a fuck ton of apples.”

It’s not what he’s expecting in the slightest, and he quite literally has to blink at you to make sure he heard you right. “Uh… Oh. Yeah,” he stammers, looking down at the bag. He seems to find his way as he says, “I’m, uh… hoping if I eat one a day, you’ll stay the hell away from me.”

It’s your turn to blink at him. That comment snaps you back to reality, and the scowl you’re more used to wearing around him finds a home on your lips. “I’m assuming it’ll have the same effect if I start chucking them at you, too.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “Only one way to find out.”

The tension between you doesn’t completely dissipate, but it becomes easier to work with. However, you still don’t know what to say or how to go about talking to him. So, you sigh and decide to go with, “What are you doing here?”

He lifts the basket in his hand. “I needed food?”

“No, I mean, you don’t live around here,” you say with an eye roll. “Why are you here?”

Langdon presses his lips together and looks away from you, as if he’s figuring out exactly what to say. The action has you narrowing your eyes. “There’s some cookies Tanner likes that they only sell here,” he seems to decide on. The basket lifts again. “Trying to get dad points.”

“Well, the kid’s got good taste,” you say, nodding in approval as you eye the cookies.

You want to ask more. You know there’s more to whatever’s behind his hesitant expression. You want to ask how he’s doing, what’s going on in his life, and why he’s actually at this grocery store. 

But you can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it. At least not here. Perhaps not with you. He’s stiff, uncertain, awkward— you’ve never seen him awkward. You’ve also never seen him outside of a work environment. You’ve been out with coworkers and your cohort back in school or and have hung out in the park after a shift, but that was always with your colleagues. Never outside of that and never on your own.

You don’t know what to say. It’s hard to know what’s off-limits or what he’d actually want to talk to you about.

So, you say, “Well, it’s good to see you,” you try. “You look good. Or, uh, better.”

His brows pull together for a second, then he nods. “Thanks. It’s, uh—” It’s like he doesn’t know how to talk to you like this. He’s shifty, bouncing back and forth on his heels, as if he’ll bolt at any minute. “It’s good to see you, too.”

You don’t know why you do it. Maybe it’s because you feel bad for him, maybe it’s because you don’t know what to say. Maybe it’s because you know that if you were in his position, you’d want someone to do it to you. 

Whatever it is, you find yourself grabbing the small notebook you had written your grocery list in and flipping to a blank page. You can feel his eyes on you as you quickly write something, rip the piece out of the book, and then fold it up. Your hand almost skims the berries below as you hold the paper out to him. “Take this.”

The confusion on his face only grows. “What is that?”

You push it at him. “It’s my number,” you say. “You don’t have it. And it’s clear you don’t want to talk to me in a grocery store, if at all, which I get.” You shrug. “But if you ever want to talk to someone about, I don’t know… work, life, anything. Text me.”

He’s looking at you like you’re handing him a bomb that’s about to go off. “I have some— I have people to talk to.”

“I’m sure you do,” you tell him. “And you don’t have to talk to me. But if you need to… talk to someone with better bedside manner than you, who, I don’t know? Already knows all the worst parts of you? I’m here.”

Langdon stares at the piece of paper, then at you, then back down at the paper. He’s frozen, and the moment that passes between you feels like a month. Just when your arm begins to get tired from being outstretched, he takes the paper from you. 

He nods after he does so, slipping it into his pocket. “Uh. T-Thanks,” he stammers. “I… I appreciate that.”

You’re not going to get any better than that. Not right now. So, you nod back at him and grab a container of berries in front of you to put into your cart. “Take care of yourself,” you tell him, then glance down at his basket. “And good luck with the cookies.”

You’re gone before he can say thank you, too taken aback by your conversation to verbalize anything coherent. One short interaction with you and he feels like a tornado just ran through the grocery store, and he’s the only one left standing.

He feels the corner of the piece of paper sticking into his leg slightly, and the weight of your words weighing him down.

He’d never get you. But he was no longer resigned to that idea.

APRIL 2ND, 2026. (2:00 PM)

You meet him for coffee on one of your days off.

He texts you approximately three days after your encounter, apologizing for any awkwardness and letting you know that it was, in fact, good to see you, even if he didn’t act like it. He takes you up on your offer, letting you know his schedule so you can work it around your own. 

You’re not sure what to expect when you walk into the shop. You don’t know what he’s going to be like, what he’s going to want to talk about-- what he wants this to be. Does he just want to make amends? Does he want to talk about his rehabilitation journey? Does he want to hear about work? All of the above?

You know you’re overthinking it, but you can’t not. You’re getting coffee with Langdon. You didn’t do things outside of work. You never saw him out of scrubs unless the team was going out. It was just a bit odd, and you couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t.

It’s something he addresses the moment you sit down with him. He’s arrived before you, having grabbed a table in the corner that has two mugs on it. Your brows shoot up in surprise as you realize he’s remembered your coffee order, and you exchange niceties as you sit down. 

After a beat of awkward silence, he sighs. “This is fucking weird, isn’t it?”

You shrug and bite back a smile. “Only as weird as we make it.”

He shoots you a look, one you haven’t seen in a while. It almost makes you nostalgic. “So, how do we make it not weird?”

“Well, typically, conversations start with questions,” you say slowly, and you find that he’s already rolling his eyes. “These can be anything from ‘how are you’ to ‘what’s new?’”

He shuts his eyes, though you don’t miss the humor in them when they open. “How are you?” he asks. “What’s new?”

“I’m good,” you reply, and it’s honest. Because you are good. You’re much better than you were the night you left him on the curb. “Everything’s pretty much the same. My residency finishes up in a couple of months, so… I’m just prepping for Boards and then for the transition.” You feel a bit bad talking about the residency he should be finishing up with you, so you quickly move on. “How are you?”

He reaches for his mug, a sigh heaving from his chest as if he were dreading the question. “Oh, you know. Recovery is great. I’m loving every second of it.” His voice drips with sarcasm, and his shoulders sag at the look you give him. After a moment, he quietly says, “I’ll be three and a half months sober tomorrow.”

Something akin to pride warms your chest. “That’s huge, Langdon,” you say earnestly, and when he tries to shrug it off, you shake your head. “No, I’m serious. That’s a big fucking deal. You should be proud of yourself. I mean that.”

He doesn’t say anything to that. You don’t expect him to. Instead, he decides to ask about something that you hope had escaped his notice. “You said you’re prepping for the transition?”

You glance at him, sighing as you reach for your mug. You know the exact reaction you’re going to get when you say, “I’m attending starting in July. Me and Collins. Boards willing.”

Taking a long sip of your coffee, you can’t help but note that he got your order exactly right. Asshole. Because now, you can’t complain as he starts to laugh. “No fucking way.”

“I’m in charge of you next year,” you mutter. “So, I’d choose my next words very wisely.”

“I’m not—” He shakes his head. “I’m not laughing at you. I just can’t believe it. You were so set on the fellowship. You were making me feel bad about not being prepared for it.”

You sink back into your chair. “My applications came off a little… unfocused? That was the word that was used, I think.” His brow furrows. He’d never call anything you did unfocused. You continue, “I’ve found that I’m really good at a lot of things. I just don’t know what I’m best at. I’m going to do my fellowship when I’ve figured that out. Whenever that is.”

You’re expecting him to make fun of you. To laugh again or do whatever it is that he does to get on your nerves. But he doesn’t. All he says is, “I don’t think that’s a bad choice.”

The look on your face is weary when you ask, “No?”

He shakes his head, grabbing a sugar packet from the container on your table. “Not at all. It’s mature. Don’t do something or settle because it’s what you think you’re supposed to do.”

It’s a strangely sage piece of advice from someone you rarely get it from. It’s also something you think you desperately needed to hear, but you’d never tell him that.

With a small smile, you nod at him in thanks. “How’s Abby? The kids? Did you get ‘dad points’ or whatever for the cookies?”

The grimace that pulls at his lips morphs his whole face, and suddenly, you feel like you’ve made a major misstep. It’s another question he was dreading. “Abby and I… uh—” He fiddles with the sugar packet in his hands. “We’re… separated. In the process of filing for divorce.”

Well, now you feel like the asshole. “Oh, fuck, man,” you say, another heavy sigh leaving your lips. “I’m sorry.”

Langdon shrugs, and it’s a pathetic attempt to act like he doesn’t care. You don’t call him out on it. He rips the packet and dumps the contents into his coffee. “It was a long time coming.”

Quiet settles between you, and for a moment, you don’t know how to respond to that. Then, like a reflex, you say, “Was it because of the—”

“It wasn’t because of the fucking dog.” It’s as if he anticipated it, and there’s a piece of you that hates that he can predict you so well. The other piece of you is pressing your lips together to refrain from laughing as he shakes his head in annoyance.

But then, he does something he’s never done before. He looks at you— at your face, at the smile you’re poorly concealing, and the glint in your eye that he always noticed but had never admired. And then, he starts to laugh.

It’s not loud or boisterous. It’s a soft chuckle, one that lasts as he continues to shake his head and grins softly as he hears you do it too. 

“You can tell me I was right, it’s okay.” Your voice is lilting, and the humor written into your expression makes him shake his head. “There’s a first time for everything. I’m not stoked that it’s over a dog, but I’ll take what I can get.”

A long and heavy sigh leaves him, and he wipes a hand down his face. “Yeah,” he replies. “You were right. He’s cute as hell, but it... it was a bad idea. The kids love him, though.”

“I’m sure they do,” you say, then nod at him. “She made you keep the dog, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “That thing’s mine. She passed him off to me right when I got out of rehab.”

You snort. “Good for her. And what a sobriety present.”

“You’re telling me.” He makes a face. “It could be worse, though. Gives me something to focus on other than how fucked up my life’s become.”

Your lips purse, and you push them to the side. “Don’t do that.”

“What?” he asks. “It has. And I’m not saying that to get you to pity me. It fell apart, and it’s my fault.”

“Maybe,” you say lightly. “But you don’t have to torture yourself over it. That’s not going to help anyone involved.” Langdon sends you a half-hearted glare, and you throw your hands up. “I’m serious. You make it everyone’s problem when you’re miserable. You’re fixing yourself. Be kinder to yourself about it.”

He takes another long sip of his coffee. Then, after a minute, he says, “Thanks.” It’s the best you’re going to get from him. You’re just happy he’s finally, actually acknowledging your attempts at encouragement. “How’s The Pitt?”

His attempt to shift the conversation is not subtle, but you go along with it. “It’s less chaotic than when you left it,” you say. “The newbies are pretty much acclimated now. Everyone else is doing well. We miss you.”

His expression is skeptical when he asks, “You miss me?”

“Some days,” you admit with a shrug. His brows rise higher. “It’s boring having no one to argue with. I like Collins and Mohan too much to yell at them.”

A small smile graces his features. “Well, if it makes you feel any better,” he begins, “I miss it too. Arguing and all.”

It does, in fact, make you feel better. But still, you say, “You can’t fight with me next session, though. I own your ass.”

“Oh, no,” he sighs. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna go full-metal despot. I can’t handle that.”

“Only for you. Half-metal despot for everyone else.” You shrug. That glint in your eye has returned. “I’m gonna be your nightmare.”

He sighs ruefully into his mug. “Like you weren’t already.”

“I’ll be nice,” you assure him, resolving the act. “But, yeah. You have to at least pretend like you respect me.”

“I’ve always respected you,” he states, and the immediate honesty in his voice catches you by surprise. “That was never the issue. The issue is that you’re a pain in the ass.”

You hold your fingers up like a phone despite the feeling that’s twisting your stomach. “Hey, Kettle? I’ve got pot on the line telling you to go fuck yourself.”

There’s humor in his expression as he shakes his head. “I’ll keep everyone in line.”

“Be nice about it,” you warn. “I don’t want any of the newbies shitting their pants because you start bullying them in July.”

“I would never,” he scoffs.

“Santos would say differently,” you chide.

He rolls his eyes, shifting uncomfortably. “She was different.”

“She is,” you say. “She’s also different than you left her. She’s probably my favorite resident to work with.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. She’s good, Langdon.” He shakes his head. “If you get over yourself, you might realize it, too.”

He has nothing to say to that. For a minute, you think you’ve made him mad. But then, you realize he’s thinking. 

He’s not looking at you when he asks, “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” you say.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” He motioned between the two of you. “You don’t need to be doing any of this. I don’t deserve it. But you are.”

His question stumps you, because honestly? You don’t quite understand it yourself. Given your past, you should be leaving him to rot. You should make his life a living hell the second he returns to the ED. He doesn’t deserve the kindness you’re extending to him.

But you still do it. There might be some part of you that pities him. Maybe it’s because it’s not all his fault. Perhaps, it’s the fact that it hasn’t all been bad. 

But you think it’s more of the fact that, regardless of your best efforts to get rid of him, you know Langdon. You spent four years of med school with him and have a year of working together under your belt. You know him.

And despite the nickname he’d given you, you don’t give up on people you know. Especially when you know they might just need you.

“I don’t… really know why either,” you tell him, and your blunt words have him huffing a laugh. “But I think… I think it’s going to be hard for you to come back to work after everything. Even if you’re doing everything right. And I think I’d want someone in my corner if I were in your spot.”

Langdon stares at you in disbelief. “I’m…” He blows a breath through closed lips, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t fucking understand you.”

You shrug. “Join the club.”

“No. I mean it. I don’t get you,” he says. “You realize that I don’t know if I could do the same for you, right? I don’t know if I would be able to be this… nice.”

You eye him. “You’ve never been able to. That was kind of our whole thing.” He’s still looking at you like that. The sigh you release is laborious, and it almost hurts going out. “Not everything’s a contest, Langdon. We don’t always have to compete. There are no winners or losers anymore. We work together now. We’re in the same boat, and that boat doesn’t move unless every single person’s rowing. Stronger in numbers and all that.” You grab your mug, coffee almost lukewarm now. “Whether you want to admit it or not, you’re going to need someone to be nice to you in order for the boat to keep going. If I have to be that person, so be it.”

He scoffs. “I don’t need to be coddled.”

“No, but you’re going to need support,” you respond. “And we both know that I’m a little more forgiving than Robby is.”

That shuts him up almost immediately. He knows you’re right. More than right, actually. He’s barely spoken to him since July. Langdon’s antsy to get back to the floor, but dear God, he does not want to face Robby. 

Not after everything he owes him.

He watches you take a long sip of your coffee— the way you gently put it back down onto the table and shift the handle to face yourself. Then, he watches the way you meet his gaze, staring at him as if you’d just said the simplest thing in the world. 

Of course, you were going to help him. Of course, you were going to be nice to him. Why wouldn’t you be? Why wouldn’t you help him? Simple questions like that had simple answers to you.

He gives it another second before he looks away. “Thank you,” he says quietly, and he hopes he sounds as genuinely grateful as he feels. “Really.”

“Don’t worry about it,” you say. “I got into this field to help people. It’s kinda what I’m good at.”

Langdon chuckles. “I still don’t get you, though.”

“Well, you can figure me out better when you get back.” You point at him. “But not too well. I don’t want you telling the other residents what my weaknesses are. I can’t take all of you at once if you revolt.”

“The other attendings would help out,” he offers.

“Yeah, but the only ones that I’m confident can fight are Abbot and Ellis. They won’t be there to help.”

“Robby can throw a punch.”

“Sure, but would he?” you argue. “Before he could, he’d get called to like, do a Craniectomy with his eyes closed and tell me I’m on my own.”

As he laughs, you launch into another hypothetical, hands waving enthusiastically as you explain yourself, you find yourself falling into an easy sort of conversation with him. He keeps up with you as usual, but his typically sharp words are replaced with something a bit more loose. Kinder, even. It’s a change that you don’t immediately notice, but when you do, you can’t help but feel a little strange.

What’s even stranger, you realize, is that to anyone else in the shop, you two might look like you were actually friends. 

It doesn’t unsettle you as much as you thought it would.

JULY 4TH, 2026. (6:45 AM)

You keep in contact for the next couple of months.

It starts out slow— a text here and there, mostly questions about work, asking when you two were free to meet for coffee next, and talking about how things are going for each of you. A video that you’d like the other would like thrown into the mix. It’s not a lot, but it’s consistent. You know his Type-A brain could use some consistency.

As the two of you got more comfortable with each other, it became even more consistent. You’ll text him a photo of a gnarly or crazy injury in the middle of a shift (a month an a half ago, an eighteen year old girl came in with a pencil through her cheek after the kid she was tutoring threw a tantrum, and a photo went to both the ED group chat and Langdon), he’ll send a picture back of his dog in the park. 

It becomes almost like an instinct. Anytime something out of the ordinary goes down, you feel like you have to update him. Your text chain from last Monday looked something like this:

7:34: code security just called on a twenty-five year old guy who escaped his bed and just tried to stab mckay with his rugrats pocket knife. starting the day off strong!

ahmad should have let her handle it. i’d put my money on mckay any day.

10:12: first foreign body of the day. want to guess what it is and where?

who’s the patient?

fifty-seven year old guy

give me kitchen utensil up the ass for $400, alex

ooooh half credit. shaving cream bottle up the ass

holy fuck. how does that even fit up there? 

he saying he fell on it?

you know it

okay my turn

15:17: just picked tanner up from day camp. inside day because of the rain-- he told me one of the kids got one of those counting bears stuck up their nose. he might be on his way to you

javadi’s on triage today, will tell her to look out for it

didn’t even know those things still existed

this camp is old school. only tech allowed is movies

no cocomelon?

i told you i’m not raising an ipad baby, risky.

16:56: anti-vax couple is currently trying to convince mel that their zinc supplements and prayers are enough to protect their high-risk kid that has chicken pox

tell mel she has MY prayers.

she’s handling them well

one of these days she’s going to snap and i’m gonna parade her around like rocky

i’ll play the theme music

also are we still on for coffee on thursday?

obviously. it’s your turn to buy

You continue to get coffee with him every couple of weeks. At first, you tell yourself, it’s just to keep him in that aforementioned routine. But, each time you meet up, it becomes that much easier to talk to him, and you can no longer pretend like you don’t enjoy his company. 

You learn more about him— about who he really is. It’s more than just his base level likes and dislikes that you’ve picked up on: you learn about where he’s from, his family, and how he grew up. What he likes to do on his days off, how he’s started coaching his Tanner’s U-6 soccer team in his free time. You learn that he’s just a bit too into it, something you make evident by the subtle side-eye you give him when he mentions how they’re not getting a play he wrote up for them.

You also learn just how nervous he is to return to work. He’s slightly more withdrawn in the week leading up to it, and despite how much you reassure him that things will be fine, he doesn’t seem to listen to you. 

(Things change, but they don’t. You’ll take what you can get.)

Last night, before you fell asleep, you’d made sure to send him a text, figuring that he’d be on his phone. You knew there was no way he’d be sleeping tonight.

before you come in tomorrow, i just want to tell you 

i tried to tell robby that the fact that your first shift back is a fucking full moon fourth of july shift is cruel and unusual

but despite our circumstances i am 100% sure that you’re going to kill it

You watch as the three little dots at the bottom of the screen appear and then disappear. You can picture him typing at his phone and deleting every self-deprecating thing he’s thinking, knowing you’re not going to respond well to it. But, in a surprise turn of events, he chooses to be honest with you.

thanks. i’m freaking the fuck out.

take a breath. you’re going to be fine

easier said than done

i’ve got your back, dude. we all do

please try to sleep a little

i can’t have you being both anxious and exhausted tomorrow i can only deal with one of those things

It took a minute for him to respond, but when he did, it was a short, heard. thank you.

That took you to today, in the PTMC parking lot, where you stood outside of Langdon’s car, waiting for him to notice you. 

He’d been switching between listening to something and hyping himself up, unaware of anything around him. There’s something inherently sweet about it, and you almost don’t want to ruin it for him.

But you two need to be clocked in within the next fifteen minutes, and you don’t trust him not to throw his car in reverse and drive away.

So, you beat on the passenger side window.

You think his entire soul leaves his body. He practically jumps out of his seat, hands flying up like he’s reaching for something above. You have to press your lips together to hold in your laughter as he glares at you, rolling his window down.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks, still trying to catch his breath.

“Good morning to you, too,” you say. You lean your elbows on the ledge of the now-open window. “Happy comeback season.”

He huffs, looking away from you. “Couldn’t you see I was like, in the middle of something here?”

You nod in understanding. “In the middle of deciding whether or not you should go in, right?” When he scowls at you, you can’t help but smile. “Can I come in?”

Langdon stares at you for a second before muttering to himself and slapping the unlock button on the driver’s side. You’re greeted by the AC that’s blasting in his car and slump into the seat. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Well, at least you’re awake,” you reply. “The five Red Bulls you’re gonna shotgun today will only carry you so far.”

“Yeah, but I could have gone without the jumpscare. Way too early for that shit,” he says.

You shrug the comment off, glancing around. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in your car before.”

“And after that, you won’t ever be invited back.”

You send him a look. “Good morning, Langdon,” you repeat, and your tone has him shutting his eyes and turning away from you. “How are we doing this morning?”

He doesn’t say anything for a long while, and for a moment, you think he’s giving you the cold shoulder. But then he mutters, “I can’t go in there.”

“Sure you can,” you say. 

“No,” he whispers. “I can’t.”

“Completely disregarding the fact that the future of your career relies on you walking through those doors in thirteen minutes,” you start, catching him rolling his eyes out of the corner of yours, “you’re on the schedule and don’t have coverage. People are going to be more mad at you if you leave than if you go in.”

You didn’t think that your attempt at a joke was going to help in any way, but somehow, it has him seriously considering your point. He pinches the bridge of his nose, leaning his elbow on his door’s armrest. “What if it’s awful?” he asks.

You don’t recognize the person beside you. You’ve never seen him like this. This nervous, this scared. He was always the pinnacle of confidence, for better or for worse. He was self-assured, cocky, and completely in control of himself.

This wasn’t that guy. And it freaked you out enough to decide that you weren’t going to stand for it.

“Okay,” you begin, turning your body in the seat to face him, “as you so eloquently and gently said to me when I was freaking out this time last year, ‘get your fucking head on straight. You are not Flight Risk-ing it right now.’”

A surprised laugh escapes him as he rubs a hand down his face. “We’re going there?”

“Oh, yeah. Been waiting to use your horrendous bedside manner on you for a year. It’s time.” You point at him. “We need you in there, and we need you to be on it because no one can do what you do.” You take a moment, and in that moment, he meets your gaze. Involuntarily, you find that you voice gets softer as you say, “I fucking need you, so get the fuck out of your head and let’s go.”

Langdon just stares at you in that way that he does. He’s always staring at you like he’s trying to figure you out. It’s as if you’re some impossible equation to some cosmic disturbance. Like everything in his life makes some sort of sense but you.

He could say something sentimental, tell you how he really feels about all of this, and let you know exactly what everything you’ve done for him leading up to this point means to him. He really thinks about it.

But, instead, he chooses the comfortable route and says, “I’m surprised you remembered all of that.”

You scoff. “How could I not? It was the first time I’ve ever been yelled out of a panic attack. Only you could do that.” You mumble that last part, but he still hears it, evident by his soft chuckle. You lean your shoulder into the backrest, lips curling upward. “You with me?”

When he sighs, he practically inhales all of the air in the car. But still, “Yeah. I’m with you.”

“Good,” you say. You grab your go-bag at your feet and go to open the door. “Breathe. I told you. I’ve got your back.”

Before you can make your exit, Langdon grabs your wrist. The action has you staring at him in surprise. “I know I keep saying it,” he begins, “but… thank you. You’re— you’ve been… just--” He slows himself down, and when he’s collected himself, he squeezes your wrist. “Thank you.”

You’re still caught off-guard by the fact that he’s willingly touching you, but find yourself nodding at him with a small smile that you hope is encouraging. “I’ll see you in there,” you tell him.

He follows you inside five minutes later, anxious, antsy, and unsure. But when he catches your eye and you give him that same smile, some of the… everything he’s feeling evaporates.

It’s a small thing that feels like a victory in his book. Maybe everything will be fine.

JULY 4TH, 2026. (11:34 PM)

i can’t move, he texts you that night, when you’re finally tucked in bed, eyes barely staying open. that was so brutal. it might rival the pittfest shift.

i’m still recovering from getting shoulder tackled by that lady in the sexy uncle sam costume, you respond. she should play for the fucking steelers when she gets released from jail.

they could use her. her form was incredible

perlah already has the security cam footage of that btw

i know. she sent it to the group chat already (remind me to add you back to that)

i’m glad my bruised ribs could spark joy

You watch through partially closed eyes as those three dots appear and disappear. 

we should go to game this year, he finally says. they’re so bad that it could be fun

pitt outing to the steelers? i’m in

get abbot on a blackstone STAT

There’s another pause in your conversation. Then, it might be hard to get all of our schedules to align.

It’s then that it clicks for you. 

frank langdon 

are you asking me to hang out outside of work

you say that like we don’t do it already

that’s just coffee. you’re asking me to like HANG OUT and DO SHIT with you

shut up

ooooooo you want to be my friend so bad

i never thought we’d get here

i’m going to bed

You snicker to yourself, fingers flying across your screen as you type out, let’s do an october game or something. get the PTO in early.

A minute passes before your phone vibrates again. i’ll start looking at tickets tomorrow.

You’re about to turn your phone over and go to bed for the night when it buzzes again. i couldn’t have done today without you.

you could have, you respond. but i’m glad i was there. hell day and all.

me too.

 i’ll see you tomorrow for day two.

SEPTEMBER 24TH, 2026. (5:00 PM)

The change in your relationship doesn’t go unnoticed.

The second Langdon returned to work, each person on the floor had clocked that something was different between you two. You still argued. You still made fun of each other on an hourly basis, and you still occasionally disagreed about the right way to approach a case. But there was something less malicious about it now.

You’d insult him, but it was accompanied by a soft nudge on the arm. He’d snipe back at you, only to smile to himself when you walked off. More often than not, you’d walk in for a shift with him or head out together. He knew exactly how you liked your coffee and would make it when he had a free moment, handing it off to you while you were moving from case to case. 

You weren’t just working together anymore. You weren’t amicable for the sake of the smooth operation of the ED. You were friendly. It looked like you actually liked each other.

Three weeks in, Princess tells the nurses that she saw the two of you actually laughing together in the break room. Something about med school cadaver labs and peanut M&Ms. It doesn’t make any sense to her, but then again, none of this does.

It’s a straight-up Twilight Zone episode for everyone who isn’t you and Langdon. You two don’t really question the change. It’s just something that happened.

After that text on the Fourth, you start hanging out outside of work.

While a lot of your days off don’t always align and your personal life schedules aren’t always in sync, you find yourself with him on the days that do. It’s never anything overly exciting: you tend to run errands together, you’ve gotten lunch-- you’ve even gone to his apartment once.

It’s nice. It’s easy. It’s… what having a friend should be like. 

But then, he shows up with a pizza on one of those rare days you both have off. 

It starts with a short, What are you doing tonight? text. It’s not uncommon for him to check in now, especially when he knows you’re off work. Even more so when he’s also off. But he’s never texted out of the blue to ask about your plans for the day.

You reply with a simple, nothing. why? All you get is an ominous :) in response.

About an hour later, there’s a sharp, three-beat knock at your door. You shoot up from your couch in confusion, whipping your head in the direction of the sound. Was he—? No. No way. He didn’t know where you lived. Or did he? Had you told him?

You pause the episode of the reality show you’re catching up on and make your way to the door, shaking your head in disbelief. When you look out your peephole, you see him rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, holding a thin box in his hands. Oh, my God. He was here. And he brought a fucking pizza.

After you get over your brief moment of shock, you reach down to open the door. Langdon’s eyes immediately meet yours, and a smile grows on his lips as he sees what you’re wearing. “Cute shorts.”

“Shut up,” you mutter, fighting the urge to pull your oversized sweatshirt down further to hide your PJ shorts that are accented with little stethoscopes. “It’s my Bravo rot day. I wasn’t expecting company.”

His grin gets wider. “I like to surprise you.”

You hum a noise that sounds something like agreement. “Guess those apples aren’t working, huh?” you say, leaning up against your doorframe.

”Well, I got a pizza,” he replies, lifting the box up and shaking it lightly. “How do you like them apples?”

You stare at him blankly, allowing the absolute bomb of a joke he just threw out there to stew in its awfulness for a moment. Langdon’s smile falters, and he shifts awkwardly. “Good Will Hunting?” he says, as if he has to explain the reference for it to land.

“I know what it’s from,” you state. “I just can’t slam the door in your face because I’m frozen by the shock of how bad that was.”

“Oh, c’mon, that was—“

“Nope. I lied, it’s not shock. It’s rigor mortis. You literally killed me and now I—“

“Just take the pizza and shut the fuck up,” he mutters, shoving it out in front of him. 

Reflexively, you hold up your hands to accept it and laugh to yourself. You step back and hold the door open to let him into your apartment, and the sigh of relief that leaves his lips is audible. “How the hell did you get my address?” you ask.

“The Pitt directory is incredibly detailed.” He hangs his coat up amongst the many you keep on hooks in your tiny entryway. “My God, you have a lot of jackets.”

“They each have their own purpose,” you reply automatically. Dana’s constant ribbing about you showing up in a new one each shift has trained you to do so. “My home address is in the public directory?”

He at least has the decency to look just a bit sheepish when he turns around. “Not the public one.” 

A scandalized gasp escapes you as you put two and two together. “Fucking Lisa.”

“I told her I had to drop something off at yours,” he reasons with a shrug, then motions to the pizza. “I wasn’t lying.”

“And that traitor was just willing to give out my home address to you of all people? What, is she gonna leak my social next?”

Langdon chuckles softly, shaking his head. That familiar smirk pulls at the corners of his lips. “She told me she’d only do it for me. I told you she’s got a thing for me.”

“That thing is aiding and abetting,” you mutter, and you bite back a smile as he snickers again. 

That smile stays hidden as you turn to take the pizza to your kitchen island and set it down. Langdon’s already opening it the second you turn away to grab some napkins. He clocks the look on your face as you stare at him and the slice that’s already in his hands. 

Your lips start to curl in disgust when he says, “Oh, relax. I only got olives on my side. Your shit’s on the other.” He rolls your eyes and takes a bite as your scowl turns into something more satisfied. “Freak.”

“You’re the freak,” you mutter. You open one of the cabinets next to your stove to grab two plates. “Use a plate, you heathen. Let’s have a society, alright?”

“I’m not taking etiquette lessons from a girl I’ve seen do multiple body shots at Lucky’s,” he says, mouth full. You scrunch up the napkins in your hand into a ball the second you hear ‘body shots’ and chuck it at his head. He catches it effortlessly. “I’m just saying.”

You pull a piece of pizza from your designated side. “That was med school. I’ve basically aged twenty years since then. I’m much more mature now.”

“Right. You only do one now instead of multiple.”

You nod. “Exactly. And then I’m in bed, hungover for twenty-four hours the next day.”

Langdon laughs, then that laugh turns into a sigh. “We used to be out until three in the morning and then wake up at seven for class. What happened to us?”

“We’re old, is what happened.” You take a bite of your slice. “Speaking of old, where are your kids today?”

He rolls his eyes at your comment, but answers despite it. “They’re with Abby visiting her parents. I’ve got them for the three days I have off next week, but it’ll mostly be me and Penny. Tanner has school.”

“And the dog?” you ask.

“At my apartment. I took him to the park this afternoon, and he knocked out the second we got back. Woke up to eat, then fell right back asleep.”

“It’s genuinely insane to see how domestic you’ve become.” The sweet tone of your voice has him scowling at you. “I’m serious. Also, feel free to bring him next time we hang out.”

Despite the casual way he nods and despite the fact that you guys hanging out has now become commonplace, he has to pretend that your use of the words ‘next time’ doesn’t excite him a little. “Thanks. Tanner says I should start bringing him to work.”

You make a sarcastic sound of agreement. “We’ve had rats in the ED. Why not dogs?”

“Exactly,” he says. “Maybe I’ll file with HR for a therapy animal.”

“I still can’t believe Lisa gave you my address,” you mutter. “That has to be like, three different types of illegal.”

“Oh, c’mon. I knew the neighborhood you live in. She was just helping.”

“Yeah, but what if you were like a total fucking weirdo?” Before he can say anything, you continue, “I mean, more than you already are? What if you were stalking me? I know she’s in love with you, but man, you’ve been in HR for forty years. Do your job.”

“She’s been trying to set me up with her daughter since she heard about the divorce,” he tells you. At your confused look, he explains, “Lisa. She’s got a twenty-something-year-old daughter who just left her husband. Thinks we’d be good together.”

Your brows raise. “And you’re not jumping at the chance to do that?”

“Uh, no.” He shakes his head. “I don’t do set-ups. Or blind dates.”

“You make it really easy to forget you’re so conceited sometimes,” you mutter, dodging an olive that he throws your way. Your mouth drops at the sound of it plopping onto your rug. “Pick that up now. If you ruin my runner with your gross fucking olives, I’m gonna get Robby to switch you to nights and I’m telling Ellis to bully the shit out of you.”

He rolls his eyes but does as he’s told, shaking his head. “It’s not about looks,” he tells you as he walks over toward you and crouches down. “I just… I don’t like being surprised. I like to know what I’m getting myself into.”

You eye him carefully as he rounds your island to get to your trash can. “Okay? Then join an app?”

Langdon looks physically repulsed by the idea. “Because no one ever lies on the internet.”

“Jesus, man. I don’t know, then you can wander around a farmer’s market with your dog and Tanner and Penny looking lost.”

He eyes you for a moment, then pretends to consider it. “That might not be a bad idea. I’ve never thought about pimping out my kids to pick up women.”

The sarcasm in his tone isn’t missed, and you throw your hands up. “Fine. I tried. You can die a miserable old man. You’re already halfway there anyway.”

“I just don’t know if I’m ready yet,” he admits through a chuckle. He reaches at his plate to grab his half-eaten slice of pizza and takes a bite. With his mouth full, he says, “Getting back out there with someone is just…” He grimaces, swallowing. “That sounds fucking awful.”

“Why?” you ask. “I think it sounds kind of exciting. It’s good to meet new people.”

“I don’t want to meet new people,” Langdon tells you. The way it comes out makes it sound almost like he wasn’t even thinking about the words before he said them. You notice the way his eyes flick to yours for a moment and then immediately flick away. Your heart stutters, and you can’t even explain why. “I mean, I—“ His cheeks tint the slightest shade of pink, and you pretend you don’t see it. He forks a hand through his hair. “The idea of getting to know someone like… that again is just so…”

You know what he’s trying to say. You also know what he’s not saying, too. 

You understand him so well, yet you don’t at all. He was so puzzling. He’s someone who always came off to you as relatively straightforward. He was self-assured; cocky, even. He was someone who’d been told one too many times that he was good at what he did, maybe even that he was better than everyone around him, so he’d started to believe it. Maybe a little too much.

He gave his time to those he thought were worth it. He was confident, and he knew who he was. He didn’t care if he was an asshole or who hurt along the way. It didn’t matter what anyone thought about him as long as he knew that he was in the right. 

But as you watch Langdon— watch him be shy and unsure and uncomfortable in front of you, you realize that you barely knew who he was outside of your career. Sure, you knew loads about him. You knew about his personal life and his likes and interests. But you didn’t know him. You’d never talked with him like this or had him admitting things like this. 

You wanted to hate the fact that it totally endeared him to you. But, for some reason, it didn’t. 

That would never stop being weird.

“I get it,” you say. “I didn’t want to meet anyone after I called off my engagement with Jamie. I shut myself off to everyone for like, a year.”

“I remember,” he mutters. “Watching Donovan try to hit on you every other week during labs was painful.”

“Oh, God. That was painful for me, too.” The smirk that slides onto your face is both sarcastic and involuntary. “I saw on LinkedIn that he just started a neurosurgery fellowship. Maybe I should have given him a chance.”

Langdon rolls his eyes. “The world does not need two Doctor Donovans.”

You can’t help but snort. There’s a beat of silence before you admit, “You know I didn’t get into another real, serious relationship until about three months into my residency in Boston?”

His brows rocket to his hairline. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Nobody really… piqued my interest until then.”

“That’s almost impressive.”

You shrug him off. “I’m exceptionally picky.”

He makes a noise of agreement. “So, who was he?”

“Huh?” you ask, fully hearing him but not at all expecting that question.

“Who was the guy that finally ‘piqued your interest?’” he clarifies.

He’s not expecting the silence he’s met with. You stare down at your plate, biting the inside of your cheek, and Langdon knows he’s asked the wrong question. 

“He…” You swallow and tear a piece from the crust that’s left on your plate. “He’s irrelevant,” is what you finally decide on. 

You say it because he is. Truthfully, up until this conversation, you hadn’t thought of him in weeks. You know it doesn’t seem like it, and it definitely doesn’t seem like you’re anywhere close to being over it, but you are. 

It doesn’t mean it isn’t still hard to talk about. 

Langdon stares at you. “Is he?”

You meet his gaze with a heavy sigh that takes a lot out of you. “No. He’s not,” you admit. You keep your voice light. “But every day, he becomes more irrelevant. And every day, I come to some new realization about him and know that what happened was for the better. And that’s all I can ask for.”

Thankfully, Langdon doesn’t have any more questions for you regarding that. Relief washes over you as you realize he’s moving on, but you know he’s not going to forget it. Unfortunately, it’s not like him to forget things.

“New topic,” he says quickly, like he’s trying to get your mind off of whatever you’re thinking about as soon as possible. “Because I need to know. Does that work?” You lift your brows, cueing him to continue. “That stuff you were talking about. That… farmer’s market, kids stuff. Does that actually work?”

A small smile tugs at your lips, and you shrug once more. “Dude, women eat that shit up. At least, y’know. Some of us.”

“Seriously?” he asks.

“Oh, yeah,” you say. “A hot dad asking if we’d recommend the blackberries or the raspberries more?” You shake your head with a faux longing expression. “Hook, line, and sinker.”

The smirk that suddenly glides over Langdon’s lips is something lethal, and it makes your stomach flip. He leans up against the counter. “A hot dad?”

Your eyes roll so hard you think they’ll fall out of your head. “Circumstantially and hypothetically.”

“Of course,” he says, nodding as if he understands. But that look stays on his face. “But I’m curious. Would that be something… that would work on you?” At the surprise that morphs your expression, he shrugs. “Hypothetically.”

You look at him with suspicion. “I don’t know?”

“You don’t know?” he parrots. It’s clear he doesn’t believe you. “You just posed a very specific hypothetical, and you don’t know?”

“Oh, my God, okay. Hypothetically, you loser,” you repeat, hoping everything you’re about to say sounds casual and not as weird as you’re suddenly feeling. “The independent variable would have to be… I don’t know? My type? Looks like he actually cares about the kids he’s pimping out?”

“The independent variable being the guy,” he clarifies. 

“Yes, Doctor Langdon. Very astute,” you say. “Validating your ‘Most Likely to Succeed’ award status with each day you live and breathe.” 

He leans over your counter, placing his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. His brows furrow in mild interest. “And what exactly is your type?”

You feel heat rise to your cheeks almost instantly. Never, in a million years, did you think you’d be standing in your apartment with Frank Langdon, chatting about your type over a pizza he bought for you. “When did we start talking about me?” you ask. “This was supposed to be about you and how you’re too afraid to go on a date.”

“And now it’s about both of us,” he shoots back. “Because you talk a big game for someone who isn’t dating either.”

“I am,” you say, and the admission obviously catches him by surprise. You almost feel bad about the way his face drops. 

Langdon blinks at you. “Seriously?”

“Is it that hard to believe?” you ask with a teasing smile.

“No,” he says, the word rushing out of his mouth. “No. You know that you’re— You’re— y’know. It’s not hard to believe. I just…” He trails off again, but continues to look at you in surprise. “Seriously?”

“I’m serious,” you chuckle, because it’s all you can do. “I mean, it’s not serious, but yeah. We’ve been on like, two dates, and I’ve been texting him a little. I met him online. He’s cute, he’s nice, and he works in Finance—” The face he makes at that has you scowling. “What?”

“Nothing. I just didn’t think you were the Finance-Bro type.” Before you take offense or respond to that, he asks, “So, it’s going well? You like him?”

“It’s going fine,” you say. “He’s nice. Fun to talk to. He thinks that me being a doctor is ‘super dope,’ which is, y’know, an upgrade from the last guy I dated.”

“But you don’t like him,” Langdon presses.

You make a frustrated sound. “I don’t know yet!” you say, exhausted by this sudden interrogation. “Isn’t that the whole point of dating? To figure out if you actually like them?”

“I typically decide if I’m interested in someone before I start dating them, but that’s just me—”

“Well, I’m not you,” you say, while your voice is soft, there’s an edge in it that tells him it’s final. “And I actually like to get to know people. I like to take my time when it comes to this shit, alright?”

“To feel things out?”

His words catch you by surprise, and you’re sure it shows on your face. “Yeah.”

Langdon nods after a moment. “I guess we’ll agree to disagree.”

You snort. “Nothing we aren’t used to.”

He huffs a soft laugh and takes another bite of his slice. You’ve disagreed plenty of times before. More than you probably should have (sometimes the two of you just liked to argue for the sake of it, but that wasn’t a crime). But this one lands differently. Something feels off. There’s this unusual, unfamiliar tension that you can’t shake but want nothing more than to get rid of. You can tell he feels the same.

“When are you seeing him again?” he asks, his previous line of questioning back on course.

You refrain from rolling your eyes. “Next Saturday, when I’m off. We’re getting brunch.”

“Oh, man,” he chuckles. “He likes you.”

“What?” you whine. “We’re getting brunch. We’re not ring shopping.”

“No guy is going to brunch with someone he’s casual about. Drinks are casual. Maybe even dinner. You get brunch with someone you like.”

“Or,” you say, shifting uncomfortably, “you get brunch because you’re dating a doctor and her schedule is horrendous.” Langdon simply shakes his head with a chuckle. “You told me you haven’t been on a date in years. How would you even know that?”

“Because I do,” he states, and it is exactly that— a statement.

(What he wants to say is that the reason he knows is because he can’t imagine anyone not liking you, but with your history, he also knows it may come off as a little hypocritical or unreliable. So, he bites his tongue and keeps it short instead.)

“Well, if you know this so well,” you say, “maybe you should start finding girls you want to take to brunch.”

The sound that comes out of him is something between a sigh and a groan. “I told you, I’m not—”

“I meant when you’re ready,” you cut him off, putting your hands up in surrender. “I don’t think it’d be a bad idea for you to get back out there.”

It’s then that he looks at you. Like, really looks at you, with that intensity you know so well. “You think so?”

“I mean, why not?” you ask. “You’ve been officially divorced for like, three months, right? Separated for longer? You’ve had your mourning period. And you’d be a hot commodity. It’s okay to have some fun if you want it.”

Nothing. He says nothing to that. He just continues to stare at you. And then, when you think you can’t take it anymore, he turns away. “Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.”

The awkward turn this conversation had taken was something that you weren’t anticipating. Why was he so weird about this? If he didn’t want to date, that was fine. This was you attempting to offer him some encouragement. You couldn’t care less if he started seeing people. That was up to him. You were just trying to be a good friend.

Because that’s what you two were, right? You were friends now, or whatever your version of that was. You talked like friends, acted like them, and now you were hanging out outside of work. That was the definition of friends.

You swallow the bite of pizza you’ve been chewing and, because you can’t think of anything else to say to break this sudden tension, you glance at your paused TV and ask, “Want to watch some girls fight about some really awful men?”

Langdon looks up from his plate, hesitancy written across his face. “I’m really not into that stuff.”

You’re barely listening to him as you move to the sofa to grab the remote. “That’s what they all say.”

SEPTEMBER 26TH, 2026. (9:45 PM)

“So,” he says, pointing at the women who are currently on-screen, “just to clarify. She was her friend. And she slept with her boyfriend of nine years.”

“Correct,” you reply.

“And she and the boyfriend lied about it for seven months because they thought they weren’t going to get caught?” He glances over at you, and you nod in confirmation. “And they’re still lying about it, despite the fact that they have cameras on them at all times?”

You motion to the boyfriend who’s now talking. “Look at him. Look at that stupid fucking outfit and his god-awful moustache. Do you think he’s capable of understanding long-term consequences?”

Langdon laughs. “That’s actually kind of insane,” he says. “Are these shows always like this?”

“When they’re good, yeah. I love drama that doesn’t involve me. Sue me.”

“Well, I would have joined the cohort Bachelor night if I’d known they were like this.” He says it as if he’s joking, but you know there’s a part of him that means it.

You snort. “Well, you were always slow to learn what was right.” Before he can refute that, you point at him. “Also, I wouldn’t have let you join. That was for the girls. It was my safe space away from your bullshit.”

“Inclusivity means nothing to you,” he scoffs, chuckling as you reach over to kick his arm with your foot. He nods up toward the TV. “And okay, the two of them were married?”

“Yeah. But they were never, like… on the same page about shit,” you say. “It almost seemed like they weren’t sure about getting married when they did it. It was kind of weird.”

A huff of a laugh escapes his lips. “It’s like that sometimes. Happens more than you’d think.”

“Does it?” you ask. When you don’t get an answer, you shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m dramatic or overly romantic, but I just can’t imagine agreeing to marry someone I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”

You see him nod slowly out of the corner of your eye. After a beat, he responds, “I did.”

That has you looking at him. “What?”

He tries to play it off, similar to how he acted when he was talking about his separation. He doesn’t fake the whole casual thing very well. “Abby and I… we were in a rough spot before she got pregnant. Neither of us did anything or whatever. But we were growing apart. I think we started to realize that while we loved each other, maybe we weren’t completely… compatible.” He meets your confused stare that’s burning a hole in the side of his face. “She wanted kids and wanted to get married earlier than I was ready for. I wanted that later, when I was deeper into the whole residency thing. I didn’t know if I could be a doctor, a husband, and a father, at that age, at the same time.” 

You do know. You might know it a little too well.

“That’s a normal thing to want,” you tell him instead. “On both of your ends.”

“I know,” he says. “Then, right before we graduated from med school, she told me she was pregnant. And while it didn’t… y’know, go with my plan, I was still excited about it. We both were.” He sighs, wiping a hand down his face. The action makes you wonder how many people he’s actually talked to about this. “So, we got engaged, we moved in together, just the two of us, and it was great for a while. I had come to terms with the fact that I was going to be that doctor-husband-father trifecta. But then, we started fighting again. And I started thinking about the future, and I had this moment where it was like, ‘the only thing the two of us have in common is this kid. And if that’s all we have, that’s not what I want.’”

You weren’t expecting this level of vulnerability from him. Despite his obvious discomfort, it’s clear he’s wanted to get this off his chest. It’s nice that he trusts you enough with it. 

But still, you can’t believe some of the stuff he’s saying. “There obviously had to be some love still there,” you reply, hoping to make him feel at least a little better. “You still married her. You stayed with her.”

“We got married because it felt like the right thing to do.” He says it like it’s a fact. “We stayed together and had another kid because it felt like the right thing to do. And, yeah, I loved her, and I don’t regret it at all, because we raised two incredible fucking kids. We did that together. But I also think… I think she deserves better than the person she got. Who I was during our marriage, I mean.” You watch as his face morphs into something like shame. “She deserved better than to be married to an addict.”

You feel your chest tighten slightly. “Langdon…”

“I mean that,” he says, looking you directly in the eye. You can tell he does. “And, yeah, I love her. I still do. And I like to think that I’ve changed. That I’m better, and I’m still trying to do right by her. But I…” He sighs, and it almost sounds like it’s being forced out of his chest. “I love her as if she’s family. Because she is. I love her because she’s my children’s mother. I don’t think I… I don’t love her the way I…”

“...The way you should love your wife?” you finish, because he doesn’t seem to have the words to. 

Langdon throws his head back and squeezes his eyes shut. “God, I’m such an asshole.” His voice comes out muffled against his hands as he says, “I’ve never said any of that out loud. I must sound fucking awful.”

He doesn’t sound great, you agree, but he sounds honest. He sounds fair. He… 

“You sound like a guy who’s divorcing his wife,” you state, unsure of what reaction that’s going to elicit. He just looks at you between his fingers. “You sound like a guy in a relationship where nobody… fucked up beyond repair, or whatever, but you just grew apart. I’m sure you both could point fingers, her more than you—” You shrug when he shoots you a look. “—but growing apart from someone doesn’t make either of you an asshole. You both were trying to do your best and do what you thought was best for your kids.”

He takes a moment to sit with this. You can see him absorb it. Then, “And you sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

A long, heavy sigh escapes your lips. Reflexively, you find yourself glancing down at your left ring finger, and you bring your knees to your chest as you think on this. 

“Maybe a little,” you say after a beat. “Jamie and I were not… compatible, as you said.” You shrug, tension growing in your shoulders. “I didn’t realize it until, like, months after I left him, but yeah. Looking back now, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I know we wouldn’t have made it. Even if—” You stop yourself, throat clenching and catching your words. “Even if certain things had been different.”

He wants to ask. You can tell that he does. You pray that he doesn’t. You don’t think you’ll ever be ready to talk about that.

Luckily, Langdon seems to get the hint. But not enough of a hint to refrain from saying, “If it makes you feel any better, I knew you two weren’t going to last.”

A surprised laugh erupts from your mouth. “How the hell is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Because he was a dick,” he replies, a small smile pulling at his lips as he watches you. 

“You met him twice,” you argue, eyes narrowing. “We ended things four months into my first year of school.”

“Yeah, and both times I met him, he was a dick.” The insistence in his voice makes you laugh again. “I’m serious. Even back then, I knew you deserved better than that. He was miserable. It didn’t even seem like he liked you.”

Your smile dips at that, and while you hope he doesn’t notice, you know he does. “I’m not sure he did at that point,” you admit, then shake your head. “It doesn’t matter. That’s all in the past. What I’m trying to say is, there were reasons that we grew apart. We both played a part in it. And most of the time, that’s what causes people to end things. I don’t want to say it’s normal, but it’s… in that instance, it is. Normal. People outgrow each other.”

He casts his eyes up at the ceiling with a heavy breath. “I guess they do.”

It’s quiet then. The sound of your favorite reality show characters arguing fills the now-empty space, and for whatever reason, it all compels you to say, “For what it’s worth?” He turns his head to look at you. “I like to think that you’ve changed, too.”

You watch his face as your words hit him— how it changes into something foreign. Something unreadable. It’s as if he’s trying to figure you out, but there’s something more behind it. You want to tell him to join the club. 

As you try to decipher it, he swallows, never breaking eye contact. “Yeah?” he asks. “You mean that?”

“I do,” you say. “And I think it’s all for the better.”

Once again, all you can hear is the sound of the girls on TV fighting about who’s in the wrong. However, this time around, there’s a new tension in the air. It’s something unspoken, but it’s something tangible. You wonder if he can feel it too.

As he continues to look at you like that, you think he might just be able to. It makes you chuckle uneasily and scrunch your brow. “What?”

Langdon shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says.

You kick him with your foot again. “That look’s not nothing. What?”

He presses his lips together, hesitating just a moment longer than he probably should. “I’m just… really glad you came back into my life,” he tells you. Your stomach flips, not expecting anything like that to come out of his mouth. But he’s not done. “I can’t believe I wasted so much time not knowing you like this.”

The words hit you like a freight train. They almost have you immobilized. Because you can’t think of anything else to say, you manage to say, “Only took you eight years to realize it.”

He turns back to face the TV, pieces of his hair falling into his eyes. “Well, you said it yourself,” he says quietly. “I’m slow to learn what’s right.”

And, regretfully, as your cheeks blaze and your chest starts to tighten in that way that’s become so common around him, you come to an absolutely horrid realization. 

You can no longer pretend that you don’t know what this tension between you two is.

You know exactly what it is. 

And fuck, it is awful. 

OCTOBER 3RD, 2026. (2:08 PM)

You get a call from Dana halfway through your date, and it’s unbelievably well-timed. So well-timed, in fact, that your Finance Bro date is convinced that it’s a staged excuse to leave.

No matter how many times you try to look apologetic while you’re on the phone or how many times you explain to him that sometimes, on extremely busy days at the hospital, this happens, he genuinely doesn’t believe you. You take that to mean that he’s on the same page as you about how well this date’s going.

It wasn’t that it was bad. It really wasn’t. That spark had just… died out. Whatever bit of interest that you had in him had faded the more that he only spoke to you about… well, anything. About his job that you didn’t care about. About his ever-important life and his family that summered in The Hamptons. About his interests, what he was reading, the golf he played, and the places he’d traveled. Or, maybe it was how he notably neglected to ask questions about you and yours. 

The mask had been ripped off, and the shiny newness of it all had dimmed. You’re not completely sure how or why it happened so quickly. You suppose that sometimes it just happened that way.

You arrive at PTMC with the go-bag you keep in your car on your shoulder, filled with a pair of backup scrubs and other miscellaneous items. You’re still in the clothes you’d worn on the date. It wasn’t anything fancy or out of your wheelhouse, but the eyebrows you raise give you pause. The majority of these people had only seen you in scrubs or sweats with zero to no makeup on. The rare occasions that you’d go out together were the only exception. The first time you’d forced Mohan to go out for drinks with you, you’d told her that seeing her out of them was like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs. Maybe this was the same.

Dana lets out a low whistle. “Look at you, all dressed up with nowhere to go,” she says. There’s an air of approval in her voice. “Where are you coming from?”

You heave a heavy sigh as you plop your bag on the counter. “A date,” you reply shortly, and you feel Collins’ gaze immediately on you. You point at the two of them as both of their eyes light up. “Don’t get excited. He sucks.”

“They all do,” Collins says, your fellow attending now looking slightly apologetic. “I’m ready to give up.”

You pump a fist at her. “Right on.”

Dana deflates in front of you. “I’ll pretend like that doesn’t completely bum me out. But, I guess it was good timing. I was feeling bad that I’d called you.”

“No, I’m glad you did. He thought you were bailing me out, actually. Didn’t stop bitching about it until I paid for brunch.” Collins blinks at you in surprise, and Dana’s jaw drops. You sigh once more. “Yeah. So don’t feel bad.”

With the shake of her head, she says, “Where the hell are you finding these guys?”

“Hell,” you say. “Hinge. Pittsburgh. It’s all the same thing.”

“Shit-talking the city is never a good way to start a shift,” you hear a voice say as they approach to hand a chart to Dana. By the time you look at him, Langdon’s already given you a once-over, but something in his expression falters as he meets your eyes.

Dana’s already scolding him before he can say anything. “Risky Business over here was on a date, idiot. I wouldn’t have called her in if I’d known that,” she tells him, motioning to you. “You told me she’d be free tonight.”

You glance away from him to look at Dana in confusion. “What?” you ask, then motion to the doctor beside you. “He told you I was free?”

Langdon goes rigid. “Oh, fuck,” he mutters. “That was today?”

It’s said in such a way that you almost believe that he forgot. That it was so incredibly busy that it had completely slipped his mind, and he’d thrown out your name when it was decided that reinforcements should be called in. 

But there’s something in your gut that tells you that that’s not quite the case.

You see Dana and Collins exchange a knowing sort of glance before looking back at Langdon. They seem to be riding the same wave as you. 

Instead of saying anything to him, Dana huffs a soft, disbelieving laugh and then turns to you. “I’d scrub up. We need you out here.”

“Heard,” you say slowly. A strange mixture of annoyance and confusion graces your expression, and you shoot a look at Langdon before walking away.

Had he purposely sabotaged your date? Sure, it had been going poorly, but there was no way he could have known that. Even if it had been the perfect third date, he knew you well enough to know that there was no way you wouldn’t come in if asked. He knew. He fucking knew exactly where you’d be and—

God, this was so like him. Here you were, thinking there was some sort of blossoming friendship between you. You were even foolish enough to think that there was a moment (more than one fucking moment, actually!) between you two back at your apartment. That he might actually like you, not just respect you.

But no. There would never be. Even after everything you’d been through over these last couple of months— even after everything you’d done for him. Because at his core, he was an asshole, and that’s what assholes did. He was still trying to ruin every potentially good thing in your life just to play some little mind game for his own entertainment and benefit.

You hear his footsteps trying to catch up with you as you make your way to the on-call rooms. “Hey, hey, slow down,” he says, falling into step with you. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t remember that that was today.”

“Yeah, you did,” you snap. “Because the last time I checked, you don’t forget things. So don’t pull that shit.”

His head rolls in aggravation, but you can’t tell if it’s because he feels caught or if it’s because he feels bad. “I forgot this time. We’re slammed here, and you were on my mind and—”

“I was on your mind?” you repeat in disbelief, go-bag slamming against your side as you whip around to look at him. “What the fuck does that mean? What, were you thinking about me on this date that you and I both know I was on, and you thought, ‘hmm. What perfect timing. Let’s ruin this thing like I’ve ruined everything else in her life.’”

He has the audacity to shake his head. “You know, you missed your calling as a drama major,” he scoffs. “You’d be killing it in a local production of Waiting For Godot.”

Your hands clench into fists at your sides. Your voice is laced with a quiet sort of fury, making sure not to attract any attention as you say, “First of all, there are no women in Waiting For Godot, so that’s another shitty reference, you fucking idiot. My God, man, crack a book every once in a while.” At that, he smiles in disbelief, like he can’t believe that’s what you chose to focus on. “Second of all, I’m not being dramatic. This is what you do! This is what you’ve always done. You see me want something, and then all of a sudden, you decide that I can’t have it.”

“Did you even want this?” he asks. The volume of his voice and rage in it now match yours. “You just told Dana how awful it was. I got you out of there.”

You feel like pulling your hair out. “That’s not the point—”

“Then what is? I don’t get why this is such a big deal.”

“And I don’t get why you care so much about the fact that I’m dating!” Your voice goes up a level, and you shut your eyes to calm yourself down. When you reopen them, Langdon is staring at you intently. “What is it? Why do you care?”

His arms immediately cross over his chest. “I don’t.”

“Clearly,” you begin, motioning a hand in his direction, “you do. I just want to know why.”

“I don’t care if you’re dating,” he barks. The frustration in his voice is palpable. “Why would I? Why would I concern myself with that aspect of your life?”

“I don’t know, Langdon. Why would you?” You know you’re going back and forth in a continuous, torturous cycle, but you’re too upset and angry to care. “Are you pissed off that you’re scared to date and I’m not? What, because we’re suddenly friends, you think you should get to vet everyone before I get with them?”

“Vet everyone— what the hell are you talking about?” He throws a hand in your direction. “Do you actually think I’d want a say in that?”

“You wanted one tonight,” you say with a shrug. “And you got it. It worked. Congratulations. I’m here and not with the guy who wanted to take me home.”

Langdon tilts his head in a way that makes it look like he’s going to grimace, but finds the willpower to refrain from doing so. “And I’m sure that you’re missing that discussion about how Atomic Habits changed him as a person after the most boring three minutes of your life.”

“Oh, my God.” Your eyes narrow, and a small, disbelieving laugh bubbles in your stomach. “You’re actually mad about this. This is crazy. What is your deal?”

“I’m not—” He puts his face in his hands as if he’ll be able to disappear from this conversation if he can’t see you. “I don’t have a deal. I’m not mad—”

“Oh, you are. You’re so fucking pissed right now,” you laugh, crossing your arms over your chest. “I haven’t seen you this pissed since I diagnosed Doctor Clarke’s impossible patient before you.” Your smile only gets wider as he shifts. “Dance, monkey, dance. Let’s see how far we can go.”

He rolls his eyes, turning on his heel to leave the room. “You’re fucking ridiculous. I’m not doing this with you right now. I’m gonna go do our job, okay? Go save some—”

“Is it because he was hot? Is that what made you mad?” You’ve taken on a rather patronizing tone that you know is a little much, but you don’t care enough to stop. “Because he had money? Because he comes from a nice family? Because you don’t think I deserve that?”

That’s what gets him to stop in his tracks and abandon his exit strategy. His brow furrows deeply, and he looks at you in disbelief. “What?”

His reaction has you shrugging again, though you pull your arms closer to your chest. “It’s just like med school. You don’t think I deserve it. You never thought I worked hard enough, so you made sure I never got the things I wanted. You went out of your way to work harder to make that happen and—” 

“Is that what you think this is?” he asks incredulously. Langdon’s looking at you like he just made some sort of game-changing discovery. “Is that seriously what you’ve thought since school?”

With a soft scoff, you reply, “You never gave me a reason to think otherwise.”

The intensity of his gaze continues to strike you. You’re not sure how much longer you can take it. But he won’t look away. Not until he shakes his head with a tired, soft chuckle and says, “Oh, Flight Risk. You’ve got it all wrong.”

Your lips part in confusion. What does he mean? You had it all wrong? You’d despised each other for years. Competed for years. Were you— how could you have been wrong? This had been a requited hatred, something that you assumed would stretch generations. Centuries. An old, deep-seated grudge would be seeded and solidified between your family and the Langdons. That’s how it was supposed to be. He wasn’t supposed to throw this curveball.

What was he saying? And more importantly, how long had you apparently been wrong? 

You uneasily resign yourself from the argument, eyes on him cautiously. “What does that mean?”

Langdon pinches his nose, throwing a hand up in exasperation. “What do you think it means? You’re the smartest person I know. Figure it out.”

You don’t believe him. There’s no way you could be wrong. He constantly ruined things for you. Nothing was ever easy with him. He’d made sure of that, thanks to his constant, exhausting competitive nature and his unwavering will to make you work harder than ever before. There was no other way to interpret that. 

But he was saying there was. That you’d read it wrong. How could you have…?

Had he had different intentions? Had he thought that it was different between you? No. You may have been friends now, but back then, he hated you as much as you hated him. He wouldn’t have done half the shit he did to you if he didn’t. Half the shit you did to him had to have made him hate you.

Right?

That rivalry between you two was not one-sided. But maybe it was for different reasons.

Everything between you was a competition, one that made both of you want to beat the other. To think smarter, to work harder-- to be better. And it worked. Perhaps the lengths you’d gone to weren’t necessary, but at the end of the day, it had made you better doctors. 

Better.

Was that what it was?

“You’re not mad because you think I don’t deserve him,” you say slowly, like you’re still piecing this together. “You’re mad because you want me to do better.”

A noise that sounds a bit like a laugh escapes him. “Yes. Very astute. Validating that Academic Achievement award each day,” he mutters, repeating the jab you’d sent his way last weekend.

You want to unpack more of his previous statement. But there’s more to this. Something other than your Med School relationship. It’s more pressing than any of that, and it continues to linger in your mind.

Disregarding his joke completely, you say, “But you were mad because I was on a date.” You’re not sure what waters you’re testing here, but they’re uncharted. “Weren’t you?”

You see him swallow. But he says nothing. It’s all you need.

“You told Dana to call me in because you were pissed knowing that I was out with someone,” you continue. It’s like it’s all coming out at once. All of these realizations are coming to fruition, and you physically can’t help yourself from verbalizing them. “What was it? Was it just the thought of me and him that’s got you like this? Was it because you were thinking about what we were doing? If I was having fun with him?”

Your voice is smooth. Lethal. Somehow soft. Langdon squirms before you, rolling his eyes in an attempt to look unaffected and annoyed. The power of it almost satisfies you. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation right now, I—”

“Or,” you say, eyes narrowing as you read his body language and piece everything together. A small, disbelieving smirk tugs at your lips. “Was it because you were thinking about me getting all dressed up for someone who isn’t you, and you couldn’t fucking stand it?”

Langdon’s entire state of being changes right before your eyes. In fact, the temperature in the room shifts the second those words leave your lips. His mouth snaps shut, his brows draw back, and he takes a full step away from you. But his eyes give him away. They always do.

They’re calculating, if not slightly panicked, like he’d just been found out and was looking for an escape route. But there was none. Not when you were looking at him like that, with that stupid fucking smirk on your face that slowly disappeared as you realized he had no retort to that comment. 

Did he—? Was he—? Were you—? Had you been right?

He’d told you himself that you were good at noticing things. It was a requirement of your chosen career. You figured that what you said probably had some sort of truth to it, but you weren’t expecting this type of reaction. You weren’t expecting him to completely shut down in front of you, floundering for words that couldn’t seem to reach him. 

Fuck. You were right, weren’t you? He was jealous. He didn’t sabotage your date because of your stupid fucking grudge. He was jealous.

You’re not sure which one is worse.

You blink at him, your voice smaller now. “Langdon?”

It’s then that he’s saved by the bell— literally. By some cosmic fucking timing, he’s paged by Mel, who’s asking him to come to Trauma Two for a heart attack, and seconds later you get a call from Dana who’s sending you to North Seven for a broken fibula. You both glance at your phones to hang up, then back up at each other, looking more freaked out than either of you has ever seen each other.

You point at the door without looking away from him. “You should—” 

“Yeah,” he agrees, way too quickly to be normal. He breaks his gaze to motion at your go-bag on the cot. “You should—”

“Yeah,” you repeat. “I’ll, uh—” Unsure what to do with your hands, you turn to dig through your bag for your scrubs. “We’ll… uh, talk about this… later.”

Langdon’s already out the door when you hear him say, “Hopefully not.”

“Okay,” you say curtly. “I’m good with that, too.”

The door slams and you have to take a seat on the cot to collect yourself.

There’s barely any time for you to change and scrub your makeup off your face before Dana’s paging you again. 

You fly out of the on-call room, mind elsewhere.

OCTOBER 3RD, 2026. (6:58 PM)

You don’t see him again until the end of your shift, and it's not your finest hour.

On your last case of the day, you’d been tasked with casting a simple broken bone-- something that Robby had offered to you as a relaxed, parting gift and a thank you for coming in. It was a drunk, nineteen-year-old boy who’d been day drinking at his frat and had made the brilliant decision to jump off a deck and onto a folding table in the hopes of breaking it cleanly. He’d succeeded in breaking both the table and his wrist.

You should have seen it coming. He wasn’t all there. Not totally in control of his reflexes, unsure of what exactly was going on. The team had been working on getting his blood alcohol levels down, but there was still something off. 

In the middle of your typical conversation, talking points, and assessment questions, you’d tweaked his arm the wrong way when trying to get it into a sling. It had been an accident. But it’d hurt him. 

And the pain had surprised him so much that he’d pushed you off of him with his free hand, sending you flying back into the monitor so hard that it knocked the wind out of you and sliced your forehead open.

Whitaker, who’d been accompanying you, immediately sprang into action, holding back the boy as he started yelling profanities at you. It had gotten so loud that it’d attracted the attention of the entire ED, specifically Robby and Donnie, who just so happened to be walking by. 

The situation had been diffused with ease and grace (as was par for the course with Robby), and by the time he’d turned to you to make sure that you were okay, Langdon was already in the room.

“You alright?” Robby asks after Whitaker had given him a recap of what had happened.

“Yeah,” you say, removing your fingers from your head. The blood that had dripped down them was sticky and wet, and you grimaced at the look of it. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Langdon says, as if it’s a fact. “You need stitches.”

You glare at him, looking at Robby to see if he concurs. He takes a step forward and examines your head with a squint. “I don’t know if it’s a stitches-level cut, but you know what we say here.”

When he removes his hand from your face, you sigh. “We don’t fuck with head shit.”

Robby’s eyes crinkle as his lips stretch into a soft smile. “Not exactly. But you’ve got the spirit,” he says. He turns to Langdon. “Evaluate her and then start an incident report. And then you,” he says, whipping back to point at you, “are going to clock out and take tomorrow off. You sit on your ass and do nothing all day. You hear me?”

Your frown deepens, and your stomach sinks at the idea of Langdon now being responsible for patching you up. But you push all of that down and nod. “I hear you.”

The monotone, desolate sound of your voice makes Robby chuckle. “Alright. Good work today, kid. Be careful with that arm next time.”

It’s when Robby starts to talk to the frat boy that you look over at Langdon. His eyes flash with a slight panic before he takes a breath and nods at you, motioning for you to follow him. You look at Whitaker and Donnie, who have successfully subdued the kid, then shut your eyes. Reluctantly, you do as you’re told.

As Langdon searches for an empty room, you can’t help but mutter, “I’m fine. Robby said I don’t need stitches.”

“And he told me to evaluate you,” he shoots right back, opening the curtain for you for room eight when he realizes it’s free. “I don’t deviate from orders.”

That gets an actual, true laugh from you. The motion of it pulls at the cut, and you wince. “That might be the funniest thing you’ve ever said.”

He pulls the curtain shut as you sit down on the bed, shifting uncomfortably. The tension in the room is thick. It’s palpable and genuinely painful, and you purposely avoid his gaze each time he makes a move. 

You don’t know what to say to do. How were you supposed to pick up from where you left off? How could you? There was no casual way to talk about it, and judging by the way you could feel his eyes on you every time you so much as flinched, you figured he was on the verge of bolting too. Some pair you two were.

With gloves now on his hands, Langdon turns to you to examine the cut. You pretend you don’t notice the way he hesitates before he goes to grab your face, his touch just a bit too gentle to be professional. You can feel the warmth of his fingers through the gloves as they cup your chin. You cast your eyes to the ceiling as he tilts your head.

“You alright?” he asks quietly, finally breaking the silence. It almost startles you. You look at him for the first time since entering the room, only to find that he’s staring at your cut. 

“Yeah,” you rasp, clearing your throat soon after. “I’m fine. I should have been expecting it.”

Frowning, he asks, “Expecting him to deck you?”

Your scowl matches his now. “He was still drunk. Erratic. He’s a nineteen-year-old frat boy at Pitt. I should have expected the way he was going to react to pain.”’

“That’s not on you,” he mutters, moving to grab an antiseptic wipe. 

You sigh, trying your best at a shrug. “It doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t. It happened. We signed up for this shit. Gotta take it in stride and be better next time.”

Langdon looks like he has about a million things to say to that when he turns to face you, but he presses his lips together like that will keep them in. Instead, after a moment, when he’s carefully wiping the cut, he asks, “Do you want me to beat him up?”

A surprised laugh escapes you, and the second your body moves, the antiseptic hits you the wrong way and starts to burn. Your smile stays on your face despite the way you wince. “I’m not allowing you to lose your medical license over Chad from Sig Chi.”

Finally, Langdon’s lips twitch upward. “Why not? I’d win. Break his other arm. Teach him not to touch my attending.”

Something stirs in your chest at that, but you push it deep down in the hopes of forgetting about it. “I think Whitaker’s got that covered,” you say with a chuckle. “He basically jumped on the guy after he did it. Started yelling at him and everything. I didn’t think the sweet boy had it in him.”

“Well,” he says, reaching for the flashlight he kept in his pocket. You squint at the light as he flashes it at you, lifting one of your eyes to make sure everything’s in check. “Remind me to thank him for that.”

When the light turns off, you blink rapidly, attempting to readjust to look at him. This time, it’s harder to push that feeling down. Still, you manage to do so. “I already told him I’d buy him a drink the next time we go out.”

You hadn’t, but you’d meant to. You’re not sure why you’d said that, other than the fact that it was something to say. To put some distance between you two. He wasn’t responsible for thanking him; you were. 

God, you hated this. This feeling of not knowing where you two stood. You liked to know every angle of every situation and problem before you made a move. It’s the first thing that Klein had noted about you. He’d said that it was what made you good at your job. You were thoughtful and calculated, but never too in your head to make a decision. You were three steps ahead.

You’d blushed like a fucking schoolgirl and told him that you were just quick on your feet. 

But now, here you were, drowning with cement blocks on those feet. You weren’t good at this. The medical world you knew. You could pull off miracles simply by accessing that little Rolodex in your mind, pulling out the right card to make the right move. But this? There were no notes. You weren’t told how to act, how exactly to be good at it. Nothing about this was natural.

And then there was the fear. Out there, you weren’t scared of anything. Sure, you were careful and you were worried, and sometimes the worst of those worries came true. But you were rarely afraid. You couldn’t afford to be. 

You couldn’t afford to be now, either. You couldn’t make the wrong move. And in all honesty, you weren’t sure what the right move was. Not after…

“Well, Robby was right. You don’t need stitches,” Langdon suddenly says, snapping you out of your spiral. “And you’re not concussed, which is good. We’re gonna give it a little glue and bandage it up, and you’re gonna have a nasty bruise for a little, but you’ll be fine.”

You had figured all of this (you didn’t think the cut was deep enough for stitches, and you hadn’t felt the slightest bit dizzy), but a wave of relief washes over you anyway. “Good,” you say, moving to stand up. “I can patch myself up from here. Thanks for—”

“Sit down, Hawkeye,” he mutters, putting his hand on your shoulder to gently push you back down. “I’ll do it.”

You let out a sharp sigh. “Langdon, seriously, I’m—”

“Sit down,” he repeats. His voice has turned firm, and you know there’s no use arguing. When you look up at him in surprise, his eyes soften. “Just… please. Let me do this for you.”

You hold his gaze for a moment longer than you probably should. Then, you nod. 

He nods back, and he gets to it.

He works in silence, wordlessly gathering all the things he needs to fix you up. It’s a quick process, one that takes under five minutes and one that you absolutely could have done yourself, but you don’t say anything more about it. You just rotate from staring at the ceiling, then at the side of his face, and then to the floor. 

A minute in, you ask, “Is this your way of apologizing for sabotaging my date?”

You’re at the point of your rotation where you’re looking at him, and you see his eyes close momentarily. You’re expecting a deflection, a rebuttal, some other contrarian point. But instead he says, “Yeah. Something like that.”

He meets your eyes, reveling in the surprise in them for a moment, before returning his focus to your forehead. You press your lips together. “Okay,” you say lightly. Then, like you’re speaking to a skittish animal, you ask, “Are we gonna talk about that?”

Langdon’s fingers falter as he finishes gluing. He goes quiet on you. You don’t think you’re going to get an answer until, “Depends on where your head’s at.”

You can’t help the grin that spreads across your mouth. “My head’s currently in your hands—”

“You know what I mean,” he chuckles. Your chest warms as you see the subtle shade of pink his cheeks have tinged. “What do you— If that all were—” He clears his throat, like that will make the words come out easier. “How does… that make you feel?”

“What?” you ask. “The fact that you absolutely have a thing for me and your eyes completely glazed over in a jealous rage and you—”

“I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you,” he all but whines. When you give him a look, he relents. “But… yeah. That.”

You take a moment to collect your thoughts. You want to say the right thing. You don’t want to scare him off. But you also want to figure out how it actually makes you feel.

However, before you can do that, you need clarity on something. “You said I had… whatever I thought about med school was all wrong. What does that mean?”

His throat bobs, and it takes a minute for him to swallow the visible lump. Truthfully, he never thought he’d ever be having this conversation with you. He wants to— needs to phrase it the right way. Especially now.

“I… Back then,” he begins, unwrapping a Steri-Strip. “I never hated you.”

You stare at him. “You sure had some way of showing that.”

“I didn’t like you,” he says, watching as you purse your lips at the correction. “But I didn’t ever hate you.”

“Of course,” you agree, sarcasm laced within your words. “Because there’s a huge difference between those.”

“There is,” he says. “I was just— Listen.” He releases a deep breath, collecting his thoughts. “Everyone else in our class was good. They were competent. But I remember looking around during a lab and just knowing that I was better than anyone else there.”

Though it is, unfortunately, the truth, your lips part, trying to figure out where he’s going with this. “And so much more humble, too.”

He ignores you. “And I liked that. That was fine with me because I wanted to be the best. Then, you walked in, and you had this look on your face like you had something to prove. But right after, you sat down next to someone and immediately started talking to them. And I didn’t get that. I wasn’t raised like that. I didn’t understand how you could want to prove something but also want to make friends with the first person you met. There was something about you that told me I should be keeping an eye on you.” The feeling of his fingers on your forehead suddenly starts to feel a little too warm. “So, when you ran out of the room on the first day, I thought I was safe. But then, in the next class, the professor asked this question that nobody knew the answer to. And I remember everyone just staring at her in silence until your hand went up. And you just rattled off this insanely detailed answer that sounded like you were teaching the class instead of her.”

You remember this all too well, too. Heat rises to your face as you think of how insufferable you must have seemed. “Well, you said it yourself. I had something to prove.”

“That’s when I knew I had to worry about you,” he says. “And that, I don’t know. It made me excited. I don’t know if that’s selfish, but it was the first time I felt like I had competition. I wanted to see what you were trying to prove and how good you really were. I wanted to keep that going. So, I just started… intentionally trying to push you. I started calling you Flight Risk to piss you off—”

“Oh, I remember—”

“—and competing with you because I wanted to see what you could do. I know I could have probably been nicer about it, but like I said, I’m not good at that. I wasn’t— I’m not… friendly like you.” He smooths a strip down, and his touch is gentler than before. “But you were good. You were really fucking good and you started scoring higher than I did. On everything. And that snapped me into gear because it made me want to be better. But it seemed like the better I got, the better you wanted to be. And then… it just became fun,” he says, grinning, looking just a bit nostalgic. “Don’t get me wrong, it was hell. I hated that I had done it to myself some days. But it made me better than I thought I could be. And seeing what you could do? I knew you hadn’t had any type of competition before. And after a while, I started to want you to be better, too, because I knew you could be.”

It’s just about what you assumed when he told you that you had everything wrong. In your head, knowing him, it was the only thing that could have made sense. But the whole admission still catches you by surprise. 

There was something about being seen by someone. About someone intrinsically knowing things about you that no one else had caught on to as quickly. Because he wasn’t wrong. You had walked into that class with something to prove. It was one of the best Med programs in the country, and you wanted everyone to know that you belonged there. You hadn’t had competition in a while and had gotten bored with it all. You’d never had someone rival you in that way before.

He’d used the word exciting, and in a strange, treacherous way, it had been. It was exciting for you to have someone not just at your level, but someone who forced you to perform to an even higher standard. There was something about someone who demanded that you be better.

While you didn’t agree with all of his tactics, and yes, he probably could have been nicer about it, it felt good to officially know that he had always seen you not just as a threat, but as an academic equal. 

“So, yeah. You had it wrong,” he continues, nearly finished working. “I never hated you. I hated that you gave me a run for my money, but never you.” With a deep breath, he then mutters, “And now, I’m admitting that I like you and you still haven’t said anything about how you feel about it, which is awesome.”

You have clarity with him for once. For better or for worse. 

You like Langdon, too. It’s something you’ve known for a while but have tried desperately to ignore. After everything you’ve been through, as your relationship has completely flipped on itself— it’s an idea that you’ve resigned to. It’s something that’s been brewing for a long time, and now, it’s finally broken to the surface. It still makes you a bit uneasy, nervous even, but it’s also… exciting. For lack of a better word.

It’s been a desperate search to try to identify the thing you’ve been feeling since you first got coffee with him. Why your heart keeps stuttering when you look at him, why you’re excited to see him day after day, why you look forward to bantering with him, and why it never gets old. 

You like him. You do.

It’s a strange feeling— something you haven’t felt since you left Boston. And while that scares you, something about this one tells you that you don’t have to be. No more running. No more fear.

No more Flight Risks.

“I’m okay with that,” you finally say. He stops what he’s doing the second the words leave your lips. “I mean, I don’t agree at all with what you did and think it was shitty of you to—”

“Yeah, I know, I’m an asshole. We’ve known this for years.” He doesn’t seem too focused on the second part of your statement, more occupied with the first. He crouches down to meet you at eye level. “But… that first part. You mean that?”

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from smiling too hard. “Weirdly enough, I do.” As if that won’t get your point across, you meet his equally excited gaze. “I like you, you asshole. About as much as you like me.”

You get one of those smiles in return— the one that completely transforms and lights up his face. “About as much?” he mutters, returning to finish bandaging you up.

“Yeah,” you say. You’re grinning just as stupidly as he is. “You’re obviously way more into me than I’m into you. I’m not at the level where I’d sabotage a date you went on—”

“My God, I’m never gonna hear the end of this, am I?” he groans. He smoothes the last strip down, fingers lingering for a moment longer than they should. It’s a simple thing that makes your heart stutter. “Alright. You’re all set.”

“Thank you, Doctor Langdon. Incredible job.” You stand from the bench, and instinctively, you reach up to feel his handiwork. “So, what now?”

He turns to you, taking his gloves off. “Now, you go home and do exactly what Robby told you to do. Nothing.”

The teasing note in his voice has you glaring at him. “You know what I mean.”

“Oh, you mean for you and me?” he asks, chuckling as your look sharpens. “Now you wait for that glue to dry, and we turn that Steelers game in two weeks into a date.”

You’re marginally surprised by how fast he came up with that, and you find yourself narrowing your eyes. “Was that your plan all along?”

He shrugs, suddenly just a bit shy. “It might have crossed my mind.”

“I was wondering why you hadn’t let me pay you back yet,” you grumble.

“I’ll take a page out of Finance-Bro’s playbook and let you pay for brunch before the game.”

With a scandalized gasp and the beginnings of a protest on your tongue, you shove past him to leave the room, but find that’s grabbed you before you can make your exit. Your heart races at the feeling of his hand on your hip and the way he grips you to turn you to face him. He nearly forgets what he’s going to say when you look up at him. 

“I’m serious, though,” he gets out after a second. “I… I do, y’know. I really like you. I want to do this right.”

His sincerity makes your heart swell. You put your hand over his and remove it from your side, choosing instead to interlock your fingers. He glances down at your hands, then back at you. “We will.” Squeezing his hand, you say, “Thanks for patching me up.”

He squeezes your hand in return, and God, he looks fucking giddy about it. “Thanks for giving me a chance.”

You return to the floor moments later, Langdon following close behind, both of you desperately trying to keep the dopey-looking smiles off your faces. You’re not sure if anyone notices, but thankfully, no one says anything.

They seem to be too focused on the injury you’ve acquired.

The shifts are in the process of transitioning, and you lock eyes with Ellis the second you walk up to the nurses’ station. “What the hell happened to you?”

Santos’s head pops out of the hoodie she’s putting on as she realizes you’re back. She whistles when she sees the bandage on your head. “Nice battle scar, Jasper.”

Sighing, you take off your badge and place it on the counter. You wave Dana off as she moves to get a look at you. “I’m fine. Got too close to the frat boy in South Three.”

“Little shit swung at her,” Dana mutters.

“He hit you?” Ellis asks, incredulous. 

You hold up a hand. “Pushed me,” you correct. “Don’t worry. Langdon already threatened to beat up the nineteen-year-old, guys. He’s got it covered. Chivalry isn’t dead.”

You hear him scoff, but the warmth in his voice doesn’t miss you when he says, “You're unbelievable.”

“But Whitaker did jump him for me, so we’re all good,” you say, nodding at him as he approaches the station with his go-bag. He flushes when he realizes what you’re talking about. “Held him down and everything. That was impressive, kid.”

He shakes his head with a small smile. “It was nothing.”

“Not nothing. You saved me from the wrath of a boy who’s listened to ‘No Hands’ one too many times,” you say. Then, you address the room. “I’m fine. Thank you all for the concern.” You point at everyone in warning. “Nobody actually beat up the frat boy, please. I’m gonna go sleep this off. I’ll see you all later.”

You head off to your locker with a wave, exhaustion hitting you the second you realize you’re off the clock. You feel Langdon’s eyes on you as you walk away, but don’t turn around. There’s no need for any of your coworkers to suspect that anything’s changed between you two. Not yet.

(They’re well past suspicion. They’ve noticed the change in your relationship since Langdon returned. There’s a secret pool going about when and how something’s going to happen. But it’s cute to see you two try.)

When you’re out of sight, he takes his stethoscope off his neck, wanting nothing more than to follow you out. It’s then that he notices the way that Dana’s looking at him. “What?”

She glances down at the counter, then back up at him. “She left her badge,” she says. “Do you want to run out and give it to her, or do you want me to hold on to it until Monday?”

Langdon reaches for it so fast that Dana thinks he might hurt himself. Still, he’s casual when he says, “I got it.”

He’s already chasing you down when he hears Ellis mutter, “I’m sure you do.”

As the team laughs quietly, he doesn’t turn around and tell the team to ‘fuck off’ like he wants to. Right now, he’s only got one thing on his mind, and it’s something he should have done months ago.

You’re no longer at your locker by the time he gets there. He doesn’t find you until you’re already at your car, just about to get inside.

He calls your name— your real one. Not your last name or your god-awful nickname. The sound of it makes you turn around in confusion.

It happens so quickly that you almost don’t process it. One second, he’s jogging over toward you, the next, he’s in front of you, hands cupping your cheeks and head dipping down to press his lips to yours.

You freeze as you realize what’s happening. He’s kissing you. Frank Langdon is kissing you.

It’s sweet. Chaste, even. His touch is feather-light yet strong, holding tight but allowing you to pull away if this isn’t what you want. There’s no force to it, but still, you find your knees buckling, and you have to hold onto his arms to keep yourself upright.

It’s short. He’s completely stolen your breath from your lungs in mere seconds, and before you can even attempt to respond or deepen it in any way, he’s pulling away. You grip his arms tighter as you meet his gaze, your eyes wide and pupils completely blown out.

The smile that spreads across his lips warms you from the inside out. “You forgot your badge,” he says softly. “And I think I forgot to do that.”

You let go of one of his arms to grab his shirt and pull him down toward you. “Shut up,” you murmur, the words barely making it out before his lips are on yours once more.

You can feel his smile stretch as you take the lead. His hands return to your cheeks, tighter now that he knows you’re on the same page. 

This one’s more intense. It’s much less sweet and way more intentional, and you allow your go-bag to fall from your shoulder to hit the ground. He crowds you, pushing you up against the door of your car. When your back hits it, you gasp, which allows him to slip his tongue in your mouth.

You’re sure you two look ridiculous, like you’re two teenagers who are trying to get their last makeout in before curfew, but you don’t care. You don’t know if it took him actually kissing you to actually process and solidify your feelings for him, but Christ, something clicks. 

You’re not just interested in pursuing Langdon (Frank— if you’re going to kiss him like this regularly, you should really start calling him Frank). It’s not some sort of schoolgirl crush that you’re testing out by agreeing to go on a couple of dates with him. You like him. Like really, fucking like him.

His hands find their way under your shirt, skimming gently along your back in a way that makes you shiver. He’s so close to you that you practically grind against him, and he rips himself away from you like he can’t take it anymore. But he doesn’t move, forehead still brushing yours.

You stare at him, chest heaving up and down, and lips slightly swollen. “You should have led with that,” you say breathlessly, smiling as he chuckles to himself.

His hands are still on your hips, and his thumbs draw circles into them as he turns back to you with a smirk. “Yeah?” he asks. “My little confession back there didn’t do it for you?”

“I loved hearing it,” you reply, tightening your grip on his shirt. “But that got your point across better.”

Frank shakes his head with a smile, and he’s leaning in to kiss you again. This time, he’s all in.

You’re back up against the door, both of you allowing the other to explore anywhere they’d like. Normally, you’d have a little shame or a little decorum, but the craziness of this situation seems to hit you both at the same time. After years of knowing, hating, competing, working, helping, and then finally liking each other, you might have some lost time to make up for. 

You know that someone could walk out and see you. You’d be teased about it to the ends of the earth. But none of that matters.

This matters. He matters.

The second he groans into your mouth, you pull away to start kissing down his jaw. He has to physically stabilize himself by putting his arm on the roof of your car above your head. The other grips your hip harder.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” he says lowly, and you feel your stomach flutter.

“Who says I can’t finish it?” you ask.

You’re playing with fire and you know it. He grips your face and moves you to look directly into your eyes. “You want to—?”

“Yeah,” you breathe, nodding into his hand. “Do you?”

He looks insulted that you even have to ask. “Of course I do,” he says. “But, I-I had this plan. I wanted to like, impress you and—”

“You impress me every day.” You say it like it’s a fact and he damn near melts into your arms. “And we can still do that if that’s what you want.” You smooth out the wrinkles you’ve put into his shirt. “But, if you want to meet me at my apartment and start that plan tomorrow, I’m also open to that.”

You raise to press a quick, reassuring peck to his lips, but Frank has other ideas. He makes a helpless sound, and he full-on kisses you. The second he feels you smiling into it, he starts making his way down your neck. “You make me— I can’t—” 

Once again, it feels like he has to physically remove himself from you. He steps away, leaving you standing there, pupils blown out, lips swollen, and cheeks blazing. Then, he points at you. “Your apartment,” he manages. “I’ll meet you there.”

For good measure, he catches your hand as he drops his, squeezing it once before pressing his lips to the back of it. Your heart swells.

“Drive safe,” you rasp, voice breaking on the last word as you watch him walk away.

You blink, taking a moment to gather yourself. You’re barely processing it as you grab your go back, fighting the smile that’s threatening to break out on your face. 

No fucking way that just happened. No way.

OCTOBER 3RD, 2026. (8:23 PM)

Somehow, he manages to beat you back to your apartment.

You’re surprised to find Langdon waiting for you, sitting on a bench outside your building. He’s looking around, knee bouncing up and down in what you hope is anticipation and not anxiety or regret. 

It’s not until he locks eyes with you that you start feeling nervous yourself. But it’s a good kind of nervous, something akin to excitement. It’s jittery, even. Like you’ve consumed too much caffeine on an empty stomach.

(Adrenaline rush is the word you’re looking for, but you’re too in your head to realize it until later.)

He stands when he sees you, wiping his hands on his pants, then immediately stuffing them into his pockets. Instinct takes over as things start to go more real, and you say, “What, did you go ninety trying to get here?”

He throws his hands up. “I’ve lived here longer than you. I know how to get around.”

“Mmhmm,” you hum, passing him to unlock your building’s front door. “I hope you abided by all street signs.”

“Only the important ones,” he says, catching the door as you open it, allowing you to enter. 

You snort at that, launching into some sort of mindless small talk to get your mind off the fact that both of you know what’s about to happen. It’s something about work, about the frat boy who knocked you over, and about a function that’s happening later on this month. But your mind’s on other things.

Jesus, you feel like you’re in high school. You shouldn’t be this anxious. You can’t remember the last time someone made you act this way— this distracted and antsy. Sure, you’d been excited about… others when you’d first started seeing them, but it was nothing like this. At least, you couldn’t remember it being like this.

You know what you want to do. You’re pretty sure he’s on the same page. But still, that anxious anticipation claws at the back of your mind.

When you make it to your door, you’re talking about something that occurred the last time you had a function with the team. Something about karaoke and the song Dana had forced you to sing with her. 

By the time you’ve unlocked it, it’s practically irrelevant. You reach in and turn the lights on before you enter.

“By the way, do you want anything to drink?” you ask, pulling your keys out of the lock. “Water? I might have seltzer in the fridge? I’d offer food, but I haven’t been grocery shopping in like, two weeks and—”

When you turn around to look at him, you’re cut off by him bringing his lips to yours. The second the door closes, he’s cupping the space between your cheek and your neck and moving you gently against the wall— though he kisses you with the same fervor as he had previously.

Or we could do this, you think. This works too.

It’s somehow gentle but intense. His lips are soft, but his hands are rough. Sturdy. While he’s gripping your head, he’s careful not to touch the cut by your hairline. He’s both holding back and refusing to give up. It’s like he has something to prove to you, but you’re not entirely sure what. It’s a jumbled-up mess of contradictions that leaves you confused, but honestly, it’s exactly what you’d expect from him.

His other hand runs up your arm, immediately sending goosebumps up your body. “In case that prick didn’t tell you,” he murmurs against you, “you looked fucking gorgeous when you walked in today.”

Langdon kisses you once more despite the fact that you’re laughing. Your cheeks burn when you pull away from him, resting your forehead against his. “I don’t remember if he did,” you admit. “Wouldn’t have mattered either way.”

You can’t help but mirror the grin that takes over his face. “No?”

“No,” you repeat. You pull back, brushing some of the hair away from his eyes, before your hand falls to his jaw. “I knew he wasn’t going to stick.” Before he can lean in to kiss you again, you put your other hand on his chest to stop him. “Still fucked up of you to sabotage my date, though.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’ll find a way to make it up to you,” he mutters, dipping down once more to shut you up.

Your lips meet again, and this time, you know exactly what he’s trying to prove. It’s all about keeping that promise. It’s about proving to you that you made the right choice— you’re here with him instead of out with the other guy, and it’s for a perfectly good reason.

It was so like him to compete for something he’d already won.

A nip at your bottom lip has a soft gasp escaping the back of your throat, and you swear his grip tightens on you at the single noise. He’s tense. You don’t know if it’s because he’s unsure or if he’s holding back, but both give you pause. His hands drift lower, fingers running along the hem of your shirt. They skim your stomach, and it has you securing your hold on his neck.

“We don’t have to do this,” you say breathlessly, biting the inside of your cheek as he starts to make his way from your neck. “It’s fast. W-We just-- If this isn’t something you’re ready for, I—”

“No,” he murmurs. “No, I want this. I— Fuck—” The feeling of your hand running against the backside of his head distracts him and he tries to regain focus. “I’m good.”

While he seems certain, you still ask, “Are you sure?”

His response is to simply rise from your neck to your lips, kissing you with enough force that gives you all the confirmation you need. Your back hits the wall, harder this time, and he slips his tongue back inside your mouth. One of his hands travels to the spot where his lips were previously, the other working to take off the jacket you’re wearing. The grip on your neck is grounding, and you help him get rid of your jacket before forking a hand through his hair.

Frank’s nearly heaving when he breaks away, fingers moving to grab your chin. “I’ve wanted this for months,” he states. The hand at your back snags the waistband of your pants, pulling you against him and positioning you so that one of his legs is slotted between yours. He kisses you on the jaw, pulling you forward so that you’re practically grinding onto his leg. “I want you.” Your eyes flutter as he returns to your neck. “I mean it. Never been more sure of anything in my life.”

Your body feels like it’s on fire. Adrenaline has flooded your bloodstream, and you’re hyper-aware of everything. Every sound he’s making, every gasp or whine you’ve released. The feeling of his hands against your skin that’s riddled with goosebumps. The taste of his lips. The wear and tear of the twelve-hour shift he just worked (and the one you joined in the middle of) doesn’t show at all. You’ve never felt more energized, and you’ve never seen him this alive.

You want to tell him that you want him, too. You’re feeling everything you presume that he’s feeling— excited, nervous, the feeling of being this… into someone. It still blows your mind that you can and you do feel this way about him. It’s even crazier that he feels the same.

But you can’t verbalize any of that. Not when the air has been sucked from your lungs and not as you practically dry hump his leg in the middle of your hallway. So, instead, you shift to brush your thigh against the length of him, savoring the way he shivers. 

“Well, then, fucking do something about it,” you say, just a bit too mean and a bit too impatient. 

He makes a sound somewhere between a groan and a snarl against your neck, and the heat of his breath has a chill running down your spine. “Always with the fucking attitude,” he grits.

You fist his shirt so hard you think you might rip it. “You’re the one saying you want me,” you mutter. “You have me. We both know you’re not a gentleman.” You grind against him once more. “So do something.”

It’s like a switch flips. As if he’s been in the shadows waiting, and those were his trigger words. Frank shakes his head in that way he does when he can’t believe you. You grin against his lips when he kisses you again, and even that seems to be too much for him right now. There’s a strange feeling of relief that washes over you when you realize he’s just as overcome by you as you are by him.

“Take off your clothes,” he says, inhaling sharply as he pulls away from you. He’s already dropping his sweatshirt on the floor. “I’m not fucking kidding. Take them off right now.”

Despite the fact that he’d given the order, he’s the one pulling off your shirt. He stretches the collar when it passes your head, making sure not to brush your cut, and discards it on the floor. You help him out of his, already walking backwards toward your bedroom as he attaches himself to you again.

He’s more exploratory now, hands everywhere he was hesitant to search before. It sets you completely alight, breath hitching the second he starts pulling at the waistband of your pants. You’re standing at the foot of your bed before you do it, legs hitting your mattress. You grab his shoulders to stabilize yourself.

When he realizes where you are, he puts an arm around your back, slowly reclining you back to lay you down. It’s a soft landing. He hovers over you with one leg still stationed between yours. He breaks from the kiss, and his mouth trails down your chest, dipping to the fabric of your bra. You arch into him when he presses a searing kiss just above your breasts.

Going further down your stomach, he speaks against your skin when he says, “You drive me fucking crazy.” 

You perch one of your legs up, thigh brushing his side. His fingers toy with the top of your pants, and you shift into him. “What else is new?”

Frank glances up at you, meeting your gaze. It’s a silent question that’s asking for your permission. You nod at him immediately, heart whirling as a small smile tugs at his lips. “No,” he says, latching his fingers around your waistband. He pulls the tie, letting the strings fall. “You don’t get it. I can’t—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. He begins to bring your pants down your legs, sucking in a breath when he looks back up at you. You hear your pants hit the floor. “It’s so… easy with you. I don’t have to think when I’m with you, y’know?” You tilt your head at him, unsure of where he’s going with this. “But then, it’s like— you look at me like that and I can’t think straight. I used to hate you for it.” He wets his lips, staring at you like he can’t process the fact that he’s standing here. He bends down, leaning forward to be at your eye level. “I never know what to do with it. It’s fucking debilitating.”

You suddenly feel completely exposed, and it has nothing to do with the fact that you’re nearly bare. It’s as if he can see right through you. You shift further up onto your elbows, brushing your hand against the one he has on your hip. “Then don’t think,” you tell him softly. “It’s just me.”

He stares at you for a moment longer, then shakes his head. “Just you. Right,” he says, almost to himself. When your brow creases, the corner of his lips twitch up. “You really have no idea what you do to me, do you?”

He doesn’t give you a chance to respond. Before you can even fathom a way to reply to that, he’s moving, crouching down at the foot of your bed to hook his fingers around the sides of your panties and slide them down. “Just you,” he repeats, almost scoffing. “Like I haven’t thought about this every fucking night since I came back to work.”

You gasp, both at the admission and the sight of him on his knees in front of you. “You have?”

“Don’t act surprised.” Frank rises slightly to kiss the inside of your thigh. “I know you’ve thought about it too.”

You huff despite the way your heart beats out of your chest and ignore his comment. “So, I was right when I said that you’re way more into me than I’m into you,” you tease.

With a disbelieving scoff, he looks up at you. “Hard to believe that when you’re as wet as you are right now,” he mutters. He runs his fingers over your cunt, reveling in the airy sound that escapes your lips. “Jesus. Would have gone down on you the second we walked in if I’d known you were like this.”

The filthy words take you completely by surprise and have your nails digging into your sheets. You don’t have a witty response for that one, especially not as he slips a finger inside of you. “S-shit.”

He works it slowly, testing. Seeing what you like and what you’ll take. He thumbs lightly at your clit, gaze locked on you to see how you fare. You moan at the touch, but immediately want more than the slower pace he’s giving you. As if he can read your mind, he adds a second finger.

You curse, hips bucking into his hand. “Yeah?” he asks. “That what you want?”

“I want—” Your own ragged sounding gasp interrupts your words as he curls his fingers. “Fuck. F-Frank…”

His eyes snap to yours. The sound of his first name falling from your lips has him gripping your hip harder, pinning you down onto the bed as he continues to work. “You keep saying that, and I’ll give you anything you ask for.” Encouraged, he starts to move faster, grinning as you grip his bicep. “Tell me, baby. C’mon. What do you want?”

You’re finding it hard to speak. Your head’s spinning, your throat’s gone dry, and your chest feels heavier each time he pumps his fingers into you. Somehow, you manage, “Your mouth.” You squeeze him tighter. “Frank, p-please.”

His mouth is on you before you can even say the word please. You slap a hand over your mouth to contain the sound of surprise that erupts from you. He zeroes in on your clit, alternating between licking and sucking in a way that has you immediately grinding into his face. Your back arches as his fingers pick back up, and the moan you release comes out muffled against your hand. 

Frank registers it after a beat. “No,” he says, and the feeling of his breath on your cunt makes you squirm. “Get your fucking hand off your mouth. I want to hear you. Dear God, let me hear you.”

You’re not thinking clearly enough to do anything other than what you’re told. Your eyes roll back into your head as his lips return to your clit, and you can feel yourself tightening around his fingers. You don’t know how you're close already, but you are.

You feel him chuckle against you, and the vibration of it has you forking a hand through his hair. “So fucking agreeable like this, huh?” he chides. “Not gonna be a pain in my ass if it means I’ll get you off.” He removes his fingers for a moment to slide his tongue deeper down. “Would have done this earlier if I’d known this was all it took.”

You knew he’d be mouthy. The whole bickering and bantering shtick was kind of your thing. You didn’t think that would change if you two ever got to this level. But this… was something else. It was a whole other side of him that you’d never thought you’d see. 

It’s exactly what you need from him, and it brings you ever closer to the edge.

When he slides his fingers back in, he adds a third. You let out a desperate noise, head lolling into your mattress. He operates like he does in the ED. He’s calculated. Intense. Precise. Just a bit reckless, throwing a curveball here or there. But he also knows what he’s doing. He’s confident about it, but is still willing to learn exactly what you like to adapt and get the job done. 

One of those curveballs comes flying in as he pulls his mouth from your clit, lips wet and glistening against the low, soft light of your room. “Fuck, I’ve wanted this for months,” he repeats his sentiment from earlier, shaking his head. His eyes are blown out. He looks crazed. Starved, even. “Been waiting for you.”

He watches your face scrunch in pleasure as he curls his fingers, the hand on his bicep surging to his opposite wrist. “Shit,” you whisper. “I’m— I’m close.”

“Yeah, I know you are. I know you’re right there. I’ve got you.” But he’s not done. “But, just so you know. I don’t ever want you to give me the ‘it’s just me’ bullshit again,” he mutters, picking up the pace of how he’s pumping into you. He slides his hand from your hip to rub at your clit. “It’s you. That’s the fucking point. And I can’t believe I actually have you.” 

You feel that tension in your stomach get even tighter, and the sounds that are coming out of you are downright pathetic. “Frank, I—O-Oh, my—”

“So, you’re gonna come for me,” he begins, slightly out of breath. “And then I’m going to keep trying to convince you that I’m the type of guy who deserves you.”

You’ve just barely processed his words when his mouth returns to your cunt and he continues his work. You try to keep yourself steady for him, but fuck, you can’t help it. You thrash around, bucking your hips into him as if you’re chasing your release.

“Fuck,” you curse, and if he continues doing exactly what he’s doing, you know you’re done for. “I’m gonna—”

“That’s it, c’mon,” he says against you. He knows. He can feel just how tight you are, and he sees the way your jaw drops open. “Come for me.” Your eyes screw shut. “Fucking do it. Give it to me.”

The second he finishes speaking, you’re gone. You do as you’re told and you come.

He had described his feelings for you as debilitating. You’re not sure you understood what he meant until now. You’d described pain as debilitating before. Sadness, too. It always had some sort of negative connotation. 

But this? This was all the right kinds of it.

You thrash around on the bed, crying out as it overtakes you. Frank holds you in place, chasing you down as you ride it out. It blazes through you like fire, and you can feel it spread all throughout you. It’s something all-consuming and overwhelming, and it has you saying his name like a prayer. He groans into your core, and you swear you might come again.

But, before you can, Frank pulls away, gently laying you back down onto the bed. He’s careful now, every movement contrasting the things he was doing or saying not even a second ago. His gaze locks on you, your eyes still shut, and your chest heaving. He can’t help the feeling of satisfaction that races through him.

When you open your eyes and see the look on his face, you don’t even think about your next move. You grab him by the neck and guide his lips to yours, kissing him with the same fervor that he gave to you. You can taste yourself on him, and something about it sends a chill down your spine. When he hums into your mouth, you can feel him smiling.

“I’ll take it I did well?” he asks, because of course he does. The question comes out mumbled as he nips at your lip. 

“Don’t start acting humble now,” you mutter, finding yourself smiling as he chuckles softly. That chuckle morphs into a groan as you palm him through his pants, and he stops kissing you to hang his head in the space just above your shoulder. “This okay?” you ask gently, watching the way he grits his teeth.

“Yeah,” he grunts. “I just— fuck—” Your fingers travel below his waistband, just barely brushing his cock. For a moment, you think he’s going to latch his teeth onto your collarbone, but he holds himself back. “It’s just b-been a while since I’ve—”

“Been a while for me too,” you assure him, voice lower than a whisper. You can feel how hard he is against your hand, and all you want to do is help him out. “I’ll go slow.”

He lets out an airy laugh, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. “That’s the problem.” You stop your movements, looking at him in concern. “If you do what I think you want to do, this’ll be over before we really start it.” 

Your brows shoot up, any hesitation in your expression vanishing as it gets replaced by a small smirk. “Really?” you tease. You run your thumb along the head of his cock and he hisses into your neck.

“Don’t,” Frank warns. “I-I’m serious. I’m not gonna last.”

You nod, removing your hand from him and running it up his abdomen to grab his waistband. “Okay,” you say. “So, what do you want?”

He shakes his head, still a bit dazed. “What?”

“You asked me what I wanted. It’s your turn to tell me what you want.”

His response is almost instant. “Inside,” he says, like he’d been thinking about the answer before you’d even asked the question. His cheeks flare red, but he stands strong. “I want to be inside of you.”

The thought of it has your heart racing, and you’re sure that he can hear it. You nod at him, and the second he has permission, he’s moving to take his pants off. As he does so, you remove your bra, having completely forgotten that you had it on. It gets thrown to the floor with the rest of your clothes, and you move back on the mattress, giving him the space he needs to join you.

He acts fast, so fast that you barely get a chance to look at him before he’s kissing you again, pushing you into the pillows that sit on your bed. The feeling of his hand cupping your breast has you grinding against him. A low noise rumbles in his throat, and he uses his other hand to pin you to the bed. 

“D-Do you—” he stammers as you move your lips down his neck. “Do you have—”

“Nightstand drawer,” you say, knowing exactly where his mind is. 

He uses one hand to lift himself off of you and reaches into the drawer with the other. When he grabs the condom, he rips it open with his teeth, straddling himself over you as he takes it out. “Always so fucking prepared,” he mutters. “Always one step ahead of me.”

You laugh, not even thinking before you say, “Well, I had very different plans when I left the apartment this morning.”

Frank’s eyes snap up to meet yours, and you immediately know you’ve made a mistake. You can’t help the nervous sort of excitement that stirs in your stomach. “With who? That guy?”

Your mouth parts, and you blink at him, desperately trying to come up with something to say. “I—” You shake your head. “I didn’t know how it was going to go.”

He nods slowly, condom now on. When he leans over you, you can feel how hard he is against your stomach. You inhale sharply. “You were going to sleep with him tonight?”

“I mean—” He tilts his head, and everything about it reads as a warning. You cut yourself off as his eyes narrow slightly. “I… I don’t know. If it had gone well. Maybe.”

“Maybe,” he repeats. The glint in his eyes is dangerous, and you grip his wrist that’s sitting beside you. “Maybe.”

Oops. You might be in trouble. Because you feel like playing with fire, you raise a brow. “What if I had?” you ask. “How would that make you feel?”

He scoffs, and before you register what he’s doing, you feel him drag the head of his cock around the opening of your cunt. He leans forward, stabilizing himself on one arm that’s placed next to your head. The contact and the heat of him make you inhale raggedly. Suddenly, his other hand is skimming your forehead.

“The second— and I mean the second this thing is healed,” he begins, running his fingers just below the area of your cut, “I’m going to bend you over the fucking table and show you exactly how that makes me feel.”

You don’t have time for a rebuttal. No time to tell him off, to tease him about being jealous, or even to laugh. Because suddenly, he’s moving that hand down to guide himself into you. 

You both gasp, and you fork your fingers through his hair as he bottoms out practically the moment he’s in. He takes it slow— painstakingly so. There’s a bit of a stretch, one that gets more comfortable as you adjust to the length of him. His head falls to your chest, groaning against your skin. 

“But for now,” he says shakily, trailing up your body with hot, open-mouthed kisses, “I’m gonna show you the reason you’re here with me and not with him.”

Your grip on his hair tightens the second he starts to move, and he grunts into the side of your neck. You curse, lips brushing his ear, the feeling of… everything sending you into a spiral. How his hips snap into yours. The way he cups a hand around your breast, testing each movement he makes to see exactly how you like to be touched. How he murmurs your name as if it’s something sacred. 

You might just understand what he means about not being able to think straight when he’s around you. Because right now, you can’t think about anything other than him.

He whispers an unintelligible word, then groans. “Fuck. You feel incredible,” he says. “Knew you would. Never disappointed by you. Fucking ever.”

“Shit,” you rasp. “I need— ngh.” An involuntary moan breaks through to interrupt your barely audible words. “M-Move faster.”

You’re surprised when he laughs. The sound is rough and breathy and almost cruel. He shakes his head as he continues his pace. “After you say shit like that? Y-You try to bait me and make me jealous, and you think you make the rules?” he asks. His fingers fall from your chest to trace down your side. “That’s not how this works. You’ll take what I give you.”

Your back arches off the mattress, and you find yourself grinding against him to get some sort of new, harder friction. It catches him slightly off guard, and he grabs your hip to stabilize both himself and you. “Frank, p-please,” you damn near whimper. His eyes screw shut and his jaw clenches. “I-I need you. Please. Don’t— shit. Don’t be mean.”

With a deep and guttural groan, he starts to move faster. With the look on his face, you’re not sure if it was a voluntary choice or not, but regardless, he gives you what he wants. 

It’s a struggle to keep the self-satisfied smirk off your face, and when Frank opens his eyes to look at you, it’s the first thing he sees. He tells himself he’d stop just to spite you, but he knows he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. You feel too fucking good.

So, instead, he just mutters, “Stop that.”

Your smile grows, and you bite your bottom lip in the hopes of keeping it from forming. “Knew you’d fold.”

“Hard not to when you’re begging like that,” he says, moving to rest his forehead on yours. “Not happening again.”

(You both know it’s a lie the second he says it. But it’s fun to pretend.)

You’re grinning unabashedly when you cup his cheek and lean up to kiss him. This one is messier. It’s just as passionate, if not more, but it’s sloppy, harder to keep up with each other as he continues to pound into you. It’s a steady, quick, gratifying pace, one that already has tension pulling inside your stomach. 

“Fuck,” you moan into the kiss, breaking away as he hits just the right spot. It has you heaving in a breath, and that intensity you know so well washes over his expression. “You— I—”

“Oh, shit,” he grins. “That's it, isn't it?”

You nod vigorously, clawing at his shoulder as you fight to ground yourself. “D-Don’t stop,” you plead. “That— You— You feel so good. Please.”

Something about that seems to send Frank over the edge. He hears you loud and clear. Gripping your hips tighter, your head knocks back into your pillow as he seems to move even faster. You wrap your legs around his waist to bring him in closer, and he makes a noise that comes from somewhere low in his throat.

“I’ve got you,” he says. His voice is absolutely wrecked, and you feel yourself clench around him harder. It has him gasping out, “Fuck— I’ll g-get you there, baby. Don’t worry.”

You’re already pretty close to being there, but you need a bit more. Luckily, once again, he’s on the same page as you. He spits on his fingers and reaches down to rub at your clit. The sight alone has you whimpering. “H-holy shit. Frank, I’m— ngh. I’m fucking c-close again.”

“I know,” he grits. “And it’s the hottest f-fucking thing. “

Each movement of his is deliberate. He knows exactly how to act, how to operate, and what will work best. He has the right patterns and tricks, and knows just the right thing to say to make your head spin. You’d teased him relentlessly about his bedside manner, but this? This didn’t apply. Whatsoever.

He told you he’d get you there, and that wasn’t just a promise. It was a fact.

You can tell he’s getting closer to the edge as his face contorts and his words start to get less coherent. “So fucking beautiful,” he tells you, and God, does he mean it. “You’re fucking unreal. I-I can’t believe I get to have you like this.”

It’s the way he speaks that gets you. He’s desperate, that smart mouth of his now slurring out words with his eyes half-lidded. He straight-up grimaces as you get tighter, and you know that it’s going to be the thing that breaks you. 

“I’m gonna come,” you manage to get out. It’s not a warning. “I’m gonna— Frank, I—”

“Do it,” he says. “I’m r-right behind you. F-fucking come for me again.”

You come within seconds. If you thought the last one was debilitating, this one completely wrecks you. Your orgasm tears through your body, and it’s something white-hot and blinding. You swear you see stars, especially as Frank continues to fuck you through it. He’s whispering things in your ear that you can’t process— things that you’re not even sure he’s processing. Because as you come to, you realize he’s just as gone as you are.

He didn’t lie. He wasn’t far behind you. He follows suit within seconds, finishing with a groan that racks his entire body. His chest is heaving as he hovers up above you, eyes closed and blissed out. He collapses into you, burying his face into the crook of your neck.

You’re both breathing heavily and sweating, and your room is finally quiet. You don’t know if you can move. All you have in you right now is to lift your hand and run your fingers through his hair. 

He hums at the feeling, pressing a soft, chaste kiss to your pulse. He sits there for a moment longer, enjoying the feeling of your nails against his head. He allows himself to get his bearings before rolling off of you, making sure to be gentle as he slips out.

Frank all but collapses into the pillow beside you, staring up at the ceiling before turning his head in your direction. You meet his gaze when you feel it on you.

It takes all but three seconds for the two of you to start laughing.

You hide your face with your hands, giggling (giggling! The bastard has you fucking giggling) into them like you’d heard the world’s funniest joke. The sound comes out muffled, but it mixes well with his own. 

Grinning, Frank perches himself on his elbow, reaching over to remove your hands from your face. You look at him in that way he was talking about— the one where he can’t think straight. He shakes his head as if it’ll clear it. “Don’t get shy on me now.”

“I’m not shy,” you insist, though the warmth in your cheeks would say otherwise. “I just— I can’t believe we did that.”

He narrows his eyes, asking a question he already knows the answer to: “In a good way or a bad way.”

You take your hands from him to gently whack him on the arm. “You know it’s in a good way,” you mutter. 

“I know,” he replies. He focuses on your fingers as you intertwine them, knowing your silence a bit too well. “What are you thinking about?”

You glance up at him, pressing your lips together. “The honest or the cute answer?”

Humor graces his features at your response, but he says, “Honest. Always. I hate cute.”

Rolling your eyes, you laugh, because despite what just occurred, he’s still him. “I’m thinking about how badly I want to shower right now.”

A surprised laugh leaves him. “Seriously?” he asks, faux outrage laced within his voice. “I was that bad that you need to shower?”

You giggle again (goddamn it), turning onto your side. “No, I’m just—” You motion down at yourself. “The half a shift I worked is still on me. And now I’m sweaty. I feel gross.”

“You look pretty good to me,” he says, and when you roll your eyes again, he chuckles, rolling himself over to stand up. “I’ll get it going for you.”

You nearly reach over and kiss him then and there, but refrain from doing so. You fear you might start things up again. “Thank you,” you say. “I’ll meet you in there.”

He turns around before he gets up, excitement flickering in his eyes. “You want me to join?”

“You just told me you were going to bend me over the table the second my head heals,” you tell him blankly, biting back a smile as you watch his face go red. “I think we’re well past being shy about showering.”

“You’re fucking unreal,” he repeats, and the fondness in his voice doesn’t go missed. Something pulls at your stomach as you realize he’d said those words he’d said just minutes ago. You watch him walk into your bathroom, but before you can rally yourself to get up, he leans his head out to look at you. “What was the cute answer?”

Sighing, you smile softly as you look up at the ceiling. “You said last week that you were really glad I came back into your life,” you say. You turn your head to meet his gaze. “I was just going to tell you that I agree.”

His mouth parts, and he stares at you— but this time, there’s no confusing this look. You know exactly what he’s thinking, and while you might not have the right words to express it, it’s reciprocated tenfold. 

It takes a moment for Frank to speak, but when he does, he says, “Get in that shower the second it’s warm.” He points at you before turning around to turn your shower on. “I mean it.”

The stupid, giddy grin that spreads across your face is bright and bold. Your hands return to cover your face, and you giggle once more. 

(This time, you don’t mind it as much.)

OCTOBER 3RD, 2026. (10:30 PM)

You make it back into your bed after about an hour in the shower together. You’ve never been more grateful that your landlord pays your water bill.

What had started as something incredibly sweet and just a bit domestic, with Frank attempting to wash your hair for you, had somehow ended with him to splitting you open and taking you apart with his fingers, and he’d finally let you repay the favor by taking him in your mouth when you got back into bed.

(“I’m not letting you fucking waterboard yourself just to blow me,” he’d hissed, rolling his eyes as you frowned at him. “Right, I’m the bad guy.”)

You’d gotten into your favorite bulky sweatshirt and thrown him one of your many oversized shirts and a pair of sweatpants from your closet, ignoring his complaints about how they looked like floods on him. The last couple of minutes had been spent watching an episode of the reality TV show you’d shown him that he swore he didn’t like, talking intermittently and kissing during the commercials. 

It was something you were still wrapping your mind around doing with him, but it was getting easier to believe with each passing hour.

But as you continued to think about it— about the brevity of the situation and what this meant or could mean for you and him, something nagged at you in the back of your mind. It reared it’s ugly head every time you looked at Frank and wouldn’t fucking leave you alone.

You had to get it off your chest. He had to know.

As one of the commercial breaks begins and you feel him turn to you, you put a hand on his shoulder.

“I need to be honest with you about something.” You blurt it out so fast that it almost scares him. “And you can’t tell anyone, but you… need to know this before… whatever this is continues.”

He blinks at you. “Well, I owe you one for not reporting me to the Board, so if you killed someone, I’ve got you.”

You laugh despite your sudden nerves, flipping onto your back to stare up at the ceiling. “I didn’t, but it’s good to know I can get to lie on the stand if something happens,” you say, picking at a loose string on your sheets.

He nudges you to get you to look at him, and briefly, you do. “What’s up?” he asks gently.

With a deep breath, you glance back up at the ceiling and say, “I mentioned last week that I didn’t get into a real relationship until I moved to Boston. And I didn’t say— I wasn’t super open to talking about it.” You see him nod from your peripheral, waiting for you to continue. “I’m going to tell you who it was, but you can’t judge me.”

“The fact that you think I’d judge you after everything you know about me is mildly insulting,” he says.

You look over at him. “It was Klein. My attending.”

His brows shoot up to his hairline. “Oh. Shit.”

“Yeah. Shit,” you mutter. You take a deep breath. “We started seeing each other three months into my intern year, and I was just… obsessed with him. Which is so fucking embarassing looking back, but… I was.” You fumble with your fingers that are resting on your stomach. “I was just so starstruck by him. He was so good and he was so accomplished and so… nice to me. He told me so many times that he was drawn to me because of the things I could do, and I couldn’t believe that he’d… picked me? And after Jamie, I wanted to feel like someone’s choice.”

Frank reaches over to cover your hand with his, intertwining his fingers with yours. It’s a small, quiet comfort, and there’s a piece of you that appreciates that he doesn’t attempt to console you. He just lets you continue.

“Things happened really fast between us. Like, way too fast. It was a secret, of course. Nobody knew. Nobody ever knew about the shit he did. I mean, I was practically living in his apartment by the end of my first year, and nobody suspected a thing. He had me considering whether it was worth it to renew my lease. And it’s one of those things that, looking back on it, I should have seen what was happening,” you say. “But he had this hold on me. And even if I had wanted to, it wasn’t like I could escape him. He was my attending. We worked together. He was supposed to be my mentor, you know?” You swallow harshly. “But it never felt wrong. Ever. Not until things started falling apart.”

Frank squeezes your hand. “You don’t have to—”

“No. I want you to know this. And there’s a point to this, I promise,” you assure him. He nods into his pillow, eyes never straying from your face. “Out of nowhere, a year in, he just decided he was done with me. He told me that something had happened where he reconnected with his ex-girlfriend or something, and they’d decided they were going to try things out again. And before I knew it, he was throwing transfer applications at me and connecting me with Robby and telling me I had to get out of Boston.” You shut your eyes, steadying yourself. “He told me I was too much of a ‘temptation.’ We couldn’t be in the same hospital because he was afraid of what I’d ‘make him do’ at his big age of forty-five.”

“What a fucking asshole,” Frank scoffs. “Jesus. I had no idea.”

“I didn’t tell anyone— haven’t told anyone except for Heather. I was having a mental breakdown over it about a year ago and she—" You shake your head, deciding the reasons aren't relevant.

You continue, "I didn’t want you guys to think I was able to transfer because I was fucking my attending,” you chuckle humorlessly. “But it happened. I fell for his whole… thing. I was way too old and way too smart to fall for it, but I did. And I left because he told me to, and I went to the place he told me to go. I didn’t know it would end up being one of the best things to happen to me, and I hate that I owe him for it, but yeah... It’s something I did that I have to live with.”

“You don’t owe him for anything.”

“I know. I know I could have transferred anywhere I wanted to without him. But, still…” you trail off. You shake your head as if it’ll clear the thoughts that are in it. “I’m telling you all of this because I don’t want… this to turn into that. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t escape me. If things go wrong, I don’t want it to affect either of our careers like it did mine. Especially with all the eyes that are already on you.” He goes to interrupt you, but you turn to him and continue. “I don’t want to be Klein. Despite the fact that we should be at the same rank, we’re not. I’m an attending. You’re a resident. If people find out about us, I don’t want it to reflect poorly on you. I know it’s not the same—”

You’re not expecting him to laugh, but he does. He wipes a hand down his face. “It’s not even close to the same thing.”

“Why are you laughing? This is serious, Frank. This is—”

“Are you going to treat me differently at work?” he asks you. “Play favorites? Lay one on me in the middle of an intubation?”

Your expression goes blank. “No.”

“Are you going to make me fill out a transfer application if you get pissed at me?”

“No,” you sigh, knowing exactly what he’s getting at.

“Are you or have you ever been unprofessional in your life?” When you go to object, he cuts you off. “With anyone but me?”

Scowling, you answer, “No.”

“Then it’s not the same. Because you’re not Klein,” he tells you, looking you directly in the eye so it’ll get through. “You’re not a reckless, manipulative douche who doesn’t care about the careers and futures of the people around them. He was twenty years older than you and took advantage of your talent and your kindness.” He shakes his head. “I can’t imagine you doing anything like that. Not just to me. To anyone.”

There’s a part of you that knows that. All of it. Frank was right— you weren’t reckless or manipulative. You’re not Klein. You’d never want to be, and you’d never allow yourself to be. But even after everything, he still lingers in the back of your mind. 

You hate him for it. You hate him for a lot. But you hate him the most for that.

“I know,” you say again. “I just… I think we should take things slow. Make sure we’re not being reckless. I don’t want to rush into anything.”

His eyes haven’t left you since he finished speaking. Something flickers in his expression before he lifts up his arm. “C’mere.”

The action makes your throat immediately tighten, and you sigh before obliging. You nuzzle yourself into his side, cheek against his chest, as his arm drops to wrap around you. His fingers trace mindless patterns on your side, and suddenly, the overwhelming urge to cry overtakes you. You can’t explain it, and you don’t do it, but the tears pricking in your eyes have you biting the inside of your cheek.

He speaks against your hair. “You care too much for your own good, you know that?”

You huff. “It’s one of those weaknesses the newbies can’t know about.”

“No,” he says. “Not a weakness. Never a weakness.” He presses his lips to the top of your head. “It’s who you are. It’s my favorite thing about you.”

You shut your eyes at the words, and Frank feels your hand grip the shirt you gave him. Somehow, it endears you to him even more. Ignoring the burn in your throat, you grumble, “There are so many better things about me.”

His chest rises as he chuckles. He seems to disregard your comment as he asks, “I gotta say,” he begins, “you know that this isn’t taking things slow, right?”

Your cheeks burn, and you smack his stomach lightly. “No fucking shit,” you mutter as he continues to laugh. “I meant… more along the lines of how things progress after this. I want us both to be comfortable with it. I don’t want…”

“...You don’t want to be considering breaking your lease in a few months,” he finishes, and yeah— he’s taken the words right out of your mouth.

You sigh against him. “Yeah.”

He’s quiet for a moment. You know his pauses well enough at this point to know that he’s thinking. He moves his free hand to cover yours again. “Listen. I meant what I said before. About wanting to do things right,” he tells you. He plays with your fingers, and the simple action has your heart beating just a bit faster. “I know that this…was a little out of order, but from here on out, I mean that.”

You shift onto your stomach and place your chin on his chest to look at him. “Are you saying you don’t want to have sex with me anymore?”

“Absolutely fucking not,” he says immediately, a smile pulling at his lips as he feels you chuckle against him. “If I ever say that, take me out back and put me down like Old Yeller.” 

“Heard.”

“What I am saying is that…” He trails off, searching for the right phrasing. He finds a moment later. “There’s a rule in recovery,” he begins slowly, “that you’re not supposed to make any big life decisions until you’re a year clean. I did that time and then some. Four more months of it. And even in those four months, so much has changed for me.” He meets your gaze. “But how I’ve felt about you hasn’t. That’s one of the only things that’s stayed consistent for me since we first got coffee.”

You feel your throat tighten. “Frank—”

“I did the time. I did the waiting. I waited to see if there was some sort of clarity I was missing,” he continues. “But I came up empty. Everything about you was clear.” 

You don’t know what to say. Luckily, he has the words.

“We’ll take it slow. I’ve waited this long for you and I don’t want to fuck it up. Not this.” He sounds so sure. Insistent. Sincere. Those tears from earlier return, and this time, you don’t try to hide them. “So, yeah. We’re gonna go to that game. I’m gonna open the door for you and I’m going to pay for brunch even though you make way more money than I do, because fuck that guy.” You let out a watery laugh, and the sound of it makes him grin. “We’re gonna do this right, damn it. And if I’m lucky, you’ll kiss me at the end of the night, and you might like me half as much as I like you.”

His fingers readjust their grip on yours, and you squeeze them. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” you say, pressing your lips to his shoulder. “And I think you’ll get more than a kiss.”

Frank’s free hand raises in a fist, and he pumps it in the air. “She likes me! She really, really likes me!”

You groan, rolling your eyes as you go to remove yourself from him. “Oh, God. Not anymore. Ew.”

He grabs you before you can get too far, flipping you onto your back to hover over you. A yelp escapes you, and you try your hardest to keep the smile off your face. “C’mon,” he chides. “You were just talking about how bad you wanted to kiss me.”

“That was before you hit me with another bad reference,” you say. “It’s actually impressive how consistently shitty they are. You’re lucky you’re a good doctor because pop culture is so not your thing.”

It’s clear he’s not listening very intently, as he leans down and presses a searing kiss to your collarbone, making his way up. Against your neck, he murmurs, “I guess you’ll have to keep me around long enough to teach me what’s right.”

A breathless laugh leaves your lips. “T-That’s going to take a while.”

“That’s kind of the idea,” he says.

He pulls away from you, and you find yourself staring up at him. “Yeah?”

Frank pushes his lips together and stares at you, clearly unsure of his next words. “Last week,” he begins slowly, “you said that it’s normal for people to outgrow each other. That it happens.” 

You nod, unsure of where he’s going with this. “Yeah. And I stand by it.”

He looks at you for a moment longer, then returns your nod. “Well, I don’t…” He bites the inside of his cheek, like he’s trying to figure out if he should say what’s on his mind. “No matter how this plays out, I… I don’t want to outgrow you. I don’t see myself doing that.”

A shaky breath leaves your lips, and yeah, those tears are definitely coming back. He’s always talking about how he can’t believe you, how he doesn’t get you, how unreal you are— you wonder if he’s ever stopped to consider that you feel the same way about him.

You cannot believe him. You can’t believe the things he’s done and can do, the way he’s bettered himself, and who he’s become to you. You can’t believe that this man, whose picture you once threw darts at as a joke at a bar in med school, is now admitting things to you like this and is making you feel this way. 

You can’t believe that the person you had once wished nothing but the worst for was now one of the most important people in your life, and you’d do anything to help him feel that way. And you can’t believe that now, you know he’d do the same.

With a sniffle, you allow him to brush away a tear that falls, his hand lingering on your face to caress your cheek. “Then we’ll grow together,” you whisper, shrugging. “You can’t outgrow someone who’s growing with you.”

You see a lump form in his throat. You don’t realize he’s tearing up too until he lets out a watery laugh and asks, “Simple as that?”

“No,” you say, laughing along with him. “Definitely not simple. But I know you. And you know me.” You grin when you ask, “And when the hell have either of us given up on things just because they’re hard?”

There is no power above that could stop Frank from kissing you after that.

word count & rating: 14.1k, R (lots of swearing, M-rated stuff coming next chapter) warnings: slow-burn, rivals to friends to lovers trope in full force, they're 'enemies' who have a wild amount of respect for each other, afab!reader, reader enters the pitt as an R3, lots of swearing, banter, slight angst, mentions of child death (case gone wrong) mentions of addiction, mentions of a previous, inappropriate but consensual workplace relationship, reader was engaged in med school, likely inaccurate medical talk (i am a woman with google, reddit, and a dream), not beta read please do not roast me for typos i missed author’s note: the pitt has grabbed the attention of my hyperfixation-rotted brain in such a severe way that it made me write something for the first time in months. i know some of y’all don’t like langdon but you don’t get him like i do. i can sniff out an asshole with a redemption arc from a mile away. i stand by my canceled wife. also: need that. i blacked out while writing this, so i can’t be held accountable for anything in it. also, this was supposed to be one long 44k fic but tumblr has a paragraph limit now and wouldn't let me post it as one. if you want to read it as one whole fic instead of in two parts, you can access it on ao3! see you on the other side, love ya tons -mags

JULY 1ST, 2024. (7:00 AM)

When it came down to thinking about the worst-case scenario, you always tried to be an optimist. 

It was a hard thing to do, particularly in your line of work, but you’d always enjoyed a challenge. And in an industry full of pessimists, you figured there should be at least one person whose brain didn’t immediately jump to the most awful thing in the book.

But this? This situation you were in? This was, without a doubt, the worst possible case scenario.

You hadn’t expected your transfer to be simple. Transferring in any shape or form was rarely ever easy, even for the best of doctors. But you were especially bad with change. You didn’t like new places, new people, or feeling like you were out of the loop in any sort of way. And unfortunately for you, that’s exactly what transferring residencies entailed.

Fuck, you hadn’t even wanted to leave. You liked Mass Gen. Loved it, actually. You’d loved the people, you’d loved the city, and you’d loved the majority of the patients you’d treated. Sure, you were looking back on it with some major rose-colored glasses now, but still… you missed it already.

You missed him already.

You hated yourself for it, but it was the truth. Despite how awful of a person he was, how unfair he was to you, how he’d practically forced you to uproot your life, you couldn’t stop thinking about him. You weren’t going to see him when you clocked into work anymore. He wasn’t going to be on your shift, nudging your shoulder discreetly when you did something well, or brushing his fingers against yours when he passed you by. You weren’t going to spend all of your days off at his apartment in the city or sleep in his bed that smelled a little too much like him.

Everything was different now. Now, everything was terrible.

And it was only going to get worse.

As an already accomplished doctor in your third year of your residency, your transfer to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital hadn’t exactly been your choice. It wasn’t that it was a bad hospital (though the reviews and patient satisfaction scores would speak differently)— you knew that there were incredibly competent, wonderful people who worked there and performed miracles every day. But, when this transfer had been presented to you, it was for one reason and one reason alone: Doctor Michael Robinivinch.

He told you that he’d been friends with the hospital’s Attending Doctor Robinivich for years. That there’d be an opening for an R3 this coming July, and you’d be an absolute shoo-in for his program. Not just because of your research or your performance or even because of the things you could do on the floor, but because he could put in a good word.

You could have transferred anywhere. You could have stayed in Boston to spite him. You had connections at Brigham and Women’s and at Beth Israel. You could have moved to New York and worked at Presbyterian or moved to Baltimore and worked at Hopkins. You were good enough to have gotten into to any goddamn program with an opening that you wanted, but, like a kicked fucking dog, you listened to him. Took what he gave you. Kept coming back. And you agreed to give it a shot. 

Why did you? Who had you become? What had happened to you?

But none of that mattered. Not anymore. What mattered was that you were here in Pittsburgh and he was there in Boston, and there was nothing you could do about it. The only thing you could do was suck it up, live with the consequences, and do your job.

Taking a deep breath, you walk through the doors and are greeted with a scene that’s a little calmer than you were expecting. The floor was still alive, doctors and nurses moving from room to room, but comparatively, it’s light work. There’s something that tells you it’ll pick up within minutes.

From behind the desk in the center of the room, a blonde woman immediately clocks your confusion. “You the new resident?” she asks, squinting at you from above her glasses to get a better look at you. 

You offer a polite smile and wave, taking another breath to calm yourself before you start walking over. “That’s me,” you say, giving her your name and holding out your hand. 

“Dana,” she replies. “Charge Nurse. Doctor Robby will be in shortly. He’s excited for you to get started.”

Your brows raise. “Is he?”

“Oh, yeah,” she chuckles, shaking her head. “No one gets a letter of recommendation from Doctor Klein. Ever. Especially for a transfer, and especially not one that was as glowing as his was.”

It’s a struggle not to grimace at the sound of his name. Of course. Of course he couldn’t have been fucking normal about it. You hadn’t read the letter before you’d submitted your application. You knew it would hurt too much. But you could imagine exactly what he’d written. Praise for his prodigy. His ever-important stamp of approval and promise that you were something special. He had to talk about you in a way that raised a few brows. He couldn’t let you be normal, could you? He had to be attached to your success somehow.

“Oh, God,” you mutter, forcing the smile to stay on your face. “Let’s hope I live up to it.”

“I’m sure you will.” She nods at you reassuringly, then turns to start pointing out important people and places on the floor. “So, we’re in the process of switching over from—”

“No way,” a voice says from across the desk. 

It’s one that rings a bit too familiar. Your stomach starts to churn as, uncharacteristically, the worst-case scenario starts to play out in your head. No. There was absolutely no way. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t be here. Why would he be…

That voice interrupts your thoughts before you’re done spiralling. “No fucking way,” it repeats, now accented by a disbelieving laugh. “Flight Risk?”

Hearing the god-awful, horrible nickname that plagued you all throughout med school sends a genuine chill down your spine. Slowly, you turn your head, praying that it’s not who you think it is.

But your prayers go unanswered, and the worst-case scenario is now playing out in front of you. 

Frank Langdon stands opposite you, a shit-eating grin stretched across his lips. 

Not him. Anyone but him.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” you say, unable to move in your state of shock. 

You feel like shaking Dana’s hand and wishing her a good day, and walking out of the doors you just entered through, never to be seen again. It would go against everything that was in your application, everything that told programs that you were competent, professional, and reliable, but right now, you didn’t care. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t happen. You couldn’t work with him again.

Not again.

Frank Langdon had made your life an unadulterated living hell for the entirety of medical school. You associated him with a whole other lifetime of yours— one that felt far away and slightly hazy. One where you were younger, less world-weary, less weathered. You were engaged, you had a dog, you had, what you assumed at the time, was your forever life. It had been perfect. Everything back then was more manageable. Everything but Langdon.

(That, of course, wasn’t the truth. You’d figure that out within the first six months of medical school. You’d end your first year single, without a ring, without your dog, and on antidepressants. But, yeah. Langdon didn’t help.)

He had been hostile, ultra-competitive, and, for lack of a better word, an absolute fucking asshole for all four of the years you’d spent with him. Calling him your rival sounded rudimentary, but frankly, that’s what the two of you were. Rivals.

Any exams you took? He was actively comparing your scores and letting you know how you could have done better. Research papers? Any topic you showed relative interest in, he’d be there, ready to claim it. Labs? He was over your shoulder, watching each thing you did with a hawk-like intensity that never failed to get on your nerves. You run into him when studying in the library? He’d stay just as long as you did, if not longer, simply to prove a point.

You’d tried to ignore him, but he had made it so hard to do so. As someone who was also ultra-competitive, every little thing he did motivated you to beat him. Every comment, every time he scored higher than you, performed better than you had, anything. It had all messed with your head and made you focus on one thing and one thing alone— being better. Better than him. Better than everyone.

And you were. Of course, he was great too. You hated him with a vitriolic passion, but you knew just how good he was at what he did. It wouldn’t have been fun or fulfilling to beat him if he weren’t.

(Fun was a stretch. It was actually agonizing to compete with him. But it made you feel good every time you won.)

This rivalry only ended when you were matched to your residency programs. All of your friends and fellow students shot for the moon. Your school regularly produced some of the best talent the medical world had seen, who were often placed into the best hospitals in the country. You were no exception.

Massachusetts General Hospital was your top choice. You weren’t unique in that aspect. But you were the only one to get placed there in your class.

Match Day had been a whirlwind of emotions, and after finding out where you’d been assigned, you basically blacked out the rest of the day. You didn’t remember a whole lot from those next couple of hours. All of your hard work had paid off, and in your professional opinion, your brain had shut down from exhaustion. 

The only thing you remember from that day was the conversation you had with Langdon outside of one of the bars your cohort frequented. The celebration was in full swing, complete with your classmates and loved ones drinking and dancing to the songs of whoever had taken over the TouchTunes. You only remembered talking to him because it was one of the only civil conversations the two of you had ever had. In your drunken stupors, you’d compared placements, bragged about each of your respective programs, and ended on… 

Well, it was a note you couldn’t define then. You’re not sure if you could define it now.

While you remembered having that conversation, you’d forgotten after all this time that this was where he’d been placed. You hadn’t seen him in almost three years. You’d barely thought about him, least of all where he was. After those four years, there was nothing you wanted less than to dwell on your time with him. You weren’t checking in on him on social media, couldn’t have been bothered to ask your friends who still spoke to him— nothing. 

Perhaps that was your own fault.

You could delay your residency a year, couldn’t you? You could take a year off, travel the world, add on to your student loans, and then apply to some other program where he wasn’t. Yeah. That seemed like a better alternative.

As you continue to stare at each other, Dana glances between the two of you in confusion. “I take it you two know each other?”

Langdon’s eyes never leave yours, but his smile grows. “Flight Risk and I went to med school together.”

There was that stupid fucking nickname again. You thought you’d been freed from it when you’d gone to Mass Gen. You’d hoped that it was some teasing name that had stuck for everyone after he’d said it, but would be gone when you graduated. You never, ever considered that it would come back to haunt you in a professional setting. Especially not from him.

Dana’s brow quirks. “Flight Risk?”

You sigh, long and heavy. “It’s not important.”

“Not important?” Langdon asks, like he’s offended. He rounds the desk to stand beside you and look at Dana. “It’s very important. It’s who she is.”

You suppress the urge to choke him out with the stethoscope around his neck. “It’s not who I am—”

“First day of class,” he interrupts you, “we were watching this video that covered an abscess draining—”

“Abscess drainage on the first day of class?” Dana asks, making a face.

“Don’t ask. The professor was a freak,” you say. You return to glaring at Langdon immediately after. “And this is so irrelevant, can we please—”

“The video freaked her out so bad that she ended up running out of the classroom to throw up,” he finishes. You shut your eyes in annoyance. “But she got right back in there and got her shit together, didn’t you, slugger?”

“I did,” you say, forcing a faux smile to match his condescending tone. “Same way you got back on the horse after sawing our cadaver’s spine in half during our first lab, right, champ?” 

His grin falters. “That saw was faulty.”

“So was my stomach that morning,” you reply. Your voice is syrupy sweet. “I didn’t get everyone to start calling you Leatherface.”

Dana’s eyes bounce between you two like she’s watching tennis. There’s the beginnings of a smirk on her lips as she asks, “Is this gonna be a problem? You two working together?”

“No,” you say quickly, abandoning and resigning from your pissing contest with Langdon immediately. You see him glance at you in surprise out of the corner of your eye. “It won’t. We— I’m totally professional. Just wasn’t expecting this.” Trying your best at a real smile this time around, you nod at your new charge nurse. “No issues. And if it ever becomes one, please let us know.”

Your incredibly cordial and smooth response has Langdon dipping his head in laughter, and the second you notice it, you whack him hard on the arm. It seems to be enough to kick him into gear. “Yeah, Dana,” he chuckles. “We’ll be good. I swear.”

It’s clear that she one-hundred-percent does not believe you. Still, she says, “Good. This place doesn’t work unless we’re all on the same page.” 

“I’m liking it here already,” you say, earning a slightly more genuine smile from her. 

“Robby will be in for rounds in a minute,” she tells you. “Hang tight until then. And you,” she says, now looking at Langdon. “Don’t be an asshole, okay?”

He has the audacity to act offended. “I would never.”

With a roll of her eyes, Dana turns back around to take care of some other task that needs her attention, and she leaves you with Langdon standing at your side. You’re expecting him to leave, to go cherry-pick a case (he seemed like the type), or go chat with one of the other residents who were clocking in. But he doesn’t.

He just lingers. It’s as if he’s excited by this. Excited by you.

It instantly makes you anxious in a way that you haven’t felt since school.

“And if it ever becomes one, please let us know,” he parrots, changing octaves to imitate you. Fucking child. “I haven’t heard that voice since rotations.”

“Oh, will you just shut the fuck up already?” you hiss. Any sense of professionalism or niceties had been completely thrown out the window now that you were alone. There’s a piece of you that hates how he’s been able to get under your skin so quickly, but the other part is so angry and frustrated with him that you can’t seem to care. “I’m trying to make a good impression on my first day, and you’re opening with the Flight Risk bullshit less than five minutes in?”

Langdon clenches a fist in victory. “There she is,” he all but cheers, though he’s kind enough to keep his voice down. “Man, I thought Mass Gen had made you boring and polite. But it’s great to know you’re still in there.”

“Same to you,” you mutter. “It’s reassuring to know that three years in the ED gave you absolutely zero growth.”

“I have to know what you’re going here,” he says, bulldozing your last comment. “Going from where you were to The Pitt of all places? That’s—”

“That’s what you guys call this place?” you question, glancing around the room. 

“You’ll catch on.” He turns to you with his arms crossed over his chest. “So, what happened? What did you do? Did you kill someone?”

“Not yet,” you reply with a glare. “Day just started, though.”

“Yeah, Klein wouldn’t have written you a letter if you had,” he reasons to himself, like you’re not even there. “How did you pull that off, by the way?”

You’re exhausted by him already, and your frustration seeps into your voice. “I’m really fucking good at what I do,” you say. 

“No, that’s not it.” He shakes his head, and you restrain yourself from reaching over and hitting him again. “You’re good, sure. But plenty of his people are good.”

“You are such a jackass,” you scoff. 

He’s already moving on to the next thing. “No, but seriously. What happened? Did you flunk out? Did they dismiss you? Or did it get to be a little too much and you couldn’t handle it?”

You wish you knew your way around this place so you didn’t have to stand here and take this. “I don’t have to disclose that to you.”

“That’s exactly what it was, wasn’t it? You ran out and bailed.” He grins to himself. “Oh, Flight Risk. That is so like you.”

Clenching your jaw, you steel your expression so as to not give anything away. No, you want to tell him. That’s not what happened. That’s not even close to what happened. You didn’t want to leave. You didn’t want to run. Not this time.

But you did. You had.

So, you don’t correct him. You’re open to letting him think whatever it is he believes, so he’ll ask fewer questions. The last thing you want to do is talk about it. Not with him. At all.

Lucky for you, you’re saved by the bell. A taller, older guy in a zip-up sweatshirt walks over to the two of you, and while there’s a small smile on his face, there’s a hint of hesitancy in his expression as he watches you and Langdon interact.

You recognize Doctor Robinovitch immediately, having met him a handful of times (mostly over video chat and once in person) before you were accepted into the program. Despite that, you still find yourself straightening up and plastering a smile on your face.

“How we doing over here?” he asks, holding his hand out to shake yours.

Meeting his hand, you practically step in front of Langdon to cut him out of the conversation. “Great. It’s so good to see you again. I’m excited to get started.”

“I’m excited for you to get started,” he says. “Klein called me last night to sing your praises again and remind me to be nice to you. He says you’re special.” 

You hope the rage that brews in your stomach doesn’t show on your face. “Did he? That was kind of him.”

“Yeah, well. When he likes someone, he likes them, y’know?” Right. Robby points between you and Langdon. “Dana told me you two went to school together?”

“We did,” you say, hoping to control the situation before Langdon can butt in.

He decides to be the exact dickhead you know him to be. “And she sure is special.”

Robby’s eyes narrow slightly at his response, but thankfully, he decides to ignore Langdon’s tone. “Two endorsements from people who don’t give ‘em out,” he says to you, nodding over at Langdon. “Not too bad, Doc. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

And as you set off on your first case at The Pitt, and as Langdon grins at you in that sardonic way that always seems to get under your skin, you wonder just how long you’ll actually make it around here.

JULY 1ST, 2025. (7:00 AM)

One year later, you’re still here.

It’s an absolute whirlwind of a year, and it goes by faster than you could have imagined. The day you’d joined had ended up being one of the craziest days you had ever worked, and between that, the fact that you were still reeling from leaving Boston, and working with Langdon for the first time in years? You didn’t know if this place was for you.

But you were never one to give up on things easily.

And every day since, you’ve been thankful you didn’t. You’d found friends in the majority of your coworkers, a sense of belonging in a city you didn’t know, and you’d learned more from Robby in three months than you’d ever learned from… him.

While Pittsburgh wasn’t your favorite city on earth, you’d grown to love it in its own way. You loved your little neighborhood. You loved your apartment and the coffee shop you’d found down the street that made an insane flat white. You actually liked the work you were doing.  

You hadn’t felt like that in months.

You had made friends with some of your neighbors over the course of the year, and each time you talked about a bad day at work with them, one of them would ask what made you go back every shift. Each time, your answer was the same.

You loved the work and you loved the people. Rekindling that was like magic.

Of course, not everything was perfect. The floor was unforgiving. There was always something new every day— and some things you weren’t prepared for. You lost patients. You lost children. You had days when all you wanted to do was hide in the break room and cry. 

But, as Robby would remind you whenever he saw that look on your face, you saved more than you lost. You won’t forget the ones you’ve lost, but you can try to be better the next time around. And that’s all you could do.

You supposed that was true enough. 

The only outlier of the great Pitt equation, however, was Langdon.

You knew he would be the second you joined the team. He had been a constant pain in your ass for the entirety of med school, and now that you were back in each other’s lives, he saw no reason for that to change. He was just as competitive, just as snarky, and just as much of an asshole as he used to be.

But, thankfully, he was professional about it. That was the only thing that had changed between you. Now that you two were legit, full-fledged Doctors, title and all, he wasn’t as overt about his disdain for you. He’d heeded your warning from your first day and had actually listened to you.

You refused to commend him for doing the bare minimum, but it was nice to know he wasn’t an idiot. 

While he may not have been an idiot, what he was was a fucking nuisance. Any case you wanted to take on? He was already running to the room. Any time there was an opportunity to show you up or call you out for something wrong? He took it. Any chance he had to trick you into taking a case he knew you’d hate? There he was, ready with some sort of story. 

(“Doc, Robby wants you in South Five,” he had told you about a month in. He motioned you over, watching as your ears literally perked up. You were on your feet following him in seconds. “Major foot trauma with mycetoma, it’s not looking good.”

It took every bone in your body not to bolt out of the room when you saw the patient’s foot was infested with maggots, something he’d clearly, purposely left out. He’d whipped around to type something into the computer in an attempt to hide his laughter the second you’d turned to glare at him. 

You’d whacked him upside the head with your chart after you’d successfully cleared the guy.

“I told you it didn’t look good!” he shouted after you as you practically ran to the bathroom to re-wash your hands.)

Or, there was the rare occasion where he’d come to you with his tail between his legs, actually asking for your help. It didn’t happen often, certainly not in your first couple of months, but when it did and he’d slump down beside you with that look in his eye, you’d take it on hesitantly. 

And somehow, it always kicked you in the ass later on.

(Langdon had taken on a case with a younger, tween girl who refused to talk to him. Getting people to open up wasn’t exactly something he was proficient in. There were others in the ED who were good at the social aspect of this job, and most of the time, he was fine with being better at the action side.

But not right now. And unfortunately for him, you were one of those people who were good at getting through. And, even more unfortunately for him, you were the only person who was currently available.

When he came to ask for help, you almost laughed in his face. But this time around, he seemed resigned. Slightly resentful and begrudingly flustered. It was real.

So, with a sigh, you followed him to the room. 

Within five minutes, you had the girl talking with you. You remember the look on Langdon’s face as she did. The way his head dipped in a quiet laugh, graced with disbelief and the slightest bit of annoyance. It felt like a win.

She keeps her eye on Langdon, who observes you two from the corner, cheeks going red each time she meets his eyes. As you check her vitals, she grabs your arm, weakly bringing you down to her eye level. She motions for you to come closer, then cups her hand to her mouth to whisper in your ear.

“He’s really cute,” she says, middle-school embarrassment clear as day in her voice. For her sake, you refrain from rolling your eyes and rattling off every single awful quality about him and why she should actually hate him. “I was so nervous to talk to him.”

You give her a small smile, shaking your head. “Well, if you’re more comfortable chatting with me, I’m happy to stay and hang out for a little. But you’re in good hands with Doctor Langdon,” you respond, the volume of your voice matching hers. Glancing over your shoulder, you find that he’s still watching you, his expression having morphed into something more gentle. He’s been trying to get this girl to open up for an hour, and here you are whispering with her five minutes in. 

He’d never get you. He’d resigned himself to that idea.

But that look of his was wiped off his face the second you turn back to the girl, who immediately starts coughing up blood onto your face and scrubs. There was no time to laugh or be grossed out as the two of you immediately jumped into action, truly working together for the first time since you began to figure out what was going on.

After you had stabilized the girl, you demanded his card for ScrubEx credits, but returned to the floor with a pout, wearing new scrubs that were two sizes too big for you. The snickering from him, Dana, and Princess at the nurse's station makes you hang your head. 

“This is the only size it had,” you grumbled, working to roll up the waistband of your pants.

“Oh, bless your heart,” Dana said. “You look adorable, kiddo.”

“Adorable and very professional,” Langdon agreed. “I need that sad Charlie Brown music to start playing every time you walk.”

You scowled at him. “This is your fault.”

McKay chose this time to check in and began laughing as soon as she saw you in your oversized set. “What, is it bring your kid to work day? I should have brought Harrison in.”)

However, as time went on, you learned how to work with him. You still did not get along in any way, shape, or form, but every so often, when you two worked on the same case, you’d be able to put aside whatever difference you two had and work like real, true colleagues. 

The arguing was still there. My god, was it still there. But, when it came down to it and you two got serious, there was always some sort of energy between you. You were always working in tandem. Always on the same page. 

Mohan had once told you that it was like a dance. That it was hard to look away from. Frankly, you didn’t know what that meant and were a little afraid to ask.

(Six months in, the EMTs bring in a guy in his mid-fifties who’s been slipping in and out of consciousness since they got him. As you run over to the gurney, they tell you he fell down the stairs, and one of his kids had found him and called it in. Langdon’s on your heels, rounding the gurney, assessing the scene immediately.

“Guy’s name is Anthony,” one of the EMTs says. “He’s got a major concussion, a couple of broken bones, and is bleeding rapidly from the back of his head.”

“He shouldn’t be bleeding this fast,” Langdon mutters. “Is he on thinners?”

“Anthony? Are you with us?” you ask, rubbing his chest in the hopes of drawing his attention back to you. His eyes open slowly, and he looks up, dazed. “You’re in the hospital, Anthony. You fell down the stairs, and you’re bleeding pretty bad. Do you take any medication? Any blood thinners?”

Anthony takes a moment to think, eyes casting to the ceiling. “Yeah,” he slurs. “I don’t… know what it’s called. My wife deals with my pills. It’s like… Wa… War-friend?”

Your eyes snap to Langdon’s, who rolls his and suddenly grabs the gurney a bit tighter. “Warfarin?” you ask lightly, and the second it leaves your lips, everyone around the bed picks up the pace a little.

“Yeah,” Anthony says again. “That’s… it.”

“Okay, Anthony,” you reply, directing everyone into Trauma Two. “You’re about to make a lot of friends really quickly.”

Langon moves by you to put on a gown, then passes you your own. “It’s always fucking Warfarin.”

“War-Enemy,” you correct, shaking your head. “That shit is not my friend.”

You hear him chuckle softly, and you pass him a pair of goggles over your shoulder. As he grabs them from you, he says, “I’m calling the FDA to get them to change the name.”)

But, sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, you’d get along.

Typically, it happened under more tragic circumstances than you’d hope for. When something went wrong on the floor. When you had lost someone. When you’d tried everything you could on a case and nothing worked. It was only then that the two of you would be anything more than civil. 

It didn’t always feel as strange as you thought it would. 

(You lose a five-year-old girl eight months in.

It’s a peanut allergy. She eats a cookie at a neighborhood party that the parents were unaware had peanuts in it. She’s rushed in by said parents, who can barely speak because of how torn up they are. Her EpiPen isn’t working. 

She’s in full anaphylaxis by the time you get her on the table, and she’s barely breathing. Your head snaps to the door as Langdon runs into the trauma room, and you’re throwing a pair of goggles at him before he can even ask what you’ve got. You slip into that dance you do a bit too easily, and it instills enough confidence in you that you think you’ll actually be able to save her.

There’s a moment where you think that she’ll be okay. Every person in this room has done enough procedures like this before. This should be easy. 

But it’s not. She’s too far gone. She dies four minutes in. You couldn’t save her. She is five years old. And you couldn’t save her.

And it hits you hard.

Seeing the look in your eye, Robby sends you into the break room, letting you know that he’ll handle the parents. You nod at him in thanks, not having the words to say it.

You find yourself sitting against the wall, headphones plugged into your ears and legs tucked to your chest. It’s a pathetic, desperate search for comfort. You shut your eyes in the hopes of pulling yourself together.

You don’t notice Langdon coming into the room. You’re so in your head and the music’s just a bit too loud that you don’t register his presence until he takes a seat next to you. That’s when you feel him. And you don’t even have to open your eyes to know it’s him.

When you finally do, you don’t say anything. You just look at him. His legs are splayed out on the floor, head inclined back against the wall. 

As if he feels your gaze, he turns his head to meet it. For a moment, you just stare at each other. Then, wordlessly, you reach up and pull an earbud from your ear and offer it to him.

He huffs a humorless laugh through his nose, shaking his head. But he accepts it.

You don’t talk. Not a word. You just sit there together, trying to recoup, listening to a playlist you’d made when you’d first started your residency. If the circumstances were different, it might just be nice.

Two songs later, you two leave the break room. You never speak about it again.)

You weren’t friends. You barely tolerated each other. But on the rare occasion that the two of you were put on the same case, you did work together. Pretty well, at that.

The fact that you’d been at The Pitt for a year now was something that was still mind-blogging to you. While you were only slightly miserable for the first couple of months, once you’d gotten your bearings, time had flown by. Change was never kind to you. It wasn’t something you sought out. But looking back, this was probably one of the best things you could have done for yourself. 

It’s something you think about as you clock in for your shift and see the new recruits surrounding the nurse's station. You don’t envy them. Being the new kid as an R3 was hard enough-- you couldn’t imagine the anxiety the med students and interns were feeling. Especially with the stuff you saw here on a daily basis. 

You take an earbud out of your ear as you approach the station, Dana’s eyes lighting up when she sees you. “Happy one year, Doc,” she calls to you. “I feel like we should throw a party.”

“We can start popping champagne when we clock out,” you reply, leaning on the counter. “Something tells me we’re gonna need it anyway.”

“The Oracle of Pittsburgh has spoken,” Dana tells Collins, who’s just walked in behind you. “Bad day today.”

“I hate when you do that,” she all but whines. “At least let me start my day before you curse it.”

You shrug. “I’m not responsible for my predictions. I’m just burdened with knowledge.” 

“Well, close that third eye or whatever,” Collins mutters. “I need a good day for once, Risky.”

“Compromise,” you pose, pointing at the two of them. “The second you guys stop calling me that, I’ll foresee a good day.”

(Yeah, unfortunately, Langdon’s god-awful nickname had stuck. It’d been amended slightly and changed it to be just a bit more palatable, but you still fucking hated it. Langdon couldn’t have been more pleased that it had caught on.)

Dana and Collins exchange a glance, then look back at you. “I think we’ll take our chances,” Dana says.

You scowl at them. “One of these days, I’m actually going to call HR on this entire floor. Name-calling is a serious offense. I’ll file with Lisa for bullying and harassment.” 

“If my name’s in that report, Lisa will throw it out,” says a voice from behind you. You hold back your sigh as Langdon appears at your side. “She loves me.”

You look at him blankly for a moment, then turn to your friends. You motion to Langdon. “See? I told you. Bad day.”

“Is that the official Oracle report?” he asks. His eyes find the new students and residents gathered together and he sucks his teeth. “God help the newbies.”

Dana huffs a laugh. “You can say that again.” Then, realizing the group before her, she pats the counter. “Happy fourth year, you three.”

She steps away from you then, moving to take care of some new problem that had come up. The sentiment is left with you, and a tiny bit of pride bubbles in your stomach. You knew you were going to make it to your final residency year. Since you’d graduated, there had only been one instance that you’d ever questioned your career path. Since that moment, you hadn’t had a second thought.

But still. You had done it. It wasn’t a linear path, but you’d done it. You allowed yourself to be proud of that.

You glance over at Collins, who seems to be on the same wave as you. You bump her shoulder with yours, and she grins at you, then walks over to her desk area to get set up for the day. 

“Did you ever think that we’d end up finishing our residencies together?” Langdon asks you when you turn back to him.

You refrain from laughing in his face. “Fuck, no. I was hoping to be as far away from you as possible. Still want to be.”

“And yet,” he says, “here we are.”

A sickly sweet smile takes over your lips. “Fellowships can’t come soon enough.”

His eyes narrow. “Don’t act like you won’t miss me.”

“Talk to me at the end of next year,” you mutter, taking a step back to follow Collins. “But I don’t foresee that happening.”

“Is that the official Oracle report?” he repeats.

“It’s the clearest thing I’ve seen all day,” you say from over your shoulder.

JULY 1ST, 2025. (11:00 AM)

As it turns out, the clearest thing you’ll see all day was your first prediction. The day turns out to be more than bad. It’s an apocalyptic, undeniable shitshow that’s unlike anything you’ve seen before.

It starts out slow. The new residents continue to work at their new positions and better understand the environment. The med students look at you with wide eyes as you correct them. They ask questions and get acclimated to the work. You find yourself getting paired with the med student Whitaker and the intern Santos the most-- two working experiences that couldn’t be more different.

Whitaker is careful. He’s warm. He’s good with the patients. He’s hesitant. Incredibly unlucky. Then again, you could have guessed those things about him the second you saw him.

(“I want that one,” you say to Collins at Rounds, nodding in his direction. “The one that looks like a mouse who made a wish to become human for a day. I want him with me.”)

But he surprises you with how hard he tries. He cares. He plays most things by the book. You can tell exactly when he’s freaking out, despite the way he tries to hide it. 

You see a sliver of your younger self in him, and perhaps, that’s what endears you to the kid.

Santos, on the other hand, is on the farthest end of that spectrum. She’s a bit more abrasive. Cares a little less about bedside manner. She thinks she’s leagues above the newbies, and honestly, she might just be. She’s incredibly competent and is already surprising you with what she knows. 

She’s also rather confrontational. Just a bit reckless. She doesn’t understand the well-established hierarchy, and while you don’t think this is a fundamentally bad thing, it’s not ideal for a first year. You told her as such fifteen minutes ago.

(You observe her working to treat a man who’s hooked up to a double lumen port and has been in the ED for a couple of hours. There’s a suspected port infection, and you ask exactly how you think this should be handled.

She’s correct when she tells you intermittent antibiotics. She’s correct when she suggests Vancomycin. She’s wrong when she orders half doses to be put into both sides of the double lumen.

It’s a mistake you almost don’t catch, but thankfully, you do. She tries to argue with you, saying that her math is right, it makes sense, and that he’ll be getting the full dose. She’s wrong.

You glance at Donnie, order the correct rate, and then pull her outside.

“Listen to me,” you tell her. Your voice is soft but assertive, and it makes her shut her mouth almost immediately. “I’m assuming you graduated top of your class, right? Or you were at least up there?”

She blinks at you, obviously not expecting you to pose whatever reprimand you’re about to lay on her like that. “Uh, yeah. I did.”

“I know. I can tell. You’re good.” You cross your arms over your chest. “You’re a resident now, and that’s a big deal. You’ve made it. But just because you’re good or that you’ve made it, it doesn’t mean that you get to make all the calls.”

She looks away from you. “I’m not making all the calls. It’s the right dose—”

“Theoretically, yes. But in practice, it’s not,” you say slowly. “Double lumens aren’t super common, I know. And yeah, two half-doses make a full one. But when you push two halves, you’re pushing them at the same time. That means you’re doubling the rate of the Vancomycin.” You see the realization hit her the second the words leave your mouth. “That’s when we get Direct Mast Cell Activation--”

“And I send that guy into Red Man,” she mutters, eyes shutting.

You nod with a soft sigh. “Right.” 

She shifts uncomfortably in front of you. “That just slipped my mind. I’m a little overwhelmed. I didn’t—"

“Nobody means to miss things, Santos. But we miss less when we’re not diving in head first without goggles on,” you say. “Take a second to breathe when you’re in there. Think about everything. You’ve proven that your first instinct is right most of the time, but just… consider all options.” Patting her on the arm, you nod at her. “And take the advice the older residents give you. We’re not all incompetent idiots, alright?”)

She’s quick. She’s argumentative. She’s a nicknamer. She makes mostly effective, snap decisions that you couldn’t imagine making as a first-year. She—

Holy fuck, she’s Langdon. She’s so Langdon that it actually makes your head spin. Perhaps, that’s what makes you a bit uneasy about her.

(What you don’t see, however, is what happens when you walk away from Santos. She sighs and runs a hand down her face, narrowly avoiding Langdon as he walks toward the scene he was quite obviously watching. 

“Did Risky just yell at you?” he asks, staring as you walk away.

“Kinda,” she huffs, frustrated and clearly not in the mood for whatever he’s got for her.

“Wow,” he chuckles. “The only person she yells at is me. You must have pissed her off.” Before Santos can respond and piss off another resident, he walks away saying, “Whatever she said, listen to her. She’s the smartest person on this floor.”)

You find him at the nurse’s station after you finish triage with a patient. He has his phone out, showing Dana a photo. Then, he mentions something that genuinely makes you laugh out loud.

“You got Abby a dog?” you ask, fully intruding on the conversation. Langdon jumps as the med chart you’re holding clatters on the counter.

“Jesus,” he mutters. “We need to get you a bell or something.”

You completely ignore him and instead choose to rephrase your question. “You’ve been bitching about never being home for the last three months and you bought your wife and two children a dog?”

“It’s so like you to hate puppies,” he says. “I take it you have a problem with World Peace and babies, too?”

You catch Dana rolling her eyes out of the corner of yours, clearly fed up with the two of you already. “The hell are you talking about? I love dogs. I used to co-parent one with my ex back in med school.” Langon looks at you in surprise, and you wave him off. “Jamie got custody of the ring and the dog when I left him. But I’m just saying. If you hate your wife, you should have just told her. You didn’t need to give her an animal.”

He narrows his gaze at you, a sneer already curling at his lips. “The fuck—? I don’t hate—”

“You’re never home. Your wife works. You have two kids under four—”

“Tanner says he’s going to take care of it.”

“Yeah, and when I was four, I told my parents the same exact thing when I wanted them to buy me a dog at the mall.” You nod in faux enthusiasm. “You know what they did when I asked? They bought me a Tamagotchi instead.” Dana shakes her head, but you can see her holding back a smile. “I killed it two days later.”

“Well, that’s because you’re you,” Langdon says. “And you’re the fucking Antichrist.”

“I’m just saying.” You shrug, moving over to look at the screen to see which patient to take next. “If you wanted to drop two thousand dollars, you should have taken your wife to a spa and gotten Tanner a tablet with Roblox. Not a living creature that shits on the floor.”

He scoffs as he follows you. “And raise an iPad baby? Pass. I see too many of those here a day.” His arm brushes yours as he parks himself beside you and crosses his arms over his chest. You physically cannot help the way your lip curls up in disgust, and you’re not in control of your body when you step away. “Do you want the dislocated shoulder in South Seven or the kidney stones in North Three?”

“I don’t cherry-pick,” you mutter, trying to sound as self-righteous as possible. You don’t have to look at him to know that he’s rolling his eyes. “Skull fracture in Six needs to be tended to. I’m going there.”

He frowns. “I wanted that one.”

You’re already moving in the direction of South Seven. “Great. Take it. I wanted the dislocated shoulder anyway,” you say.

He’s protesting as you practically run away. “So much for not cherry-picking!”

You throw up your hands in a shrug. “Give Mr. Skull Fracture a hug for me!”

JULY 1ST, 2025. (2:00 PM)

You crack into your second energy drink of the day, ignoring the look that Mohan gives you as you do so. 

“Unless you’d like me to fall asleep with a scalpel in my hand, I don’t want to hear it,” you tell her. 

“I’m just saying,” she replies, “there are better options. I’ve been really into--”

“If you tell me that matcha is a good replacement for the two hundred milligrams of caffeine that I get from this chemical weapon, I’m going to yell at you,” you warn, pointing a finger at her with the hand that’s holding your can. “It’s like offering me coke and then giving me a salad.”

You hear McKay chuckle from behind you. “It’s a lost cause, Samira.”

“She’s been trying for the last six months,” you say to her from over your shoulder. “I admire the tenacity.” You turn back to Mohan. “I’m forcing a vodka-Red Bull down your throat when we go for drinks next week, when I finally get you out of your cave of an apartment, you can finally experience the magic.”

“I’m just trying to help you,” Mohan grumbles, completely ignoring your last comment. “There’s a lavender matcha that I’ve been getting at the coffee shop on my way here that’s really good. I’ll bring you one tomorrow. We’ll start making the switch.”

“I love you. I do,” you tell her, voice gentle. “But I also refuse to let you waste your money. You can send matcha powder to my grave when you’re old and out of debt after these things kill me.”

Mohan shakes her head. “It’s not as fun to say ‘I told you so’ when you’re dead, though.”

“Take what you can get,” says Langdon, interrupting the conversation in that way he loves to do. “I’m still riding the high from when I was able to say it back in 2019.”

You give him the fakest of fake smiles. “Crazy how you haven’t been able to say it since.”

“It’ll happen again one of these days,” he says. “I know it.”

“Yeah, I’m not seeing that,” you reply. “And I’m the Oracle here.”

“That you are,” he mutters, glancing at Mohan and McKay. He then nods at you, motioning for you to follow him. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Confusion warps your face. “Me?”

“I’m looking directly at you,” Langdon says, like you’re the idiot.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter. With that confirmation, you do, in fact, round the nurse's station to let him lead you into the break room. You ask to his back, “But when have you ever pulled me to chat? Typically, you go the public humiliation route.”

He doesn’t say anything as you enter the room, but shuts the door the moment you’re inside. It’s only then that you notice the look in his eye. It’s slightly crazed and just a bit paranoid. What the hell?

“Are you good?” you ask hesitantly.

He nods again, but it’d be clear to anyone that he’s lying. “Have you…” He shuts his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Have you heard anything about me today? Anyone ask you anything about me? Say anything?”

Your perplexed expression only grows. “Uh… no? Should I be? Hearing things, I mean? Did you do something?”

“Why do you assume I did something?” he asks.

You’re astounded by the nerve of him to be frustrated with you after he pulled you away from work to talk about petty shit like this. “Because you’re kidnapping me and taking me into the break room to ask if the popular girls are gossiping about you.”

His nostrils flare. “I’m serious.”

“I am, too,” you say. “This isn’t high school, Langdon. Nobody’s passing notes in the hall or starting rumors to get you kicked off the football team. I haven’t heard anything.”

(This was a lie, of course. Word traveled fast in this hospital, and there wasn’t a nurse on the payroll who didn’t love a gossip session. But, no, you hadn’t heard anything about him.)

The way he stares at you has you asking, “Are you okay? What’s got you so freaked out?”

“Nothing,” Langdon answers, perhaps a bit too quickly. Your eyes narrow. “I mean it, it’s--” He pushes both hands outward, like he’s expelling some sort of negative energy. “It’s nothing you want to be a part of. I just wanted to ask.”

You purse your lips, questions on your tongue, but you know they’re not worth asking. “O-kay,” you say instead, drawing the word out.

But he’s not done. Before you can make your exit from this delightfully awkward and strange conversation, he grabs your arm. You turn to him with wide eyes. “Just— if Santos comes to talk to you… let me know, okay?”

You’re three kinds of confused and are experiencing some major whiplash. You take his hand off of you, throwing it to the side. “Wha— Santos? What the hell is she—” You cut yourself off with another question. “Are you already fighting with the fucking intern?”

“No,” he says defiantly. “I’m not. Jesus. Just, please—”

“Then what is it? Did something happen?”

He shakes his head, blowing past you to get to the door. “It’s nothing. Don’t— don’t worry about it.” He meets your eyes briefly before turning back around. “Forget I said anything.”

He knows you won’t. Forgetting wasn’t something you did. He knows he just fucked himself over by simply bringing it up to you, but it’s too late to do anything about it now.

He walks out the door, his anxiety festering, and your suspicion rising.

JULY 1ST, 2025. (4:55 PM.)

Two hours left, you tell yourself. Two hours.

Despite the fact that there are only two hours left of your shift, you’ve been trying to ignore a migraine for the last thirty minutes. Literally and physically.

It had developed when Dana got hit. You were coming out of Trauma Two with Whitaker when you saw her stumble in, immediately springing into action alongside Robby. It took a look from him and a hand on your shoulder from Dana to keep you from running out into the parking lot to go find the guy and do God-knows-what, so you’d settled for keeping her company when she went to get a CT.

The migraine surfaced when she’d returned to the floor and had burned a hole in your head since then. You’d glance at her, letting her know that you were going to go run and grab some ibuprofen from your bag in your locker and that you’d be back in a minute. 

(“I’m getting you some too,” you say as you walk away. 

“I’m fine!” she calls after you, ice pack over her eye. 

“I’m still getting you some!”)

You hadn’t meant to overhear it. You hadn’t meant to be there.

You don’t process it at first. You just hear what sounds like Robby and Langdon arguing. You hear the way Robby’s voice waivers as he tells Langdon to go home. What? He was being sent home?

And then it all comes crashing down.

Langdon’s pleading. He’s telling Robby it’s not what he thinks, that he’d hurt his back some time ago when moving. That he’s not an addict. An addict couldn’t do what he does.

It takes you a moment to put it all together, the shock of it all clouding your brain and your judgment. An addict? Who was… 

Had Langdon been using? Is that what he was so worried about in the break room? Was he— Did he—?

You stumble backward, hand tracing the wall as you try to balance yourself and escape the area. There was no way this was happening. No fucking way. 

But then you hear Robby chuck Langdon’s things at him and suddenly… It's all real. 

You don’t want to be anywhere near this. This isn’t your business. This is something that’s between them-- something that Robby knows how to deal with. He always knows the right way to deal with everything. That’s kind of his thing.

You don’t want Robby to know you know. You don’t want Langdon to know you know. 

So, you quietly walk back to the ED, migraine intensifying, and feeling more lightheaded than ever. 

When you return to the floor empty-handed, Dana immediately notices. The sickly look on your face has her asking, “Where’s that ibuprofen?”

You blink twice, staring at her as you try to find the words. “I, uh—” You clear your throat. “I think I ran out. I-I’m gonna go see if I can find some.”

You take off before she can question anything else.

When Robby comes back and tells her that Langdon went home and he needs her to do a pharmacy audit, Dana puts two and two together.

(“I’m not gonna ask-- I’m not,” she says, eyeing him carefully. “But, just so you’re aware, Risky just came back from the lockers looking like she saw a ghost.”

Robby shuts his eyes, both hands rubbing against his neck to latch behind his head. “Nothing’s ever fucking easy, is it?”)

The next time you see your attending, you share a look. It’s a stone-faced plea on his end, an unspoken agreement on yours. He nods and then asks you to assist him in Trauma One.

Neither of you utter a word about it.

JULY 1ST, 2025. (6:55 PM)

You can’t breathe. 

You’re caught in the height of the PittFest disaster, and there is just so much. 

There’s been so much blood. So many people are hurt. So many people are dead. So much trying and not enough saving. There’s just so much… everything. 

And you’re the only R4 left on the floor. 

Collins left. You told her to. Robby told her to. After what she went through today, she should be gone. But Langdon…

Langdon’s gone. Potentially for good. And it’s his own fucking fault.

Of course, you know it’s more complicated than that. But right now, you can’t decipher up from down, let alone right from wrong.

The two people you’ve learned to rely on most (for better or for worse) are gone, and you’re in way over your head. You’re drowning, trying to stay above water. But as you continue to work, as you order your younger residents and med students around, knowing they’re floundering just as much as you are, you can’t help but freak out.

You’re supposed to hold down the fort. You’ve got Abbot and Robby and Mohan, you’ve got Walsh and Ellis and Shen, but you don’t have your people. 

You don’t have Langdon.

He was so much better at situations like these than you were. He didn’t get flustered, he didn’t freeze up, he never had a problem with drowning. He was always cool and alert and ready for whatever was thrown at him.

And fuck— as much as you hated to admit it, you got used to him having your back out here. You got used to him.

As someone who hated change, that’s just about what tipped you over the edge.

You take what you think is a minute to yourself. You step back from the carnage in front of you to grab a new pair of gloves and take a second to breathe.

But you can’t find your breath. And it takes more than a second to realize that. 

You only come to when you hear an inaudible voice from beside you. It sounds like whoever is speaking to you is underwater, drowning with you.

They grab you by the shoulders and turn you. You blink, dazed as you see Langdon’s face. His confused expression drops as he sees the look on your face and the speed at which your chest is moving up and down. 

“Nope,” he says simply, shaking his head. “None of that. Get your fucking head on straight.”

A wheeze escapes your chest. “What are you— How are you—“ 

You can’t even get the words out. They’re overtaken by the breath you can’t catch. You try to contain it, not wanting to do this-- to be like this in front of him, but you’re too far gone. Too deep into it.

Langdon’s having none of it. “You’re not Flight Risk-ing it right now. Not now.” He grips your shoulders tighter. “We need you out there. We need you to be on it because no one out there can do what you do.”

“I can’t—” Your voice comes out unstable. “I just need— I was out—”

“Breathe,” he tells you. “Are you listening to me? Breathe. We need you.” He looks directly into your eyes. “I need you, okay? I fucking need you, so get the fuck out of your head and let’s go.”

As if those were the magic words, your brain flips a switch. You slowly regain your footing, any anxiety now replaced with anger toward him. You have no idea if that was his intention, or if he truly meant that, but the second your breath becomes something resembling regular, you use both hands to push him off of you. His lips part in surprise.

What a fucking joke. He needed you? You needed him and it was his own fucking fault that he wasn’t here.

“I was out there,” you barely manage to get out. You point toward the door with a shaking hand. “I was out there on my own. Without you. You’re always here when things go to shit and you weren’t fucking here, Frank.”

You watch as your words hit him. They’re said with such anger and resentment that he just barely registers that you’ve called him by his first name. You barely realize it. You’re not sure if you’ve ever done that before. That same anger also makes him think that you might know more about his situation than he thought.

But there’s no time to focus on that. No time to dwell on his feelings or yours. There are more important matters at hand.

“Well,” he says, throwing his hands up in a shrug. “I’m here now. And you can be pissed off at me out there. As long as you’re on the floor.”

You bite your tongue. There are so many things you want to say to that. So many. But he’s right. You need to get back out there. Your little panic attack can wait. You can bitch him out after you clock out; whenever this nightmare ends.

So, you resign and nod, finally breathing right. “Fine.”

He nods, giving you a once-over. You’re covered in blood. It’s smeared on your cheek, caught in your hair, and all over your scrubs. Your eyes are still wide, blown-out like you’re shell-shocked. But, you’re still you. 

He doesn’t know what to do with the comfort that gives him.

He pushes all of that aside for now. “You good?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “As good as I can be. You?”

“I’m good.” You don’t laugh in his face like you want to. “You ready?”

“No,” you answer honestly. “But that doesn’t matter, does it?”

You get a rare, genuine smile from him. It’s small, but it changes the entire composition of his face. “That’s the spirit.”

He waits for you to return to the floor before he follows. When the two of you take a moment to stop and observe the chaos before you rush right back into it, you exchange one last glance.

He nods at you, and then he’s off. 

You break off in the opposite direction, refusing to focus on anything but the patients and doctors who need you.

JULY 1ST, 2025. (7:25 PM.)

Langdon’s had his eye on you since he returned to the ED.

You’ve been on the opposite side of the action, helping Robby and other red-banded patients. He’s worked with you once since he got back in, and while you seemed to be able to compartmentalize enough to collect yourself, he’s still worried about you.

He knows it’s rich coming from him, given everything that’s currently going on, but still. He’d never seen you like that, not even in med school when you were more neurotic than you were presently. He prays he won’t ever have to again.

But right now, he’s even more nervous about it because he can’t find you. And he needs you.

He can’t access a vein for the current patient he’s working on, and if he doesn’t, he’s going to lose the guy. As he racks his brain for solutions, he freezes. 

You. Shit, he needs you.

He knows, in theory, what to do. But you know exactly what to do and how to do it.

But again, he can’t find you. You’ve disappeared from his line of sight, and it freaks him out more than it should. The guy he’s operating on just tried to pull a gun. He figured he had a right to be worried.

Fuck it. He didn’t have time to look for you. He’d do it himself. He’d read about it a couple of years ago anyway.

Langdon runs back to the guy like a bat out of hell, with necessary supplies in hand. Mohan’s eyes go wide when she sees him. “What are you doing?” she asks.

“Giving this guy a chance,” he replies, getting his bearings. “He needs a big central line for fast transfusion.”

Mohan’s brow furrows. “You can't do an IJ without an ultrasound, especially on a guy this big.”

Mateo looks up at him, continuing his chest compressions. “You'll kill him if you collapse a lung or hit the carotid.”

“I’m not doing an IJ,” Langdon says, glancing at Mohan. “Unhook that blood line. Bring it up here.” She does as she’s told, watching intently as Langdon sets up everything he needs. “This is a supraclavicular subclavian. If you have to go in blind, this is the only safe way to access a giant vein.” He goes to move Mateo out of the way. “And hold compressions.”

Readjusting himself, he continues, “A centimeter from the lateral head of the sternocleidomastoid, a centimeter off the clavicle, aiming at the contralateral nipple.” He successfully inserts the syringe he’s holding, and he begins to draw blood. “I'm in. Okay! Resume compressions.” As they do, and everything starts to work normally again, he feels the nerves wear off. “And squeeze blood!”

It works. Of course it fucking works. It takes everything in Langdon’s body to stop himself from laughing.

Mohan stares at him in awe. “Where’d you learn that?”

Subconsciously, he finds himself scanning the room for you once more. You’re back in the action as if you were never gone, drilling an IO for a patient and moving on to their injuries with the grace and ease that had become synonymous with your name. 

His gaze dips as he takes off his gloves. He shrugs, glancing over at you briefly once more as you readjust your loupes to fix up the patient’s GSW. “Some research paper from 2021.” 

Mohan tracks the exact place his eyes went, a small, disbelieving grin growing on her lips as she puts the pieces together. “Seriously?”

“Don’t tell her,” he mutters, passing her to move on to the next patient. “She’ll never let me live it down.”

JULY 1ST, 2025. (9:43 PM.)

It’s the first thing Mohan tells you after you clock out.

After you grab your things from your locker, you run into her on your way outside. You almost don’t realize that she’s beside you, somehow too dissociated from the world and too focused on what you’ve tasked yourself with to register anything.

You flinch when she starts speaking, her shoulder bumping into yours. “Random question,” she says. The way she speaks tells you it’s not random at all. “Did you write a paper about performing a supraclavicular subclavian?”

You blink at her in surprise. Your brain’s completely fried, and you’re slow to process her words, but when you finally do, your brow furrows. “Uh, yeah. Like, forever ago in school. How do you—”

“Langdon did one on one of the mass casualty patients today.” There’s a small smile on her face, as if she knows something you don’t. “He saved the man’s life. I didn’t even know that was a thing. It was pretty cool.”

That first piece of information catches you more off guard than anything else that was thrown at you today. You’re sure it shows on your face. He… what? 

You’re so, completely overwhelmed by everything that you don’t hear the sound of the ER doors opening behind the two of you. Mohan glances past you, and luckily, she misses the dazed look on your face. She sends a small smile to Abbot and Robby, and she’s already moving on before you even have a chance to answer her previous question. “Can you send that to me?” she asks. “Or any other research you’ve done on weird, niche procedures? I’d love to learn how to do it.”

“That’s Risky’s specialty,” Abbot chimes in from behind the two of you. The sound of his voice makes you jump out of your skin. “Never met a research freak like her.”

Ignoring the way that your mind’s spinning, you lean over and narrow your eyes at him, a small smile twisting your lips. “The next time you want to see my case notes, I’m burning them in front of you.”

“A fire hazard in a hospital should be good for everyone,” he replies. 

You shrug. “After today, I think we can handle a little fire.”

Abbot huffs a laugh in agreement. “Fair enough,” he says, then nods toward the park. “You coming for a drink?”

“Not tonight,” you reply. “I’m here at seven tomorrow. Samira’s got me trying to cut back on my Red Bull intake, so unfortunately, I’ve got to get at least six hours or I’ll lose it.”

Mohan scowls at you, but before she can say anything, Robby pats you on the shoulder, speaking up for the first time since he got out here. “Get some sleep. You did great today.”

Your smile grows, and you shake your head. “Heard. Thanks, Doc.” You glance back over at Mohan. “And I’ll send over what I’ve got,” you tell her, taking a step back to exit the conversation. “We still on for drinks later this week?”

A hesitant look overtakes her expression. “I don’t know, I—”

“What did I say? I’m getting you out of your cave.” You shoot her a look. “Don’t make me threaten to withhold my research.”

Finally, you get a smile. “Fine. Yes. We’re still on.”

“Good,” you say, turning to walk away. From over your shoulder, you call, “Get some rest. All of you!”

“Not sure I know what that is,” Abbot responds. 

You find yourself chuckling as you walk away. It’s only then, when you hear the crinkling in your pocket, that your steps falter. Suddenly, you remember what you originally came out here to do. Who you came out to find.

And now, you’ve got something else to talk to him about. 

You find Langdon toward the back of the hospital. You knew he’d still be here. Of course, he’s still here. 

He’s sitting on the curb, head between his legs and in his hands. Your shoes scrape against the pavement, and the sound makes his head snap up. There’s a look of hope on his face-- hope that you, maybe, were someone else. It’s evident by the way his expression disappears the second he meets your eyes. He sighs, and it’s something heavy and labored as his head drops back into his hands. 

Neither of you says anything. He doesn’t know why you’re here or what you want, but frankly, he couldn’t give less of a shit. He was at the end of the worst day of his life. He might as well round it out with a conversation with you.

After a hesitant moment, you take a seat on the curb next to him. There’s just enough space between you two that it’s not overwhelming, but still mildly intimate. It’s safe. You never thought you’d want to be this close to him, but after today? Anything goes.

As Langdon’s mind continues to spin, he’s pulled out of his misery by the sound of that same crinkling that stopped you in your tracks. It’s obnoxious against the quiet of the night, but it confuses him more than anything. He lifts his head to look over at you, only to see a bag of Peanut M&Ms outstretched in your hand.

It’s your version of a peace offering. He glances up at you, suspicion written across his face with the smallest glint of humor in his eyes. When he doesn’t immediately take them, you push the bag out at him once more, as if the offer’s going to expire.

With another long, heavy sigh, he snatches it from you, and you have to pretend like that doesn’t end a wave of relief through you. You fish through your sweatshirt pocket to find the bag of regular M&Ms you bought for yourself, tearing into them once they’re in your hand. 

For a long while, neither of you speak. It’s an odd, stark contrast to what you’re used to with him. There’s no bickering, no expectation for a quick and witty rebuttal to shut him up. It’s just you and him, sitting on a curb outside the hospital, coming down from an adrenaline high the likes of which you’ve never felt. You’re two people who went through something completely, out-of-this-world awful, eating M&Ms together with no words to exchange. You’re still shaking.

(Langdon notices the way your fingers tremble as they reach into your bag, but he doesn’t say anything about it. Perhaps that’s his peace offering.)

Instead, he asks, “Vending machine?”

He doesn’t look over at you. It’s a casual question, one asked as he chews, as if he’d asked for the weather or what the time was. But you’re open to it. 

“Yup,” you say shortly. “You got the last bag.”

Langdon nods. “Cool.”

“Yup,” you repeat.

Another beat passes between you. Then, he asks, “How’d you know?” 

You glance over as he lifts the bag up, then shrug. “It was your study snack,” you reply. “Only thing I ever saw you get from that loud-ass machine in the library.”

He nods again, but it’s slower this time. “You were always good at that.” When he feels your eyes on the side of his face, he finally meets them. “Noticing things.”

“Yeah,” you say with a shrug, because you’re not sure what else to say. “It’s kinda part of the job.”

You both turn away from each other again, the air between you two feeling just a bit tighter this time around. You can’t hear anything but the sounds of the city and the hospital, and the crinkling of your candy bags.

You’re the first to speak this time. “You alright?”

It comes out more timid than you had wanted, but he doesn’t seem to react to it. “Yeah,” he replies. You know it’s a lie. “You?”

A sigh creeps up on you. “Yeah,” you repeat. 

He knows it’s a lie. There’s a silent agreement between you that you won’t call each other out. 

“I heard--” You clear your throat as your voice comes out a little too raspy for your liking. “I heard you did a supraclavicular subclavian?”

He stops mid-chew and shuts his eyes. “Fucking Slo-Mo.”

His reaction has the beginnings of a smile tugging at your lips. If you needed any sort of confirmation that Mohan was telling the truth, he just gave it to you. “You read my paper?” you ask.

Your voice is light and just a bit teasing, but there’s a fondness in it that Langdon’s not sure he’s ever heard directed at him. It’s enough to have him muttering, “I could have read or heard about that anywhere--”

“But you didn’t,” you say. “You read my paper.”

Langdon nearly groans. “I told her not to—”

“You read my paper,” you repeat again, grin growing larger. “All that talk in med school about how you didn’t trust my research and—”

“I always trusted your research,” he interjects, pointing at you. “You were way too much of a meticulous, pedantic freak for any of that to be wrong. I didn’t trust your indecisive, game-time, on-the-spot procedures.” When he sees you rolling your eyes, he suppresses his own smile. “But a case study written by that meticulous freak about a new, risky procedure? I’m reading that entire thing front to back.”

You hate the feeling that stirs in your chest. You hate the fact that his validation still gets that type of reaction from you. You don’t need it. You knew that paper was good. You had the acclaim and accolades to prove it. But hearing it from him and knowing that he didn’t just read it, but he fucking remembered it well enough to use it in an emergency situation?

That’ll get you. That’ll get you every time. 

Fuck, you hate yourself for it.

Despite all of that, your smile stays on your face as you nod along. You lean in slightly when you ask, “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, waving you off. The humor in his voice isn’t missed. “It’s cool.”

You don’t know why you do it. Maybe it’s your exhaustion. Maybe you’re still reeling from the day. Maybe it’s because you suddenly feel closer to him than you’ve ever felt before. Maybe it’s because he’s being open and as nice as he can muster up right now. 

Whatever it is, you pop an M&M in your mouth and say, “I read a couple of your papers, too.”

Now, it’s his turn to be surprised. You don’t look at him, but you can see the smirk growing on his face out of the corner of your eye. “Did you?”

“One or two of them,” you shrug. “Had to know what riveting content my mortal enemy was researching. Couldn’t have him writing a better paper than me.”

“I’m sure that’s what it was.”

“It was,” you insist, though you know it’ll fall on deaf ears. “I’m nothing if not competitive.”

Langdon huffs. “Don’t I know it.”

“I wouldn’t be talking,” you scoff. “If I’m competitive, you’re--”

“I know. I’m bad too,” he says, chuckling softly. “Wouldn’t have been half as fun if we weren’t.”

Your brow lifts in agreement. “Right on.”

You lean back, holding yourself upright with your arms behind you. The mulch on the ground sticks into your palms, but you’re too exhausted to care. With another long sigh, you stare up at the sky, the lights from the hospital and the city clouding your view of the stars. You’re about to muse about how much you miss seeing them when he says, “‘Mortal enemy,’ huh?”

“I don’t have a ton of them.” You shrug. “You didn’t have a lot of competition.”

He hums. “Guess I should be lucky that I’m number one.”

“Easiest thing you’ve ever won,” you say, failing to bite back your grin. 

“Only thing I didn’t have to compete with you for.” He shakes another M&M into his hand. “Of course it was easy.”

That grin of yours falters slightly. When you try to respond, you find that your words fail.

Luckily, he continues by asking, “So, what did you think?”

“Of what?” you question.

“My papers,” he says. “The ones you’ve read because you trust my work so much.”

That strange feeling stirs in your stomach again, but this time, it’s a little different. While it’s familiar, you can’t define it. It causes enough discomfort in you that you feel yourself withdrawing from him. This is too comfortable. Too nice. 

There’s a piece of you that needs things to return to normal. To get back on course. But that other piece of you, the one that harbors all of your anger toward him-- that one suddenly overtakes you. It’s like you remembered what you really came out here for. It wasn’t just to find him and eat candy with him. It wasn’t to joke around like you’re old friends. Because you’re not.

You came out to make sure he was stable. Okay. And then, you came to yell at him.

You don’t look at him when you say it. Your eyes return to the night sky, and you sigh. It’s deep enough for Langdon’s expression to morph into something confused. 

“I’ll let you know when you get back,” you say, voice soft and sad.

He doesn’t get it at first. That confusion he wears becomes more prominent, and his brows knit together. But then, you look at him. You’re disappointed. You’re angry. You’re upset. He’s seen all of that, but never all together. Never like this.

Then, it clicks.

The color drains from his face. “Did fucking Santos tell you? Because I swear to God, if she—”

“Do not,” you begin, voice so lethal that it has him snapping his mouth shut, “blame Santos for this. She did exactly what she was supposed to do. She’s not the one using. She’s not the one who fucked up. That is on you.”

He scoffs, shaking his head. “Jesus, did she tell everyone? I don’t fucking need this from you—”

“She didn’t tell me,” you say. Your voice is firm, and he chances a look at you. “She didn’t need to. I heard you and Robby fighting.” Lighter, you add, “You pulling me into the break room and talking about Santos didn’t help your case either. I kind of put two and two together.”

He doesn’t have anything to say to that. He just sits there, drained and miserable, unsure of where he stands with… anything. His eyes shut, and he turns away from you, jaw trembling.

When he finally speaks, his words are quiet. “I’m not an addict.”

“You are,” you reply, and a small piece of your heart breaks as his shoulders slump, defeated. While you may not be his biggest fan, you don’t like seeing him like this. It’s so hard to hate him like this. “But you’re going to fix that.”

A humorless, rough laugh escapes his lips. “Because it’s that easy.”

“It’s not. And it won’t be,” you state, refusing to bite at his attempt at an argument. “It’s going to be hard every single day going forward. But you’re going to do it.”

He’s quiet for a long while again. He obviously doesn’t know what to do with you right now. He’s not used to talking like this with you. It’s just as uncomfortable for him as it is for you.

But then, “You sound so sure.”

His sarcasm comes off half-hearted. It’s like he’s trying to put up that ever-familiar wall between you two, but can’t. There’s too much uncertainty in it. For the first time in years, you feel like he’s being one-hundred-percent vulnerable with you. You figure you owe him the same kindness.

“I am,” you tell him. There’s no room for arguing. 

You watch him nod. “How do you know?”