mimiwndrs @loveliness0818 - Tumblr Blog

Tightrope

Mel King x nurse!reader

Summary: Six days have passed since Mel's friends left, and your friendship has been permanently affected. When a perceptive patient notices the tension between you two, her advice sparks reflection on what it means to risk everything for the chance at love.

CW: angst, lots of lesbian yearning, canon-typical medical events, minor character death (nobody from canon), grief, hurt/comfort, smut, not changing out of scrubs (ew, yes that requires a CW), fingering and oral sex (r!receiving), showering and non-sexual intimacy.

WC: 10k

Part 2 to Hold On.

A/N: this whole fic was a struggle. Figuring out how it would go was a struggle, starting it was a struggle, I got writers block after the first scene. Also, I named my patients wife Gloria because I temporarily forgot Gloria is also the name of the hospital administrator and I don’t want to go through and change it. It was my nana’s name, too, and I like it. Deal with it.

♡ ───────── ♡ ───────── ♡

Six days.

That’s how long it’s been since Mel’s friends left, since you’d stood in the doorway to Mel’s apartment and waved goodbye to them, since your life was supposed to go back to normal.

And your life was anything but.

Six days of her not responding to your texts. Six days of not sending stupid memes in the evenings. Six days of silence where there used to be constant communication. Six days of you pretending you don’t feel her absence in your heart. Your phone has never been so quiet.

At work, it’s worse.

All hospitals run on routine, and especially in an emergency department there’s an understanding that nobody gets through a shift alone. But somehow, the two of you have managed turn avoidance into an art. You take the long way around hallways, she volunteers for tasks on the opposite end of the department. Where you used to naturally overlap, there’s now intentional avoidance.

There wasn’t a fight. You can’t point to the exact moment and say “this is where everything went wrong.” There were only two kisses that were supposed to be fake and two nights spent tangled together in bed like you belonged there all along, followed by a silence that grew too big to take back. You’re not sure why Mel is avoiding you. Maybe she regrets it, maybe she’s embarrassed, or trying to protect your friendship by pretending none of it happened. The not knowing hurts almost as much as the distance itself.

But you’re not innocent either. You avoid her because you don’t know how to look at her and not want to hold her. Whatever careful little box you’d kept your feelings locked in is now blown wide open ever since last weekend, spilling your feelings out in a way you can’t figure out how to undo. You don’t know how to gather them all back up, how to tuck it neatly into the farthest corners of your heart again so you can be her best friend without wanting more from her. Being near her hurts now, like your control is hanging on by a thread and one wrong look or word from her could destroy it.

So you stay away, and she stays away, and the distance between you two stretches thin and tight every day.

You still see her, of course. It’s impossible not to, you work in the same building, in the same department, on the same days, on the same shift.

There’s a glimpse of her braid disappearing around a corner just as you turn into it, and the sound of her voice at the nurse’s station makes your head snap up before you catch yourself doing it, only to look back down at your work like nothing happened. Once, your hands touched while reaching for the same file and you both recoiled as if the contact burned you, muttering apologies to the air instead of each other because you couldn’t actually look at one another.

But when you do look, you try to be sneaky. She looks tired. More tired than usual. There are shadows under her eyes and her hair isn’t as neat in her braid as it normally is, loose strands escaping in ways you’ve only seen happen when she’s frazzled.

You don’t know what you’re supposed to say now. You don’t know what she wants, you don’t know if she regrets it, if she wishes the entire thing had never happened the same way you do.

You’re not sleeping, the bags under your own eyes mirroring Mel’s. Every night you close your eyes and remember how it felt to wake up tangled together, with the weight of her arm over your waist, her warm breath against your collarbone. Your brain replays the feeling of her mouth on yours in the bar, analyzing the way she leaned in like she couldn’t help herself. You remember thinking, stupidly, in that instance that maybe something had changed for real.

Six days is long enough for hope to thin out into glass, so brittle that it’ll break at the slightest pressure.

Six days is also long enough for other people to notice.

PTMC’s rumor mill is worse than any Middle of High School you ever went to. It doesn’t fly under the radar that you and Mel no longer talk at the nurse’s station, that conversations cut off whenever one of you approaches, or that you don’t walk out together at the end of a shift anymore.

Most of them are polite enough not to comment on it. Most, but not all. A rumor takes root, winding it’s way through the departments and across language barriers until it reaches the ears of someone who’s department gossip is equal parts rumors and facts.

Someone who saw you firsthand. Someone with sharp eyes and even sharper instincts, and a memory for details that borders on unsettling; like the way she’d pretended to stare at her own reflection in the bar mirror while pretending not to watch the two of you at all. It didn’t take long after that for curiosity to harden into certainty.

And once Trinity Santos is certain of something, she doesn’t let it sit.

By the sixth day, she decides she’s waited long enough.

Mel is halfway through reviewing a patient chart at a computer when a shadow falls across the counter as it blocks out the overhead light. She doesn’t look up at first, assuming it’s a nurse or a med student waiting to ask a question.

“Morning, Mel-tdown.”

Her pen pauses mid-stroke.

There are very few people in the hospital who think making up nicknames is funny, even less who would do it to someone with more seniority than themselves, and only one whose voice carries that particular blend of dry amusement and sarcasm. Mel looks up slowly and finds herself face-to-face with Trinity, who’s arms are folded loosely across her chest.

“Dr. Santos,” Mel says automatically with a forced smile. “Good morning.”

Trinity doesn’t return the greeting. She watches Mel with eyes narrowed, assessing her like a scan instead of a person.

“You look like you haven’t slept.”

“I’m fine.”

“Mm.” She’s not convinced. “Sure.”

But she doesn’t leave. The silence stretches just long enough to make it weird.

“Was there something you needed?” Mel asks. She cannot do her job properly with the R2 hovering over her like this.

“How’s your girlfriend?”

The question is said so casually that it takes almost a full minute to register. When it does, Mel’s stomach drops out from under her.

“I’m sorry?”

“You know, your nurse,” Trinity clarifies, relaxed enough that it doesn’t sound like she’s prodding for information, which she definitely is. “I saw you at O’Malley’s on Saturday night, you two make a cute couple.”

Heat floods Mel’s face. “I’m not - she’s not - we’re not a couple.”

Trinity’s eyebrows lift, but there’s no suspicion on her face. If anything, she looks amused, like she finds this funny.

“Relax,” she says. “I get it, you don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

“I’m not explaining, I’m just -” Mel falters, reaching for something, anything, that’ll sound real. “We’re - we’re just friends.”

“Mhm.” The noncommittal little hum is somehow worse than outright disbelief.

“I’m serious,” Mel insists. “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

The conviction never leaves Trinity’s face. “If you want to keep your personal life private, that’s your business,” she says. “I’m not the morality police, I don’t care what you do at home.”

“That’s not -” Mel stops, frustrated, because there’s nothing she can say that’s going to convince her. “We’re not dating.”

“Okay.”

Her fingers curl against the desk. “You don’t believe me.”

Trinity shrugs. “I saw you kissing at the bar.”

Mel swears her heart stops. Her mind races, spiraling through the logistics: who else might have seen you, how widely this could spread, what this looks like when you two have been actively avoiding each other ever since.

“We work together,” she says finally, and it almost sounds strangled. “If could get…complicated.”

“Trust me, you don’t have to explain that to me,” Trinity says dryly. “Plus, half the hospital is sleeping with the other half.”

Mel’s head snaps up, scandalized despite herself. “We’re not -”

Trinity holds up a hand to stop her. “I’m not asking for details.” She leans in, lowering her voice just enough to keep the conversation contained to the two of them. “The only reason I brought it up is because you two suddenly acting like strangers is a lot more noticeable than just dating quietly.”

Mel’s stomach twists.

“You used to be inseparable,” Trinity continues. “Now you won’t even talk to each other. People are noticing.”

Panic is crawling up Mel’s insides. Trinity actively participates in the rumor mill, if she’s saying people have noticed things changing between you two, that means people are talking.

“I’m just busy,” Mel says weakly.

“Sure you are.”

Trinity straightens up, pushing off the counter.

“For what it’s worth,” she adds, “Nobody cares who you date as long as it doesn’t affect patient care.”

Mel nods, her throat still tight. Trinity taps the counter in front of her twice, catching her attention once more.

“Take a breath, Mel-tdown. Your secret’s safe with me.”

And then she walks away, leaving Mel sitting there with her pulse racing and her thoughts in complete disarray.

This is way worse than being caught. This is her being seen by her colleagues, and assumed. Assumed to be dating you, to be serious enough to hide, to be something real. And if Trinity noticed, others will too. Maybe they already have. And that means this isn’t just about hurt feelings or awkward silence anymore.

It’s about your job, your reputation. Yours just as much as hers.

Mel closes the chart. She can’t let this continue.

She has to find you.

♡ ───────── ♡ ───────── ♡

You’re halfway through explaining a medication timing issue to Bridget at the nurse’s station when you feel it: fingers closing around your arm firmly, just above the elbow. It’s startling enough that the rest of your sentence dies in your throat.

You turn, already ready to apologize, expecting some sort of patient emergency. Something urgent. Something very much not personal.

Instead, you find Mel standing there.

Your brain refuses to process it for almost half a minute. Her grip tightens when you don’t move immediately, and her gaze never leaves your face, even as Bridget asks if everything is okay.

“Can I borrow you for a minute?” she asks, her voice strained.

She doesn’t wait for a response. She’s already dragging you away, hand locked around your arm tightly as she pulls you down the hallway and around the corner into a quieter stretch near a supply closet.

Your heart is pounding for reasons that has nothing to do with how urgent she looks.

Six days. Of distance, of avoidance, of silence. And now she’s holding onto you like this. Hope sparks in your chest, both traitorous and dangerous.

Maybe she couldn’t stand it either, maybe she misses you. Maybe she’s finally going to say something, anything, that will make this awful, stretched-out silence okay again.

She stops abruptly and lets go of your arm, interrupting your thoughts. Her own arms fold tightly across her chest.

“Mel?” you say, confused. “What -”

She glances up and down the hallway, looking in both directions. She looks tense. When she finally speaks, she leans in close to you, her voice dropping to a whisper that even you can barely hear in the silent hallway.

“Trinity saw us at O’Malley’s.”

It takes a second for you to register what she’s said. “I - what?”

She looks around again, scanning for eavesdroppers even though the hall is empty.

“She saw us,” Mel repeats more urgently, like you’re the one not keeping up. “Saturday night, at the bar.”

Your stomach drops. “Oh.”

Another glance over her shoulder and then she leans closer still, volume dropping even more, like her following words are dangerous:

“She saw us…kissing.”

The whisper is almost comical, like she’s afraid it’s going to echo down the hallway and summon witnesses out of thin air. Under any other circumstances, it might’ve been cute.

But right now it just hurts.

“I didn’t know what to say,” she rushes on. “She assumed we were dating, and I told her we’re not, but she doesn’t seem convinced, and people are already noticing that we’re not - that things are different, and I just thought you should know in case anyone says anything to you.”

You blink at her.

This isn’t an apology. This isn’t I miss you, or I’m sorry I disappeared or I didn’t know how to talk to you or even are you okay?

It’s damage control.

“Oh,” you say again, because it’s the only sound you know how to make.

“I just don’t want it to become a problem,” Mel continues, her arms tightening where they’re tucked into her sides. “You know, professionally. For either of us.”

She means it as reassurance. You can see it, the worry in her eyes, you see it in the tightness in her mouth. She’s warning you, looping you in so you’re not blindsided. But all you can hear is what she isn’t saying.

She’s not trying to fix this. She’s worried about how this looks.

You force a small nod, staring somewhere over her shoulder because looking right at her would hurt too much.

“Right,” you manage. “Good to know.”

Silence follows, and she doesn’t move to comfort you. If anything, she looks relieved, like she’s delivered the message she came to deliver.

“Okay,” she says quickly. “I just wanted you to hear it from me.”

Not because she actually cares about how you’re feeling. Just because it’s relevant information.

Hope, which had flared so brightly when she grabbed your arm, fizzles out just as fast, and it leaves something colder in it’s wake.

“Thanks,” you say automatically, though it’s distant. “For the heads-up.”

Her lips tip into a frown, like that wasn’t the response she expected from you, but she doesn’t push further.

“Yeah,” she says. “Of course.”

There’s more silence and it’s awkward in a way space has never been between you two before. For a second you think she might say something else, but then she nods and steps back.

“I should get back.”

And then she turns and walks away without another glance in your direction.

You stand there for a long time after she disappears around the corner, staring at the empty space she left behind. Your chest aches with the realization that you were stupid for letting yourself hope. Not for romance, or even for answers. Even just for your best friend back.

Eventually you push yourself off the wall and head back toward the nurse’s station, careful to keep your expression neutral because now you’re aware of the looks you’re getting, especially from Princess. But you keep your voice steady when you pick up the conversation with Bridget exactly where it left off, like nothing happened.

Like six days of silence and one conversation haven’t just confirmed your worst fear:

That whatever that weekend meant to you…it clearly didn’t mean the same thing for her.

♡ ───────── ♡ ───────── ♡

It’s later in that same shift that your day goes from bad to shitty.

You’re charting at the nurse’s station when the automatic doors at the end of the entrance to the ED hiss open and Olive appears, guiding a wheelchair.

“Got another one for you,” she calls without slowing down. “Shortness of breath, mild chest discomfort. Her vitals are mostly okay, but she’s a little hypertensive.”

The woman in the chair looks up at you with clear and intelligent eyes, her silver hair escaping a long braid that’s loosened over the course of the day. She doesn’t look panicked, if anything, she looks annoyed to be here at all.

“Honestly, I feel ridiculous,” she says as she takes your hand to help her stand. “It’s probably indigestion.”

She pauses to catch a slightly deeper breath once she’s upright, one hand coming up to rest on her chest.

“I just can’t quite get a full breath,” she adds. “And there’s this pressure in my chest.”

You guide her onto the bed, noting sweat gathering at her temples and the way she shifts on the bed like she’s trying to find a position that feels better.

“On a scale of zero to ten?” you ask gently.

“Maybe a three? Four if I’m being dramatic.”

“Got it,” you say as you begin to attach monitor leads. “Three-to-four dramatic discomfort.”

She smiles at that, her eyes crinkling. Her attention drifts past you as the door behind you opens. “Uh-oh,” she says. “Here comes someone important.”

“Hello, I’m Dr. King,” Mel’s voice comes from over your shoulder, and you hear the hand sanitizer being dispensed. “Status?”

“Um - shortness of breath with mild chest pressure, onset about an hour ago,” you say, flustered as your heart starts palpitating. “She rates it a three or a four but she was hypertensive in triage. No obvious distress, she’s alert and oriented.”

There’s silence behind you as you hear Mel pause. When you turn, she’s stepping forward, her eyes lingering on your face and you watch as they soften. But then she schools her expression back to the neutral composure you’ve only seen when she’s dealing with something personal but forced to be professional.

“Okay,” she says calmly. “Hi, Ms. Burkhart, like I said, I’m Dr. King, I’m going to take a look at you.”

Ms. Burkhart studies her with open curiosity instead of the wary anxiety most patients wear. She looks briefly to you and then back to Mel, as if she’s picked up on the moment you two just had.

“Carrie,” she corrects. “Ms. Burkhart makes me sound like my mother.”

Mel’s mouth twitches. “Carrie it is.”

She moves closer to the bed, silent as she watches Carrie’s vitals on the monitor, hands steady as she listens to her lungs. She asks the standard questions, and you busy yourself moving to the other side of the bed, adjusting the monitor, and handing over supplies before Mel even asks.

Choreography that you both know by heart.

You’re careful not to look at her too much. You don’t let your voice soften when you answer her questions, doing your best not to slip back into the wordless communication that used to feel as natural as breathing. Not in front of a patient.

Your patient notices anyway.

It feels like Carrie’s observing you rather than the other way around, despite the fact that she is quite literally beingobserved. You can feel her scrutiny, and you do your best to keep your expression neutral and professional while you focus on the tasks at hand.

Mel straightens after listening to her lungs. “Any nausea? Dizziness? Pain anywhere else?”

“Not really,” Carrie says. “I just can’t seem to get a satisfying breath.” She demonstrates with a shallow inhale that ends in a frustrated sigh.

Mel nods thoughtfully. “Okay.”

Carrie’s gaze slides past her shoulder again, right to you.

If Mel notices the attention, she doesn’t comment. Instead, she redirects. “Do you have any history of heart problems? High blood pressure? Aneurysms?”

Carrie answers the doctor’s questions, but her attention seems to keep drifting back to you, especially whenever you speak. Her attention on you feels strange. You’re no stranger to attention from patients, but usually it comes from a place of attraction, which you’re always quick to brush off. Ms. Burkhart’s attention seems more like curiosity - she’s not being intrusive, she’s not even talking to you, and her gaze isn’t coming off as flirty or uncomfortable.

At one point, Mel asks you to retake her blood pressure and you step in to wrap the cuff around Carrie’s arm. As you’re leaning in, Mel reaches across to adjust a monitor lead at the same time, your hands brushing against each other. Both of you pause, neither looking at the other, but the tension is palpable.

Ms. Burkhart notices immediately. “Oh.”

“Sorry?” You glance up at her quickly. “Are you in pain?”

“No, it’s nothing,” she says lightly. “Just thinking.”

Mel has already stepped back and is jotting down notes in the patient file.

“We’re going to run some tests,” she says. “An EKG, blood work, probably imaging just to be safe.”

“Of course,” Carrie nods. “I did come to a hospital, after all.”

When you look up again, Carrie is looking at you softly, her expression almost sympathetic.

“You two work together a lot?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Sometimes.”

You both speak at the same time, the overlap hanging in the air awkwardly.

You’re quick to draw blood and excuse yourself, desperate to remove yourself from this too-small room with your fake-ex-girlfriend and a patient who’s definitely watching you too closely.

When you eventually return to check in on Ms. Burkhart, she’s alone in the room, propped up against the pillows in her bed, looking far less uncomfortable than before even though her breathing is still shallow. Mel must’ve prescribed some sort of pain relief.

“Oh good,” she says. “I was starting to think you’d abandoned me.”

“Not a chance,” you say as you move to her bedside. “Just waiting on your lab results.”

She hums in acceptance, though her fingers still fiddle with the edge of the blanket, nervous and jittery as if she can’t quite get comfortable.

“Funny,” she hums, staring up at the ceiling. “Hospitals are loud until you’re alone. Then they feel too quiet.”

You nod, adjusting her pulse oximeter, mostly for something to do rather than because it actually needs adjusting. “Yeah, it’s a lot of waiting.”

“Mm.” She turns her head to look at you, studying you. “You been doing this long?”

“A couple of years.”

“It must be hard sometimes.”

You shrug. “You get used to it.”

Carrie shifts on the bed again with a wince. “My wife hates hospitals.”

Your head lifts. “Your wife?”

“Mhm.” A fond smile softens her face. “Insists they’re where common sense goes to die.”

You smile. “Sounds like she cares.”

“Oh, she does,” Carrie’s expression warms further and her eyes go distant, as if she’s remembering. “Twenty years of caring.”

Twenty years.

You’ve seen her birthdate in her chart, you can do the math. You wonder silently if she came out later in life, or if she just met her wife later in life.

“Is she coming back to pick you up?”

“Should be,” Carrie says, glancing toward the door and then back to you. “I texted her, I don’t want her to worry but she’s got a sixth sense for these things.”

You nod as you swallow past the lump in your throat. “Good, it’s nice to have someone here.”

Carrie watches you carefully as you say it, like she’s weighing her words. “It is,” she agrees slowly. “Took us long enough to figure that out.”

“Figure what out?” you ask absentmindedly as you badge into the workstation to update her vitals.

“That we were in love,” she says simply. “We were best friends our whole lives first.”

Your heart plummets. You see where this is going, and the topic is just a little too close to home today.

“Oh.”

“We were cowards,” Carrie continues with a laugh. “Both of us, scared of ruining what we had. So afraid of our own feelings that we wasted half our lives.”

Your throat is tight, you’re unable to manage a response, but that doesn’t seem to deter her.

“When we finally admitted it, it felt ridiculous. Like - oh, of course. How did we miss this? Everyone else saw it before we did.”

You can’t do anything but listen.

“We got married at city hall on May 21st, 2014.”

The irony of the historical date for Pennsylvania doesn’t pass you by, the realization that they got married the moment they were legally allowed to.

She turns her head to look at you directly. “We always said we wished we’d been braver sooner.”

Your eyes sting and you blink hard, hoping to disperse the tears gathering there.

“You always wish you had more time,” she adds simply.

Ms. Burkhart is perceptive. You can’t tell if she’s guessing, or if she just recognizes something in you so specific, something painfully familiar to herself. Maybe she isn’t reading you at all, maybe she’s just remembering.

She’s studying you while you’re lost in your own mind. Then, very gently, she says, “You look like you’re wishing you were brave too.”

Not guessing.

“That’s not -” your voice cracks and you clear your throat. “We work together.”

Carrie’s smile is kind but also triumphant. “Sweetheart,” she says, “I didn’t say anything about work.”

You flush and turn away, trying your best to focus on the screen in front of you. But the words on it blur together in a rush of tears, the topic too painful for today.

“This isn’t appropriate,” you mutter, more to yourself than your patient. “This topic is totally unprofessional.”

“I know,” she responds lightly. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

“I should -” you start and then falter, clearing your throat again. “I should check on my other patients.”

“Of course.”

You waste no time slipping out into the hallway, door closing heavily behind you.

You do exactly what you said you were going to do: check on your other patients. You busy yourself checking vitals and answering questions until your eyes start to blur, even though your mind is focused somewhere else entirely. Ms. Burkhart’s voice follows you from room to room.

Scared of ruining what we had.

You always wish you had more time.

You try, and fail spectacularly, to shake it off.

At one point, you’re staring at a medication cart without actually seeing it, wondering what your life would look like at forty if nothing changes. If you kept pretending that friendship was enough for you now that you knew what it was like to have her. Would you still be here? With the same job, the same apartment, and the same aching in your chest? Would she?

By the time you realize you’re standing back outside Carrie Burkhart’s room again, you barely even remember walking over here, let alone making the decision. Her door is propped open and she’s scrolling her phone with one hand while absently rubbing the center of her chest with the other.

She looks up when you step inside and close the door behind you, her surprise quickly giving way to warmth.

“Well hello again,” she says. “Back so soon? I must be your favorite patient.”

You hesitate before pulling a chair close to the bed and sitting.

“Maybe,” you admit with a small smile.

Something in your tone makes her snap to attention immediately. She sets the phone down and turns her attention toward you fully. “What’s wrong?”

You clasp your hands together in your lap, unsure how to begin. This feels wildly inappropriate and unprofessional, even worse - deeply personal.

“How did you know?”

Carrie blinks at you. “Know what?”

“That she…felt the same.” Your hands wave in your lap as you struggle for the right words. “Your wife.”

“Oh honey,” she murmurs with a sympathetic look.

You stare at your hands so you don’t have to face the pity in her expression. “I mean, you said you were best friends your whole lives. So how did you know it wouldn’t ruin everything?”

Carrie leans back in the bed, her eyes distant with memory. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I just reached a point where not saying anything hurt more than the possibility of losing her.”

Your chest tightens.

“She went on a date,” she adds quietly. “Some man from her office. She told me about it over coffee.” A faint smile touches her mouth, rueful in nature. “I went home and cried for three hours and finally admitted to myself that I wasn’t just jealous. I was terrified.”

You glance up at that. “Terrified of what?”

“That I was going to lose the love of my life because I was too afraid to tell her that she was the love of my life.”

Your lips part as you take in her words. “So you told her,” you urge her on quietly.

Carrie nods solemnly. “Worst conversation of my life,” she says with a chuckle. “I was shaking so hard I spilled my coffee all over her kitchen table.”

You laugh despite yourself.

“I told her I was in love with her,” she continues. “I was fully prepared for her to tell me she didn’t feel that way. Then at least I could start getting over it.”

“And?”

“She just stared at me for a long time,” she says. “Then she said, ‘It’s about time.’”

You can see Carrie’s eyes shine with the memory, and she recounts it like it’s one of the best.

“Turns out she’d been in love with me just as long. Neither of us wanted to risk losing what we had, and we made ourselves miserable by not saying anything.”

You’re silent as she continues.

“It wasn’t perfect. We had to unlearn a lot of fear. Figure out how to be more than friends after so long. But god…” she smiles, radiant despite the hospital bed. “It was worth it.”

Your eyes burn and you blink rapidly. “So you think I should just…tell her,” you say, your voice trembling.

Carrie watches you with unwavering kindness. “I think you already know what you want,” she says gently. “You’re just waiting for permission.”

The truth of that strikes you painfully hard.

“I don’t even know if she feels that way,” you admit. “Things have been weird between us.”

Carrie opens her mouth to respond, and pauses. At first, it looks like she’s just searching for the right words. But then you see a crease form between her brows, and her eyes unfocus as her hand presses harder against her chest.

You lean forward. “Carrie?”

She gasps, the breath shallow. “I feel…weird,” she says, her voice tight.

The alarm must be evident on your face as you respond, “Weird how?”

She doesn’t answer as the hand on her chest begins to rub. The monitor begins to beep faster, steady rhythm stuttering.

You’re already on your feet, reaching for the call button, your professional instincts screaming that something is very wrong.

“Okay,” you say, calm tone only due to sheer force of will. “Stay with me, Carrie, the doctor will be here any second.”

Carrie nods but her face has gone pale. Her breathing is shallow and uneven, and you can hear each inhale sounding like work.

“It hurts,” she whispers.

“Where?”

She presses her fist to the center of her chest and then drags it up a little toward her throat. “Everywhere.”

The monitor beeps faster, rising in urgency. Footsteps pound in the hallway and the door jerks open as staff flood in - another nurse, then Mel, pulling on gloves as she takes in the scene.

“What happened?” she demands.

“Sudden severe chest pain, she’s hypotensive and tachy at 115,” you rattle off. “She was stable two minutes ago.”

Carrie lets out a strangled cry, her body curling in on itself. “Oh god - my back -” she chokes out.

Everything accelerates. There are hands everywhere, equipment is clattering, voices are overlapping. The monitor spikes and then dips, rhythm jagged and irregular.

You move to the bedside, taking her hand without thinking. “I’ve got you,” you say, even though the shaking is evident in your voice now. “You’re okay. We’re here.”

Her fingers clamp down on your own with a surprising amount of strength.

“I don’t -” she gasps up at you. “Something’s wrong.”

“I know,” you whisper. “We’re fixing it, we’re going to fix it.”

The blood pressure reading flashes again, lower than before.

“She’s crashing.”

Carrie suddenly stiffens, her shallow breath catching in her chest as she goes painfully still. The monitor emits a flat, continuous tone.

Mel’s head snaps up at the sound. “Pulse?”

You fumble, two fingers against Carrie’s wrist, hands slick with sweat. You haven’t even grabbed gloves. Nothing. You move to her neck, pressing too hard, or maybe not hard enough, panic is scrambling your training.

“I - I don’t have a carotid -”

“Start compressions.”

You drag the step stool to the bed with a hook of your toe around the leg, hands positioning on her sternum, and begin.

One, two, three, four -

Her body yields beneath you in a way that feels wrong for someone who was just talking. Your arms burn almost immediately with the force, adrenaline making your movements jerky.

“Stay with me, Carrie,” you hear yourself saying. “Come on, come on.”

There’s no response, no movement from the woman under you. Just her body, laying flat underneath your hands.

“Switch,” someone says from behind you.

You don’t want to stop. Stopping feels like giving up. But your arms are shaking violently and your compressions are losing depth. Hands replace yours and you stumble back off the stool, your chest heaving as you stare at Carrie’s face - it’s grey now, her lips are tinged blue, eyes half-lidded and empty in a way that makes something primal in your chest hurt.

“Check for rhythm,” Mel orders.

Compressions stop, and the monitor resumes it’s flatline.

“Asystole,” she says. “Resume compressions.”

“Shouldn’t we charge?” The voice beside you makes you jump as you realize student doctor Kwon is also in the room.

“You can’t shock asystole.” The answer comes from both you and Mel at the same time.

Epinephrine. Compressions. Check rhythm. Compressions. Again.

Your ears ring and your vision tunnels. At some point you realize you’re crying. Not sobbing, just silent tears slipping down your face, unnoticed as you hover uselessly at the edge of all the chaos.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was talking, smiling even. She was telling you about Gloria.

She was supposed to go home.

Mel glances up at you from across the bed, alarm flickering across her face - but it’s not for the patient, no, it’s for you - before she snaps back into focus.

“Another round,” she says.

No response. The monitor remains stubbornly unchanged.

Time loses shape for you. It could be minutes, it could be forever. Finally, after one more rhythm check, the room goes very still.

Mel’s shoulders rise and fall as she looks at the clock on the wall before calling out time of death.

Hands move around you, disconnecting lines and silencing alarms, covering the body with the sheet up to her shoulders. The frantic energy drains away and leaves a vacuum in it’s wake.

Carrie Burkhart lies motionless in the center of the bed, the peaceful expression on her face feeling like some sort of fucked up joke.

Less than an hour ago she was alive. Talking, laughing, even giving you advice about love.

Now she’s dead.

You feel unsteady on your feet. You grip the edge of the counter behind you to stay upright as you stare at her.

Someone says your name and you don’t respond. Instead, you shove your way out of the room, hand clamped over your mouth as your stomach lurches violently. You need a bathroom, a sink, a garbage can, anything.

You almost walk face-first into Mateo.

He gently grabs your arms to steady you, relief on his face. “There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” He steps aside, revealing the woman following him. “This is Gloria, Ms. Burkhart’s wife. Where did you put her? I can’t find her name on the board.”

Of course you can’t, because she’s dead.

Your vision tunnels and your throat closes. If you open your mouth, you’re going to be sick, or you’re going to scream, or maybe both. You shake your head and back away from them, one hand dragging along the wall for balance. Before you turn and walk off as fast as you can without outright sprinting through the emergency department.

You don’t make it to the bathroom.

Instead, you’re slumped on the floor, back propped against the wall outside of the family consultation room, where Dr. Robby is inside with Ms. Burkhart’s wife. Screams resonate through the air, devastating and raw, followed by sobs so guttural that they don’t even sound human. The sound carries, it vibrates through the floors even as you press your hands over your ears to try and muffle the sound.

That’s where Dana finds you.

She crouches in front of you, taking in your tear-streaked and pale face, your eyes unfocused like you’re looking through her instead of at her. She doesn’t ask you questions because you can’t answer them anyway. She just places a steady hand on your shoulder and helps you to your feet when you don’t move on your own. You move because she moves you, because resisting would require more energy than you currently possess, and because you just don’t have it in you.

Somewhere along the way she shoves your backpack into your hands. Your shift must’ve been reassigned, she must’ve emptied your locker for you. You don’t remember. Dana’s ushering you out the employee entrance, her muffled advice of “go home and get some sleep, kid” sounding like you’re underwater as it reverberates in your ears.

You make it halfway across the parking lot before you realize someone is calling your name and turn.

Mel is hurrying toward you, concern written across her face. She must’ve caught sight of you leaving early. She stops in front of you, eyes searching your face as she tries to make sense of your swollen eyes, the tear streaks that feel burned into your cheeks.

“Are you okay?”

The question is ridiculous, completely redundant. Of course you’re not.

You shake your head. “No. I’m going home.”

Her eyebrows furrow, worry deepening as she opens her mouth to speak again.

The words come out of you, interrupting her, stripped of inflection, void of protection. Nothing left inside you but the bare truth.

“I’m in love with you.”

She just stares at you for a second, stunned as she processes your words. Her eyes are wide behind her glasses, lips parted in shock as she stands frozen in front of you.

You don’t wait for a response. There isn’t one you could survive right now anyway.

You turn around and continue walking toward your car, the distance between you widening with each step across the asphalt. You keep walking until your car is in front of you, until you’re inside with the engine running and your vision blurring. Only then do you let your head fall forward against the steering wheel, your breath faltering as you break open right there in your car.

Tomorrow, you’ll have to face what you said. Today, you just have to survive it.

♡ ───────── ♡ ───────── ♡

You made it home on autopilot. Your apartment was silent and empty when you got home, and it dawned on you then how terrible an idea it was to go home to be alone in your misery. You’d collapsed into your bed, in your nasty hospital scrubs that you always strip out of the second you walk into the door, and kicked your shoes off the edge of the bed solely so that you didn’t have to wash your bedding tomorrow. The world had bled out of you in a flood of hot and unstoppable tears until your eyes stung and your face was swollen and your body couldn’t produce anymore because of how dehydrated you were.

You’ve been alone with your thoughts since then, the image of Mel’s face burnt into your mind, your own I’m in love with you echoing in your mind. The memory of saying it aloud in the parking lot replays over and over inside your head, regret filling you more each time.

Your body drains completely. Thirst and exhaustion take over where the tears leave off, but your mind refuses to rest. You zone out on your couch, staring at the ceiling. You’re suspended in the awfulness of this day, possibly the worst you can ever remember having.

Hours later, there’s a knock at your door.

You don’t move.

Another knock.

And then a voice, one you’ve heard so often that it’s completely unmistakable even through the door: “Can I come in?”

Your stomach flips and you don’t answer. You just want to curl up and disappear. But every part of you, especially the part that’s been screaming for her for the past six days, knows you can’t hide from this.

The sound of the key in the lock, and the doorknob turns.

Mel steps inside your apartment, removing her spare key from the lock. You’re still slumped on the couch, still caught in the thicket of the numbness as she closes the door behind her.

For a moment she just stands there, staring at you.

“Why are you here?” the hoarseness of your voice surprises you.

“Because…” her voice falters and she adjusts her glasses. You can see her struggling to find words. “You’re not okay.”

You scoff lightly, more out of hurt than humor. “Why do you care? Where was this over the last week?”

Mel flinches because she knows you’re right. She opens her mouth to answer, but stops, because nothing she can say would erase the gap of six days of avoidance. Still, she knows this isn’t entirely fair, you’ve been avoiding her, too.

You take a deep breath. “I…I really, really can’t do this with you tonight. Not after today.”

Before she can respond, you stand from the couch, your body taut and your muscles protesting the stretch of standing after so many hours, and start stalking off toward your bedroom.

“Y’know…” Mel says quietly, almost reluctant in tone as you pass her. “…she told me not to wait.”

You freeze mid-step, just past her. The words are familiar, Ms. Burkhart’s voice saying them to you too just a few hours earlier.

Your chest twists.

When did Mel even talk to her? You were in and out of that room multiple times and never saw her in there alone with the patient. You didn’t know they’d had a conversation, let alone the same one she’d had with you.

You turn back toward her, eyes locking with hers. Neither of you say another word, but there’s weight in the air between you as you just…stare. Then you reach out and take her hand in yours. She hesitates for a moment, then allows you to start pulling her down the hall.

You lead her to your bedroom and close the door behind you. Wordlessly, you climb into your bed, tugging the blanket up with you and she follows, taking the space next to you.

The silence that follows is painful and awkward and until Mel breaks it.

“How long…how long have you known?”

There’s no point in hiding it anymore. “From the start.”

“Before my friends came?”

“Way before,” you confirm.

Mel shifts under the blanket as she turns to face you, her eyes searching yours. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

You take a deep breath, the words heavy on your tongue. “Because I didn’t feel like your life had space for me in that way,” you admit softly. “And…having you in any capacity, even just as your friend, was better than not having you at all.”

She’s curled in close to you in your tiny bed. “And all this time, you just…hid it?”

You look down, ashamed. “I tried. I pretended it wasn’t there, but then…pretending to be your girlfriend - it made it worse. I wish I’d never even offered, because now…now I’m stuck here and I’ve ruined everything. We can’t go back to how we were before, and I can’t…I can’t pretend anymore. Not after having you like that, even if it was just pretend.”

She reaches for your arm, fingers lightly brushing over it, like she needs tactile reassurance before speaking.

“I’ve….I’ve been thinking,” she begins hesitantly, “about…everything. About the past week, and - and that night at the bar.” She pauses as she swallows, her eyes not meeting yours. “I thought…maybe it was just the moment. That whole situation with that guy.” Her hands curl around the blanket, pulling it further up her body as if it’s going to shield her. “But it wasn’t. It wasn’t just that.”

She finally meets your gaze and the vulnerability in her eyes makes your heart lurch. “I didn’t even realize it at first, I didn’t know how I felt about you until…all of this. And then, these past few days, avoiding each other…it’s been awful. But I think it was my own way of trying to…make sense of everything. Make sense of me.”

She swallows hard. “I…I think I love you too. I don’t…I don’t even know when it happened, really, but…I do. I just couldn’t see it, it didn’t make sense until now.”

Her eyes are filled with both hope and uncertainty as she searches yours for any sign of rejection, while also daring to hope for acceptance.

You reach out, cupping her face in your hand, thumb brushing her cheek. She leans against the touch, both hesitant and wanting.

You lean in toward her, your lips brushing against hers. She responds immediately, chasing you when you pull away from her. You tilt your head, parting your lips as you slide your tongue gently into her mouth. It’s instinctive, born of too much time spent in unspoken longing and pent-up emotion. Your hands fist in her shirt and you pull her against you, desperate to have her body close to yours.

But Mel pulls back away from you as you escalate, breathless and wide eyed as her eyes scan your face. “No,” she whispers with a small shake of her head. “Not like this, not right now.”

“But -”

She’s firm as she pulls your hands from her shirt. “Not while you’re like this.”

But you can’t stop, won’t stop. You reach for her waist, forehead pressing to hers, and your voice is desperate as you speak. “Please, just…I need you, I need this. Just…help me. Please, Mel. Please, I need you -”

Her resolve wavers. You can see it in the tremor of her lips, the rise and fall of her chest at your words. She wants you too, just as badly, but she’s holding back. But your pleading pushes her over the edge and her restraint crumbles. Her arms wrap around you, pulling you in as she kisses you again. You respond in kind, fingers tangling in the loose hair at the nape of her neck, letting her drag you close until your body is pressed up against hers under the blanket.

Her tongue prods at your lips and your mouth opens for her. Her fingers dig into the soft skin of your waist and her knee nudges between yours, spreading them. Her knee hovers there between your thighs, not quite giving you what you want, but there for the taking.

So you take.

You rock down against her thigh, breaking from her mouth with a gasp as friction sparks against your clit through your scrub pants. You’re wound too tight, stretched thin with grief and want and adrenaline; you could probably cum like this alone. But it’s not enough, it’ll never be enough.

You need her hands on you.

You shove the blanket down your legs and push up, climbing over her until you’re straddling her thighs while she sits back against the headboard. Her hands settle on your hips automatically, grounding and possessive as you pull your scrub top over your head and toss it aside without caring where it lands.

Your hips roll helplessly against her lap, looking for friction that isn’t there while she pulls you down into another kiss, devouring you like she’s been starving too.

When you pull away for air, she leans forward, shoving your sports bra up and over your breasts, her mouth closing around one nipple immediately, tongue circling with feverish focus. A broken sigh escapes you, your hand cradling the back of her head to keep her there, even though she shows no intention of stopping. She switches sides after a moment, giving the other nipple the same attention, and as she moves, you catch sight of her glasses, fogged from the heat and her breath. A soft giggle escapes you.

You slide the black frames from her face gently, setting them on the nightstand.

The reaction is instant. She presses her face deeper against your chest, her nose smushing into your skin, eyes squeezed shut as she suckles harder, like she needs the contact as much as you do.

Your hips start moving again, grinding against her thighs. One leg slips between hers so you can straddle a single leg more fully, and she lets you, even flexes her thigh beneath you, giving you something solid to grind on.

And god, the feeling of her underneath you. Better than your wildest of wet dreams, rivaled in emotion only by that morning you woke up with her face pressed against your collarbone, her saliva rolling down your skin as she slept on you. Bliss in opposite forms, both intimate but in completely different ways.

You’re so lost in the sensation of her mouth on your chest that you don’t notice her hand sliding beneath the waistband of your pants until her fingers brush your slit through your panties.

“Ah!” You let out a strangled little cry, pathetic sounding even to your own ears as she strokes you over the damp cotton.

Mel angles her arm awkwardly to press her fingertips against your clit, mumbling a muffled “wet” against the fat of your breast as her fingers dip through the leg of your panties and between your soaked folds.

You’re rocking down against her hand, her fingers alternating between flicking gently over your clit and sliding further down to gather your slick before resuming their ministrations against the swollen nub.

“Please,” you whimper above her.

She pulls away from your tit to look up at you, her eyes uncharacteristically dark. “Please what?”

You huff at that, causing her to press further. “Tell me what you want.”

You’re desperate to have her inside you, hips jerking against her hand, but she pulls away. You back up just enough to gawk down at her, stunned.

Mel King, being a fucking tease. An infuriating little smirk on her face as she takes in your disheveled expression.

“Need you,” you finally whine out. “Please.”

That’s what she was waiting for. She presses a hand flat to your sternum, guiding you backward just enough to hook her other fingers into the waistband of your scrub pants, tugging them down your thighs. You lift off her lap obediently, kicking them off along with your panties before settling back over you.

Mel’s legs part just a bit, enough to keep you spread open above her as your knees bracket her own. One hand takes hold of your hips, guiding you down onto her awaiting other. Her ring and middle finger slide inside you easily, wetness dripping down her digits the second they start to slip inside, you desperation laid out for both of you to see.

You whine again as you sink down onto them, and she curls them as you reach her knuckles. The pads of her fingers rub against the spot inside of you that causes your brain to shut down, and you rock against them to rub against it repeatedly. Her thumb finds your clit, solid against the nub as you rock against her fingers, riding her.

A guttural moan tears out of you. You’re already teetering on the edge, too overwhelmed to hold back. You ride her fingers harder, chasing release without shame.

Below you, she watches with blown pupils and parted lips, tiny whimpers of her own escaping her. She tries to hide them against your skin when they threaten to grow louder.

The spark ignites inside you, all-consuming and white-hot like fire. It warms your body, tingles in your toes, pleasure winding tighter and threatening to spill out of you like water. Your back arches as you cum, release spilling over her hand as the walls of your pussy pulse around her fingers.

Your mouth is dry as you come down from your high, folding inward on yourself until your forehead is pressed against hers. She slips her fingers from inside you as you sag against her, panting.

“Open.”

Her wet fingers prod at your lips and you part them obediently, taking her into your mouth and tasting your own release. Your tongue swirls around them, eyes closing blissfully until she rips them from your mouth and presses her own mouth to yours, tongue shoving into your mouth to get a taste herself.

Her hands grip your sides tight like a vice, pulling you off her and subsequentially under her on the bed until she’s hovering over you.

You sit up just enough to start pulling at her clothes, but she stops you with firm hands and a shake of her head.

“No.”

You look up at her, searching her face, confused. “But I want you to -”

Her eyes are set, leaving no room for argument as she shakes her head again. “This is about you.”

Now it’s your turn to shake your head, eyes wide. “Mel, no. I don’t - I don’t want you doing this just for me, just because I -”

She cuts you off with a press of her lips to yours, both hands grasping your face to hold you to her. When she pulls away, she breathes, “This isn’t just for you. This is about you. You need this…and I want you. I want this.”

You search her face for doubt, for hesitation, for anything that might indicate she isn’t being entirely truthful with you. But there’s nothing there but want, raw and unmistakable.

So you give in.

Satisfied with your submission, Mel slides down your body until she settles between your spread legs. Her arms hook around the outside of your thighs, holding you open as her tongue drags slowly up your slit.

The sensation pulls a moan from you, your head tilting back on the pillow as she latches onto your clit. The world narrows to the slide of her tongue, her confidence growing as she begins to pull sound after sound from you.

Mel is content like this, her face buried in your pussy, no glasses to fog up as she breathes heavily through her nose. Not even willing to break from your clit to take a full breath of air. She starts slow, dragging out your pleasure until the sounds falling from your lips become too tempting, she needs to hear more, needs to watch you cum from only her mouth.

When she glances up at you, your eyes are rolled back, thighs shaking around her head, hands gripping her hair to hold her in place as your hips roll against her face, chasing the feeling.

You’ve never felt like this before, another orgasm building so quickly, so desperate for her as you whimper, as you beg her for more. Your fingers tangle in her braid as the feeling consumes you and you cum again against her mouth, pussy fluttering around nothing as you let out a breathless cry. It feels like eons as you ride out the aftershocks, finally collapsing into the bed, spent.

Mel releases you, drawing back, her face shining with your slick. You reach for her, your hands clasping around her arm to pull her down next to you on the pillows. She comes willingly, collapsing next to you without a fight.

You curl into her automatically. “Are you sure I can’t return the favor?”

“Not tonight,” she says, still catching her breath.

“What can I do for you?” you ask. “Tell me, give me something.”

She’s silent for a moment as she ponders.

“I could use a shower.”

She doesn’t move right away, and neither do you. The bedroom is quiet except for the sound of your breathing. Then you squeeze her hand.

“C’mon,” you murmur.

She lets you pull her upright. Your own legs are shaky, like they belong to someone else as they wobble underneath you, but her hand is firm around yours as you lead her down the hall to the bathroom. The light is too bright at first and it forces your eyes to squint as you reach in and start the water.

You share the shower in a comfortable silence, neither of you speaking much. There isn’t anything left that needs saying.

She’s naked. You try not to stare, you really do. But your eyes keep drifting anyway, drawn helplessly to the familiar shape of her body that’s suddenly new without layers of clothes in the way. Each time she catches you looking, her cheeks flush a deeper shade of pink, followed by a shy little duck of her head before she does her best to pretend like nothing happened. It only makes you want to look more, both equal parts awed and nervous of making her more self-conscious.

When you finally exit the shower, it’s been much longer than necessary, neither of you seeming to want to leave the comfort of the hot water. But exhaustion pulls at you both and you wander out to the bedroom, hair still dripping as you pull clothes for both of you from your drawers.

Whether she stays here or not tonight, you know Mel won’t want to get back into her dirty scrubs immediately after a shower.

You sit on the edge of the bed while she gathers her wet hair from her face, and only then does the reality of the hour seem to take root in her mind.

“Becca,” she says quietly, more to herself than to you.

Right. Becca is at their apartment. Waiting.

The bubble you’re in shifts, prepared to fully burst wit her next action.

Mel steps closer to you, stopping when she’s just within reach. Her hands hover before settling lightly on your shoulders and she sinks down to her knees in front of you.

“I can’t stay,” she says softly. “But I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”

Your eyes lift to hers, surprised.

She hesitates, but not like she’s uncertain. More like she wants to make sure you really hear what she offers next:

“Come home with me,” she says. “Stay the night. Actually, stay as long as you want.”

The impact is enormous. An invitation into her real life, more than just her best friend, more than her fake girlfriend. An intimate space inside her world, created just for you.

Carrie’s voice surfaces in your mind again.

Don’t wait.

Your fingers catch in the hem of your own shirt on her body. “Are you sure?”

Her expression is soft, relaxed in a way you rarely see on her. “I’m sure.”

Emotion surges so suddenly within you that it steals your breath, relief coursing through your veins until you can’t hold it in and it comes out in words.

“I love you.”

Her eyes close for a moment, like she can physically feel the words. When she opens them again, there’s light inside them.

“I love you too.”

She stands, but leans back down, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “C’mon,” she murmurs against your hair. “Let’s get you out of here.”

♡ ───────── ♡ ───────── ♡

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♡ ───────── ♡ ───────── ♡

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