Kingdon-pilled

for @kingdonmicrofic day 28: pulse | 496 words | ao3

"Help! Is anyone a doctor?"

Mel jumped up out of her seat and ran to the crowd surrounding a person on the floor. "I'm a doctor!" She called out, immediately switching into work mode. She knelt down beside the woman who was convulsing.

"I'm also a doctor," a man interjected, coming to kneel on the other side of the woman. "What happened?"

"She just fell down and started shaking. I don't know. I only turned away for a minute," another woman replied, almost in hysterics.

"She's having a seizure so we need everyone to back up and keep their distance," the man declared.

"Someone find an employee, tell them what's going on, and have them call 911," Mel ordered.

She looked up for the first time and made eye contact with the man across from her. The weirdest thing was that they didn't need words; they launched into patient care with perfect synergy. The man took off his hoodie and Mel rolled the woman onto her side. She grabbed the hoodie from him without even looking and placed it underneath the woman's head.

The woman's seizure only lasted a minute or two. Once it was over, she checked to see if the woman was responsive and breathing regularly while her partner waited for the EMTs.

Once they were off the hook, Mel let out a heavy exhale as she took a step back and began to process what just happened. She turned to the man and gave him a tired smile, already feeling her adrenaline crash and her racing pulse start to slow down again.

He extended a hand and introduced himself, "I"m Frank." He reached up to scratch behind his ear with a lopsided grin. "Certainly wasn't expecting to do that when I woke up this morning."

"Mel. And me too, but I'm glad I wasn't alone," she replied with a sheepish shrug, gratitude written all over her face. He nodded in agreement.

After making sure the woman was being taken care of, they were left standing there awkwardly as everyone moved on and returned to whatever they were doing before. Mel looked down at her shoes before asking, "So, I guess we just go back to waiting for our flights?"

Frank furrowed his brows. "I guess so."

"Well, it was nice to help that woman with—"

"Do you want to get something to eat? I'm buying," Frank cut in. "My flight isn't for another few hours."

Mel beamed up at him. "I would love that," she answered, probably too quickly.

They shared a nice lunch and a reluctant goodbye after he walked Mel back over to her gate. She was too shy to ask for his contact information and he didn't offer it. Mel thought about him the entire plane ride to visit family in Massachusetts before the start of her new job. She expected to never see him again.

He bathes it, treats it and feeds it and stuffs it in his scrub shirt’s chest pocket until Dr. Al-Hashimi (regretfully) tells him off for hygiene reasons. But by then Dana has found a box and stuffed it with a sweater. The kitten is asleep in the box on the charge desk, and everyone drops in to check on it.

“What are you going to do with it?” Mel asks, watching Frank feed it formula with a syringe.

“I don’t know... “ He looks so sad. “I’m already sleeping on the sofa. If I bring her home I’ll be sleeping in the car.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good place for either of you to go home to.” It slips out, and for a moment she starts to apologise before closing her mouth because no, she means that and he should hear it.

Mel gets pulled into an emergency before they can finish talking, but she goes to find Frank after.

“I can take the kitten.” She says. “But I think you should come home with me too.”

He blinks, shocked.

“Think about it,” Mel tells him.