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.

He’s meticulous about sending flowers for medical leave and a PTMC branded baby onesie for parental leave. He schedules calls in the week ahead of employees’ return to work so no one ever has to wonder what their first day back will look like.

Give me a curse on Frank that only true love can break. Give me Frank in a coma, and Mel sneaking into his room one last time on the day she knows they’ll turn off his life support to let him pass. Give me Mel holding his hand and thanking him for being there when she needed him, for supporting her, for being her friend. Give me aching sobs and tears and a soft hand in his hair. Give me Mel finally getting up because she knows his family will be there soon. Give me Mel bending down and kissing his forehead.

And then give me all of his most loved friends and colleagues in the room when they take the tubing out and turn the machines off, but instead of his body failing like it ought to, give me spontaneous autonomous breathing, give me O2 sats remaining steady and eye movement as he starts to slowly regain consciousness over the course of several days.