𝔹𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕥𝕠 𝕐𝕠𝕦
summary: A year of silence, hidden truths, and a past you couldn’t quite leave behind all lead to night shift at the Pitt. Stepping into the buzzing ER, you find yourself face to face with Frank Langdon; the man who once shaped your boundaries, vanished into his own battles, and left you with endless unanswered questions. Before the unresolved tension between you can find its words, a life or death trauma crashes through the doors, forcing you both into a high stakes rhythm where a single move makes the difference. As the blood cleans up and the alarms quiet down, one truth remains: the shift is just getting started, and the breakroom is waiting for the conversation you’ve avoided for a year. pairing: frank langdon x attending!reader warnings: mentions of addicton, probably medical inaccuracy, single langdon! 2.1k words, not one-shot
ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪ :
Tonight, as always, the hospital corridors echoed not with the chaos of the city, but with the rhythmic beeping of monitors. Lit by dozens of fluorescent lights, the clean emergency room was operating just like a busy beehive. But tonight was different; a new name had been added to the night shift.
The new night shift doctor, You. Guided by an urge you couldn't even admit to yourself, you had turned everything down and chosen to come straight to the ER.
"You can only see your limits here," Frank Langdon had said on the very first day you met.
And that sentence was still echoing in your mind. You had met him during your ER internship; his deeply confident demeanor and the sharp intelligence backing it up had captivated you from day one. The frantic rush you shared, your shoulders brushing against each other while stitching up wounds, bitter cold coffees drunk in the breakroom, and an internship year filled with feelings that were never voiced by either of you... In the end, you had decided you wanted to stay in the ER; the place and the tempo suited you. He suited you.
However, life had made other plans behind your back. When you completed your exams and returned to the ER for the new term, you couldn't find him. You thought maybe he was on the night shift, but that hadn't been the case. You had learned about his situation from the nurses, Princess and Perlah. You now knew he was struggling with addiction. You wanted to call him countless times, ask him how he was doing, and why he hadn't shared what he was going through with you, but you could never find the courage to hit the call button. Yet, the excitement you felt the day you got his number was still fresh in your mind.
A year had passed like this: Langdon continued his journey, while you graduated and began your job search. Life went on. The moment you heard there was an open position at the Pitt, you took the job. In the meantime, Langdon had also returned to work, proven himself, and gotten his attending status. He was trying to be okay, to heal, and to just do his job. Still, the staff's whispers, his superior Robby's attitude, and changing dynamics had pushed him to the night shift. He was happier there. You had learned he was back at work from Cassie. This fearless redheaded woman, a very old friend of yours, had helped you immensely during that time. You two had talked dozens of times about what you would do and what you would say when you met him, and now, that moment rehearsed over and over was 5 steps away, about to become reality.
Now Langdon was doing patient charts at the other end of the room. As usual, his bright brown hair and the top of his black scrubs were slightly disheveled; his sky blue eyes carried a tired but attentive expression. You looked at the monitor screen where Langdon was entering patient information, then your eyes unknowingly drifted to him. You watched him and the surroundings carefully, trying to adapt to the environment and figure him out. Just as you were about to avert your gaze, Langdon raised his head at that exact moment, and your eyes met. It lasted a second, maybe two. But both of you felt time slow down a bit.
"When I saw your name on the shift list, for a second I thought I read it wrong," he said. His voice was low, slightly raspy. No exaggerated greeting came out of his mouth, nor did he act like a total stranger.
"No, you didn't read it wrong," you said, crossing your arms over your chest and keeping a few steps of distance between you. The distant tone you tried to capture in your voice wasn't enough to hide the undisciplined rhythm of your heart pounding against your ribs. "Here I am, Langdon."
Frank slowly closed the cover of the chart he had just entered into the computer. No exaggerated greeting came out of his mouth, nor did he act like a total stranger; but in those blue eyes hovered the awareness of those questions you hadn't dared to ask for months. He straightened up slightly from the desk and squared his shoulders. The small, controlled smile appearing at the corner of his lips was like a fleeting reflection of the old days, but that heavy gray armor left behind by rehab and months of isolation was still on him.
"You could have tried one of those quieter spots at St. Margaret's or Mercy," Frank said. His voice was careful. Without taking his eyes off your face for even a second, he took a small, measured step toward you. "You would have fewer shifts, less chaos, and probably a much more decent life there. Instead of jumping right into the middle of the chaos here, you could have gone for an option that would be... kinder to you."
You gave a slight nod, locking your gaze onto his sky-blue eyes.
"Other hospitals didn't have what I was looking for, Langdon," you said, as the subtle implication in your voice instantly thickened the air between you. "This was the only place that would suit me." You said, adding, "And by the looks of it, you decided this place suits you best, too."
The tiny spark that flickered in Frank's eyes appeared instantly under the weight of your sentence. His familiar scent wafting to your nose revived all those incomplete phone call attempts and unspoken sentences in your mind. Frank parted his lips to speak, but just as that electric silence between you was about to deepen—
The double doors at the main ER entrance swung open with a loud crash. The night flooded in, accompanied by siren screams and shouts.
"Trauma 1! Open the gurney!" yelled the paramedic as he ran inside.
Beside the gurney appeared Victoria Javadi, a 4th year medical student clinging tightly to her notepad. Overly ambitious and bursting with theoretical knowledge, Javadi began listing the parameters out of breath, her eyes wide with panic. "Female patient, 30s, trapped in vehicle. BP 80/40, pulse 135! Respiration shallow, trachea shifted to the right!"
The personal, hesitant look on Frank's face erased in a single split second. Only medical focus and expertise remained in his eyes. "Javadi, calm down and get the thoracostomy tray! Now!"
When he stepped to the opposite side of the gurney, his eyes met yours once more. In that moment, the months of silence and unspoken feelings were brushed aside instantly. The moment both of you stepped up to the patient, that shared reflex from your residency years revived and kicked into gear without needing a single word.
You placed your stethoscope on the patient's chest. "Tension pneumothorax," you said, your voice filling the room with icy clarity. "Left lung is completely collapsed. The pressure is hitting the heart, we need to go in right now."
Frank grabbed the scalpel while pulling on his gloves, then looked at you. In his eyes shone the shadow of that unconditional trust and admiration he had held for you since your intern days. "Incision is yours," he said, handing the handle of the scalpel toward you. "Make the cut."
You didn't hesitate. You took the scalpel and made a clean incision at the fifth intercostal space. As you bluntly dissected through the tissue and reached the pleura, the whisper like, lifesaving sound of trapped air escaping the chest cavity filled the room.
Following that slick incision you made at the start, the tension pneumothorax pressure in the room dropped, but the patient's condition was not yet fully secured. Though the green lights on the monitor offered a momentary breath of relief, the rhythmic beeps were still beating faster than they should be.
Frank quickly approached where you set the scalpel down, stabilizing the incision site with a sterile lap sponge. His gaze didn't leave the monitor for a single second. "Pressure relieved, but the heart rate still hasn't picked up enough," he said, his voice ringing with medical composure. "Connect the chest tube. Javadi, prepare the drainage bottle and set the suction!"
Victoria Javadi tried to connect the end of the tube to the suction system, her hands trembling slightly from excitement. "Ready, Dr. Langdon, but there's bleeding, heavy blood coming through the drainage tube."
You moved a bit closer to the gurney, and as you checked the placement of the tube with the blunt forceps in your hand, that slight rigidity in the patient's abdominal area didn't escape your notice. This time, you slid your stethoscope down to the patient's abdomen. The normal bowel sounds were absent. "The bleeding isn't just from the pleura," you said quickly, your eyes meeting Frank's. "They said trapped in vehicle. The impact to the chest might have compromised the diaphragm. There's a splenic or liver rupture; blood is leaking up from the abdominal cavity."
Frank picked up the ultrasound probe without hesitation. As he applied the gel to the patient's abdomen, his left hand accidentally -or unconsciously- brushed against your hand holding the tube. The instantaneous warmth spreading across both your skins ripped through the ice-cold air of the trauma room for a split second. That inner voice inside you whispered again: You're right here, right beside me. But Frank had his eyes fixed on the monitor screen.
"You're right," Frank said, angling the probe in his hand slightly. He pointed to the black void appearing on the screen. "Fluid in Morrison's pouch. Splenic laceration. We should stop this bleeding before getting her to the OR."
At that moment, a shadow appeared at the door. Dr. Parker Ellis looked inside the trauma room with her usual unbothered, effortlessly cool demeanor. She scanned the monitor. "Did you call surgery?" Ellis asked, her voice so calm it sounded like she was tracking a game score rather than a surgery.
"Javadi, call surgery! Tell Dr. Walsh to get the patient to the OR immediately," you said, while accelerating the IV fluid push.
As Javadi grabbed the phone and rushed out of the room, Frank picked up the needle driver to secure around the tube with a suture. At that moment, both of you were leaned right over the patient. As Frank passed the needle through the skin, your shoulders pressed together. Just like back in your residency days; in cramped treatment rooms, working locked together at four in the morning over a patient... Frank's slightly tired voice echoed right beside your ear:
"You still got it, huh."
"You forget who trained me, Langdon," you said in a low voice. You didn't care that Parker Ellis was a few steps away or that the devices in the room were noisy.
As Frank tied off the suture knot, that genuine smile hidden at the corners of his lips appeared, the one very few people ever got to see. "Glad to hear that. Because back when I was teaching, I thought you were a good student..." said Ellis.
When the surgical team and orderlies burst into the room and moved to take the patient up to the OR, the room emptied in an instant. Bloody gloves were tossed into the trash, and the frantic alarm sounds of the monitors fell silent. Only the faint smell of antiseptic and that strange quietness in the trauma room.
Parker Ellis took another bite of her protein bar and straightened up from the doorframe. "Not bad," she said, looking at both of you. "Brings a tear to my eye seeing two newbies who don't trip over each other. I'm in Room 3, superglue incident, wouldn't want to miss it."
Ellis disappeared down the hallway with heavy steps.
Langdon leaned against the desk. The heavy armor on his face slowly melted away, making way for a tired man lightened by your presence. He locked his eyes directly onto yours. All those questions you hadn't been able to ask, call about, or bear to hear the answers to for months seemed soaked into the smell of IV's and blood in the air.
"It's calming to see you back here," Frank said, his voice coming out lower and more fragile this time.
"You too, Frank," you said, finding his eyes in the mirror's reflection as you washed your hands at the sink. Frank took a deep breath. He took a step, stopping right behind you. Your gazes locked once more in the mirror.
"Coffee is still terrible," he said, offering this small excuse in place of the dozens of sentences he wanted to say but swallowed right at the tip of his tongue. "But we have five minutes in the breakroom. Coming?"
