#melmisery

(Tthat's not completely untrue. Mel went home, grabbed her sister's blanket, and played elf on their—her, it's now hers, living room. She didn't cry. She laughed and laughed at the scenes she used to scoff at or roll her eyes at, she laughed and laughed until the pain was so heavy she fell asleep on the couch. Wrapped in Becca's blankets, the DVD menu of Elf reflecting upon Mel's face, her alone in the darkness. Her phone blowing up with notifications.)

Mel doesn't know who she is without her sister. Every waking moment of her life, Becca was with her. When she was born, Becca was born a minute after her. That was the longest they've ever really been away from each other. Now it's been a few days, and Mel keeps getting calls about what Becca will wear for the funeral, but that means she has to go through her sister's closet and find a dress to bury her sister in forever. Even after she lost her dad, then her mom, she had her sister. her sister, who's her world. Now it's just her, the only King left.

But the world keeps turning.

Frank tries to catch Mel's eye at work, but she always make sure to avoid him. When Frank asks around for Mel, McKay will say they just saw her with a patient, or Samira would say I haven't seen her either. He knows she's there, he can see her name on the board, and how she once dropped her hair tie at a station. She's there, but she's avoiding him.

People start to notice. First it was Trinity pulling her aside and asking her if she had eaten anything that day. Then it was Whitaker who offered her a protein bar in silence, and then Robby tells her she should take a day off.

"No, I'm okay," she tells all of them, not looking at them in the eye. "I'm fine, I can keep working."

They don't know she avoids going home. That right after the double ends, she would go walking in the park for hours until she has to go home briefly to shower and find a change of clothes. Sometimes she'd doze off on the couch in the living room, but she'd never go to her bedroom at night because her bedroom is right across Becca's and if she has to cross her sister's bedroom at night, knowing she'll never be there again, she can't do it. So instead she sleeps on the couch, letting her back get all achy and stiff all over her body, and tells herself Becca is at the center.

They bury Becca on a sunny Wednesday. Directly in the middle of the week, and it's sunny, the sun shining so bright it's making Mel's skin burn and itch under the black dress she wore. People from Becca's center came. But no one else did. Mel goes home, alone. And the world keeps turning.

She goes home, puts on her scrubs, and then clocks into work.

She didn't eat anything before the funeral or after. She just stood there as people came up to her and told her they were sorry for her loss and how Becca was the best of them. gone too soon.

Mel clocks into work after her sister's funeral, and doesn't tell anyone that her sister is gone and that she's the last King left.

She's on her feet the whole shift, switching between patient to patient. She doesn't give herself time to take a break, doesn't give herself time to think, then finally, finally everything catches up to her and she faints directly in the middle of the ER.

Mel wakes up in one of the hospital beds and is confused. Then she turns to her left, and Frank is there.

"What happened?" Mel asks, seeing how she's connected to the IV. She realizes then she hasn't talked to Frank in over a week. He's been texting her every day, calling her too, but she hasn't answered anything. She hasn't been talking to anyone really.

"You fainted, Mel." His voice is low, heavy. Eyes not straying away from her face.

"Oh," she says. then she looks down at her arm, at him, at the door, then back at him again. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine, Mel. They said you dropped over 10 pounds, and you have no food in your system. You are dehydrated, and you haven't been sleeping. They've been saying you've been drinking caffeine like fucking crazy—"

"Since when was it a crime to drink caffeine? You drink a lot too."

"You don't, Mel. You don't."

Mel shrugs, turning away from him to look at the wall. A beat passes..

"You know I called Becca's center." Mel freezes, and doesn't turn to look at him. She hopes he'll stop. He continues anyway. "I told them about how you fainted and how you wouldn't be able to pick up Becca tonight. That I'd be the one to get her tonight instead. Then they told me that Becca died a week ago, and her funeral was just yesterday."

Mel feels something heavy in her throat, and her glasses begin to fog.

"Mel."

She turns to look at him, and she blinks away her tears. "What do you want me to say? I'm sorry?"

"What? No, what the fuck? Mel, your sister just died, and you've been working like fucking crazy. And you didn't tell anyone. No one knew about Becca until I had to call the center."

You didn't tell me was left unspoken between them.

Mel stares at him. She realizes then how unkempt he is, his face pale, and the eye bags under his eyes are gaunt. She hasn't seen him in over a week, so she didn't notice. She wonders if she looks the same; she hasn't looked in the mirror since her sister died.

"Are you going to say something?" Frank asks, starting to get impatient.

"Why should I?" Mel responds. "She's my sister. not yours."

"Jesus, fuck, obviously I know that, mel. But you didn't tell me. Her funeral was yesterday? you didn't have to be alone."

"We didn't need more people," She sits up in the hospital bed and grimaces at the IV connected to her.

"You needed me."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you fucking did, Mel. You know how much I love Becca, and you didn't tell me. I would've come, you know that. You didn't have to be alone. Why didn't you tell me?"

And that's when Mel breaks. She can't stop the tears from streaming down her face. It was always inevitable. Frank reaches out to touch her, and she pulls back, as if she were burned.

"It's because you'd do this, Frank. You don't think I haven't been noticing what you've been doing? You're here at my bedside right now, when you weren't even on shift today. You've been calling me everyday, and asking about me all over the floor whenever we're both on shift. When I'm not around, you ask about me. You're always here, always around me even though I've made it clear that I don't want to talk to you right now, but you're still around me. And you say you love my sister, but you don't love her like I do. You don't know her like I do. Now she's gone, and I'm here, you're here, and she's not."

Her face is all scrunched up from the heartbreak overwhelming her body, desperate to break out of her. She can't see Frank clearly, him all blurry from her tears.

"It's not fair. It's not fair that I get to pass out on the floor and wake up. But my sister's not going to wake up ever again. What did she do to deserve this? She's never done anything bad, Frank. All she wants is to watch Elf every week and for us to do the morning crossword together. You know, she once cried because of how I skinned my knee off the pavement because she tripped me by accident? She apologized to me for a whole week, feeling so bad for hurting me, even though I knew it wasn't her fault. She's never done anything but be a good person. And now she's gone. And I'm still here, barely alive but alive, without her. Who am I without my sister?"

She's fully crying now, her voice thick with tears and snot all over her face. She doesn't notice that Frank is crying too.

"You have me, Mel," he says, hands at the edge of her bed, fingers flexing as if desperate to hold her but knows he can't touch her, not now, not yet.

"Do I?" she nods towards his loose wedding band on his left hand.

"That doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it?"

"You know how I feel about you, Mel."

"That's not the problem."

Frank sighs, shakes his head, and wipes at his tears. Mel doesn't wipe her face at all, doesn't even care about her appearance. She stopped caring a long time ago.

"I want to be alone, Frank."

"No," he says sternly. His gaze on her is intense. She's too tired to try to understand it anymore.

"I don't want you here."

"You're just saying that, Mel. I know you. You're shutting down. You don't have to be alone."

"You should be with your family, Frank."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Mel, you're my family too!"

Mel freezes. She's sure everybody could hear them outside the room too, even though they were given some privacy. She hates everything. She hates Frank, herself, and even Becca for leaving her. Now she has to deal with everything after Becca's death. Why couldn't she die with her?

They stare down each other, eyes not blinking. Then Frank begins to cry again. He reaches out for her left hand, wrapping her hand around his. Her hand stays stiff.

"I'm not leaving you. You can't make me." He's sobbing now. Mel continues to stare at him. She doesn't feel anything for him right now, she realizes. That's another thing Becca's death took away from her. Her ability to love.

Becca died, and Mel's love died with her. Frank's holding onto her hand like it's a lifeline, the bright fluorescent light of the hospital room reflecting off his wedding band.