#pittres

She is upset and desperately trying to not be.

There’s a lot of adrenalin in this job, most of the time it's intellectual adrenaline. Needing to solve the problem in front of you, figure out presentations, tests, treatments, they were all part of a puzzle that could help someone. That was what she took joy from in this job. Being able to use those pattern recognition abilities to help. 

The adrenaline she hates comes from the anger, the kind where other people's anger makes your heart thump against your rib cage and your hands to shake. There’s a the innate response, where your body wants to either fight or flight…or freeze, and Mel chooses the first option. 

She needs an adult, an adultier adult. 

"Risky as hell, glad you made the move and not me."

Though, Jack was genuinely impressed. Langdon was flagged to him as a risk-taker, but that came with the emergency department package. Any doctor who wanted to work in emergency medicine knew there would be cases where hard calls needed to be made. The call had been Jack's, but the idea had been Langdon's. That was what teamwork was about.

The patient's heart was beating again, stable enough to be carted off to the OR. The man had arrived with no pulse and skin turning blue, and between him and Langdon, their patient now had a fighting chance.

"Good job," Jack added, wanting to make sure Langdon heard that. It felt like the younger doctor needed the praise these days.

she had finally settled into her recliner, fuzzy soft blanket and book in hand when her phone dinged from its place on her coffee table. for a beat emma decided she would ignore it, and then curiosity got the better of her, and she was right to be curious.

{ txt } : frogs …?

The options for her brief respite were fresh air or coffee. The freshness of the air outside was debatable, but it meant less of a chance that someone would spot her and ruin her five minutes of peace. She should have known, though, from the moment she clocked in, that peace was a rare luxury in this hospital. So she took what she could get.

It was nice to see Langdon by the doors, but there was something off about his posture. She didn't need a doctorate in psychology to know that something was wrong with him. And as it happened, there were no other ears around, granting them a private conversation.

"Of course you're okay, but I mean, aren't we all a little sad? We work here, after all. If you weren't, I'd think there was something seriously wrong with you." She offered him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

Naturally, she worried about him. She wasn't blind to what had been happening behind the scenes with him and Robby -- things she had quietly pieced together from context and sought no confirmation of. Better not to know, in situations like these. But that didn't take away from the fact that she could clearly see Langdon struggling with his own personal demons. Everyone was, but in the end they were a team, and a team had to pull each other back to their feet.

“This wasn’t supposed to be a house call, I just can’t get my window open.”

She’d gotten the apartment for cheap. Ancient building, and sitting next to a church. Close enough that the sense of protection crept all the way through her living space. Ideal, except the tiny rental had windows that had seemingly been painted shut, and her landlord wouldn’t answer, and she felt like she was burning up.

Sure, maybe she’d neglected cleaning out the cuts across her palms as she was moving, and yes — maybe they were clearly infected now. She was exhausted. There were boxes on boxes still to unpack. There probably would be for weeks. She hadn’t needed his admittedly right diagnosis, she’d just needed help with the window.

"I-I don't — I need to-!" Dennis protested. There was a lot going on. He knew that. Bright lights were right in his eyes, rather than behind him and illuminating what he needed to know. People moved too fast for his eyes to make sense of things. The world moved under him, like he was on too big waves, shoving him around, inducing nauseous churning in his belly.

Something bad happened. He looked down at his hands. Blood. Gloves. Blue and red. He'd been working on someone. He and Trinity. And then something bad happened, and he got shoved away, or pulled or yanked or pushed. Slapped, maybe, bullets sometimes made that sound like a loud slap as metal slammed into silky skin, but that didn't make sense. Who brought guns to hospitals? SWAT Teams, he supposed. "Dr. Abbot?"

No, not Abbot. Langdon. Trin would think that was funny. He tried to focus on Langdon's voice. He wasn't sure he was doing a great job. "I think something bad might've happened."