Chapter Text
Primum Non Nocere - First, Do No Harm
Mel doesn't think it would surprise anyone who knows her that she isn't very interested in professional sports. She doesn't mind swimming - she likes the calm of being in the water, her body buoyant and all sounds muted - but she's not interested in watching other people swim. She's also done a lot of horse riding after it was recommended for Becca when they were children, and she doesn't mind it, but it can get a bit overwhelming.
When she has a choice, though, Mel will always prefer staying in, maybe with a good book or medical journal, maybe spending some time on a yoga mat with YouTube open. If she has enough time, she might even sit down with a good puzzle - she hates being interrupted or leaving them half-finished, so she tends to wait until she has a few hours to spare before starting a new one.
After her terrible shift at work that day and with Becca staying overnight at the centre five days a week now, there is nothing Mel would like more than to be sitting down with a glass of her favourite home-made lemonade, deliciously sour with only the slightest hint of sugar, and re-read her favourite novel - 'Little Women'. Instead, Mel has found herself on a date with a near-stranger who thinks that going to a hockey game together will be fun. Mel isn't sure if she's ever been this misunderstood in her life.
She knew agreeing to the date was a mistake even before she stepped into the hockey arena and immediately wanted to sink beneath the floor. The entire arena is a relentless assault to Mel's senses. Not only is the crowd deafeningly loud, horrible smelling, and emotionally charged, but the unbearable press of the bodies jostling her as they find their way to their seats makes Mel want to curl up in her closet with her hands over her ears and rock herself until the phantom sensation of other people touching her fades away.
Touch isn't painful for her, exactly - it would be very difficult for her to do her job if it was - but it's different if she isn't the one initiating it. When it's other people touching her, it matters if she's given permission or not, it matters if she can predict it or not. When people don't ask and she can't predict it, the sensation often bleeds into the wrong side of intense, turning intrusive and violating. If Mel can't initiate it or predict it, she can't control it, and if she can't control it, she can't cope with it. Only, she's on a date and she's in public, so she has no choice except to mask her reactions.
She already knows that she is going to be so drained after tonight that she doubts she'll even cope with her clothes touching her skin without experiencing a full sensory meltdown. She definitely isn't going to be able to cope with sex, which she was hoping for.
It isn't just the crush of people that is assaulting her senses. The hockey arena has succeeded in being even more overstimulating to her than the ED during a mass casualty incident - the bright, glaring overhead lights reflect painfully off the ice rink; the crowds are screaming and stamping, cheering and shouting; the shrill, piercing blast of the refs whistles make her flinch every time she hears them; and there's this sharp, cold, metallic scent that lingers in the air and stings her nose even as she's surrounded by the nauseating stench of body odour, popcorn, hot dogs, and alcohol.
Mel wants to cry. She wants to be at home and in her bed and curled up in a ball under the comforting pressure of her favourite weighted blanket while wearing her sleep mask and her noise cancelling headphones. She should have trusted her instincts and never folded under the nagging of her Aunt Meg and agreed to this date.
Mel has always struggled with saying no to Aunt Meg, especially after her Momma's diagnosis - Mel knows that Aunt Meg would never hold it against her, but Mel can't help feeling like she owes her because of how much Aunt Meg had helped them with the medical bills and caring for Becca while her Momma was sick, even though it turned out that all the medicine in the world couldn't save Bella King from withering away.
It isn't the first time that Aunt Meg has played match-maker, but Mel had hoped her living in a different state would mean less interference in her relationships, or lack thereof. And up until now it has been, except one of Aunt Meg's friends has a son who's recently moved to Pittsburgh and the phone calls from Aunt Meg had started up again.
Mel has been trying to avoid this date for weeks now, using every single slightly plausible excuse she can, even though she's a terrible liar and Aunt Meg can see straight through her, even when she can't see Mel's guilty, bright red face.
"You're like a goldfish," her Aunt Meg had told her when Mel stammered something about needing to work overtime.
"A goldfish?" Mel repeated, confused.
"A goldfish," Aunt Meg confirmed that Mel hadn't misheard. "Do you know that they can grow more than fourteen inches long? But you only ever see small ones, because they'll only grow as big as their fishbowl, and people always keep them in tiny little fishbowls like they're decorations, not living creatures."
"That's not actually true," Mel pointed out, still confused. "It's a common misconception, but the size of the tank itself doesn't actually affect the growth of the goldfish, its factors such as chronic stress, poor water quality, fluctuating temperatures, and poor diet that will stunt its growth, and those factors are more likely to be present in an undersized tank." Mel would know - Becca has had a lot of pets over the years, and it's Mel who was always responsible for the boring tasks needed to keep them alive. Mel is still very proud of the coral reef tank with its pair of clownfish.
Aunt Meg hadn't seemed very interested in Mel's correction. "Melissa, you are missing my point entirely!" She had complained before one of her granddaughters wrestled the phone away from her and demanded to chat with Becca - Becca's their favourite Auntie.
Aunt Meg wasn't wrong because Mel still isn't sure what her point had been or why she'd compared Mel to a goldfish - or had she been comparing Mel to the fishbowl? She's never been good with nonliteral language and Aunt Meg is usually more mindful about that, so she must have been very exasperated with her to forget that.
Mel isn't sure what her breaking point was for her to finally give in to Aunt Meg's non-stop nagging and confusing metaphors, except that it maybe had something to do with Dr. Langdon's recent return to work and the tight, twisting sensation Mel gets in her chest whenever they get to work a shift together.
She had wondered, over his ten-month absence, if she had just imagined how well they had worked together, like everything had just clicked in that effortless way that most people seemed to find when socialising or working in a team, and which Mel has always struggled with. It isn't that she's not a team player or that she doesn't like people, it's just that it feels like there's a language that everyone else speaks that she can't, at least not very well, and it always takes her extra time to translate what they've said so she can understand it and then translate her response back so they can understand her. She can do it, she knows she can, but it just takes her a little bit longer and most people aren't willing to give her that time.
Dr. Langdon does, though - he always gives her as much time as she needs and he never makes her feel awkward or embarrassed or weird about it, like most people do, whether they mean to or not. Mel adores working with him - it's become the highlight of her job. It isn't just that he's patient, he also listens to her and he gives her time and he never judges or teases her when she misses social cues or accidentally overshares. He also steps in to defend her when frustrated patients misread her direct speech and call her "ice queen" or "cold-hearted bitch" or - on a recent and memorable occasion - a "dumb fucking retard".
He also always asks for permission before touching her - he'll even ask if it's just him stepping a bit too close to her personal space bubble as he moves past her in the tight-packed ER because somehow, even after ten months away, Dr. Langdon is still the only one of a handful of her colleagues to notice how Mel flinches at unexpected touch.
Dr. Langdon also seems to have a supernatural ability to recognise when Mel is getting too overwhelmed or overstimulated by the ER environment. A childhood spent pushing away her own overshadowed needs to care for Becca has left Mel terrible at self-care and advocating for herself. She struggles to acknowledge when she needs a break so she can recalibrate herself because she's always too busy comparing her needs to Becca's needs and finding hers to be wanting, even if she knows that it's not true. Dr. Langdon gently but firmly takes the choice out of Mel's hands, ordering her to take ten minutes in the breakroom and giving absolutely no attention to her half-hearted protests.
Every time it happens it's just such a relief to have somebody not just notice that she's struggling, but for them to care enough to take steps to alleviate her distress, taking away the pressures and demands when Mel can't do it herself.
Mel has enough insight into her own mind and emotions to know that her feelings for Dr. Langdon aren't the sort of feelings she should have for a respected colleague who is also a married man. She would never do anything ever that could jeopardise their friendship or disrespect his marriage or his wife, but that doesn't mean she doesn't ache in her chest every time Dr. Langdon smiles at her, boyish and crooked and kind. And when he kissed the top of her head mid-way through today's awful shift, so gentle and protective and perfectly perceptive of her tolerance for touch, Mel just wanted to fold herself into his arms and let him take care of her the way that nobody ever has.
Mel realises now that texting the son of Aunt Meg's friend and agreeing to the proposed date after work was a drastic overcorrection when all she'd actually done was hide her face behind her hands while Dr. Langdon held her glasses until her tears stopped and she could thank Dr. Langdon for his help. She thinks it's mostly that she just really wants to stop feeling like a terrible person who is taking advantage of Dr. Langdon's kindness and friendship and mentorship because he doesn't know how inappropriate Mel's feelings towards him actually are. She thinks she'd rather die than have him figure it out.
Mel was still feeling off at the end of the shift, which wasn't helped by the creeping knowledge that she had actually agreed to go on a date with a complete stranger who had a "really fun surprise" planned for their night, when she had spotted Dr. Langdon waiting outside the hospital, presumably for Dr. Garcia's shift to finish - he carpools with her a lot, Mel has noticed. Dr. Langdon had been leaning against the wall near the ambulance entry with a cigarette that he hastily hid behind his back when he saw Mel approaching, as if she could have possibly missed it. His sheepish smile was a lot more effective in distracting her from frowning too much about his smoking.
He had asked if Mel was planning to add some extra sugar to her lemonade that evening to sweeten up such a sour day and she had been equal parts flattered that he remembered her usual evening routine after a difficult shift and confused about why he thought adding extra sugar would improve her mood when it actually made her teeth feel weird and gross. She told him just that, only realising after that he had been making a joke - maybe even a dirty joke, which had her insides fluttering. Dr. Langdon hadn't made her feel bad about missing it, either - he hadn't laughed at her or pulled a face or rolled his eyes, not like so many people did when she missed something so obvious to others.
Most people in her life make Mel feel small - Dr. Langdon is one of the only people who makes her feel like it's okay to be herself and it's terrifying.
For her second drastic overcorrection that day, Mel had confessed to Dr. Langdon that she was going on a date. She hadn't even meant to, it just all came out in a jumble before her brain finally remembered how to stop her mouth from moving and speaking words that she wished it wouldn't.
Mel isn't sure what to make of the strange expression on Dr. Langdon's face when she told him about the date. She isn't sure what to make of his body language, either - his arms had folded across his chest and he looked tense, like he did in the ER when a patient was getting rowdy and he was preparing for a threat.
There's a dreamy, romantic part of Mel that wishes he was jealous. In reality, she knows he's just being a good person who is concerned about his friend and colleague meeting a stranger for the first time in an unconfirmed location. She knows this because he had reacted exactly how Dana reacted to Emma's first date with someone she met on a dating app - he'd asked Mel for all the details, including the name of her date, where they are going, if he's picking her up, does he know her home address, has she met him before, and how does she know him.
Then, just like Dana had with Emma, Dr. Langdon made Mel promise to both send him a photo of the man and his licence plate before she gets in the car and to call him immediately if she doesn't feel safe or doesn't want the date to continue, no matter where she is or what time it is. The nurses joke around about Dana being Emma's "work mom" - Mel wonders, morosely, if they'd overheard Dr. Langdon today they'd start joking about Dr. Langdon being Mel's "work daddy". His reaction did feel very... paternal.
Mel really hopes it wasn't, and that it was just the reaction of a good friend looking out for her. There are already too many people who infantalise her - just because she's autistic and her brain works differently, it doesn't mean she's not a grown woman. Mel tries not to use the word "hate" because her Momma hadn't liked the word and would only use it when talking about Mel's father, which left the criteria for meeting the word quite substantial, but she hates it when people treat her like she's a child.
There's a significant difference between Mel wanting someone to take care of her as her partner, and the people who disregard her age, autonomy, and capability to treat her like she isn't able to make her own choices. She is an adult by every set standard and measurement of adulthood that she knows of; she attended medical school while providing part-time physical care and full-time emotional care to a sister with high support needs and managing the ups and downs of her Momma's medical treatments, she has been on dates, she has been in relationships, and she has enjoyed a healthy sex life - and while that has admittedly not been true since her move to Pittsburgh, she had been planning for tonight's date to change that so she doesn't have to keep relying on her favourite vibrator.
Even before the hockey game starts, Mel already knows that she'll have to keep buying more batteries - if getting to their seats hadn't been enough of an assault, the actual match makes her want to hold her breath until she passes out - when she's this overstimulated, sex is the last thing on her mind and Mel thinks she'd have a panic attack if she even tried.
Her date - he introduced himself as Sebastian - isn't a bad person, Mel thinks. From what little interaction they had before it got too loud for them to chat, he even seems nice and she can see why her Aunt Meg thought they'd be compatible. Sebastian works in finance and travels a lot, he recently spent a few years living in Montreal - it's why he's such a fan of the Montreal Voyageurs, and why he'd bought the tickets to their match against the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight - he's dated a nurse during the pandemic so he has a better understanding then most outside the field of what it's like to work in healthcare, and he grew up with a sibling who has high care needs too.
He's also quite attractive with his pleasingly symmetrical facial features and wavy, sandy-blond hair and warm olive-brown eyes. He has a nice figure, like he takes care of himself - not the built-up, overdone gym bulk, rather the lean, trim muscle of somebody who eats well and goes jogging or cycling. He's dressed nicely for their date without overdoing it - snug jeans, a nice shirt, and a Voyageur's jacket that he put on when they arrived at the rink. He brought her a Voyageur's scarf, too, which she carefully tied so that it didn't touch her bare skin.
Sebastian should be a good fit for her. He's intelligent, he's thoughtful, and he's handsome.
He's also not Dr. Langdon, and he's brought her to this horrible place, and Mel is so miserable that she wants to cry, she wants the world to turn off so everything stops being so overwhelming, and she wants to do what Dr. Langdon told her to and call him to come and pick her up.
Mel is so distracted with trying to think up an excuse for her date so she can get up and call Dr. Langdon that she almost misses it, even though it happens directly in front of the Plexiglass currently separating her and Sebastian's front row seats from the ice rink.
Several of the hockey players brutally collide with each other, just feet in front of Mel. Behind the thick Plexiglass, Mel cringes back instinctively, alarmed at the violent tangle of limbs on the ice and how several of the players seemed to be intentionally wrestling and punching each other while other players and the referees try to pull them apart - and then, without warning, there's a sudden, familiar gush of blood spraying across the ice and splattering against the Plexiglass under the force of what is, in Mel's medical opinion, unmistakably high arterial pressure - which means that there is absolutely no time to lose.
She doesn't hesitate - Mel hadn't seen the appeal of Sebastian's "very good tickets" which had them seated in the front row, right near the steps. Now, she can acknowledge the benefits; while the whole arena goes dead silent at the sight of blood on the ice, Mel is already moving as if she's still on shift at the ER and someone's just called a code.
She has to kick off the sensible pumps with their sensible not-too-high heel before swinging her legs over the barrier at the bottom of the stairs and onto the ice. It's so cold it burns her feet as she tries to balance and walk as quickly as she can without falling. She makes it mere feet away from her patient before losing her balance but she lets the momentum of the fall slide her forwards and closes the distance between them, yanking off the scarf that Sebastian gave her, balling it up so she can firmly press it over the wide, deep cut across her patient's neck. Mel meets her patient's eyes which are blown wide with the desperate panic of someone who's found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly unable to breathe.
"Don't try to get up," she says, gentle but firm as her patient struggles to push himself up off the ice. Blood spills out of his mouth when he tries to speak - or maybe scream. Mel keeps her voice and her expression calm, knowing that when the doctor projects a calm demeanor during an emergency, it calms everyone down. "Don't try to talk," she tells her patient. "You've been injured but you're going to be fine. I just need you to listen to me and focus on my voice."
Mel isn't sure if she's lying to him - it's difficult to predict the outcome of an injury this catastrophic when out in the field, and she is feeling as wildly out of her depth as her patient must be. It isn't that this is worst injury she has seen - it isn't even the worst injury she's seen that day as that distinction goes to her earlier patient whose face got caught and pinched by the corner of the truck and the dock he helping guide the truck into - the truck had only clipped him but it had peeled his face off his facial bones and skull and left one of his eyeballs dangling loosely from the optic nerve. He was awake and screaming when the paramedics brought him in and Mel had to lift part of his face out of the way for Dr. Robby to do an emergency tracheotomy.
She is used to the horror and tragedy and violence that she is exposed to every shift and she rarely experiences issues with compartmentalising so what she sees in the ER doesn't continue to affect her once her shift ends. Maybe that's why this feels so jarring, her usual compartmentalising working against her here, when she's faced with a "work" situation when she isn't in the Pitt, dressed in her scrubs and surrounded by the EMTs and nurses and student doctors and attendings.
Instead, Mel is barefoot and kneeling on an ice-rink in front of thousands of spectators with a painfully numbing cold seeping through the too-thin fabric of her jeans in eerie contrast to the almost-boiling hot blood flow that she's trying to stem. Still, Mel can feel a familiar, calm professionalism settle over her like a favourite pair of shoes that she's worn in just right, and her voice is steady and even as she tells her patient, "My name is Dr. King and I'm going to take care of you while we wait for the ambulance. You're going to be okay."