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The rumor was that Frank Langdon was taking Melissa King on a date. Well at least that’s what got to Dr. Robinavitch. Dana had told him directly. Well, she had heard the news from Cassie, who was told by Samira, who overheard Perlah and Mateo discussing the fact, and they had gotten the information from Princess, who had come across the developing situation. Princess had been returning from the break room, a warm cup of coffee in hand, when she walked past the two.
“...you wouldn’t want to go?” Frank asked, far too sheepishly for Princess not to slow her step and listen. “I mean, they were yours to begin with…”
“Oh. I don’t know, I’ve never really been to a game–” Mel answered in a favorable tone.
“You’ve never been?” Mel shook her head in response, just as Frank placed a hand on each of her shoulders. “You have to go then! It’s a Pittsburgh essential! It'll be unlike anything you’ve seen!”
The smile on Mel’s face was unmistakable and although Princess didn’t hear the affirmative response as she walked by, the spring in Langdon’s step the rest of the shift was undeniable.
The truth of the matter was slightly different.
Mel had just discharged one Bryan Rust, a young athletic man, who needed some stitches on his lower calf after what he described as “workplace accident.” After the paperwork was signed he had handed her a pair of Pittsburgh Penguins Hockey Tickets as a “thank you.” Mel immediately turned around. She needed Dr. Robby, or Dr. Al-Hashimi, or Dr. McKay, or…
“Dr. Langdon!” she called, pushing past the triage rooms, gurneys and the MMR vaccine poster to the board by Dana’s desk. Langdon was glaring up, arms crossed tightly over his chest, his attention snapping to the place from where he heard the call.
“Mel.” He said, watching her cross the ER, unbeknownst to him, his stern expression melting into a small smile. “Wanna join me in Central-2? Patient presented–”
“Dr. Langdon,” Mel said again, as she finally reached him. “What is the hospital policy for accepting gifts from patients?”
“If it’s food, you can put it in the staff room. If it's chocolate we can split it 50-50 and no one needs to know.” he answered, eyebrows raising. “There isn’t a hospital wide policy, it’s up to the department. Is everything alright?” He added quickly, noticing Mel’s uncertain expression.
“Yes, yes, everything is fine.”
“You sure?”
“Um, a patient gave me these…” she held up the tickets between them, Langdon's eyes widening, mouth slightly ajar. “It was a thank you. For patching him up quickly. And I was wondering what I should do.”
Who the hell did Mel treat? Was the first thing that came to Langdon’s mind, immediately followed by: So much for low patient satisfaction…
“I—I was wondering…Well if there isn’t a policy…I was wondering whether you’d like them?” Mel asked. Frank's eyes snapped from the tickets, the lower bowl weekend Pittsburgh Penguins game tickets, to the brilliant doctor standing in front of him. His heart suddenly seemed lighter, soaring to his throat as his pulse echoed in his ears.
But, as quickly as it rose, it returned to normal, as he closed his hands over Mel’s, which were still clutching the tickets.
“Mel—I can’t take these…It’s—“ Langdon said, just as Mel blurted out:
“I thought you could take your son, I don’t know —“ the pit in his stomach deepened.
“Abby has the kids this weekend.” Langdon sighed, both their gazes drifting to the now empty fourth finger of his left hand. “But thank you, Mel…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing you should be sorry about.”
“You should still have them…I mean, if you don’t have a shift.” Mel told him, pushing the tickets into his hand, before putting her hands in the pockets of her scrubs with an air of finality. “It can be a belated birthday present…or an early birthday present…I don't actually know when your birthday is…when is it?” She rambled, the smile on Langdon’s face growing. “Sorry, what I mean is I don’t know much about hockey and I don’t know anyone who’d go with me…So you should have them.”
“Well, thank you. Seriously. Thank you, Mel.” Langdon told her, making sure to meet her caramel eyes, hiding behind the dark frame of her glasses. “Now to find someone who’ll go with me, but…”
It was meant to be a statement of finality. Langdon intended it to be that way, moving the conversation back to safety, towards medicine and the patient he intended to see with Mel. It was just as he was about to take a step away from the conversation an idea popped into his head. So quickly it was more instinctual. So quickly he didn’t have the time to consider the consequences. So quickly he didn’t have the capacity to catastrophize.
“…You wouldn’t want to go?” He asked, his pulse skyrocketing for an entirely different reason than before. “I mean they were yours to begin with…”
“Oh.” Mel answered, her expression soft, but unreadable. “I don’t know. I’ve never really been to a game—“
The audacity!
“You’ve never been?” Langdon’s arms instinctually reached onto Mel’s shoulders. “You have to go then! It’s a Pittsburgh essential! It'll be unlike anything you’ve seen!”
“Is it essential?” She asked, the smile on her face failing to mask the way Langdon knew her pupils dilated when concerned.
“Don’t worry, easy fix.” He said, handing one of the tickets to her. “A period of Crosby action is exactly what you need, doctor's orders.”
“Alright then.” Mel said, pocketing the ticket.
“Alright then.” He repeated, smiling at her.
“You said there was a patient?”
“Right, Central-2…you up for it?”
“Right behind you!”
They agreed, accidentally-on-purpose, not to call it a date.
Langdon texted her the morning of the game: PPG Paints Arena. Main entrance. 6:30? and Mel stared at the message longer than she would have liked to admit before responding with a simple Sounds good. No emojis. Professional. Reasonable. Entirely unlike the way her stomach flipped when she hit send.
By six-thirty, she was standing just inside the arena doors, half-hidden behind a concrete pillar and very much regretting her decision to arrive early. The coat she wore was massive: thick, dark, and clearly meant for someone broader in the shoulders than she was. The sleeves extended well past her wrists, swallowing her hands as she fidgeted with the zipper. A knit hat was pulled low over her ears, scarf wrapped twice around her neck. A knit hat sat low over her curls, glasses fogging slightly every time she exhaled. She felt ridiculous. She also felt prepared.
The doors opened again, letting in a gust of cold air and a surge of noise, and then:
”Mel?” Langdon was there, hands shoved into his pockets, coat unzipped like he hadn’t bothered to check the weather, a penguins logo stitched proudly across his chest. He slowed when he reached her, eyes flicking down to the coat, his mouth tugging into a smile that softened his whole face, and something warm fluttered in Mel’s chest in response.
“Are you planning on going ice fishing,” he asked mildly, “or are you just deeply committed to hypothermia prevention?”
“It’s an ice rink!” She eyed his open coat pointedly. “You look underdressed.”
“I’ve lived in Pittsburgh my entire life.”
“And yet,” she gestured at herself, “I plan to survive the evening.”
He laughed, a low, genuine sound. “You know the arena isn’t actually an ice cave, right?”
“Lies,” she replied. “I read three separate forums.”
“Of course you did.”
He held out his arm in an exaggerated gesture toward the ticket scanners. “Come on, Doctor King. Let’s get you inside before you start handing out frostbite diagnoses.”
The moment they stepped into the bowl of the arena, Mel froze—not from cold, but from the sheer sensory overload. The space opened up dramatically, bright lights reflecting off the ice, the sound of music and conversation crashing over her like a wave. Jerseys dotted the crowd in black and gold, and somewhere nearby a vendor shouted about pretzels.
“Oh,” she breathed. “This is… louder than I expected.”
Langdon leaned closer, instinctively angling his body so she could hear him. “It’s better once the game starts. You get used to it.”
“I don’t know,” she said, smiling despite herself. “I might need a sedative.”
They found their seats just as the teams skated out for warm-ups. Mel perched on the edge of her seat, eyes tracking the players as they cut across the ice with startling speed. Then Mel leaned toward him, voice low and conspiratorial. “Okay. So. I know the basics. Puck goes in net. People scream.”
“That’s a solid foundation,” Langdon said seriously. “Okay. Before the puck drops, crash course.”
She turned toward him, attentive. “I’m ready.”
“Alright. Five skaters and one goalie per team. Objective is to put the puck in the other team’s net.”
“So far, so good.”
“If someone breaks a rule – tripping, slashing, interference – they go to the penalty box.”
“Like a time-out for bad behavior.”
“Exactly.”
As the game started, he leaned in, explaining quietly but enthusiastically.
“That’s icing,” he said as the whistle blew.
“Why?”
“Because—” he paused, then smiled. “Okay, actually icing is complicated. We’ll get there.”
Mel laughed, leaning closer to him as if proximity might help her understand. “You promised slow.”
“I promised my best.”
His voice dropped instinctively during play, rising only when something particularly impressive, or particularly egregious, happened on the ice.
“And that,” he said as bodies collided against the boards, “is why they’re all missing teeth.”
“Do they get hazard pay?” Mel asked, tracking the puck as it zipped from stick to stick, occasionally glancing at Langdon to make sure she was reacting appropriately. When the Penguins scored early in the first period, she startled so badly she grabbed his arm.
“They did it!” she said, delighted.
Langdon laughed. “Yes, yes they did.” And that's when she realized she wasn’t cold at all and she wanted the Penguins to keep scoring.
The noise around them dipped into something softer during intermission, the constant roar of the arena easing into overlapping conversations and the shuffle of people moving through the aisles. Mel sat with her hands wrapped around the cup Langdon had brought her, the warmth seeping through her gloves and into her palms. She watched the Zamboni trace slow, deliberate loops across the ice, smoothing over the chaos that had come before.
“My sister says I live at the hospital,” Mel said again, quieter this time, as if the words needed careful handling. “She jokes that I should just have my mail forwarded there.”
Langdon smiled faintly, but there was something knowing behind it. “She’s not wrong.”
Mel huffed out a laugh. “You’re supposed to disagree.”
“I could,” he said. “But then we’d both be lying.”
She glanced at him, one brow lifting. “You don’t exactly clock out and forget the place exists.”
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the kind that felt companionable rather than strained. The ice gleamed under the lights, pristine again, waiting.
“I don’t think people realize how… easy it is to let it take over,” Mel continued. “You go in wanting to help. You stay late because someone needs you. You pick up an extra shift because there’s a shortage. And suddenly–” she gestured vaguely, “...your life exists in twelve-hour increments.”
Langdon nodded slowly. “You tell yourself it’s temporary. Just until things calm down. Just until the department’s fully staffed. Just until you get through this week.”
“And then it never really ends,” Mel finished.
“No,” he said softly. “It doesn’t.”
She took a sip of her drink, then grimaced slightly. “I don’t even know what I’d do with myself if I had more time.”
“That’s the dangerous part,” Langdon said. “When the hospital becomes the only place you’re certain you matter.”
Mel’s fingers tightened around the cup. She hadn’t expected that—hadn’t expected him to articulate the thing she rarely allowed herself to think. She looked at him, really looked, at the lines etched at the corners of his eyes, the weight he carried so quietly.
“Do you ever regret it?” she asked.
He took his time answering. There were a number of things going through his mind. He thought about the benzodiazepines, he thought about the PittFest shooting, he thought about rehab, he thought about the missed PTA meetings that caused so many arguments with Abby, he thought about how the only thing left from the marriage was his goldendoodle, instinctively reaching for his empty ring finger.
But, he also thought about the lives they had saved, he thought about all the jokes he’d cracked with Garcia and Mateo, he thought about Javadi’s face of horror when Santos planned her 21st birthday, he thought about Dana, keeping them in check and he thought about the brilliant doctor next him right now. The doctor who believed in him, when he didn't. The doctor that didn’t just make patients better, but made him better. Made him a better person and made him a better doctor.
“I regret moments,” he said finally. “Missed birthdays. Soccer games I watched on video later. Nights I chose charts over sleep.” His jaw tightened briefly. “But I don’t regret the work. I just wish sometimes I’d been better at letting myself be more than the job.”
Mel swallowed. “I don’t even have kids to miss things with.”
“That doesn’t make it easier,” he said. “Just different.”
She nodded, gaze drifting back to the ice. “I think I’m afraid that if I step away… I won’t know who I am anymore.”
Langdon turned toward her fully then. “You’re more than your badge, Mel.”
She smiled faintly. “Easy for you to say.”
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But it’s still true.”
The lights dimmed again, signaling the start of the next period. The players skated back onto the ice, the crowd rising in volume once more. Mel felt the shift in energy, but something about their conversation lingered, settling between them like an unspoken understanding.
The puck dropped, and Langdon leaned closer, resuming his quiet commentary. He explained positioning, strategy, the subtle differences in momentum that made the game feel like a living thing. Mel listened, but she found herself distracted—not by the ice, but by the way his voice softened when he spoke to her, the way his shoulder brushed hers without either of them moving away.
Midway through the period, the kisscam began its slow sweep around the arena.
Mel noticed it first, a ripple of cheers following the camera’s progress. She watched couples appear on the jumbotron: some enthusiastic, some shy, some clearly playing it up for the crowd. The camera moved closer, lingering on the section beside them, then the one in front. Mel’s heart picked up speed, an odd mix of nerves and anticipation curling in her chest.
Then their faces appeared on the massive screen above the ice, magnified and impossibly clear. The crowd roared, delighted.
Mel froze.
Langdon didn’t.
He shifted closer, one hand settling gently at her waist–not possessive, not rushed, just grounding. He tilted his head slightly, eyes searching her face, silently asking. When she didn’t pull away, when her breath caught instead, he smiled; small, reassuring.
“Hey,” he murmured. “It’s just us.”
The noise faded at the edges, the world narrowing to the space between them. Mel became acutely aware of his hand, warm even through the layers of her coat, the steady presence of him beside her.
She nodded, barely perceptible.
Langdon leaned in slowly, deliberately, giving her every chance to stop him. Their foreheads brushed first, a fleeting, intimate touch that sent a shiver down her spine.
And then—
The horn blared.
The arena exploded.
A goal.
The sudden surge of sound jolted them both, breaking the moment like glass. Langdon laughed under his breath, pulling back just enough to look at her, amusement and relief dancing in his eyes.
“Well,” he said. “Talk about timing.”
Mel laughed too, breathless, “saved by the Penguins.”
They turned back to the ice as the team celebrated, the kisscam moving on, the moment unresolved but not lost. If anything, it lingered longer that way; charged, unfinished.
The rest of the game flew by in a blur of near-misses and defensive stands. Mel found herself standing when the crowd stood, cheering when Langdon cheered, her voice joining the collective roar without hesitation. She didn’t need explanations anymore; she felt it now, the ebb and flow, the tension coiling tighter with every passing minute.
When the final horn sounded and the Penguins secured the win, the arena erupted. Langdon threw his hands up instinctively, a grin breaking across his face as he turned to Mel.
“See?” he said triumphantly. “Lucky charm.”
She laughed, exhilarated. “You’re going to credit me with the entire season now, aren’t you?”
“I’m already drafting the superstition,” he said. “You’re coming to every game.”
“That seems… unsustainable.”
“Science demands consistency.”
They lingered in their seats for a moment as the crowd slowly filtered out, the ice below still buzzing with post-game energy. Mel felt pleasantly exhausted, her cheeks warm, her coat forgotten.
Outside, the cold hit them again, sharp and bracing. Mel instinctively tucked her chin into her scarf as they walked with the crowd, Langdon matching her pace easily.
“You warm enough?” he asked.
“Yes,” she admitted. “Against all odds.”
“Where are you off to?”
“Um…I’m going to pick up my sister, so I’ll just hop on the bus–”
“The bus?” Langdon said, stopping in concern. “After a Penguins game? I’ll drive you, it’s the least I can do after you sacrificed one of your tickets.”
Mel wanted to argue, but his face twisted the same way it did when Santos suggested a novel treatment strategy. Arguing with that face was futile.
He opened the car door for her, and she slid inside, grateful for the quiet cocoon as the door shut behind her. The engine hummed to life, the heater blasting warmth as they pulled out into the city streets. The city lights reflected off the windshield, Pittsburgh unfolding around them in familiar angles and bridges. The adrenaline from the game ebbed, replaced by something calmer, deeper as she navigated Langdon towards the inpatient facility in which her sister was waiting.
“Thank you,” Mel said after a moment. Her voice was gentler now, stripped of adrenaline. “For tonight. For explaining everything. For… not making me feel out of place.”
Langdon glanced over at her at a stoplight, his expression open, sincere. “You were never out of place.”
She smiled at that, her gaze lingering on him longer than strictly necessary.
When they pulled up outside her sister's facility, Mel hesitated, hand still on her seatbelt. The moment felt delicate, like something that could tip one way or another if handled wrong.
“Well,” she said lightly. “This is me.”
Langdon nodded, shifting into park. “I’m glad you came.”
“So am I,” she replied.
For a second, neither of them moved. Then, before she could overthink it, before the hospital or tomorrow or caution crept back in, Mel leaned across the center console and pressed a quick, soft peck to his cheek.
It was brief. Gentle. Uncomplicated.
Langdon froze for half a heartbeat, then smiled, warmth blooming across his face in a way that made her chest tighten pleasantly.
“Goodnight, Frank,” she said, already reaching for the door handle.
“Goodnight, Mel,” he replied, voice low, fond.
She stepped out into the cool night air, oversized coat still swallowing her whole, and closed the door behind her. As she walked up the path toward the house, she glanced back once.
Langdon was still there, watching her go, a small smile lingering on his lips—like he already knew what she’d only just started to realize.
Unofficial date or not, it felt like the beginning of something.