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It was a perfect storm, a scenario that should never come to pass, a nightmare that decades of quality control laws and best manufacturing practices should have prevented. 

Mel sometimes liked to run through catastrophic scenarios in her head to keep herself sharp and prepared for crisis. A zombie apocalypse, a cataclysmic snowstorm, a catastrophic fire, just to have a plan for, Becca and for work, just to not be caught off guard by anything. A nationwide shortage of various pharmaceuticals had featured prominently in her thought exercises, but the actual logistics of approximately 15% of the population of Pittsburgh going into heat at the same time was proving to be a whole different beast. 

It hadn’t hit all at once, of course not. Every body was different and some people were more or less successful in warding off their cycle by stretching out their last bottle of daily suppressants by taking them only every other day. The updated advice was playing over the radio every day now, recommendations of administering doses every 36 to 40 hours, or half doses every 20 hours, depending on the brand. 

For a week now, she had had to grit her teeth and tell patients to keep doing what they were doing if it felt like it was working. Had to tell them that, no, sorry, even the hospital couldn’t give them anything more to tide them over. People were doing their best to make do. 

And still… the meds were running out, and the countdown for resupply that was running at the bottom of every newscast wasn’t ticking down fast enough for her liking. 

It shouldn’t have happened, that’s what annoyed her the most. It just shouldn’t have. Between three massive manufacturers, there should have never been a timeline in which all three had to shut down production more or less simultaneously. 

Even then it should have been okay, or at least the worst of the crisis could have been averted, if only everyone had decided to band together to tackle it. But no, the media had spread the story of the shortage like wildfire, and people had started buying up emergency suppressants in bulk immediately. It had been worse than the rush for toilet paper and face masks during the first month of COVID. 

Mel had felt like one of them, picking up her sister’s regular prescription from the pharmacy days before the hoarding had started in earnest. ‘Oh no, not me, this is just a regular prescription’, she had tried to communicate with an awkward smile as she had made her way out, clutching the bottle to her chest and breathing a sigh of relief, knowing she still had one two-dose pack of the emergency suppressants, the kind that hit Becca like a sedative but pushed a heat out by a week, in her locked emergency box at home, just in case the shortage lasted longer than the precious one-month supply in here hands. 

Having dealt with Becca’s heats since they had been teens, Mel was well aware of what some omegas went through, more so than some of her colleagues had been before the shortage started to really rear its ugly head. 

If nothing else, this crisis would at least make a serious dent in the continued movie narrative of heats as some kind of sexy time of the month. The internet sphere was filled with alphas realising how badly some omegas suffered during heats in real time, how bad the cramps got, how horrifying the nausea and chills could get, how the fever could make the gentlest touch feel like a punch on over-sensitised skin. The lucky ones could make do with Tylenol, a warm nest and someone helping them meet their basic needs at home. But too many omegas were experiencing a proper heat crisis, being forced off their suppressants with little chance to ween, their hormones plunged into a free fall.

And those were the omegas they were seeing, the ones who dragged themselves into the waiting room, or whose family brought them in because all the regular home remedies weren’t touching the symptoms. She had been ready, and yet she hadn’t been prepared to actually see an omega go into cardiac arrest from the stress on their system. There was a reason some omegas could never be off their suppressants. And somewhere out there, people had hamstered them away and were watching the onslaught of reports on TV, glad it wasn’t hitting them, and still unwilling to share the excess hoard with those who had run out. 

They were seeing fewer cases of sexual assault than Mel had braced for, given the city-wide heat prevalence, which was partly a relief, and partly a dread that nagged at the back of her head, a fear that there were omegas out there who were just too weak to get away.

The air in the Pitt was thick with omega pheromones, and it was making her body feel on edge in response, not because it was a particularly appealing scent, but because she could smell the pain. It made her body tense, some lizard brain part of her DNA trying to brace for danger, to protect her pack. Except there was no threat, and her pack was the entire city. The constant onslaught of it was starting to mess with her brain, now that they were a few days into what she hoped was the peak of the crisis. It was hard to sleep, hard to get the scent out of her nose for long enough to breathe clear air and calm down. 

“Continue with IV paracetamol and replace the ice pack every 30 minutes, call me if her temperature starts heading towards 102.” Mel instructed Mateo, leaving behind her latest patient to pick up a new case.

She risked a glance towards triage, through the plexiglass wall in front of Lupe’s desk. The waiting area was always full, but it was rare to see a crowd this uniformly miserable. 

The one saving grace was the weather, brisk autumn temperatures that were probably the reason they weren’t losing more people to uncontrollable fevers at home. She shuddered to imagine the impact of something like this happening during summer. 

“Mel, you okay?” 

She blinked to shake the thoughts of an even worse scenario. 

Langdon. Only a breath of actual fresh air could have made her chest feel lighter than seeing him did. 

“Yeah, fine. You?”

“Yeah, yeah, totally. We have a broken bond en route, two minutes out. Wanna jump on board? I might need an alpha.” He took off without waiting for an answer.

“A broken bond?” She fell into step with him on instinct grabbing a fresh pair of gloves on the way. “Did their alpha die?”

“Nope.” The severe tone in that single syllable was enough to tell her everything. It sent her mind reeling. Following Langdon out into the ambulance bay she came to a halt next to him. He wouldn’t look at her, his jaw clenching visibly, eyes fixed into the middle distance, anticipating the ambulance arrival.

“Induced?” Her voice came out smaller than she would have liked it to.

A short nod. 

Her shoulders sagged. 

“Who would do that? When there’s no suppressants anywhere?”

Langdon didn’t know anything she didn’t, obviously, or he’d be telling her. All he could do was shake his head. 

Mel gave a little hum to self-soothe as they waited for the ambulance. The siren in the distance took far too long to become audible and she swayed from foot to foot, trying not to vividly imagine the ride from the omega patient’s perspective, how every sound and every bump felt like a blow. The siren cut out as soon as the ambulance pulled into the bay. Langdon was at the door in a heartbeat, helping the EMTs to lower the stretcher gently.

“Steve Wilson, male, omega, 30 years old, blood separinate levels inconsistent with standard dose administration of bond breakers, responsive to pain, verbal, but confused.” The EMTs informed them as they unloaded the patient. “Severe cramps on site, but they stopped after we administered 10 units of oxytocin, intramuscular. IV saline for hydration to replace fluids lost to excessive lubrication.” Mel took a hold of the gurney and helped push it inside, trusting someone else to decide on where to take the patient while she began her visual examination. 

It was a small blonde man, she would have guessed him younger than his age, curled up in a foetal position on the gurney, one arm slung over his face to protect himself from the light, the other clutching at his middle. 

“South 21 is open.” She heard Dana’s voice from the Hub and Langdon pulled the front of the gurney to set course. 

“Mister Wilson, can you hear me? I’m Doctor King, this is Doctor Langdon. You’re at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center.” She tried to get into the patient’s line of sight where he was peaking out from under the arm he used to shield himself. “Can you tell me what happened?”

A whimper that made her chest ache with sympathy escaped the patients throat. The gurney stopped moving and she could hear Langdon thanking the EMTs for their help as he ushered them out. He must have closed the door, because the room suddenly fell very quiet. Mel took the chance to grab a chair to sit on so she could duck down more comfortably to look at the patient from a more level position. Mr. Wilson’s face was twisted with pain, but he was trying his best to make himself cooperate, even though she could tell that trying to find any words right now was like wading through molasses, his whole body was telling him he was in grave danger. 

“I think he put it in my food. It tasted weird.” That would align with the EMT-reported high separinate levels. Langdon handed her the print-out of the field test they had performed, his expression stormy. 

“Oral bond breakers can have a sickly sweet sort of taste, kind of like overripe bananas?” 

The patient nodded, sobbing. “Like that. I didn’t know.” His body trembled, from cramps or from temperature dysregulation, she wasn’t sure, probably both. 

“May I conduct a physical examination? It will help us figure out how to best treat you. Or if you prefer an omega, Doctor Langdon could examine you?”

Mr. Wilson shook his head. “I don’t care, please just … please.” 

They both got to work, taking his temperature and a blood sample to send off to the lab as well as a slick swab to figure out how badly he was haemorrhaging electrolytes as his body went into a primal overdrive to secure protection from any alpha who would take pity on him. 

“Doctor King what is your proposed plan of action?” Langdon asked as he handed the labelled samples to Perlah to run them upstairs quickly.

The question was familiar, allowing her to lead the case, offering her a sounding board. “Regular re-acceptance protocol? IV oxytocin and diazepam to relieve the physical effects of the bond breakage and prevent seizures.” She pulled the patients collar to one side, and then the other to find his mating bite. It was horrendously inflamed, almost bubbling up like a blister as his body was forced to speed-run a broken mating bond that should have been gently resolved over the course of multiple weeks or months. “Prednisone to suppress the immune response. Cardiac monitoring and active supervision.”

“And?” Langdon’s eyes darted towards the back of the patient and Mel leaned over the gurney to see he had long soaked past any pads and clothes and was now leaking onto the gurney. She helped Langdon pack a thick towel against his rear before covering him with a blanket again. 

“Continued saline to get on top of the dehydration, and a slick inhibitor suppository to reduce production.”

“Agreed. Great job.” They set to work preparing the drip.

“Mr. Wilson, I’m going to insert a suppository, it’ll make you feel less queasy and help quench your slick production.”

The patient only gave her a weak nod, but it was all she needed, gently inserting the suppository and keeping her hand against his entrance for a minute so it would melt inside and not wash out with the continuous outpour of slick. She could feel the difference after just a minute, the lubrication reducing from an uncontrolled haemorrhage of fluid to the thicker, slippery, silky texture that had coined the colloquial term slick. 

“It’s working.” She told Langdon, pulling her hand away and covering the patient up taking her gloves off to switch to a new pair. He had used the time to get IV running. 

“Mr. Wilson, how are you feeling?” She asked. He was still trying to hide his face, but allowed her to move his arm away so she could see him better. Pale, sweaty, lips cracked, eyes glassy. He was probably starting to feel the effects of the medications by now, but he might as well have been looking through her. 

“I don’t like how high his pulse is.” She admitted. His blood pressure was far too high, but still just about within range for the situation. 

“If he doesn’t perk up in the next three minutes we’ll have to switch to enhanced treatment protocol.” Langdon told her, adjusting the IV’s drip rate. 

“I could do a separinate pin prick test, see if the levels are going dow-“

The high pulse alarm started going off.

“Shit, no time, it’s not working. Get the clamps. We need to go old school, trick his body into thinking he’s being bonded again.”

Her heart dropped and she almost dropped the clamps with it. “But we’re out of fast release suppressants, the only thing we can try is pheromones.”

“Good thing we have an alpha in the room with us. Trade me. Scrub down.” He held out an empty hand for the clamps and offered an ethanol drenched pad of gauze to her. 

She grabbed it, pulling off her right glove and scrubbing vigorously at the tender skin over the scent gland on her wrist to soak out the scent blockers and stimulate the gland to produce more pheromones. 

“Mr. Wilson, can you hear us? Steve?” Langdon rubbed the man’s arm, squeezing between his thumb and pointer finger when he didn’t respond. 

“Shit!” He cursed when he got no response. “I’m putting the clamps on.” 

Mel waved her arm to disperse the remaining alcohol quickly and leaned over the bed, trying not to get into Langdon’s way as he opened and closed the thick metal clamps over the patient’s bonding glands, both the unmarked glands on the one side of his neck and the one that was currently burning hot with inflammation where his bond with his last alpha was dissolving. 

Mel pressed her wrist over the patient’s nose and mouth, gently rubbing his chest to encourage him to breathe in deeper. “It’s alright now, Mr. Wilson, it’s okay. You’re safe, we’ve got you.” She told him softly. 

The high pulse alarm was still going off and it was starting to get to her. She needed to be calmer, so her scent would become sweeter and less stressed, the calmer she was, the calmer the patient’s body would become as he breathed her in. 

“Doctor Langdon, could you turn the alarm off?” She asked, unable to get to the monitor from her position. 

Mel looked up when the noise didn’t stop. “Doctor Langdon?” 

His eyes were fixed on the patient, on his face, far away and seemingly not hearing her at all. Dazed and unguarded in that moment, his face not schooled into the carefully neutral facade he had kept up these past few days, he looked tired. It made her feel a little less alone to know it wasn’t just her that was starting to get run down. 

“Langdon?” She ducked her face into his direct line of sight and that was enough to startle him back to reality. “The monitor?”

“Right, of course!” He reached for the display to turn the sound off, but the high pulse alarm ceased before he could turn it off. “Oh that’s good. It’s working!” 

He turned back to the patient. “Mr. Wilson?”

The patient gave a soft whimper but it was clear the sound was conscious and meant for them. His hands came up to hold onto Mel’s arm, carefully, not grabbing her at all, just holding her wrist in place so he could breathe deeply. Between the IV, the clamps and an alpha’s active offer of protection, his body was finally starting to respond. She breathed a sigh of relief. 

“You’re doing so good.” It came out naturally, from somewhere warm inside her, the place in her chest that had been on edge for weeks now, trying to find somewhere productive to pour all the care she had to give into. “You’ll see, the worst is over now. We’ll make sure it doesn’t get this bad again.” 

The patient nodded, nuzzling his face into her wrist. His eyes were overflowing, tears trickling down his cheeks and it made her own eyes feel far too wet for her liking.

“Mel, you got this from here?” Langdon asked.

She nodded, glad when he took off quickly. It was just biology, she knew that, but still the last thing she needed was for Langdon to suggest she take a break right now. There were just too many people who needed them. 

It took a while, but the fake bonding worked wonders and Mr. Wilson’s vitals stabilised after just five minutes of hormone exposure therapy. They had run out of alpha pheromones a day or two ago. The concentrated solutions were far more effective than an actual alpha whipping out their scent glands, but Doctor Abbot had prepped them for this just two nights ago, sharing field medicine tips that would help them replace the supplies that were running low. As Steve Wilson’s cheeks got their colour back, Mel wondered how far they were from real ethical conundrums. If he hadn’t responded to the psudobonding, she would have had to try an artificial knot and after that the only other option would have been to try and contact an alpha Mr. Wilson trusted to claim him and facilitate a real new bond. But if there was no such alpha… 

Mel had never claimed an omega. She already knew she would if it was a matter of life or death. The hospital administration had authorised it as a last resort for alpha staff, but wouldn’t enforce it as a mandatory measure. 

“Thank you.” Mr. Wilson said quietly, letting go of her arm on his own volition and looking up at her with tired, but much more animated eyes. “I thought I was gonna die. I know you told me, but I can’t remember your name.” 

“It’s Doctor King, but you can just call me Mel, I think we’re there now.” She joked, smiling when he laughed, pained as the sound was, his body that was still trying to recover from the severe cramps that had plagued him. 

“Well thank you, Mel.”

“You’re very welcome. I have to go look after some other patients, but I’ll ask one of our nurses to replace this IV with another in about half an hour, and we’ll send in someone from our surgical team. We have clamped your inflamed bonding gland right now, but minor surgery, if you agree to it, could help the breakage symptoms to resolve faster.”

“Do you have to take my bonding gland out?” 

“No, no, just the inflamed surrounding tissue where your body is rejecting the bite now. It’ll make future bonding easier too, though I would probably recommend the other side for a new bonding mark. Old broken bonds can be tricky, sometimes a new bite goes completely smoothly, but biting over a previous bonding mark always carries the risk of an immune response.”

“I don’t think I want an alpha again anytime soon.”

Her expression softened. “Would you like me to send in one of our experts from omega services? To help you figure out a new place? Get your things for you? Or find a lawyer? Chemically inducing a bond break against someone’s will is a crime in Pennsylvania. If nothing else you could get some compensation, and the person who did this will be responsible for any medical bills accrued.”

He looked at her sadly, clearly thinking, processing what his alpha had done to him. “I think that might be good.”

“Okay, I’ll be around for at least six more hours, you can ask for me, and I’ll check in with you again in a bit, alright?”

Not your omega, she reminded herself, overriding her body’s instinct to stay and dote on him. 

“Thank you.”

He squeezed her hand, grateful, unassuming, and let go of her. Mel took a moment to adjust the blanket over him, making a mental note to ask someone to help him change into something dry, help him clean up, before ducking out. 

Breathing deliberately, she ducked into the alpha’s bathroom washing her hands thoroughly and applying a thick fresh layer of scent blocker on her wrist. Her eyes were bloodshot when she looked at herself in the mirror. “It’s fine, he’s okay now.” She told her reflection, but she knew there were so many others who weren’t. 

Mel squared her shoulders, wiped her face with a paper towel and braced herself to get back out there and pick up a new patient. 

Taking in the controlled chaos of the ED, she looked for Langdon to update him on the patient, but when she finally located him she found him in the middle of a resuscitation, so she turned to Dana instead to request a social worker to come down to speak to Mr. Wilson. She did a tour of her other patients, requesting transfers to other departments where appropriate. 

The air was thick when she came back to the central hub, heat and misery mingled with the scent of worried alphas who couldn’t help their loved ones. 

Dana wordlessly offered her a jar of VapoRub. She applied a thin layer under her nose, breathing deeply in the illusion of freshness before facing the board to find a new patient when she spotted Langdon on his way out to the ambulance bay. 

“Did they make it?” She asked when she caught up to him outside. He nodded, exhausted, soaked in sweat from CPR, still panting.

“Yeah, on the way up to surgery now.” He wiped his brow, then did it again, and finally just gave up. “How is Mr. Wilson?”

“Stable after a successful pseudobond, receiving IVs, I brought in omega services.”

“Good call! Wherever he came from, no way he can go back there.” He was looking into the middle distance again, tense like he was expecting an ambulance to pull around the corner. 

“Are you waiting for a patient?”

“Huh? Oh uhm, no.” He shook his head to clear it and turned to her, massaging his shoulders, probably aching from exertion, pinching the front of his shirt and shaking it create some airflow and cool down. “Have you had lunch yet? I feel like I’m crashing.”

“I could eat.” She agreed easily enough. A break was probably in order, even if it was just ten minutes to come down from the rush of case after case. 

“Dana said there’s a hormone drive happening at the convention center. So hopefully it’s just another day or two until we’re stocked with those again.” He paused when they were in the direct line of sight towards triage, looking out the way she had done earlier, as if to reconfirm what they both knew they’d see there. An endless line of people who needed them.

“That’s good. There was also talk about Canada sending some supplies to US hospitals.” Mel offered, a glimmer of hope, though there hadn’t been any confirmation yet that PTMC would be one of the hospitals on the list. 

“Even if we the whole city gets a full supply tomorrow, we’ll be seeing heat cases for another two weeks at least.” He sounded tired. And fair, they all were, but there was an edge to his voice, like the constant onslaught was finally starting to really get to him. 

Dana caught her eye at the hub, pointing up at the board but Mel quickly shook her head, not now. 

“Why don’t we go sit down in the break room, just a little while.” She suggested before anyone else tried to grab them for a new patient. 

Langdon let her herd him there, and they took quiet turns washing their hands, pulling their lunches out of the fridge, and sitting down heavily in the cheap plastic chairs by the table in the otherwise vacant room. 

The silence in here was blissful compared with the chaos outside and Mel found herself relaxing a little. Langdon didn’t seem to have it in him to let go of the tension as quickly. He looked tense, staring at his pasta salad. Now that the flush from the prior emergency was fading, he was looking a bit queasy and pale.

“Doctor Langdon… are you okay?” She asked him quietly. It had to be hard, watching omegas come in and out all day long in different states of distress. The hospital was keeping a dwindling stock of emergency suppressants for omega staff, but a few of them had succumbed to sympathetic heat anyway. Langdon and Robby were the only senior omegas left in the ED at the moment, though everyone hoped Doctor Shen would be back soon to rejoin the night shift again in the next day or so. They were already understaffed on a good day, but this ongoing crisis was starting to take its toll. 

“It just sucks.” He hung his head, elbows on the table, hands digging into his upper traps to ease the tension there. As if remembering who he was speaking to, his head shot up and he looked at her intently. “You’re doing amazing out there. You know that?”

Mel felt a flutter in her diaphragm. It was so sincere, there was no way to take it other than to heart. “Thank you, that means a lot, but it’s not necessary. It’s…. You’re allowed to complain when things suck, you don’t have to downplay it on my behalf.” 

Langdon gave her a little huff of a laugh, but nodded. “If you’re still set on emergency medicine after this, and Pittfest? I don’t think anything’s gonna shake you.” He rubbed his eyes tiredly and took a deep breath. “Fuck….,” he groaned, making a face. “Sorry, I stink.” He got up quickly to squeeze some scent blocker from the dispenser by the sink, covering his scent glands. 

“Oh, I’ve got VapoRub on, I only smell eucalyptus.” She assured him, half wishing that she hadn’t accepted Dana’s offer earlier. Even after the longest shift, she had never caught so much as a whiff of him. Langdon was meticulous in guarding his scent, just like she was. Some might consider it overly polite, but Mel had a fine nose and on a bad day, a blocker-free person could really be an ordeal, especially in this place where emotions ran high. It could be a useful tool, and help to figure out a few diagnoses, track the origin of certain pains in less verbal patients. Most of the time it was just a jumble of emotional impressions though, broadcasting dread and fear and annoyance in most patients and making the overall atmosphere of the ED tenser. She would have liked to have gotten an idea of what was going on in Langdon’s head right now though. 

He slumped back into his chair, closed his untouched container of food again like he couldn’t stand the sight of it. Mel pushed her unopened can of soda towards him, encouraging him to at least get some sugar in him. They weren’t even halfway through their shift yet. 

Langdon glanced at the can, then at her. There was something deflated about him. When she pushed it closer to him again, he took it, holding it against his sternum for a moment to let the coldness of the can ground him. 

She was about to ask him what was wrong, which case it was that had gotten to him, but before she had a chance to, the door to the break room was pushed open. 

“Mel?” It was Robby. “I need an alpha.”

Mel was up in a flash. 

“Coming!” She paused, looking down at Langdon who had a white-knuckled grip on the can. “Have the soda, take a few more minutes.” She asked him, but she couldn’t wait for a response, Robby was holding the door for her. 

When she squeezed his shoulder on her way out, it left her fingers feeling warm. 

In the ED, time was a construct and nothing more. Time slowed and sped up in unpredictable increments, some shifts seemingly dragging into infinity, and some flying by so quickly that seeing the nightshift crew gave her whiplash. Since the beginning of the shortage, it had been more of the latter for Mel. She got absorbed in her patients, her instincts to tend to hurting omegas going into hyperdrive and propelling her through the Pitt like her feet barely touched the ground. 

Ten cups of coffee couldn’t recreate the way her mind locked into cases like these. 

“Doctor King, come meet us for handovers when you’re done?” 

Dr. Abbot’s arrival had passed her by entirely. She checked her watch, blinking in surprise. “One minute.” She asked, taking the time to assure her patient that her colleagues were going to care for her over night. Washing her hands quickly, she took a moment to look at herself in the mirror. She looked as tired as she felt. 

By the time she made it to the central hub, everyone else had assembled. Mel tuned in just in time to catch the latest update on fresh hormone supplies (two days out), oxytocin stocks (to be replenished tomorrow) and update shipment estimates for suppressants in Pittsburgh (still too far out for comfort). Her eyes scanned the assembled staff, looking for Langdon to catch his gaze so they could silently commiserate. Except he wasn’t there. She turned, to see if she had missed him, if he had sidled up somewhere in the back, late like her, but he wasn’t there. Robby’s voice turned into a comforting drone in the back of her head as she scanned the treatment rooms for any sign of him. 

Nothing.

“Have you seen Doctor Langdon?” She whispered to Samira. 

“Not for a bit.” 

Mel fell into step with the others, making the rounds of their remaining patients and presenting cases one by one so that nightshift could take over care smoothly. The last traces of balm under her nose had long stopped protecting her from the scents in the ED. More fresh heat, more slick, more misery, more alphas who had gone into sympathetic ruts that wouldn’t cease because the scent of heats lingered in the city, their bodies confused. She breathed through it, not much longer now. 

“Hi Mel,” Mr. Wilson greeted her tiredly when she stepped up to his bed to present his case. She smiled, taking his hand when he reached out for her. Dr. Ellis volunteered to take him on, since he definitely needed an alpha to keep checking on him and scenting him until the next restock of hormones swabs. 

Even after they completed their rounds, Langdon was nowhere to be seen. 

Now a bit more worried, and a memory of burning skin under her fingertips glowing brighter in her mind, she found Dana at the charge desk where she was putting on her jacket. 

“Did Doctor Langdon leave early?”

Dana blinked, surprised and then looked up at the board and at her notes, a little irritated. She followed her gaze to see what Dana was seeing. None of the cases on the board had his name on them, other than Mr. Wilson and a couple of other patients awaiting pick-up from other departments. “I don’t think so, but I haven’t seen him in a while.”

Mel frowned. It wasn’t like him, not in the least. The one and only time he hadn’t said goodbye at the end of a shift was the day they met. 

“Do you want me to check with Robby?”

“Oh, no, that’s not necessary. I’ll call him.” She decided, stepping away from the charge desk and into the stairwell, heading partway up the staircase to the next floor to get away from the noise of the ED. 

Mel hadn’t made it to the first landing yet when she heard her name.

“Mel! Wait!”

It was Whitaker, dashing up the stairs after her to catch up. “I heard you ask Dana about Dr. Langdon?”

“Have you seen him?”

He looked concerned, and smelled even more so, his blockers slowly fading after a long shift, emitting a gentle breeze of worried alpha. “Earlier, yes. He wasn’t looking so good, but he didn’t want to go home. I-I suggested maybe he could go have a nap on the 8th floor. It’s still empty up there. I meant to go check on him, or find you, but-“ He waved back towards the ED helplessly. There had been no time to breathe. 

“I’ll go check on him now.”

Whitaker looked relieved, squeezed her arm in solidarity as they parted ways, Mel heading up to the next level to get the elevator, and Whitaker descending down into the pitt. 

Her heart was pounding in her chest as the elevator took her up to the 8th floor. She had never been up there, though she had heard that people sometimes slept there on a double when there was no quiet corner to be found in the ED.

There was something spooky about stepping onto an empty hospital floor, the motion sensor lights activating for only a small section of the corridor when the elevator doors opened. It was silent, but the scent that greeted her made alarm bells go off in her head. 

Mel was moving before she consciously set course, following her nose down the corridor and around a corner. It was a scent that had become so desperately familiar over the last few weeks that it felt ingrained in her lungs, sometimes. The smell of heat and distress, a body screaming out for protection, begging for help with everything it had. Coming to an abrupt halt in front of an almost closed door, her instincts told her that there was no need to check any of the other rooms, this was her destination.

She knocked on the door softly, and it inched open, allowing her to peek inside. It was a barebones patient room, a bed, a nightstand, a set of drawers for belongings. And on the bed, curled up on his side, facing away from her, was the source of the scent, Langdon. It had already been alarming at the elevator, had sent her running, but here, up close, the scent was devastating. The first time she had ever smelled a broken bond was a few months after her mother died. Every omega smelled different, but the sharp acrid edge of a broken bond came through the same in everyone, an overpowering exorcism of what had been a loved one once, devastating enough after a break-up, but even more of a slap in the face after a death. And overlaid with it, as if to add insult to injury, an overwhelming heat-induced sweetness intended to lure and secure a new pack, a mate, anyone who would care for them instead. 

“Doctor Langdon?” It came out in barely a whisper. She closed the door behind herself, trapping the scent as much as possible. His breath hitched, head moving like he was trying to look back at her, but couldn’t find it in him to turn. That was not a good sign. 

He was partly obscured by blankets that had been haphazardly assembled into the beginnings of a nest, trapped between his body and the handrails of the bed in a sad attempt to enclose himself for safety. It looked like he hadn’t gotten far before his body had given out on him. 

How had she not seen how badly he was doing? 

Walking around the bed she found he was clutching a pillow against his chest, his body curled around it, eyes fighting to stay open in the dim evening light that was coming in through the window, trying to look at her. 

“Hey…” she crouched down in front of the bed to meet him at eye level. 

“Mel?” He croaked. 

She kept her tone soft, pushed the dread far down into her chest. “That’s right. Hey. It looks like you’re hurting a bit. I’d really like to check you over? Is it okay if I touch you?”

Langdon’s throat made an indistinguishable noise, but he gave her a nod to go with it. 

Mel nodded back, mimicking him. “Okay, that’s great. Thank you. Let’s just see what’s going on…”

He didn’t recoil when she put the handrail on the window side of the bed down. For all that he smelled like misery, he didn’t smell more scared now than he had when she had come in. A small mercy, she hoped, that at least she was safe enough in his mind to not warrant guarding against. 

She pulled her stethoscope off her neck to listen to his heart. When she pulled the collar of his shirt down, what had once been a smooth healed bonding mark on his left bonding gland now was now massively inflamed, the whole area around he bite red and swollen, the bite mark itself angry red and infected. 

“You’re pretty tachy.” She told him quietly, unsurprised given what his body was putting him through. “Can you breathe in for me? And out. That’s it.”

She listened to his lungs, listened to any sign that the overproduction of protective mucus that she could smell elsewhere on him was happening internally too, but his lungs sounded good for now. 

“No over-slicking of the lungs, that’s good.” 

He groaned, shifting on the bed, even in his coiled position. 

Mel felt his forehead, far too warm, checked his pupils, wide and even, and felt her way down his body, felt the way his abdominal muscles were over-tensed, rippling under her hand as the cramps ran through him, forcing him to produce the slick she smelled. His pants were soaked in it, all the way up to his waistband, all the way down to his knees, drenching the sheet underneath. It was costing him massive amounts of fluids that urgently needed to be replenished.

“Squeeze my hand, tight as you can.” She told him, taking his hand in hers. Barely a firm handshake’s worth of tension at full effort. 

“Doctor Langdon, I don’t think you’re doing so well. I think you’re having a bond break-induced heat spike, and your body is reacting pretty intensely to it.” 

He nodded, holding her gaze, more with-it now. 

“I know.” He sounded miserable, but resigned to it. Hell, he had been miserable all day, she had just put it down to fatigue from the last few weeks. But he had known, and he hadn’t said a word, hadn’t asked to be treated, to be admitted. Why?

“You need to be treated for this, your bite is infected, you’re dehydrated and over-producing slick, you’re tachycardic, displaying muscle weakness. This isn’t a ride-it-out scenario, you need to be treated, urgently. I’ll wheel you downstairs-”

“No-no no. Please I can’t. Don’t.”

She paused, halfway into getting up. Yielding to his weak grip on her hand when he held on, she sat down at the edge of his bed. 

“I’ll be okay, Mel, go home, just go home. I’ll be okay.” 

Mel shook her head. “I can’t do that.” She wouldn’t leave him alone in this state for ten minutes, nevermind a night, there was no telling how long his body could keep this up before his heart gave out on him. “Why don’t you want treatment?” 

“I can’t-“ He squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t be down there like this.” He had curled the hand that held hers against his chest. It was as close to begging as she had ever seen him, imploring her to listen, to please not make him.

“Okay… okay! Then, what if we don’t go downstairs, can I treat you here? Please.”

He huffed a sigh of relief, but it got drowned out by a groan of pain, his legs jerking as his body tensed into a cramp. He nodded, feverishly. “Yes.”

“I’ll be back in five minutes.”

This wasn’t what she wanted to do, it wasn’t what she should be doing. 

If this was anyone else, if it wasn’t him, she’d be calling downstairs to give them a heads-up that she was bringing in a patient. She knew as she pulled her hand from his grip to get supplies that it was selfish, that she was prioritising his trust in her over what was objectively a better call for him. Proper care, proper monitoring, from someone who wasn’t burnt out from a day of helping other patients, someone who could objectively make the best call for him - that was what he needed. But there was an awful tightly coiled need in the bottom of her chest cavity that liked that he didn’t want anyone else treating him, that up there on an abandoned floor with her felt safer than being down here, surrounded by some of the best emergency medicine specialists in the country. 

Saline, paracetamol, oxytocin, antibiotics, no one stopped her, they were all too busy with their patients, she’d deal with the missing supplies issue when he was in the clear, it didn’t matter now. 

She couldn’t get back upstairs fast enough, the elevator taking far too long for her liking. 

He was panting, small huffing breaths against his pillow when she returned, interrupted by attempts to slow his breathing that failed. 

When he saw her, he let his head sag onto the mattress, hair wild and sweaty. 

“Let’s get you feeling better, not much longer.” She promised him, setting up her supplies on the nightstand and prepping a syringe. 

“No benzos.” 

“No benzos, just oxytocin to start with.” She promised him, pulling up the liquid and hoping it would have its intended effect of reducing the slick production and the associated cramping. 

She swabbed the injection site on his arm. “Deep breath.” 

He held still for her and she watched him closely for any reactions. It took a minute, but after that his body seemed to let up on the worst of the cramping. “How’s that?”

“Better. Fuck.” 

She could only agree, allowing herself a deep breath of relief. Now she could focus on his IV, preparing the additions to the bag and hanging the bag up above the bed and turning on the nightstand light. 

He was still curled around his pillow, but with the oxytocin on board, he managed to ease his arm out of the cramped hold that he had been trapped in, extending it for her so she could find a vein. 

“Good job, is the muscle stiffness reducing everywhere evenly?” She asked. 

“Yeah, I think so, still feels like I can’t move my legs though.” 

“Let’s get your IV in and I’ll help you with that.” 

He nodded, watching her hands as she found the vein and slid the needle into place in the crook of his arm, starting the drip to co-administer the antibiotics and paracetamol to help with his infected bite and replenish the fluids he had lost. 

“Oh that feels good.” 

“The cold drip?” 

He nodded, letting his head lull back onto the mattress. 

“Here, let me…” She gently tugged the pillow from his grasp and lifted his head up to slide it underneath. He turned his head into her arm, eyes closing, whining when she eased his head down on the pillow. 

The immediate scent of pain that had clouded the whole room until now was starting to diminish, though Mel was under no illusion that he wasn’t still in pain. 

This was not the end of it, he was responding well for now, but he was still looking at a dire heat that would run its course.

“Let’s get some air in.” She decided. Sometimes fresh air helped. Patients could get trapped in the scent of their own misery, re-aggravating their bodies to respond to threats and distress that had passed already. Up this high, the window only opened a crack, but it was enough to let the cool night air in. 

His legs were still pulled high towards his chest, trapping him on his side, unable to stretch out. “Shall we try and see if we can get you more comfortable? If I move your legs and you feel more cramping we’ll double up on the oxytocin.” 

“Go for it, drug my bitch of a body into thinking I have a pack.” He laughed dryly. 

Mel slung her arm under his knees, gently applying traction to straighten out his legs, and turning him onto his back carefully. 

Langdon groaned, but it wasn’t nearly the same agonised sound from earlier. He wasn’t comfortable, that much was clear, but he wasn’t worse. There was a slight squelching sound as she moved him more towards the centre of the bed. 

“Oh, gross, I’m sorry.” He covered his face with the arm that didn’t have an IV in it. 

“It’s just a bit of slick, there’s really nothing to be sorry about. We’ll clean you up when your IV is done.” She promised him, taking the opportunity to sit down on the side of his bed to look him over again. The IV was running smoothly, and his heart beat had slowed down, that was a relief. 

Mel could feel his eyes on her as she worked, giving him a smile when their eyes met. “Sounding much better.” She told him, wrapping her stethoscope around her neck again before sitting back a little to look at him. 

“Oh… no…you gonna make me do patient history?” He asked. 

“Ideally.” She tugged one of the blankets off the handrail to cover him with it so the cool air from the window and drying slick wouldn’t get him cold. Langdon watched as she tucked him in, feet to middle. “I didn’t know you were going through a bond dissolution.” And that’s what it had to be, this wasn’t induced or he’d have been as poorly off as Mr. Wilson had been this morning. This was very much a normal course and treatment response for a regular organic break. 

Langdon let out a slow breath, his fingertips brushing the loose fabric of her scrubs where she had pulled her leg up onto the bed to face him absentmindedly. “We were doing it right. Three month separation plan, full guideline-compliant dissolution. No more scenting, slowly phasing out touch, and then phasing out proximity… no seeing the kids. I was going to take a week off for when the heat came, check into a heat clinic. It was all going fine… and then the shortage hit.” 

Mel winced in sympathy. 

“We stopped the process, and Abby’s been great, she let me move back in, we tried to row it a few steps back, because there was never going to be a spot in a clinic now, and I couldn’t take a week off now either. You’ve seen the place?” He looked at her, shaking his head, the desperation of the last few weeks spelled out in every line of his face. It ached, but he was right. They were haemorrhaging staff, losing another senior resident or attending was going to make life infinitely harder. “I’ve been having sympathetic heat symptoms since the whole thing started, I didn’t know it was going to turn into this. I’ve had the max dose of suppressants, I swear I was careful.”

“I know you were, this isn’t your fault.” Mel assured him, looking down on the bed, where his fingertips were still tracing the fabric. She covered his hand with hers, stilling the movement. 

He nodded, but the way he pressed his lips together didn’t look very convinced. 

“How did you even find me?” He asked.

“Whitaker suggested you might still be up here.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“He mentioned you didn’t want to go home?” She prodded gently. 

Langdon swallowed, letting his head roll to the side to look out into the dark night sky. He shook his head a little. “There’s no point. The bond’s been gone since long before we broke it. I just… hmm… I really hate it when you can look into the future and you see how something’s going to play out and you know it’s bad.”

Mel tilted her head, waiting him out.

“There was only one way it was going to go. I’d go back and all of this would have happened anyway, and I’d have begged her not to call anyone, and she’d have helped me, cos she’s good like that. I just … I didn’t want to beg for her anymore. She’d have helped me cos she can’t help it when I’m not doing well, she’d have bit me again cause I’d have been begging for it at that point, renewed the bond and we’d have had to do the whole separation thing over again in a few months. I can’t do it anymore. It’s bad for us. It’s long over.” 

He turned his hand over beneath hers in a semblance of handholding. 

“I’d rather be here.”

“You could have told me.” Mel didn’t mean for it to come out hurt, but there was an edge to it. He could have died up here alone. 

“No, I- I didn’t want you to have to do this.”

“I would have volunteered to. That’s what pack is for.”

He huffed a laugh, and as much as it sounded self-deprecating, it also cut something in Mel’s chest. “Of course you would, I’ve seen you pour your blood into a patient still warm from your veins.” 

“Is that a bad thing?” Her fingers felt like they were burning where they touched his hand. 

“No, no, god no. I just-“ He took a deep breath, looking at her directly, like he was facing a judgement she didn’t know she was in charge of. “I didn’t want to force your hand like this. I know you would have helped me. But I don’t just want help from you.”

Mel frowned. 

Langdon’s expression turned pained and his gaze drifted off to the side. “Okay fine, let’s speed-run this. Might as well.” He said quietly before making himself look at her again. 

“I wanted to do this right, get the break done, clean, go through the heat, get back on suppressants, get a new place.” 

Mel nodded along, he had said that already, that had been the plan. 

“And then when I had it all figured out again, you’d have probably been halfway through your senior residency year, and … I could have asked you out. Properly.” 

Mel’s stomach dropped out from under her. 

Langdon continued talking. “And if that ruined things or made you uncomfortable we could have figured something out, I could have switched to night shifts, I don’t know. But I-“ He paused, looking at her. 

“Keep talking.” She gripped his hand to urge him on. 

His eyes widened with hope. 

“I thought that if I ever had to have a heat near you, it wouldn’t be a medical emergency.” He finished.

Mel felt her face crumble and she leaned over him to pull him into a hug, careful with the IV. His free arm gripped her around the middle, pulling her in, pressing his face into the side of her head and breathing in as deeply as he could. 

“Please say something.” He begged. 

“If I knew what I would. That’s some really important information you were sitting on there.” She pulled back to look at him, his face cradled between her hands. “You wanted to be mine?” Her voice broke on the last word.

Langdon nodded. “Any way you want me. Please.”

She kissed him. There was nothing to say that was more important than pressing him back into the pillows with, stroking his hair back and-

“Shit!” She pulled back up out of the kiss. “You’re in heat psychosis.” Oh, she was so stupid, and he was so fucking pretty and desperate for an alpha, and she was the only alpha around. She scrambled off the bed and coming to a stop halfway to the window. “I’m so sorry.”

“What?! No, Mel, Mel! Mel, look at me. Look at me, I’m completely lucid, I’m between waves. I meant every word."

“I’m sure you believe so, Doctor Langdon. But that’s a tough call to make.” Her skin burned, part from want and part from shame. He was going to hate her when he came to his senses.
He forced himself up onto one elbow, muscling himself partly upright, swaying where he sat. “Please, at least call me Frank, we’re there, we’ve been there for months. I have no symptoms of heat psychosis. And even if I did, treatment is the same.” He looked at her, pleading, reaching for her. 

“I should have taken you downstairs.” She said quietly, her chest aching. 

Langdon, Frank, maybe they were there? Mel didn’t know anymore. He as shaking his head. “Let me just… for me, can you tell me. If this is not heat psychosis… is what I just said a good thing? You were kissing me, it was right? You’re on the same page?”

Her eyes burned with hot tears that she didn’t want to spill right now. He wasn’t doing this to be cruel, he was suffering. It was a survival instinct, his body driving him to do anything to secure an alpha. “And it was good right? That was a good kiss. A really good kiss. Oh god I’m making it worse. Mel, I’m sorry, this is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. Fuck!” 

He almost bent his IV arm but jerked back when the needle shifted in the movement, he checked the bag, it was almost done. “Can I get this out please?” He asked, forcing his voice into a calmer register. 

“Give it a few more minutes please.” Mel’s voice came out shaky, her diaphragm contorting uncomfortably as her body reacted to the quick-fire switch in tone. 

Langdon nodded, slowly lying back down in bed and staring up at the ceiling like he was in shock too, giving her space. 

Mel backed all the way off towards the window, the cool breeze coming in through the crack helping to sort her head out a bit. It wasn’t until that moment that she noticed how much sweeter the air had smelled since she had gotten the IV started, since they had started talking. It was only now that a sour note of fear cut through the balmy soft scent that the difference really registered. 

He smelled scared now. 

She watched him breathe, eyes on the ceiling, his lips moving periodically as if he wanted to say something but second-guessed himself. It tore at something in her chest. Regulating her own breathing, she tried to come back to her body, tried to take stock of the situation, push the heart ache and ego aside. 

Whatever she was to him in his unclouded mind, he was pack to her. It didn’t matter if the kiss was real, he was, their friendship was. He was one of her favourite people in the world, and he was suffering, and Mel knew what to do. 

“Frank…” She hadn’t ever called him that before, it felt odd on her tongue. “If it is just heat psychosis, I want you to know that I’m not angry and I won’t hold it against you. We’ve seen this, it’s a survival mechanism, that’s all.”

Tentatively, she stepped a little closer to the bed. His gaze quickly found her. 

“It’s not.” He shook his head ever so slightly. “It isn’t. I know I wouldn’t know if it was, but…” He sagged into the mattress. 

Mel nodded. He knew what they both knew, the brain in a heat or rut was unpredictable.

For a moment, she let herself believe him, if only to make herself calmer for his sake. “If it isn’t heat psychosis, we’ll have a lot to talk about when you’re through the worst of it. So why don’t we focus on getting you better. You were right, the treatment is the same whether or not there’s a psychosis component, since you’re clearly not dangerous.”

His expression softened with relief. She sat down on the side of the bed again.

“So, I would like to make a plan with you for when the next wave hits. Is that okay?”

“Yes, please.” He nodded.

“Okay, first off, how are you feeling?” 

“Pretty gross, and kind of cold. I’m not leaking anymore, so that’s a win.” 

That made sense, there was a reason omegas liked to stockpile blankets. Mel got pretty cold on her ruts too. 

“Then how about I help you to the shower while you can move without too much pain, and while you’re cleaning up and getting warm, I’ll find a gown for you and some more blankets, and I’ll change the sheets, get it all nice.”

He nodded. 

“As for next steps, how long are your regular heats usually?”

“I really can’t tell.”

“I know this isn’t a regular heat, but it can still inform us of what we might expect.”
Langdon shook his head. “No, Mel… I’ve had three heats in my life. Once when I was 16, and then when we planned the kids.”

“You don’t take suppressant breaks for heats?” She managed to make it come out perfectly neutral. 

When he shook his head this time, it was the shake of a doctor who knew better, who knew he was buying trouble. “I had med school, and then my residency, we only have so many days we can be absent for, it’s… I know. I know I should, but I just couldn’t swing it. If you think I’m needy on a normal day, you have no idea how much worse it is during heats.” 

“I don’t think you’re needy.” 

He huffed a laugh, but his forehead creased when she didn’t laugh with him. 

“Okay, so we don’t know how long a regular heat is for you, and this is more of a supercharged heat, so let’s just be ready for anything.” Even between waves of heat, consent was an iffy thing to get from a patient, the best practice was to make the best judgement call within the needs and wants voiced by the patient between waves and in the moment. A part of her wished there was someone here to consult who knew him, but at the same time breaking this relative bubble of safety was unthinkable, the thought of another person here to see him like this made her heckles rise. 

“I trust you to make the right call for me if I’m too out of it. Whatever you want, whatever you think, I know it’s the best option if you think so.” He looked at her all too earnest, all wide eyes, glassy and tired. 

“Are you okay with bonding gland stimulation?”
“Hands, teeth, clamps, yes.”

“Penile stimulation?”

“Please.”

“What about second line penetrative measures?”

“Anything, ice so long as I’m not cold, silicone, pseudoknotting…” He closed his mouth before anything non-guideline-compliant could escape him, but Mel could still see him thinking it. It made her blush, but at the same time she couldn’t help but appreciate that he was reeling it in. 

“Okay, anything else I should know? Anything you don’t want?”

“Uhm…”

She gave him time to find his words, and glanced over at his IV, realising it was almost done. Carefully, she pulled it free of his arm, applying pressure with a pad, holding it in place herself, since his grip strength was still failing him. He was looking down at where she held his arm to stave off any bleeding. 

“It’s-uh… a bit fucked up down there.”

“Fucked up?”

He made a face, but pushed through the hesitation. “I’ve had natural births for both of my kids. Tanner was such a premie it all went smooth, but with Penny….” He shrugged helplessly “I just tore everything, inside and out. Had to have a ton of stitches and they didn’t heal well.”

“I’m sorry, that sounds really painful.”

“Yeah. It was.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I was back at work two weeks later ‘cause I didn’t want to have to repeat my R2 year, and Abby’s job offered her paid alpha parent time. That was fucking stupid. I should have stayed home, had time with her. And instead I went back to work on muscle relaxers to get me through the day and ended up repeating a year anyway. And now I can’t even take anything that’d really help me.”

She felt the ache, smelled it in his scent, the bitter regret and the lingering pain. 

“I didn’t know.”

Frank shook his head, looking back at her. “I didn’t tell you.”

Mel checked his arm to see if there was any bleeding from the IV site, but it all looked smooth now, so she discarded the pad on the nightstand where medical waste was starting to accumulate. 

“So you’re quite sensitive?” She brought them back on track.

“Yes, and things tear open easily.”

“I’ll be really careful if we have to do that.”

“I know you will.” 

He looked so calm now, so clear-eyed and alert that she wanted to believe that there was no inebriation, that his mind wasn’t clouded by instincts, but there was no telling. Still, the way he looked at her made a pang of affection settle in her gut. 

“Can I make a request?” He asked. 

“Sure.”

“Can you take some of the blocker off? Please? I’ve had one small whiff of you this morning, it’s all I can think about.” 

That was charming, she couldn’t help but preen a bit. “Yes, we can arrange that, alpha pheromones are good for you. How about this, let’s get you cleaned up, and I’ll make this place more habitable, and when everything’s all set up and you’re all clean, I’ll take the blocker off?”

“I’ll take that deal.” 

“Alright, let’s do it.” 

She helped him get his legs off the bed and pulled him onto his feet, slowly, ready to catch him if his legs gave out, but they held steady enough. Frank was stiff, for all the good the treatments so far had done him, his body was braced with his survival instincts in hyperdrive. So it took a couple of minutes to get him into the ensuite and situated on the shower chair. 

Stripping the tacky sweated and slicked through scrubs off him wasn’t the easiest task, but he helped as best he could. Mel tried her best to keep her eyes unfocused, to not look too much, to touch like she would if she was helping a patient, suppress the urge to press a kiss to his head. She couldn’t avoid breathing him in though, his scent gone sweeter now that he had someone caring for him, and the stress slick from his clothes earlier wasn’t clinging to his body as much anymore. 

“Okay, show me you can hold the shower head.” She asked, handing it to him, and he gripped it. Mel tugged on it to simulate the force of the spray and he held steady. “Great job, okay.” She took the showerhead back, aiming it at the wall and adjusting the water for him until it was nice and warm. “Call me if you want it hotter, don’t touch the handle yourself.” The last thing he needed was a burn. 

That earned her a little laugh. “Yes, Doctor King.” 

“Good. I’ll be right there.” She handed him the showerhead and tapped the soap dispenser right next to him. “Call me if you need anything.”

She grabbed his soiled clothes off the floor, folding them in with the dirty bed sheets, thankfully all these hospital sheets had leak-proof ones underneath, so the mattress was fine. She collected the medical waste, careful with the sharps and disposed of them in the nearest treatment room, leaving the laundry there as well to be dealt with later. 

This floor was set up very differently from the ED, more patient rooms for longer term care, but the supply stations were arranged similarly and in expected places. Finding fresh sheets and blankets, pillows, gowns and socks was easy, even some fresh scrubs that must have escaped the ever-stricter dispensing machine rules. It was like the place had been cleared at short notice, and maybe if it had been shut down during COVID, it actually had been. 

“Are you doing okay?” She called into the en suite when she returned with the supplies. 

“All good.” He called back.

“Okay, good.” She smiled, relieved that he sounded a bit steadier. One look at the bed made her wince a bit, it was such a sad place to nest. All open and exposed. 

“I’ll redecorate a bit, okay?”

“What?”

“Just… don’t worry if you hear weird noises.”

Mel picked up the mattress from the bed, lifting it down onto the floor and setting it down in the corner furthest from the door and most removed from the direct line of sight from the door. The night stand and dresser found a new home by the door, not obstructing it, but forcing anyone who might come from there to weave around them to get in. She wasn’t expecting any visitors, but this was psychological. Frank deserved to feel safe and shielded. 

The bed found a new parking spot right next to mattress on the floor, and Mel used one of the blankets to create a wall, so that rather than being able to see through the metal struts of the bed, the view of the door and from the door towards the nest was completely obstructed. Then, the fun work began, she put fresh sheets on the mattress, twisted blankets into bumpers that would keep Frank shielded from the cold walls, and arranged pillows against what she imagined the head-end of the nest in the very corner would be, leaving a couple of blankets out to cover him so he wouldn’t cool down too much after his shower. He’d get hot enough when the next wave hit, straining his system more with stark temperature changes was only going to tire him out more and make the symptoms less bearable. It wasn’t the best nest she had ever made, but it was workable. 

The bathroom was steamy when she went in to check on him. 

“How’s it going?” 

“I’m tired.” He had managed to clean up well, but it was clear he had run out of steam now, holding the shower head by his knees and letting the warm water run down to his feet. 

“I bet.” Mel crouched down and took the showerhead, turning off the water. “Let’s get you dry.” 

He leaned into her every touch as she towelled him dry, helping where he could. His legs felt less steady than they had before and Mel took a bit more of his weight when she helped him walk out of the shower to sit him down on the closed toilet seat to dress him. 

“Talk to me, Frank, how are you feeling?”

“I’m warm, sleepy, nothing’s hurting too bad right now.”

“That’s good, that’s great. Well, I made you a little nest and I think if you can go to sleep and rest now, you might actually get some sleep before the next wave.” 

He sighed, but it came out like a whimper, an audible dread. She helped him put on two gowns, one with the ties facing backwards and one facing forwards put on like a cardigan for a little bit of dignity in the back. 

“You got me socks?” He smiled, lifting his feet a bit to help her get them on. 

“The floors are cold.” She reasoned, offering him her hands up to help him stand. 

Slowly and steadily they made their way back into the room, her arm around his middle now to keep him steady. 

Frank laughed when he saw the space, looking between the covered bed frame and the furniture obscuring the trek to the door. “What did you do?” 

“Heat-proofed it? A little bit. Do you like it?” She led him all the way to the back towards the hidden area on the floor, looking up at him to see what he thought. He stilled, looking down at it.  

“Oh you weren’t kidding… you- you made me a proper nest.”

“Well, none of these blankets are soft enough for a proper-Frank?” His lower lip quivered, and he quickly pressed his lips together to cover it up, but his eyes still gave him away. 

“It looks proper good.” He said, moving towards it and Mel helped him down on his knees and adjusted his gowns after he scooted up to sink into the pillows, shaking out the additional blankets to drape them over him. The exertion from the shower had him so tired for a moment that all he could do was lay there and catch his breath, eyes closing when the blankets found their place over his body. 

They shot open again a moment later when she turned to head to the bathroom. 

“Mel!” It was too loud, an edge of panic to it. 

She ducked back around the corner of the bed frame where he could see her. “I’m here. I’m just going to wash the blocker off.”

“Oh. Okay.” He sounded breathless but the promise was good enough for him to settle back down into the pillows. 

Stripping off the scrubs she had worn all day to get rid of any trace scents of other omegas and their distress, she changed into fresh ones from the nurse’s station down the hall. She took some time to wash her face, and to wash the scent blocker off her neck and wrists, cleaning up a bit and scrubbing away the trace scents of Frank’s earlier distress that clung to her. He was all clean now, a blank slate for scents, the calmer he was now, the more taken care of he felt, the more likely he was to push himself into a positive reinforcement loop in his nest. If his nest smelled safe, he would feel safe and exude more happy scents that would help ease his heat and smooth away the stress of his broken bond. Smelling a new safe alpha in the nest might just be enough to convince his body that the search was over and it didn’t need to go through all that trouble anymore. Taking a moment, she checked her own scent for any signs of stress, now that it was unfiltered. Not too bad. There was a routine that alpha physicians learned in med school. Three things to focus on before interacting with any patient in a scent-based caretaking role. SAT - Safety, Affection, Time. That’s what an omega in distress needed most. Knowing you were safe for them, and would keep them safe, knowing that you liked them and they were in good standing with you and knowing you had time for them, that you weren’t going to leave them. Checking her scent again, she decided it was safe to go to the nest with it.

She closed the door to the room when she emerged, now that the room had aired out a bit and the scents of misery had cleared, and she closed the window too, shutting the world back out and turning off the night stand light that had lit her way til now. 

“Mel? Please?” 

“I’m here.” She leaned on the parked bed frame to look down into his nest on the floor. “Can I join you in there?” 

He lifted the blankets in invitation, and Mel happily kicked her shoes off and set her glasses down on the window sill to join him on the mattress. It wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as she feared it might be, tight though it was with the two of them on what was just a bit bigger than a single bed. There was no way of sleeping here without touching, but that was the whole point. He needed an alpha close. 

“Oh my god…” He sighed happily, draping the blankets over her when she laid down to share his pillow. 

“Oh you smell amazing, can I?” He reached for one of her wrists and she let him take it, reminding herself of the SAT acronym, but it wasn’t necessary. The way his eyes closed and his body sagged into the mattress when he breathed her in was making affection bubble up in her chest. 

His body gave a whimper, but it was one of relief this time, hand wrapped around her forearm gently to hold it there so he could get more. 

“I’m not going anywhere. You’re okay now.” She told him softly. 

It took her a long few moments to figure out that her vision wasn’t blurry because she had taken her glasses off. His body was responding to hers, dumping the most mesmerising scent, a pure happy omega pheromone cloud twisting her senses and making her head spin pleasantly. 

It made her scoot closer to him, and his legs parted to give way for one of her legs to tangle in between them to get closer. 

With her clutched arm obscuring his face, she couldn’t get as close as she wanted. 

It wouldn’t do, it wasn’t enough.

“Come here.” She coaxed, taking her arm away. He followed it, like she knew he would, making him lift himself off the mattress to not lose it. 

Mel eased him down onto her shoulder instead, using her leg between his to scoot him in tight enough to make him comfortable. 

“Thank you.” It was barely a gasp of a whisper as he buried his face in her neck, wrapping around her like a side sleeper pillow, legs still tangled with hers. 

It felt good to have this much of his weight on her, to feel him, feel his heartbeat, breathe in more of that happy scent. Her hand found its way into his hair, keeping him close, the other roaming his back soothingly. 

Mel hadn’t ever smelled or felt anything like this before. Happy omegas, yes, happy heat or rut partners, also yes, but this was a whole different league, this felt primal, she wanted to breathe this scent in so deeply that it would never leave her. He smelled like a dream, and by the way he was breathing her in, it had to be mutual. 

“I’ve got you, try to sleep, okay?” She let her hand trail to his cheek, stroking it, tracing his jaw, and coming to rest over the unbitten bonding gland on his right, squeezing it possessively. He went slack, his grip easing into a relaxed sprawl. 

Later, she didn’t know how long it had taken her to fall asleep, but for a blissful window of time, he was hers, and he was happy. 

She woke up to a still-dark room, the sound of distressed short breaths against her chest, and Frank’s fingers squeezing her wrist in a plea to wake up. 

“Are you okay?” She whispered, pulling back a little to try and get a glimpse of his face, scenting the air. 

Heat.

It was a pure heat scent this time, unclouded by sour pain and fear, but there was an edge to the scent, something frightened. 

“It’s coming back.” He whispered, but the tremble that went through his body gave away that he wasn’t as calm as he sounded. 

Mel made a show of scenting him, stroking his hair and down the back of his head, fingers massaging over his bonding gland. It made him shift against her on instinct, and she could feel him, hard, against her hip. That was a pretty good sign too, his body was relaxed enough to follow a heat wave, rather than cramping up and screaming for an alpha with all the scent cues it had. This was working, they had successfully calmed his body into thinking it had found a new alpha, which…fuck, she wanted to be, but that was something they would have to figure out another time. For now, if this worked, they might be able to ease him out of the hell his body had dragged him into. All they needed to do was to convince it the deal was sealed. 

“Sorry, I-“ 

“No, don’t be, this is a good sign. You’re doing so good. Deep breaths, relax. I’ve got you. Talk to me.” She pressed her thumb into the dimple on his chin, directing his gaze at her. “What do you need?” 

She could feel him pressing against her hold on his chin, leaning in to kiss her, but letting her redirect him with a gentle shake to his chin.

“I need to be yours, please. I need you inside, I need your knot.” 

The sound of him earnestly begging for her was not something she had been prepared to hear. It sent a jolt of heat between her legs, making her feel warm and pleasantly achy. 

“Yeah, I think I can give you something that’ll help with that.” She told him fondly, feeling him shiver, clinging to her like he might get lost if he let go. He got distracted by her hand, nuzzling down into her hold on him and kissing her fingers. 

“I’ll need those, okay?” 

It was self-indulgent, and it would probably ache more later if this was temporary, but she gave in to a kiss, letting him roll over on top of her, his leg sliding perfectly between hers, rubbing right up against her swelling clit, the worry fading from his scent and giving way to intoxicating arousal. With the movement, the blankets fell away and when she reached down she was met with skin, his gowns ridden up, leaving his legs and hips bare. She slid her way upwards, taking a hold of his hip to still him a bit and slow him down. His lips were hot on hers, begging for more, for anything she’d give him, but it was too much, she needed to focus. 

“Here, look…” She dug her hand into his hair, redirecting him to her neck. Frank seemed just as happy with that, nuzzling and kissing over her scent glands, breathing her in, and nudging for more, rocking his upper thigh between her legs. 

“You’re making it very hard to focus.” Mel couldn’t help a laugh that turned into a moan. 

He exhaled against her skin with a laugh, and… well he was making it hard to be mad about any of it, at least he smelled happy again. 

“Would you like me to be sorry?” He asked. 

She laughed. “I would like you to please straddle me properly.” Tapping on his leg to get him to lift it, she pulled it over to the other side of her hip, freeing up the space between her legs that he had been using to well and making it much easier to reach between his. 

Losing the friction was a little disappointing, but he was starting to smell and feel too hot for her liking, she could feel his body working up to something and she wanted to be closer to delivering if it got worse. “That’s it.” 

She nuzzled into the side of his head to get his attention, and he immediately redirected his attention to kissing her, one of his hands in her hair, stroking the side of her face.

Wrapping her hand around his cock, she couldn’t help a little moan. Oh if she ever got a real heat with him, they could have so much fun taking turns, but she was already indulging too much by letting herself kiss him like this, like he was already hers, she couldn’t give in to more than that. The rest of this had to be for him, or she wouldn’t be able to look at herself again. 

Holding onto his cock with one hand, she used her knee to apply pressure on the back of his thigh to get him to scoot up more, breaking the kiss. He was so damn long. 

“Mel-“ It came out in a desperate pant, but it didn’t sound great. 

She looked up at him. 

Dawn had to be coming, because there was trace light in the room now and she could see his face better. He looked a bit strained. 

“Are you hurting?” 

“Can I-I need to change position, please.”

“Of course, come here.” She pulled him down on top of her, taking the strain of holding himself up off him and rolling them onto the side to check in with him. 

“Sorry, just, the stretch, I don’t know.” 

“That’s okay, I’m glad you said something.” She ran her hands over his face smoothing away the pained expression with gentle touches. “Does something hurt now?”

“No, just inside, I’m aching… I need something, please.”

“What’s more comfortable? On your side like this, or on your back.”

He looked overwhelmed for a moment, shaking his head. “Either… back. Back.”

“Okay, great, I love that.” Mel assured him, scooting up onto her knees to make proper space for him and helped him push him into the middle of the mattress and settling between his legs. 

The gowns were really just decoration at this point, riding up every which way, sleeves all the way up his arms, and the rest of the fabric bunched around his waist. It was quite the picture. Everything about him was pretty, so it wasn’t a surprise that his cock matched the rest of him, but it was still a hell of a sight. 

“Is that good staring?” He asked, half joking.

“What do you think?” She laughed, offering him her wrist, knowing she was probably scenting up the room with how much she wanted him. Frank still took her wrist and breathed her in deep, smiling happily and letting his legs fall open wider. 

“Please fuck me.” He begged. 

“I’ll need my hand back for that.”

“Ugh!” He let go, with a sigh. 

“Thank you!” She smiled down at him, lifting his hips up and rearranging him to her liking. From here, she could see what he meant. There was a lot of raised and stretched scar tissue running from his perineum to his opening. It had to have been a horrific injury, and this was just the parts she could see. Before he could get self-conscious, she wrapped her non-dominant hand around his cock giving him a long slow stroke that had him melting into the mattress, groaning. 

He was wet, perfectly so, not dripping, not haemorrhaging fluids the way he had been, the oxytocin had really done its trick. Perfect smooth slick coated her fingertips when pressed two fingers against his opening to feel him out. She could feel the scar tissue here as well, raised, bumpy, probably all kinds of painful on a daily basis if it got irritated. They were going to have to be a bit careful, but that was fine. 

His hips were moving with her slow strokes of his cock, and she used the motions to hide her slow entry, moving little by little when she felt him give, dipping the tip of one, and then another finger into him carefully. The heat had pre-stretched him a little, prepared him for his alpha, but it wasn’t nearly enough to not be careful. 

“Is that good?” She asked him at two knuckles deep, earning herself a dazed moan and a nod. 

The continuation of the scar tissue was easy to feel and it led her fingers up an unmistakable path to his inner opening, The injury had to have been debilitating, she had seen the aftermath on a few omegas, it wasn’t something to be walked off, he should have been in a nest, not moving for a month, recovering. 

SAT - she reminded herself, he needed her scent sweet and warm. 

“You feel so good.” She told him, because that was true, he did, eagerly wrapped around her fingers, squeezing her like he wanted to pull her in deeper. 

“I need more, please.” He begged, pushing up against her hand. 

“We can do that.” Mel found herself smiling. 

Frank’s heat was picking up, she could feel it, could hear it in the sound of his voice, something more unguarded and feral, responding to her movements. Working in a third was a bit more of a challenge, but it went easily enough with how slick he was, with how eagerly his body was trying to make her. She paid a lot of attention to the outer scar tissue, running her thumb over it to make sure it was wet and warm and gently palpitated to coax it into more elasticity. 

“Fuck, Mel, you’re gonna kill me, don’t stop.” He begged, arching up when she let her fingers inside him slide over the secondary entrance, slipping a fingertip at a time over the opening and it’s surrounding tissue, coaxing it into puffing up as blood flow increased, making it take up more space. 

“Do you want my whole knot?” Mel coaxed him. “Think you can take it?” Her lower body thrummed at the thought. Not today, not the real knot, but her hand would do him just as well. 

“Yes please, yes, I want it. I need-” 

“Good, you can have it.” 

Things were getting tight now, her pinky still went in without much issue. He was dripping for her now, his body doing everything to get more, but getting in past her knuckles has her worried.

She felt the scar tissue with her thumb, felt where the could reach around the rim to check how the skin was doing all around.
Frank was panting now, reaching for her and she took her hand off his cock to hold his hand instead, letting him cling to her.

“Good?” She asked, receiving a feverish nod in response, his brow was covered in sweat and the skin on his thighs clammy where he squeezed them around her body as if to keep her close. 

“Okay, that’s good, you’re doing great. You’re all mine already, nothing else needs doing, okay? You’re all mine, everything else is just an extra treat. We can go on, or we can stop here.” Mel tried to be as soothing as possible, talked slowly for his heat-addled mind to keep up. His body was dragging him through a fever dream and it was her job to make sure he came out safe. 

“I need-I need it.”

“You do, you need it.” She agreed easily enough. “And you’re getting it, nice deep breaths for me, try to relax. I’ve got you.”

He did breathe, deeply, not as slowly as she’d like but she could feel him slowly relaxing around her hand, could feel a little give that allowed her to slide her four fingers in past the knuckle, grateful for how hypermobile her hands were, allowing her fingers to pack in tightly to allow their knuckles to slide past his rim, her thumb folding in close. 

“Almost there, almost there.” 

Her hand slipped, his rim closing around her much narrower wrist, making him pant with relief, hips shifting, she could feel his inner muscles working around her and she had to work to close her hand into a fist to form a pseudoknot that could press against the bonding glands by his secondary entrance. His body was working through the sensation, muscles rippling, head pressing back into the pillow, hips shifting to get her knot just where he needed it. 

“Frank, look at me!” She coaxed. His lips were moving, but nothing but pants was coming out, his hand still clutching hers, not letting go. 

Mel moved her closed fist, stroking the knuckles along the upper end, slowly gliding over the little nudges in the soft tissue she knew were the bonding glands and prostate. His hips jerked, legs scrambling around her, squeezing her body to keep her there. With no hand free and nowhere to go, she leaned over him, taking his cock into her mouth. 

A bit of suction, and a turn of her knuckles right over his prostate and it was over. He came with a desperate gasp, hips pressing down into the mattress underneath him, body squeezing itself onto her impromptu knot, shaking around her. 

She swallowed his release, barely tasting it over the overwhelming scent of euphoria that was clouding up the room. His body went completely slack, all the tension draining from him. 

Dazed eyes found her when she sat up. 

“Alpha..” Barely a whisper, but full of relief. 

“Yeah, that’s right.” She told him. “You can rest now. You were perfect.”

That was all he needed, it seemed, his head lulled back into the pillows, and while his eyes stayed on her, she was pretty sure he barely saw anything. 

Mel left her fist where it was, mimicking a duration of bonding before a natural knot would go down enough to slip out, but she used the time to check him over, check the skin around his entrance for any signs of tearing or irritation. He was very stretched, there wasn’t much more give here, but none of it seemed to have caused a strain on the existing scars. 

When it felt like his muscles might start to cool down, she opened up her hand inside him, carefully working it back out before he could go tense on her. 

The relieved sigh when she was out was mutual. 

She used her clean hand to cover him with a blanket. “I’ll be right there,” she promised. Getting up to wash up. There was a glass on the sink, still wrapped in protective plastic from the cleaning service. Mel rinsed it a few times anyway before filling it up and bringing it back to the nest. 

“Mel!” He sounded so happy when he saw her, scrambling up to sit with her when she sat on the mattress next to him. 

“Here, drink some.” She coaxed him, holding the glass but letting him direct its course, adam's apple bobbing as he gulped down half of it. “You too.” He said, tapping the bottom of the glass to make her drink the rest, and she did, realising just how parched she was. 

“You’re so out of it.” Mel smiled at the mellow look on his face, downright besotted if she dared think so. 

“Yeah well, that was fucking amazing.” 

He took the empty glass, putting it on top of the bed frame by their nest and scooted closer. As much as she should deny him, she couldn’t do it, sinking into the kiss when he leaned in. It was so soft, so different from the feverish need from earlier, sweet and needy, and oh, she was in trouble if this wasn’t real. 

“Can I…,” he whispered against her lips, his hands stroking up her outer thigh. 

There, that was the line, if it hadn’t been the kiss. 

“Next heat.” She told him, kissing him to smooth over any sting. It wasn’t meant as a rejection, far from it. 

Frank eased out of the kiss gently, resting his forehead against hers. “Whenever you want. Like you said, I’m already all yours.”

Mel wrapped her arms around him, pulling him back down into the nest with her. “I’m impressed you heard any of that.” 

“It was 50-50 there for a bit, I wasn’t actually sure if that wasn’t just what I wanted to hear.” He joked, wrapping his arms around her middle and shifting until his head had found the perfect position on her chest. 

He smelled like a dream. Like bliss on human skin, warm and mellow and smooth, all fucked out and claimed. Mel let herself indulge in it, watched the colours of the sunrise play out on the ceiling, listening to him breathe, heavy on her when he fell asleep and all remaining tension left his body. 

She didn’t fall asleep this time, too caught up in cataloguing the feeling of his hair beneath her fingertips and the way his scent changed in his sleep. And so she was awake when the scent of heat slowly started to fade from him, the desperately eager sweetness mellowing into a warm skin scent, neutral but content, deeply settled. 

“Wow…,” she whispered to herself. He wasn’t kidding about it being good. It had been good enough to convince his body all was right in the world again. 

When he stirred again, after the sun had risen, she braced herself. This was the moment of truth. His heat had broken, and if there was any heat psychosis, it would have faded right along with it. 

It was going to be fine, she told herself. Even if it wasn’t his ideal scenario, they had done nothing a doctor wouldn’t have done…. Oh well, except for the kissing and the finale there. Shit. Well, okay, if he hated her, they’d deal with it, he was nice, he was her friend, they would work something out, or she’d switch to nights, something, they would-

“Mel, I can smell you thinking scary stuff.” He whispered. "Your heart's all fast."

“Oh, sorry.”

Frank groaned when he moved, propping himself up on his elbow to look at her. 

“Morning.” She said, feeling an awkward pang in her chest, scanning his face for any clues on what he was thinking. 

But… he just looked peaceful, content. He smelled just as happy as he had in his sleep. 

“Good morning.” The sight of him, all mussed hair and sleepy eyes, a soft smile, like he was having the best awakening. Something her face did made him grin. “I told you it wasn’t heat psychosis.” He said happily. 

Something that had braced itself for hours released rapidly inside her chest and she covered her face with both her hands, trying to let it sink in. 

It was all real, none of it was bad, he wanted all of it. 

“Mel, you okay?” He asked, an amused edge to his voice. 

“Yes! Yes.” She made herself look at him. “More than okay.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to return the favour after all?” He asked. “We don’t have to wait until next heat.”

“Maybe not until next heat, but we do have to wait until after work, ‘cause I’m pretty sure we’re gonna be late if we aren’t already.” 

His previously sleepy eyes widened. 

“Holy shit…” He looked around, as if registering where they were, all the turmoil of last evening forgotten in a night of bliss. “Oh fuck, I’m worse than an omega in a hospital procedural.”

Mel laughed. “Listen, I have no leg to stand on. Come on, let’s get cleaned up.” 

Frank was on his feet first, helping her up, and between them they found one of their phones quickly. 

“6:40! Twenty minutes!” 

“We can do twenty minutes! Are we actually going to work?”

"They really need us down there." 

“They do... you could shower with me?” Frank suggested.

“I know we’re not making it in twenty minutes if I do that.” Mel laughed, pulling him in and kissing him. “I’m gonna go downstairs, have a shower there, exchange our scrubs. I’ll meet you back up here in 15.” She took a long deep breath of the scent of his neck. “Okay, you need to scrub and slather on the scent blocker, you can’t go anywhere smelling like that.” She couldn't hide that she was delighted that he smelled like her, like hers. 

His expression softened, and he pulled her closer around her waist. 

“Can I come home with you tonight?” It was so earnest she could hardly stand it.

“Yes!” It wasn’t even a question. “You can come with me every night as far as I’m concerned.” 

He kissed her, but he was smiling so brightly he could barely keep it up. 

“Go shower, 15 minutes.” She reminded him. 

He let go of her with an amused huff. “Yes, alpha.”