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The baby has been crying for a while now.
It's July, it's hot, the waiting room is an olfactory adventure on any day, but today it seems especially harsh. People are shifting in their seats because they're impatient or can't get comfortable, everyone's stressed.
No wonder the baby is unhappy.
It's just that an unhappy baby is letting everyone around it know that it needs attention and comfort.
Frank has been keeping an eye on the little siren and the mom ever since he started working on triaging in Chairs an hour ago. The mom is fidgety and worried, sweaty and seems to be on the brink of a breakdown. He knows the feeling. He was a very anxious new dad, too.
He keeps an eye out in general, because those wails are pretty loud and it's making the wait for everyone harder. People are starting to complain to each other. An older man is looking at Ahmed like it's his job to keep the waiting room quiet.
Finally, he's had enough. He skips over to Lupe. "I'm going to give the mom a break. If anyone else is available to work Chairs, send them out, yeah? A few minutes."
She agrees quickly and eagerly – the crying is making her job harder as well. That and she knows him; she knows he's already waited as long as he could before intervening.
With Lupe informed, he walks over to the mom and crouches down in front of her. They've talked earlier. She's here for herself. The baby is just along for the ride because she's a single mom and has no one to take over.
"Hey, Claire," he says quietly.
Claire is a mess. She's crying, the baby's crying. The mom is stressed, which is stressing the baby. Both have red, pinched-looking faces. They've been making each other worse for too long. He should have done this half an hour ago, but he needed some time to find his feet as well.
"How about you give me Valerie for a few minutes, hm?" he offers. "Give you a break. Go to the bathroom, freshen up, grab something to drink." A coffee, an aspirin, some water, whatever sounds like it might help her get through another few hours of waiting, because that's what it'll be for her.
She looks at him, fresh tears in her eyes. "Are you sure?"
People around them are looking over. Frank can't tell who's thinking that yes, definitely, he should take the baby, somewhere else if possible, or who's thinking that the healthy baby is cutting in line.
His fresh-faced med student is looking like she's on the brink of her own breakdown – she's been looking at him like she's heard and believed every single rumor the floor has probably been telling about him. He casts a glance towards the door, where he catches Robby peeking in as he walks by. Their eyes meet for the briefest of moments, before Robby pretends he didn't see him. Great. Frank's getting anxious, too. Holding that baby might just help him as much as the mom.
He takes a breath. "Yes, I'm sure. I have two kids myself," he tells her. "I know what to do, promise." He doesn't need to say any more to convince her. He probably had her at yes.
They transfer little Valerie and he gets back up, pressing the wailing baby to his chest. He cradles her carefully, looking down at her. Her tiny mouth is open, hands immediately grasping the finger he's offering her. She's perfect.
He presses a kiss to the green baby beanie and starts swaying her.
Claire watches him. He winks at her and smiles, because he can feel Valerie relax in his arms. The wails quieten down. There's something like a relieved hiccup leaving Claire's throat. She gets up to tug at something around the baby's feet. Her hand is unsteady when she pats the baby's back.
"I think Valerie is just worried about you," Frank murmurs, just between him and Claire, because while he intended for this to happen, he's also afraid that this might send the wrong message. "She's only calming down because I'm not sending out stress signals, you know that, right?" He doesn't want her to think that she's not a good mom. She's just in a health crisis and emotionally drained while he has absolutely no stake in this.
Claire nods shakily. "I'm sorry," she says.
"Nothing to be sorry for. You just… take care of yourself for a few minutes, alright? I've got this."
He shifts the baby. Its face is hot against his neck. He'll examine her, too, later, just in case. It's either the crying or the beginning of a fever. He sways along, turns towards the department entrance to see if anyone's come to replace him.
Robby has stopped in the doorway. Frank slowly makes his way over. "Sick mom. Told her to take a break and freshen up. I'm back to triage in a few minutes. Sorry if it-"
Robby's face is unreadable. He shakes his head. "Let a nurse take over next time."
He barely waits for Frank's acknowledgement before he walks off. Frank stays where he is, swaying the baby, cradling her.
"Dr. Langdon?"
"Hm?"
"Is this… our job, too?" his med student asks.
"No," he answers. "Or yes. Sometimes it is. But a nurse should be doing this if the baby is not the patient." Which kind of hurts to say, because he doesn't think it's true. "I'm wasting resources." He is the resource.
The knowledge that Robby sees him as nothing more than that is burning in his chest. He is just a resource. A damaged one at that. He forces himself to take longer breaths and focuses on the baby again.
Dana comes by moments later. "You good? Robby says- ah." She hums, doesn't tell him what Robby said, and nods. "Stealing babies now? Don't you have enough?"
He wants to smile and make a joke, but it sticks in his throat. His babies. He can't think about them and how he's fucked up the adoption process or he'll have his own breakdown in Chairs. He squeezes out a vague agreement. He looks at the clock. "Hey, Dana, can you check on the mom for me? Claire. Brown hair, some sort of… beige blouse."
"Off-white with little butterflies," his med student supplies.
"It's been a while since she went to the bathroom… Or was it the vending machine?" He turns to his med student. "Did you see where she went?"
"The bathroom, I think," she says.
Dana grabs tissues and gloves from the cart by the door and leaves them and the baby to it. "Go with her," Frank tells his med student. "That's better teaching than standing here watching me hold a sleeping baby."
For him, it was only yesterday that Dana got beaten up by an unhappy patient. He wants her to have backup, even if she's just going into the women's bathroom to check on an upset mom.
He tilts his head to check on the baby, but the wailing must have exhausted her. She's peacefully sleeping, drooling on his shoulder.
Dana comes back a moment later – he sees her send his med student down the hall towards the vending machines.
He sways over to Ahmad who's manning the door. "Ahmad, could you send around a description. We're looking for a patient. Female, thirties, brown hair, off-white blouse with little butterflies on it."
Dana takes Frank by the arm and leads him into the ED. She waves McKay over to do triage in his absence. That's not a good idea. He can already feel Robby's eyes on him, even though he hasn't spotted his boss yet.
"You should take the baby," he begs her. "Robby's mad enough already that I'm holding her."
"Let's get her a bed, alright? We don't know where the mom is."
He only realizes a moment later that she didn't say that last part to him. He turns around – and is facing Robby.
"You let her leave?" Robby asks.
There is a pressure in his chest to start yelling, but he holds it back. He stuffs his anger down and tries not to feel like he's vibrating out of his skin when he answers. "I wanted her to take five for herself. I didn't think she'd just… up and leave her baby."
"You of all people should know that people abandon babies all the time," Robby replies.
That stings. Yes, his kids are both fosters. Yes, they were abandoned. But that still doesn't mean he understands these people. The baby must be feeling his distress, because it makes a tiny hiccup sound that threatens to become more. He shushes her automatically, tucks his nose against her head.
"I know that," he says, just to appease Robby, not because he means it. Robby's face tells him that Robby knows. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let her go. This is on me." Apologizing – after the fact, when it's already too late – is all he seems to be able to do lately. Apologies are all he has left, worthless as they are.
He doesn't want to see that look on Robby's face that tells him in detail what he did wrong. So, he turns towards Dana and asks her to take Valerie off his shoulder. He should get back to work.
"No, you keep her," Dana says suddenly with a look over his shoulder. Then, she turns to him. "Take a walk around outside. See if you find the mom. We'll handle things here." He can feel Robby disagree with her behind his back, but she just repeats herself. "We've got things handled."
He turns with the baby, makes sure Dana tells Lupe in case the mom comes back, and walks her through the department to the ambulance bay to start his trip around the hospital there. Maybe he'll catch the mom.
He sees them, sees the fresh residents, the new attending, the nurses. The floor is clean again. Just yesterday, he thinks, just ten months ago when he was here last, everything was bloody. He was in pain, anxious, panicking. He did his job, sure, but he was also very clearly unwanted. And everything Robby has done and said to him today, let him know that he isn't needed or wanted here anymore. It hurts. Everything he did, fucked up as it was, wrong as it was, was so he could keep doing this job.
He takes the baby outside, past the ambulance bay, walks with her down the sidewalk past the shrubbery surrounding the building. He checks the benches and the bus stop, the sidewalk leading away from the hospital. Valerie wakes up halfway through and he shifts her on his other shoulder, shows her the hibiscus blossoms and a butterfly. She's too small to properly see things yet, but it's never too early to start appreciating what the world has to offer. A small happy noise makes its way out of her.
He finds Claire on the sidewalk, smoking, sitting on a bench, hunched over. Not anywhere close to the main entrance. She's shivering, despite the heat.
"Hey, Claire."
Her head jerks up. She's crying.
"We thought we'd come looking for you," he murmurs and sits down next to her. The baby squirms and huffs.
"I should get back inside," Claire mutters. "I was…"
"I know," he interrupts calmly. She doesn't need to say it. They both know what she was thinking about. It hangs unspoken between them.
"I can't care for her the way she deserves."
Frank leans back against the bench, scoots closer so Valerie can coo at her mom. He feels Claire's reluctance. She's not moving to take her daughter back.
"I have a five-year-old and a now three-year-old," he tells her. "My wife was doing a welfare check at a home they were in. Both alone. Both… you don't want the details. But the older one latched onto her. She took them in to foster them. And a few weeks later, she started the adoption process. That was… two years ago."
He doesn't tell Claire the rest of the story – how he felt like Abby didn't need him there anymore once she had her perfect family. How he started working more and was home less. How he thought that they probably didn't even miss him all that much. How he felt like he wasn't prepared for two kids from a broken home who'd been shown nothing but hurt by the man in their lives. Kids that required patience and love and attention and someone calm, who was not loud and did not fidget and was not anxious – someone so unlike him. He doesn't tell her that. How he tried. How he failed.
In the past ten months he's learned how to be a dad to Tanner. Learned how to listen and how to have quiet time together with a small kid who very much wanted him home. Who trusted him.
Claire seems to sense that there is more, because she's now looking up at him.
He goes on, for her benefit. "For the longest time I thought they didn't need me. That they deserved someone better. They'd been hurt enough. I'm a fidgety guy. Most of the time I feel like I don't fit. Like a puzzle piece that has to be forced into the picture." He tries to smile at her. She's wiping more tears from her eyes. Something is resonating.
"But they do. I love them, you know? I'm there for them when they get hurt. I'm there to listen. I'm there to tell them stories, to show them the world. And I want to," he emphasizes that part and looks at her. "I want to be there to teach them what I think are important values. I want to see them grow up." He swallows. More than anything he wants to be a positive influence on their lives. "He started calling me dad a year ago. Proudest I've ever been."
Claire smiles through her tears.
"So, that's what I can share. I don't know if that helps." He swallows. He wanted to make a case for being a parent, but that's not really what he is, is it? He's a foster parent – under review at that. If the family court deems him a risk, he will lose his family. "I know… you want what's best for Valerie. And you might feel like you're not that. But I can also tell you that you grow into that role."
"One foot in front of the other?"
"Exactly."
Claire takes a deep breath.
"Plus, you're vulnerable right now. How about you get treated today, get better, see if things look up? Talk to someone. We have some great listeners here."
"Like you?" Claire asks.
"I'm just a great talker," he says. She laughs. He tilts his head towards the hospital. "So, what do you say? Go back inside, get yourself looked at?"
Claire nods, but still doesn't reach out to take the baby back.
She is discharged an hour later and leaves, alone.