Chapter Text
“Where are you taking me?”
When Frank asked her to follow him, Mel stepped behind him without protesting, but as they climb the stairs to the hospital roof, she begins to ask questions.
“You spirited me away when we still have one hour left of work, so I can ask what’s happening, can’t I?”
They reach the fourth floor, and Frank is still silent. That’s unusual of him; he likes to talk while running or hiking, however long and steep. Mel glances at him, wondering what he was thinking with this serious look on his face. She suddenly feels her stomach squeeze inside her. He isn’t going to break up with her, is he?
Questions without answers plague her until the door to the roof-top opens.
The orange light of a fall sunset welcomes them, along with the brisk wind of a cool October day. Mel approaches the railing to watch the way the light hit the buildings on the other side of the Allegheny. She breathes the fresh air, glad she could see the sunlight before the end of her shift. In the coming months, the hardest thing will be to go to work before sunrise and clock out after sunset.
She turns back to Frank, ready to thank him for bringing her up here, and her breath catches in her throat.
He’s kneeling in front of her, holding a small box in front of him, his face illuminated by the last rays of the day, and his eyes filled with hopeful love. He’s beautiful.
“Melissa Lorraine King, you have changed my life in the best way. You made me want to be a better man, for you, for my children, and for myself. You have been an irreplaceable part of my life, and I want you to be for the rest of it. I love you, Mel. Will you marry me?”
There, on the rooftop of their workplace, in the last rays of the day, Mel’s face is hurting under the strength of her smile. She pulls Frank up and immediately hugs him, her face against his shoulder. She finds herself surrounded by his arms and his warmth.
“I will, Frank.”
“You will?”
Mel takes a step back, her hands still on his chest, his holding her hips—she can feel the sharp corner of the box in her side. She takes the box from his grip and opens it, offering the ring and her left hand. “I’m 100% sure.”
Frank takes the ring and slides it on her finger, then his lips crash on hers. Mel kisses him back enthusiastically, forgetting everything that isn’t him and his arms around her.
Two years later, for their first anniversary, they find out that the colleagues who followed them and cheered after their kiss actually took pictures of them and put them in an album to gift them.