Following their recent breakup, Chicago Fire’s Lizzie Novak and Chicago Med’s Dr. John Frost were thrown back together under dire conditions during this week’s One Chicago crossover. But will those circumstances lead to a romantic rekindling between Novak and Frost, or will they drive the pair even further apart?
When Novak started to show signs of exposure to a deadly chemically weapon, the hospitalized paramedic shared some of her troubled family history with Frost. Her inability to get deep and vulnerable was a major part of why her and Frost’s brief relationship broke apart, so the doc was surprised that Novak was opening up to him, and even more surprised to learn that she has a sister and a brother.
“I’ll say that only in a situation where [Novak] thought she might die would she have opened up to anybody,” Fire showrunner Andrea Newman tells Soaps.com. “That’s kind of very un-Novak with new people and new places and things. She likes to keep a safe distance.”
Novak declined Frost’s suggestion that she reach out to her siblings, assuring him that she’ll do that after she gets out of the hospital. But after another exposed firefighter lost her life, Dr. Ripley urged Frost to call them on Novak’s behalf. When they showed up at the hospital, Novak gave Frost an inscrutable look.
“Frost kind of made this big gesture. Whether or not that’s something that Novak will resent or will find endearing is something that we’re planning on playing out,” Newman says.
Adds Med showrunner Allen MacDonald: “He makes this wonderful gesture in the crossover, but it’s overstepping in a big way, in my opinion. Will they have a future? It’s always possible, and Andrea and I are definitely talking about it. We’ll see what happens.”
Fittingly, the idea of a Novak and Frost pairing first caught fire during another big One Chicago event, when Frost helped out the 51 paramedics. “We love them together. It was in the crossover last year that we saw that chemistry,” Newman shares. “Two seconds on screen together, and we’re like, ‘OK, we want to see more of these two.’ So we love seeing them together.”
However, Newman cautions that “they’ve both got other stories, other directions they’re going, and whether they end up together or not” remains to be seen.
Chicago Med airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on NBC, followed by Fire at 9 pm.