This is a story from Patrick's point of view. I have been struggling so much with the Patrick Drake who was on our screens for years to the shell of a character we see now. I am trying to fill in the gaps of his motivation and bring him to a place that makes sense. I am writing this from where the story is now on screen and mixed with a few spoilers that have come out. I will be including characters that have been on screen and some of my own creation because one of the most pressing issues is the lack of friends Patrick has. People he can talk to without a hidden agenda. I hope you enjoy this story.
XXXXX
Chapter One:
Dr. Patrick Drake walked into his house and put his keys on the table. He ran his hands through his hair and sat down on the couch, moving when Danny's toy truck poked into his behind.
He picked it up and smiled before he put it on the table.
He loved having a house full of laughter and he adored seeing Emma smile again. Moving Sam and Danny into the house had been the right thing to do.
That's what he told himself.
He got up and walked to the office, which they turned into Danny's room. For a split second, his mind flashed to Robin and how they planned this office because they knew it would be important for her research. He smiled when he remembered teasing her that she needed an office but he just absorbed all his knowledge and never needed to do homework.
It led to an intense christening of the room and Patrick agreeing that he would need to use the office occasionally. She told him he would have to earn his time and he made her promise to make him work for it.
He felt himself smiling and then he shook his head.
Now it was a nursery for a little boy. Not his son or Robin's, but Sam and Jason's. The man Robin went to save so he would be able to raise his son. The son Patrick now had living in his house.
He walked to Emma's room and smiled at how perfect everything looked. All of her things were placed exactly where she wanted them and her bed was made perfectly. Emma was just like her mother. Everything had a place and purpose. Her organization was impeccable, her loyalty was unbreakable and when Patrick spoke to his daughter, she had so much of Robin in her that it was hard to separate them. He constantly felt like he couldn't wait to tell Robin something Emma did or said. He walked to her dresser and picked up the photos of Robin she had. He remembered the exact moment they were taken and he sighed when he felt his eyes fill with tears. This was pointless and unproductive.
He put the photos back and walked to his bedroom, no, his bedroom with Sam. He sat down on the bed and pulled the box out of his jacket pocket. He opened it and looked at the diamond engagement ring. Picking it up, he felt the familiar rock in the pit of his stomach.
He was going to ask Sam to marry him.
Putting the ring back, he sighed. He had walked in on Sam and Jake at the Metro Court and they were laughing and talking like old friends. He saw Sam with her hand on Jake's arm and it just irritated him. It had been happening a lot and he knew there was more going on. Maybe not an affair, physically, but Sam had a connection to Jake and Patrick couldn't deny it. He knew those looks. He had them, with Robin.
He also knew Liz was wary of the connection between them. She had come across Jake and Sam in numerous instances that they called 'work' and Liz told Patrick that it seemed way too close for comfort.
So Patrick was going to do something drastic. He was going to ask Sam to marry him.
He, Patrick Drake, was asking a woman to marry him out of insecurity. Who the fuck was he anymore? He was the man who owned life and people took notice when he walked into a room. He was the man who commanded attention and he was the man who was pursued, never the pursuer.
Except when he met Robin and he couldn't help but pursue her. It didn't even happen in a way that he remembered. He just found himself wanting to be around her. He thought he was so smart, but he learned everything from her. He learned compassion and bravery from watching her day to day. He learned that sometimes medicine is only a part of what he needed to do as a doctor. He learned to forgive his father and have a relationship with him after years of hate.
He pursued her because he fell in love with her and she was so set in her ways she wouldn't let him in. He knew that feeling because he was the same way. She was terrified to love him, maybe even more so than he was terrified to love her. She had been left behind every single time she gave her heart and he knew how deeply she resented that. He was the same way, which is why they were apart.
He couldn't handle her choices. He was better than that. He was worth a woman who put him first. He sighed as he looked at the ring.
Now he was a purse holder and had no purpose from day to day. He remembered when he asked Robin to marry him and she turned him down, numerous times. It was never a thought in his mind to give up or live without her. Even if she never said yes, he knew his heart was hers, always.
Now he was sitting in the room he shared with her and he was thinking of asking a third woman to marry him. He was sitting on the bed he shared with numerous women and his disgust was apparent.
When did this become his life?
He put the ring in his pocket and looked at the dresser that Robin used. Sam had never asked about it, but it was obvious it was Robin's. Patrick had brought in a new dresser back when Sabrina was around and never touched Robin's. Now, he needed to pack her things and move her out of his life, totally.
He walked over and grabbed one of the boxes he brought in for her things and opened the drawer. He didn't know what to do with everything, so he figured he would just put them in storage until she came to get them.
She would come to get them, wouldn't she?
Something sat in the back of his mind about the fact she had been off the grid for so long. He knew she had stopped communicating with Emma and he knew that meant something was wrong.
That was the ache in the pit of his heart and he knew it wouldn't go away.
But screw her for walking away from him. Not just him, but Emma. Patrick was furious with her and he just didn't understand how she could leave.
He also knew she was suffering from PTSD. He knew it and Anna knew it and neither one of them did anything.
The trouble was that he was so far into this fake happiness he made for himself that he didn't know how to move forward. He couldn't suffer another breakup. His daughter needed stability in her life and that was most important.
He also knew Robin deserved more.
He loved her, plain and simple. He had never loved anyone else and he knew he never would. It's just that life wasn't so simple. He had to move forward. Robin chose to stay away and he wouldn't beg.
He took her clothes and put them in a box, pulling her shirts and sweaters and not looking at them. He smelled her perfume still present and his tears came.
Screw her and this hold she had on him. She left. She chose another man.
And he was going to propose to that man's wife.
Patrick sighed for the millionth time, but his phone buzzed and distracted him.
"Hey," he smiled as he answered.
"Hi," Sam said. "How are you?"
"Good. I just got home," he said and held the ring box. "When are you going to be here?"
"Oh, well I have a case that I need to work on a little longer, but I'll try to be home before Danny goes to bed, Okay? You can pick him up from the sitter, can't you?"
Patrick knew she was with Jake.
"Sure. I'll see you later."
"I love you, I'll see you later," Sam said and hung up.
Patrick hung up and put his phone down. She didn't ask about his surgery or how his day went. Robin always let him decompress after a complex surgery and he loved that connection. It's not that Sam needed to be a doctor to excite him, but she should care about his work.
It just wasn't working.
He went to take a shower before picking up the kids.
XXXX
It had been 430 days. Robin wrote another notch on the wall and ran her hand through her hair, which fell almost to her lower back. She had been held for almost a year and a half.
She had grown used to the routine of the day to day, waking up on a mattress on the floor with her food being delivered and taken away by a nameless faceless lackey of Helena's. She had long since tried to get away and she didn't even care anymore.
She just wanted to see Emma. She missed her daughter with a profound ache in her heart and to know she felt abandoned was almost too much to bear.
For the first few months, Robin had tried to get a hold of Nikolas. If anyone could help her out of this predicament, it was him. But then some disturbing messages had come through the servants.
Nikolas might not be so innocent. That didn't mean he was involved, but Robin didn't think there was one single person she could trust.
Except Mac. If only she could get a message to him. She went over the call she made to Patrick and Anna a million times in her head and wished she had called Mac. She knew he wouldn't have ignored her words and he would have known something was wrong. He was always the one person who had her back. She owed him everything. She owed him an explanation.
Now she might never get the chance to see him again or her daughter. She picked up the journals she had been keeping, thankful they allowed her those, and she wrote her entry for the day.
Today was about trying to remember every moment around finding out she was pregnant with Emma. She was slowly losing her memories, being kept in isolation for so long, but she was determined to write the story of her life. Each chapter and episode so she would never be completely lost. Her hope was that one day Emma would be able to read them and know the truth about Robin and how deeply she loved and wanted her. It was her legacy and she wouldn't stop writing until she was done.
Nobody bothered her anymore. They didn't ask for her to do any medical work because she simply wasn't well enough to do it. She also purposely sabotaged her notes, hoping they would just kill her. She didn't want to die, but this was no life. This was not what Robin Scorpio was meant to do. She shivered in the cold room and started to cough, doubling over from the pain and laying there, taking a few shallow breaths until her dizziness stopped.
She thought of the time Tony held her and she almost died. Jason saved her then.
Nobody was going to save her now. She had no way to get free and she alienated everyone in her life to the point they wouldn't look for her.
She simply had to write her story and pray one day those she loved would read it.