A/N: Thanks everyone for the fantastic feedback on this story. I feel like I finally found my proverbial feet in scrubsfic. I hope I do justice to Patrick here. I may just follow this up somehow if I'm still inspired.

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Meddling – Patrick (2/2)
By Athena13
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"Doctor Drake?"

I don't know how long it's been since Robin walked off in hot pursuit of my father following our all too public bout regarding his health. Nor do I know how long it's been that this nurse has been trying to get my attention. From the look on her face it seems like she's called my name more than once. I turn to look at her, pretending I had been concentrating so hard on the file in my hands.

"Yes, um." I'm fumbling and glance at her name tag. "Nurse Anderson." I flash a smile so she doesn't catch on that I've forgotten her name even though we've actually gotten together for coffee a couple of months ago. Or maybe it was lunch just a few weeks ago. Could have been dinner last week for all I know. I can hardly track the passage of time since the quarantine broke out when things both sped up and slowed down all at the same time.

"Doctor Talbert called and said that he's had to reschedule his patient's consultation to next Tuesday at three. I put it into your schedule," she informs me, a flirtatious gleam in her pretty green eyes. My eyes flick over her tall, curvy figure and my smile widens as my aggravation abates for the moment. Then I sigh inwardly because, beyond the momentarily visual enjoyment, I can't muster up an ounce of desire for the obviously available Nurse Anderson with the forgotten first name.

"Thank you, Nurse." I drop the chart for Talbert's patient back into the upcoming appointment slot and grab the file with the notes Robin had waiting for me this morning. As I walk over to the couches in the waiting room I can feel the knot of anger in my stomach tightening as I again realize that the minute I left the hospital to get some much needed sleep Robin was charming Doctor Quatermaine into releasing her and going right back to work in direct contravention of my medical opinion that she stay in bed for at least another day.

I grab a pen out of my pocket and open up the file to see whether we're going to have to have a satisfying battle of drug protocol versus surgery, but I can't keep my concentration on the page when I see her handwriting. I close my eyes and lean back on the couch and tilt my head back.

I know I didn't sleep as long or as deeply as I needed last night and it's making me short-tempered. There had been too many dreams waking me up throughout the night. Dreams of getting to Doctor Jones' room too late, dreams of critically ill patients begging me to save them, dreams of my father's funeral, dreams of Robin collapsing in the locker room and never waking up. But it was the dream of lying on the beach with a very much alive Robin Scorpio that drove me from my bed and to the hospital hours before I needed to be here. I was more than eager to see her and bask in the open admiration she had been showering me with since she fell ill.

My eagerness went to hell when I got here only to find her room empty and her notes waiting for me on this case we had started together before the quarantine. I didn't know whether to be furious she was already pushing herself so hard or relieved that she was still around to work on it with me. Fortunately, I didn't have to really decide because in came my father looking even more haggard and ill than he did before and obviously in pain. And still turning his back on me as much as he ever had.

I want to hate him. In fact, I do hate him. But there's no denying that I also love him and want more than anything for him to stop with his selfish death wish. Robin keeps telling me that unlike her father mine is actually sticking around, except he isn't. He's letting himself die and a slow, painful death right before my eyes. He says it's for me, but I know that as always it's for him. His shot to be noble, his chance to join my mother in the afterlife, if there's even such a thing. Why can't he see that there's more work for him to do here, not the least of which is living up to what my mother used to believe about him – that he was a fine doctor who saved lives and a loving father? Why can't I make him see all that I see so clearly?

Enough of this! I open my eyes and look down at the file in my lap. If I continue to think about this I'm going to go storming down the hall to my father's office and ruin whatever progress Robin might actually be making with him. If anyone could get through to him, it's her. Before it really pissed me off. Pissed me off that she got him out of that bar and back to this hospital. That he sent her to get me. Now, I'm just grateful that for whatever reason she's our intermediary. Despite my hopeless rage it didn't escape my notice that my father looked at Robin several times while he railed at me his crap about his so-called decision; he looked at her but didn't order her to butt out. Not like he did Carly or just about everyone else who has tried to change his mind, including Bobbie and Monica. It gave me hope that maybe she could get through to him again this time. Now, I would just be grateful someone could.

"Patrick?" Robin's shaky voice catches my attention and I turn to face her. My heart arrests as the sight of her tears and I grab her demanding to know what's wrong. Is she ill again? Has something happened with her father or mine?

When she tells me that she's gotten through to him I am filled with an elation that I haven't felt, well, ever. I grab her and spin her around. I don't even think to question why she's crying, it just seems right. I stop spinning, desperate to see her beautiful brown eyes, to thank her for this miracle. I know without a doubt that everything will be all right and it's all because of this petite beauty I am holding in my arms. Against my body. For the first time in our acquaintance I don't have to lean down to try to see inside her and it's incredibly arousing.

"Thank you, Robin. Thank you." Before I can decide what to do next her strong, warm hands are cupping my face and she's telling me that my father has decided to live for me. I don't know which action makes me lose my breath more.

"He just needed a swift kick in the ass."

Her words make me want to laugh and spin her around again, but I am strangely frozen in place, drowning in her eyes, in the feel of her body against mine. "You certainly know how to deliver those, Doctor Scorpio." Can she hear how shaky my voice is? I bite my lip as a wave of desire so strong sweeps through my body. I want to lay her down on the couch that's biting into my shins and love her all over, again and again. I could put her down, let her feet rest on the couch, but I can't let her go. I'm expecting her to quietly extricate herself from our unaccustomed closeness and send me on my way like a good little boy to see my father any second and I refuse to deny myself the feel of her while I still have it.

Before I recognize it I see a sparkle in her gorgeous eyes and then her lips on mine, her tongue in my mouth and little noises of desire are escaping her throat as she feasts on our kiss. I'm blown away. I'm dragged down and catapulted into the sky. My body is rocketing with more sensations than I've ever felt at one time before. I don't know how I can still be standing. I don't know how I can be anywhere but lost in this woman. I don't know how I've lived this long without her kiss. I don't know how in the world we stop the slow, sensual slide of lips and tongue. I don't know how either of us are still wearing clothes or haven't burst into flames right on the spot.

We're both breathing heavily by the time we both pull back to look at each other in delighted surprise at the turn of events.

"What was that for?" I ask when I can finally muster up enough neurotransmitters to make myself speak.

"That's called not wasting time. Have dinner with me."

Just when I think she's couldn't surprise me anymore she goes and does it. All my suave lines are gone and I can barely squeak out some sort of assent to the proposition.

"Go see, Noah. I'm going to put his name on the transplant list and arrange for your tests to see if you're a match."

She unmans me and makes me feel like more of a man than I've ever felt. My throat and eyes are coated in tears at her generosity. I press my forehead against hers, trying to compose myself. I want to go see him, I do, I just don't want to let her go. What if the moment I do she's gone again? Back behind that wall I've beat my head against more times than I can count?

My father is going to live, I remember and above it all that's the most important thing right now. Robin's wall can and will be dealt with if it ever dares to keep me from her again.

"How can I ever thank you?"

My father is going to live. Because of this woman. Does she have any idea what she's given me? Yeah, she probably does, I think as I remember the tears she let me see after her own father left just the day before.

"Pay for dinner."

I tilt my head back at her words and study her. She's trying to lighten the moment. I can see that she's drowning just as surely as I am. I am amazed and touched that she's still letting me see her so intimately. That's when I finally realize where we are, and it's definitely not private enough for moments like this. Reluctantly, I let her down.

"Go see him. I'll come find you when I'm done."

I search for something to say, but I'm too afraid if I speak something I can never take back will come out.

"Go."

Something in her expression makes my heart ache, but there's nothing I can do right now but see my father. "Seven o'clock." I am going to show Robin Scorpio the time of her life tonight. I smile and lick my lips. I feel like the weight of the world has finally slipped off my shoulders and I grab the file we're working on together and go to see my father. Maybe now that he's decided to live he can tell me how the hell a player like him landed a woman like my mother.