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Meddling - Robin 18
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I pace the admittedly small length of my bedroom and consider my options. Stay or go?
I haven't seen hide nor hair of Patrick since our brief and uncomfortable lunchtime encounter. Since then, he effectively avoided me for the rest of the day and I know it's avoidance and not just because he's busy. He hasn't left me any messages or returned mine and, most notably, he didn't make time to see me. That has never happened, not since the day we met. No matter his schedule, heck even if he was technically off work he has always made the time to come find me whether it was to needle or flirt and often both simultaneously. No, he's definitely avoiding me.
For a few hours after lunch I was assaulted with niggles of old insecurities. Little voices that would say that Patrick's tired of me now that we've had sex and the like, but I was finally able to put them to rest with some very clear evidence to the contrary. First of all, a man who is tired of you does not touch you or look at you the way Patrick did me at lunch. Second, I am well versed in Drake man conflict to recognize that today's mood was definitely something of the father-son-conflict variety. I just don't know what has happened to set it off.
The question I've been grappling with the past hour since I found out Patrick left the hospital – without calling me - is whether to give him space or butt in.
Well, I smile at my harried reflection in the mirror, that's not a hard decision after all.
Butting into the Drake father-son turmoil is what I do best. Hell of a lot better than I do with my own father, in fact. At that thought I put my hands on my hips and look at myself sternly in the mirror. "You are going to call your father tomorrow young lady and put a stop to this indulgent hypocrisy," I tell myself.
Feeling better I grab a pair of jeans.
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"What!" Patrick opens the door with a furious growl, until he sees it's me and then he smiles apologetically. "Sorry," he mumbles.
I want to growl myself because, oh my, Patrick is wearing a tank, top, short shorts and lots and lots of sweat. Oh my god, I could make a porn video right now. I shake off my lust and straighten up. "You're avoiding me," I roll right into the matter at hand.
Patrick looks at me and the satisfaction that appeared in his eyes at my obvious appreciation of his physical state disappears back into the well of fury that was there when he opened the door. He opens his mouth to speak and then shuts it. One hand is still on the door and he runs the other through his sweaty, messy hair and sighs. He moves back without a word and lets me in.
I walk in and hear loud music coming from upstairs and it's not a stretch to surmise he's been lifting the weights he keeps in the third bedroom. I spin around and find him still standing by the now closed door looking like he's trying really hard to calm down enough to talk to me. My heart melts at the sight. This is not just annoyance, something is seriously upsetting him. I decide to give him a moment and I walk into the kitchen and grab a couple of bottles of water, dropping my purse on the couch on the way.
I come back into the living room and find him gone. I stop and blink. I had not expected that. As I stand there I hear the music turn off and a few moments later the shower come on. Damn. Maybe he'll come down in a towel. I roll my eyes at myself and go sit down on the couch to wait. I can't believe that Patrick is in emotional pain and I'm indulging in prurient thoughts! Although, I'm not sure that so much makes me a bad girlfriend as opposed to the perfect one for Patrick Drake.
Ten minutes later Patrick walks slowly down the stairs, now clad in a pair of sweat shorts, and silently takes one of the bottles of water I've left on the coffee table. He sits down on the couch a cushion away from me, but facing me and my heart pangs when I see the pain and fury still in his eyes. If it's that strong after the hard work out he's obviously had then it must run deep. I have to find a way to ease him and to do that I need to find out what it is that's eating at him.
"It's not about you, Robin," he finally says after gulping down half the small bottle.
"I know. It's about Noah." I wait for his surprised reaction to pass before continuing. "Will you talk to me about it?" The brief moment of relief that my understanding has given him disappears and he is now agitated. I'm really beginning to worry. "Patrick…" I break off. I don't want to pressure him and I need to choose my words carefully. "There's nothing you can tell me that will make me think less of you."
"You haven't heard this." He shakes his head and then finishes the bottle of water. He closes it and puts it down on the coffee table and picks up the other bottle. He doesn't drink from it, he just tosses it between his hands. His brow is furrowed in thought.
"You don't have to tell me, but I'm worried about you and I want to help."
"You always do." He chuckles and flashes me a dimple. For a few seconds he's the cocky Patrick I know, but it quickly fades and he leans back on the couch with a sigh. "I'm jealous of my father." His voice is filled with self-disgust.
What he says is obvious, but simple jealousy is not what caused the amount of fury and pain that is still radiating from him. "What are you jealous about?" I probe.
He leans his head back and speaks while looking up at the ceiling. I know he's doing it to avoid looking me in the eyes while he tells me. I toe off my Keds and lean back to listen.
"I feel like he's taking everything from me. My career. You." At the last word he looks me dead in the eye. The seriousness there gives me chills. "Before you say it, I know it's juvenile, but I can't make these feelings go away." He slams the bottle back on the coffee table and proceeds to crack his knuckles.
"Why do you think he's taking things away from you? Because he's coming to work at General Hospital? Because I went to lunch with him?"
"Yes."
I'm listening not just with my ears; I'm also listening to the other signals Patrick is throwing out. What I'm feeling from him is not jealousy, it's grief and resentment. How could I but recognize that, especially in relation to a father? "I imagine it's hard after ten years of being abandoned to have him just walk in and pick up where he left off as if nothing has happened."
"But it's not like that! He just had a liver transplant! We've lived together! We've worked things out. I…it doesn't even make sense to me that I feel like this." Frustration makes his voice gruff.
"For ten years he denied you a father by his own choice, years when you needed him and now he's going back to work at General Hospital as your competition." I avoid any mention of myself; I know it's not about me. "I know I'd be pissed if my father suddenly walked into my lab and started barking orders about, say, a mutant virus after I've worked my ass off as a researcher during the years he was absent. In fact, I was."
Patrick twists his lips into a grimace, but he doesn't say anything.
"I bet you were looking forward to working with him when you were a kid. I can imagine you and your mother weaving pictures of that together," I say softly and I know I've hit on the heart of the matter when I see tears fill Patrick's eyes. Matching ones fill my eyes and my heart breaks for him. At the same time, I am so honored that he's sharing this with me.
"We did." His voice cracks and he looks down into his lap and takes a deep breath. "He was supposed to show me how to do this. I wasn't supposed to do it alone."
I know he's not just talking about being a surgeon. There is ten years of grief in his words and in his body language, it physically weighs him down. Grief that I wish I could tell him will go away, but I know it never fully will. Grief is not a five-step process that is done once you go through each stage. It's never so neat, predictable and it never really ends. It may fade in intensity, but the smallest thing or nothing could bring it back up again and again. This grief that Patrick is battling, and I can see that it's a pitched battle inside him, has never really been dealt with at all. He's never gotten to deal with the loss of his father as his hero and the dreams that died when his father gave up on medicine and himself, and in large part Patrick. Having his father back as a surgeon has to be what dredged it to the surface.
I scoot closer to him on the couch and put my hand on his face and gently stroke his skin.
"You're not jealous, Patrick." My sure words make him lift his head and look at me, his eyes pleading for my words to be true. Ah, my honorable man, do you know how much I adore you? "You are grieving for the dream that died all those years ago of the father-son surgical team. This is grief, not jealousy and you have every right to feel this way."
He lets out a small breath at my words and then wraps his arms around me and gathers me to him and buries his face in my neck. He doesn't cry, but I stroke his damp hair until his ragged breathing evens out.
"Thank you," he whispers into my ear.
"I know it's not exactly how you pictured it, but there might still be things Noah can teach you."
"You mean like his wonderful bedside manner?" Patrick snorts into my ear.
"I was thinking more along the lines of technique. I remember him giving you some good advice in the O.R. recently. I bet you can show him a thing or two, too." I have no doubt once Patrick works through what he's going through that Noah and Patrick Drake are going to rock the neurological community.
"I'm sure I can." Patrick pulls back and I can see that he's still unhappy, but calmer now that he understands the why of how he feels. Now, that he's not ashamed of it. "Stay with me tonight?" he asks.
"Of course." I stroke my hand down his bare chest and press a soft kiss to his shoulder.