A/N: Sorry it's been so long. Had to get JT out of my head in order to be able to channel Patrick. Frankly, I'm not quite there yet. Need to watch today's scenes a few more times…oh wait, that might not help.

PS - Rick is hotter now than he ever was. Gonna go stare at photos from Friday night now...

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Meddling – Patrick 18
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It still hurts so much.

I drop the weights with a loud clang, wincing both at the sound and the feel of my muscles gone rubbery. I bury my face in a sweat dampened towel as I slump down on the weight bench. Ninety minutes and buckets of sweat later, I'm no closer to any sort of calm. I've worked my pectoral muscles, along with every other one, triple reps and the outer burn is doing nothing to mask the ache underneath. Nor has my fury decreased, in fact, it's only increased. I don't know what to do with it.

Everything inside me wants to go out and bury it all in some mindless flirting, dirty dancing and a convenient one night stand. It's what I do, what I've always done.

Ran into the old man and argued about my mother's estate, go out and score a hot blonde.

Someone mentioned Dad's name while reviewing my residency application, go out and score a red head. Or two.

Father leaves rehab early and announces he wants to pretend the last ten years never happened and I should wait around for him to let me down again, run off to Rusty's and Mercy Hospital's more than willing female personnel.

Robin once accused me of being afraid of emotional intimacy and while I wouldn't admit it at the time, the pattern is pretty freakin' obvious, flirting and sex have been my tried and true method of avoiding feelings.

But that's not an option and I'm not so gone that I want to throw everything I have with Robin away for some temporary pain management. What I should do is call Robin, but I can't face the disappointment I'll see in her eyes. That's why I've been avoiding her all day, which only makes me feel worse because she might just be wondering if "love 'em and leave 'em Drake" has gotten what he wanted and is hiding out from her. I know my timing sucks. Or can I blame this on my father who has an incredible ability to disrupt my life?

With a frustrated sigh I toss the towel onto the bench and begin to stretch out. I'm going to be aching later, but it's the least I deserve. Maybe if I wince enough it'll convince Robin to go easy on me. Once I can face her.

Ring

Damn. It's either Jehovah's Witnesses or my father to give me more good news, or worse to talk through my mood at lunch. He's been trying to call me all afternoon. But I'm in no mood to deal with either as I stalk down the stairs to the front door.

"What!" I growl as I throw it open.

The sight of Robin takes me by surprise. I fully expected her to sit at home cursing me for avoiding her, not come over here to confront me.

"Sorry." I lean against the door and wait for the lecture. But instead of rushing into a long, involved explanation as to why I'm wrong for behaving badly with my father and then avoiding her I catch her checking me out. Well, well, well. Maybe this won't be so…

"You're avoiding me."

Or maybe it will be as bad as I expected. I open my mouth to speak, but I know I'm just going to say something stupid. In frustration I run my hand through my hair and remember that I'm a sweaty mess. I move back and open the door to let her in. I watch, bemused, when instead of turning on me and demanding answers Robin drops her purse on the couch and goes into the kitchen.

Still, I know it's a short reprieve. I might as well be clean for this.

The shower helps somewhat, at least I feel a lot calmer, although I won't pretend to look forward to a conversation about feelings. What are the odds I'll get lucky after she hears how uncharitable and immature I am? Not very high, I sigh to myself. When I get downstairs she's patiently sitting on the couch with two bottles of water on the ready. I use one to not only quench my thirst, but to stall.

"It's not about you, Robin," I say after taking a long drink.

"I know. It's about Noah."

I blow a breath in surprise. It's not the insight that surprises me, Robin has always had the ability to see right through me, what surprises me is that she jumped right there and passed on making me feel bad for avoiding her, but then, that's never really been Robin's style. I was just hoping for a buffer conversation.

"Will you talk to me about it? Patrick…" she stops and frowns. I can tell she's trying to choose her words carefully, which only makes my chest hurt. She's taking such care with me and I'm such a bastard. "There's nothing you can tell me that will make me think less of you."

"You haven't heard this." I finish the bottle of water, close it and put it down on the table. I am deliberate in my movements both to stall, but also because I'm trying to suppress the rage that it threatening to overwhelm me again as I think about my father. I pick the full water bottle and toss it from hand to hand as I try to figure out what to say.

"You don't have to tell me, but I'm worried about you and I want to help."

"You always do." Even in the midst of this excruciating conversation she manages to comfort me, but the reprieve is brief. I lean back and brace myself. I'm just going to get it out there. "I'm jealous of my father."

"What are you jealous about?"

I have to look away from her. I can't say this looking at the most honorable person I know. I drop my head back and look at the ceiling.

"I feel like he's taking everything from me. My career. You." At the last word I look her dead in the eyes, I have to, she deserves that much.

"Before you say it, I know it's juvenile, but I can't make these feelings go away." I slam the bottle back on the coffee table.

"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 nod, still braced for a lecture.

"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."

He soft words unnerve me. "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." It's not that, it can't be that. Could it?

"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 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."

Is she trying to make me feel better by comparing us? I don't know what to say.

"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."

Her voice is soft, tender. The understanding and compassion in her eyes are my undoing. No one has looked at me like that since my mother.

"We did." I clear my throat and look down. Tears are filling my eyes – tears! I didn't know this was here. "He was supposed to show me how to do this. I wasn't supposed to do it alone."

She's right. God, this was not how it was supposed to be. My mother wasn't supposed to die and he wasn't' supposed to die with her. He was supposed be my mentor. We were supposed to do this together. And now, it feels like a consolation prize. Too little, too late and it infuriates me that he's just waltzing in now to threaten my turf.

I suck in a breath as I feel Robin touch my face. I hadn't realized she had moved closer. "You're not jealous, Patrick." I look at her, hoping she's right. "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."

Something someone once said to me whispers through my mind – anger is just fear and sadness mixed together. Anger is so much easier to deal with, at least for me. I don't know how to deal with all this stuff and I see in her eyes that she's telling me I don't have to do this alone. Not anymore, not this time. I'm swamped with grief and love. I've been alone so long and I'm just getting how lonely I've been. I wrap my arms around her and gather her to me to him and bury my face in my neck and breathe in her comforting scent. So many women, so many friends, but no one that has gotten me like she does. I hold on tight for I don't know how long and she just holds me back and strokes my hair.

"Thank you," I whisper.

"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?" I snort. How many times have both of them lectured me on that? Please, I'm a surgeon, for pete's sake, my patients are pretty much unconscious at the critical moments. And she works mainly with a microscope. I don't get this stress on being nice, isn't being good more important?

"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'm sure I can." Thinking about medicine balances me. I loosen my grasp and pull back to look at her. "Stay with me tonight?"

"Of course." She strokes her hand down my bare chest and presses a soft kiss to my shoulder. I shiver.

"Do you have your meds?" I stroke her silky hair off her face and stroke her cheek with my thumb.

"Yeah. But I'll have to get up early to go home and change before shift."

"No problem." This feels normal, I need normal. "Have you had dinner yet?"

"No."

"Hungry?"

She looks down at my chest and then back in my eyes. "Yes."

I grin back at her.