Hey readers, we're gonna take a little hiatus and let the creative batteries recharge. Might be a few days or more before our next update. We have some ideas in mind, just need to let them gestate a bit, and have some real life stuff to manage. Perhaps we'll finally get a kiss on the show and be inspired to take this relationship to the next level! Thanks for reading and for the great feedback!

>>>>>>>>
Chapter 20
>>>>>>>>>

Her chicken salad sat half-eaten on the other side of the kitchen table which was covered in paper. She had ink all over her hand and even her forehead where she had rubbed the headache reading all these forms had caused. When Alan told her that the MRA approached GH with the offer of a grant to build a bio-safety lab to help them in their work and Alan thought she was the perfect person to take charge of the project she should have turned down his offer. She had a feeling this avalanche of paperwork was just the beginning. All the good the labs could do for Port Charles and the world was whited out with mounds and mounds of paper in her mind. Like a blizzard does to a good ski slope.

"When did the tornado hit?" Patrick said as he sat down at the table next to her, startling her out of her paperwork coma.

"While you were sleeping." Robin sighed, tossed her pencil on to the table and looked at him appraisingly. "You look much better."

"I didn't think that was possible." Patrick pursed his lips, imitating Ben Stiller's model face from Zoolander.

"Hungry?" Robin laughed and got up to get Patrick's medication and re-heat his lunch.

Patrick just grunted, his eyes already on the paper lying closest to him. As Robin put his pills and a glass of juice down next to him, he ignored her, his attention riveted by what he was reading.

"Fun reading, huh? When did science become more about the paperwork than the work anyway?" She turned the fire up on the soup pot she had taken out of the fridge.

By the time her voice got his attention, Patrick had picked up, skimmed and read through a number of the pages scattered about. At her voice he looked up and snared her with a fierce glare. "What the hell are you thinking?" He demanded.

"What?" Robin turned around from the stove to find Patrick standing up and scowling at her.

"After everything you just went through you're going to voluntarily expose yourself to dangerous viruses? I can't believe this." Patrick fumed.

Robin, a serving spoon in her hand just stared at him in shock. "It's my job Patrick."

"No, you're job is research and drug development and arguing with me about patient care and my bedside manner!" Patrick knew he was being unreasonable, but the thought of Robin voluntarily exposing herself to the microbes they studied in BSL 2 and 3 labs alarmed him and he didn't feel like being rational about it. "Do you really think I want to watch you dying underneath a plastic canopy again because some mistake is made in one of these labs?"

"So you think I'm going to make a mistake?"

"They happen, Robin." Patrick closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

"Rarely." Robin's back was up, but she could see that his overreaction was caused by concern and probably his continued worry about his father. "Why don't you sit down, eat lunch and we can talk about this rationally."

"It's not like you're going to listen to me, even when it's to protect your own health," he said, remembering when he had tried to get her to leave before the hospital was quarantined. He leaned back in his chair and wondered where his unflappable cool had gone.

Robin sat down and watched him struggle for a few minutes. "Patrick, I have HIV."

"I know that." He looked at her like she was nuts.

"One day I am going to get sick and die. I am also a doctor, a researcher. Both are facts that I live with everyday and so does everyone in my life. Maybe we should take a step back in our personal relationship so that you can think about whether you can live with that."

"So I get concerned and you want to run. That's great, Robin. Just great."

"I'm just trying…"

"To give me an out. Did I say I want an out, Robin? Did I say that?" Patrick slapped his hand on the table. "I think you're the one who wants an out Robin. So you can go back to living our half life of work and research papers."

"You can't protect me by asking me not to do my job. I won't take unnecessary risks, but I can't." Robin stopped and tried to choose her words carefully. "I can't let this disease stop me from making a difference with my work."

"But you'll let it stop you from having a relationship with me the moment you don't like what I have to say or feel about something." Patrick was furious.

"That's not what I mean. I understand that it might be difficult for you as a doctor and man to deal with the inevitable."

"So you're going to protect me from watching you die, but I can't protect you or try to delay this inevitable you've resigned yourself to. That's bullshit. I may not be an expert here, but I'm fairly certain that all couples have disagreements and fights and then they communicate to work it out. Not run." Patrick crossed her arms.

Stunned to silence Robin just looked at him.

Relishing having the upper hand, Patrick continued. "I had a perfectly normal, if a bit irrational, reaction to the thought of you spending your days and nights in another quarantine suit or, worse, wearing a space suit and a respirator to do your job while you worked with barely visible microbes that could kill you and you turn it into my not being smart or sensitive enough to understand that you have HIV. I thought we were past that Doctor Scorpio."

"Wow, you're good," Robin finally said.

"I've always told you that," he said smugly.

"And that leaves us where exactly? If we get this grant, which apparently is dependent on me filling out this mound of paperwork, you don't want me to step foot in the labs we're building, despite the fact that it's my area of expertise."

"It leaves us exactly where you said it did. I'll have my lunch and then we'll discuss it rationally. And then I'll help you fill out this paperwork since I have nothing else to do for the next week until I'm cleared to go back to work."

Touched, Robin's eyes filled with tears. This man always brought her to her knees and made her fall even more in love with him.

"I know, you're staggeringly lucky to have such a sexy, fun, cultured, intelligent and supportive boyfriend."

"I know."

Uncomfortable with Robin's serious expression Patrick cleared his throat. "I think I smell something burning."

>>>>>>>

A couple of days after their first official fight, Robin came home from an exhausting day at the hospital to a delicious aroma coming from the kitchen.

"What are you doing in there?" She leaned against the doorway to the kitchen and drank in the incredibly sexy sight of her boyfriend wearing sweat pants, a t-shirt and an apron and manning the stove which was covered in pots and pans. She looked at the counters and noted that he was even neat about it, just like her. That was a definite plus in a roommate, even a temporary one.

"Fixing dinner for someone who looks like she could use a good meal, a strong cup of good tea and some TLC in front of the fire." He peeked at her over his shoulder and smiled. "It'll be another fifteen minutes. Why don't you go into the living room and relax. Turn on some music."

After indulging herself in a study of his superior male form Robin went into the living room and turned on the radio and collapsed on the couch. She was too tired to even drag herself up the stairs to change her clothes. She was staring in to the fire when Patrick came into the living room and held a steaming mug in front of her.

"Not bad for a doctor with a miserable bedside manner."

"Maybe I've been paying attention to a doctor that has an excellent one."

"Thank you." She sipped the warm liquid from the cup, allowing it to heat and soothe her throat.

"You're welcome. It's just tea though, nothing to get too excited about."

"I just meant for all of this. It's nice to come home and have someone here. Making dinner for me," she tacked on at the last second. "Even when that someone probably shouldn't be up and around doing all this just yet."

"It's just a meal." He smiled broadly and walked back to the kitchen without saying anything. "I have one more thing for you." A moment later he was setting a vase filled with multi-colored roses on the coffee table in front of her.

She stared at them for a moment, and then looked at Patrick, smiling. "They're beautiful, but really not necessary."

"Not as beautiful as you are and it's just a small thank you for everything you've done and are doing for me. I doubt that my father would even be alive if it weren't for you."

"You're the one who donated part of your liver to him." Robin blushed and leaned over to smell the roses. Despite how often he made them, she still was really bad at accepting compliments. Knowing this only made him want to say them more often.

"My father would be dying in some seedy bar and I would still be pretending he was already dead if you hadn't come into our lives."

Robin shrugged and looked into her mug. "Life just happens sometimes."

"And sometimes you should take credit for the good work you do."

"You're welcome." Robin bit her lip and smiled up at him shyly.

"Do you want to know what's on the menu?" he asked, putting her out of her misery of self-consciousness. At her nod he continued, "Chicken marsala, pasta and steamed vegetables. And a surprise for dessert."

"Nice." Robin was impressed.

>>>>>>

After they ate and Patrick cleared the dishes at his insistence, they settled on the couch in front of the fire, Robin snuggled on his side opposite the incision. "If you sit up, I'll rub your back," he offered.

"This is perfect, just like this." She snuggled closer.

He smiled and tightened his hold around her. "This is pretty nice. I think perfect would be if I could kiss you."

Robin shifted her position so that her legs were resting on his lap and she was looking up at him, even as she wondered when she had come to enjoy the leer in his voice. Probably the first time she heard it, she admitted ruefully. "Better?"

He nodded as he lowered his mouth to capture hers in a soft kiss. Her arms encircled his neck as she pulled him closer. The kiss deepend. Many minutes later, breathless she reluctantly broke the kiss and tried to move away, but he held her tight. "No running away this time."

"I'm not running away." She continued when she saw his skeptical look. "Really I'm not. You haven't been cleared for physical activity."

"Shall I call the hospital and ask if I can fool around with my sexy girlfriend?" Patrick reached out towards the phone.

She blushed furiously and shook her head.

"Then shut up and humor the patient." After they had been kissing for while he pulled back and looked down at her, his eyes full of laughter and passion. "Now, this is a bedside manner I can get used to."