The course of true love never runs smooth.

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Chapter 23
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She insisted on driving them back. From the moment he received the phone call Patrick's head was a million miles away – already with his father. He was hardly off the telephone on the two hour drive back to Port Charles trying to talk to the doctors, Alan Quartermaine and a transplant specialist that he had worked with back on New York City. By the time they reached General Hospital he knew all the details of treatment and prognosis on Noah's case. He was hardly conscious that Robin had repacked their bags, gotten redressed and was with him at the hospital as he once again spoke to the doctors and, finally, visited with Noah.

She was standing looking out the window in the small waiting room on the transplant unit when she heard someone enter the room. She turned around and saw a haggard looking Patrick. Without a word she walked over to him and took him into her arms. She wished she had something more than trite, comforting words to say to him, but she knew he'd see right through them. Instead she guided him over to a bench and just held on to him for as long as he would allow.

"He told me to go home. Said I had to rest," Patrick said when he finally let go and leaned back against the wall. "Seems like an odd time for fatherly concern."

"Are you going to listen?" Robin asked, tentatively taking his hand, relieved when he turned his palm and entwined their fingers. She covered their hands with her other one.

"I think he knew this was going to happen when he sent us away for the weekend. So instead of being here I was two hours away and helpless."

"You couldn't have done anything more," Robin said.

"I could have been here!" Patrick exploded, pulled his hand away and standing up and stalking towards the window and then back to stand in front of Robin. "He's been sending me away for years while he lets his life slip through his grasp. I don't know why the hell I ever bother. Every time it's the same thing!"

Robin stood up and put her hand on his chest. "Patrick, he's not rejecting you," she said quietly.

At her words the fight went out of Patrick's body and he covered his eyes with his hand. "I don't know what to do. I just don't know what to do." He dropped his hand and looked down at her, his brown eyes filled with fear and frustration.

"The only things we can do are wait and pray."

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"You should go home."

Robin look over at Patrick who she had thought was sleeping on the couch across from her. "I'm not going to leave you, or Noah."

"There's nothing you can do here." Patrick stood up and walked over the coffee pot in the corner of the room.

Robin looked at him worriedly. He'd been getting more and more distant as the hours wore on. Shutting her out and shutting down. It was just before dawn and they were waiting for the new combination of anti-rejection drugs to show signs of effectiveness. If they didn't work soon they were going to have to rush him to surgery and take out the rejected liver and put him on a bioreactor machine until a new liver could be found. That was if they could get Noah to agree to be put on the transplant list, which so far he was steadfastly refusing.

Nothing his son, Bobbie, Robin or his doctors had said so far would get him to change his mind.

As a result, Patrick was beside himself with fury and grief. He had to be thrown out of Noah's room because he was yelling at the patient, tears soaking his cheeks. From then on he'd refused to speak to anyone except to ask Robin if he had changed his mind yet after she came out of talking with him. When she told him "no" he'd just turned away.

She didn't tell him that she had tried.

"Help him through this. He has to know he tried and that I was so proud of him."

"All he sees is you giving up."

"Again. Like I did after I lost his mother."

"Don't do this to him again. You've already agreed that your life is worth it. Fight for it, fight for the lives you know you'll save and fight for your son."

At those words Noah turned his head away and refused to answer her pleas.

She hated seeing him give up like this and she hated to see what it was doing to his son.

"I can be with you. For you."

"My own father doesn't seem to think that's enough to try and live for." Patrick shrugged away her words.

"He agreed to this surgery, Patrick."

"So it's okay if he just gives up now?" Patrick spun around, the cold coffee he was holding sloshed onto his wrist. "Robin Scorpio's unending compassion and understanding for people's choices even when those choices are nothing but stupid pride or cowardice!" He slammed the cup down on the table and took a napkin to the wetness on his wrist, studying it as if it was a complex surgical procedure. "Just go home, Robin. Go home."

Robin stood up and her heart broke as she looked at him across the room. Standing there in jeans and a t-shirt, his arm muscles bunched up and straining the material. His posture was stiff and she could tell that knots were forming in the strong muscles of his neck and shoulders. And that he wouldn't accept her touch for his own comfort.

"I'll be working if you need me." She picked up her sweater and walked to the door, she paused and looked back at him. He refused to look at her and she couldn't think of anything she could say that could bridge the distance between them, so she walked out the door and let it close softly behind her.

When she was gone, Patrick looked up at the door. His face was blank.