Chapter Nine - Mama Said There Would Be Days Like This

The hospital attendants pulled the IV out of Frank Lewis' arm and disconnected the paddles from his chest. One of them looked at Robin and said, "You gonna call it, Dr. Scorpio?"

Robin silently looked down at Frank's face, so familiar to her after all these weeks of treatment, and shook her head. It wasn't supposed to end this way, not this time.

"Robin?" Liz said, looking at her friend and knowing that this one was hard for her.

Robin looked at Liz, then looked up at the clock on the wall and said in a clear voice, "Time of Death - 3:47 a.m."

As Liz and the other attendants finished working with the body, Robin turned and walked out of the room. She walked right past the nurse's station desk and didn't even slow down. Patrick looked up from his paperwork and smirked at her. "You know, Dr. Scorpio, I was just..."

Robin held up her hand to him as she walked by. "Don't." She said quietly, not even looking at him. "I can't deal with you now."

For the first time since they had met, Patrick actually did as she said and didn't say another word as he watched her walk to the elevator. When the elevator doors closed with Robin safely inside, Patrick looked questioningly at Liz as she walked up to the nurse's station. "Frank Lewis died on the table."

Patrick nodded and then looked toward the elevators. "So, where is she going?"

"Probably to walk it off." Liz said, taking out Frank's paperwork and filling out what she could. Looking back at Patrick, she warned him, "Lay off, okay? Don't mess with her right now about getting too close to the patients. This is hard enough as it is."

"You have no faith in me at all, do you?" He asked.

"You like to annoy her, Patrick, that's no big secret." Liz said tiredly. "Which is amusing for the most part. But not today."

Up on the hospital roof, Robin pushed open the door and stepped out into the cold night air. It was colder out than she thought, but Robin decided that the cold air would do her some good. Propping the door open, Robin walked to the edge of the roof and looked out over her hometown. Standing, looking over Port Charles, she felt the most at home. The wind blew, making her hair as wild as horses. The city seemed so peaceful, having no idea that another one of it's citizens had just died. And Robin couldn't save him.

The nurses had long shut off the beeping monitors in the room, but Robin still heard them ringing in her ears. She twisted her hands, which had formed into ice, trying to steady them. She told herself not to cry. Crying solved nothing. It never had. She had learned that long ago. She should be used to this by now...the inevitable end of human life. She was a doctor and he was her patient. That was all. She went over those thoughts in her mind to try and hold back the tears, but no. A single tear formed in her eye and came to rest on her cheek, where it froze like the rest of her body.

She didn't hear the roof door open or his footsteps approach. What she did hear was his soft voice say, "The hospital cafeteria is having a special on hot chocolate tonight. Made with white chocolate. It looks funny, but it tastes great. And it's hot."

Robin swiped at her tears before turning around to face him. She silently accepted the cup of hot liquid that Patrick offered her and then went to sit on a nearby bench. "You're going to freeze out here." He said, coming to stand behind her and placing her coat around her shoulders.

"I'll be fine." She said quietly, not meeting his eyes.

"Yes, because that damn pride of yours is going to keep you so warm, right?" He joked, taking the cup out of her hands so that she could put her arms through her coat and button it up.

Taking the cup of hot chocolate back from him, she asked, "Why are you being nice to me?"

"Because it's about 4 o'clock in the morning and I haven't seen a pillow in over 24 hours. I guess lack of sleep causes me to behave out of character." He said, hoping to make her smile. It didn't work. "And you're a pretty good kisser." He teased. "I figured that if I gave you liquid chocolate and played on your vulnerable moment, you might kiss me some more."

"You kissed me." Robin corrected him. "And that won't happen again."

"You know, I think I've heard that from you before." Patrick said with a grin.

"This time I mean it."

"Okay." He said, not believing her for a second.

"Don't patronize me." She said, stubbornly. "Or feel sorry for me. I can deal with this."

"I have no doubt." Patrick said, surprising her. "You just don't have to deal with it alone."

They sat in silence for a little while, sipping their hot chocolates and looking over the lights of Port Charles. Finally, Patrick said, "Before she died, my mother used to tell me about the strength of women." He smiled in remembrance and continued, "A woman's strength... she would whisper...a woman's strength is what she gives, not what she takes away. You gave Frank Lewis all you had. The best of who you are. Your strength."

"It wasn't enough." Robin said, her lip quivering as the tears welled up in her eyes. She would jump off this roof before she let him see her weakness, so she turned away.

Quietly, Patrick said, "You know, there are two kinds of doctors: the kind that get rid of their feelings, and the kind that hold on to them. I get rid of them. It's just who I am. How I work. But you hold on to them. And if you're going to hold on to your feelings, you're going to go through this every once in a while. That's part of it. But helping people is more important than how we feel. And you've got more patients downstairs who need your strength and your help." He stood up and walked over to the edge of the roof and said, "So you mourn for Frank Lewis and then you get back to work."

"I don't need lessons on how to deal with being a doctor from you." Robin said angrily, her sorrow over Frank's death coming out as anger towards Patrick.

He turned back to look at her, ignoring her anger as if he sensed that she had not really meant her harsh words. "You did all that you and medicine could do for him, Robin. You of all people know that life isn't always fair. So when you do everything you can, sometimes more than you thought you could, you've got to walk away knowing you fought the good fight." Robin looked up at him finally and he said quietly, "You fought the good fight, Robin. And tomorrow you'll fight another one. It's what you do best."

Again the silence filled the air between them, but this time it was a comfortable silence as they looked up into the early morning sky. Quietly, Robin said into the darkness, "Seventeen."

"Seventeen what?" He asked her, still looking up at the stars.

"I was seventeen when I first found out that life doesn't always work out the way you had planned." She said, looking over at him.

"The day you were diagnosed?" He asked.

"The day I found out Stone was HIV+." she replied.

Patrick came back to sit next to her on the bench and said, "I have a few years on you. I found out at 20. When I learned that my dad wasn't the man I thought he was."

Robin looked back up into the night sky and said softly, "Imagine what the world would be like if we could write our own stories." Patrick nodded and the two smiled at each other before heading back downstairs to finish their shifts.