Part 9

"Thanks for today. You were a big help." Patrick's voice was husky as he dipped his head and rested his hands on the steering wheel. He took a breath and shifted in his seat.

"My pleasure." Robin licked her lips and watched him cautiously.

Patrick cleared his throat and then looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "You asked this morning if I was trying to butter you up for something, the truth is there is something else I need to ask you."

Robin nodded, her heart pounding in her chest so hard she wondered how he couldn't hear it.

"You have a patient, Nancy Dixon, I want to..."

"Oh, um. Yeah." Robin interrupted, too surprised to hold her tongue. She shook her head to refocus herself "I'll show you the file if you want, but you can't operate."

"You don't get to make that decision, Dr. Scorpio. Your drugs are not going to save her. Her husband approached me this morning. I met with him before I came over."

"I know there's nothing I can do for her but make her comfortable." Robin leaned back in the chair and sighed regretfully. "Dr. Quatermaine already spoke to your father about performing the surgery, but I…"

"He can't do this surgery! That damned fool!" Patrick gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white.

"He knows it's a long shot, Patrick." Robin's professional opinion was that her patient's condition was inoperable, she had simply waited too long to seek diagnosis and treatment, and that it would be best for her to live out the rest of her life with some measure of quality time with her husband and son. Chances were over ninety percent that she would die on the operating table thereby cutting down that time, but she could understand the need to try anything to defy the odds.

"Which is why my father can't perform this surgery!"

"You think him losing a patient so soon will set him back to drinking, don't you?"

"No, I know that losing this patient will destroy him." Patrick's eyes darkened as he looked at her with an intensity she rarely saw in him. "He operated on a woman once with this condition. He lost her on the table."

"Your mother." Robin instantly understood. "I wish you had told me about this earlier, I am the doctor of record." Robin rubbed her temples. This was a mess. For everyone. "We need to get to the hospital."

Patrick turned the key in the ignition.

>>>>>>>

"Who should I choose?"

"Patrick Drake."

"Then that's who I choose."

"I'll let them know." Robin turned and left Jim and Nancy Dixon in her hospital room. Both Patrick and Noah were determined to do the surgery and had reluctantly agreed after a heated discussion to leave it in the hands of the patient and her family, which they all knew meant Robin who desperately wanted to say anyone but a Drake. She'd even call Gwen Miller over to GH to avoid either Noah or Patrick having their heart broken once again.

In the meantime, Robin knew she'd be getting the heat of the patient's decision and not for the first time she wondered why she wasn't hiding out in a lab and why she was putting herself in the line of fire in the Drake men battles. As she saw them sitting, not looking or speaking to each other she once again resigned herself to the fact that she couldn't stop trying to help these two wonderful men find their way back to each other as father and son. Girding herself mentally, she walked into the waiting area where Patrick and Noah sat in stony silence, both men stood up as she approached.

"They've chosen Patrick."

"We'll schedule it for tomorrow afternoon," Patrick said firmly.

Noah turned on Robin with an accusatory glare. "You don't know what you've done." Then he shoved the file into Patrick's chest and stormed off.

"I'm going to go meet with the Dixons and get things set up for tomorrow afternoon," Patrick said quietly looking after his father's retreating back. "Do you want to come?"

"I'll meet with you later to go over the new MRI's. I have something I need to take care of." Robin put her hand on Patrick's arm before turning and walking away.

>>>>>>

"I want to talk to you!" Robin closed the door to Noah's office, hard.

"I was under the impression that our business was done, Dr. Scorpio." Noah sat down on the edge of his desk and crossed his arms.

"You can be angry at me all you want, but I don't get why you're taking it out on Patrick. He's just trying to protect you."

"I don't need his protection!" Noah snapped.

"Need it or not your son is giving it to you because he loves you. Do you have any idea how lucky you are?" Robin shook her head in wonder. "After everything, all these years, Patrick never gives up on you and you, instead of being grateful, throw it in his face."

"You're off base, Robin, he's just trying to one up me and impress you."

"You're the one who is in competition with Patrick."

"My son is playing right back, I don't think you need to worry about a little friendly competition." He waved his hand dismissively.

"There is nothing friendly about wanting to crush your son's ego and throw his love back in his face. He's not competing, Noah. He's trying to get you to be proud of him and love him like you're supposed to just because he's your son."

Noah didn't say anything, but his arms dropped to his sides and he bent his head, no longer meeting her gaze.

"I've told Patrick he's lucky to have a father who's willing to stick around. But you're the lucky one, Noah, to have a son who is willing to forgive you for leaving him when he needed you most." Robin's smile was sad. "Let him forgive you, if not for your sake, then for his."

When Noah still didn't speak, Robin sighed and left him alone.

>>>>>>>>

A few hours later Robin hadn't heard from Patrick about Nancy Dixon's case so she went looking for him and the MRI's. "Epiphany, have you seen Dr. Drake, Patrick? I need to review the Dixon case with him."

"He left the hospital hours ago. Some doctors actually take their day off," she looked at Robin meaningfully.

Robin ignored the commentary. "May I have the Dixon MRI's?"

"Dr. Drake took those with him," Epiphany informed her.

Robin blinked and jerked back slightly. "I guess I'm out of here then, goodnight." Robin slid her hands into her lab coat.

"Have a good night, Dr. Scorpio."

"Yeah, you too, Epiphany." Robin forced a smile and walked off.

>>>>>>>>

An hour later Robin walked into her apartment with a bag of much needed groceries slung over her shoulder in a canvas bag and a paper sack of chicken soup from Kelly's. She walked into the kitchen and saw that in the sink were the remnants of this morning's breakfast. She briefly touched her fingers to her still swollen lips before forcing her mind away from the stomach-churning events of the past twenty-four hours.

"I'm not going to think about Patrick. I'm not going to think about Patrick," she said out loud, then one more time for good measure as she put the dishes in the dishwasher and unpacked her groceries.

She grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and the bottle of her evening pills and her phone and went into the living room. She automatically set about taking her pills while dialing her voice mail to check her messages. There were two calls from local charities seeking money, one from the dry cleaners telling her she was overdue to pick up her cleaning and the last was a thirty second burst of static. Frowning, she checked out the caller ID and saw that the last call was from an "Unavailable" number.

She sat holding the phone thinking of all the possibilities of the last message. A few reasonable explanations crossed her mind, but none of them felt right. She felt a chill down her spine and clicked her phone back on. She started to enter her calling card number and stopped. A moment later she was back out the door.

>>>>>>

Robin walked through the harbor area. On the curve of the shore up ahead she could see the harbor apartments and to her annoyance she was able to pick out what windows would be Patrick's. But all thoughts of the emotional roller coaster she'd been on lately disappeared as she walked behind what she knew to be one of Sonny's warehouses to one of the few pay phones remaining in the city.

She lifted the receiver and felt a trill of excitement that caught her off guard. She closed her eyes and chuckled softly to herself as she acknowledged that perhaps she wasn't too different from her adventure-seeking parents after all. Why else would she be down at the docks at night to avoid using any of her own phones? With a shrug of her shoulders she dialed the long numbers and waited through the international ring tones. After four she hung up, waited a moment and dialed again. After the second she got a robotic voice telling her the party called was not available.

"Mom, call me back." Robin paused and then hung up. She tightened her black leather coat around her and didn't let herself look at the tall buildings looming over the docks as she took another path through the harbor. Near the launch for Spoon Island she stopped and looked out over the island that figured so prominently in her own past – her family's battles with the Cassadines, a childhood playground and the home of her good friend Nikolas. As if conjured, the very man appeared at her side.

"We don't get a lot of sightseers this time of night." Nikolas stuck his hands in his pockets. "What brings you out here? Thinking of your dad?"

"In a way." Robin gave him a rueful smile. "Heading home?"

Nikolas nodded. "Mind if I walk you? You shouldn't be out here alone at night."

"I can take care of myself," she said, but slipped her arm through the loop of his that he offered.

"Have you heard from your father since he left?"

"No. At least I don't think so."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm probably just hoping too hard." Robin blew out a breath. Nikolas unlatched their arms and put his around her shoulders. "I got a voice mail of static today and I thought maybe it was my dad calling from far away."

"Maybe it was."

"Or maybe it was a faulty auto-dialer from a company wanting to sell me blinds. I get a lot of those." Robin laughed, but it rang hollow.

"It's your father's loss if he's not calling you, but I have a feeling you'll hear from him again soon. He'd be a fool to pass up having a daughter like you." After Robin murmured a thank you, he changed the subject. "Where's Patrick Drake tonight?"

"Patrick. Why do you ask that?" Her attempt at nonchalance didn't come off.

"Liz told me that you two were involved."

Robin stopped walking, halting Nikolas with her. "Liz told you? There's not anything to tell." Robin's heart sped up. She thought they had been careful. She had wanted to keep things on the quiet because she didn't want to face the questions when the answer was that she was just having sex with the man until he got tired of her. She was truly surprised Liz hadn't asked her about it herself. She began walking again.

"What is nothing?"

"It's casual." She looked over at Nikolas to see what his reaction would be.

"Is that what you want?" he asked after a few moments of careful thought.

"Truth?" At his nod she continued. "Everyone is always telling me I don't take enough chances, that I play things too safe. So I leapt before I looked." She twisted her lips in a grimace. "I told myself I couldn't fall in love with him anyway."

"Is that working for you?" They stopped walking underneath a street lamp down the block from her building.

Robin tilted her head back and looked up at the stars peeking out from behind the cloud cover. "Sometimes. When I'm with him I don't want to be anywhere else. When I'm not I think I'm setting myself up for a world of hurt."

"Are you in love with him?"

Robin looked down at the ground. Was she in love with him? The memory of the last kiss they had shared that day sent shivers down her spine. The disappointment that seared through her in the car when his confession was about a patient was just as acute in that moment. "I think I am," she admitted in a quiet voice. If she was honest, she thought to herself, she probably already was when she had agreed to sleep with him.

"Does he love you?"

Robin shook her head. "There are moments I've thought he does, but I was wrong. He cares about me, he's told me that, but he's not interested in anything more." Tears filled her eyes, she sniffled.

"Another foolish man." Nikolas put his arms around her. "If you want me to put a Cassadine curse on him I can. Or I can have him adopted. Let him deal with Helena."

Robin giggled and pulled back. "Thanks, Nikolas. You're always such a good friend to me."

"You are a good friend to me. I just hope Patrick realizes what he has in you before he loses it, because the loss will truly be his."

When Nikolas said it in that sincere, Princely tone of his Robin couldn't doubt he meant what he said. It was some comfort. In unison the friends continued walking.

At her lobby they stopped. "If you need anything, you let me know. A shoulder. A hit man. A private investigator to find your father. Anything."

"How about a plane to take me to the Markham Islands?" she said jokingly.

"Anything."

"Thanks for the escort, Nikolas. Have a good night."

Moments later she walked out of the stairwell on her floor and found Patrick Drake lounging by her door. He straightened up when he saw her.

"Where were you?" His deep voice carried down the hall.