>>>>>>>
If You're Not the One – 23
>>>>>>>
Robin and Brenda held hands as they walked slowly into the crowded room at the funeral home. Brenda's hand squeezed hers hard when they simultaneously spotted Sonny's coffin at the end of the aisle. Brenda was frozen in place thinking of all the times she had imagined, and tried, walking down the aisle towards Sonny. This felt very, very wrong.
"You okay?" Robin whispered.
"I…I don't know if I can do this," Brenda whispered back. Before Robin could say anything the men in dark suits standing on either side of the door urged them forward. More identical looking men were standing against the walls at various points. Robin and Brenda knew them to be armed and dangerous. It was like stepping back in time for them both.
"Come on." Robin slipped her arm around Brenda's back and walked her down the aisle, Brenda's eyes remained fixed on the coffin as they got closer and closer. Years melted away as she was assailed with memories of Sonny, the good times, the passion, the times when Sonny's goodness touched her heart, and always the pain and bitterness. She felt ungrounded, as if she had stepped out of time and everything was blurring together. She hadn't expected to feel this much after so long. She hadn't prepared for it.
Robin, whose own history with Sonny was also a mix of sweet and betrayal, was able to turn her complete focus on being there for Brenda. It was how she normally dealt with life – worry for others and ignoring her own feelings – it was her comfort zone and her strength. She looked everywhere but at the coffin. She watched Brenda, hovered over her. She picked out familiar faces in the seats, people she had known for years, strangers and those she knew only as "associates." She even recognized some of Mac's strategically placed men.
When they were a couple of rows from the front someone reached out a hand and put it on Brenda's shoulder startling both women.
>>>>>
"Bobbie said you wanted to see me." Patrick was sitting in his wheelchair next to Noah's bed where Bobbie had left him.
"It's time I thank you, so thank you," Noah said quietly. "I hear you're recovering well. How are you feeling?"
"I'm ready to go home."
Noah chuckled and shook his head.
"What?" Patrick asked.
"You were like that as a child. You actually liked going to school and whenever your mother would make you stay home you drove her crazy nagging to go back."
"I remember." Patrick didn't crack a smile, he was too on edge waiting for his father to reject him again.
"I didn't prepare for this. Living," Noah clarified. "And I haven't been doing so well at any of it since…for ten years."
Patrick nodded and looked at his hands.
Noah swallowed and fought back tears. "I'm sorry, Patrick. I'm so sorry I disappointed you as a father and as a man."
Patrick closed his eyes and shook his head.
>>>>>>>
"Brenda?"
Brenda turned her head and almost smiled as she saw who had stopped her from walking the rest of the way down the aisle to Sonny. Even in the midst of a surprising overwhelm of grief, she couldn't help but appreciate the irony. "Hello, Jax." She turned to face him, let him take her hands in his. He was, she noticed, still dazzlingly gorgeous.
"You look breathtakingly beautiful. I'm sorry we couldn't see each other under less…tragic circumstances." Jax studied the face of the woman he had once loved above all others, wondering if he had ever gotten over her after all. Thinking, perhaps, that Robin had been right, that he threw away chances with good women and was now throwing away his spirit with bad women to avoid going after the woman he really wanted.
"I never thought you'd say Sonny's funeral was tragic," Brenda said, uncaring of who might overhear them. From where their hands connected a warmth began to travel up her arms and through her body, grounding her again to the present.
"It is for his children, for Carly and all the people who love them," Jax said smoothly, his eyes changing momentarily as he said the name of his now-committed lover and business partner.
"I cannot believe you got involved…"
"Where are you sitting, Jax?" Robin interrupted before Jax and Brenda got caught up in an argument about Sonny and Carly and who knows what else. "Brenda and I will be over in a moment." Robin grabbed Brenda's hand and shot Jax a look. Jax had the grace to look embarrassed and turned away to go save them seats. As they walked down the rest of the way, Alexis caught Robin's eye and nodded at her.
Robin let Brenda take the final few steps alone, hanging back to give her privacy. As she waited she saw Bobbie sitting with her grandchildren and Jason and Sam on their other side. Morgan was dressed in a small suit and didn't look like he understood the meaning of the event he was at. Michael, on the other hand, was teary and angry looking. With a glance at Brenda to make sure she was okay, Robin walked up to Bobbie and the children to pay her condolences.
"I know you, my mother hated you!" Michael said very loudly to Robin. Robin halted in her tracks, mortified as heads turned to look at her.
>>>>>>
"I couldn't let you die. Because I love you, Dad." The words were hard to get out, but now that they were Patrick felt was a sense of relief that they were finally out of his head and being heard by the one person he'd always wanted to hear them.
Noah covered his face with his hands and his shoulders shook.
"Dad?" Patrick reached a hand out to his father, scared at seeing his father cry.
"I'm all right. I'm all right." Noah sucked in a breath and dropped his hands and looked at his son. "I'm all right because of you and I never deserved it."
"Will you stop..." Patrick started heatedly before Noah interrupted.
"I didn't deserve your love after losing your mother and pushing you away. I thought it was for your own good, that you were better off without me. All this brilliant logic under the haze of alcohol." Noah laughed bitterly. "I am so proud of the man you are, Patrick. You are the man your mother raised you to be." Patrick didn't hide the tears slipping down his cheeks as his father's words touched him deeply. "Now, I'm going to be the father and the doctor she raised me to be. I promise."
Patrick took his father's proffered hand. "We can't get back what was, but we can start from here," Patrick said.
>>>>>>>
"Michael!" Jason clamped a hand down on Michael's shoulder. "You apologize to Robin, right now!"
"It's not necessary," Robin started to say, too embarrassed by the scene she had inadvertently sparked to be upset by the words themselves. And had she had the time, anyway, the only thing that would have made her sad was that the kid had been so twisted by its mother's selfishness.
"No, it is necessary. Robin helped me take care of you when you were an infant, when your mother couldn't. For that alone she deserves respect. Your mother was angry at her because Robin felt that you had a right to know who your real father was, AJ, my brother." Jason's voice shook on the last word. He had never really acknowledged AJ as a brother, as anything but a threat to the life that Jason Morgan wanted. But something was shaking loose inside him, had been since Robin came back to save his life. Something that was making him look differently at some of his choices, at some of his anger and loyalties.
He hadn't told anyone, not Sonny, not Sam, not his doctors, but he hadn't just recovered memories of Jason Morgan after Robin's drug combination; some of Jason Quatermaine's memories were coming back as well. In those memories he could feel that he was a different person than the one he'd become and in those he remembered AJ as his brother. From that perspective he could see how letting Michael control the adults around him would only assure he came to end of his adopted and biological fathers' end. He was starting to see that living with the code that Sonny had ingrained in him with his permission – the hypocritical views of loyalty and morality – would lead them all to little boxes and the loss of the people they love. "Apologize to Robin," Jason ordered.
Robin felt cold chills up and down her spine at Jason's words. She absently accepted Michael's grudging apology, but she could not take her eyes off Jason. He turned and looked at her and she thought she saw a spark of something she hadn't seen in years. Before she could figure out what it was a hush fell over the room. Along with everyone else Robin turned her head and looked towards the back of the room.
Lorenzo Alcazar stood in the doorway.
>>>>>>