Twelve
From part Ten
Robin shook her head. "I need to go see Gerard, her husband and see if he needs help before tomorrow." She pulled her hand from his, but didn't get up.
"Let's go then."
"I want to do this alone." Robin looked up at him, her face blank but firm.
"Robin, don't shut me out. I came here…."
"I know why you came here, Patrick." Robin stood up and walked over to pack up her purse, her back to him. "You felt obligated. I shouldn't have let you come, but I was being selfish." She turned around to look at him.
"What the hell…" Patrick stood up and began to protest heatedly.
"This is my probable, almost certain future, Patrick. It's bigger than condoms and spermicidal jelly and pamphlets. It's AIDS and you could get infected no matter how careful we are. You might think you know, but you don't. You should take some time to think. I won't hold you to anything when we get home."
Patrick stood stunned, furious and speechless as she walked out of the hotel room.
The frustration he'd been holding at bay for two days swept over him and he in turn swept his suitcase off the bed. It was open and his things spilled out on the lush carpet of the boutique hotel they were staying at not far from the Bastille. The mess didn't quite satisfy him so he kicked it for good measure, flipping it over and strewing things into a pile. He licked his lips and blew out a breath. Then something caught his eye. He kicked at his scattered socks and uncovered a box of condoms and lube. His heart thumped hard and then he sighed and bent down and began to pick up his things.
He unpacked his own clothes and then tackled Robin's. He saved her makeup bag for last, not certain he should tackle it at all, but keeping his hands busy was keeping his mind blank. He lined up her various shades of lipstick, sniffed at her shampoo before putting it in the shower, laughed at the fact that she brought an extra box of condoms and then he got to the bag he knew carried her HIV meds. The smile dropped from his face and he sat down on the side of the tub with it in his lap.
He'd seen them before, had dispensed them to her when she was under his care, had seen her take them countless times and it never bothered him. He was a doctor, he knew the facts about HIV and AIDS and a lot more now than he knew before they met. He knew about treatments, kept up-to-date on the research behind her back, but she wasn't wrong to think that he had never really thought about it in more personal terms. Not since he realized it didn't lessen his physical desire for her one iota and, he could admit it now, made him more intrigued to get to know her outside the bedroom.
He opened the case and looked at the rows of bottles. He took them out one by one and ran himself through the pharmacology of each one. When he reached the last one he jammed it back in with a grunt and got up and put the case down on the sink and walked out of the bathroom. He stood with his hands on his hips and looked around the well-appointed room.
He knew what it was she wanted him to think about and his mind just didn't want to go there. Where it, he did want to go was around Paris. For the first time in ages there was no chance he was going to paged into work and he was in Paris for god's sake, what the hell was he doing hanging around here? With a determined stride he walked out of the hotel room.
Figures, Patrick thought to himself as he walked through the gate of Le Pere Lachaise cemetery. Robin says something and almost against his will he finds himself taking her words to heart after a period of initial resistance. Always happened like that. From the hotel he had taken the subway – Le Metro - to the Louvre where tracked down the few pieces he really wanted to see and then gave up the endeavor entirely due to the fact that it would take literally days to do the place justice - and it wasn't much fun alone. He had wandered through the Tuileries Gardens, walked over to Notre Dame and then stopped in a café for lunch. All of it felt empty without Robin at his side and her parting words still rung in his head.
"When did I become this?" he asked himself as he purchased a map from a small shop and figured out how to get to the sight he'd been dying to see since he was in high school – Jim Morrison's grave. And where better to contemplate what Robin had asked him to contemplate than a cemetery.
"Rumor has it you were too smart to live in this world. Not so sure about that. I saw the movie," Patrick said the flower-strewn, graffiti-ridden tomb. He put his hands on his hips. "You never seemed to be afraid of death, guess we have that in common. Robin thinks I should be. That I should worry that I might spend my days taking a ton of pills and worrying about the end coming."
He crouched down and traced his fingers over the stone block sealing the grave from pirates.
He had thought about it the moment he had learned she was HIV, but only in terms of precaution he'd have to take for a one night stand or, later when it seemed that one night would not be enough, a short-term affair. After that he had never given it another moment's thought, not even when he finally admitted he wanted more than casual.
He stood up and went to sit on a nearby bench and studied the gravesites surrounding him.
They probably should have talked about it, how the odds he'd be infected the longer they were intimate increased, but then only if they weren't careful and still so nominally it wasn't even a statistical concern. With protection the odds were virtually zero he'd contract the virus and even without a condom his chance of becoming infected was only 1 in 1000. And with her viral load undetectable the odds were lower still. According to the odds it was more likely he'd contract Herpes or some other STD sleeping with someone else.
Therefore, the issue couldn't be about him being infected when Robin knew these odds as well as he did; it had to be about her feelings on the matter. Maybe, he toyed with the map he was carrying, she thought he was too arrogant and too shallow to understand her fears? That was really the challenge she had left him with, wasn't it?
Shallow. His tongue darted out to moisten his suddenly dry lips.
He had been too shallow to acknowledge the fears she carried around with her and to take them into account when he decided he wanted to move forward. Her fears about love. Her fears about death, about her own death. All left unsaid, ignored. But this was by design, one that was no longer serving its purpose.
Robin had called it on their first date. She was guarded. He was cocky and glib. But it wasn't just being afraid of what they felt, it was about this. All this. He again looked around him. These people were once just as alive as he was. Had lives, careers, probably families and, most likely, love. Then death had cut it all short.
Love. Death.
He took and blew out a deep breath. Shaken, he stood up and looked up at the setting sun.
These were subjects, experiences, he had avoided at all costs for the past decade and somehow the moment a little spitfire walked into his O.R. and interrupted a very pleasant pre-op diversion they were slammed right back into his life. His mother. His father. His choices. Caring about his patients as more than proof of his genius and for the ascension of his career.
And now, caring deeply about a woman he might lose like he lost mother, like his father lost his wife; a circumstance that could lead to all the pain and failure he had been committed down to his bones to avoid. The crux of it all, including the fact that he had been living the very half-life he had taunted Robin with since the day they met. He bit his and shook his head at the blind hypocrisy he had been engaged in. For all his arrogance, clearly he had not thought himself up to the challenge. And he wasn't alone in this; Robin was standing at her own crossroads.
Things had changed for her too when they met and over their acquaintance, he could see it, and with that phone call her guard slammed back up. This time he could see inside it and not just make guesses. Could see her fears and her pain. What she was really asking him was not to take into account the possibility of being infected, but whether he could deal with her fears and her condition, because those were the more real threat to their future, threats that had been lurking in the background all along.
"We've been dancing around it, Jim. And our love become a funeral pyre. Maybe you were a genius." Patrick turned and walked out of the cemetery.
She hadn't come back for dinner.
Patrick had gone back to the hotel room to find it still empty, no evidence that she had ever returned. He sat and waited for a while and then took out the phone they had rented at the airport and punched out the numbers to her phone, but then cut off the call before it made a connection. He walked out onto their little balcony and his stomach churned as he looked out over the dark European city. He actually had an urge to call his father and get advice, something he hadn't felt in a long time, but he knew what Noah would say if he woke him up now. He'd tell him to grow up and let go of the rash decisions made in a time of crisis and to become a man. A man that deserved Robin and that Robin deserved.
What did it mean that he wanted to be that?
And should it even matter?
They were more committed than a no-strings affair, but were they committed enough to be dealing with such long-term issues? He put his hands on his hips and grimaced. There was no middle ground here. HIV didn't allow for that, he had to be either in or out.
Patrick ducked his head and closed his eyes.
Like his father asked, man or mouse?
In a sudden movement, Patrick grabbed his cell phone from where he'd thrown it on the table and walked out of the room.
TBC...