Eight

Patrick stepped up to Soap. "You're right. I think we need a rewrite. I mean, there is no motivation for that slap. Perhaps we could try a love scene next?"

"I like the way you think, Doctor Hottie."

"What the hell are you doing?" Robin pulled on Patrick's shirt sleeve and whispered urgently at him.

"Playing along." Patrick smirked and let himself be dragged backwards by Robin.

"You're not playing along, you're taking advantage of the situation to, to…" Robin broke off, her face red and her eyes bulging. "I am not going to have sex with you under the threat of being shot!" She stamped her foot and turned away as her eyes filled with tears.

Feeling like a heel, Patrick put his hands on Robin's shoulders. He licked his lips and searched for the words. "I'm sorry. I got carried away. And I was tired of being ignored and smacked." He turned her around and slid his hand up her shoulder to cup her cheek. "There's only so many ways I can think of to tell you how much I regret what I did and to ask you to give me a second chance. Clearly, this was the wrong thing."

Robin nibbled on the inside of her lip as she looked into Patrick's eyes. "This is private, Patrick. What's between us, I mean."

"Is there something between us?" His voice was gruff with hope.

"Hasn't there always been?"

"Since the moment you checked out the package in the OR."

Robin rolled her eyes, but bit back her snarky comeback. She reached up and gripped the front of Patrick's shirt and pulled him closer. "Step lightly, Drake. Step lightly."

"If I do, can I kiss you? Because I really, really need to kiss you." He licked his lips and moved his hand to cup the back of her head.

Instead of answering with words she tilted her head back and stood up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against him. Their moans were simultaneous as they drank the other in after the long drought. Her arms tightened around his neck as he slid his hands up and down her back, pressing her into his body.

"God, I could never have written that." Athena sighed and propped her head on her hands, watching them from around her laptop.

Pugmom grunted, pushed Athena and Jokaluvr aside and began to type frantically. "I can use this, I can use this. My novel is going to kick ass! Wait until LadyJane reads this!"

"Who?" Athena asked, her eyes still glued to the urgently kissing couple.

"About time," Noah said from behind the fanfic writers. His arm was resting lightly around Anna's back, his fingers toying with her waist. Her hand was cupping one globe of his firm ass. They had just been demonstrating something when their attention was diverted by Patrick and Robin.

"No! No! No!" SoapSpielberg put her hands on her hips.

Robin and Patrick sprung apart.

Anna, Noah, Athena, Pugmom and Jokaluvr hissed in disappointment.

"We seriously need to do something about that woman!" Anna said icily.

Athena and Pugmom looked at each other and nodded. Then they both turned to Anna. "What are we going to do?"

SoapSpielberg waved over JokaBoy. "JokaBoy mark this scene."

JokaBoy rolled his eyes. "Do I have to Soap?"

"Just do it."

He sighed. "Annoah, Scene 1, Take 1." JokaBoy clapped his hands together and ran out of SoapSpielberg's frame.

Soap had her fingers up to frame Noah and Anna. She slowly backed up, never breaking concentration. "And...Action!"

Anna grimaced and said softly so that only Noah could hear, "This is ridiculous."

Noah smiled and grabbed her around the waist. "Yes, that or brilliant." He smiled wider and kissed her passionately.

"Oh God," Robin groaned, hiding her eyes.

"You're lucky. This is the second time I've seen this show," Patrick grumbled.

"Cut! Cut! Do it again. This time the doctor should do it with an Australian accent!"

"A what?" Noah asked and then looked down at Anna. "When are you going to go Kung Fu on her ass?"

"When the blocking is right?"

"Huh?"

"Just do the accent and pull me towards." Anna looked around. "The guy with the video camera."

Robin walked up to SoapSpielberg and tapped her on the shoulder. Soap spun around, startling Robin. "What do you want? I'm in the creative flow!"

"You know you can't do this with real people, it's creepy."

"Listen, little missy, I'm busy here. I don't have time for your lecture on appropriateness."

"She likes to lecture. You'd best make time." Patrick looked at his watch pointedly.

"How about now?" Noah whispered to Anna, jerking his head towards where their kids were distracting their psycho captor.

Anna gave her daughter a look and edged closer.

Robin put her hands on her hips. "It's wrong of you to idealize real people like they are television characters. It strips them of their privacy, their dignity and it's, it's…"

"Creepy," Patrick put in for her.

Soap opened her mouth to object when said mouth was blocked with the flying foot of Anna Devane. Within seconds the hapless "director" was sprawled out on the floor.

"Bop 'til you drop," Noah commented, giving Anna's form a lustful once over, then, at her glare, got down and secured the prone woman's feet.

"Quick, tie her up!" Robin yelled at Patrick as she got down and pulled on the unconscious woman's hands.

"With what? My socks?" Patrick threw his hands up in the air uselessly.

Just then the doors to the ballroom flew open from all sides and uniformed officers ran in, guns drawn.

"Freeze!"

Robin dropped Soaps arms, her head falling to the ground with a thud.

"Looking for a patient?" Patrick snarked, then put his hands up in innocence at Robin's glare.

"We'll take it from here. Does anyone need medical care?"

Patrick, Robin, Noah and Anna all looked at each other. "No, we're fine," Noah said politely, with an Australian accent.

"Wait, wait! I need to take notes of this first!" Athena struggled against the cop who was trying to restrain here.

"Here! I have a pen!" Pugmom called out, even though she couldn't reach it because she was being similarly restrained.

"I'm a lawyer! I know my rights!" Athena called out.

"What right is that? The right to be nuts?" Patrick mumbled under his breath.

"Wait!"

All heads turned at the sound of the booming voice to find it belong to a nondescript middle-aged man wearing a light blue polo shirt with a navy blue sweater vest and navy blue pants of a slightly different shade. He had a paunch, a salt and pepper beard and wore wire-rimmed glasses.

"Does he work for the hotel?" Anna asked in her crisp English voice.

"No! It's the bearded bastard! The leader of evil in our land!" A voice called out as it was pulled by the cops out of the ballroom.

"Oh."

"My."

"God!"

Athena and Pugmom exclaimed as they looked into the face of the man they had traveled thousands of miles to corner.

"You!" they yelled out together.

"Officers, perhaps we can come to some kind of accommodation, I'd like to speak to these young ladies. Perhaps tickets to XYZ's newest reality show offering, 'Swimming with the Stars'? It's filming in Coney Island starting next week."

The cops looked at each other and shrugged before letting Athena and Pugmom go.

"What did you do that for?" Athena asked.

"Seems like your plan may have worked. I'll have to have a memo on that to be sure and call in a focus group, but I was just next door and heard everything. I had an intern print out your…what do you call it…crapfic? And read it quickly while you were waving your guns at these." He turned and looked at the Drake-Devane-Scorpio group watching him avidly. "You sure none of you are actors?" When they all shook their heads and muttered no's Ryan Hans turned back to the fanfic hostage takers.

"This sexy, organic group over there and decided that perhaps I do have places on staff for you. Some of my wife's nephews will have to be let go, but I've just been looking for an excuse. I'll tell her you literally forced me to do it at gun point." He smoothed his beard with the tips of his fingers. "Come. I have a limo outside. Why don't you tell me your ideas."

Anna, Noah, Robin and Patrick silently watched them walk out of the ballroom. Then looked at each other.

"What now?" Noah asked, his own upper crust American accent back.

"Lunch?" Patrick shrugged his shoulders.

Anna and Robin looked at each other and shrugged.

"We'll meet you two in the…how about we go out of the hotel for lunch?" Robin suggested.

"Meet you down the street at Lindy's. I'm dying for some cheese cake," Noah said.

After Anna and Noah walked off, notably holding hands, Robin turned to Patrick. "About what you said, about being my boyfriend. Did you mean it?"

Patrick nodded and took her hand.

"Do you think this will last?" Robin looked up at him, her eyes questioning.

"Of course," he smiled. "We're the new Supercouple. Endgame baby."

THE END