Sixteen

Noah's eyes followed her as she walked around the nurse's station. It was stupid and it was dangerous and he couldn't not drink in the sight of her.

It had been two weeks since he'd had little more from her than a furtive voice mail left on an untraceable and ever changing voice mail box, the number and codes for which were left for him in random places like under his hotel room door or in his hospital locker. From the vague comments of his son and the much less than vague expostulations from Robert Scorpio he knew that Anna Devane had been making startling inroads into Lorenzo Alcazar's sphere. He was going crazy with worry and with missing her. They had only known each other a matter of months and already he missed her presence in his life as if she had been a part of it for years. He didn't know how much of that was real and how much of that was displacement.

He had discussed the situation with his AA sponsor ad infinitum and heard all the warnings in rehab – don't get involved during the first year of recovery. He knew that his addictive personality made it more than likely that he would transfer his need for obsessive focus onto someone as a replacement for alcohol. But he was also certain that Anna Devane was someone that he could have the miraculous and unexpected opportunity to share another love of a lifetime. The timing couldn't worse.

What should be a joyful journey was not only torturous because it couldn't be acted upon, but was also a danger. Though she hadn't returned the sentiment verbally, he heard it in her voice and even now when she was pretending she didn't notice him he could see her awareness of him in the line of her body. It made his heart soar and at the same time it was a leaden ball in his stomach. He knew she was compromising her safety contacting him. She had told him on more than one occasion that she hadn't felt this kind of threat from within to her professionalism since she and Robert had gotten married the first time and the years she had pretended Robin wasn't her daughter. He hated that he was the source of that and that there was nothing he could do about it.

He was powerless to protect her. He couldn't pick up a gun and shoot the mobster. He wasn't close enough to throw his body in front of hers should her treachery be uncovered and there was no one else he could turn to, Anna had made him promise not to go to Robert Scorpio.

He was trapped. He really, really wanted a drink.

He was startled from his thoughts by an insistent hand waving in his face. He blinked and looked up to see Nurse Epiphany Johnson holding her hand out for the file he had been paused over for the past ten minutes. He waited for a smart remark as he scribbled on the line and snapped the binder shut, but none was forthcoming. "Well?" he asked as he finally handed over the file.

"Well, what, Dr. Drake?" Epiphany put the file in the right place and raised an eyebrow.

"You look like you have something to say. You usually have something to say." Noah leaned on the counter, his eyes still trailing Anna who stood talking quietly with Lorenzo Alcazar while they waited for Skye Chandler Quatermaine to come out of a nearby exam room. It looked intimate to him, although the effect was diluted by Robert Scorpio who had somehow interjected himself into the situation on Skye's side and stood nearby obviously pretending not to see Alcazar's threatening looks or the hand the mobster rested familiarly on his ex-wife's waist.

"You're the one who looks like you have something to say, Dr. Drake, but I'm sure you're smart enough to keep it to yourself." She looked pointedly towards where Noah was looking and the back at the obviously agitated doctor.

God, Noah thought, I really need a drink.

"Epiphany, have you seen, Dr. Scorpio?" Patrick walked over and gave the nurse a charming smile and then smirked at his father, relieved for once to not be on the receiving end of the voluble nurse's life lessons as it looked like his father was. He flipped through the file from his last consult before handing it over to Epiphany.

"She's administering another treatment on the Gilmarten case." Epiphany said before walking away.

Patrick's mouth tightened. Robin had spent virtually day and night at the hospital for the past two weeks with the that patient. When he had seen her she had been tired or distracted. The few nights she had shown up at his place it had been late and she had fallen asleep immediately. He was smarting from the lack of attention and he was worried about her physical and emotional well-being. There was a sense of urgency about her that he hadn't even seen when she trying to treat what he had thought was the love of her life - Jason Morgan.

"Is Nurse Johnson giving you a hard time?" Patrick looked over at his father, hoping for a distraction.

"No, son, she was just giving me a much needed reminder." Noah sighed and slipped his pen into the pocket of his lab coat.

Patrick frowned at his father's visible deflation. His pulse started to race as a familiar sensation trailed down his spine. This was how his father got right before he slipped back into the bottle. His body tightened and he felt his own familiar reaction, the need to berate and walk away. He fought against it. "Have you had lunch yet, Dad?" The words surprised him as much as they surprised his father.

Noah gave him a grateful smile. "Kelly's?" he asked.

A moment later the two Drake men stood at the elevator, each lost in their private thoughts of their absent Devane woman.

"How is the treatment going?" Patrick put his hand on the back of Robin's neck and rubbed. She stretched her neck and moaned in gratitude. The sound went straight to his groin.

It was past dinner time and he had found her sitting in an empty diagnostic room pouring over Jeremy Gilmarten's latest test results. His most recent MRI's were lit up on the board across from the desk and in front of her were his blood and other labs.

"It's working." Robin looked up and gave Patrick a tired smile when he stopped his massage. He pulled a chair over and sat down next to her.

"When can you come home and get some rest?" He put his hand over hers on the desk.

"Have you missed me, Dr. Drake?" Robin turned her head and gave him a sly smile. Patrick's concern made her glow even through her exhaustion and turmoil.

"It's been a long week, Dr. Scorpio. I'm missing our consultations. I'm afraid my work is going to suffer soon and I know you wouldn't want to be responsible for that." His voice was low and suggestive.

Robin's eyes dipped below Patrick's waist for a moment. "It's your work now?" She leered at him tiredly.

"With you, I'm seriously considering it as a career. At least I think I am. I can hardly remember." His eyes narrowed as if thinking back over two years rather than two weeks.

"Yeah, it must be hard for you." Robin shook her head in mock sympathy.

"You're a cold-hearted woman with a dirty mouth, Dr. Scorpio." Patrick reached into the pocket of his lab coat. "But I have just the thing to soften you up." He pulled out a fudge mocha bar and handed it over.

Robin bounced in her seat and hurriedly unwrapped it. "How did you know that this was just what I needed?" She sighed and bit into the gooey chocolate.

"Am I going to see you tonight?" Patrick asked softly.

Robin stopped attacking her ice cream and looked at him, a soft smile on her lips. "Your place or mine?"

"It could be the linen closet next door. I don't care. Hell, I'll go lock the door now." Patrick motioned towards the door urgently.

Robin looked at her watch and sighed. "I have one more treatment. How are you doing?" She stilled his hand with her own. "It's been a while since I checked in."

"I had lunch with my dad today."

"That's a good thing." Robin started to smile, then she detected something in his expression. "What's wrong? Is Noah all right?"

Patrick looked down and licked his lips. "He seems tense and…distant." Patrick blew out a frustrated breath and stood up and paced once, twice, behind her chair. "I've seen him like this before. This is how he gets before he goes back to the bottle, the few times he tried to get sober before." Patrick looked up and his eyes looked haunted.

"Did you ask him what's going on?"

"He said he was fine and that he was going to meetings every day."

"He's going to meetings and that's good. And it's good that you went to lunch with him. I think having you in his life will be a big help to him while he's going through a rough patch."

"There's something else. You're mother was out there with that mobster guy and your father was there with the pregnant mother of his child."

"It's just work." Robin rubbed her forehead.

"Another headache?" Patrick leaned in and studied her drawn features.

"It's just a side effect of my meds." She shifted uncomfortably and avoided his eyes.

"And lack of sleep. I'm this close to having Alan order you to take off. In fact, this is your last treatment right? You're taking a few days off to rest." And before Robin could protest he threw in something that he knew would diffuse her annoyance at being worried over. "And you're spending them with me."

"And what are we going to do with all this time off?"

"I'm sure we'll think of something." He winked.