Twenty-Five
"I tried calling you all night," Robin said quietly.
"I was busy." Patrick kept his eyes on the chart he was studying. They were standing at the nurse's station. It was almost twenty-four hours since the revelation of Robin's one night stand with Dr. Matt Rucker from Mercy Hospital and not a word had passed between them since.
"We need to talk."
"We don't need to do anything." Patrick picked up his chart and backed up from the counter to walk away.
"We…what happened to your hand?" Robin reached out and touched his left hand which had a graze and swollen knuckles.
Patrick pulled out of her grasp and gave her a disdainful look. "I don't need your help, doctor. I have to go." He spun around and stormed off.
Robin sighed and rubbed her head. "Your files, Dr. Scorpio." Nurse Epiphany Johnson pushed a pile across the counter towards Robin.
"Thank you." Robin looked down at the files and the back up at Epiphany. "Do you know what happened to his hand?"
"Maybe he hurt it fighting the thing that crawled up his butt and died. I told you if you hurt him I'd wring your neck." Epiphany raised her eyebrows at Robin and pointed at her with her pen.
Robin frowned angrily at Epiphany. "I didn't do anything wrong. He's the one acting like an immature jackass!" Robin grabbed her files and made to walk away.
"Well, then it's about time you start acting pissed off instead of apologetic, don't you think?" Epiphany said rhetorically and then turned away.
Robin frowned again. Then, leaving the files at the desk, she turned and stormed off in the direction Patrick had gone.
"No. I don't understand," Anna Devane said in a clipped tone into her cell phone. She was standing outdoors in an alley near Kelly's. The buildings cast a shadow over her despite the fact that it was early afternoon. "It wasn't supposed to go down like this. This wasn't what I was told." She paced back and forth.
"No! I have the information you asked for." She cursed under her breath. "No. It has to end now. My family is in danger now."
She closed her eyes and paced again.
"You can't change the parameters now. I told you when I went…" Anna stopped pacing. "No. I won't!"
She listened to the voice on the phone. "If you won't I'll do it my way. Fine. I understand. But you have to also." She clicked off the phone and dropped her arm. She waited a beat and then picked it up again. She pressed a button. "Robert, as much as I hate to say this, I need your help."
"What the hell is your problem?" Robin demanded as soon as she stormed into Patrick's office, not even waiting for the door to slam behind her.
"My problem?" Patrick slammed the file he hadn't really been reading closed and stood up behind his desk.
"I know you're a novice at this so let me give you a tip, people in relationshiops talk about things not storm away like a child!" Robin put her hands on her hips. "And punch things."
"You're giving me relationship advice, that's rich. Where does not sleeping with someone else fit into your set of rules and standards?" Patrick put his hands on his hips and glared at her.
"I didn't sleep with someone else." Robin sighed and dropped her hostile stance. "Will you just let me explain?"
Patrick just stared at her stonily.
"We, you and I, were not even together at the time. I don't' understand why you're so angry with me." Robin held her palms up to illustrate her lack of understanding.
Patrick scowled and flicked at something on his desk, angrily. Truthfully, he wasn't quite sure what he was so angry about it all either. He just knew that he was and he didn't like it.
"We weren't even sleeping together with no-strings at the time. There was nothing between us at all. Maybe I should have told you, but I didn't think you'd care and…"
"And what?" Patrick really looked at her for the first time.
"And." Robin turned around and paced a couple of times. "And it didn't seem like it would matter to you and I would just be over-sharing as you always accuse me of doing. Then you told me that you hadn't been with anyone else and it felt small of me to undermine that by telling you that I had." She looked at him with tears in her eyes. "I was never proud of what happened. I only did it because I was trying to get you out of my system. It didn't work," she confessed quietly.
Patrick's expression softened and he looked down at his hands. He clenched and unclenched his left hand, thinking of the surgery he had to put off that day because of the injury. "This is why I never wanted to be in a relationship," he said quietly.
"What do you mean this?" Robin walked up to his desk and looked up at him curiously.
"This." He waved between them. "All these expectations and feelings. It's painful and annoying. It has you hitting people you barely know or drowning yourself in alcohol and throwing your life away."
"Patrick," Robin said softly, her eyes filled with sympathy.
"No. No. I didn't want these emotional bonds. You're right, you were free to sleep with whoever you wanted at the time and it shouldn't bother me. But it does. It makes me furious to think of you with someone else. Whether we were together or not."
"We can work this out," Robin said thickly.
"I can't do this. I won't do this." Patrick's voice was firm with conviction. "I'm sorry. I never should have led you on." He walked around the desk and past Robin.
She reached out and grabbed his arm. He turned his head and looked at her. His face was blank and his eyes dark with hurt and determination. Her breath hitched and she let go. He walked out.
"Apparently, we missed all the fun last night at the Sports Club over on the east side," Dr. Kelly Lee, Robin's roommate, announced as soon as she walked into the nurse's station.
Robin shrugged and didn't look up from her chart.
"What did we miss, Kelly, you ask? Well, while we were home drowning your sorrows over Dr. Dickhead he was at the Sports Club punching out Dr. Matt Rucker for, and I quote, 'sleeping with his girlfriend' end quote."
"You air quote in my nurse's station again and I'll knock you into next week," Epiphany informed the doctor in a no nonsense tone.
The disclosure and the banter did nothing to elicit a response from Robin.
"Didn't you hear me? Patrick got all jealous and defended your honor." Kelly leaned in closer
"What you didn't hear is that he broke up with her this afternoon," Epiphany informed her when Robin seemed no closer to saying anything at all.
"He did what!" Kelly exclaimed loudly.
"Mmmmm hmmmm," Epiphany confirmed.
"That idiot!" Kelly put her hands on her hips. "Wait until I get a hold of him!"
"Get a hold of whom?" Emily Quatermaine asked as she walked into the nurse's station. After breaking up with Sonny Corinthos, the young med student had been attending all of her classes and her shifts at the hospital. Epiphany was keeping her on a short lease though.
"Patrick broke up with Robin!" Kelly announced loudly.
"Everyone does not need to know that," Robin said dejectedly.
"Everyone is going to know because you two never keep your personal life out of the hospital," Epiphany pointed out matter-of-factly.
"Don't worry about that right now. What we need to worry about is Dr. Hypocrite," Kelly said.
"Kelly, he's going through a hard time right now. Leave him alone," Robin defended.
"He doesn't know from hard time until we get through with him," Kelly declared.
"Please, I know you mean well, but I really don't want anyone to do anything on my behalf. Nurse Johnson, I'll be in my lab if anyone needs me." Robin held her files to her chest and walked away.
"She looks so sad." Emily sighed and sniffled.
"I'm going to find Lainey. This is bullshit!" Kelly stormed off.
Epiphany smiled in satisfaction. Emily looked confused.
Patrick Drake walked into Jake's. He walked up to the bar. "Coleman. Have you seen my father?"
"He left a couple of hours ago. But he still has a big tab if you're interested in seeing to that?" Coleman smiled sleazily.
Patrick whipped out his wallet and slammed it down on the bar. He looked at it a minute. Then he picked it back up and tore out a few bills and put them down on the bar. "Where did he go, Coleman?" He pulled the bills back before Coleman could grab them, letting him know he had to earn the money first.
"Now, now. My best friend wouldn't be pleased to know that you're trying to charge my other friend money for information would he?" Carly rocked her head back and forth and gave what she thought of as a seductive look before grabbing the money out of Patrick's hand and sliding it into the strap of her orange and red zebra-striped dress. "Tell him what he wants to know."
"He said he'd be back. He was just meeting a man about a job. That's all I know. Do you want a beer, man?" Coleman held his hands up in the air.
"No thanks." Patrick turned to look at Carly, his eyes sweeping over her in an automatic fashion. "That hard up for cash?" He smirked.
"Come and get it? Or better yet, how about a game of pool. Although I think we can come up with stakes a lot more interesting than your wad of cash." She blinked and grinned at him.
"I have to get back to work." Patrick turned and started walking out.
"My, Saint Wobin has you well trained." Carly jerked her head back and forth again and stuck her hand on her hip.
Patrick spun around angrily and walked up to the woman. "Stay the hell away from me and stay the hell away from Robin. And while you're at it, stay the hell away from my father." He whipped the money out of her dress before she could react and walked back up to the bar and slammed the cash down on it. "Call me if my father needs me."
He turned, gave Carly one last glance and then walked out.
"Looks like you've lost a playmate, toots." Coleman slid the cash into the pocket his jeans.
"Get me a drink and shut up." Carly walked over to the pool table.
TBC