Chapter 57
Scars are souvenirs you never lose
The past is never far
The lamp on the nightstand lit the bedroom in a soft glow as the sounds of Coldplay floated through the air. With her head resting on his chest, Robin sighed contentedly as Patrick trailed his fingers through her long, silky hair.
"Feeling better?" he asked quietly, enjoying the feeling of being wrapped up in her. He felt her head move against him as she nodded.
"Yeah. It seems to have passed."
"Good." He pressed his lips to the top of her head. "I think we're going to put sushi on the banned food list for a while though."
Her cheeks flushed slightly at her lie but knowing that she had corrected her mistake – and paid the price – she could see little value in letting him know what really happened. It would only compound his fears and she was supposed to be helping alleviate them, not add to them.
His hand moved up and down the length of her back in slow, soothing strokes. "Do you think you could handle some soup? You should probably get some food in you."
Lifting her head she smiled shyly. "Tomato? With lots of crackers mushed up?"
Dipping his head, he nipped tenderly at her lips. "You got it." Slowly disentangling himself from her he rose from the bed and then tucked the covers around her.
xxxxx
Alone in the kitchen as the soup heated in the small pot on the stove, Patrick dragged his hand through his hair and let out a long, heavy sigh. He could not shake the picture from his mind of Robin, flopped on the floor of her lab, hovered over the garbage can. It had sent his heart immediately to his throat and had taken all of his self control not to overreact and have her admitted.
He remembered every word of the speech she gave at the Nurses' Ball and her admission of her failed protocol had stopped him cold. He knew that wasn't the case this time but it did little to assuage his ever present worry about her. After his seizure in Scotland, she had asked – demanded – that he stop protecting her and he was trying. But seeing the toll his illness was taking etched on her face, he was walking a fine line.
Having ladled the soup into two bowls, he reached for the box of crackers and set them on the tray. He cursed silently under his breath as his hands trembled; the down time between symptoms was getting less and less meaning his condition was worsening and that surgery was fast becoming an inevitability.
Surgery scared him. Who knew better than he did the risks associated with it? The placement of his tumour, the way in which it was affecting his fine motor skills told him that any surgery could leave him paralysed, unable to speak or without his long term memory. That is, if it didn't kill him.
He had tried to be objective, tried to be rational and unemotional about it but it just wasn't possible. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear all the noises from the waiting room he sat in while his mother was in surgery; smell the stale, antiseptic air. It mattered little that others thought he should be over it or that it was childish to still be haunted by that day. The fact remained that his mother died on the table and now with the same tumour in his brain, slowly stealing bits of who he was and the possible solution was more terrifying than the problem.
Gripping the tray tighter, he tried to control his shaking hands as he stepped into the bedroom. "I believe princess ordered some soup" he teased as he set the tray down over her legs.
Pulling her hair back into a low ponytail, Robin arched her eyebrow jokingly. "Princess? Princess? I believe the soup was your suggestion"
Stretching out on the bed, he smiled in amusement as Robin gathered a handful of crackers in her hands and crushed them, letting the crumbs fall into her bowl. There were moments, simple moments, when she was completely unguarded and it made his heart full.
Feeling his eyes on her as she brought her spoon to her mouth, she cast a sideways glance in his direction. "What?"
"Nothing" he replied, grinning.
Shaking her head, she rolled her eyes. "Aren't you going to eat your soup?"
"I will. I'm just going to let it cool down a little."
"Why do you want it-" She paused for a moment and realization dawned. "Oh – how bad is your mouth?"
He gave a small shake of his head. "It's fine." Seeing the look of disbelief on her face, he amended his response. "Okay, not fine but it's okay – it's just better if the food isn't piping hot."
She reached out with her hand and stroked his cheek. Turning his face towards her hand, he pressed his lips against her palm. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the long silver chain and placed it on her tray.
Robin immediately recognized it as the medallion that he had snatched from her in Scotland. Her curiosity had been peaked but she had not pursued it for fear of him feeling boxed in.
"What is it?" she asked casually as she spooned another mouthful of soup.
"It's a medal of Michael the Archangel. It's….it's what I was holding on to when I had the seizure."
"Have you had it long?"
"Eric gave it to me on the first day of my radiation treatment. It's his – he, uh – he wore it all through his cancer treatments. He...it…he said it's about faith – not religion but faith and so I'm trying to have faith that this is all going to get better."
"Do you?" she asked quietly, "Have faith?"
He chewed on his bottom lip trying to hear the answer in his head before giving it. "Somedays" he admitted, "but not always."
"How come?"
"I'm not good with things I can't touch. I have to see it to believe it. I learned a long time ago to take the emotion out of a situation and just deal with the facts and it's hard to undo all that." He gave her a wry grin, "It's why I would never make it as researcher."
"What?"
"Robin, in order for you to do what you do, you have to make these leaps and trust that the ground will be there underneath you when you land. I travel a well worn path, following or perfecting techniques, colouring inside the lines."
Rolling on to her side and propping her head in her hand she watched him carefully. "But you take risks inside the OR and you took them on the racetrack. Patrick, you've pushed the line-"
"Pushed but never crossed. Even in racing, I understood how the engine worked and exactly how far I could take it without damaging it. I didn't have to trust that it would all hold together because tangibly I knew what the limit was."
Scooting closer to him, she draped her arm over his hip and looked up into his rich, expressive eyes. "You fell in love – with me" she pointed out softly, "that required believing in something intangible."
"That's why it took me so long to be honest with you" he told her quietly, "because I kept waiting for some kind of external proof of my feelings, something other than my heart or my gut and I just refused to give in until it came."
She traced her fingertip along his jaw bone, feeling the start of his stubble prickly underneath. "Don't you trust your heart?" she asked.
With a slight grimace, he shook his head. "No. But I trust yours."
He softly closed his lips over hers, his tongue sliding inside hers, gently and slowly tangling in the velvety softness of her mouth. Robin moaned quietly as her fingers curled tightly around his cotton t-shirt. He cupped her face, stealing her breath away in a lingering, languid kiss. Robin's heart beat wildly in her chest as it was impossible to be touched by him without it sending her pulse racing.
Letting go of her lips, bit by bit, Patrick exhaled. "Can I ask you something?"
She swept her hand across his chest. "Of course."
"Do you have faith – faith that it will get better?"
She immediately recognized the look in his eyes for she had worn that look many times in her own life. Everyone had moments in their life when a problem, a situation or a moment seemed so much bigger than them, impossible to contemplate, and they needed others to reassure them it would be okay. Not a gentle patting of the head and a 'there, there dear'. It was the need of a guarantee of sorts from someone you trusted that even if you couldn't see an end or an outcome, they could and because of that it would be all right. She had been given that by so man people in her life – Mac, Sonny, Jason, Brenda and even Patrick.
"I do" she told him confidently. "Better doesn't mean easier though."
"I know" he replied with a nod. "I just…." He swallowed thickly before starting again. "I just need to know it's not all for nothing."
"It's not for nothing. That night in your hotel room, when you told me what was going on, I promised you then that we would get through this together and we will. And if you're feeling low on faith," she placed the palm of her hand over his heart, "then take some of mine because I have more than enough for the two of us."
He nuzzled her neck, sucking softly on her skin and breathing in her scent. She tilted her head to the side, granting him better access. The soft bleating of her alarm broke their moment and she groaned as she pulled away from him.
"I can get your meds" he offered.
With a smile, she shook her head. "I'll do it – you should eat your soup." She moved the tray towards him and carefully rose from the bed.
Out in the kitchen she carefully counted out her dose, reminding herself yet again that what happened earlier, could never happen again.
Having swallowed down the last of her pills, she walked back to the bedroom, stopping in the doorway. Patrick lay where she left him, his long, dark lashes swept serenely against his cheeks. He was fast asleep.
She watched his chest rise and fall in a steady, consistent rhythm as she thought further on their conversation. She did have faith – her life since being diagnosed with HIV was an exercise in faith; faith in medicine, faith in doctors, faith in the future.
But she was also a realist and she was intent on doing whatever was necessary to make Patrick better. And she would not apologize for it.