Chapter 73

This loss is numbing me
It pierces my chest
And I can't stop dropping everything

With shaking arms, Patrick raised himself from the bathroom floor. Rinsing a facecloth under the tap, he rung it out before wiping his face. He dropped the facecloth into the sink and slowly shuffled back to the bedroom. Crawling under the covers, he pulled them to his neck trying to ward off the chills that inevitably followed a bout of nausea.

It had been six days since he left Port Charles and four days since he started chemotherapy.

He was miserable.

He missed Robin. He still reached for her in the middle of the night and swore he could smell a faint hint of her rosemary mint shampoo. When he thought about the look on her face and the pain in her eyes as he headed out the door, it felt as though his heart stopped beating. Everything felt smaller without her - she had pushed his boundaries, his horizons and his comfort level and he never realized how much he liked it- how much he needed it - until it was gone. It seemed that everything retracted back to what it was before Robin was in his life.

It felt empty.

He had, in a short period of time, made a mess of almost everything in his life. In his efforts to try and spare Robin the pain of watching him die, he had not anticipated the pain it would cause him and whether he could deal with it. Eric had encouraged him to call her, to reach out to her and he nearly did. He had dialed her number several times but could not bring himself to complete the call. And then the side effects from the chemo began and he was once again resolute in his decision. Every day he felt more of himself slipping away and he was almost too weak to be afraid.

His cheeks burned hot with shame as he thought of his father and what he had done to him at Kelly's. He had never been a violent person and could count on one hand the number of fights he had been in, even as a child. That he attacked his own father shook his foundation; compounding his guilt was the realization that his father was right. There was no way, with what he knew about his mother's condition, that she hadn't suffered as he was. The stripping of the veneer that was his memories of her awakened a pain inside of him that he had not even realized existed. It was as though he was mourning her loss all over again.

Absently, he fingered the black leather strap of his watch which now hung loosely from his wrist. Pulling it from his arm, he turned it over at stared at the engraving.

Time heals what reason cannot
Love, Robin

Love, Robin. He traced his fingers along those words over and over again, they were as close as he could let himself be to her right now. He smirked mirthlessly at the rest of the inscription. Time could perhaps heal what reason couldn't but at the moment time was his enemy. There was not enough of it and the more it marched on, the closer he came to the end. Surgery, which Eric assured him was but a few weeks away, would mark the end of his life as he knew it. Even if he managed to survive there were so many risks associated with it that the possibility of him coming through unchanged were slim to none. He hadn't always liked who he was but in the last year he had come to be very proud of the ways he had changed and risen to challenges. It made him sad that he would be giving all that up no matter what the future held.

His stomach pitched and rolled and he groaned, wrapped his arms across his stomach trying to stem the painful spasms that continued to rock his body. His decline was proceeding at a rapid pace - his seizures were daily if not more frequent than that, the tremor in his hand had returned with a vengence and there was no relief to be found. If this was a test of his strength, a test of his will, he was failing. He would give almost anything for it to stop.

The light rap at his door pulled him from his dark thoughts.

"Pantsy, you awake?" Eric called softly to him. The door opened a crack and the light seeped in.

"Yeah" he replied hoarsely.

Entering the room, he set down a large glass on the nightstand before turning on the small lamp. His friend was so pale and weak his skin looked translucent in the soft glow of the light. The circles under his eyes were both deep and dark providing evidence of just how sick he was. Eric had spent the better part of two days consulting with colleagues about Patrick's surgery. There were so many factors working against them, he wanted to be sure he had thought of every possibility before he had to cut into him.

"I made you a protein shake. You need to try and get that into you."

Patrick eyed the frothy drink with derision. He had no appetite and the thought of eating was almost enough to send him sprinting to the bathroom.

"How long did you have chemo for?" he asked, ignoring the drink.

Eric gave him a small, sympathetic smile. "10 months, 2 weeks and four days."

Patrick exhaled heavily. "How did you do it?"

"With a little help from my friend" he smiled. "Patrick, it's hell - there's no way around it but I'm hopeful it's going to pay off when we get into the OR."

"It better" he muttered unhappily.

"Did you call Robin today?"

He shot his friend a withering look. "You ask me every day and the answer is the same every day - just drop it, would you?"

Eric shook his head. "I'm going to keep asking you in the hopes that one day I don't get the same answer. She would be here in a flash if you asked."

"Look at me Smitty" he rasped, "just fucking look at me. I cannot ask her to do that." His eyes welled with tears and he slammed them shut trying to will them away.

Eric bit down on his lip. His friend was being ripped apart by pain - physical and emotional and he felt impotent in his inability to fix either for him. "Try some of the shake Pantsy. I don't want you to have to need a feeding tube but I can't have you going into surgery malnourished."

Reluctantly, Patrick reached for the glass and brought it to his lips. The cold, thick liquid was a shock to the burns in his mouth and he grimaced as he swallowed it down. He drank almost half before setting it back down on the nightstand. Much to his surprise, it seemed to settle his stomach and relieve some of the cramps.

"Why don't I call your dad?" Eric offered. "He can come and be with you for a bit."

"No" he whispered.

Leaning forward, Eric rested his elbows on his knees. "Patrick, listen to me. You cannot do this by yourself. It is unfair of you to exclude your dad and Robin from being with you. You need them and they need you and your honourable actions are hurting everyone - especially you. Let me call them."

He shook his head, unable to meet his friend's eyes. "I'm not by myself - I have you."

A small sigh of frustration escaped from his throat. "Yeah, you do. But I am not your father and I am not your girlfriend and you need them as much as you need me. You need to be able to hold them close to you so you can draw on their strength."

Exhausted, Patrick simply closed his eyes and turned his head away from his friend.

Defeated but resolved to try again tomorrow, Eric rose to his feet and padded quietly to the door.

"Smitty?"

He paused with his hand on the doorknob and turned around. "Yeah?"

"I want...I want to get a tattoo."

"Pardon?" he asked, furrowing his brow.

"Before surgery - I want...a tattoo."

"You want me to take you?"

"Yeah."

"Okay" he nodded. "I'm off tomorrow afternoon. We'll see how you're feeling and if you're strong enough, we'll head out."

Patrick smiled gratefully before rolling on to his side, away from the door. He held the watch in his hand, staring again at the inscription.

Love Robin.

Eric was right, he needed to hold her close to draw on her strength.