Chapter 136

It's all I can do to hang on,
To keep from falling in old familiar shoes

Alexis gave him a sympathetic smile as she pushed the thick envelope across the desk to him. Patrick stared at it for several minutes as though he was not quite ready to touch it. The envelope bore the stamp of her practice and across the front, in perfectly typed letters was a phrase that gave him enormous pause:

Last will and testament of Patrick Drake

The silence grew heavier and Patrick extended his hand to take the envelope but pulled it back immediately as though he was having second thoughts.

"Patrick," Alexis began, "you don't have to read it. If you're uncomfortable or not ready I can put it back in your file and it will be here for you when you are ready."

He shook his head. Sometimes in life you weren't ready for something but that didn't mean you didn't do it anyways. It had been a sleepless night for him as he and Robin returned from Jake's. The news of his will was the only thing he could focus on and he had lain awake staring at the perfect circular stucco pattern on the ceiling waiting for morning to come.

Inhaling sharply, he finally grabbed the envelope and cradled it in his hands. He ran a finger along the sharp, perfect corners and looking up at Alexis, gave her a shy smile.

"You're welcome to read it here," she offered. "I could stick around in case you have any questions."

"N-no" he answered kindly. "N-n-need to be by m-m-myself."

She nodded her understanding. She had not told Eric about her offer, unsure whether or not he would approve but Patrick was her client and she was intent on acting in his best interests and she was confident that this was it.

"No worries. I'm around, so if after you read it you have questions or concerns – feel free to call me, drop by – whatever."

Nodding, he pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. He tucked the envelope inside his coat pocket and shook Alexis' hand.

"Th-thanks" he stammered. "M-means a lot."

"Anytime," she told him softly.

Once outside Alexis' office he wasn't sure where he wanted to go. He wanted to – he needed to – read it in a place where he wouldn't be interrupted or distracted. He had already experienced the spontaneous return of a few memories and any hope of it happening again meant that he needed to be alone and be quiet. Casting his eyes down the street he suddenly knew exactly where that was.

****
As the sun beat down doing its best to send the remaining vestiges of winter into retreat, Patrick unbuttoned his coat and sank back against the bench. The surface of the water shone brightly and the sound of it lapping against the piers provided just the soothing rhythm he needed.

It always came back to here.

Robin had given him so many gifts in their relationship – herself for starters – but bringing him here when he was suffocating under the weight of April Gilbert's surgery was one of the best. She had told him that then just looking out at the horizon allowed her to keep everything in perspective and it now did the same for him. She had always pushed him to look one step beyond of where he was and that had given him so much.

Reaching inside his coat he retrieved the envelope and yet again stared at the typed title. As he had prepared for surgery, as he had lived those final days with the feeding tube and the chemotherapy, what had he considered to be important? How had he wanted those that mattered to him most to remember him? He looked down at the envelope again. There was only one way to find out.

Sliding his finger underneath the flap he released it from its seal and reaching inside, pulled out the document and laid it on his lap. His hands trembled ever so slightly as he picked it up and started to read.

He quickly scanned the formal legal language at the beginning and smirked to himself as he read that he was of sound mind. Robin would probably have joked there was a first time for everything.

To my father Noah Drake, I leave the sum of $500,000 to start an assistance program for those without insurance. I believe that he has a lot to give yet and this is a way for him to do so.

I also leave to him my 1969 Mustang. It is in mint condition and at Delvano's Storage in East Hampton. I want him to drive it fast enough to feel the wind in his hair and the sun on his face.

A bitter lump formed in his throat as he was suddenly assailed by images; his father cradling his head in his lap in the bathroom of the Metrocourt Ballroom; sitting at his bedside and calming him down as he struggled to wake; the poster boards crammed with photos of all of them – of his family; his father vainly trying to protect his face at he wailed on him with a flurry of fists at Kelly's; his father carefully undressing him after a violent seizure and getting him in to bed.

And then he heard it – loudly and clearly in his head – "I love you Patty"

Without being able to name all the times his father had said it to him in the months that he was sick he knew it was said often. He knew that his father was not a person for whom 'I love you' came easily and yet over and over again he had told him so that he would have something to hang on to in the darkness.

He swallowed thickly and looked back out at the water. He had spent years believing his father didn't love him and obviously had realized how wrong he had been prior to his surgery. Eric had told him that his father had been by his side through it all but being told something and knowing it to be true were not the same. His chest ached as he thought about how all of this had affected his father, as he understood, for the second time, the lengths to which his father had gone to protect his teenage son from the harsh realities of his mother's disease. And he had had to watch it all again. It was almost overwhelming.

He took another deep breath and picked up the document reading the next lines.

To my friend Eric Smitherman, I leave the sum of $25,000 to be used expressly for the purchase of two season's tickets to the New York Rangers. Life is meant to be played and it's time to get back in the game.

The corners of his mouth twitched upwards into a small smile. Even with absent memories there was no doubt in his mind that his friend had been by his side every step of the way, supporting him and pushing him, as he had always done – as they had always done for each other.

Closing his eyes, he could hear the fear in his own voice as he remembered that first message he had left for him, asking him to come to Port Charles. His heart began to thump loudly against his ribs as the old feelings of fear swirled around him. His mouth dropped open a little and he sucked in a breath. Fear had been his long time companion through all of it and it wasn't that he hadn't felt it since his surgery but now, in this moment, he understood it in ways he hadn't. His stomach pitched and rolled.

In an instant he saw himself lying on the table of the tattoo parlour and Eric teasing him about paying off the artist to draw a Carebear instead of his original design.

The design.

His chest started to heave. He had spent weeks thinking about the design. It suddenly hit him like a sucker punch that he had truly believed that he was never going to see Robin again. He had not necessarily accepted he was going to die but his life with Robin was going to be over – he had been sure of that. And it had torn at his insides like a thousand sharp blades.

He gripped his stomach as he felt it all again. A sheen of perspiration appeared on his forehead as he tried to slow the waves of memories that were poised ready to engulf him. Lifting a shaky hand, he rubbed his sweater just over his tattoo and tried to take one steadying breath after another. He swiped at his nose as though he could still feel the feeding tube in there, the rubber edged irritating the skin just under his nose.

Blowing out his cheeks he dropped his head to the back of the bench and clenched his eyes shut. He had been so close to the edge. He had almost no fight in him by the time his surgery had rolled around. In all of his life he had never felt as empty as he did in those final few days – not even his mother's death had left the type of void that near hopelessness had.

When the ground no longer felt like it was going to swallow him whole, he slowly opened his eyes and stared back at the water.

Looks like you got your committed relationship by default Doctor Scorpio

Those words from his first anguished visit to the piers rushed inside his mind. The irony of that statement was not lost on him. Even then, though couldn't articulate it, he had wanted a committed relationship with Robin and the universe had conspired to give it to him. But now was the blanks of the last six months started to fill in he realized how perilously close he had come to losing it all.

There were parts of his personality that he hated – his need to strike out like a five year old when he was frustrated, the overwhelming urge to run when things got difficult or messy and the tendency to throw away good things because on some level he didn't believe he deserved them. They were a crutch and it was painfully clear he had relied on them yet again when the going had gotten tough. He was at a loss to comprehend how Robin still had faith in him.

His tongue darted out and swept across his dry lips as he picked up the collection of papers again. Dread was beginning to fill the space in his joints as he wondered how he had wanted Robin to remember him.

To Robin Scorpio, who has changed my life and given me what I needed to be a good man I leave the sum of $750,000. I saw a life for us together and though it is not to be there is no reason why you should not have all that you have dreamed of.

The owners of the corner house on Hunter Street have agreed to sell you their house for $250,000. I think you should install the biggest, most obnoxious porch swing on the wrap around porch and spend nights counting the stars and days soaking up the sun. A house is not always a home – home is where you are – but I think you can have both and you should.

I would also like you to plan the trip of a lifetime. You had talked once about wanting to take a year and chase the summer all around the globe. You should. You should watch the sun rise on Bondi Beach, have a morning coffee with the penguins in Tierra del Fuego and watch the sun set on the Acropolis in Athens. I think you should dance at a castle the way you did in Scotland and I think you should have waffles in Belgium. I would give anything to do those with you and know that if I could I would.

Tears splattered on to his jeans and he made no effort to wipe them away. He could see the look of pure, unadulterated joy on her face as they danced in the ceilidh in Scotland. He remembered, almost as though he had a photo in his mind, how completely free she had been and how he had finally grasped that night that there was no end point to love, that it continued on and on and he wanted to hold on to it for everything he was worth.

And then he could feel her arms around him as they held on to each other on the floor of her bedroom after he told her he was leaving. His heart cracked and his head pounded as those old feelings of loss and panic swallowed him up.

Please stay

Her plaintive request echoed loudly in his ears – so loudly that he brought his hands to cover his ears hoping to block it out.

"I think I want to marry her"

"How drunk are you?"

"Pretty drunk but I still think I want to marry her. So you, uh, you gotta keep me alive so I can, okay?"

His head was spinning, his heart was hammering and his hands were shaking. Memory after memory, bits of conversations, a flurry of images, they all continued to crash over him and he felt paralyzed by it. He wanted to see Robin but at the same time was suddenly embarrassed by his behaviour; he was humiliated as he remembered her seeing him seize, writhing on the ground with little dignity.

He wasn't sure what to do next so he did the only thing he could, he looked back to the water and waited.