Chapter 146

And you took my heart when you left

Sitting on the floor, his back pressed to the wall, Patrick curled his finger through his shoelace and sucked in a breath. Robin had sunk back into the rocking chair and pulled her legs to her chest. They had sat, not speaking, for almost an hour. They were at an impasse and neither was sure of what should happen next.

"Your speech is back" Robin told him quietly as she finally broke the thick silence hanging in the air.

His head snapped up. "Pardon?"

"Your speech," she smiled shyly, "it's back. You didn't stammer or stutter once."

Giving a ruefull smirk, he shrugged his shoulders. "Who knew all it would take was the threat of me losing everything to speak like a normal human being?"

Robin winced at his words. "I'm doing this for you"

"No" he disagreed. "You're doing this for you. You aren't hearing me, you don't want to believe what I'm telling you because it doesn't jive with whatever is going on in your head. Because if you were listening to what I've said then you would know that I want nothing of what you said."

Sighing heavily, Robin wrapped her arms around her legs and pulled them tighter to her as though she was trying to make herself as small as possible. She knew she had hurt him but in her heart she really believed that this hurt would be minor compared to the hurt that awaited both of them when he realized down the road that he was feeling trapped.

"You say that now-" she began before he interrupted.

"Yes. I say that now. In this moment with you I'm telling you that I love you and I love our baby and I want us to be a family."

He watched as Robin chewed on her bottom lip. She was deeply conflicted and it pained him to see her so unsure and resorting to old habits. In the beginning of their relationship, as her head and heart warred with each other about him, she had done everything she could to push him away. And she was doing it again. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that in her heart she knew he was telling the truth but her head was another matter. It was the same reason she had panicked about buying the house when he brought it up in Rome; in her life the closer she got to having what she wanted, the closer she got to having it all taken away from her. During their time together she had revealed bits and pieces of her relationships with both Stone and Jason and those tiny insights had told him so much about the choices she made. Stone's death altered her, in the way death often does, but it was Jason's treatment of her that produced a cold, hard rage inside him. He had brought a child into their lives, they had started to live like a family but when she did the right thing she lost not only him but almost everyone else in her life. It was only natural that she believed the same could happen again.

"You don't trust me" he told her, with a hint of accusation in his voice.

Her head snapped up. Tearstains were streaked along her cheeks and her eyes were red-rimmed. "I do" she whispered.

"Then you don't trust that I'm not going to leave" he amended.

"You did once already" Her quick answer surprised her and she covered her mouth with her hand.

Patrick's brown eyes widened and then narrowed. Tipping his head back he tapped it against the wall. "Ah," he answered. "So because of a choice I made when I was sick, when I had a tumour impacting my cognitive function, you know believe that I'm going to leave you and our baby?"

Robin tucked her hair behind her ears and brought her chin to rest on her knees. "I know why you left - I understand it but I also know that when you get scared or fed up you want to run. And if you take on something that you don't want with all your heart then you will get scared or fed up and run."

"You're unbelievable" he said angrily. "You are looking for guarantees that cannot be given. Robin - you are just as likely to split and run as I am. We both do it."

She gasped. "I would never leave my child."

"Nor would I" he shot back. "And it's our child. You are so afraid of being left one more time that it's easier for you to refuse to believe in me than to trust how much I love you. Is what I've done really so unforgivable?"

"I have forgiven you" she snapped in exasperation.

"Then why are you still punishing me?"

Tears flowed anew down her cheeks. The truth of the matter was that she didn't even entirely understand her own behaviour but every time she thought of them as a family she dangled on the precipice of a full-fledged panic attack. Her parents had taught her long ago to listen to her fight or flight instincts and right now she was more flight than fight.

"I'm not punishing you" she cried.

"That's not what it feels like from here," he answered, tears welling in his eyes. "It feels like you're trying to get back at me."

Anger flashed through her and unfurling her legs, she jumped to her feet. "I asked for a couple of days to think this through and instead all I have is a few hours. I need space! You need to stop smothering me. You found out about your tumour and you kept it a secret from me for weeks - WEEKS! You said you had wanted time to understand it, accept it and figure it out and so you took it. I want the same thing now and suddenly I'm a bad guy??"

"So you are trying to get back at me?"

"NO!" she yelled. "You don't understand!" Her chest heaved as her breath came in spurts and her legs started to shake. She felt as though she was going to be crushed under the weight of all of it.

Seeing her mounting distress, Patrick slowly got to his feet. "You're right" he told her softly, "I don't understand. Robin, this should be a joyful moment for you - for both of us. You have wanted to be a mother for a long time and now you will be."

"That's the problem!" she sobbed, "I'm going to have a baby - I'm going to have a child and it means that my child - my child is going to watch me die. They're going to watch me die of AIDS like I watched Stone, they're going to have me taken from them too soon" she gulped for air as her face was awash in anguished tears, "like your mother was. I'm going to get something I've dreamed about but at what cost to our child?"

"Oh Robin" he sighed, walking to her. As he wrapped his arms around her, she fisted his shirt and sobbed against his chest. He ran his hands along her back trying to soothe her. He hated her virus. He hated how it took her mind to worst case scenarios when she should be ebullient, how it robbed her of feeling a moment of total joy because it continued to lurk reminding her that it could all fall to pieces.

They sank down to the floor together and he rocked gently as she continued to sob; he pressed small kisses to her cheek as he held her. She was so completely overwhelmed by all of it and in typical Robin fashion she was going to strip everything down to the base level and then build it back up again. His mother once told him that great love - truly great love - meant putting another person first even when doing so was going to be painful to yourself. He had never truly understood what she meant until this moment. And his heart ached as he readied to say words he never imagined he would say.

"You know I love you with all my heart, right?" he asked as his eyes brimmed with tears. She nodded against his shoulder. "You said you need space so I'll move out - as long as you understand that I'm not leaving you - living together or not, I'm with you."

He held his breath as she lifted her head. He hoped, he prayed that she would tell him no, that she wanted him to stay but as her eyes met his he felt his heart sink.

"I love you " Her throat was thick with tears swallowed down.

"I know" he replied, kissing her mouth and their tears intermingling.

"I'm not trying to punish you" she told him. "I'm really not"

"I know" he repeated. "Robin, this is not what I want -moving out - but I don't want to smother you. So you take the time and space that you need but you do so knowing that I will be here," he swallowed down a small sob, "I will be here, waiting for you when you're ready to come back to me."

"What if I'm never ready?" she asked fearfully.

Patrick shook his head. "You will be. I know this because I know you, I know us and you will be ready. We love each other too much for you not to be."