Timeline

This is an episode tag to April 18, 2006. During the quarantine in February of 2006, Robin had been stunned to learn that her father, Robert, was still alive. He’d been believed dead in an explosion in 1991. Anna had returned from the dead in 2003, but she’d been given amnesia to explain her absence. Robert never lost his memory, but willingly stayed dead for over a decade. Robin and Robert struggled to rebuild their relationship at first.

This is also set in the early days of Robin and Patrick’s relationship, before they were official.

Inspiration 

Around this time same, I had listened to a song by Lindsay Lohan (do not laugh, I will find out).

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The foundation of Robin Soltini Scorpio’s life was that her parents had loved her above all else. Even after their death, their love was something she could wrap around her and use it to protect her from the harsh realities of her world.

And when she’d been granted a miracle with her mother’s return from the death, she’d never dared to think that her father could have survived. If he had, he would have returned to her.

It was the one certainty that Robin had allowed in her life.

I wait for the postman to bring me a letter

After the disastrous confrontation on the docks during which Robin reaffirmed the belief that if Robert Scorpio had ever loved her, he no longer did. He had been in town, had intended on leaving again without once letting her know he was there.

She hadn’t listened to his excuses, to his explanations. She didn’t want to hear them again. There would never be any words that would justify what he had done to her and to her memory of her beloved father.

She almost wished he’d stayed dead so that Robin could have clung to the illusion that he loved her.

I wait for the good Lord to make me feel better

Robin returned to the hospital and disappeared into the lab to catch up on various projects that had gone abandoned while she had dealt with Noah Drake’s transplant and the fall out that had occurred thereafter.

“Normal people go home after their shift is over.”

Robin glanced up at the familiar voice of her cousin Georgie. “Since when have I been normal?” she asked quietly.

“Since the twelfth of never,” Georgie said with a smile. “I wanted to let you know that your dad was in town today to extradite Luke back to the Markham Islands. I couldn’t come any earlier because there was a command performance at the mansion but I thought you should know.”

“Thanks, but I ran into him on the docks,” Robin said dismissively. She adjusted the slide under her microscope.

And I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders

“Ah.” Georgie slid her hands into the back of her pockets. “Sometimes I think about tracking down my real father and asking why he left me and Maxie.” She shrugged. “But then I realize I have Mac and you know what?”

“What?” Robin sighed. She made a note in her file.

“The lack isn’t in me or Maxie. It’s in him,” Georgie said.

A family in crisis that only grows older

“It must be nice,” Robin mused softly. “To have that certainty.” She smiled briefly at her cousin and Georgie was struck by the emptiness in the expression. “There’s always been so much about my life that’s unpredictable and uncontrollable but the one belief I had that I could never be shaken was that my father loved me.”

“He does, Robin,” Georgie said. “But—”

“I appreciate you coming by,” Robin interrupted. “But I really have work to do.”

Why’d you have to go

She avoided all contact for the rest of her shift and for the first time since returning to work after her suspension, Robin left the hospital when her shift ended.

She went home to her apartment and went straight to the closet in her room and dug out the cardboard box that she had lugged from place to place for fifteen years.

Why’d you have to go

It had stayed with her in her Uncle Mac’s house, in her dorm rooms at Yale and the Sorbonne. In the cottage and the penthouse, in her apartment in Paris. Robin had dragged it everywhere because she needed the comfort it gave her.

Why’d you have to go

She tugged it out to the living room and poured herself a glass of wine, bringing the bottle out to the room with her.

Tonight, Robin Scorpio was going to get good and drunk. And she was going to destroy the memories in this box because man contained within no longer existed and she was beginning to believe he never had.

Daughter to father, daughter to father
I am broken but I am hoping

Three glasses of wine later, Robin had sorted through hundreds of photos, photos of Robert Scorpio and Anne Devane, young and old. She had collected these after their deaths, had scoured through her mother’s possessions, her father’s and her uncle’s to put together a complete picture of the parents she’d only had for seven years.

She’d wanted to remember every inch of them.

Daughter to father, daughter to father
I am crying, a part of me is dying and

She set the family portraits aside—those of her with her parents, with her father, with her mother. She put those that depicted Anna Devane alone in a separate pile.

The ones of Robert Scorpio went into a pile of its own. Along with newspaper clippings of his exploits in Port Charles, of his adventures and the days when he’d saved the world. Ticket stubs to movies and plays he’d taken her to; the wedding announcement from the Port Charles Herald when her parents had remarried. Those all went into a pile in front of the fireplace.

These are, these are
The confessions of a broken heart

Robin was struggling with a piece of firewood when someone knocked at her door. “Go away!” she called, stumbling as she finally managed to get the log set up. She reached for the box of matches and was about to strike the first one when the door opened.

“Look, Scorpio, I don’t have time for your avoidance issues—” Patrick Drake broke off when he saw the scene before him. Robin, surrounded by hundreds of photographs and mementos, tear stains on her cheeks, a match in her hand. “Oh.”

“Go away,” Robin sighed, too tired to deal with him. “Whatever grievance you have can wait until tomorrow.”

Patrick set the patient’s file on the coffee table and nodded. “Sure. It’s not cold enough for a fire, you know.”

And I wear all your old clothes, your polo sweater

Robin smiled faintly. “It’s not for warmth. I’m just getting rid of some things.” She lit the match and tossed it into the fireplace. She sighed when it didn’t catch hold.

“Obviously, you’ve never set the mood before,” Patrick said. He took the matches from her. “First you need some douse the firewood with some gasoline or accelerant so the flames will catch hold.”

Robin frowned and then stared at her half full glass of wine. Patrick followed her stare and then looked at the half-empty bottle of wine. The scene was beginning to come together for him.

Robin tossed the wine onto the firewood. “Will that work, you think?”

Wordlessly, Patrick struck another match and tossed it into the fireplace. This time the flames caught hold and ignited. Robin sank to her knees and reached for the first photo to toss in.

Patrick kneeled across from her and stopped her. “Robin—what happened?”

I dream of another you

“Nothing.” Robin tugged her hand from his grasp and tossed the photo in. They both watched the flames eat away at Robert Scorpio’s handsome face as he was dressed in a suit for his best friend Luke Spencer’s wedding.

“Yeah, I’ll believe that.” Patrick watched as she tossed another photo in, this time one of a very young girl and Robert. He surmised the girl was Robin. When she went for a third photo, he took her hand. “Why burn them?”

“Because these are just memories,” Robin said softly. “Memories of a man I made up in my head.” She tossed the third one in. “My father came back.”

The one who would never (never)
Leave me alone to pick up the pieces

Duh, Patrick wanted to say but he refrained. He wasn’t one for emotional conversations but Robin had stood by him when his father was at death’s door, he could attempt at least to do the same for her. “I guess it didn’t go well.”

“You’re right.” Robin reached for the bottle of wine and poured herself another glass. “But you’re always right, aren’t you?”

Not falling the easy trap, Patrick didn’t answer. “What happened?”

“He was never going to tell me.” Robin tossed half the glass back in one gulp. “Never going to tell me he was back. He was going to get Luke and then take off again.”

Not for the first time, Patrick wished he could put Robert Scorpio through a wall. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Robin took another photo, again of herself and her father. “He just confirmed what I’ve suspected all along.”

He watched her toss the photo in before asking, “What’s that?”

“I used to think I was just a poor judge of character,” Robin said instead. “That Sonny couldn’t stand by me because he was wrong or that Jason couldn’t love me enough because something was wrong with him. But now I know it’s not the people in my life.” Her empty eyes met his. “The lack is in me.”

A daddy to hold me, that’s what I needed

“No,” Patrick denied immediately. “Sonny and Jason are just idiots and your father sucks, Robin, but there is nothing wrong with you.”

She smiled, a twisted bitter smile. “It’s nice of you to say so but it’s okay because I understand now.” Another photo was eaten by the flames and the air in the apartment was beginning to smell acrid. “My mother loves me, I know that. But not quite enough to give up her adventurous life style.”

Another photo.

“Jason loved me, but never quite enough to stop sleeping with Carly or stop choosing her over me.”

Another photo.

“Sonny loved me, but only until I broke his rules to live by.”

Another photo.

“But my father—” Robin shook her head. “I thought I could always believe in that, always believe that when all else failed, I had my father’s love.”

She picked up a photo of herself and her father, taken shortly before the boat explosion. “But it seems I didn’t even have that.”

So why’d you have to go

He was out of his element here, he had no idea how to handle a woman in the midst of an emotional crisis, he’d never let himself get that close before. But it was beginning to dawn on Patrick that whatever he had with Robin was going to be completely different than what had come before.

“You have your uncle,” Patrick pointed out.

Robin sighed. “I do have my uncle. He’s my rock, the one person in my whole life I’ve ever been able to depend on.” She went to throw in another photo but Patrick took her hand.

“You’re upset right now but you shouldn’t burn anymore. You’ll only be sorry for it later.”

Robin shook her head. “No, I’ll be glad for it. I’ve been dragging this stupid box around for fifteen years because it was all I had of my parents, of our lives together. I thought what was inside was real, that it meant something to them—to him.” She ripped a photo in half and heaved them into the fire. “When I found my mother alive, I knew I’d been granted a miracle but I never once imagined my father was still alive too.”

“Why? I mean, wouldn’t it have been a logical assumption?”

She focused on him and the heartbreak in her eyes nearly broke him. “Because he loved me and he would have come back if he was alive. He never came back, so he was dead.”

Why’d you have to go

And then Robert Scorpio had shown up, alive and well without a trace of the amnesia that kept her mother from her. He could only imagine how that would have crushed her.

Before Robin could take another gulp of the wine, Patrick nipped the glass from her fingers and set it on the coffee table behind them. “Come here.”

Robin rolled her eyes but was too tired to fight Patrick as he pulled her towards him and set her in his lap. “I’m not that drunk,” she quipped.

“Ah, there’s the Dr. Scorpio I know and love,” Patrick returned. “Relax, no funny business.” He took a deep breath. “When my mother died and my father drowned himself in alcohol, I put away all the pictures of my parents. I put them in a box, like you, and I put them on a shelf. I took the box with me when I went to medical school and I would probably have them now if I hadn’t burned them one day.”

Robin closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his chest, she could feel his heart beating through his shirt. She felt safe and protected in his embrace and she wondered absently if she could stay here forever. “Why’d you burn them?”

“Because my father showed up to my med school graduation drunk and made a fool out of himself and of me.”

Why’d you have to go

There was a long silence and Robin swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

“I was so angry at him for destroying that day, a day that my mother had been waiting for her whole life and never got to see.” He cleared his throat and forced himself to go on. “I was angry at him for destroying the memory I’d had of him until my mother died—the strong doctor who never let anything fail him. He was my hero, Robin, and I felt betrayed when he proved himself to be anything but.”

The parallels in their situations were so strong that Robin was quiet for a long moment. “My father didn’t know about me until I was seven but once he did know, he made all my dreams come true. He was a wonderful father, he was so funny and he was kind and he made me smile all the time. He made me feel safe and loved. And I thought that he would always feel that way to me.”

Daughter to father, daughter to father
I don’t know you, but I still want to

“You opened my eyes and made me see my father for the flawed person that he is,” Patrick said. “Because of you, I started to understand how my father could have lost himself after my mother died and because of you, I know that I don’t have to lose out on having my dad around for the rest of my life. People make mistakes, Robin, and they’re not infallible.”

She smiled, he felt the movement of her lips against his chest. “It’s not fair using that against me.”

“Since when do I play fair?” Patrick replied lightly.

“I’m more angry at my father for taking that memory of him away than I am at him for not coming back,” Robin admitted. “I’m angry that the way I remember my father isn’t the way he is now and that it’s likely that I’m still seeing him through the eyes of a seven year old girl who’d always wanted a father.”

“It’s hard not to measure up to how people want to see us,” Patrick said after a moment. “Knowing that you could never be what they need to you to be, no matter how much you want to.”

Robin didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Are you just talking about my father?” she asked hesitantly.

“No,” Patrick admitted. “But that’s another topic for a different time. Robin, your father has his reasons for doing what he did. You can’t change them and you can’t go back in time to when he was your hero. But he’s alive now. I’d give anything to be able to see my mother again, to talk to her, even if she had played dead for the last decade.”

Robin exhaled shakily and he could feel her tears, warm and wet on his shirt. “I’m sorry, I must seem so awful. I’m lucky, I know I am. I got my parents back and that doesn’t happen to everyone and instead of being happy and grateful, I’m being ridiculous and pitying myself—”

“That’s not true,” Patrick said. “And even if it were, there’s no handbook for how you have to feel. You get to do whatever you want. You want to be angry, be angry. Be happy, be sad, but don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not allowed to feel that way.”

“Careful, Dr. Drake,” Robin said softly. “I might begin to think there’s a heart beneath the lothario exterior.”

“There wasn’t before you.”

Daughter to father, daughter to father
Tell me the truth, did you ever love me

Flustered, Robin extricated herself from Patrick’s arms and started to gather the photos together again. “I should put these in an album or something,” she said. “And—you’re right. I’m upset right now and I’ll kick myself for burning these later.” She smiled though. “He did love me once. Even if it’s not true now, he loved me once and that’s—that’s enough.”

“He still loves you, Robin,” Patrick said hesitantly. “He just doesn’t know how to show it. You don’t make it easy on a man to tell you how he feels.”

Robin met his eyes, startled but looked away almost immediately. She wasn’t ready for what was reflected back at her. She shoved a pile of photos into the cardboard box. “Thank you for this, Patrick. I—thank you.”

“Will you talk to your father?” Patrick asked.

She hesitated and glanced towards the phone. “I could call him, I guess.” She chewed on her lower lip. “He gave me his cell phone number before he left the first time.”

“You should call him,” Patrick advised. “You have a second chance, it’d be a shame to blow it.”

Cause these are, these are
The confessions of a broken heart

Later, after Patrick had gone and Robin had put the box back in her closet, she hesitantly dialed the number Robert had pressed in her hand the day he’d left the hospital two months ago.

“Scorpio.”

I love you,

Robin smiled briefly. He still answered the phone the same way. “Dad?”

Robert’s voice changed. “Robin—I didn’t expect to hear from you.”

“I’m angry at you, I don’t know how to change that,” Robin began painfully. “But I want to.”

I love you

“I’m sorry, Robin. I wish there were words—but the way you found out, it was not what I wanted. I thought a thousand times how it should go but that wasn’t it.”

I love you

Robin nodded, but he couldn’t see her. “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

I, I love you

“‘The biggest reason I’m angry is because I have to see you as an adult now and not just as my dad. As a human who makes mistakes and makes decision I don’t agree with. Part of me—part of me just wants you to be the hero I knew when I was a kid.”

Daughter to father, daughter to father
I don’t know you, but I still want to

“And I wish I could be that for you, sweetheart. I wish that more than anything in the world.”

“Will you come and see me?” Robin asked hesitantly. “When you get your case wrapped up?”

Daughter to father, daughter to father
Tell me the truth

“The very second it’s over, I’ll book a plane ticket,” Robert promised. “And I’ll take a real leave of absence. Robin, I love you. I want you to know that, even if you don’t believe it.”

She didn’t believe it but maybe she would one day.

“I love you, too, Dad,” she answered softly.

Did you ever love me
Did you ever love me

“I have to go now, but I’ll call you again. And we’ll talk right?” Robert said.

“Yeah, call me again and I promise to answer this time,” Robin replied.

These are
The confessions of a broken heart

When Robert Scorpio stepped out of the gate three months later to visit Robin, this time, they had the reunion he’d wanted. She flew into his arms and he picked her up off the ground and twirled in her in a circle before setting her back on her feet. “You look well rested,” he said. He touched her tanned face.

Robin bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder where Patrick waited for them. “I just came back from a weekend at Martha’s Vineyard.”

Robert narrowed his eyes. “Oh, really,” he remarked with deliberate irritation.

Because she’d secretly dreamed of how Robert would have treated Stone and Jason, Robin giggled. She’d always wanted to bring her boyfriend home to her father.

“I’m glad you came,” Robin said softly.

“I’m glad you called,” Robert answered. He kissed her forehead, picked up his duffle. “Let’s go meet Dr. Drake.”

I wait for the postman to bring me a letter