And as he spoke, he spoke ordinary words
Although they did not feel
For I felt what I had not felt before
You’d swear those words could heal.
And as I looked up into those eyes
His vision borrows mine.
And I know he’s no stranger,
For I feel I’ve held him for all of time

August 3, 2006

Vacation House: Living Room

Patrick entered the house, two large brown paper bags in his arms and frowned when he saw Robin in the kitchen. “You’re supposed to be in bed,” he remarked, striding into the kitchen and placing his bags on the table.

Robin looked up from the pint of ice cream she was polishing off and flushed. “I was. But then I got hungry.” She licked the spoon. “Mmm…pistachio.” She eyed the bags. “What in the world did you get?”

Feeling somewhat embarrassed, Patrick started to unpack the bags. He’d ended up with ten different kinds of pickles, eight bags of chocolate and thirteen jars of peanut butter. “You weren’t specific.”

“That is so adorable,” Robin remarked, amused. Her eyes caught something on his hand and she reached for it. Belatedly, Patrick remembered that Cece had scrawled her name on his palm and tried to yank it from Robin’s gasp.

“It’s not what you think,” he said, a little panicked. “I mean–yes, random women do still give me their numbers but that’s not what this is and–” he hesitated. “I would never call numbers like that–even when I was single–”

Robin rolled her eyes. “Patrick,” she interrupted. “Look at my face. Am I mad?”

He broke off his rambling explanation and eyed her carefully. “No, but you’re pretty good at hiding it actually.”

“Patrick. I was only asking what it was.” She studied the scrawl. “It is a woman though, the handwriting is too neat.”

“Yes but–” Patrick narrowed his eyes. “You’re really not mad. You don’t even think I picked a woman up at the grocery store.”

“The store you were at because I asked to you go and from which you came home from with a lifetime supply of pickles,” Robin said wryly.

He sat at the table and shook his head. “You went from not trusting me at all to having absolute faith in me,” he realized.

Robin pursed her lips. “I guess so. Once I realized that you had never given me a reason not to trust you and that it was only my own issues screwing that part up…it made it easier.” She reached for one of pickle jars and pried the top off. “So who did you run into at the store?”

“Ah…Cecily Hawthorne, a girl I grew up with back on Long Island. Her family has a house here and we all used to vacation here together, along with Parker Stewart’s family. We grew up on the same street together.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Did you have a chance to catch up?” Robin asked.

“Yeah, a little. She and Park got married, which isn’t entirely surprising since they never looked at anyone else but each other once we got to puberty and realized girls were different.” Patrick smirked. “Well, I already knew but it never occurred to me that Cece was a girl until Park got all moony over her.”

“You were ahead of your own time,” Robin said dryly. She changed her mind about the pickles and reached for one of the peanut butter jars.

“Anyway, she wants to meet you. So she gave me her number so that we could get together before we head back to Port Charles. Is that okay with you?”

“Sure,” Robin agreed. “A chance to meet someone who knew you before you were the charming idiot you are now?” She tapped her chin. “I wonder how many humiliating stories she’ll share.”

“Oh, she won’t be able to hold herself back,” Patrick replied, with an exaggerated sigh. “She’ll think it’s her duty as my friend to let you in all the most embarrassing moments of my first eighteen years.”

“Well, of course it is.” She dipped a piece of chocolate into the peanut butter and then tossed it in her mouth. “My luck is that the only people who could tell you about my embarrassing moments…” she hesitated. “Well, Stone and AJ are gone and Jason doesn’t remember them. Brenda has too much loyalty and Lois lives in New York. Also, Sonny doesn’t like you.” The slight melancholy after mentioning Stone passed and she reached for more chocolate.

“I’ll drag them out of Brenda,” Patrick decided. “Now…for my reward for being such a good husband…”

August 4, 2006

Vineyard: Parker and Cecily Stewart’s House

Robin tugged at her shirt. “I’m fat,” she mumbled. “I don’t think I’m in any position to be meeting new people.” She turned and started off the porch but Patrick grabbed her elbow and directed her back.

“Not so fast, Sunshine.”

Before Robin could make another attempt, the door swung open and a bubbly vivacious blonde flew out to wrap Patrick in a bear hug. “I couldn’t wait any longer for you to open the door.”

She drew back and fixed a bright smile on Robin. “I’m Cecily Stewart, but you can call me Cece.” She ignored Robin’s offered hand and hugged her. “I hope you don’t mind, but I figure any woman brave enough to take Pat here on is a friend of mine.”

Robin laughed and patted Cecily’s back before drawing back. “They’re thinking about erecting a statue of me in the locker room.”

Cecily eyed Robin’s ring and recognized it, throwing Patrick another grin. “Well, if that isn’t the most gorgeous rock–let me congratulate you because according to Pat, y’all are newlyweds.”

Robin opened her mouth to respond but Cecily barreled right over and took Robin’s hand. “Listen to me, where are my manners? Come in, come in!”

Once she had the duo in the foyer, Cecily gave Patrick a nudge toward the back of the house. “Park’s out in the backyard, fiddling with the grill. Why don’t you go pretend you know what you’re doing and let me hassle your new wife for a while?”

Patrick laughed and kissed Robin’s cheek before disappearing out onto the patio. Feeling slightly overwhelmed, Robin trailed behind Cecily as the blonde moved towards the kitchen and resumed cutting up fruit that sat out on the counter. “I’m sorry if I seem a little–”

“No, it’s okay,” Robin cut in. “Now I know how Patrick felt when my best friend Brenda was planning the wedding.” She leaned against the counter and laughed at the memory. “She’s somewhat–” she paused, searching for the best term. “Detail oriented,” she settled for. “She had folders and folders of things she wanted him to make decisions about and he really could have cared less.”

Cecily snorted. “Sounds like our junior prom. I don’t know about your high school, but where I come from, you start planning in January. The dresses, the limo–we did practice runs and booked our rooms at the shore early. Patrick, of course, didn’t realize he’d have to secure a date in January in order to pay for the limo, so he just paid for it by himself. And then when he finally started to look for a date, all the most popular ones had given up on him and he kind of had to think outside the box.” Cecily smiled at the memory. “So he picked the shyest freshman girl he could find, gave her a dozen roses and asked her. It was really very sweet of him, even if it was because he was a slacker.”

“Well, he can certainly be sweet–when he wants to be,” Robin said dryly. She smiled. “It’s nice hearing stories from before–” she shrugged and looked away.

“Before Mattie died,” Cecily nodded. She turned and fixed a sad smile on the other woman. “You would have thought the sun rose and set by her the way Patrick idolized her. Some guys go through a phase where they can’t stand their parents, they want to be away from them but–” she shook her head. “Pat wasn’t like that. Mattie and Noah were fabulous and they were like second parents to Park and me, especially after mine divorced.” She shrugged. “He smiled a lot back then–I mean, he still smiles now I guess but that first summer, after she died…”

She cleared her throat. “Noah closed this house up that same summer–she died right before we graduated from high school and I guess we all thought they’d come up for the summer like always but instead, Noah came up early without Patrick, got roaring drunk and burned all the pictures of Mattie that were in the house.” Cecily sighed. “Patrick showed up about a week later to find the house trashed, Noah drunk out of his mind and all the pictures of his mother gone. They had an awful fight and Patrick stormed out. That was the last time anyone saw him until yesterday, in the grocery store.” She moved forward and caught Robin’s hands in hers. “Thank you for bringing him back to me, to my husband. And thank you for giving him that smile–the one where his eyes lit up when he told me you were due in January.”

Robin flushed and pressed a hand to her abdomen. “It’s been a bumpy road,” she admitted. “But I think we’re going some place really wonderful. He’s going to be a wonderful father, I just know it.”

“How are things with his dad?” Cecily asked softly. “Did they ever patch it up?”

Robin laughed, a little shakily. “Noah was part of the bumpy road. I met him first, actually. In a bar in New York. He was one of the only neurosurgeons that could have performed a procedure on a friend of mine. But when Noah couldn’t do it–he was still drinking then–he recommended Patrick.” She briefly filled Cecily in on the events of Noah’s illness and the transplant–to which Cecily rolled her eyes and muttered something about stubborn idiots under her breath.

The sliding door to the patio opened and Patrick poked his head in. “Park wants to know if you intend on bringing the rest of the food today or sometime before we pass out from starvation.”

“Here,” Cecily thrust a plate of food at Robin. “Come meet my other half.”

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