Believe

Title: Believe
Author: Steph aka LicksHisLips
Rating: PG
Pairing: Robin/Patrick
Category: Drama/Romance
Disclaimer: I do this out of a love for the show. No infringement is intended.
Spoilers: Nope.
Summary: Continuation of NS episode 3. Patrick shares with Robin why he believes not every man is cut out to be a father, including himself.

Note: This was written after episode 3 and before episode 4 aired. I’m hoping episode 4 was a step in the right direction for Robin and Patrick. I’m all for Scrubs being angsty, as long as it’s done in a believable, logical way with them. I don’t think any of us are asking for everything to be solved and tied up in a nice, neat ribbon in one episode. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask for an honest conversation about their true feelings about being parents. Anyway, I wanted to dig a little deeper into Patrick’s thoughts about being a father. We don’t know much about his mother, so I thought it would be interesting to add a little backstory for her, which touches upon this issue of parenthood. So, hope you enjoy it and please let me know what you thought. ~Steph




--- Believe: Part 1/1 ---



Patrick stood in his apartment, gazing out the window. This had always been his mother’s favorite part of the day. She would actually set her alarm so that she could see the sun rise into the sky. Every morning, she sat on a balcony outside her bedroom, drank a cup of coffee, and watched as a new day began. Noah and Patrick had always thought she was insane. They could barely drag themselves out of bed at the incessant blaring of their alarm clocks.

As Robin entered the living room, she spotted Patrick standing by the window. She slowly approached him, taking her spot by his side. Her eyes scanned his face for a long moment. She had learned to read his moods over the course of their relationship. She knew when he wanted her to prod him, ask him what was wrong. She knew when he wanted to be left alone. She knew when all he needed was to hold her in his arms. And she knew when he just needed her to listen.

His eyes remained focused on the sky as he finally spoke. “Did I ever tell you how my parents met?” Robin shook her head, as he went on. “My father was consulting on this baby who came into the ER. The kid wasn’t even a year old yet. He had lost consciousness and his parents had rushed him to the hospital. They said that he had fallen and hit his head on the coffee table earlier in the day while he was trying to walk, but they had put ice on it and he had seemed fine. When my father examined him, he determined that he had suffered a concussion. But when he inspected the blow to his head, he believed that it was consistent with blunt head trauma delivered with significant force. He suspected abuse and notified the police. My mother was a social worker for DCF and she was assigned the case. That’s how they met.”

Patrick turned away from the window and moved to the couch, taking a seat on the edge. Robin followed a moment later and sat down beside him. “My mother worked for DCF for over twenty years. She encountered horror story after horror story. She used to say that there are licenses to drive, get married, tend bar, style hair, go hunting and fishing in certain areas. But the most important job, the most important thing someone could ever do, the hardest thing in the world…and there’s nothing. Anyone can be a parent. There’s no training or license required. You don’t have to take a course or pass a test. She saw how neglected and abused some children were and it broke her heart.”

“That’s a very difficult job to do,” Robin said.

Patrick nodded. “Yes, it is. She told me that when she first started working for DCF, she had this idealistic notion that she was going to help every child, save so many lives. And she helped a lot of kids and I’m sure she saved some lives along the way, but for every kid she got out of a bad situation, there were ten more that ended up right back where they started. That little boy that my father treated and whose case my mother worked on, went into foster care for three days after being released from the hospital. But the police said they couldn’t prove that his injuries were inflicted intentionally and the law had my mother’s hands tied. She had to send him back to his parents.” Patrick sighed, as tears filled his eyes. “A week after being returned to his parents, an ambulance brought him back to the hospital and my father treated him again. This time his skull had been crushed and his face was barely recognizable. My father tried to operate on him, but he was a lost cause from the start. He said that having to tell my mother when she arrived was one of the hardest things he ever had to do because he saw in her eyes how much she cared.” Patrick slowly released a breath. “But out of that tragedy came something good because that was really the beginning for them. My father asked my mother if she wanted to go for a cup of coffee and talk and she agreed. They stayed up all night just talking and the rest is history.”

Robin reached out and took Patrick’s hands in hers. “Your father and mother did everything they could to help that little boy.”

“His parents served a couple of years in prison,” Patrick said, shaking his head. “They stole their own son’s chance at life and all they lost was a few years of their pathetic ones. I just…I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you can have a child and end up hurting it so badly. Or end up hating that child so much that you’re actually happy that he may have sustained a serious brain injury.”

Robin sighed heavily. “Patrick, you know better than anyone how complicated parental relationships can be. My guess is that Jared’s father was scared out of his mind that he might not get a second chance with his son and it was easier to lash out than face that fear.”

Patrick met her eyes. “Or maybe he had no right to be a father in the first place, Robin.”

Robin’s eyes narrowed at him. “This isn’t really about Jared and his father, is it? This is about you, about us.”

Patrick slipped his hands out from beneath hers and rubbed one across his tired eyes.

“Let’s not do this right now,” he whispered.

“I think we have to,” she replied.



Patrick sighed heavily, as he lowered his gaze to his lap. “I know you want to have kids someday. I know you want to be a mother. I’ve seen the way your whole face lights up when you’re near a baby. I heard the excitement, the hope, in your voice when you told me about Stacey.”

A lump formed in Robin’s throat, as she nodded. “You’re right, I do want to be a mother someday.”

“And I want that for you. I know how happy that would make you,” he responded, raising his eyes up to meet hers. “Robin, I know you would be an incredible mother and that any child would be lucky to have you.”

“But,” Robin prompted after a moment of silence.

Patrick stared at her for a long moment, as he licked at his dry lips. “But I just don’t think I’m cut out to be a father. A father has to put his child first. I’m completely self-absorbed.”

Robin shook her head. “That’s not true. A completely self-absorbed person wouldn’t have risked his life and career to save his father. Or to save an HIV positive patient. Or to save me while I lay dying in that hotel lobby.”

Patrick shook his head, dropping his eyes. “So, I’ve had my moments. They’re isolated, Robin. They’re do or die. You know I thrive on that kind of pressure. I like to be the hero, whether it’s in the operating room or elsewhere. It’s all about my ego.”

Robin brought her hand up to his cheek, forcing his gaze back to hers. “You weren’t thinking about your ego when you saved your father. You were scared to death that you wouldn’t get a second chance with him and you wanted to do anything you could to help him. You weren’t thinking about your ego when you made the split-second decision to save April’s life. And you certainly weren’t thinking about your ego when you rushed that building and pleaded with Craig to let you help me, even offering to take my place. You did those things because you are a good, caring human being who has more love to give than he even realizes.

Patrick offered her a tender smile. “You always see the good in me.”

“It’s not hard to see,” she replied softly. She then added with a grim, “Well, at least not anymore.” She paused and then went on, as her grin faded. “When your father, April, and I needed you, Patrick, you were right there, doing everything in your power to help us. That was selfless and that’s what it takes to be a good father.”

Patrick shook his head back and forth. “What you say might be true, Robin, but it doesn’t mean that I have what it takes to be selfless on a daily basis. To make constant sacrifices for a child, to put that child ahead of everything else. That’s what it takes to be a good father and no child deserves any less.” Patrick felt his throat go dry and his voice suddenly became husky. “You are going to be an amazing mother and you deserve to have someone who is going to be a real partner with you. Who is going to share in the responsibilities equally. Robin, anyone can be a great parent when it’s easy. When the kid listens to you, gives you a hug for no reason, curls up on your lap and falls asleep. But what about the day-to-day stuff? When they don’t listen to a word you say, when they’re making you pull your hair out, and they can no longer melt your heart with their cuteness. Then what? What do you do then?”

“You love them,” Robin said simply. “And you wait for the next unexpected moment of joy that makes you remember why it’s all worth it.”

Patrick took a deep breath, as he looked into her eyes. “But sometimes it doesn’t matter what you do. In the end, things can still go wrong. I had a great relationship with my father growing up. If you had told me then that we’d end up like we did, I would have laughed. Robin, sometimes all it takes is one life-changing event to make everything crumble. My family didn’t work without my mother. My father didn’t know how to function and, when I needed him the most, he wasn’t there. It was the worst time in my life and my father abandoned me.”

“He was too consumed by his own guilt and grief, Patrick.”

“Exactly,” he replied. “He stopped being a father and became a man who had lost the love of his life. It didn’t matter that he had a son who needed him. He could only focus on himself. His loss. His pain.”

Robin watched as tears welled up in Patrick’s eyes and, for the first time, she understood what this was really all about.

She felt her chest tighten at she looked at him and suddenly found herself blinking back her own tears. “You’re afraid that will be you someday,” she whispered, as Patrick’s gaze focused on her. “I have HIV and, while I’m fine now, there’s no telling what the future holds. You’re scared that if we have a child together, that one day you’ll have to raise him or her on your own. And you’re afraid that no matter what kind of father you’ve been, what kind of relationship you have with our child, that it will all come crashing down. You’re terrified that if that day ever comes you’ll fail our child the way your father failed you.”

Patrick stared at her for a moment that seemed to drag on, then replied, “There’s not a doubt in my mind that if that day ever came, I would follow right in my father’s footsteps.”

Robin tilted her head. “But why, Patrick? We’ve been over this. You’re not your father.”

Patrick swiped at a tear in the corner of his eye with his thumb. “Because when I was standing outside that hotel thinking I might never see you alive again, I understood my father for the first time. I understood how he was so consumed by the loss of my mother that he drowned himself in alcohol. Robin, I knew in that moment that if I ever lost you, the same thing would happen to me. And it really hit me for the first time that with this disease inside of you how real that possibility is. Now, if it had happened that night, I would have only had myself to worry about. But in the future, with kids to consider, kids who would be grieving for their own mother, who I would be solely responsible for….losing myself in my own grief would mean failing them. It wouldn’t matter how wonderful a father I had been up to that point. It wouldn’t matter how great my relationship with our kids had been. I would fail them and they would end up resenting me. I would alienate the only pieces of you that I had left: our children.” Patrick swallowed roughly, as he looked at her with tears shining in his eyes. “But the worst part would be knowing that I failed you. That you trusted me to take care of our children, to be there for them, and I let you down. I wouldn’t be able to live with that. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

Patrick lowered his eyes, as Robin took his hands in hers again.

“Look at me, please,” she said. Slowly, he lifted his eyes back to hers. Robin took a deep breath before going on. “I can’t predict what the future holds. I can’t promise you that I won’t be forced to leave you one day. But what I can promise you is that living the present being afraid of a hypothetical future isn’t really living at all. Patrick, we wasted a long time letting our fears rule us. I don’t want to do that again. The biggest tragedy I can imagine would be letting our fears, the unknown, the uncontrollable, stop us from creating a wonderful life together.”

“Robin,” Patrick whispered, shaking his head.

“I’m not done,” she said. “I want to be a mother someday and I could do it on my own. I know it would be hard, but I could do it. The problem is every time I imagine having a child now, I see you. I see you holding our baby and rocking it to sleep. I see you playing racecars with him or her. I see you teaching our child to ride a bike and throw a curve ball. Patrick, before you, whenever I imagined having a child, I couldn’t get very far. My own fears and worries would take a hold of me and I could never get a clear picture. But, now, when I think about it, I see you. And I see our child with that killer dimpled smile of yours.”

Patrick laughed lightly and then squeezed Robin’s hands in his, as he whispered, “Do you really believe I can do it? I mean, no matter what happens, do you really believe I can be the father our children deserve?”

Robin nodded, as she wrapped her arms around his neck and met his eyes, “Yes, I do because I believe in you. I believe in you when you don’t believe in yourself. That’s what love is all about, Patrick.”

He smiled and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her temple. He then pulled her close to him and shut his eyes. He only hoped that one day soon he would believe in himself the way she did.

--------------------------THE END---------------------------
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it and please let me know what you thought.
-Steph