GH Fic: Chaos Theory - Chapter 17/?
Title: Chaos Theory
Author: Normative Jean
Fandom: General Hospital
Characters/Pairings: Robin, Patrick, Lulu, Sam, Anna, Robert, Mac, Faison, original characters; main pairing is Robin/Patrick, with Lulu/OC and Sam/OC later
Rating: PG-13 (for language, situations, and thematic elements)
Timeline: begins March '06, after the bet debacle. AU after that.
Summary: The epidemic was just a experiment, and it was deemed a failure; its mastermind is now targeting the only doctor he believes can make the experiment a success: Robin Scorpio. Robin finds herself trapped in the middle of an international mystery, on the run from an old family enemy she believed long dead. Patrick Drake is determined not to let anything mess up his chances at happiness with Robin, even if it means going along for the ride. Along with old friends and unexpected allies, can they keep Robin safe and stop a plot to take over the world?
Author's Notes: I tried to follow the information about HIV drug regimens, particularly the Highly Active Antiretroviral Treatment (HAART), as accurately as I could. I used HAART as a basis for Robin's protocol based on the belief that, after the encephalitis outbreak, it would have been nearly impossible for there to have not been some lasting effects on Robin's immune system. Or I could have fanwanked the whole thing, and Robin's immune system magically went back to normal, since on GH, the only thing HIV affects is your sex life and not, you know, your ability to draw breath. This chapter's public service announcement has been brought to you by the words "Bob" and "Guza," and by the letters "F" and "U."
Chapter 17 - Lessons
If there was one thing in life Robin had learned to count on, it was that she could always trust a Spencer to break the ice.
"So..." Lulu said, cutting through the painfully awkward silence near the ticket counter in Port Charles International Airport. "You're not so much Sam McCall as you are Samantha Cassadine?"
Sam looked nervously at the group before her; only Robin seemed anywhere close to understanding what was happening. "Um, I guess so. But only technically."
"And you're Nikolas's sister," Lulu continued.
Sam nodded.
"You're his sister through his psychotic father, not our mother, so you're not actually my sister."
"Yeah. Look, could you not say that so loudly?" Sam asked. "I kinda agree with Robin on this; the less people who know, the better."
Lulu nodded. "Right. And you found all this out because you thought you were my brother's aunt's daughter?"
Robin cut into the conversation. "Lulu, I know this is the last thing anyone was expecting, but could we possibly wait until we're in the air to talk about this?"
"Fine," Lulu said, rolling her eyes. She turned to Bobby, who was glaring at Sam. "And what the heck is your problem?"
Bobby shrugged, never taking his eyes off Sam. "She's a Cassadine," he said simply. "Dad told me about them. Ow!"
Lulu glared at Bobby and pulled her hand back after hitting his arm. "My big brother is a Cassadine, and he's not like the rest of them, so maybe Sam isn't either."
"Could you not talk about me like I'm not here?" Sam frowned. "And could you also not assume that I'm going to turn all crazy and evil just because my last name changed?"
Robin pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. They weren't even out of the country yet; how the hell were they supposed to survive in London where they could only depend on each other? For the hundredth time that day, Robin questioned the sanity of their plan. "Could we please wait until we've cleared United States airspace?" she begged. "Please?"
Before any of them could respond, Patrick walked back from the ticket agent. "Here," he grumbled, thrusting a piece of paper into Sam's hands. "Another business class ticket."
"Thanks," Sam said, putting the boarding pass into her shoulder bag. "I really wish you'd let me pay for it."
"I told you in the car on the way over," Robin reminded her, "That Patrick's bank account is the one least likely to be watched right now. No offense, but you share an account with Jason, and the FBI, ATF, IRS, and probably even DARPA, are all watching every single penny moving in and out of his accounts. There's no way a plane ticket to London would go unnoticed, and right now we need to fly under the radar." She paused and thought about the situation. "Well, as much under the radar as the current circumstances will allow."
Patrick waved off Robin's comments. "Do you have any idea how much I had to flirt with that counter agent to get another seat in our row?" He shuddered. "That woman looked like my grandmother."
"Aw, poor baby," Robin giggled, running her hand along Patrick's forearm. "Being a man-whore really is the only thing you're good at besides surgery, isn't it?"
"So Patrick's contribution to our investigation is going to be, what?" Bobby scoffed. "Flirting with whichever female DVX agents we have to track down? Yeah, that'll be real helpful."
"Listen," Patrick growled, stepping towards Bobby.
Robin pulled Patrick back. "I'm begging," she pleaded. "Let's just get onto the plane. I promise you can try to commit homicide once we're in the air."
Bobby rolled his eyes and picked up his backpack. "Like he could take me."
"Go!" Robin seethed, pointing a stiff arm in the direction of their gate. "Just. Go."
They went. There would be plenty of time to think of a plan once they were on the plane.
***
"You're being a baby," Lulu said, rolling her eyes. "You don't even know her."
"She's a Cassadine," Bobby replied, slipping into his window seat. "That's enough for me."
Lulu dropped into the aisle seat next to him and shoved her laptop bag underneath the seat in front of her. She grinned as she stretched out her legs, enjoying the room that international business class provided. "How are you going to survive being in London with her?" she asked. "We'll only be able to trust each other."
"Look, it's not that I don't trust her," Bobby sighed. "It's just, all I know about Sam McCall is that she's actually a Cassadine, and your brother notwithstanding," he cut off Lulu's protest, "They aren't exactly known for being a cheerful, helpful bunch."
"Robin trusts her," Lulu said simply. "Shouldn't that be enough for you?" She rolled her eyes. "I mean, what with the way you've been mooning over her this entire time."
Bobby flushed. "I am not mooning over Robin!"
"Please," Lulu scoffed, opening her purse and removing a compact. "You are so obviously hung up on a woman who looks at you like a kid brother and who is totally hung up on the hot doctor over there," she said casually, motioning to her right where Patrick sat on the aisle seat across from her, chatting with Robin and Sam. Flipping open the compact and looking in the mirror as she touched up her lip gloss, she added, "Really, it's kind of pathetic."
"I am not mooning," he repeated sullenly. After a moment, Bobby looked at what Lulu was doing and frowned. "Are you fixing your makeup?"
"Yes," Lulu replied slowly. "Do you have yet another problem, Bobby?"
"No. I just...I mean..." He waved his hand in the air as he searched for the words he was looking for. "You're a Spencer!" he finally cried in exasperation. "I've heard stories, and primping and preening were never a part of them."
Lulu snapped her compact shut and turned her fiery gaze on Bobby. "Shut. Up," she hissed. "I get enough lame hero-worshipping crap from my step-brother at home, I do not need it from you, too. Not when we're traveling to Europe to save your parents and to stop a madman from trying to kidnap Robin." Her eyes burned as she stared Bobby down, anger bubbling up inside of her because once again, she had been reduced to being nothing more than her last name and the sum of her parents. "You said it yourself, you've only ever heard stories about my family, and you sure as hell don't know me! Don't you dare act like you have any right to comment on what I do or don't do." Again, very softly, she repeated, "You don't know me."
Bobby sat back in his seat, thunderstruck by her sudden change in demeanor. Awkwardly, he turned away from Lulu and settled back down into his seat, occasionally flicking his eyes back to look at her. She remained silent as well, seemingly content to flip through the airline's complimentary magazine. Bobby frowned and picked up his own magazine. Lulu was wrong and right; he wasn't mooning over Robin, and he really didn't know Lulu at all.
What bothered him was that that revelation bothered him at all.
***
"You need to explain that to me again."
Robin rolled her eyes and swatted Patrick on the arm, much to Sam's amusement; watching Robin and Patrick was like in-flight entertainment, and it was helping Sam deal with the sheer insanity that had become her life in the last four hours.
From the moment Robin had told her of the potential danger she was now in as a previously unknown member of the Cassadine family, Sam had felt like she was running on fumes. She had tried to get in touch with Jason, but he wasn't answering their apartment's phone, nor was he answering his cell phone. Sam had reached the point of contacting one of Jason's gatekeepers in the organization, but had been told -- with the sympathetic and respectful tone required when talking to the boss's fiancée -- that Jason was "unavailable," and would likely remain so for some time. She had hurried home and, per Robin's instructions, packed only what she could fit into a carry-on bag for an airplane.
Sam had watched as Jason became more distant and obsessed with Sonny and Emily, and taking over the business had only served to pull Jason's focus completely away from their life together. She couldn't quite explain why, but in the end she trusted Robin's concern that she was no longer safe in Port Charles, and had simply left Jason a message on his cell phone. Though Sam didn't understand why, going with Robin and the others felt like something she needed to do. Ditching her guards had proven easy enough, and during the cab ride to the airport her heart had begun fluttering. Truth be told, Sam had felt an unexpected rush at the idea of only taking what she could carry, and she realized that suddenly just up and leaving had felt a lot like freedom.
Of course, it all would been a lot easier to deal with if Robin wasn't currently regaling both Sam and Patrick with Port Charles History 101.
"I mean it," Patrick continued, his expression not entirely joking. "I know Luke mentioned it the other night, but I was certain he was exaggerating." His voice turned begging. "Please tell me he was exaggerating?"
"No," Robin replied, turning to look at Sam. "And this is just one of the many reasons why it's so dangerous for you to be a newly-discovered Cassadine. Your grandfather and his brothers literally tried to freeze the world. As in, they built a weather machine, and actually began using it in order to control all the planet's financial resources. They sent a blizzard to Port Charles in July."
Sam shook her head. "But you said that the ones who...that my grandfather," the word felt funny on her tongue, "That he was dead. That your father helped to kill him and his brothers, actually."
Robin nodded. "Yes, but that's just Mikkos and his generation. I haven't even gotten to Helena and Stavros."
"Stavros," Sam repeated. "My father."
"Most likely," Robin reminded her. "You and Nikolas are most likely half-siblings, and since you share a lot of protein markers in common with Alexis, I have to conclude that you and Nikolas are related through a common paternal family member." Robin leaned back in her seat and rubbed her hands over her face. "This couldn't have happened at a worse time."
"Why?" Patrick asked. "What do the Cassadines have to do with what's happening with Faison?"
"Maybe nothing," Robin answered, leaning back against her seat. "Faison has a rocky history with Helena at best, but they're also both mutual enemies of my family and the Spencers. It could go either way, but all I know for certain is that if we found out about Sam's paternity," she looked at the woman in question, "Then it's not unreasonable to assume that someone else will find that information out too." She sighed again. "The worst part is that we don't know anymore who the DVX agents were really after on the docks the other night."
Sam jolted upright. "What do you mean?"
Patrick sat up straighter as well, a frown covering his face. "Yeah, Robin, why would you suddenly think those guys weren't after you?"
Robin looked down at her lap. She hadn't told Patrick about Sam's words to her in the hospital, that at least one agent seemed to have known they weren't grabbing Robin Scorpio. She felt terrible about keeping her theory from him, but something had held her back from sharing all the information she had at her disposal. Idly, Robin wondered if it was because by holding something back, she thought she was preventing Patrick from completely entwining himself in her life. She sighed; there didn't really seem to be much of a point in trying to keep him out of it anymore. "Sam told me something in the hospital the other day." She looked over at the other woman and waved a hand in front of them. "Tell Patrick what you told me."
Sam looked uncertain, but leaned forward so she could see around Robin, who had taken the middle seat of the middle section of the plane. Sam knew Bobby was sitting as far away from her as possible because of his innate --and, in Sam's mind, completely unfounded -- mistrust of her because of her sudden family identity, but she was glad that Robin had sat down next to her without preamble; she didn't feel like a part of whatever the others had obviously known about for some time, and as things currently stood, Robin was the only one Sam felt she could completely trust.
But Robin had asked her to come with them, and had expressed serious concerns for her safety if she had remained in Port Charles. Sam shivered, thinking now that the attack on her may not have been as accidental as they had initially thought. But then why had only one person seemed to know she wasn't Robin?
"Sam," Robin prodded gently.
"Yeah." Sam shook her head and left her musings. "Those guys...those agents," she looked to Robin for confirmation that the men were indeed agents of some organization, "Grabbed me thinking I was Robin--"
"I knew that already," Patrick said, confused. "So what else--"
"One of them," Sam held up a hand to stave off Patrick's words, "Said some things that made me think he knew I wasn't Robin. That he knew they weren't grabbing Robin, but the others didn't seem to know. They were really surprised when Jason called me 'Sam,' actually, but that one guy, I think he was their leader or something, he made this big deal of overemphasizing the name, calling me 'Dr. Scorpio,' and finally said that things would have been a lot easier if I had just gone along with it."
Patrick was silent for a moment, before turning his steely gaze on Robin, who was avoiding his eyes. "Robin?" he said slowly, "Is there any particular reason you didn't mention that they may not have been going after you?"
"They were definitely going after her," Sam said, frowning at Patrick's tone with Robin. So far, she wasn't seeing a whole lot of difference between the egomaniac who had operated on Jason so many months ago and the man sitting near her now, and Sam still found herself terribly unimpressed. "As soon as Jason called my name, the one agent ordered a retreat. It was really weird, like he didn't want the others to know who I was." A thought suddenly occurred to Sam. "You know, this is going to sound really crazy--"
"Crazier than everything else?" Patrick snorted.
"--But after the guy drugged me," Sam shuddered at the memory, "I could have sworn that one of the shots that killed the other agent came from above me, where that guy had been standing." She looked at Robin, completely ignoring Patrick. "That's crazy, right?"
Robin bit her lower lip and shook her head slightly. "No, it...it actually fits with something I've been thinking." She looked up at Sam. "Ever since you told me that they might have known you weren't me, I've been trying to figure out how everything fits together. That guy is a wild card, and he just didn't fit into the equation."
"Like the Haunted Star explosion?" Patrick asked. "You and Bobby have been pretty adamant that that doesn't fit with the rest of the pattern, either." He pursed his lips as he tried to make sense of so many things that were still inherently nonsensical to him; conversations like this were making Patrick realize just how sheltered his childhood had been, and were reminding him to never judge Robin Scorpio at face value on anything ever again. "So was this guy going after Sam because she's a Cassadine?"
"No, I doubt it. I think we may be the first ones to know who Sam's father is, but the trail was already left that you and Jason followed to Alexis," she said to Sam, "And it's just a matter of time now before someone else follows it, and reaches the same conclusions we did. I really think that Sam was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that someone inside the DVX knew that a woman who looked like me was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"The fog," Sam murmured, eyes wide. "It was so foggy that night, I could barely see two feet in front of me."
Robin nodded in agreement. "The perfect cover for a ground ops team to mistake you for me, especially if the only person who knew you weren't me covered his tracks."
"Wait," Patrick interrupted. "That doesn't make sense -- well, it makes even less sense than everything else. Why would he shoot his own man?"
Robin looked at him, then back at Sam. "I can only think of one possible explanation, assuming that everything we know so far is true." She took a deep breath, and laid out her theory. "There's a double-agent inside the DVX."
***
The beeping from next to him jolted Patrick back to reality.
The dinner service had been cleared away about fifteen minutes ago, and they had all settled into a contemplative, if not entirely comfortable, silence. Looking over Robin, Patrick saw that Sam had curled up in her seat and dozed off; to his left, Bobby and Lulu had hooked up their computers and were fully engrossed by whatever was on their screens, enjoying the power jacks and internet connections of business class. Patrick groaned at the thought of what the bill for that would look like.
He looked over at Robin, who was digging through her carry-on bag and studiously avoiding his gaze. When Robin finally pulled out a large, flat pill box, Patrick immediately registered that the beeping must have been Robin's alarm for her medication schedule. He swallowed at the visible reminder that Robin's life was always in danger; she was only safe so long as her drug protocol continued working. He needed to say something.
"Hey," He said softly, stretching his legs out.
Robin jerked up in her seat, almost dropping her pill box. "Hey," she returned, looking briefly at him and then down at her medicine. "I thought you were asleep like Sam."
"Your alarm woke me."
"Oh." Robin nodded. "Um...I can go to the restroom to do this, I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable."
"Robin," Patrick said, resting a hand against her arm. "It's fine. Really."
Robin nodded again. "It feels weird to be taking them right now, but I guess I'll have to adjust the schedule based on the time zone change now that we're going to be later in the day than in Port Charles--"
"Robin," Patrick interrupted. "You're babbling."
"Right," she said. Looking at the pill box in her hands, Robin smiled ruefully. "I, ah...I guess it's a good thing that the dinner service coincided with when I usually eat lunch back home."
Patrick looked at his watch; dinner on the plane had been to adjust them to the seven o'clock PM London time, which was somewhere around two o'clock PM in Port Charles. "So," he asked cautiously, "Most of your meds need to be taken with food?"
"Mm-hm." Robin continued to avoid eye contact with Patrick, instead staring at the now-open pill box and bottle of water she had placed on her tray. She suddenly felt naked with him watching her take her medication; it was one thing for Patrick to tell her he was okay with her being HIV-positive, but to actually see the proof and the measures she had to take each day was something entirely different. It had been a long time since anyone who wasn't family had seen her take her meds, and Robin wasn't entirely sure how having Patrick there with her made her feel.
Patrick noticed her discomfort, and although he didn't want this part of her life to be hidden from him, he understood how this might make Robin feel too exposed. On top of everything else that was happening, Patrick thought he could at least make her feel comfortable in her own skin. "If you don't want to take them with me here, I can get up and walk around the cabin. Or you can get up and use the restroom, if you don't want to do it out here, or I can just sit here and read--"
"Patrick," Robin smiled gently, finally looking at him, "You're babbling."
And somehow, without Robin realizing it, something shifted, and Patrick being there didn't seem so awkward anymore.
He felt it too. "How much of your medication did you bring?" he asked.
"My pill cases divide up my meds for each day, over the course of a week. I brought three cases, but they were still a lot easier to pack in my bag than all the individual bottles would have been."
"Will three weeks be enough?" Patrick wondered, watching as she took out one of the pills.
Robin swallowed the first pill before answering. "Patrick, if we're gone for more than three weeks, then we'll have bigger problems than me running out of meds." She saw the curious look on his face, and knew he would never ask the question, that he needed her to be the one to let him into this part of her world. "Combivir," she said. "It's one of the new fixed-doses. It's my AZT and 3TC."
Patrick nodded. "And your other antiretrovirals?"
Robin fished for a moment before finding the next pill. After she swallowed, she said, "Truvada. The fixed-doses really made my life a lot easier. It's my tenofovir and emtricitabine, and this one is just once a day."
Patrick smiled at her. "Yeah, I can see how the combo pills make it easier for you to run around the hospital all day."
"Well, if a certain neurosurgeon would just accept that I'm usually right about a case, instead of arguing with me over each patient for hours at a time, I might not be running everywhere," Robin teased, before swallowing a third pill. "Aptivus," she said, reaching for a fourth pill. "Two twice a day."
"Which is the one you have to take with that?"
Robin blinked in surprise. "I didn't know you were so well versed in HIV cocktails."
Patrick rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Don't take this the wrong way," he warned, "But after I found out you were HIV-positive, I started doing research on the different treatment regimens. I guess...I guess I just wanted to know, just in case."
"In case..." Robin prodded gently.
"In case I ever followed you halfway around the world on some crazy spy adventure, and I needed to know which drugs you took," Patrick replied softly, a teasing glint in his eyes.
Robin blushed slightly and rolled her eyes, but couldn't contain the swell of emotion at the thought that Patrick had been trying to get information about this part of her life for so many months. "Yeah, well," she grinned and sucked her head. Digging out another two pills, she looked back up at Patrick. "You're thinking of the Norvir," she told him. "It's the synergistic enhancer that has to be prescribed with Aptivus." She swallowed the pills.
"Do you take any other enhancers?" Patrick asked, noticing the final pill in the section of the case Robin had otherwise emptied out.
"Leflunomide," she nodded, swallowing the last pill. "It helps the AZT."
"Good, because I'd hate to think you were suffering from arthritis on top of everything else."
Robin rolled her eyes again and closed up her pill case, putting it and the bottle of water back into her bag under the seat. She sat back and looked down at her lap, the silence suddenly awkward again. She didn't know what to say to someone who had just watched something so incredibly intimate to her who didn't already love her unconditionally. Robin opened her mouth to say something, anything, to fill the void, when she felt Patrick's fingers graze underneath her chin, turning her to face him. Patrick leaned over and brushed his lips against hers, effectively cutting off whatever she had been about to say. Robin closed her eyes and allowed herself to enjoy the moment he had created, where the rest of the plane disappeared, and all she knew was kissing that man.
Huh, Robin thought distantly. The awkwardness went away again.
Pulling back, Patrick looked down at her and stroked the side of Robin's face. "This doesn't scare me, Robin. Whatever else comes up between us, this is the one thing that will never scare me."
Robin smiled and leaned over, resting her head on his chest. "So does that mean that my crazy family, the international espionage, the world domination plots, and the surprise paternity are finally getting to you?" she asked lightly.
Patrick chuckled, and Robin felt the rumble in his chest deep in her belly. "To be honest, I think your parents scare me more than anything else about all this."
"Yeah, they have that effect on people."
After a moment of comfortable silence, Patrick spoke up again. "So, Spy Girl. What do we do once we land?"
Robin buried her face into his chest, groaning aloud at the thought of what happens next. "I'm pretty sure that Bobby and I will be on the same page as far as how to travel without being noticed."
"And you have a way to do that?" Patrick asked, raising an eyebrow.
Robin nodded against him, content for the time being to stay where she was. "Do you trust me?" she asked softly, looking up.
"Yeah," Patrick replied without hesitation.
"Then trust me about the next step."
Patrick nodded, then leaned down to kiss Robin again. "Just promise me one thing."
"Hm?"
A devilish smirk crossed Patrick's face. "Promise me that at some point, we'll be able to find some time alone together."
Robin laughed out loud, and for that moment she was just a woman on a flight to London with her boyfriend. For just a moment, nothing else mattered.
Author: Normative Jean
Fandom: General Hospital
Characters/Pairings: Robin, Patrick, Lulu, Sam, Anna, Robert, Mac, Faison, original characters; main pairing is Robin/Patrick, with Lulu/OC and Sam/OC later
Rating: PG-13 (for language, situations, and thematic elements)
Timeline: begins March '06, after the bet debacle. AU after that.
Summary: The epidemic was just a experiment, and it was deemed a failure; its mastermind is now targeting the only doctor he believes can make the experiment a success: Robin Scorpio. Robin finds herself trapped in the middle of an international mystery, on the run from an old family enemy she believed long dead. Patrick Drake is determined not to let anything mess up his chances at happiness with Robin, even if it means going along for the ride. Along with old friends and unexpected allies, can they keep Robin safe and stop a plot to take over the world?
Author's Notes: I tried to follow the information about HIV drug regimens, particularly the Highly Active Antiretroviral Treatment (HAART), as accurately as I could. I used HAART as a basis for Robin's protocol based on the belief that, after the encephalitis outbreak, it would have been nearly impossible for there to have not been some lasting effects on Robin's immune system. Or I could have fanwanked the whole thing, and Robin's immune system magically went back to normal, since on GH, the only thing HIV affects is your sex life and not, you know, your ability to draw breath. This chapter's public service announcement has been brought to you by the words "Bob" and "Guza," and by the letters "F" and "U."
Chapter 17 - Lessons
If there was one thing in life Robin had learned to count on, it was that she could always trust a Spencer to break the ice.
"So..." Lulu said, cutting through the painfully awkward silence near the ticket counter in Port Charles International Airport. "You're not so much Sam McCall as you are Samantha Cassadine?"
Sam looked nervously at the group before her; only Robin seemed anywhere close to understanding what was happening. "Um, I guess so. But only technically."
"And you're Nikolas's sister," Lulu continued.
Sam nodded.
"You're his sister through his psychotic father, not our mother, so you're not actually my sister."
"Yeah. Look, could you not say that so loudly?" Sam asked. "I kinda agree with Robin on this; the less people who know, the better."
Lulu nodded. "Right. And you found all this out because you thought you were my brother's aunt's daughter?"
Robin cut into the conversation. "Lulu, I know this is the last thing anyone was expecting, but could we possibly wait until we're in the air to talk about this?"
"Fine," Lulu said, rolling her eyes. She turned to Bobby, who was glaring at Sam. "And what the heck is your problem?"
Bobby shrugged, never taking his eyes off Sam. "She's a Cassadine," he said simply. "Dad told me about them. Ow!"
Lulu glared at Bobby and pulled her hand back after hitting his arm. "My big brother is a Cassadine, and he's not like the rest of them, so maybe Sam isn't either."
"Could you not talk about me like I'm not here?" Sam frowned. "And could you also not assume that I'm going to turn all crazy and evil just because my last name changed?"
Robin pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. They weren't even out of the country yet; how the hell were they supposed to survive in London where they could only depend on each other? For the hundredth time that day, Robin questioned the sanity of their plan. "Could we please wait until we've cleared United States airspace?" she begged. "Please?"
Before any of them could respond, Patrick walked back from the ticket agent. "Here," he grumbled, thrusting a piece of paper into Sam's hands. "Another business class ticket."
"Thanks," Sam said, putting the boarding pass into her shoulder bag. "I really wish you'd let me pay for it."
"I told you in the car on the way over," Robin reminded her, "That Patrick's bank account is the one least likely to be watched right now. No offense, but you share an account with Jason, and the FBI, ATF, IRS, and probably even DARPA, are all watching every single penny moving in and out of his accounts. There's no way a plane ticket to London would go unnoticed, and right now we need to fly under the radar." She paused and thought about the situation. "Well, as much under the radar as the current circumstances will allow."
Patrick waved off Robin's comments. "Do you have any idea how much I had to flirt with that counter agent to get another seat in our row?" He shuddered. "That woman looked like my grandmother."
"Aw, poor baby," Robin giggled, running her hand along Patrick's forearm. "Being a man-whore really is the only thing you're good at besides surgery, isn't it?"
"So Patrick's contribution to our investigation is going to be, what?" Bobby scoffed. "Flirting with whichever female DVX agents we have to track down? Yeah, that'll be real helpful."
"Listen," Patrick growled, stepping towards Bobby.
Robin pulled Patrick back. "I'm begging," she pleaded. "Let's just get onto the plane. I promise you can try to commit homicide once we're in the air."
Bobby rolled his eyes and picked up his backpack. "Like he could take me."
"Go!" Robin seethed, pointing a stiff arm in the direction of their gate. "Just. Go."
They went. There would be plenty of time to think of a plan once they were on the plane.
***
"You're being a baby," Lulu said, rolling her eyes. "You don't even know her."
"She's a Cassadine," Bobby replied, slipping into his window seat. "That's enough for me."
Lulu dropped into the aisle seat next to him and shoved her laptop bag underneath the seat in front of her. She grinned as she stretched out her legs, enjoying the room that international business class provided. "How are you going to survive being in London with her?" she asked. "We'll only be able to trust each other."
"Look, it's not that I don't trust her," Bobby sighed. "It's just, all I know about Sam McCall is that she's actually a Cassadine, and your brother notwithstanding," he cut off Lulu's protest, "They aren't exactly known for being a cheerful, helpful bunch."
"Robin trusts her," Lulu said simply. "Shouldn't that be enough for you?" She rolled her eyes. "I mean, what with the way you've been mooning over her this entire time."
Bobby flushed. "I am not mooning over Robin!"
"Please," Lulu scoffed, opening her purse and removing a compact. "You are so obviously hung up on a woman who looks at you like a kid brother and who is totally hung up on the hot doctor over there," she said casually, motioning to her right where Patrick sat on the aisle seat across from her, chatting with Robin and Sam. Flipping open the compact and looking in the mirror as she touched up her lip gloss, she added, "Really, it's kind of pathetic."
"I am not mooning," he repeated sullenly. After a moment, Bobby looked at what Lulu was doing and frowned. "Are you fixing your makeup?"
"Yes," Lulu replied slowly. "Do you have yet another problem, Bobby?"
"No. I just...I mean..." He waved his hand in the air as he searched for the words he was looking for. "You're a Spencer!" he finally cried in exasperation. "I've heard stories, and primping and preening were never a part of them."
Lulu snapped her compact shut and turned her fiery gaze on Bobby. "Shut. Up," she hissed. "I get enough lame hero-worshipping crap from my step-brother at home, I do not need it from you, too. Not when we're traveling to Europe to save your parents and to stop a madman from trying to kidnap Robin." Her eyes burned as she stared Bobby down, anger bubbling up inside of her because once again, she had been reduced to being nothing more than her last name and the sum of her parents. "You said it yourself, you've only ever heard stories about my family, and you sure as hell don't know me! Don't you dare act like you have any right to comment on what I do or don't do." Again, very softly, she repeated, "You don't know me."
Bobby sat back in his seat, thunderstruck by her sudden change in demeanor. Awkwardly, he turned away from Lulu and settled back down into his seat, occasionally flicking his eyes back to look at her. She remained silent as well, seemingly content to flip through the airline's complimentary magazine. Bobby frowned and picked up his own magazine. Lulu was wrong and right; he wasn't mooning over Robin, and he really didn't know Lulu at all.
What bothered him was that that revelation bothered him at all.
***
"You need to explain that to me again."
Robin rolled her eyes and swatted Patrick on the arm, much to Sam's amusement; watching Robin and Patrick was like in-flight entertainment, and it was helping Sam deal with the sheer insanity that had become her life in the last four hours.
From the moment Robin had told her of the potential danger she was now in as a previously unknown member of the Cassadine family, Sam had felt like she was running on fumes. She had tried to get in touch with Jason, but he wasn't answering their apartment's phone, nor was he answering his cell phone. Sam had reached the point of contacting one of Jason's gatekeepers in the organization, but had been told -- with the sympathetic and respectful tone required when talking to the boss's fiancée -- that Jason was "unavailable," and would likely remain so for some time. She had hurried home and, per Robin's instructions, packed only what she could fit into a carry-on bag for an airplane.
Sam had watched as Jason became more distant and obsessed with Sonny and Emily, and taking over the business had only served to pull Jason's focus completely away from their life together. She couldn't quite explain why, but in the end she trusted Robin's concern that she was no longer safe in Port Charles, and had simply left Jason a message on his cell phone. Though Sam didn't understand why, going with Robin and the others felt like something she needed to do. Ditching her guards had proven easy enough, and during the cab ride to the airport her heart had begun fluttering. Truth be told, Sam had felt an unexpected rush at the idea of only taking what she could carry, and she realized that suddenly just up and leaving had felt a lot like freedom.
Of course, it all would been a lot easier to deal with if Robin wasn't currently regaling both Sam and Patrick with Port Charles History 101.
"I mean it," Patrick continued, his expression not entirely joking. "I know Luke mentioned it the other night, but I was certain he was exaggerating." His voice turned begging. "Please tell me he was exaggerating?"
"No," Robin replied, turning to look at Sam. "And this is just one of the many reasons why it's so dangerous for you to be a newly-discovered Cassadine. Your grandfather and his brothers literally tried to freeze the world. As in, they built a weather machine, and actually began using it in order to control all the planet's financial resources. They sent a blizzard to Port Charles in July."
Sam shook her head. "But you said that the ones who...that my grandfather," the word felt funny on her tongue, "That he was dead. That your father helped to kill him and his brothers, actually."
Robin nodded. "Yes, but that's just Mikkos and his generation. I haven't even gotten to Helena and Stavros."
"Stavros," Sam repeated. "My father."
"Most likely," Robin reminded her. "You and Nikolas are most likely half-siblings, and since you share a lot of protein markers in common with Alexis, I have to conclude that you and Nikolas are related through a common paternal family member." Robin leaned back in her seat and rubbed her hands over her face. "This couldn't have happened at a worse time."
"Why?" Patrick asked. "What do the Cassadines have to do with what's happening with Faison?"
"Maybe nothing," Robin answered, leaning back against her seat. "Faison has a rocky history with Helena at best, but they're also both mutual enemies of my family and the Spencers. It could go either way, but all I know for certain is that if we found out about Sam's paternity," she looked at the woman in question, "Then it's not unreasonable to assume that someone else will find that information out too." She sighed again. "The worst part is that we don't know anymore who the DVX agents were really after on the docks the other night."
Sam jolted upright. "What do you mean?"
Patrick sat up straighter as well, a frown covering his face. "Yeah, Robin, why would you suddenly think those guys weren't after you?"
Robin looked down at her lap. She hadn't told Patrick about Sam's words to her in the hospital, that at least one agent seemed to have known they weren't grabbing Robin Scorpio. She felt terrible about keeping her theory from him, but something had held her back from sharing all the information she had at her disposal. Idly, Robin wondered if it was because by holding something back, she thought she was preventing Patrick from completely entwining himself in her life. She sighed; there didn't really seem to be much of a point in trying to keep him out of it anymore. "Sam told me something in the hospital the other day." She looked over at the other woman and waved a hand in front of them. "Tell Patrick what you told me."
Sam looked uncertain, but leaned forward so she could see around Robin, who had taken the middle seat of the middle section of the plane. Sam knew Bobby was sitting as far away from her as possible because of his innate --and, in Sam's mind, completely unfounded -- mistrust of her because of her sudden family identity, but she was glad that Robin had sat down next to her without preamble; she didn't feel like a part of whatever the others had obviously known about for some time, and as things currently stood, Robin was the only one Sam felt she could completely trust.
But Robin had asked her to come with them, and had expressed serious concerns for her safety if she had remained in Port Charles. Sam shivered, thinking now that the attack on her may not have been as accidental as they had initially thought. But then why had only one person seemed to know she wasn't Robin?
"Sam," Robin prodded gently.
"Yeah." Sam shook her head and left her musings. "Those guys...those agents," she looked to Robin for confirmation that the men were indeed agents of some organization, "Grabbed me thinking I was Robin--"
"I knew that already," Patrick said, confused. "So what else--"
"One of them," Sam held up a hand to stave off Patrick's words, "Said some things that made me think he knew I wasn't Robin. That he knew they weren't grabbing Robin, but the others didn't seem to know. They were really surprised when Jason called me 'Sam,' actually, but that one guy, I think he was their leader or something, he made this big deal of overemphasizing the name, calling me 'Dr. Scorpio,' and finally said that things would have been a lot easier if I had just gone along with it."
Patrick was silent for a moment, before turning his steely gaze on Robin, who was avoiding his eyes. "Robin?" he said slowly, "Is there any particular reason you didn't mention that they may not have been going after you?"
"They were definitely going after her," Sam said, frowning at Patrick's tone with Robin. So far, she wasn't seeing a whole lot of difference between the egomaniac who had operated on Jason so many months ago and the man sitting near her now, and Sam still found herself terribly unimpressed. "As soon as Jason called my name, the one agent ordered a retreat. It was really weird, like he didn't want the others to know who I was." A thought suddenly occurred to Sam. "You know, this is going to sound really crazy--"
"Crazier than everything else?" Patrick snorted.
"--But after the guy drugged me," Sam shuddered at the memory, "I could have sworn that one of the shots that killed the other agent came from above me, where that guy had been standing." She looked at Robin, completely ignoring Patrick. "That's crazy, right?"
Robin bit her lower lip and shook her head slightly. "No, it...it actually fits with something I've been thinking." She looked up at Sam. "Ever since you told me that they might have known you weren't me, I've been trying to figure out how everything fits together. That guy is a wild card, and he just didn't fit into the equation."
"Like the Haunted Star explosion?" Patrick asked. "You and Bobby have been pretty adamant that that doesn't fit with the rest of the pattern, either." He pursed his lips as he tried to make sense of so many things that were still inherently nonsensical to him; conversations like this were making Patrick realize just how sheltered his childhood had been, and were reminding him to never judge Robin Scorpio at face value on anything ever again. "So was this guy going after Sam because she's a Cassadine?"
"No, I doubt it. I think we may be the first ones to know who Sam's father is, but the trail was already left that you and Jason followed to Alexis," she said to Sam, "And it's just a matter of time now before someone else follows it, and reaches the same conclusions we did. I really think that Sam was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that someone inside the DVX knew that a woman who looked like me was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"The fog," Sam murmured, eyes wide. "It was so foggy that night, I could barely see two feet in front of me."
Robin nodded in agreement. "The perfect cover for a ground ops team to mistake you for me, especially if the only person who knew you weren't me covered his tracks."
"Wait," Patrick interrupted. "That doesn't make sense -- well, it makes even less sense than everything else. Why would he shoot his own man?"
Robin looked at him, then back at Sam. "I can only think of one possible explanation, assuming that everything we know so far is true." She took a deep breath, and laid out her theory. "There's a double-agent inside the DVX."
***
The beeping from next to him jolted Patrick back to reality.
The dinner service had been cleared away about fifteen minutes ago, and they had all settled into a contemplative, if not entirely comfortable, silence. Looking over Robin, Patrick saw that Sam had curled up in her seat and dozed off; to his left, Bobby and Lulu had hooked up their computers and were fully engrossed by whatever was on their screens, enjoying the power jacks and internet connections of business class. Patrick groaned at the thought of what the bill for that would look like.
He looked over at Robin, who was digging through her carry-on bag and studiously avoiding his gaze. When Robin finally pulled out a large, flat pill box, Patrick immediately registered that the beeping must have been Robin's alarm for her medication schedule. He swallowed at the visible reminder that Robin's life was always in danger; she was only safe so long as her drug protocol continued working. He needed to say something.
"Hey," He said softly, stretching his legs out.
Robin jerked up in her seat, almost dropping her pill box. "Hey," she returned, looking briefly at him and then down at her medicine. "I thought you were asleep like Sam."
"Your alarm woke me."
"Oh." Robin nodded. "Um...I can go to the restroom to do this, I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable."
"Robin," Patrick said, resting a hand against her arm. "It's fine. Really."
Robin nodded again. "It feels weird to be taking them right now, but I guess I'll have to adjust the schedule based on the time zone change now that we're going to be later in the day than in Port Charles--"
"Robin," Patrick interrupted. "You're babbling."
"Right," she said. Looking at the pill box in her hands, Robin smiled ruefully. "I, ah...I guess it's a good thing that the dinner service coincided with when I usually eat lunch back home."
Patrick looked at his watch; dinner on the plane had been to adjust them to the seven o'clock PM London time, which was somewhere around two o'clock PM in Port Charles. "So," he asked cautiously, "Most of your meds need to be taken with food?"
"Mm-hm." Robin continued to avoid eye contact with Patrick, instead staring at the now-open pill box and bottle of water she had placed on her tray. She suddenly felt naked with him watching her take her medication; it was one thing for Patrick to tell her he was okay with her being HIV-positive, but to actually see the proof and the measures she had to take each day was something entirely different. It had been a long time since anyone who wasn't family had seen her take her meds, and Robin wasn't entirely sure how having Patrick there with her made her feel.
Patrick noticed her discomfort, and although he didn't want this part of her life to be hidden from him, he understood how this might make Robin feel too exposed. On top of everything else that was happening, Patrick thought he could at least make her feel comfortable in her own skin. "If you don't want to take them with me here, I can get up and walk around the cabin. Or you can get up and use the restroom, if you don't want to do it out here, or I can just sit here and read--"
"Patrick," Robin smiled gently, finally looking at him, "You're babbling."
And somehow, without Robin realizing it, something shifted, and Patrick being there didn't seem so awkward anymore.
He felt it too. "How much of your medication did you bring?" he asked.
"My pill cases divide up my meds for each day, over the course of a week. I brought three cases, but they were still a lot easier to pack in my bag than all the individual bottles would have been."
"Will three weeks be enough?" Patrick wondered, watching as she took out one of the pills.
Robin swallowed the first pill before answering. "Patrick, if we're gone for more than three weeks, then we'll have bigger problems than me running out of meds." She saw the curious look on his face, and knew he would never ask the question, that he needed her to be the one to let him into this part of her world. "Combivir," she said. "It's one of the new fixed-doses. It's my AZT and 3TC."
Patrick nodded. "And your other antiretrovirals?"
Robin fished for a moment before finding the next pill. After she swallowed, she said, "Truvada. The fixed-doses really made my life a lot easier. It's my tenofovir and emtricitabine, and this one is just once a day."
Patrick smiled at her. "Yeah, I can see how the combo pills make it easier for you to run around the hospital all day."
"Well, if a certain neurosurgeon would just accept that I'm usually right about a case, instead of arguing with me over each patient for hours at a time, I might not be running everywhere," Robin teased, before swallowing a third pill. "Aptivus," she said, reaching for a fourth pill. "Two twice a day."
"Which is the one you have to take with that?"
Robin blinked in surprise. "I didn't know you were so well versed in HIV cocktails."
Patrick rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Don't take this the wrong way," he warned, "But after I found out you were HIV-positive, I started doing research on the different treatment regimens. I guess...I guess I just wanted to know, just in case."
"In case..." Robin prodded gently.
"In case I ever followed you halfway around the world on some crazy spy adventure, and I needed to know which drugs you took," Patrick replied softly, a teasing glint in his eyes.
Robin blushed slightly and rolled her eyes, but couldn't contain the swell of emotion at the thought that Patrick had been trying to get information about this part of her life for so many months. "Yeah, well," she grinned and sucked her head. Digging out another two pills, she looked back up at Patrick. "You're thinking of the Norvir," she told him. "It's the synergistic enhancer that has to be prescribed with Aptivus." She swallowed the pills.
"Do you take any other enhancers?" Patrick asked, noticing the final pill in the section of the case Robin had otherwise emptied out.
"Leflunomide," she nodded, swallowing the last pill. "It helps the AZT."
"Good, because I'd hate to think you were suffering from arthritis on top of everything else."
Robin rolled her eyes again and closed up her pill case, putting it and the bottle of water back into her bag under the seat. She sat back and looked down at her lap, the silence suddenly awkward again. She didn't know what to say to someone who had just watched something so incredibly intimate to her who didn't already love her unconditionally. Robin opened her mouth to say something, anything, to fill the void, when she felt Patrick's fingers graze underneath her chin, turning her to face him. Patrick leaned over and brushed his lips against hers, effectively cutting off whatever she had been about to say. Robin closed her eyes and allowed herself to enjoy the moment he had created, where the rest of the plane disappeared, and all she knew was kissing that man.
Huh, Robin thought distantly. The awkwardness went away again.
Pulling back, Patrick looked down at her and stroked the side of Robin's face. "This doesn't scare me, Robin. Whatever else comes up between us, this is the one thing that will never scare me."
Robin smiled and leaned over, resting her head on his chest. "So does that mean that my crazy family, the international espionage, the world domination plots, and the surprise paternity are finally getting to you?" she asked lightly.
Patrick chuckled, and Robin felt the rumble in his chest deep in her belly. "To be honest, I think your parents scare me more than anything else about all this."
"Yeah, they have that effect on people."
After a moment of comfortable silence, Patrick spoke up again. "So, Spy Girl. What do we do once we land?"
Robin buried her face into his chest, groaning aloud at the thought of what happens next. "I'm pretty sure that Bobby and I will be on the same page as far as how to travel without being noticed."
"And you have a way to do that?" Patrick asked, raising an eyebrow.
Robin nodded against him, content for the time being to stay where she was. "Do you trust me?" she asked softly, looking up.
"Yeah," Patrick replied without hesitation.
"Then trust me about the next step."
Patrick nodded, then leaned down to kiss Robin again. "Just promise me one thing."
"Hm?"
A devilish smirk crossed Patrick's face. "Promise me that at some point, we'll be able to find some time alone together."
Robin laughed out loud, and for that moment she was just a woman on a flight to London with her boyfriend. For just a moment, nothing else mattered.