Title: Pine
Author: M.A.G.
Email: Gypsyrooataoldotcom
Date: 11/24/2006
Rating: PG-13/T for some adult language and subject matter (Nothing explicit)
Summary: What is it to pine? Lie and say you're coming home.
True confessions need the makeup of a clown. Smiles are deceiving
Characters: Tracy Quartermaine, Luke Spencer. Edward and Alice make an appearance.
Genre: Tracy/Luke Angst
Spoilers: Anything up to the 11/21 episode, but I've taken the liberty to alter events from that episode
Inspiration: The 11/21 episode, and everything preceding it. Also, The Pretenders' CD, Viva El Amor, which has inspired many stories over the years. I remember Tracy back on GH a long time ago, and best from The City. So glad she's now back in Port Chuck. Now only if she can keep Luke there!
Archive: I'm flattered if you want to. Let me know so I can gloat.
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone, anything and I never will, as I'm not making a red cent off of this. However, I could use $15 million ;)
Pine
"A common dialogue is the best thing you'll get from the woman you call your wife
So try not to forget to tear out and burn the things you unlearn"
"Who's Who"The Pretenders
She had run immediately outside at the sound of the chainsaw. At Luke's side lay an axe that had proved to be insufficient. She knew all about that. After all, she was the axe and Laura was the chainsaw. But chainsaws eventually ran out of gas and an axe, old faithful.
"It's bad enough my husband married Laura in that farce of a wedding in my backyard, but now you're hacking up my tree?" He was brazen, she had to give him that. That same brash attitude that usually titillated and fascinated her infuriated her now. It made it hurt that much more.
"Where else am I going to get a Christmas tree before Thanksgiving?"
"Not--my--problem!" she proclaimed exasperated. She crossed her arms over her chest, a sign of contempt, and she was just plain cold. He couldn't be certain if the chill in the air was a product of temperature or a cold-front in wife form.
"Come on, Spanky. Here." he said, as he draped his coat over her shoulders.
She shrugged his coat off as if he took a match to her. The problem was that he did light her on fire. Rage. Passion. Desire. He had the power to ignite that in her and that made her scared. Tracy Quartermaine was not a woman who let anyone control her. She was a woman who did not like to melt.
He looked pained at her flippant response to kindness that often did not surface. Luke Spencer was rarely kind—after all, he a reputation to protect. He picked up his jacket from the cold ground and brushed it off before putting in on Tracy's shoulders once more.
This time, he held it there, his hands on her shoulders. She sucked in a shallow breath at his touch, and the solid statement, "Don't." parted from her lips.
He said nothing.
"Don't pretend to be kind. It's very unbecoming." Her composure regained—not that Tracy Quartermaine would ever admit having lost it for a second—she turned to face him, staring daggers.
His expression grew soft. "I'm sorry, Tracy."
Did she detect an iota of empathy? Bitterly, she spat back, "Don't you have my tree to trim?"
"Now that sounds more like my evil little Grinch." His breath was hot on her neck. He was close, too close.
The tree that Luke had been hacking away at purposefully until she had interrupted swayed in the November wind. With the next gust, the tree toppled over onto a shocked Tracy and Luke.
"Get off of me!" wailed Tracy.
"This isn't the way I had envisioned me on top of you." he said huskily.
"Get that sorry excuse of a twig off of me!"
"That's an insult, Spanky." he said, as he heaved the pine tree off of them.
Tracy brushed the dirt and needles off of her self-consciously. "You're no Paul Bunyan! Can't you cut a tree down properly? Do you know how much this ensemble costs?"
"You're bleeding." Luke said, touching her forehead.
"Ow!" she screamed, flinching.
"Come on, let's go inside and get cleaned up." Luke grabbed at his pant leg where blood soaked through.
"Luke, I'm fine." she insisted, as he dabbed antiseptic on the scrape on her forehead.
"You may want to have it checked by a plastic surgeon so it doesn't scar."
"I'm not that vain." She had many scars, truth be told, but they were scars no one could see. She ran her fingers through her hair only to catch them in sap.
He bent down to her level to assess his work. "Not bad." He tilted her chin up with a single finger. He moved his body closer to hers. "I need my jacket back."
"Of course." She said, and shrugged it off her shoulders once again, allowing it to fall on the carpet.
"You always hide." he said, tugging on the hem of her long blouse that would make anyone else look matronly.
"I'm right here."
"You are."
"Are you?" she said, almost in whisper.
He captured her mouth in a searing kiss. Over a year of tension culminated to the breaking point and there was no turning back.
"We misconstrue intentions when there's distance in between
Longing hurts the teeth like something sweet
When you're not here you become a memory
This aching feeling feels like some kind of defeat"
"From the Heart Down"—The Pretenders
Tracy sat in bed drinking scotch, clad only in a loosely tied crimson silk robe. She watched disapprovingly as Luke pulled on his pants and buttoned his shirt.
"You're missing a button. Don't even bother asking Alice--" The scotch warmed her. "I'm sure Laura will sew that baby right back on."
It wasn't exactly what he had in mind when he had envisioned Tracy in their post-coital bliss. However, Tracy was unexpected herself. Never in a million years did he think he'd end up in the precarious situation of being married to and loving the woman!
"Tracy—"he said as he pulled on the very jacket that could be said to have allegedly started a disaster.
This was the quietest she'd ever seen him. A quiet Luke Spencer was uncharacteristic to the very breed. Likewise, the same could be said for Tracy. When they fought, they were at their best. Acid tongued sparring matches were what they lived for in their encounters. That was before Laura had emerged from the living dead. That was before they—what?
"Hate to fuck and run? 'See ya, Trace! Off to my darling, Laura!' "she said, mimicking him.
She admonished herself for her desperation. How many times had she fantasized about being seduced by her very own husband? It was the most unlikely and worst conceivable time to sleep with him.
"I should tell Laura how you just spent your wedding night. You're all about proxies, aren't you?"
"You wouldn't."
"You bet." He was right—she wouldn't. She couldn't tell Laura the whole truth as much as she wanted to.
"I want you. You are my wife. I could have divorced you, but I didn't."
"Bigamy is illegal. Oops! Too late!" A sinister smile crossed her face.
"The minister was an actor and I never even bothered to make up a fake marriage certificate. Tracy, baby, this bigamist wants to only be married to you."
"I should have seen right through your plan. Consummate this unholy alliance, divorce me and make off with a cool fifteen million and run off into the sunset with your precious Laura."
"You don't know how far I deviated from my plan. I was derailed-by you." He was too close again, and she turned her head and focused on her friend Jack Daniels. "It used to be that I had fifteen million reasons to want to divorce you. Now I have one reason not to."
His hand was on her shoulder once more. Train wreck. He pleaded, "Look at me."
She shot him a death glare.
"I love you, Tracy. I meant it when I said it before, and I mean it now."
"It isn't enough."
"It has to be."
"I don't want to be a consolation prize. Today, tomorrow, six months from now, a year from now—when Laura fades away again, I won't be waiting."
"I can't tell her. I can only give her what she wants until she disappears into herself again."
"What about what I want? I'm your wife, not Laura."
"I'm sorry, Tracy. I have to go."
"Laura's waiting. Well, remember, I'm not. Expect divorce papers in the morning."
She wielded his belt at him. He expected her to strike him—he deserved it. Instead, she flung a drawer open on the bedside table and pulled out a letter opener.
"Tracy—"He was a bit worried. He backed away slowly, his arms up in surrender.
"Relax, I'm not going to stab you!" she said as she took the knife to the belt leather. "Another notch!" she screamed, this time flinging it at his head. He ducked, narrowly missing being struck in the face.
Most would be wise (or coward) enough to run the other way when Tracy Quartermaine started throwing objects at them, but not Luke Spencer.
"Spanky?" he said, as he crossed the distance between them. His fingers brushed her neck. For a fleeting moment, she pretended that this wasn't a complicated situation. She swatted his hand away, clarity consuming her once more. "Don't call me that. You have no right--" she said, pointing a dagger-like finger at him, "to call me that. You have no right to touch me again."
Luke was never one to play by the rules, and grabbed her wrist.
"Don't make this harder." she said. It was more of a plea than a statement, as each word came out softer than the last.
She resolved to herself that she wouldn't cry when this moment came—and she knew it would—she just wasn't expecting it so soon. However, her overwhelming feelings for the man standing before her betrayed her.
He put his arms around her, and she fought his grasp. She didn't want to think about his hands on her, about what they had just shared. She wished things could be different. "Baby, you're breaking my heart." Luke said softly, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
"Not any worse than you're breaking mine."
"I need you, Tracy."
"Go home, you're wife needs you."
Therein laid the problem. They both needed him and he wasn't sure if he could give either of them what they deserved.
"Just go." she pleaded. She had said just days earlier that she'd do anything to hold onto her husband. Now, it was she who would walk away, albeit wounded. When had she made that concession? She told herself it was for the best. It was worse to stay with a man who pined for another. If she stayed, or if she walked away, the outcome would be the same. She would be the one pining.
Couldn't he see what he was doing to her? Couldn't he care? Oh, he did—only it wasn't enough to make him—what? Stay? Choose her? She once would have laughed at the hypocrisy. She wanted him to love her like no other and be there, but that had about the odds of the Quartermaines actually eating Turkey on Thanksgiving.
He brought his lips to hers for one last kiss and she allowed him to linger a little too long. She blamed the scotch for her bad judgment and poor reaction time, while the real culprit was her heart. Before she knew it, he was across the room standing at the door, his hand tentatively on the handle.
"Leave." She yelled. It came out almost like a question. "Get out!" she challenged, this time even louder.
Luke turned the handle but stood where he was, transfixed on her.
A loud knock emanated from the other side of the door. "Is everything alright?" asked Alice, who had undoubtedly been standing outside of Tracy's bedroom with a glass between her ear and the door for the better part of an hour. Frankly, no one else would have noticed, as they were accustomed to yelling and hearing all sorts of strange sounds in the mansion.
Luke opened the door and smiled at Alice.
"Luke was just leaving." Spat Tracy. Leaving like he always did. He always came back to her—home to her. That was now passé.
"Will you be home in the morning, Mr. Luke?" asked a hopeful Alice. "Should I make your favorite breakfast?"
"That won't be necessary, Alice." Luke said with all his charm.
"Alice! Who the hell cut down my tree?" demanded Edward, his voice traveling around the corner and down the hall.
Luke turned to look at Tracy once more before stepping out into the hallway.
"It was you, Spencer!" cried Edward. "I don't know what my daughter ever saw in you!"
"Me either, Daddy." Tracy whispered to no one in particular, trying to make herself believe the words she uttered.
She pressed her body against the cold pane of her bedroom window, giving her the support she needed to stand. She placed trembling hand on the cold glass covering him in her line of sight. Shielding herself, or was she reaching for him?
She watched as he hauled off his blood stained pine tree in his jacket covered with pine needles and dirt and went home to give Laura her one last wish. With shaky hands, she raised the tumbler of scotch to her lips. She cupped the tumbler in such a way she imagined families innocuously did with a cup of hot cocoa. She was alone. This would keep her warm. Bourbon would be next.
Yes, she'd rather divorce Luke Spencer at the tune of fifteen million than play the fool. It was safer to make a clean break than deal with the impending train wreck that was aimed right at her heart.
She stared at the phone and told herself that she had to make the call. The sooner she could be free of him, the sooner she could get over him. That is what she told herself.
Could she ever forgive herself for letting him go? After all, Laura needed him and she would survive. She always did.
"Love me from the heart down
Lie and say you're coming home
True confessions need the makeup of a clown
Smiles are deceiving
Won't you love me
Love me from the heart down"
The Pretenders
"From the Heart Down"
There very may well be a continuation to this if I have the inspiration and the time. Feedback greatly appreciated. You know what to do!
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