12 Hours

Hour: One

Pairing: Robert/Holly

Rating: PG

The snow from three weeks past was still piled up in the parking lot. Beautiful imperfect flakes that covered the city by a little more than a foot were now heaped together in a black mass that seemed like it would never melt. Nature had two sides, glory and doom. Two sides that were also true to human emotion. Right now Luke Spencer was feeling the latter.

The back and forth pacing in the stark white hospital corridor was unnerving everyone including him. He couldn't help it. If he didn't pace his head would explode. Everything would come crashing down on top of him and he was suffocate in the debris. Hell he was running out of oxygen as it was.

The hospital was quiet. It was normally quiet but on this particular day it was different. It was like a haunting, lingering, breathtaking silence that overcame him. Overcame all of them. Tracy, Lulu, Lucky, and Bobbie. Together they waited impatiently, on edge, and in absolute fear. They waited on news of Ethan and on the appearance of his mother, Holly Sutton.

Holly had absolutely no idea what she was about to walk into. Different thoughts had crossed her mind and none of them good. None of them appealing or hopeful. She was filled with an uneasiness. With a dreading sensation that nagged at the very depths of her soul. She just knew that she was going to walk into a nightmare and nothing was ever going to be the same again.

The elevator ride was the longest of her entire life. She never thought she would ever reach the fourth floor. The loud dinging of the doors opening and closing. People getting on and off and more buttons being pressed. The echoing pitch was driving her mad. A madness she knew she would only sink her further into.

And Luke had told her nothing in detail. Only that Ethan had been injured and that she needed to get to Port Charles as soon as possible. Luckily she was in Chicago on business and the trip wouldn't be so long. But that's where she was wrong. The journey to General Hospital lasted forever. It truly seemed as though she was coming from England.

Finally the elevator doors opened on the fourth floor. She took a staggering step forward and then another and another until the elevator doors closed behind her. All the strength she had was gone, it had withered away as she contemplated her son's future. Her future. She could barely put one foot in front of the other.

Luke stopped mid pace and looked up. There she was only a few feet away. Always beautiful but this time tragically so. Her features showing worry and doubt and grief. All for something she didn't have all the details on. But all for something she knew in her heart of hearts was right. It was a truth that didn't have to be spoken.

Luke stepped toward her extending his hand and she took it. Her hand closed tightly over his. Her anguished energy channeled through him with a single touch. What he had to tell her was going to be difficult. Perhaps one of the most difficult things he ever had to say in his life. The infamous Luke Spencer was inwardly trembling with fear. His thoughts were attacking him and his conscience was brutally beating him.

He opened his mouth to speak but there were no words. Nothing would come out. This only made Holly's condition deteriorated further. Dreading but not hearing the words was killing her. Something, anything, would be better than this unknowing silence.

"Luke." it was a plea, a breathless plea. The faces of everyone else faded away. Everything else faded away. It was just the two of them.

"Ethan was shot in the head" the words finally came out. "He's in surgery. It doesn't look good. The bullet is lodged..."

"Oh God." she rasped, collapsing into Luke. This was it. This was her worst nightmare come true. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. Everything crashed around her.

Luke slowly lowered them to the floor, Holly clinging desperately to him. She had bypassed shock and disbelief. She was in utter agony. After spending most of her life protecting her son, giving up the chance to know him and be a part of his life, this was how it ended. Everything that she had done was for him and still it wasn't enough.

She sobbed uncontrollably for what felt like centuries. Her tears soaked through the flannel of Luke's shirt. Her heart was quickly breaking, her entire world shattered. But then something changed. Heart wrenching cries suddenly became still. Holly raised her head up and looked at him. Mascara was streaked down the delicate features of her face.

"How?" her words were almost harsh. "How did this happen?"

Luke swallowed and felt was though it echoed tenfold. It was that nervous lump in his throat. It really did exist. "Ethan was at the wrong place at the wrong time." his words were rushed. "He was caught in mob crossfire."

Her expression changed slowly and she went from utter sorrow to confusion to processing to anger. Her illuminating brown eyes darkened with such intensity that Luke found himself moving back from her. A rage was building within her so dark and deep and he knew an explosion was on the horizon. There was no avoidance.

"Mob crossfire." she repeated, her voice low. "How could you let this happen, Luke? I trusted you. You promised me that you would take care of Ethan."

"I did." he replied, softly. "I did the very best that I could."

"It wasn't good enough." she snapped. "My son has a bullet in his head, in his brain. You were suppose to make sure that he was safe."

"I'm sorry." were his only words.

"You're sorry?" she asked, getting up on her knees. "You're sorry? Is that suppose to make it alright? Is that suppose to make everything better? My son..."

"He's my son, too." he interrupted.

"Your son." she bit out. "Yours? Tell me Luke, are you the one that got him caught up in the mob? Are you the one that introduced him to your favorite kind of trouble?"

Luke was silent. Completely silent.

"You son of a bitch." she exhaled, shoving him backwards onto the floor. "I should have never trusted you."

He laid back against the cool hospital tile. He deserved everything that she was throwing at him. Everything and then some. Holly had said everything that he was thinking. But somehow the words just hurt a lot worse enveloped by her lovely accent. He had failed her and he had known that before she stepped off the elevator.

Gut wrenching sorrow took over again. Tears flowed steadily and heavily as she faced what every parent feared, the loss of their child. She crawled over less than two feet to a burgundy chair and pushed herself up into a sitting position, resting her back on the side of the chair. Of all the ways that Ethan could have fallen into harms way this was something that she could have never imagined.

Holly pulled her legs up to her chest, hugging them as close to her as she possibly could. She lowered her head and concentrated on breathing in and out slowly, trying to calm herself down. Finally after several long moment of that eerie silence she raised her head and looked in Luke's direction. "I think it's time to find Robert, now." she wiped her hand across her nose. "You've played daddy long enough."

Luke pushed himself up on his elbow. "I thought that was suppose to be a secret?" he asked. "Something that we were suppose to take to our graves."

"Yeah, well." she sniffled. "That was before. Now I want Robert here. I need him now more than ever and I don't care what you have to do to find him just get him here. Dammit, Luke! He should already be here! You should have called him right after you called me. I want Robert!"

Robin who had been standing in the background at the nurses station had witnessed the entire meltdown. And now she felt was the time to make her presence known. She slowly walked closer to Luke and Holly who were both still sitting on the floor. "What does my father have to do with any of this?" she asked. "Why do you want him here?"

Holly looked up at Robin. She was completely defeated. "Robert is Ethan's father." lies were no longer necessary. The damage had already been done and it was irrefutable.

Robin kind of smirked like she was annoyed and shook her head. "You've tried that before Holly and it didn't work." she was so damn self righteous. "He's not going to come here to help you out now."

"You really shouldn't open your mouth about things you know nothing about." Luke warned her. "Now just turn around, Robin, and go the other way."

tbc..