Quartermaine Mansion, Interior-
Tracy Quartermaine walked into the living room from the foyer of her beautiful home. It was a place that she had been denied access to for years, but now she had returned. She knew that her plan would work: leaving Dillon alone in Port Charles while she continued to travel around Europe was the perfect way to plant seeds for her return. There was not a single part of Tracy's being that felt badly for using her youngest child in such a manner. She loved Dillon dearly, more than she loved her own life, but she was not the type of person to take a situation and not use it to her advantage. Tracy was a businesswoman, ruthless and cunning. She showed that quite frequently.
The acid-tongued socialite walked passed his picture on the mantle. He was smiling. His senior picture. One of the last pictures that he had gotten from her, one of the last moments that she had with her son before he was taken away from her by Sonny Corinthos and Jason Morgan, her nephew. Tracy picked up the picture and ran her fingers over it. She may have been critical of Dillon, very critical in fact, but it was only because she loved him and saw that he had more potential than any other member of the family, even Jason when he was the golden boy. Dillon could shape the world in his hands, it was a part of his birthright, but instead he chose to throw away any chances that he had at greatness for a film career, a little tart and a life where he could end up being riddled with bullets just by stepping outside the door. That was not the life that Tracy wanted for her son, and she felt that she had failed him. There was one thing that Tracy hated, and it was failure.
She moved her hand forward, placing the picture back where it had been before looking over at another picture. A picture of her mother, Lila Quartermaine. Tracy loved her mother dearly, almost as much as she loved her son, and while they had differences, quite frequently, Tracy always felt that she could depend on her mother when the times got too hard for even Tracy to handle alone. This was one of those times. It was so hard to wake up every morning and not see Dillon sleeping in his room. He never knew it, but she would do that every morning, before he got up, just watch her baby, who was becoming a young man. Tracy would give nearly anything to have that back.
"Mother… I wish I had your drive, I wish I had your patience. I wish that I could put up with everything that Dillon does the way that you could put up with everything that I did. I'm your daughter, but that doesn't mean that I'm like you. Everyone knows it, and now that you're gone they don't even try to hide it. People look at me and ask how I could be the daughter of Lila Quartermaine. Sometimes I wonder with them, but I was blessed to have you as my mother, just like I'm blessed to have Dillon as my son."
Brook Lynn Ashton heard voices coming from the living room. She had only been living in the mansion for a few weeks, and she was still fairly certain that there were areas of the estate that she hadn't yet managed to see, but, in time, she would. The voice that she heard was instantly recognizable. Tracy was her grandmother, but that hardly meant that the woman was the type of person who would spend time knitting or baking. Tracy Quartermaine probably didn't even know how to do either. Brook and Tracy didn't get along at all, mostly because Tracy chose to be a horrible person towards her mother, Lois. Tracy was a horrible person to everyone, really, but she couldn't put anything aside, at all. It was no wonder that Dillon left the house. Her uncle, and Jason, were probably the smartest members of the Quartermaine family, just because they were able to get out before it was too late.
The teenager walked into the room, standing by the door, listening to Tracy's speech. It was then that she realized something about her grandmother that she had never seen before: her heart. Tracy hid so much behind her tongue, her wit, her evil attitude that it was easy to assume that she didn't have a heart to begin with, but, as Brook was seeing at that moment, it simply wasn't true. Tracy did have a heart, and it hurt.
Tracy turned around, not knowing that Brook was there but ready to walk out of the room before the memories became too much for her. It was at that moment that she saw her granddaughter. She quickly wiped away the beginnings of tears that were forming in her eyes as she recollected everything that she had lost, and, like clockwork, went back into the Tracy mode that she was known for, "Shouldn't you be at school?"
"I had my free period at the end of the day, so I came home early." Brook, much like Dillon and Georgie, was enrolled as a senior at Port Charles high. It was the first time that she had ever been to an actual school. It was different, in a good way. She was well aware of the fact that there were people who had taken an interest in her, but Brook didn't want any of them. No, the object of her desire was a young Mexican intern and son of her mother's best friend. Damian was everything that she wanted. He was supportive and firm, calm and understanding. Everything that his father, and her family, weren't.
"Look at this, young lady," Tracy grumbled as she walked over to the table. "I know that this isn't Dillon's English textbook! This isn't a pigsty, Brook Lynn! We're Quartermaine's, people expect our house to be in the best possible condition!"
"Chill, granny, it's just a damned book!" Brook sighed as she walked over to the table and picked it up. She was looking for the book anyway. "People aren't going to assume that the family is falling apart because there was one English book on the table, they're going to assume that the family is falling apart because of the way you people act!"
"Brookie!" Lois overheard the commotion. She was proud of her daughter for having the gull to stand up to Tracy, something that very few people had, but at the same time, Lois raised Brook to respect her elders, especially her grandmother. Maybe that was just because Lois had such a wonderful relationship with her own grandmother, and Lila, too, who was her grandmother in law for a time. Lois also had regrets for the actions that she took. Keeping her daughter away from the woman that Lois respected the most out of anyone in the world until it was too late.
"Are you still here?" Tracy snapped at Lois. "This is the family house. Your daughter may be family, Lois, but you aren't."
"Hey, back off!" Brook got into Tracy's face. "That's my ma you're talking to, and she deserves more respect than that."
"Darling, you really should brush your teeth more often, or maybe put on less lipstick… then again, you should change your entire wardrobe, you look like you belong in some Macabre painting."
"If you weren't my grandmother I'd punch that smug smirk off your face in two seconds… and to think, I was willing to give you some credit, think that you may have been a little human for once."
"Big mistake, Brookie," Lois commented. "When God made Tracy he made sure to replace sugar for poison and everything nice for hate. He kept the spice, though… maybe a little too much spice."
"What are you babbling about?" Tracy inquired, "Did you sniff too much of that nail polish that it destroyed what pitifully slim amount of brain cells that you may have had left?"
"What's going on here?" Edward Quartermaine, the family patriarch, asked. "Oh, it's just you, Tracy."
"Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt, daddy," Tracy snapped back at her father. Although they were constantly at each other's throats there was no doubt in either of their hearts that they still loved each other. Tracy was Edward's last link to Lila, the daughter that they shared, and Edward was Tracy's sole parent.
"Your daughter wants to throw my mother out of the house," Brook Lynn informed her great-grandfather. Edward was just like Tracy, except male. She didn't care for either of them. "But what she doesn't realize is that she doesn't get to say who lives in this house. Monica does. It's her house."
"Alan gave it to her," Lois nodded.
"Do we have to go through this every single time someone needs to be thrown out of the house?" Tracy asked, throwing her hands up in defeat. "I really could kill my brother for giving his wife the house, now she has ammo to use against me whenever she wants."
"Like you don't provide enough of that without the house issue," Lois said nonchalantly. "Face it, Tracy, as long as Monica wants me here, I stay here. Besides, Lila would never throw me out."
"Don't you dare begin to assume that you would know what my mother would say in this situation you cheap little…"
"Enough!" Edward may have been the oldest of the group in the room, but he was also the one with the most control over his family. His voice carried. "Lila would never, ever, think about throwing Lois out, or any other member of this family out. She was much too kind for that, and she always loved Lois. Now, Tracy, are you going to assume that you know your mother better than I do?" He saw Tracy turn her back, "I thought so. Enough of this discussion!"
"Face it, granny," Brook said sarcastically, "you just got owned."
"I said that was enough, young lady!" Edward glared at his great-granddaughter. Lila would be able to control them. But Edward just didn't have the strength.
Kelly's-
Elizabeth Webber-Lansing was still going through the lovely time of being a newlywed, even if she was married to her husband for a second time. It felt like the first because this was the time when Ric could be the type of person that she wanted him to be. He could really be a husband, he wasn't consumed by all the hatred that had fueled him in the past. Ric was stronger now, more capable of giving her what she wanted… even if the only thing she wanted was a happy marriage.
If there was one thing that Ric wanted Elizabeth to do for him, it was give up her job as a waitress at Kelly's, but that was one thing that Elizabeth couldn't give up. At first it was merely a job to keep her afloat, now, it was something that she enjoyed doing. She highly doubted that she would spend her entire life being a waitress, but for now, while she was young, it was giving her time to think about other things that she might want to do before she actually had to do them. Besides, being a waitress allowed Elizabeth to spend some time with her friends and even spend time meeting new people. She wouldn't have been nearly as close to Damian as she was if she wasn't a waitress when he arrived, and there was a chance that, if she wasn't a waitress, she may have never gotten married to Ric again. Perhaps Ric hadn't taken that into account, but, he eventually conceded that, if Elizabeth wanted to keep her job, it wasn't his place to tell her what she could and couldn't do.
She sat at the counter, wiping it over and over. The lull had happened. She could just sit there and think. Take everything in. Her time in silence was short lived, however as a man walked in. She hadn't seen the man before, but Kelly's was a popular space for people who were just passing through. At times it seemed like the only place that Port Charles had. "Can I help you?"
"Could I get some coffee, please?"
"Sure," she smiled at him, "for here, or to go?"
"To go, please, I need to stop somewhere, just want something to keep me warm as I'm walking."
"Is it that far?"
"No," he shook his head, "it's just the Police Department."
"My husband works there," Elizabeth told the stranger. "Is there a reason why you're going?"
"Your… husband?"
"Ric Lansing. He's the district attorney."
"I see…" the man took his coffee and paid Elizabeth for it, leaving a five, knowing that it would be more than enough. "I'm sure we'll see each other again, then. Have a nice day, Mrs. Lansing."
"Yeah… you, too…" Elizabeth watched the man go, aware of the fact that she had ignored his question. Who was he, and why was he being so secretive?
"Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth turned around and saw Mike Corbin, her employer, Sonny's father, "Is something wrong, Mike?"
"Who was that guy?"
"I wish I knew," Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders. "He gave me a bad vibe. He said that he was going to the police department, then I asked him why and he didn't answer me. I told him that I was married to Ric and he just assured me that we would see each other again."
Mike chose to ignore the part about Elizabeth being married to Ric. He didn't like Ric at all, and it wasn't going to change, ever. His family was almost destroyed because of Ric and his vendetta against Sonny. Mike wouldn't lie, he did believe that Ric was getting better at being a human being as of late, but Mike wasn't sure if it was all just an act. "I swear, I've seen that man's face before."
"It looked really familiar to me, too. You don't think he's going to do something horrible to Ric, do you?"
"I think Ric can take care of himself… he always has." Ric had a way of getting out of situations that people would have thought were impossible to get out of. He was like a cat, nine lives and everything. "I'm sure that we're just worrying about it for no reason."
"Yeah, I hope you're right." Even with Mike's words of support, Elizabeth couldn't help but shake that funny feeling that she had. Why was it sticking in her mind so much? Maybe she really should have been worried.
