Summary:

Lucille.

Notes:

And, of course, as ever, a huge thank you to the best beta in the business, Soleil_Lumiere.

Chapter Text

Lucille walked over to the barn carefully carrying the two coffees. It had been a long day for her eldest, her big, brave boy, and something of a rite of passage, as male things went, she supposed.

"You here?" she called, peering through the barn doors.

"Mom! Yeah, come and look!"

Scott practically danced over to her to take the coffees and set them safely aside before grabbing her hand and dragging her over. "Isn't she a beauty?"

The eye of this beholder struggled to find it, but she basked in his pleasure. Moments like this were yellow skies of calmness in the hurricane of her life as wife to Jeff Tracy, mother to five boys.

"It's going to take a lot of work."

"I know. A lot. And I don't know if I can get her going."

"Looks kinda ruined," she agreed, eyeing him.

He spun on his toes, giddy with ownership and adventure. "Wanna bet I can't?"

She burst out laughing.

"Nope. I would never take that bet, darling boy." She gave him a hug. "You know very well that once you make up your mind to do something, you'll get it done."

He hugged her back, easy and free.

She'd begun to understand how a parent could truly admire and respect their child when he was so young, eight or so, the self-appointed guardian of his brothers. She'd watch him take on that role, for her boys and then for Kayo, and each ounce of responsibility seemed to fill him out, make him better.

But it was this side of him that she loved; Scott Carpenter Tracy, the gleam of conquest in his eye so like his father's, self-reliant and driven and yet still capable of hugs so sweet she had to be careful not to cry.

John resisted hugs, unless they were on his terms. Virgil gave them easily and often, compulsively. Gordon attacked affection like he attacked everything else, with enormous gusto and alarming vigor, and Alan's hugs were still those of a baby, looking for assurance in a vast and rocking world.

But Scott had a way of handing out hugs that gave more than they took. She always walked a little taller after one of Scott's hugs.

"Does it have a name? She! Does she have a name?"

"Seriously?"

She shrugged. "Just wondering. I'd name her."

"Guys don't name their cars, Mom."

"Your father named the TV remote."

"He did?" Scott shook his head, exaggerated in his disgust at the news. "He's going senile, Mom. Take the keys."

"Don't let your father hear you say that!" But she laughed, delighted, as she always did when Scott showed signs of breaking away from Jeff. She loved them both, so much it astonished her at times, but she could see how the one could consume the other.

Micro-rebellions were good.

She watched as her son crouched down behind his newest and unloveliest acquisition, tapping experimentally at the clods of earth stuck to its sides. His care for it brought out an echoing tenderness in her.

"She's lovely, Scotty." Then, deliberately coquettish and amused by herself as she did so, she asked, "Will you take me for a ride in her when she's ready?"

Scott's head bobbed up from the other side of the car.

"You bet. You'll be the first one I take. We'll drive to Hemmed in Hollow, just you and me, Mom, catch the sunset."

"Deal."

Carefully, she ran her hand along the bonnet, beginning to sense the lines of her, to see the potential for sleekness. "I can't wait. She's going to be beautiful, Scooter."

"I know. It's how I knew, when I saw her online." Scott straightened up and ran his hands along the same trajectory. "She's got real quality, Mom, good bones. And that's the thing. I'm not even gonna say I'm bringing her back to life, because when something's this beautiful, it can never die."

A quick, wistful pang, and then she nodded, and gave him the best smile she had. She reached over and retrieved the coffees, gave him one.

"To beautiful things." They bumped their cups together, and she winked.

"I'll see you at the Hollow."