Ned and Tracy's Excellent Adventure

by DebbieB

Thirteen year old Ned Ashton spends a wild week touring the European countryside with his soon to be divorced mother, and learns more about them both than he ever thought possible. Part of the LiveJournal 100Situations Challenge.

2. Chapter 2

Title: Ned and Tracy's Excellent Adventure
Fandom: General Hospital
Characters: Tracy Quartermaine
Prompt: #23 False
Word Count: 14, 792 words
Rating: PG
Summary: After being suspended from his posh boarding school, Ned has a wild ride with his mother across the European countryside.
Author's Notes: I referenced this in my full-length story, "Cellar," a while back and always wanted to flesh out the story. Young!Ned and Young!Tracy, having a madcap "Auntie Mame" sort of adventure. How good is that? Wreaking havoc with canon, because I have no clue how old Ned was when his parents divorced. For my purposes, he was thirteen.

They were already out on the main motorway by the time he came down from the high. His mother was watching the road, but turned every so often to check on him. She was quiet, content to let him enjoy the buzz of excitement caused by his spectacular departure from The Chatham School.

It was several minutes before the silence was broken, and then it was Ned who spoke first. "So," he asked tentatively. "How much trouble am I really in?"

Tracy shot him a glance. "For falsifying my name?" She mocked the word for its stodgy sound and lifted an eyebrow expectantly at her son. The look on her face was somber, all joking gone, as if this were suddenly not a game anymore.

"Yeah." Ned felt his life crumbling around him again. In all the excitement, he'd forgotten he'd been caught in an act of complete disregard for the rules. Sure, his mum had covered for him with Rodham, but that could easily have been to protect the family's reputation.

She would be right in punishing him, and he had no experience at all with how strict his mother could be in situations like this. Underneath that sunny smile and carefree demeanor, she could be an ogre. She could send him off to the wilds of Switzerland, never to be seen again by civilized eyes. She could--she could… Ned gulped. "I'm terribly sorry, Mother," he said formally. "I shouldn't have done it, and I apologize for the inconvenience and embarrassment it caused you." Better safe than sorry, he decided not to plead his case but to fall upon her mercy. She'd seemed fairly kind, in her own bizarre way.

She stared at him for a long moment, her expression dark and scolding, and then completely lost her demeanor, laughing gaily as she checked the mirror. "Well, so much for that act of parental responsibility," she said brightly. "Okay, so I'm not thrilled about the call I got from your grandmother. She acted as if you had stolen the Crown Jewels. Personally, I think they were overreacting. It was just a permission slip, and for something you knew I would approve anyway. You could have called me—" She stopped, a guilty expression crossing her face. "Did you try to call me?"

He nodded glumly.

"Oh, damn." She shook her head. "I've been pretty hard to reach lately, haven't I?" It wasn't a question so much as a self-indictment. "Well, I can't blame you for that, can I?" She shrugged. "You obviously didn't do a good job of it, if it was so easily caught," she added. "If you're gonna break the rules, you might as well do a good job of it. But I suppose you've learned your lesson, haven't you?"

Ned was no fool. He mustered his most earnest, innocent expression. "Absolutely, Mother," he said. "I shall never, ever break the rules again."

She narrowed her eyes at him, slowed the car, and pulled over onto the side of the road. "Hold it, Freddie Bartholomew. Lesson Two from Tracy Quartermaine's Rules of War, son. Do not try to play your mother." When he gulped, guilty, she chuckled. "It's one thing to get things over on your doltish teachers. But hear me and hear me well, Edward Quartermaine Ashton. You will never get one over on me. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever." She paused for effect, then the corner of her mouth turned upward slightly. "Got it?"

He nodded. "Got it."

And that, it appeared, was the end of the discussion of his brief, unsuccessful career in forgery.

"So, how do you like the flashy ride?" Tracy stretched her right arm out on the seat between them. It was so odd to have the wheel on the left side, but she seemed perfectly comfortable driving on the wrong side of the car.

"It's brill, Mum."

"Oh, dear gawd," she said, rolling her eyes. "I'm going to have to send you to Brooklyn for a month to counteract all this British slang you've got." She flashed him a dazzling smile. "Get that bag out of the back seat, Baby," she said. "You're the son of an American, Ned. And no American boy would ever say that something was brill." She took the bag from him, placing it on the seat between them. It was heavy and clumsy– there were dozens of small objects clattering around it, but Ned thought it best not to peek. "A thirteen year old American boy, when faced with the hottest car ever made in this or any lifetime would turn to his Mom and say, 'That's cool, Mom.'" She chuckled at his dazed expression. "Now, repeat after me, young man. 'That's cool, Mom.'"

He had to laugh. It was utterly absurd. "That's cool, Mom," he said obediently, liking the feel of the words on his tongue. "Do you really hate England so much, then?" He didn't know why he asked it, wished he hadn't when he saw the sad look on her face.

She leaned back, her head facing skyward for a long moment before she spoke. "Wow. Yeah, I guess that's how I'm coming across, isn't it?" She turned to face him. "I guess I'm so mad at your father right now that I hate pretty much anything that reminds me of him." She winced, catching herself. "Except of course for you. You, my darling boy, may be part Ashton, but you're all Quartermaine. And I could never hate you." She touched his chin, then snapped out of it. "Now, because a Quartermaine demands the very finest in all things, you will take note of the lovely amenities provided for in this fine American vehicle. Notably, the stereo cassette player." She winked. "I had to call four rentals before I found a car that had one. And," she opened the bag. "One little side-trip to the record store later, and we have all the choices of great music we can ask for."

His eyes grew wide as the looked into the bag. There were dozens of cassettes in there—practically every artist imaginable. The Beach Boys. The Shirelles. Stevie Wonder. Bob Dylan. The Jackson 5. She'd even bought some of the newer groups, like Blondie, Earth, Wind & Fire, Billy Joel, and The Commodores. "What," he said. "No Elvis?"

She rolled her eyes and laughed out loud. "Vastly overrated as a singer," she said, reaching for Buddy Holly: A Rock & Roll Collection, which she popped into the player. "And while we're at it, no British Invasion on this road trip. No Beatles. No Rolling Stones or Rod Stuart or Elton John or Sex Pistols." She drew in a deep breath as if to clear her head. "No, dear, the soundtrack for this journey will be a convergence of great American music, courtesy of the Bowden Family Record store in London."

He stared at the pile of cassettes on the seat between them. "We'll never have time to listen to all those before we get to Grandmother's," he said.

Tracy turned to him, a wicked expression crossing her face. "We're not going to your grandmother's, Ned."

"We're not?"

"Nope." She revved the engine, shifting the gear stick and merging back onto the road. "I have a little place I'm renting in Salzburg." She shook her hair, letting it flow in the breeze as they drove. "Of course, there's no point in hurrying things. Why not take a little tour on the way, right?" She patted the steering wheel purposefully. "We're going to drive this baby all the way to the White Cliffs of Dover and then cross the Channel into France for a few days. We get a new car in Calais and head straight for Paris. How's your French, Baby?"

He stared at her, stunned. They weren't going to Ashton Manor? This was impossible. This was unheard of. "Um…I took a few terms of French." He didn't remember a word of it, honestly.

Tracy smiled indulgently as she floored the accelerator, setting the tone for the trip. "Well, don't worry about it, kiddo. We'll practice on the drive." She nodded her head in time to the music.

Buddy and The Crickets were warbling on in that raw, uncluttered style that made Peggy Sue a classic. He found himself listening to the chords, picking them out with his left hand as his right hand mimed the fierce, powerful strum pattern of the lead guitar. It was massively primal, this rough, unrefined rock and roll, this creation of youth and energy and passion. He found himself singing along to songs recorded by this man who'd died before he was born, a man who'd not been much older than himself when he started changing the universe with his music.

Tracy watched him for a moment, and then asked thoughtfully, "How long have you had that guitar, Ned?"

He felt suddenly exposed, as if he'd been keeping a secret from her or something. It wasn't as if he'd been trying to hide the thing—it's just that it never came up in their telephone conversations. "About a year, Mum. I saved up my allowance and bought it last August."

"Do you practice much?"

"Oh, every single day," he said fervently. "Drove my mates mad with it—" He caught her expression and corrected himself. "I really annoyed my friends…Mom, but I don't care. I love it. And I'm going to be great at it someday."

She nodded, an odd look in her eyes, before saying, "That's my little Quartermaine. Your grandfather always said there's no point in doing anything if you're not going to be the best at what you do."

That seemed enough for her, and they rode on in silence for a while. Minutes stretched out, and Ned began to count the time in terms of the cassettes they listened to. Buddy Holly gave way to Carole King's Tapestry which then led into Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. It was an eclectic ride, great music, beautiful scenery. Tracy seemed content to take the most circuitous route possible, stopping at anything that caught her fancy, little shops and farms and quaint little villages anybody else would have ignored. Every so often, she would give his hand a tight squeeze, as if to make sure he was still there.

She didn't sing along to the music as he did, although she did nod her head in perfect time to the beat. She seemed downright amused that he knew the words to almost all the songs, and teased him a bit about it. Once or twice, he caught her mouthing along. Even if she never made a sound, it was obvious she knew every single word, too.

When they pulled in Folkestone, just a few miles from the Channel, Billy Joel was singing Piano Man, and they were famished. They found a farm with a roadside stand selling produce, and loaded up on fresh fruits, dark heavy bread, fresh butter, and a bottle of home-made honey mead. They pulled off the road overlooking the Channel, watching the pounding waves as they tore into the bread and fruit, eating with their hands, laughing at each other's jokes, laughing about the expression on old Tewks' face when Hurricane Tracy had blown into the room.

It was very likely the best meal he'd ever eaten, he guessed as he leaned back against the car seat and dozed in the late afternoon sun. It would be just a few moments before they'd have to leave the car off in Dover. Soon after that, they'd be crowded on to a ferry to Calais, where they'd hire a new car to take them the rest of the journey.

But right now, he was peaceful. His stomach was full and the radio was playing some of the best music ever recorded. He sang along at the top of his lungs, enjoying the smile his mother gave him when he hit a particularly difficult note, or added his own little flourish to an otherwise bland musical riff.

He knew that it couldn't last, of course. Sooner or later, he'd be back in school, bored and miserable with the rest of the drones. But right now, he was king of the world, and that was just fine by Ned.

It was hours before they were on the road in earnest again—the crossing, hiring the new car, getting everything organized with the passports and luggage. And Tracy insisted the car they rented—a very nice Lincoln Continental—met her standards. That meant power steering, automatic transmission, air conditioning, and of course, a great stereo with a cassette player.

They were about half an hour out of Calais when the sun went down, and Ned was exhausted. He didn't know how long it would take to get to Paris. He didn't care. He dozed on and off, his head resting against the seat.

If his mother was tired, she didn't show it. She was in her own world now, and she just drove on, silently, determined, he supposed.

She was nothing like he'd expected. To hear Grandmother Ashton talk, Tracy Quartermaine Ashton was the picture of irresponsible youth, an ugly American in the truest sense of the word. He'd seen nothing of the sort today, after that raucous scene for the benefit of "Tweekie" and Old Rodham. She'd spoken her French flawlessly, charmed everyone they'd met, and had no trouble at all dealing with the various classes of people they'd encountered. She was firm but polite to servers, and not intimidated at all by anyone who seemed to be of a higher social status. To Ned's eyes, she was just an all about decent person.

He wondered what she'd done to make Grandmother Ashton hate her so much.

Maybe Grandmother Ashton just hated her because she wanted to, he thought sleepily. There was an old song playing on the radio, Nat King Cole, he thought from the sound of it. A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square. He was just about to drift off to sleep when he heard something amazing.

"I may be right, I may be wrong,

But I'm perfectly willing to swear

That when you turned and smiled at me

A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square."

It was Tracy, her voice soft and sweet, a tentative thing. He knew in his gut that she thought he was asleep, that he wouldn't hear her. He held his breath, knowing if he even so much as breathed wrong, she would stop, that it would stop. He wanted to hear more.

"The moon that lingered over London town,

Poor puzzled moon, he wore a frown.

How could he know we two were so in love?

The whole darn world seemed upside down.

The streets of town were paved with stars;

It was such a romantic affair.

And, as we kissed and said 'goodnight',

A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square."

Her voice was nothing that would ever change lives. She wobbled a little on the high notes, and while her middle range was strongest, she was afraid of it. He could tell, just as he always knew when to strum rather than pick a song, or when to transpose to a higher or lower key, despite what the music said. He could tell that she was afraid of her own voice, and that just made him so sad.

She was singing him a lullaby, and she didn't even know it.

She was singing him a love song, and the beauty of the music embarrassed her.

At thirteen, Ned knew quite a bit about love, and loss, and the hard realities of the world. He knew that not everything always went your way. He knew that girls he fancied didn't always fancy him back, or that they fancied other fellows just a little bit more. He knew that love didn't always work out.

He wondered if this was "their song," his mum and dad's. He knew they were getting a divorce, knew that it wasn't pleasant. His grandmother hadn't considered it appropriate to share the details, of course, and placed most of the blame on his mother, however subtly so.

But listening to her now, her voice all soft and sad and sweet, Ned knew in his heart that this divorce wasn't Tracy's idea. This change in her life was breaking her heart, and all that gung-ho bravado of hers was just an act.

He made a point of stretching, yawning in an obvious way. With a motion he hoped would remind her of his childhood, he reached out for her "in his sleep" and snuggled into her arms.

The song was over anyway, and he fell asleep in her arms, her free hand stroking his hair as they drove off through the night to Paris.

The hotel restaurant was closed when they finally reached their hotel. It wasn't that late, really, his mother insisted and spoke to the concierge on the phone in flawless, rapid-fire French. She might play the debutante sometimes, Ned thought sleepily, but she could turn on the brains really quick when necessary.

She turned to him, having exhausted his translation abilities after the first few sentences. "We're in luck. There's a little Chinese place around the corner that delivers until midnight." She winked at him as they sat cross-legged on her bed. His stuff was tossed on his bed in the other part of the suite, forgotten for now as they wrestled with how to get some grub in their system.

"I thought Paris was the city that never sleeps."

"That's New York," she laughed, reading the number she'd scribbled off on the hotel stationery and punching it into the phone. "Paris is the City of Lights." She nodded when the restaurant picked up and rattled off a quick order. It was funny hearing her order the Chinese items in French with an American accent. She caught him giggling and snuck out a hand to tickle him, which had him rolling with laughter by the time she hung up.

By the time the food arrived, they'd managed to calm down. His mom had ordered enough to feed an army, and they spread the little red and white boxes around them, taking bits of this and bobs of that until their plates were covered with items both exotic and enticing to his English-bred palate.

Tracy insisted they eat only with chopsticks, which was a problem since he'd never learned to use them. But she placed her hand over his, guiding his fingers into the proper stance and grip, showing him how to balance them, how to grab the bigger pieces and balance the smaller one on top.

More sooner than later, he was eating like a pro, enjoying the spicy flavors and unusual textures. He watched as his mother ate her kung pao chicken daintily, not even flinching over the heat of the peppers as she continued her monologue, begun back in the car when they'd first arrived.

"So, I'm thinking the Arc de Triomphe in the morning and Notre Dame in the afternoon. Then we can spend the entire day after tomorrow at the Louvre—no sense rushing that." She picked up a dumpling from the box to her left and nibbled a bit off the end of it. "I hate when people go there, run through the entire museum just to gawk at that damned Mona Lisa for ten seconds, and then leave." She rolled her eyes in a superior manner. "There's so much more to art than some moderately attractive, transvestite self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci. You did know that he based the picture on his own image, didn't you?"

Ned shook his head to the negative and concentrated on balancing the rice on his chopsticks. It was a challenge, and he had satisfied his hunger enough to enjoy the trick of working with the chopsticks now. "No, ma'am," he said absently.

"And did you know that American Gothic is virtually littered with subliminal sexual imagery?" she asked, putting the dumpling down on her plate as he continued to struggle with his food, ignoring her.

"Uh-huh…" He was fighting with a slice of carrot now, and the carrot was winning.

"And that The Blue Boy is actually a Communist manipulation of the Dutch Masters that uses hypnotic suggestion to create a race of zombies?"

"Uh-huh…" He dropped the carrot, staring up at her. "Huh?"

Tracy laughed, taking the chopsticks from his hand and laying them across his plate. "You really should listen to the question you're answering before you answer it, darling."

He smiled sheepishly, blushing.

"More into music than art, I take it?" she said, stretching back on the bed carefully, so as not to disturb the half-filled cartons of food.

"Yeah, I guess," he said. He wasn't really hungry anymore. It was enough just to get some food in his stomach and get some rest. The hotel was amazing—his mother's room alone was twice the size of the dormitory room he'd shared with another boy. It had its own bathroom, a huge color television, and a balcony that overlooked the Champs-Elysées. He yawned, blinking hard.

"How about we clear all this stuff and get some sleep?" she said, beginning to stack the cartons. "We don't have to plan everything tonight. We can play it by ear."

He got most of the food cleared away and stacked on the tray in the living room before toddling off to his bed. He was really tired, and his bed looked so inviting. His mother was in just a few minutes behind him.

She'd changed into a long rose-colored gown with a matching robe. She was barefoot, and her hair hung softly around her shoulders. She smelled wonderful as she leaned over to kiss him gently on the forehead. "Good night, my little Pooh Bear."

He grimaced. "Mother, I'm not three anymore."

"You'll always be three years old to me, darling," she said wistfully, kissing him again and adjusting the blanket around his shoulders carefully. "Sleep well, my little prince, and dream happy dreams."

Then she was gone, like a dream at sunrise, and the only thing convincing Ned that the entire day hadn't been a hallucination was the feel of the blanket around his shoulders and the lingering scent of her perfume in the air.

He didn't know what time it was when he awoke. It had to be late because the sounds of the city had dimmed outside, and he felt sluggish, as if he'd been sleeping for several hours. He made his way clumsily out of his bedroom, through the common area of the suite that adjoined his room to the one his mother occupied.

He was looking for the loo, having a hard time of it because he was sleepy and confused.

He didn't mean to walk in on her, nor did he intend to eavesdrop on her conversation.

"Yes, I'm keeping him with me," his mother was saying into the phone. Her voice was hard, angry and hurt and cold. "I don't care what your mother says. That school was stifling him….no, no, I don't have to ask her permission." There was a slight hesitation before he realized who his mother was speaking with, before he realized that the voice on the other end of the line was his father. "You can threaten all you want, Larry," she was saying. "He's staying with me."

He wondered at that, wondered exactly what she meant by 'staying with me.' Did she mean that she would choose his next school? Or that he would actually live with her?

"Look, you're just doing this to be spiteful. You didn't even file for custody. You didn't even mention custody until I showed an interest."

Ned knew he shouldn't be listening to this. He knew instinctively that this was one of those things that could send a healthy person into analysis for a decade. But he stayed there, hidden in the shadows of the doorway, glued to the drama unfolding before him.

"Don't you dare even try anything like that, Larry Ashton. I swear to you, if you force my hand, I will crucify you. You don't have a leg to stand on in this divorce, and you know it. My son is going to grow up the way I choose, not the way your mother chooses or your dead Uncle Henry or whatever decrepit old Ashton ancestor you want to invoke chooses. He's a Quartermaine, too. And you know damned well what happens when a Quartermaine is cornered, Larry. You know damned well what I'm capable of if you threaten to take my kid from me."

His eyebrows went up. What was his mother capable of doing, if she felt threatened enough? His mind went straight to the sordid movies he and his friends snuck into at the cinema on weekends—tales of corruption and murder and all sorts of vice, obviously not intended for younger audiences. He wondered what went on with his parents, how much hatred they'd managed to build up between them.

It hit him, hard between the eyes, that they were really going to do it, that this time they were really going to split up and make it stick.

They'd never been what he'd considered a close family, and he'd spent most of his life hearing tales of their legendary fights. But he never really thought about what it would mean to be the product of a divorced family.

Words like "custody" rang harshly in his ear. What would happen to him when they signed on the dotted line? Would he be carted off to some boarding school in Switzerland, forgotten by both of them? Would she drag him back to America, this weird place he'd read about but had never seen, to grandparents who sent him money every birthday and holiday but probably wouldn't recognize him in a police line-up without a photo to guide them?

Would he never see his father again? Or if Larry got custody, would he lose his mother?

He didn't even notice that she'd hung up the phone now. He was so lost in his own thoughts that he jumped when he felt her arms around her, felt her brushing the tears from his cheeks. She knelt down next to him, her arms tight around his shoulders.

"Baby," she whispered into his hair as he buried his head into her shoulders, crying for all his worth like a little boy. "Baby, I'm so sorry. You shouldn't have heard all that." She was kissing him, holding him, cooing soft words of encouragement into his ear. "It's not so bad, Pooh Bear," she said, rocking him gently against her. "We'll work it out somehow, your father and I. We won't let you get torn up in the middle of all this mess."

"I'm sorry," he choked out, feeling like an idiot, feeling weak and stupid and juvenile. He wanted her to be proud of him. He wanted to be a Quartermaine, like she said. But he didn't know what being a Quartermaine meant, and he was too afraid to ask. So he just wept, and didn't argue when she had him snuggle up next to her in the bed. She was warm and safe, and he needed warm and safe right now. It might be a three-year-old thing to do, but he didn't care as he fell asleep in his mother's arms, his pillow damp with tears, his face hot and puffy from the strain of sobbing.

She never said a word about it to him in the morning, never chastised him for his tears. She just showed him Paris in all its glory, stopping every so often to hug him, or kiss the top of his head.

It was a marvelous trip, despite the fact that he knew it would all end too soon.

End Part Two

Written for the lj user"100situations" Challenge.

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