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.

Paris went in a blur, and Zurich wasn't much more coherent. She'd insisted they return to Switzerland in the winter when he could learn to ski like a proper gentleman, then gorged themselves on chocolate to the point that they had to return to the hotel and sleep off their tummy aches. They sang their way through Luxembourg, with The Beach Boys doing the honor of representing American pop music as they drove through the small European country.

It wasn't until Munich that the subject of school, and that terrifying subtext of custody, came back into the conversation. They were in a little café eating schnitzel and spaetzel while people-watching when he asked her, quite suddenly and without precedent, where he'd be going to school.

She paused, looking down at her plate, and then set her fork down. "Well, I suppose that we'll just have to figure that out," she said. She looked at her nails for a moment before lifting her eyes to fix them on him. "What do you have in mind?"

He was shocked by the question. In his experience, it wasn't really something anyone ever asked a child. He'd never even considered the question, honestly. He'd just assumed he'd go where he was sent, without argument or question. "I, erm, don't know."

She smiled crookedly, nodding. "Good a place to start as anywhere." She took a bite of schnitzel, pondering it for a moment. "Well, I know there are some good schools in Salzburg. I'm not sure if I intend to settle there, though. It's charming, but limited. Ooh, remind me to show you the house where Mozart was born. They have tours. You'll love it."

"Thank you," he said, trying to wrap his mind around the concept that he was being given the opportunity to have a say in his own education. It was unreal.

"I'm thinking something maybe a bit more progressive than Chatham, although that would basically be anything with desks," she added in a catty tone. "We might even consider Manhattan, if you like." She smiled, a wistful look crossing her face as she continued. "Oh, Ned, you'd adore Manhattan. There are more things to do in one city block in Manhattan than in all of—" She paused, trying to find a comparison, laughing when she couldn't. "It's just amazing. And there's no reason that you couldn't also pursue your music while you study. I mean, as a hobby. New York is a Mecca for talent, and a great place for you to…what?" She stopped, seeing the look in his eyes. "Wow," she said sympathetically. "This is completely meaningless to you, isn't it?"

He shrugged. He didn't want to think about it, really. He didn't want to think what would happen if she took him back to the U.S. with him, back to her family that he barely knew, away from everything he understood. "It sounds exciting," he offered lamely.

"It sounds like a foreign country," she corrected. Her voice had lost its air of enthusiasm in favor of a more delicate, understanding tone. "It's home to me, but you—you don't know anything about it." She sounded so homesick, and Ned felt ten times the heel for making her feel guilty about it. It wasn't her fault that he was stuck in the middle. "We don't have to make a decision now, Ned," she said. "But I promise you, whatever we choose, your feelings will be taken into consideration."

Something occurred to him, and he furrowed his brow. "Why does it matter that you don't want to settle in Salzburg?" he asked suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

He picked up a piece of spaetzel with his fork and ate it thoughtfully. "A moment ago, you said something about the schools in Salzburg, and that you didn't think it would work because you didn't want to stay there."

Tracy grinned. "You mean, am I considering not sending you to a boarding school?"

His heart leapt into his throat. He hadn't really been considering it. It was such a foreign concept to him, such an impossibility that he hadn't even dreamed of it. He couldn't speak. He just nodded weakly.

"Well, that thought had definitely occurred to me," she said, putting her hand over his. When he looked up, there was such love in her eyes that it surprised him. "I spent my whole life in boarding schools, Baby. I hated them. I hated the dormitories, the classes, the feeling that—" She frowned. "The feeling of being forgotten by my family. When you were old enough, I let myself be bullied into putting you in that horrible Chatham place. I've regretted that decision ever since." She took a sip of her wine, steadying herself. "Now that your father and his family are not pulling all the strings, I'm thinking maybe a change is in order." She put her glass down, still watching him, gauging his reactions, her face expectant and almost shy. "Do you think you might want to do that, Ned? Live with me for a while? Go to a regular school, and maybe…" The words choked in her throat slightly. "Be a regular family?"

He nodded, still unable to speak, but clutched her hand tightly in his. It would be wonderful, he thought. Being a real family….

His mother nodded. "Okay, then. Why not? I mean, we've got money, which means we've got options. Why not try this whole 'normal' thing?" She laughed, a musical, graceful laugh that had him giddy with the sound of it. In the whole wide world, Ned thought at that moment, there was nothing more beautiful in the world than his mother's laugh.

Once they hit the road again, she refused to take the German highways, calling the Autobahn a Disneyland for lunatics and bad drivers. Instead, they took a winding path on older roads through the eastern part of Germany towards the Austrian border. When they stopped for a moment outside of Rosenheim, Ned took his guitar out of the trunk. They drove on in relative silence, and he strummed gently, working out his fingerings, finding peace in the simple act of forming the chords, creating the rhythms.

There was something that happened to him when he played, something mesmerizing and powerful, like nothing else mattered. Not his parents' divorce, not the school situation--nothing at all existed but the notes he was playing, the sounds the instrument made under his hands.

He didn't notice his mother watching until he'd been humming for a while. It was just a stupid little warm-up thing he'd made up, but her face was transfixed, stunned, amazed. He blushed, lowering his eyes, embarrassed by the look in her eyes. "What?" he said, acting for all the world like a thirteen-year-old boy.

She swallowed, shaking her head slightly as if to clear away cobwebs. "What was that you were humming?" she asked. "I didn't recognize the tune."

His mother, despite her protestations to the contrary, was a veritable encyclopedia of music. There wasn't a genre she didn't like, or an artist she didn't have an opinion on. He suspected she didn't really publicize the fact. From what he could gather, the arts weren't really all that important to the Quartermaines, unless you were donating millions to 'support' them. "It's just a stupid thing I play around with," he murmured.

She cocked her head slightly. After several days of travel, she was starting to show her exhaustion, although she always looked perfectly put together. It was only around her eyes, and maybe around the mouth, that he could see her getting tired. "You wrote that?"

He nodded, shrugging.

There was a long silence that followed, awkward and pregnant with unspoken words. Finally, Tracy murmured, "You have talent."

It wasn't so much what she said, really, but how she said it. Like it was an apology. Like it was unfortunate. He didn't understand her at all. She was so incredibly…cool sometimes, to use her word. And then…

"Let me guess," he said. He didn't have to ask. He knew instinctively what was bothering her. "Quartermaines don't do music."

"Nonsense," she said harshly. "We are very generous patrons of the arts."

He'd learned very quickly, a long time ago, that it was never a good thing to say anything critical about the Quartermaines in front of his mother. It didn't bother her at all to demolish the Ashtons any chance she got, but heaven forbid the precious Quartermaine name got sullied even for a moment. He glared at her as he played, flubbing a chord, which only made him glare all that harder.

"My mother has a lovely singing voice," she added softly.

"So do you," he whispered.

Her eyebrows shot up straight into her hairline. "I most certainly do not!" Her voice was a full half-octave higher than usual.

"You do! I've heard you singing, and you're good. Why are you so bloody embarrassed by it? What is wrong with music?" He felt his own voice rising, both in pitch and volume. They'd been having such a lovely trip. Why did it have to go bad now? "What's so wrong with music, Mother? You love it. It's obvious. You know every ruddy song that's ever been written, and all of the words to them. You bought music before you bought food for this trip, and yet you act like it's something to be ashamed of."

"Music is fine…in its place."

"Music is everything, Mother," he said, stunned at his own vehemence. In a heartbeat, he knew it was true. Music was all he cared about, aside from his parents. Music made everything right, made everything good. How could she not understand that?

She sighed, shaking her head. "Edward, there is a responsibility that comes with being a Quartermaine. You are the eldest grandson. Your Uncle Alan has completely shirked his duties towards our family by going into medicine." The venom and disgust in her voice surprised him. He'd never heard her mother speak ill about any of the Quartermaines, although the subject of Uncle Alan's career choice had never really come up. "You are the male heir. You can't waste your time dreaming about rock and roll, Baby. One day, you're going to take over ELQ, just as your grandfather would want you to."

"But what about what I want, Mum?" He knew he sounded like a spoiled child. He knew blokes from school who had their entire lives planned for them, down to their potential brides and future homes. He was lucky, in a way. But he couldn't help feeling angry and annoyed with his mother—who was so Bohemian in some of her ideas—for falling into this trap. "Don't you think I should have some say in it? You want me to have an opinion on dinner, on art, on where I go to school. You want me to have opinions on politics, on industry, on sports. Don't you think I should have an opinion on what I want to do with the rest of my life?" He knew for certain that he sounded like a pouting three year old, but he didn't care. "Maybe I don't want to be the heir to stupid ELQ."

"Of course you do!"

"If it's so bloody fantastic, why don't you take over the damned company?"

"Edward, ELQ is your legacy, your birthright, your future. Music," she said coldly, cutting straight to the heart of the matter. "Is not a career."

He'd never admitted it, even to himself, but he'd known since the first time he'd held that guitar that he wanted to make music his life's work. He wanted to be surrounded by it, wrapped it in forty, fifty, sixty hours a week if need be. He wanted to create it and be created by it, whole and unique and spontaneous.

It was as if she were seeing right through him. "Music is not a career, Edward," she repeated firmly.

"Tell that to Buddy Holly."

"Buddy Holly is dead, Ned. And so are Mozart and all those other brilliant, talented people who lived pathetic lives of squalor and poverty, just in the hopes of achieving immortality. For every Mozart, for every Buddy Holly and Elvis and Shostakovich, there were thousands, maybe millions of equally talented people who never got rich, never got famous. They just worked and scraped by and died, leaving nothing of importance to anybody." She shook her head ardently. "That is not a life for my son.".

"I don't want to be immortal, Mum. I don't care about being rich or famous. I just want to make music."

"You're being ridiculous." She shook her head fiercely, not sounding like herself at all, not sounding like anyone he'd ever met before. "You can't play around with this foolishness forever. You have to look at the big picture, at your future, and your duty as a Quartermaine."

"I'm an Ashton, Mum," he said viciously in his most British tones, knowing it would hurt her and not caring one whit. "And I don't give a damn about my duty as a Quartermaine."

The silence that followed was physically painful to endure. He put the guitar in the back seat of the Lincoln, no longer even wanting to see it, much less play it. He couldn't look at his mother. She seemed hideous to him, an ogre, a tyrant. She played at being decent and loving, but that was only when she got exactly what she wanted. Disagree with her even slightly, and she bared her fangs.

"So, that's what it means to be a Quartermaine, is it?" he said sullenly. "Give up your dreams? Do as you're told? Shove every bit of yourself down into a little box and become exactly what is expected of you?"

"Yes," she said, her voice barely audible over the hum of the engine.

"Bollocks," he hissed. With a glare at her, he added, "What did you give up, Mother? What part of you did you shove into a little box to be exactly what they wanted you to be?"

His mother didn't answer. She just tightened her jaw, tightened her grip on the wheel, and drove on in silence. They didn't speak again until they'd crossed the border into Austria, and barely a word after that as the finished the trip to Salzburg.

The sun was down when they got to her house in Salzburg. Gerthe, the aging housekeeper who apparently came with the lease, was waiting for them when they arrived. She began rattling off something in German, but Tracy waved her off with a tired frown and that harsh tone she generally reserved for very slow or very dull people. "English, Gerthe. I'm in no mood to fight with twenty-syllable words tonight." Without letting the older speak, she continued as she walked through the foyer, tossing her purse on the table near the door. "My son Edward will need his room made. We've very tired from our journey and don't want to be disturbed, so make sure the phones are turned off as soon as you have his room done."

"Frau Ashton…" the woman tried, only to be stopped by a withering glare from his mother. "Excuse me," she corrected. "Miss Tracy, there is packages you must…"

"Oh, not tonight, for crying out loud. I'll do my mail in the morning." She was pulling the tie out of her hair; she'd worn it pulled back while driving, and now it fell in messy locks around her shoulders.

"Herr Thompson has—"

"I'll call him in the morning, Gerthe." She turned brushed her fingers through her hair, flipping it casually over her shoulders as she stretched.

Ned hovered just inside the doorway, still too angry at his mother to speak, and far too angry to ask her what he was supposed to do. The house—what he saw of it—was an eclectic mixture of the old and the new--modern furniture, a huge fireplace on the far side of the room, carved wood railings on the stairs going to the second floor. It wasn't very large. Of course not. She'd chosen it for one person—herself. No doubt the thought of him being there had never even occurred to her when she—

"Edward, your room is upstairs; the second door on the right. If you're hungry, Gerthe can make you something to eat. We have breakfast at eight am. I expect you dressed and there."

With that, she was gone. Not a word of welcome. Not a word of apology.

Just go to your room and don't be late for breakfast.

He turned to Gerthe, who looked him up and down slowly. "Those your things?" she said, indicating his knapsack and guitar case. When he nodded, she hefted them both without giving him the chance to object and started up the spiraled staircase. "Follow me." It was a long-suffering voice, one he could now begin to appreciate.

His room was small, but comfortable. It had that generic look most people gave their guest bedrooms—not overtly suited to one gender or another, so that anyone would feel at home. There was a double bed in a sturdy wooden frame, very Old World. It matched the dresser and bureau. The comforter and drapes also matched—warm colors, tasteful. Gerthe showed him his cupboard--closet--and private bath. Then she left him alone with the promise of dinner if he wanted it. He thanked her but decided against eating.

He didn't want to see his mother right now, much less let her know that he was famished. He had a stash of Swiss chocolate in his bag that he could raid if he got too hungry. He was content to be stubborn and antisocial, as long as she was the same way.

He toddled into the bath; he wanted to wash the grime of the journey off. He turned on the faucet and let the hot water filled the claw-foot tub. There were bottles of shampoo, two or three varieties of soaps to choose from, and thick towels the color of deep forest leaves. He peeked in the medicine cabinet and found a bottle of scented bubbles. Rolling his eyes, he thought, What the hell? He twisted off the cap and poured a hefty thumb full of the stuff into the water, waiting as the bubbles formed a thick foam on the top of the water. Then he eased into the steaming hot bath, slowly lowering himself until he was completely submerged.

The damned bubbles smelled like gardenias.

He took his time with the bath, ignoring the flowery scent and scrubbing hard at his chest and arms, his legs and feet. He resisted the urge to indulge in, well… He wasn't quite that at home just yet. Instead, he chose to just lie back, his toes playing with the rounded metal faucet, fingers making shapes with the bubbles as he let himself relax.

Let himself think.

He was absolutely certain that his mother was wrong about his music. He knew that, given enough time, he could make her understand what it meant to him, how important it was. He knew that ELQ was important to her, but what good would it be for him to take over the family business if his heart wasn't in it? If she'd taught him nothing over the last week, it was that you had to live life the way you were meant to.

The question came back to him as the hot water relaxed his temper as well as his muscles. What had she given up? There were so many contradictions about his mother. She was nothing like the viper his grandmother described, but she also wasn't completely the free-spirit she'd presented herself to be when they first left Chatham.

There was a hard edge to his mother, a razor-like sharpness he never saw coming and rarely enjoyed experiencing, even as a witness. Weakness appalled her. Sentimentality embarrassed her. Yet, she had the most tender streak of any person he'd ever met—when she was sure no one was paying attention.

Who was his real mother? The woman who held him when he cried, or the hard-nosed harpy who waved off her housekeeper like a bug?

It made his head hurt and, for the first time, he wondered if he'd been better off at Chatham, away from his mother, away from her ideas of right and wrong and duty. She talked about a progressive school, but for what? To learn to run a business he knew or cared nothing about? To become some drone in a suit who never had fun, never did anything spontaneous or exciting?

The water was cold long before he gave up looking for answers, and his muscles protested stiffly as he pulled himself out of the bath at last. Still, the water and soap had done their magic, and he felt calmer and more willing to face the risk of going downstairs for something to eat. He didn't want to bother the housekeeper, though. He'd just nip something out of the kitchen, whatever was lying about.

He pulled on his pajamas and slippers, grabbing a robe at last thought. He'd never lived with ladies before, and didn't really fancy an embarrassing encounter with Gerthe in his night-clothes.

When he got to the kitchen, his mother was there, sitting at an enormous oak table. She looked up from the mug of tea she was sipping—he could smell that it was peppermint, not proper British tea. He doubted she'd ever do anything in a proper British manner again, if she'd ever done so in the past.

He expected a frown, but she just looked up tiredly, her expression bland and sad. She was wearing a robe, too, and her hair was damp and straight down her shoulders. "Looks like we both had the same idea," she said, indicating his mop of wet brown hair.

"Yeah," he said. The tea smelled good, and kicked in a sympathetic reaction from his stomach. He blushed when it growled loudly.

"If you want me to get Gerthe…"

"No, please," he said. "I just wanted something to nibble." The tension between them was thick, and the growling in his stomach only made him feel worse. "I'm not all that hungry."

She smiled at him, pushing her chair back to stand. "Uh-huh," she said. "Sit. I'll find you some—"

"No, I can manage. You're tired from the drive." He moved forward to pull out her chair just as she was moving forward to take his arm. They half-collided, awkward, stumbling over themselves and their feelings.

Finally, Tracy sighed. "We are just too tired and cranky for civilized company, aren't we?"

"Absolutely," he agreed. When she caught his eye, there was a spark there, a glint of that humor he'd seen so abundantly on the trip from England. He flashed her a lopsided grin. "We should come with warning labels."

"Oh, definitely." She was chuckling now, and after a moment's hesitation, she reached out an arm for him.

He hesitated, too. He didn't want her thinking that a hot bath would change what he wanted out of life. But he didn't want to fight with her, either. She was right. They were both exhausted, both more than a little shell-shocked from the enormous changes in their lives. It wasn't fair to keep fighting like this without even trying to be civil.

She had her arms open, and he started to move into them. In a heartbeat, he changed his mind and took her hand, pulling her to him, wrapping her in the embrace instead of the other way around. He swore he heard her sigh as she let herself relax against him.

"You know, we can't continue like this. We're very different people, Mother. I suspect you don't like to hear that, but…" Ned paused, looking into her face for a moment. "I cannot imagine that stubbornness is solely a Quartermaine trait."

She laughed, shaking her head. "No, you get it from both sides, I'm afraid."

"Then," he said solemnly. "We're going to have to learn to disagree without tearing each other apart. Either that, or we will drive each other mad."

Tracy cocked her head to one side. "How old are you again?"

"Thirteen, Mother. You should know that."

"If we were Jewish, I'd throw you a bar mitzvah right about now." She had a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "I always knew our WASP heritage would be a problem sooner or later. All the good rituals belong to the more ethnic groups." She winked at him, still wrapped in his embrace, her smile dazzling. "You are nothing like I expected, Ned. You are smarter, wiser, finer, and more decent than you have a right to be, given your genetic make-up."

"I did okay," he said. He wished he could have a week with his father, just the two of them, to get to know him like he was beginning to know his mother. Maybe he was as much a bastard as she said he was. Or maybe he was just like Tracy—more complex than his detractors could ever imagine.

One thing he knew for certain, he had an extraordinary journey before him. It would take a lifetime, and probably years of therapy, before he could really say he knew his mother. Unraveling her, figuring out what caused those astounding contradictions, would be one of the most intriguing puzzles he could ever ask for.

"You know what I gave up?" His mother was whispering, as if she were afraid the chairs and table might eavesdrop, reveal her secret to an unkind world.

"I shouldn't have asked that…"

"I wanted ELQ. From the time I was a little girl, all I wanted was to go to work with my father, to learn what he did, to be as smart and powerful and respected as he was." She frowned. "That wasn't really in the cards for me, Baby. Quartermaine women, I have learned, are expected to be wives. Not CEOs." Her eyes clouded over, and she shrugged against him. She didn't seem even slightly ready to let go of him, or to let him let go of her. "I married. I had a baby. I played my part. And it didn't work out."

"You could still do it, Mother. You could go into business, build your own ELQ…"

"Your grandfather has very serious reservations about my ability to function in the business world," she said.

"Grandfather Quartermaine obviously has never heard of the sexual revolution," he snorted.

"Obviously!" But she laughed, and nudged slightly out of his arms. It was funny—just the name 'Quartermaine' was enough to cause a distance between them, even if only a slight one. "But I do know this. No matter what your grandfather says, no matter how much he tries to bully me, I'm going to live my life on my own terms from now on. I have my own money, I have my son, I have opportunities most people couldn't even dream of. And I fully intend to use them to make a better life for you and me, kiddo."

"I think that's a wonderful thing, Mother." His stomach grumbled again, loudly and with a new sense of urgency, much to his chagrin.

"I think we need to get some food in your stomach before you pass out."

They parted, each padding in their slippers towards the refrigerator. She pulled out meat and mustard, pointing him to where Gerthe kept the bread. Before long, they had thick roast beef sandwiches on German rye, along with huge glasses of milk and cold potatoes from dinner. They sat quietly at the table, each lost in their own thought as they ate.

Suddenly, Ned asked, "Who's Herr Thompson?"

"Huh?"

"When we got here, Gerthe mentioned something about Herr Thompson." He frowned, not liking the feeling that came over him. "Is he your boyfriend?"

Tracy laughed out loud, throwing her head back gaily as she did so. "Oh, Ned! I'm sorry. I didn't expect that."

"He's not your boyfriend?"

"Benjamin Thompson is my accountant. I suppose he wants to talk to me about the finances—your father and I are in the process of figuring out who gets what, and unfortunately, that included a full audit of our financial holdings. It's been a nightmare getting everything straightened out after so many years of marriage. He probably wants the receipts for our trip, tightwad that he is." She smiled at him. "You have nothing to worry about, though. I've got plenty of money. We'll be just fine."

"I'm not worried about that," he said. "So he's not your boyfriend?"

Tracy laughed again. "No, Baby. Mr. Thompson, homosexual octogenarian that he is, is definitely not my boyfriend." She paused, sobering a little at Ned's pensive expression. "Listen, kiddo. You don't have to worry about all that right now. I've been married since ten seconds after I turned eighteen. I have no intentions of rushing into another marriage right now. I want to be Tracy for a while, instead of Mrs. Somebody, ya know?"

"I know…" He didn't know why, but that made him feel much better. It would be good for both of them, learning a new way of life together. Maybe he'd spend time with his father. Maybe he'd even get to know this amazing grandfather of his that Tracy was so enamored of. But she was right—there was no rush now. They had money. They had time. All they had to do was make the best of it, and learn how to become a new kind of family. "I think that you're making a very wise decision, Mother. And maybe Grandfather is wrong. Maybe once you stop spending all your efforts at being someone's wife and start applying it to what really matters to you, maybe you'll become an even better CEO than he ever dreamed of being."

"You think?"

"Mother, anything is possible." He lifted his glass to his lips, and paused. "All we have to do is stick together, and I believe we can achieve anything."

She smiled at him, and for a moment there such love in her eyes. "Oh, who cares if we're not Jewish?" She lifted her own glass in toast, her expression soft and warm. "My son, today you are a man," Tracy said solemnly, and they toasted their future together.

Written for the lj user"100situations" Challenge.

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