Title: Heartless
Fandom: General Hospital
Characters: Tracy Quartermaine
Prompt: #3 Sunrise
Word Count: 873 words
Rating: PG
Summary: Tracy waits for the sun to rise.
Author's Notes: LuNacy. March 2006; set during the Monkey Fever epidemic.
She knew what people thought of her. She'd heard the words for so many years—bitchy, selfish, arrogant, greedy.
Cruel.
Heartless.
Tracy didn't blame them for their words, and she rarely argued with them. She was all those things and more. She'd left her children in the care of others while pursuing her own bliss; she'd schemed and connived and threatened and lied to achieve her own ambitions.
Even her own mother, who'd never had a bad word to say about anyone, had called her frivolous and worried after her soul.
At least Lila thought she had one.
Tracy sat in the uncomfortable chair the hospital provided. Luke had been brought to a private room now as the hospital began to fill with victims of the epidemic. He was sleeping restlessly, having drained his veins in a desparate attempt to isolate the antibodies that had helped him recover from the deadly virus.
She watched him sleeping, his handsome face looking old and bloated, almost too worried in sleep to be recognizeable as Luke Spencer, Savior of the Free World. Tracy brushed a strand of damp hair from his brow with her fingertips.
In this moment, what she wanted more than anything was to be heartless, what they all accused her of being. She wanted to be shallow and mean and careless with the lives of others.
She wanted to be Tracy Quartermaine, instead of this exhausted, worried person she'd become.
Luke stirred restlessly. She started to snap her hand back, like this very act of tenderness was a snake coiled and ready to spring at her. But he quieted, and her hand went where it wanted to go, back to him.
Heartless bitch, she thought to herself as she stroked his forehead. Her son was elsewhere in the hospital under the watchful eye of his unacceptable girlfriend. She wasn't welcome there, not even at this godawful hour, even though she was his mother.
And, heartless bitch that she was, Tracy didn't really mind. It was too hard seeing Dillon that way, too hard watching the disease take its toll on his young body, too hard remembering how many years she'd denied herself the pleasure of being a real mother to him.
No, let Georgie watch over him in his sleep. Let her bear that burden, as long as when he was awake, Tracy had her say.
After all, wasn't it the job of the wife to watch over her husband when he slept?
Oh, god, she thought as she realized what she was doing. Her hand was pressed against his hair, her body leaning forward. It was, what? Five-thirty in the morning. She hadn't slept. She couldn't, not in these surroundings. A catnap here and there, but that was about it.
She'd come to Luke's side, mainly because there was nowhere else to go. She'd come to Luke's side because his sister was too busy, and his daughter was too sick. She'd come to Luke's side because, in her heart of hearts, though she should be furious with him for bringing this on them, Tracy didn't want her bastard husband to die.
He moaned slightly, and she stiffened with fear. Moaning and hospital beds were not a good combination in Tracy's experience, and she moved to push the nurse's call button. Before she could hit it, though, he was calm again.
Nightmares.
She relaxed, moving her hand back to his forehead. It was too hot, she noted, although not as bad as it had been back at the house when he'd collapsed.
She didn't want him to die. It was so strong in her that it frightened her. She didn't want this man, this arrogant, annoying, selfish, greedy, cruel…and yes, heartless man to die.
She wouldn't say she loved him. Love was something altogether different from what she felt for Luke Spencer. Love was waking up in each other's arms after a night of passion. Love was chocolate and champagne on the beach while watching the sunrise. Love was watching his eyes light up when she walked into the room.
It wasn't love, but she cared. And that scared her more than anything. It scared her to care for this man who sent her to other men's beds. It scared her to care for this man who stole from her, risked her life, mocked and humiliated her.
It scared her to look at him and feel that connection, that understanding, that seemed so right and proper between them. To know that her heart would break if he died. To know that, even without love, he was still one of the most important people in her life, and she barely even liked him.
She didn't love him. She could never love him, she knew. Because it was too dangerous. Because they were too much alike. Because she could never trust him, any more than she could trust any man.
And because Luke Spencer, in his own way, was just as heartless as she was.
Tracy leaned forward, kissing his forehead lightly as he slept, resting her head on the pillow beside him. This wasn't love, even though somewhere, she suspected, the sun was rising on a beach where lovers ate chocolate and drank champagne.
The End
Written for the 100situations Challenge.