Title: Cleo & Tony Take on the Winds
Fandom: General Hospital
Characters: Tracy Quartermaine
Prompt: #12 Shelter
Word Count: 4,225 words
Rating: PG
Summary: Two young rebels weather a storm together.
Author's Notes: Past!fic. Written in response to ILoveTracyQ's request for a young Luke and Tracy story. Both are around 17.

She came in like a bat out of hell, the wind from the storm whistling and howling behind her as she pushed open the barn door and pulled the horse in behind her.

The boy watched quietly from his vantage point in the hayloft as she led the horse to its stall. She was about his age and wore a blue plaid shirt and tight, faded jean tucked into her boots. From what little the boy knew about horses, it looked to him like she knew what she was doing as she calmed the animal. They were both drenched from the storm, and both seemed pretty spooked.

"C'mon, Chauncy," she was saying in that clipped, precise tone these rich girls got. He knew she was one of them, and not some stable-hand's daughter. He'd seen her when he jumped the fence, riding with her long, brown ponytail flying behind her, like she was some sort of Queen of the Universe. "Calm down!" It was an order, but the horse only half-heartedly obeyed. It was too spooked by the storm.

The boy inched his way to the edge of the loft, quietly, so she wouldn't notice him watching her. He hadn't intended to get trapped in the barn when he cut across the country club grounds on his way home--he did it all the time, and never got caught.

But the storm had come up quickly, and he was pretty sure a barn was safer than a golf course in a lightning storm. He watched the girl, expertly handling a horse that practically dwarfed her in size. She was confident, but struggling, and it was too much for her when a bolt of lightening spooked the horse. By the time the thunder sounded, she was across the stall on the ground, and the boy was hurling himself down the ladder to help her out.

He ran into the stall just as she was getting to her feet, dazed, and grabbed her just before the horse's front hooves landed where she'd just been. The force of impact sent them sprawling, and they landed, skidding, in a clump of hay that was fragrant with the aroma of stale horse dung.

They both lay there, him on top of her, stunned for a long moment, before she pushed him off of her with a horrified look on her face. "Ugh, gross!" she said, shaking the horse shit off her shirt sleeves in disgust. "What the i hell /i do you think you're doing?"

"Um, you're welcome," the boy responded, brushing off his own jeans with a sick feeling in his stomach. "Sorry I saved your life," he added, sarcastically.

The girl was already pulling off the wet shirt, revealing a tiny white tank top underneath, which was also soaked in a way the boy found extremely distracting. She wadded up the shirt and tossed it over the stall door, turning to him with a look of fury on her face. "Saving my life? You nearly got me killed."

The boy was about to respond with a particularly sarcastic remarks about damsels in distress and horse shit, but he was sort of stuck on her face--looking at it. She was pretty, but not too pretty. Smart looking, but not an egghead. And she looked like hell on wheels, what with the rage and the eyes shooting sparks and the steam coming out of her ears. He couldn't help himself--he started to grin at her. "Sorry. Big horse hooves, tiny rich girl. Seemed like a bad combination to me."

She rolled her eyes, especially at the "tiny rich girl" part, and tossed her thick wet locks behind her as she turned her attention back to the horse, who was still jumpy and nervous. She 'shhhd' the horse, reaching out a hand to stroke his nose. "Calm down, boy," she murmured to the animal, who pushed his head into her hand, allowing himself to be stroked. "Don't let the stupid townie boy frighten you."

"Hey!" The boy stepped up behind her, attempting and failing to get her attention as she began to remove the horse's gear. "Who says I'm a townie?"

She cast him a dismissive glance over her shoulder. "Well, you obviously don't belong i here /i ." With another toss of her hair, she indicated the country club in general. "You're one of those stupid town boys who thinks it's some sort of big thrill to jump the fence and try to mingle with their betters."

"Ouch." But he was amused, now, at this arrogant little Horse Queen. "What makes you think I'm not just some member's rebel kid?" When he saw her glancing at his faded clothes, he frowned. "Clothes don't make the man, Your Majesty. And," he added, nodding toward her jeans and taking an extra long glance at her wet tank top. "You're not exactly wearing diamonds and chiffon."

She rolled her eyes as she unhooked the saddle and lifted it off the horse. "What moron wears diamonds and chiffon to go horse-back riding, Townie Boy?"

"What moron goes horse-back riding in a lightening storm, Princess Debutante?"

"It wasn't raining when I started, you imbecile," she retorted as she removed the blanket from the horse's back. The beast had calmed considerably as she worked with him, and the boy was surprised to see it just standing, calmly, despite the occasional thunder and lightening. "Make yourself useful and hand me that big brush over there. I gotta get him groomed before I go back to the club house."

He reached behind him to where a huge brush was hanging from a nail on the wall. He tossed it in the air a little, letting it fally heavily in the palm of his hand before giving it to her. "I would have thought you had peons to do that sort of thing."

"We groom our own horses." This was delivered with as much arrogant condescention as he figured a girl her size could hold. "You obviously know nothing about horses."

"I know enough to know that if you waste time brushing that horse, you're going have hell getting back to the club house." He nodded behind them to an empty stall, where the wind was having its way with the heavy wooden shutters. "As it is, I'm not sure if I'm gonna make it across the--" He paused, not wanting to finish. "Back to my car."

She laughed at him. "You'd probably better just, uh, stay here." She flashed him a knowing smile and began brushing the horse. "I mean, nobody's going to come looking for you in the storm, and you're much safer than you would be cutting across the golf course on your way to the poor side of the tracks." She was still smiling, and even though the boy knew there was a devil behind those pearly whites, he had to smile back. "What's your name, anyway, Townie Boy?"

Whoa, he thought, realizing it probably wasn't a good idea to give her his real name. He thought about it, and then affected his best James Dean and a fake Brooklyn accent. "Anthony." He pronounced it Ant-nee, and gave her a flirtatious little smile. "But my friends call me Tony." It was a good enough lie.

She giggled, still brushing that damned horse. Her shoulders were smooth and tanned, even this early in the summer. Classes couldn't have been out a whole week, and she looked like she'd spent a month by shore. "I would have guessed Ant. Or Knee."

"Very funny," but he was chuckling too. This was turning into a not-so-bad situation. "What's your name, Princess?"

She paused, obviously thinking of a fake name as well. "Cleopatra," she said with a hysterically funny "dramatic" look on her aristocratic face. "But my friends call me Your Majesty."

He bowed. "Nice to meet you, Cleo," he said, then pulled back as a huge crack of thunder spooked the horse and it began to jump and prance. "Who, girl!" he said, reaching out to help her calm the horse.

" i His /i name is Chauncy," Cleo said, lifting his hand and putting it in the right spot on the horse's mane. "And he's a i male /i ."

Tony laughed, saying, "Right on, stud."

"Wrong again," she responded in a sing-song voice. "He's a gelding."

"Is that like a thoroughbred?"

She began to laugh, both mocking and real humor intermixed. "Uh, no, it means he has no…um, well, let's just say there aren't going to be any little Chauncies running around." She stared at Tony pointedly, lowering her gaze to his groin area for emphasis.

Tony pondered her meaning for a minute. When it hit him, he winced instinctively. "That's inhuman!" he said, with new sympathy for the poor horse.

Cleo, on the other hand, was stroking the poor emasculated thing's neck with a certain tenderness. "Oh, it's not so bad. It makes them very docile." She cast him an innocent look. "Maybe you should consider it?"

"Maybe I should get the hell outta this freak show," Tony said and started to head toward the door.

She was behind him in a flash, her strong, slender hands on his arm, stopping him. "No, wait. I was just joking. You should stay," she said sincerely. "It's too dangerous."

The boy hesitated, considering. She really was a bitch, and he really needed to get home to check on his sister. But the storm was getting pretty bad. He could hear the sound of tiny hail on the barn roof, and knew that it would be hell getting all the way to the fence and home with that coming down. "All right, but no funny stuff."

She was already pulling away, a sly smile on her face. She was walking backwards, inch by inch, her slim hips swaying with the unnatural motion. Her hair, which was pulled back into a single pony tail, was beginning to dry, and several wisps fell around her face, framing it. "No funny stuff," she said in a voice that implied she really, really got off on the funny stuff.

Tony couldn't help himself. He just had to bite. "So, Princess Cleopatra, you gonna stay with me to ride out the storm?" He nodded behind him in the general direction of the club house. "It's a lot warmer in here, and well…" He tugged at the waistband of his jeans just a little. "I'm not in the least bit…docile."

She paused, then groaned when she realized his meaning. "Oh, you are just so crude."

"Well, I should have guessed I didn't stand a chance with you." He followed her as she led Chauncy to the end of the stall and tied him up. "I mean, the last thing you had between your legs was a horse."

She turned around in a flash and slapped him, her eyes wide with rage. "Of all the sick--"

He grabbed he wrists, pulling her to him and stealing a kiss, which led to an even harder slap across the face, but was definitely worth it for the rise it got out of her. "What's the matter, Cleo? Can't take a joke?"

Well, obviously she couldn't, because she stormed past him, fuming as she headed for the door. "I am i reporting /I you to club security," she said.

"Oooh, I'm shaking in my cowboy boots!" he called after her, thinking of course that now he was going to have to find another place to hide out before she got back with the fuzz. He was almost caught up to her when she stopped dead in her tracks in the open door. "What?"

"Oh….my….god…." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but the wind and rain had died down a little so he had no trouble hearing her.

"What's the matt-" He stopped, just behind her, as his eyes lit on what had her paralyzed in the open door. "Holy shit," he said under his breath.

It was a twister, hovering just over the field separating the barn from the golf course. It wasn't enormous, but it was big enough that he was glad he had used the bathroom before heading home. It hadn't touched down yet, but it was black and forbidding and scary as hell.

"Oh, my god…" Cleo turned to him, a look of abject terror on her face. "We have to…we have to…"

"Find some place to--"

"Take shelter!" She was grabbing his arm, dragging him back into the barn. Her head shifted frantically as she scanned the area for a place of relative safety. "We need to get away from the doors and windows. Move inward."

"Is there a storm cellar?"

She stared at him, hands upward in an incredulous gesture. "What is this, Kansas? No, we don't have a storm cellar in the barn!" She was starting to panic, and he knew he had to take control.

"Okay, come on, emergency drills. They have them all the time in school. What do you do for a tornado?"

"I always cut emergency drills," she admitted. She was really starting to look scared.

"Head between your knees?" He shook his head. The horses were starting to get restless. He could hear the others, not just Chauncy, getting fidgety in their stalls. "No, a ditch. If you're outside, you're supposed to find a ditch to lie in."

"A bathtub. You're supposed to lie in a bathtub and put a mattress over your head!" she said, pointing to an empty stall towards the end of the row. "We can use an empty trough. It's big enough, and heavier than a bathtub. We can grab a bale of hay, maybe, instead of a mattress."

"Good thinking, Ninety-nine," he said. "You head for the trough, I'll get the bale." But she ignored him, hurrying straight ahead of him to the stack of bales and tugging on the top one.

"They're not too heavy," she said as she pulled it off. "But they're bulky. It'll take both of us. Come on!" Soon they were working together, dragging the bale toward the empty stall and relative safety. He was just about to help her in when Cleo screamed, pulling away and heading for Chauncy's stall. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I tied him up! If that thing hits, he could get strangled." She was running towards the stall now, and Tony followed her against his better instincts. Already it was starting to get noisy outside, as the winds around the twister started hurling objects large and small in its path.

The horse was in full panic by the time they got there, bucking and straining against his confinement. Cleo threw open the stall door and went straight for him, grabbing the ties and struggling to unhook him from the ring on the wall. Tony was right behind her, and between the two of them, they managed to get the horse free. He bolted, kicking through the stall door and was out the front door before they could stop him. When Cleo started to run after him, Tony stopped her, practically dragging her towards the empty trough.

"He'll be okay," he yelled over the noise, which was getting louder and louder now that the door was open. They couldn't see the twister anymore, but the air was black and heavy and he knew they'd better take cover or they'd have more than a runaway horse to worry about. "Come i on /i !"

With one last look towards the door, she turned and followed him. By the time they had scrambled into the trough and pulled the bale over them, the door of the barn had flown off and the winds were terrible.

Tony lay flat on his stomach, covering Cleo with his body. Under different circumstances, this would have been a wet dream come true. As it was, he had to keep himself from crying in fear like a little baby. He rest his head on her shoulder, her arms tight around him as they lay in the cramped space, shivering with fear.

"Tony," she said into his ear. Her breath seemed unnaturally warm in the close space, and he noticed that her smell was a wonderful combination of sweat, perfume, and girl.

"What?" he said into her tank top, still damp and stretched tight against her skin.

"Are we going to die?"

He closed his eyes. No way was he going to die in a barn with a beautiful snob he'd never even gotten to first base with. "Hell, no, Your Majesty."

"Good," she said, holding him tighter. "Because I don't want to die." Her lips were on his jaw, and before he could even register what was going on, she was kissing him frantically. "I don't want to die a virgin," she added, moaning as she kissed him hard on the mouth.

i Aw, hell! /i the boy thought as he felt his natural instincts kick in, in the most embarrassing of ways. But, humiliating physical responses aside, he was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He kissed her back gamely, and when the full force of the winds hit, he was just getting his hands under that sexy white tank top. The last thing he thought before everything went crazy was that her skin was incredibly soft.

It was pitch black when he came to, and there was a heavy weight on his chest. He felt a wave of panic hit him, along with the random thought that heaven smelled really good. That was before his brain started working, and he realized that the weight was an unconscious Cleo, draped on top of him. They were in a dark, cramped place, and she was so much dead weight.

Tony tested his arms to the left and right, and figured out pretty quickly that they were trapped i under /i the trough. He pushed at the sides, but they were not going anywhere. "Cleo," he hissed. "Princess, wake up." He wriggled, trying to stir her awake. She groaned, so he knew she wasn't dead, but she wasn't getting up. "Come i on /i , Your Majesty," he said in a louder voice. "Sleepy Time is over. Time to get out of this nice coffin and see what's happening in the Land of Oz."

She stirred, her movements sluggish. "Are we dead?"

"Not today, but we can still work on your little virginity problem, if you're game."

"Ughh!" He could feel her moving to hit him, but she stopped short, crying out in real pain. "Oh, god…"

"What's the matter?"

"My shoulder…oh, my god! It hurts." She was breathing hard, almost hyperventilating from the pain. "Tony--we have to get out of here."

"I was thinking the same thing." He stretched his arms carefully around her until his hands were above her, flat against the bottom of the trough. "Brace yourself--I'll try not to move too quickly." And he pushed. And pushed. And could barely budge it. Catching his breath, he said in a low voice, "I know this is not what you wanna hear, but you're going to have to help me. It's too heavy. Or something's on top of it." He could hear a slight whimper, but she said nothing. "Try to roll over, so you're facing up. You'll have more leverage that way."

He could hear her struggling not to cry out as slowly, achingly, she rolled herself over. It seemed to take ages, and Tony could feel himself hurting in sympathy as she moved. Finally, when she was lying on her back atop him, he wrapped his arms around her waist, letting her rest, whispering that she'd done good, that she was strong and brave and good, saying little encouraging things in her ear.

"I think I can do it, now," she whispered finally, and she pressed her good hand flat against the surface above them. Tony's hands joined hers and together they pushed with all their might, until finally the trough began to budge.

"Get ready, Cleo," he said grimly. "It's gonna take a big push to get this all the way."

He could hear the grim determination in her voice as she said, "I'm ready. Do it."

And they pushed with their entire bodies, an agonizing moan ripping out of Cleo's throat as they managed to force the heavy prison off of them, onto its side. Tony had to resist the urge to push her off of him, to rush his freedom. Instead, he carefully helped her up, mindful of her hurt shoulder, until they were sitting amidst the rubble. Tony turned to assess the damage and gave a low whistle.

There was no sign of the twister. Or the horses. Or most of the barn. Only a single wall remained--and not the one Chauncy had been tied to. She'd been right--if she'd left him tied up, he would have been killed when the winds pulled it away.

Not that he had a 100 chance of survival out there…

"Are you okay?" he asked Cleo, who was sitting in the dim light, looking around her. The clouds had already partially broken, and there was a hint of sunlight mocking them from above.

"I think so." She shook her head slightly, as if trying to clear it. "My shoulder hurts really badly."

"I'll go get some help. There has to be somebody at the club house who can--"

But Cleo's face got suddenly alert, and she struggled to get to her knees, and then with his help, a standing position. "No! You have to go."

"But you're hurt."

"Don't worry about me," she insisted, looking around frantically to see if anybody was on their way from the club house. "You need to get out of here. Now!" When he only stared at her, confused, she started to explain in a voice filled with shame. "I overheard my father talking to some of the other members. There's been vandalism from townies who jumped the fence. I heard them saying that the next townie they caught trespassing, they were going to make an example of." She couldn't look into his eyes. "That's why I told you to stay. I was stalling you."

"You were setting me up."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you. But now I do, and you need to go." She pushed him with her uninjured arm, towards the golf course, towards home, towards freedom. "I don't want you to get arrested, Tony," she added in a soft voice.

"Hey, ain't nothin' at all!" And with a grin, he took a step backwards and was about to pivot on his heels and high-tail it out of there when she stopped him.

"Tony?" she said, her hand on his shoulder. "What's your real name?"

He winked. "Lucas. Lucas Lorenzo."

She smiled, her entire demeanor brightening. "Much better than Ant-Knee."

"And what about you, Princess Cleopatra? What's on your drivers' license?"

"Tracy," she said, leaning in to kiss him gently on the cheek. "Tracy Lila." And then, after a swift, hard kiss on the lips, she pushed him away. "Go!"

"Hey, I'll be back, Princess Tracy. Keep your eyes open! I'll own this joint one day." And he was running, heading out to the open spaces, where he belonged.

And he didn't turn back to see her collapse.

i She woke in the hospital, with her mother sitting at her bedside. There was a huge bandage around her shoulder and arm, and her head felt thick and achy. "Mommy?" It was a name she didn't use anymore, a name that babies used, but Tracy Quartermaine felt babyish for a moment. "What happened, Mommy?"

"Oh, my darling Tracy!" Her mother was there in a heartbeat, arms wrapped around carefully but joyously, her sweet scent comforting and pervasive. "You're awake!"

"I hurt," she said plaintively, but not letting her mother back away. It didn't matter if it hurt, as long as Lila was there. "What happened?"

"Shh….child, you need to rest. You've dislocated your shoulder, and you have a mild concussion. Your father is taking a plane from Philadelphia tonight. He'll be here when you wake."

"Daddy's coming home?" She must be in a lot of trouble. "Is Chauncy okay?"

"All the horses got out safely," Lila said in a kind voice. "You were lucky, my precious, to come out of that alive." And she was still kissing Tracy's hair, and forehead, and cheeks.

It was okay, Tracy thought, to be babied once in a while.

"What about the boy?" she asked, struggling to remember his name. She could see his face--those dark, intense eyes, that odd curly hair, the funny smile. "Is he okay?"

"What boy, Tracy?"

"The boy in the barn. The one who helped me untie Chauncy…."

Lila began to chuckle. "You must have hit your head harder than I feared, darling. There was no boy in the barn."

"But…"

"Shhhh….it was all a dream, I'm sure."

Tracy drew in a deep breath. She was so tired, and the effort of trying to remember was wearing her out. "It seemed so real," she murmured.

"Of course it did, sweetheart."

It felt so good here, just being held by her mommy. And maybe the boy had been a dream after all. A funny, odd dream. "His name was Anthony," she yawned, and drifted off to sleep. /i

The End

Written for the 100situations Challenge.