Title: True to the Blood
Fandom: General Hospital
Characters: Tracy Quartermaine
Prompt: #18 True
Word Count: 2,376 words
Rating: G
Summary: Tracy's conversation with Robert doesn't reveal all that's going on inside of her.
Author's Notes: From the 7/11/06 episode. Tracy and Robert's last scene together, outside Kelly's, seemed incomplete to me. So, um, I finished it.

She found Robert outside of Kelly's just where he'd said he'd meet her. She didn't like the place, honestly, and avoided it as much as possible. Too many memories there, too many people she'd rather avoid. Tracy paused, looking in the window, horrified to see her son's soon-to-be ex-wife slow dancing with none other than Lorenzo Alcazar's felonious offspring. Wow. It just got better and better. She rolled her eyes, turning to Robert with a look of disgust on her face. "Oh! Ugh. I never thought I'd see the day that I would wish Dillon was back with Georgie. How did it go with Lulu?"

Robert shrugged. He looked worse than she felt, which was pretty bad. Of course, he'd been roped into playing surrogate daddy to Lulu while her father was out saving the British Tart from…well, whatever it was this week. Robert waited for her to sit. "Well, she's just like her dad. Talks up a ton, but it's all a crock."

"Oh, did she tell you it's okay? It's just a hookup?" Tracy's sarcasm was of the cut-with-a knife variety.

"Yeah. Well, we're all real cool with the whole thing," Robert said with equal derision. Tracy found herself grateful for his cynicism. It made the whole thing feel a little more…sane. "Yeah, Lulu's fallen hard for your boy. Any chance he's ever going to return those feelings?"

"Ha, ha! No. I'm afraid he's still in love with Little Miss What's Her Name in the other room. It hasn't registered with him that he's about to break Lulu's heart."

Robert cast her a knowing look, that annoying one he got when he was absolutely sure he had her figured out. "Oh, Sparks, who'd have thought you are such a romantic?"

Tracy bristled at his familiarity. Just because he'd helped her out with this Dillon/Lulu thing didn't give him the right to think they were friends. Or whatever. He was still an arrogant SOB who was far too impressed with himself. "I'm just trying to protect my family. The last thing we need is another nasty scandal."

It was obvious to her that Robert didn't buy her words.

For what it was worth, Tracy wasn't sure she bought them, either. She'd been spouting the party line for so long it was beginning to sound hollow to her.

I'm just trying to protect my family.

My family hates me, she thought to herself.

The last thing we need is another nasty scandal.

Scandal is what makes us tick, she thought to herself.

Robert, noticing her silence, nudged her slightly. "They're good kids, you know."

Tracy smiled, a sad kind of smile, and nodded. "That's the worst of it, you know. That they are good kids. If they weren't, it would be easier. We could just crack their skulls together, ship them off to boarding school, do something to shut down this nonsense." She sighed, resting her chin on her hand. It was nice out tonight, warm with a gentle breeze. It was rare for Tracy to spend much time out of doors anymore—all her life seemed to be board rooms and living rooms and in the car to and from wherever she had to go.

She would have liked to enjoy this summer night, talking to an attractive man who at least pretended to get her.

"I so didn't sign on for this," she muttered with a slight laugh.

"You? Hey, at least one of them's your own kid." Robert winked at her. "I'm nobody's daddy in this situation, and I'm stuck just as much as you."

"Well, that's what you get for letting my darling husband slip through your fingers." Tracy flashed him an insincere grin, then shook her head. "You know the worst part of this? The absolute worst part? I can't even hate Lulu. I want to. I want to just…" She sighed, brushing her fingers through her hair. "Dillon's my son. It's my job to defend him, especially against predatory blondes who want to…hook up."

"Definitely a mother thing," Robert said. He was watching her, his blue eyes intent, as if he were trying to unravel a mystery. "You like Lulu, don't you?"

"She has a certain…style," Tracy said noncommittally. She might risk opening up to her son, but this was an outsider. This was a man with more schemes than dollars in the bank, and frankly, she didn't want to reveal her innermost thoughts to a man quite capable of using them against her at a moment's notice. "She's definitely got spirit."

"She's in love with him."

"I know."

"He's not in love with her."

That cut Tracy, for some reason, to hear it so bluntly stated. "I know…" God, how did this happen? Dillon, of all people? She shielded herself, trying to keep her face neutral, as it hit her again. Dillon.

"It's not your fault," he whispered, putting his hand over hers.

She shot him an angry look. "Of course it's not my fault! Whatever would make you even suggest such a thing?" But even as the words were coming out of her mouth, she knew that it was guilt she was feeling. She'd tried so hard, struggled so hard, to keep him gentle, to keep him kind…

"I wasn't suggesting anything, Sparky." He pulled his hand back, assuming that grating persona he got—the laid-back Aussie good-old-boy thing. "It's just that, when something like this happens, it's normal for the parents to start…well, you know, second guessing themselves. Wondering what they might have done wrong, that sent their kids down this path…."

"What I did wrong was not sending them both to boarding school the second Lulu arrived at our house." But she knew that wasn't true. Lulu didn't need boarding school. Tracy had threatened both Lulu and Dillon, of course, but there was no way she was going to subject either of them to that fate. She thought back with revulsion at her own incarceration, and knew she could never do it to kids she loved.

"Dillon's a good kid…."

"Why do you keep saying that? Why would you ever feel the need to tell me something you know I already know?"

"You have this look…like you're not certain anymore."

Tracy drew in a deep breath, wondering just what they had taught him in Spy School. She didn't want to discuss this with him anymore. She wanted to go home and take a hot bath. She wanted to scrub this day off of her.

"I'm sure this whole thing must be reminding you…"

"Don't—" She knew instinctively what he was going after, and she wasn't going to give it to him. He didn't have the right to go there; he didn't have the right to bring this up with her. "Robert…"

"I mean, the similarities between what happened with Paul—"

"This is nothing like what happened with Paul, and I don't want to discuss it with you anymore." She slammed the chair back from the table, pushing away and turning to leave.

Robert was unfazed by her actions and easily kept pace with her as she walked away from Kelly's towards where she'd parked her car. "You know, you won't be able to deal with this with all that baggage cluttering things up."

"You leave your damned hands off my baggage," she snarled, waving him off as he tried to put his hand on her arm. "Keep your damned hands off of me!"

He quickened his pace, stepping in front of her and effectively blocking her path. When she tried to dart around him, he grabbed both her shoulders, holding her in place. "You mean to tell me it hasn't occurred to you that maybe this little scenario has been played out before? That maybe it's the same old story with a new cast of characters?" He didn't let her look away, held her eyes as he continued. "Boy loves girl. Boy loses girl. Boy finds sexual gratification with another girl, whom he doesn't love, the tough little girl who pretends not to care but gets the wind knocked out of her when boy goes back to girl he really loves?"

"It's not the same at all…" But she knew that she was lying. She knew that all of this was cutting just a little too close to home, and that her anger with Dillon wasn't so much for the pseudo-incestuous nature of his liaison, but for the callous way he was using a girl who was obviously in love with him. "Oh, god," she whispered as her breath just went away. Just like that, she couldn't breathe, it hit her so hard. Tracy shut her eyes hard, trying to block out the picture of him.

Robert pulled her in to him, wrapping her in a warm, if unsolicited embrace. "Right now, we're all they've got, Trace. We can't let our own crap get in the way of helping them."

"When he was a little boy, I used to watch him sleep." She didn't know where it was coming from, or why she was letting it come out. She just talked. "I used to search his little face, knowing he couldn't hide himself when he was sleeping, knowing I'd see his true nature."

"Searching for signs of Paul…"

She nodded. "I was so sure, so absolutely sure that he was safe. That I'd raised a young man who would respect and care about women. That I'd taught him…" She swallowed, unable to finish the sentence. "Tonight, when he was talking, all I could see was Paul Hornsby. It was like his father was superimposed over him, all smug and self-assured, safe and secure in the knowledge that he was absolutely in the right. That he'd done nothing wrong. So willing to place blame, so unwilling to accept the responsibility for his part in what went wrong." She pushed out of Robert's arms, wrapping her own arms across her chest as she turned away. The night was getting cooler. "He wouldn't even consider Lulu's feelings. Robert, how did I raise a kid like that? How did he ever get to this place where he can be so selfish?"

"Lulu assures me that kids today have completely different feelings about sex. That's it's all about hooking up, and friendship, and nothing more."

"Bullshit."

"Oh, absolutely," he agreed, rubbing her shoulders against the cool breeze. "Because of course, we know nothing about sex."

"Or what it was like to be teenagers."

Robert laughed. "Yeah, Lulu thought my concepts on sex were positively Victorian. Were we that obnoxious when we were their age?"

"Yes," Tracy said. "In my case, anyway." She sighed, patting his hand on her arm. "And I was just as callous to my first lover as Dillon is to Lulu."

"And I'm willing to bet that Lulu is just as infatuated with Dillon as I pretended not to be with Penelope Alton."

Tracy had to laugh. "Penelope Alton?

"First girl I ever made love to. We were so sophisticated, like a French film. It was just physical, right?" He laughed at a memory that appeared to be playing before his eyes. "I was crushed when she decided to be sophisticated with one of my rivals instead. Yeah, it was just about sex."

"Mine was Chester Franklin. He worked in the mailroom at ELQ and was a very worldly 19 to my almost 17."

Robert raised an eyebrow. "Precocious little thing, weren't you?"

"Well, Robert, girls often are." She smiled, remembering Chester for the first time in ages. "He was sweet, and more than willing to rid me of my pesky virginity. And for a while, he didn't seem to mind risking not only getting fired, but possibly arrested as well."

"Yeah, funny how we didn't really care all that much about statutory rape, huh?"

"Eventually, I dumped him for someone more appropriate. I knew from the start he was just, well, a training lover." She closed her eyes. "But even so, I couldn't help fantasizing…dreaming…" She looked at her friend, frowning slightly. "There's no such thing as casual sex, is there?"

"Glaringly false advertising," Robert agreed.

"She's not faking it, is she?"

"No more than you were with Chester Whatsisname."

"Oh, god, he's going to break her heart." Tracy thought about her son, her bright kid, her best boy, the one she tried so hard with. He was going to break this girl's heart, just like his father had broken her heart, just like his son would someday break some new girl's heart. Was it just the Hornsby in him, or were all men genetically disposed to cruelty?

"Maybe we'll be lucky," Robert said, but he didn't look like he gave it much of a chance.

"Maybe we'll just have to bust it up," she corrected, steeling herself. Dillon may be a true Hornsby, but she was a true Quartermaine. If she couldn't appeal to his reason, his decency, she'd have to fall back on the tried and true.

She'd have to be a mother to him. And to pray that she could minimize the damage to this girl she had grown rather fond of. "Why couldn't he have had an inappropriate sexual relationship with some bimbo I didn't know?" she griped as Robert put her arm in his, walking her the rest of the way to her car. "A bimbo I could destroy and not give it a second thought."

"Luke would be really annoyed if you destroyed his little bimbo princess…."

"Leave him out of this," Tracy said as she got to her door and began fishing for her keys. Robert took them when she got them in her hands and opened her door for her. "I'm still looking for a way to blame him for all of this."

"You'll find it, I'm sure." He closed the door after her, leaning in as she opened the window between them. "You gonna be okay, Sparky?"

She smiled, grateful he'd been there, and grateful he was going to be there to help with the grim task of destroying yet another one of her sons' relationships. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Just be prepared, Scorpio." She turned the key and started the car. "Because this is going to get very ugly."

The End

Written for the 100 Situations Challenge.