Tracy Quartermaine 100 Situations Chapter 29: 027 Reverse, a general hospital fanfic

Title: In Which Frank Capra Rolls Over in His Grave
Fandom: General Hospital
Characters: Tracy Quartermaine
Prompt: #27 Reverse
Word Count: 10,413 words
Rating: PG
Summary: The shoe's on the other foot—now it's Edward's turn to try to win Tracy's love.
Author's Notes: FeySpirit gave me the idea for this story, although the members of the TQ LoveFest had some great ideas!

Earth Project

Sector: A-78394-b12

Spirit Group: L2904d8903subC

Soul: #01934s394

Corporeal Assignation: Quartermaine, Edward L.

Rejection Code: 392

Suggested Action: Corporeal intervention; re-education; termination of volunteer status as last resort.

The conference room was plush, high-tech, and decorated in varying hues of white and cream. Edward sat in the ergonomically-designed chair he was offered, took a mug of coffee, and waited for somebody to tell him what the hell was going on. He took a sip of the coffee—it was damned good. Possibly the best coffee he'd ever had, but that didn't change the fact that he wanted some answers. He hadn't been hurt, yet. Just detained. Just hustled into this conference room with no answers, no clues as to where he was, how he'd gotten here, or what they intended to do to him.

When the young man entered the conference room, Edward began to speak but was silenced with a wave of the young man's hand. He looked about forty, with graying brown hair, solid though not overtly muscular features, and strong facial features. He wore a Fioravanti suit, which meant that Edward wasn't dealing with half-pints here. Edward Quartermaine ran through the list of people who had reason to hurt him, but stopped when he realized that the opposite list – of people who didn't have a reason to hurt him – was probably much shorter.

"If it's ransom you're after, young man," he began again, blustering. "My family doesn't deal with terrorists."

The man opened his mouth to speak, but instead of words, he emitted a high-pitched, almost musical screech that had Edward doubling over, hands covering his ears, wincing in pain. The man stopped immediately, placing a hand on Edward's shoulder. The pain went away immediately, and Edward shrugged the hand away defiantly.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded.

The younger man had the decency to look chagrined before pasting a pleasant smile on his face. "My apologies…" He looked down at a stack of papers in front of him. "Edward. I was under the impression you'd already been through the discorporation process."

"Discorporation? What the hell does that mean?" Edward was getting fed up with mysteries and the silent treatment and the sympathetic looks from strangers who wouldn't answer his questions. "I want to know what's going on. Who are you people? Why am I being held here? I know you think you can get away with something, but I warn you…my reach is not so small that I can't crush you for this—"

"Edward, please…" The young man had the audacity to sound amused. He put his stack of papers down on the desk and relaxed his shoulders. "First, let me apologize for not introducing myself. My name is Lewis. I am a processing agent here, and I've been assigned your case. I realize now that you must be very confused, and perhaps a little frightened. Normally, cases don't reach my desk until after they've completed the discorporation phase. Otherwise, it can be very disconcerting for the souls."

"What in HELL are you talking about?"

Lewis drew in a deep breath. "I see I'm going to have to revise my process here. First, let me tell you that you are in no danger here. We have not abducted you, nor are we holding you against your will."

"Then you won't mind if I just walk out that door and head on home?" Edward knew a con job when he saw one.

"You can certainly walk out that door," Lewis said pleasantly. "But you can't go home again, not just yet."

"Uh-HUH," Edward snorted.

Lewis sighed, muttering something about discorporation and sending a memo before speaking to him again. "Again, let me apologize for your confusion. I'm not generally the one who explains this process to new arrivals, but I will do my best." He took in a deep breath, as if he were about to begin a class room lecture. "The corporeal state requires careful integration in order to function. This integration is achieved through varying levels of regressive and subliminal connections, allowing the volunteer soul to achieve harmonic unity with—"

"What are you blathering about, young man? I am a very busy man, and I don't have time for this silliness."

"Ah, time." Lewis shook his head, his green eyes blinking as if reminded of something very important. "Thank you, Edward, yes. Time. You see, time here is a bit of a tricky thing, especially to one, such as yourself, used to corporeal existence. When you discorporate, you separate the connections to the corporeal body. It frees the volunteer soul to fully resume non-corporeal existence and begin the full debriefing and reassignment process."

"In English, please?"

"You died."

"I what?"

Lewis looked down at the papers in front of him. "On the morning of April 17, 2007, you drove your, erm, automobile, in to work and suffered a stroke behind the wheel. Your automobile crashed into a tree, crushing your skull and injuring your already damaged brain. You arrived at Port Charles General Hospital at 7:49 am, dead on arrival."

Edward blinked hard. Such a callous reading of horrible things! "I'm not dead. My skull isn't crushed. My brain isn't damaged." He tapped his head. "Doesn't take a doctor to see that I'm perfectly healthy. I'm fit and sound as I always was, and I demand that you let me go."

"I understand," Lewis said, as if that made any difference to Edward. "Returning to the non-corporeal state can be disconcerting at the best of times, especially for one who spent as many years there as you did. Normally, you'd have a lengthy discorporation phase—where you are allowed to slowly disconnect from the body you had grown used to. Unfortunately, in your case time…" He pointed to the Baum & Mercier watch Edward wore. "Time is an issue."

"I thought time didn't matter in this place. That's what you said."

"Actually, I said time was a bit tricky here, which it is, especially for those just returning from corporeal assignments." He sighed, taking in a deep breath. "Let me try this again. We have time. Corporeal realms have time. They just move in different ways through time than we do here."

"And this has what to do with me?" Edward folded his arms across his chest, refusing the refill on his coffee that Lewis offered.

"You. Erm, yes." Lewis picked up the top sheet on the stack of papers in front of him. "I see that you are part of Earth Project. Very impressive," he added with an admiring expression. "Very complicated bit of work. You should be commended just for the assignment. Now…" He put down the paper, steepling his hands in front of him before leaning slightly forward. "As you are no doubt aware, Earth Project has seen some trouble in the last few millennia. The design flaw in the human brain was completely unexpected, of course, and there have been several teams assigned to work on it."

"This is madness. You're trying to convince me I'm insane. This is a plot. Which one of my devious offspring is doing this? Tracy? Of course, this is just like something my no-good daughter would do."

"Ah…Tracy…." Lewis nodded, flipping through the papers to find what appeared to be a particularly interesting fact. "Tracy, yes. Yes, we'll get back to your daughter in a moment, Edward. At this point, rest assured that you are not insane, nor is anyone plotting to drive you to madness. Anyway, back to the Earth Project. With the advent of technology, it became increasingly obvious to the powers that be that things were progressing too rapidly. The design flaw allowed for advancement that was much too rapid, leading to imbalances between mind and body, mind and spirit. The entire process of evolution was thrown into turmoil because some prehistoric genius invented a wheel." He shook his head. "Volunteer souls, as a group, tend to be the enthusiastic sort. But this one sent the whole time-table forward ten thousand years too soon."

"And what does some entrepreneurial caveman have to do with my being held here?" Edward decided to play along, see what this clown had to say before pushing his way out of this loony bin.

"Well, the project is in chaos, as you should know. I mean, you spent seventy Terran years down there. How crazy it must be!" Lewis seemed to relax, as if he really wanted to discuss life on Earth. Then he apparently remembered he was on the clock. "Because of the chaos, and the ensuing turmoil--wars, disease, murder, sex, drugs, rock and roll--" He grinned, then wiped the smile off his face quickly as Edward scowled. "Erm, yes, the popularity of Earth Project amongst volunteers is at an all time high. Everybody wants to go there because it's a crash course-- one incarnation can shoot you through the ranks faster than four on another project. Unfortunately, the population explosion has led to some trouble with resources, with the potential of derailing the whole project. About ten Terran centuries ago, the powers that be decided to initiate a special project design to get the Earth Project back on track Specially trained operatives would incarnate on Earth in places where they could do the most good. You've heard of some of them--Leonardo da Vinci, Mahandas Ghandi, Oprah Winfrey. Most of them do amazing work while they're there, but some of them…well, we're still in the process of debriefing poor Adolf." He shook his head, a sad tired expression on his features. "You see, Edward, the operatives on this team can do great good, or great harm. And that's where you come in."

"Are you trying to tell me that I'm actually some elite agent sent down to Earth to resolve the planet's problems?"

The laughter that bubbled out of Lewis, despite his best efforts to control it, was insulting at best. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no…." He tried to stop laughing, but couldn't help himself. Finally, he poured a sip of water from a crystal decanter into a glass and drank it in one shot to steady himself. "Oh, my. Yes, um, no, Edward. You are a volunteer. Granted, a highly skilled and experienced volunteer, but no. Not an agent." Lewis pressed a hidden button in the top of the conference table and a holographic image appeared, hovering about the center of the table.

Edward felt his heart catch, his breath skip a beat, as he took in the image before him. It was vaguely formed, shimmering white with dancing rainbow colors flittering across it. The image hummed slightly, an otherworldly music that made him want to cry. "Is that…is that a soul?"

Lewis smiled indulgently. "That's what we all look like, Edward. No more, no less. Before we assume the trappings of corporeal life."

"You look corporeal enough," Edward said gruffly, embarrassed by his reaction to the thing in front of him.

"I work in Intermediary Processing. Many volunteers have difficulty adjusting between corporeal and non-corporeal existence. It's comforting to see familiar sights. It helps them readjust properly. Anyway, this entity is known as--"

Lewis emitted another high-pitched, musical noise, shorter and more succinct than his first. Edward assumed it was a name of some sort. "Charming," he said dully.

"On Earth, you knew this agent in this form." Lewis clicked another button, and the image coalesced into a more solid shape, colors began to darken, resolve, sharpen. Finally, there was an image of a dark-haired woman before them.

Tracy Quartermaine, specifically.

It was Edward's turn to laugh, a hard, unkind laugh. "Are you truly trying to convince me that my daughter, my conniving, no-good, hare-brained daughter, is really some cosmic secret agent sent to be the next Ghandi?" He snorted. "Now I know I'm in a loony bin, and you're the head loony."

"Tracy has trained for three lifetimes for this assignment, Edward. You were assigned to her team with a single purpose. To raise her in a manner that would allow her to fully realize her goals while on Earth." There was a condescending and not-altogether complimentary tone to his voice. "You begged for that assignment, I might add."

"Are you seriously expecting me to believe this nonsense?"

"In your current condition? Hardly." Lewis sighed. "I am trying to be patient here, Edward, but we are dealing with serious issues. I think you deserve to know that had you done your job properly, you would not be in my office right now."

"So you're telling me that I've been terminated?" Edward laughed at his own joke. "The dead man is being terminated. How clever."

"The fact is, Edward, if it were up to me, I'd just forward your case upstairs, have you stripped of your volunteer status, and move on with my day. But unfortunately, in her corporeal state," again, he said her soul name, seemingly (or not at all) oblivious to the pain it caused Edward's ears. "Has grown emotionally fixated on you. It happens more often than we would expect, especially between parental and marital partners." He sighed. "The bottom line, Ed? You caused this problem, and we believe you're the best person to fix it."

"And what mess has Tracy gotten herself into now?"

Lewis didn't even try to suppress the glare. "Maybe I should clarify the situation for you. Tracy went to Earth with two specific jobs to do. She failed one of them completely, and that cannot be resolved. The other mission she is now in the process of completing, but with a point of view so skewered by your abusive treatment of her that it will have exactly the opposite effect of what she was sent there to do."

"Leave it to Tracy to screw up even the simplest things."

Another sigh. "Let me show you some projection videos made prior to Tracy's entry into the corporeal world. I might add that you were part of these projections, fully briefed and cognizant of your job duties before you were incorporated." He flipped a button on the table, and the image of Tracy disappeared, only to be replaced by a fully three-dimensional image of the Quartermaine mansion. It was perfect to every detail--right down to the grain of wood in the banisters.

The only difference was the light.

The house was filled with sunlight, dazzling and bright and cheerful beyond recognition. It was late summer, Labor Day, and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren were all there for a barbecue.

Inside the mansion, a lone woman sat on the couch, reading the New York Times. Her hair was shot through with grey, soft around her shoulders in a stylish cut that flattered her full features. She wore a casual white pantsuit, loose but fitted, and a simple diamond choker around her neck. She was alone in the quiet room, peaceful and content in her solitude.

Two little girls ran in from the rose garden, covered in dirt, roses dangling lopsidedly from their tiny hands. They were giggling, brown hair in braided pigtails, with dancing cartoon fairies on their pink and white jumpers. They ran to Tracy and jumped on the couch next to her.

"Granny!" the taller of the two girls cried out. "We brought you some flowers from Granny Lila's garden."

Tracy put down her paper. "Oh, these are beautiful, Brittany," she said. The children clambered over her, destroying her white suit with their dirty hands and legs. But Tracy didn't seem to mind as the second of the two handed her a fist full of drooping flowers. "Lisa, these are just gorgeous. Prettiest flowers I've ever gotten."

"Prettier than Grandpa Luke gives you?"

"Prettiest in the whole wide universe," Tracy said solemnly, sniffing the roses in a long, dramatic breath.

A handsome man came through the garden door, breathless and tan, wearing tennis clothes. "There you are! I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't see them come in until too late." Ned Ashton leaned over, opening his arms for the two young girls. "Come on, monsters. You know you're not supposed to bother Granny when she's working."

"I was done with work, Ned," Tracy said, grinning as the girls ran off to hug her son.

"She wasn't working, Daddy," Brittany said, her earnest words punctuated by giggling.

"Nuh-uh, Uncle Ned. She was just reading the paper. See?" Lisa pointed to the newspaper, which had been shredded by tiny shoes as the girls had climbed on to their grandmother's lap. "Oh."

"It's okay, Ned, really." Tracy leaned back, her white suit covered in tiny dirty handprints, smiling graciously. "I always have time for my little girls."

"Oh, this is a load of malarkey," Edward says. "My daughter is nothing like that…that Stepford Tracy."

"Remember, these were projection images. This is what was supposed to happen." Lewis narrowed a single eye in Edward's direction. "Had the incarnation gone according to plan."

"And I suppose you blame me for that?"

"Let me show you another projection vid, Ed. This was one you actually helped design."

Tracy stood in front of the United Nations building, her breath coming deep and slow. Dillon, in a suit and tie, stood next to her. His hair was insane, spiked and streaked and outrageous, but he seemed grounded, happy.

"Nervous, Mom?"

"Why on Earth should I be nervous," Tracy bluffed, then laughed as Dillon raised a single eyebrow. "I'm petrified."

"You'll do great," he said, hugging her fiercely. "You deserve this."

"I wish Ned and Allison could have been here."

"You know they'll be watching it on TV, Mom. It's the most important day of your life. Ned would be here if Lois was strong enough, and Allison is going to move heaven and earth to get to that television set in the village." He adjusted his tie. "And of course, your most camera-ready child is here to share your moment in the spotlight."

There was a pause, then Tracy said softly, "I wish Mother and Daddy were here."

Dillon smiled at his mother, an expression full of unvarnished love and affection. "Grandmother and Grandfather would have been so proud of you, Mom. We are all proud of you."

Tracy kissed his cheek, then pressed the palm of her hand flat against the spot she'd kissed. "I love you, Dillon," she said, her voice a whisper against the New York City traffic.

"I love you, too, Mom."

A man in a turban and an expensive suit came to greet them. "Ms. Quartermaine, are you ready to address the assembly?"

Tracy laughed nervously. "Not in a million years. But I guess since I'm here…"

"Please follow me."

"Oh, now you really can't expect me to believe that Tracy would do anything in her life that would warrant her addressing the United Nations."

"After college, the Tracy in these projections worked for your company, ELQ, before establishing her own firm, Q2. She was more interested in research and development and wanted to work more in the field of alternative fuel sources. With your blessings, she set out on her own. It was Q2 that finally came up with a viable alternative to the problem of non-renewable energy sources. With that discovery came a chance to resolve the problems in the Middle East, as well as to clean up the environment. Not that that ever happened," he said with an accusing look at Edward.

"Tracy never showed any such interest."

"No, she wouldn't have shown you," Lewis agreed.

"What you're suggesting is downright foolish. She doesn't have a bit of scientific aptitude, and when it comes to business," he hesitated, his eyes closing slowly. "She doesn't have a lick of competence." It was an old story, and even as he told it, Edward knew in his heart it was fiction. He'd refused her early requests--no, that wasn't right. She hadn't requested, she'd begged, as early as high school, for a chance to work with him. She'd spent hours as a little girl mimicking him, reading the sections of the Wall Street Journal he tossed aside when he was done with them, even though she couldn't possibly understand what it meant. She'd worked hard in school, even though he rarely encouraged her, and passed college--married with a small child--with excellent grades.

He never asked her what she was interested in. He never asked for her opinions.

Here, in this gleaming white room, it was hard to stay subjective. He looked back on his dealings with her through clean bright vision, and saw a truth he did not like. Had he ever really given her a chance? He thought back on all the times she'd managed to get control over ELQ--usually, the company was on the verge of disaster when he'd let her in. Always, she'd managed to drag the company through the worst of it, despite the criticisms and accusations heaped on her.

What could she have done with a real chance, with a viable company, instead of a rotten carcass already plundered by the likes of A.J. and Lorenzo Alcazar?

"This is preposterous," he said, but his bluster came out half-hearted at best. "I don't believe it. Tracy could have never achieved those things you suggest. Tracy was a complete loss as a human being." The words tasted sour in his mouth, but still he continued. "I don't believe it."

"Of course you don't."

Four little syllables, a damning quartet of words. Of course you don't. Of course you don't believe your own daughter capable of any good. Of course you don't believe your daughter could have achieved wonderful things. Of course you never gave her a chance, you criticized, you mocked, you knocked her down every time she tried to stand.

Edward didn't know what this voice was inside of him, this accusing, horrible voice that looked at his life in such clear, concise terms. But he knew he didn't like it. "So," he said, changing the subject. "Who is this Allison person Dillon mentioned?"

"Tracy's daughter, and his half-sister."

He snorted. "Tracy doesn't have a daughter."

Lewis looked sadly at his charge. "No, Edward. Tracy doesn't have a daughter." He touched the button, and a different image showed up. Tracy, young and vibrant. Beautiful.

It was nothing to see that this was his Tracy. There was something very different from the projection Tracy, something truer, more authentic to his understanding of what his daughter might be. She was in a doctor's office of some sort, although he couldn't be sure. All the notices on the wall were in Italian, and Edward, unlike his daughter, had never learned to read or speak the language.

The woman next to her was heavy with child, a dark-skinned Italian woman in her mid thirties. Tracy fidgeted in the seat next to her, bored with outdated copies of Italian women's magazines, nervous and wanting to talk.

"Hi," she said.

"Scusi?" The Italian woman said. "Non parlo inglese…"

Tracy smiled, and continued on in English. "I don't know why I'm so nervous," she said, her words high-pitched and rapid. "This doctor came highly recommended. He's one of the best in Portofino." She laughed uncertainly. "I'm sure I won't be his first, you know?"

The Italian woman, tired of trying to gesture than she didn't understand a word Tracy was saying, gave up and went back to her magazine. Tracy continued as if she hadn't noticed.

"I suppose I should be worried. I mean, a lot of people would think I'm doing something wrong. I know I'm not. I've thought this out thoroughly. I've weighed my options, and this is the most practical and humane thing." She shuffled in her seat, shifting her weight from one side to another. "I'm not ready to have a baby right now. I've got a failed marriage behind me, and a son I barely know. I just…" She smiled weakly at the Italian woman, who just shook her head and continued reading her magazine. "I suppose I could go home… I know Mother would take me in. She wouldn't…No. No, this is the right choice. I don't want to be a burden on Mother and Daddy. I'm going to make it on my own, and I can't with a baby right now. I can't go crawling back home, begging for help, the spoiled brat begging Mommy and Daddy to pull me out of the fire again." She wiped a tear away from her cheek. "Besides, Daddy would never speak to me again. Daddy would hate me," she whispered.

"Tracy?" The nurse said in a thick Italian accent. She held a clipboard in her hand, and motioned for Tracy to follow her into the examination room.

Edward stared, aghast, at the image as it held in place before him. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to feel.

"That was Allison she aborted," Lewis said gently, as if it needed to be said. "Allison, Tracy's second child and only daughter. Fascinated with research and development like her mother. Drawn to medicine, like her Uncle Alan. Wife and mother to one daughter," he nodded to Edward. "That was her in the earlier vid, Lisa. Anyway, her volunteer work would take her to South Africa, to help with the AIDS crisis. During her stay there, she would discover a simple plant. It's just a weed, really, nothing important. Except that it contains the properties that can treat AIDS, cancer and Downs Syndrome." He shook his head sadly. "That was a huge setback," he said.

"Surely, if you people have this planned out so carefully…"

"Free will is one of the major components of corporeal life. Our volunteers have to be free to make mistakes, otherwise they will never learn, never grow. It's just that…" He sighed. "Some mistakes are larger, and more difficult to solve."

"Are you saying that, if I'd been a better father to Tracy, she would have had the courage to come home? That she wouldn't have aborted the baby?"

"I'm saying that if you had completed your mission, Tracy would have never considered abortion. She would have been married to Allison's father, and very happily so." Lewis sighed. "Edward, Allison was a big loss to this particular project, but we have back-ups for disease control. But we have bigger problems, Edward. Tracy's current situation is far more urgent."

"That girl…that little girl with the braids? She never lived?"

"None of them did, Edward. Ned and Lois broke up before Brittany could be born, and Allison never lived to give birth to Lisa. They were just regular volunteers, and will be reassigned, of course. But are you beginning to see what a huge differences your actions make in the corporeal world? Why your part in this plan was so important?"

"I wanted to make her stronger," he said weakly. "I didn't want her spoiled…Her mother spoiled her so…"

"Her mother loved her. You loved her, too, in your own way. But unfortunately, you loved money and power more. You taught your children some very powerful lessons, Edward. And that's why we're here."

"Oh, what now?" he asked weakly, not wanting to know what else he'd done wrong. All his life, he'd believed, no he'd been certain his choices were right. His children feared him, yes, but they were tough. They were strong, survivors worthy of bearing the Quartermaine name. Even Tracy…. "What horrible thing have I caused now?" he whispered.

"Your death came at a most inauspicious time. When Tracy lost her connection with Dillon--a highly skilled volunteer who came in to pinch-hit at the last moment when things started going down hill, by the way--well, your interference caused Tracy to lose Dillon, the process was beginning. But when you died without giving her the one thing she wanted, the one thing she'd truly desired all her life…" Lewis shrugged. "It wasn't pretty."

"Oh, for crying out loud. I left her ELQ in my will. What more does she want? An engraved invitation to the ball?"

"She wanted your love." Lewis's voice was soft, not accusing, not judging. "Of all the human emotions, love is the most powerful and potentially the most destructive. The atrocities committed for lack of love, from the frustrated desire to be loved, are unfathomable to non-corporeal beings."

"Tracy knows I loved her." But Edward knew in his heart that was not true. He knew she wondered… He had always known how to manipulate her desire for his love. It kept her vulnerable, kept her controllable. "Of course she did," he lied.

Lewis heaved a huge breath. "I didn't want to do this, but you leave me no choice." He tapped another button, and suddenly Edward was bombarded with the memory of every hard word, every cruelty, ever unkind thing he'd ever done to his daughter. They came at him in a heartbeat, each more horrifying than the last, a mind-numbing repetition of vicious and unthinkable parental cruelty. He covered his ears, not wanting to hear them, not wanting to believe himself capable of such things. But they were persistent, they never stopped, each unique, each cutting and destructive, each undeniably his own words, his own actions.

He thought he could not take another moment, that his entire mind would explode from it. He wondered how she'd survived it, how she'd managed to bear up under such a constant and unwarranted attack.

And then Lewis touched another button.

The voices in his mind were no longer his, but hers, a thousand different versions of Tracy, from childhood to the day before he died, a thousand different hues of her voice, each saying the same thing, over and over and over.

"I love you, Daddy."

A thousand times, in a thousand different ways, I love you, Daddy. She said it constantly.

How had he never heard? How had he never believed?

Edward rested his head in his palms, tears streaming down his face. He was remembering, remembering the before time, remembering the planning, the excitement, the challenge. Remembering the enthusiasm he had had for this life, for this chance to do something right. He looked up to see that the image in the hologram had changed.

"I love you, Daddy." She was standing before his grave, flowers in her hand. "I know you never believed that, but I do. I always loved you, even when you turned me away. I wanted you to understand that I…" She looked away, dropping the flowers randomly at the grave. "What do you care, Daddy? I've told you I loved you a million times. You never listened then. Why should you listen now?"

And then she was gone.

Edward stared blankly at the grave. He saw his life, his world, in that single stone block.

"It's not my fault," he said weakly. "I tried to teach her to be strong. I tried to--"

"We are really in a time-sensitive situation here, Edward," Lewis said gently. "Time passes a little more quickly here than in the corporeal plane, and well…Tracy has been busy."

"Busy?"

Lewis grimaced, then continued. "During her younger years, Tracy had dealings with a certain crime Family in New York City, the Solietos. For a while, she ran the Family, but eventually stepped down out of concern for Dillon's safety." Lewis flicked the button on the table, and the hologram disappeared. "I'm going to lay it straight on the line for you, Edward. Tracy had great potential on Earth, and most of that was stifled for you. On the other hand, your presence also created a certain stability for her, however dysfunctional that stability. In her need to gain your acceptance and approval, Tracy passed over many opportunities, held herself back on more than one occasion. When you died, without giving her your approval or love, she lost that one stabilizing need. She was never going to win your love. She had nothing to hold her back, nothing to keep her rage in check."

"What about Ned? What about Dillon? Certainly they--"

"Ned and Dillon no longer have anything to do with their mother, thanks in part to you r interference. As far as she's concerned, Tracy has no one and nothing to lose." Lewis shuffled through his papers, found one with a huge red asterisk at the top of it. "In December of 2007, Tracy Quartermaine divorced her husband Luke and returned to Manhattan. At that time, she reconnected with the Solieto Family, unseating Gina Solieto in a stunning show of cruel and brutal efficiency. After regaining control of the Solieto resources, she turned her attentions to Port Charles. Within five years, she had unseated the Alcazar and Ruiz Families completely and went after the Corinthos Empire." Lewis turned pale. "She succeeded, Edward. She had nothing to lose and everything to prove. She was vicious. She was ruthless. She didn't care who she hurt along the way, and the list of people she hurt was very long, Edward. Very long."

"So now she has power," Edward said bitterly.

"If she couldn't have your love, Edward, she wanted the one thing you did love. Power. And she has lots of it. There isn't a person in Port Charles who doesn't owe her money, or isn't obligated to her in some way. She runs that town as her own playground. She's never satisfied. She wants more, and she's become quite reckless in her bid for power and wealth."

"And what…what do I have to do with this now? If I am, as you say, dead…"

"In twenty-four hours, Tracy is going to make what looks to her like the deal of a lifetime. A shipment of weapons, hijacked from a Columbian drug trafficker, will make its way into her possession. She will sell these weapons to the wrong people who will then resell them to even worse people, the very worst people, Edward." Lewis leaned forward, his face darkly serious. "Do you remember your history, Edward? Do you remember what happened when the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated?"

"World War I?"

"The people who buy these weapons will assassinate a man, a minor political figure in the Third World with very powerful allies. There will be retaliation, and then more retaliation. In six months' time, the world will be engulfed in a global war that makes WWI look like a sock hop." Lewis shook his head sadly. "Nuclear winter, Edward. The human project will be derailed back to the Ice Age if we're lucky, completely halted if we're not."

"Dear god…"

"We've put a lot of time and resources into the Earth Project, Edward. We don't want to see it all go up in smoke." He stared at Edward, piercing through his shock with a hard, serious expression. "When one of our agents goes rogue, it's a logistical nightmare. Napoleon shut down the entire program for a hundred years."

"But Tracy isn't a Napoleon. She doesn't have armies. She isn't a Hitler. She's just a woman, a small town mob boss."

"It's a different world, Edward. You don't need armies to destroy the world. You can do that with a laptop computer…or the right shipment of weapons."

Edward felt himself shrinking into his ergonomically-designed chair. It was comfortable. It was sleek. He wished the floor would open up and swallow the damn chair with him in it. "What do you want me to do?" he asked in a very small voice.

"It's very rare, but sometimes souls will reincorporate for a short time, return to the corporeal world to perform one last act, to deliver one last message. We want you to return to Earth, to return to your daughter."

"You want me to haunt Tracy?"

"We want you to earn her love. Touch her heart. Remind her of who she could be, who she should have been." Lewis's voice turned hard. "And mostly, we want you to stop her from selling those weapons to her intended buyers." He handed Edward a sheet of paper. "These are the names of the buyers who will then resell the weapons to the assassins. If you can, have her destroy the weapons. If you can't destroy them, here is a name of an agent at the DEA who can help her safely dispose of them."

"If I have an agent at the DEA, why can't I just contact him? Why don't we just shut her down before she can cause any damage?"

"Because Tracy will be the only person who can see or hear you. And because she deserves better," Lewis said bitterly. "She was a good agent, and she deserves better than to die in a volley of gunfire just because you--" He stopped himself. "Sorry, Edward. Everybody deserves a chance at redemption. Even you, and even your daughter." He held out his hand to Edward, who hesitated before shaking it.

Good firm grip, he noticed.

"Good luck, Edward."

Edward saw the room dissolving around him, blurring into a cloud of images. By the time he realized that it was himself and not the room dissolving, he thought he heard Lewis adding, "You'll need it."

He found himself in Lila's rose gardens. He felt himself, patting his chest and thighs to see if he was solid. The sun was warm, a beautiful spring day. He almost danced with it, the smell of the roses, Lila's roses, fresh in his nostrils. He walked toward the house, sure it had all been a dream, and was just about to convince himself that Alice had slipped something in his martini when he saw the little crucifix in the ground, and the stone marker next to it.

Here lies the Willoughby's dog. It pissed on my mother's roses one time too many. RIP Precious. TQ

Edward gulped. It wasn't the martini. When he walked into the house, the first thing he noticed were the guards stationed at every exit. Big, burly men in sunglasses, with visible weaponry. Edward sank into the shadows, not wanting to mess with that firepower. He stayed there, lurking, as a racket from the other room came towards the closed door.

Tracy swept in, looking younger and healthier than she had for years. Her hair was dyed a soft honey brown, and she'd obviously had a face-lift, but her body was in peak physical condition for a woman her age, and she looked at least ten years younger than she was. She was followed by a very harrowed-looking Luke Spencer, who seemed at least ten years older.

"Damn it, Spanky, you may have everybody else in this town cowed, but I'm not going to take this from you."

"Luke, Luke, Luke," Tracy purred, stroking the cheek of one of the burly guards as she passed through the doorway. "Do you think the fact that we once had a little marital arrangement gives you special privileges? The Haunted Star has strong sentimental value to me, as you should know. And when you don't bring me my cut of her profits, well, I take that as a personal insult." She tossed herself on the couch, lifting her hand for the martini that Alice had miraculously appeared out of nowhere to deliver. The large woman backed away from Tracy without a word, cringing, never even raising her eyes, much less her voice to the smaller woman. Tracy continued without even noticing. "Now, you need to have those receipts in my manicured hands no later than six tonight, with interest, or I'm just going to have to take drastic action."

"What kind of drastic action, Spanky? Shut me down? Shoot me? Who cares, Spanky? Who the hell cares anymore?" Luke's face was red, and the spikes of his hair quivered with each gesture of his hands. "You've gone nuts, you know that, ex-Wife? You think you can treat people like this, you think you can get away with it…"

"I can get away with it, Ex-Husband, and I do." She shook her head, tsking as she did. "You never did know how to act like a husband, did you, Luke? My new husband is so much more loyal, so much more obedient. Where is my husband, Alice?" She leaned back to face the larger woman, who cringed at the sight.

"He's in Mrs. Lila's study, Ms. Quartermaine."

"Fetch him for me," she said. "Stick around, Luke, if you want tips on how a real man acts."

"You're going down, Tracy," Luke sputtered as he headed for the door. "I swear to you on Laura's grave, you're going down."

:"Say hi to the low-lifes for me," Tracy waved sweetly as he left, then sighed once the door was closed. "Annoying little toad," she said darkly. "Angelo, get me a real martini. I should have had that woman shot years ago. Would have, except she used to amuse my mother. Byron, have we heard from the buyers yet?"

"They have us down for a nine am pickup."

"Ugh. Couldn't make it for eleven, could they? No, they have to schedule it opposite my standing hair appointment. Max, call Dierdre and see if she can fit me in at one, will you?"

"Yes, Ms. Quartermaine."

Edward stared as this cadre of men jumped at his daughter's whim. She sat on the couch like a queen on her throne, while everyone rushed to beck and call. Had he not known the truth about her, he might have been impressed. As it was, he was horrified at what she'd become.

"Is that the sound of my loving husband I hear?" she said in a sing-song voice as the door opened to admit Sonny Corinthos. "There he is, my big strong handsome husband."

"Oh, my god!" Edward said before he could stop himself.

"What was that?" Tracy said, alert, stunned. Nobody else in the room seemed to have noticed.

"What was what," Sonny asked in dull monotone.

"Did you hear that?"

"I didn't hear anything, Tracy," he continued, still in that halting monotonous voice. "Maybe it's early senility."

She pasted a phony smile on her face, turning to Sonny. "Speaking of crazy, you didn't take your medication yesterday, Husband."

"I was busy--"

"You know what happens when you don't take your medicine, Sonny?" She was on her feet, catlike, pressed up against him, walking her fingers up his chest to emphasize her words. "You get cranky. You become surly and rude and unresponsive." She played her fingertips against his closed lips, her voice flirty and dangerous. "I don't like it when you're unresponsive, Michael," she whispered, pressing her body against his, kissing his lips. Sonny responded to her perfunctorily, as if each motion of his body was carefully orchestrated, perfectly choreographed. "Oooh, that's better," she purred into his lips, and kissed him again.

Edward felt nauseous. Tracy had had some losers for husbands before, but never would he have predicted her marrying a low-life like Sonny Corinthos. He felt another wave of guilt, of horror that his actions might have somehow helped bring this to fore.

"Alice, where is my husband's medication?"

"Right here, Ms. Quartermaine," the housekeeper said, stepping immediately forward carrying a silver try with a pill and a glass of water on it.

Tracy took the pill between her fingertips and brought it to Sonny's lips. "Open up, Baby. Mama has your medicine."

Edward felt his skin crawl as the former mobster parted his lips and let Tracy feed him the pill. This wasn't happening. How had she fallen this far? How had she gone this wrong?

When her husband had swallowed the pillow and washed it down with the water, Tracy kissed him again, hard, and then sent them all away. Alice, Sonny, the guards. She just sent them away, and sat on the couch, brushing her fingers through her hair.

She said she wanted to be alone, but the minute they were gone, she started searching the room, frantically, like a woman obsessed. "Where are you?" she called out. "They didn't hear you, but I know you're here. I know you're hiding somewhere."

Edward stepped out of the shadows, into the light, bringing himself up to his most imposing height. He was relieved to see her stunned expression, just moments before her cynical mask came crashing down around her again. "So. I wasn't hearing things."

"Tracy," he began, but stopped, not knowing what to say. What could he possibly say to her? I'm the ghost of your father, here to stop you from making the biggest mistake in the history of humanity? "You look good," he said, setting for the obvious.

She was scanning him critically, looking him up and down with an eye for every detail. "Amazing," she said. "You are very authentic looking."

"Tracy, I need to talk to you. I need to--"

"You even sound like him." She shook her head. "Who hired you? Ned and Skye, I'll bet. And I'm sure Dillon had something to do with it. He always was a sucker for these overdramatic pranks."

"I'm serious, Tracy. This is serious." He wanted to shake her, wanted to drag her out of her sarcastic shell, force her to see him for what he really was. "They sent me here to warn you."

"They? The heavenly angels?" She grinned. "Or the pointy tailed ones?"

Edward sighed. This was going to be harder than he expected. "Look, I know you don't want to believe me. You don't want to believe I'm here."

"Oh, I believe you're here. You're standing right in front of me. An exact replica of my sainted father, every expression perfect." She nodded her head, looking at him the way an art critic would examine a particularly fine replica of a Picasso. "Even the voice acting is spot on. Whoever hired you must have paid a pretty penny."

"Tracy, I'm your father. I gave you life. And now I'm trying to save that life."

She clapped slowly, an astonished smile on her face. "Bravo. Bravo, erm…what should I call you?"

"You used to call me Daddy," he said softly. She was so hard. So cynical.

"Okay, Daddy," she said, her voice low, her eyes mischievous. She took a step closer to him, chin down, eyes sultry. "So, you came back to save my life, Daddy?"

His back stiffened as she pushed against him, her body flat against his, her eyes wicked and daring. "You want to rescue me, Daddy?" She kissed his chin. "Save me, Daddy," she purred before he pushed her away from him, repulsed, horrified. "Oh, come on! Everybody whispers about it anyway. Tracy had an unnatural affection for her father, they say. Tracy was warped by her father. If you're my real Daddy, you know that we were very close." She pressed up against him again, laughing hard as he pushed her away. "Oh, come on. You're an obvious fake. What, did you think I was going to buy this? Dear Edward, back from the grave?" She laughed again, her voice hard and cynical as she spoke. "If Edward Quartermaine came back to Earth to save someone, it certainly wouldn't be me. I fall behind the brother, the grandsons, and at least a dozen mistresses. If I rank that high."

"I know," he said gently. "I treated you badly while I was alive. I was wrong, and I'm here to make up for it."

"If you're a ghost, why can I feel you? Come on, my hand should go right through you when I do something like this." She reached back and swung, landing a hard slap across his face. Edward winced and shook his head. "Come on, Daddy, a ghost shouldn't feel a slap in the face, should he?" She slapped him again, this time harder, but he was ready for her and grabbed her hand mid-air. "Some fucking ghost," she snarled. "Now get out of my house before I have my men make a real ghost out of you."

"I know you, Tracy. I'm your father. I know things about you nobody else could know."

"Then I know you're not my father," she said bitterly, turning to pour herself another drink. "My father didn't know anything about me."

"I know you were interested in science," he said.

She turned, staring at him. "My father never would have known that."

"Unless he died, and learned a few important things he never noticed about the child he left behind."

"My school grades were sent home each term. Anybody could have seen I made good grades in science. That's nothing a second-rate private detective couldn't have figured out."

"I know you wanted to start your own company, after you worked for ELQ. You were even going to call it Q2." He grinned. "Catchy name, by the way."

"Oh, please," she said, but her face was getting paler with each revelation. "I'm sure I must have mentioned that to somebody somewhere along the line. You're wasting my time, Daddy. If it's money you want, you're going to have to take your SAG card and go elsewhere, because I'm not buying your act."

"When you were a little girl, we used to play tic-tack-toe. But we never used Xs and Os. We used dollar and cent signs." He didn't even know where that memory came from, but it was there and he used it. He was floundering, trying to convince a daughter he'd never noticed and never shown the slightest kindness to that he loved her, that he wanted a second chance.

She stared at him, a flicker of that old light in her eyes, faint but encouraging. "You always took the dollar signs," she whispered. "And left me the spare change."

He chuckled, reaching out to stroke her hair. But she slapped his hand away. "Anybody could have figured that out," she said darkly, turning away and downing her drink in one gulp. "Now get the hell out of my house."

"I know about Allison," he whispered, only inches from the back of her head. "I know about the daughter you never had."

"How dare you!" But she didn't turn around, didn't move. "How dare you?"

"It was in Italy. You didn't want to come home, you didn't want to beg. You didn't want to grovel." He wanted to reach out to her, wanted to hold her. "You were going to name her Allison."

"Nobody knows that. I never told anybody about that." She was shaking, her body tense and set against his touch. "What the hell are you?"

"I'm dead, Tracy. I'm dead, and they've sent me back to help you."

She pivoted on her feet, a hard look of defiance on her face. It seemed to Edward that she was fighting off tears, but he couldn't tell for sure. "My own personal Jacob Marley? Daddy, back from the grave to get his sorry ass out of the hell fire and maybe earn a few brownie points towards the place upstairs?"

"There's no hell-fire…"

"Where are your chains, Daddy? Where are the locks and the weights to drag around? Why aren't you see-through?" She brushed her hand roughly against his chest, solid and resistant to her touch. "Why can I touch you? What kind of ghost are you?"

"I don't know. All I know is that I failed you, and now you're about to make the biggest mistake of your life. You're about to do something stupid, something reckless, that will have far-reaching ramifications beyond anything you could ever imagine."

She blinked, shaking her head in disbelief. "You came back from the dead to tell me I'm a screw-up?" She laughed a short, cynical laugh. "Well, isn't this a Hallmark moment?"

"No, I didn't come to tell you you're a screw up. I came to—" He floundered, a lifetime of criticism and neglect hardly adequate preparation for the task at hand. "I came to tell you I love you. I came to tell you that I was the screw up, I was the incompetent one." He looked away, unable to meet her gaze. "I never gave you a chance. I never listened to you, never noticed you except to criticize. I never was the kind of father you needed."

She bit her lower lip gently, a far-off expression in her eyes. "You don't know how long I've wanted to hear those words. Pity they came too late to matter."

"Listen to me, Tracy. You hate me. I understand that. I don't blame you." He shook his head, a horrified expression on his face. "They played a tape for me, a sort of recording, of every horrible thing I ever said to you in your life. They played it all at once, so I could get the full effect." He looked up at her, desperate for some glimpse of the woman she used to be, the woman who died without his love the day she buried him, the woman she had the potential to be. "They played your words to me, too, Princess. A thousand times over, the same thing, over and over." He frowned, ashamed, unworthy. "All you ever said, over and over again, was I love you, Daddy. I never heard it. I never listened to you when you said it." He reached out, hoping against hope that she wouldn't push him away again. When she let him, he pulled her into an embrace. "It broke my heart. It broke my heart, Princess."

She shook her head, confused, concerned. "Why are you doing this to me? Why come back now? You've been dead for years. Oh, and on the anniversary of your death? Nice touch," she added with a sad laugh.

"I didn't know it was the anniversary of anything," he said honestly. "Time is…different…where I was." He kissed the top of her head softly. "I just know that tomorrow you intend to sell a shipment of arms to someone who will in turn sell them to the wrong people. Those people will then use those arms to assassinate a Third World ruler, starting a chain of events that will send the world into a new Stone Age."

"Daddy, I've got a fortune invested in those arms."

"Tracy, we're talking about the end of civilization as we know it!"

"Well at least I'll die rich!" she pulled back, fierce, unyielding.

Edward could feel his pulse racing. He had to convince her, had to show her the error of her ways. "Listen, I know what I taught you when you were alive. I know what I taught you by example. But I was wrong. I was wrong about you, and I was wrong about that. Money isn't everything, Tracy. You have two sons who love you, who want your love."

"My sons haven't spoken to me in years," she said bitterly.

"But you're still alive, and you still have a chance to fix things with them. Don't you see, Tracy? Don't you see what a gift it is to be alive, to have a chance to right the wrongs you've done? You still have a chance to be with your sons, your grandchildren. You can fix all of this, but nobody will have a chance at all if you sell those weapons tomorrow." He moved closer, pulling her into his arms, stroking her hair. "I was a horrible father to you, Tracy. I know that. I taught you to hate, to be cold and hard and distant. But you're also your mother's daughter. You have her capacity to love. I know. I saw it when you were with Dillon. I saw it with that Spencer fellow. You loved them, you did. I hated you for it at the time, tried to destroy it, undermine it. I saw it as weakness, but I know that it wasn't. Tracy, I know that that woman is still inside of you, that there's still a spark of Lila inside of you." He stroked her hair, kissed it gently. "I know she's still inside of you, Daughter. Please, don't let me destroy it. Please, at the end of the day, prove that you're Lila's girl, not mine."

He held his breath for a moment as she relaxed against him, her arms slowly moving around his shoulders. He embraced her, tentatively at first, then with real enthusiasm. She was remarkable, in her own way. He wanted her to succeed. He wanted her to be happy, despite everything that had gone wrong. He knew she could, if only she'd take this one step. "Choose love, Tracy," he whispered into her hair. "At the end of the day, it's the better choice."

"Yes, Daddy," she whispered back, and Edward felt himself dissolving, felt the light coming into him, felt the freedom from his corporeal form invigorate him. Tracy looked up at him, a look of amazement in her eyes. "Daddy?"

"I love you, Tracy. I love you, Daughter," he said as he continued to dissolve, as he became the light, as his soul released the last of its mortal connections and moved on, to whatever new adventure, he did not know.

Tracy stared for a long moment at the place where Edward had been, her breathing slow and steady, waiting for the light to vanish before she relaxed. "He's gone," she called out to the next room.

Lewis came in through the door, stretching his neck and shoulders. "Wow, I thought he'd never catch on."

The soul playing the part of Sonny Corinthos came in the room, part corporeal, part non-corporeal light. "You want us to strike this set, Boss?" he said.

"Yeah, let's get this stuff out of here." Lewis turned to the soul playing the part of Tracy. She looked really good—virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. His job was easy; she had to be convincing. "You were great, Irene."

"Thanks, Lewis. Wow, he was tough, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, I know. Some of these guys just never learn."

She was pulling off her costume, pealing the face of Tracy Quartermaine back to reveal her true soul self. They had abandoned corporeal language, and were now communicating through their own musical speech. "I still can't believe he bought all that stuff about nuclear war and a new ice age. And the whole secret agent soul thing? Come on, did we really have to go that far?"

"Subtlety is lost on this guy," Lewis said tiredly. "I've worked with him before. No matter how many times we try to teach him, he gets down in the corporeal world and makes the same mistakes." He rolled his eyes. "I've requested suspension of his volunteer status three times, but they still keep sending him down there."

"Do you think it will stick this time?"

"I'm not optimistic," Lewis admitted. "I had him back in the 1600s. He was a slave trader, and I gave him a huge production about the Civil War and all that. Next lifetime, he wasn't twenty years old and he was trading slaves again. War finally came, and the guy branches out into arms. He sold weapons during the war—to both sides."

"Some guys never learn," the Tracy soul said. "And of course, he screws it up for every other soul on his team."

"Oh, I don't know. The Lila soul did okay," Lewis said. "But the rest of them? Wow."

"A.J.," Irene said.

"Tell me about it." Lewis had resumed his non-corporeal form, shimmering as the fake Quartermaine mansion was being dismantled around them. "Want to go watch the nebulas on the other side of the Milky Way? I heard there's really great visibility tonight.

"Absolutely." She was fully free of her corporeal form now, too, and they shimmered together as they headed off to the observation areas. She hesitated, hovering for a moment as she watched the last of the set being struck. "What about the real Tracy? How is she doing?" The soul Tracy's light flickered, shaking off the last of the corporeal dressing she wore.

"She's doing okay," Lewis responded, his light shimmering to open a portal through which they could see the progress down on Earth.

Luke Spencer walked up to his ex-wife, his expression somber. "Why did I know I would find you here, Spanky?"

Tracy frowned, embarrassed. "Have you been eavesdropping, Ex-Husband?"

"As a matter of fact, I have." He put her arm in his, standing next to her as they looked down on her father's grave. "It's been a hell of a year, hasn't it?"

"That it has."

"He was quite the character."

"He was a son of a bitch," she said honestly. "But I loved him."

"I know, Mama Bear. I know." He pulled her against him, kissing the top of her head. "He loved you, you know. In his own psychotic way, I know he loved you."

"I wish things had been different between us," she whispered. "I wish I could have reached him."

"You know what, that's just what it was. What you're doing now, the effort you're making with Ned and Dillon…" He leaned back, staring at her, a look of admiration on his face. "That's what matters. That's what counts, Tracy."

"I just…" She hesitated. Even now, even after all the strides she made, Tracy seemed ashamed of her emotions. He had watched her since Edward's death, watched her struggling not to become her father, not to make the same mistakes he had made, struggling to reconnect with her sons emotionally. "I'm sorry, Luke. I just…"

"So, you know what, Spankybuns? Why don't you let your favorite ex-husband buy you a cup of coffee?"

She smiled, looping her arms in his. "Oh, wow. Too bad Gino is dead. I guess I'll just have to settle for you."

"You already did, Spanky. And aren't we both better people for it?"

"Don't make me puke, Luke," she laughed, and together they walked away from Edward's grave, towards that cup of coffee, and perhaps a better future.

The End

Written for the LJ 100 Situations ficathon.