Title: Casual Cruelty
Fandom: General Hospital
Characters: Tracy Quartermaine
Prompt: #33 Danger
Word Count: 5,601 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Luke comes clean with Tracy about Laura.
Author's Notes: I've been resisting this, but seeing the clips of Laura's descent into catatonia forced me to go down this road. I'm not going to speculate. I'm just going to write. Warning: Chock Full O'Angst.

It was turning cold when she found him, alone on the pier, his legs dangling over the water. The sun had set only an hour earlier, but already what little warmth the November day had held was dissipating into the chilly promise of even colder weather in the coming weeks. Tracy paused, watching him before she approached, weighing her options carefully.

The moon was low in the sky, casting a clear, silver sheen over the pier, reflecting from the water onto everything, including her husband. She turned the word over in her thoughts. Husband. Luke Spencer was many things, but Tracy wondered if maybe the using the word husband to describe him wasn't just a bit too generous. Mongrel, jackass, liar--these all seemed more appropriate to her ears at the moment.

It was quiet tonight, one last clear, mild evening before winter blew in for real. She would have expected to find dozens of people strolling along the water, lovers and hoodlums and people with too many thoughts on their mind to remain indoors.

But it was just them, Tracy Quartermaine and her aging danger junkie of a husband.

She closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath. It had been a frustrating day, the kicker to a long and crushing week. She was tired, and her feet hurt, and she wanted to be home nursing a dry martini rather than here on this damp dock wanting more than she knew she would ever get.

If Luke noticed her arrival, it didn't show in his posture. He sat on the pier, slumped really, staring blankly out on to the inky rolling water. His hair was white with moonlight, and he'd pulled the collar of his heavy jacket up against the night air.

It was the quietest she'd ever seen him, at least since they'd been married. She rarely saw him like this, off-guard, not performing for the crowd. She wondered who he was underneath that mask he wore, and if she might like that person he hid so carefully from the world. Then she shook herself, remembering what he'd done, remembering that she was only here because they needed to talk, to break the icy front that had formed between them.

And if he wouldn't come to her, then she had to go to him.

"Hey," she said as she crossed to his side, slipping out of her pumps before lowering herself to sit next to him, dangling her feet over the edge of the pier where he sat. It was the first sound she'd uttered to him, the first word in five days that she'd spoken directly to him.

She wanted to stay silent, to keep herself behind this wall of pain and rage and humiliation. She'd walked around in a stupor since he'd returned, doctor and drug and hope in his wake, turning Port Charles upside down in anticipation of Persephone's return from the Underworld.

The news was all over town. Treatments had begun on Laura Spencer. Saint Laura had a chance, and hope was on the lips of every man and woman over a certain age who'd had the privilege of sharing space with this paragon of grace and beauty.

Lips that went silent whenever Tracy entered the room.

The new Mrs. Spencer.

The white elephant in the middle of the room, an unavoidable barrier in the road to bliss and happiness for Luke and Laura Spencer.

They didn't say it, but they expected a divorce. They expected Tracy, for once in her miserable evil life, to do the right thing.

To step aside. To pull away and let this wonderful couple resume their former glory once the expected miracle occurred.

Tracy stared out onto the water. "Any news?" It felt forced, sitting here, asking him about his ex-wife, his angel, the love of his life.

He shook his head, still silent, still not facing her.

Tracy drew in a deep breath. "I'm trying, Luke," she whispered. "Give me something to work with." She waded through the emotions roiling inside of her, the resentment and terror colliding in her stomach like so much poison. She was trying, making a damned effort here. Tracy Quartermaine didn't fold, and she didn't make the first move. She didn't apologize. She didn't beg. "Please."

Luke said nothing.

"Fine," she muttered. She didn't need to be here. She didn't need to be kind. She could go home, get drunk, and randomly fire a hundred people with a single email if that what's she wanted to do. She could close down a factory and destroy the economy of a small town if she chose to. She was not without her own brand of power, she thought as she leaned back on her hands. It was an awkward position, age and gravity making her attempt to get up more difficult than she'd like.

She saw him for the first time, just like that, as she leaned backwards, struggling for balance.

Saw the look on his face, the expression he'd tried so hard to hide from her.

Saw the tears covering his cheeks and jaw, the raw pain in his face, the helplessness and anguish in his eyes.

"Luke," she breathed, her weight falling back hard on her wrists, hurting them.

What sort of a witch would she be, what heartless, soulless monster would she have been to see that look and remain cold? How could she just walk away when her heart was breaking a thousand times at the sight of him?

Her husband drew in a hard breath, choked and rough and heart-breaking. His mouth twisted, his eyes squinted, and oh, his face…

Tracy bit her lip, her own eyes watering as she felt the blast of his pain through the invisible thread that tethered them together at the heart. She found her balance somehow, found his shoulder, pulled him to her in a hard embrace. "Luke," she whispered into the soft spikes of his hair. "Baby." She rocked him, stunned by his tears, by the force of them, by the heat of them on her shoulder, by the intensity of his sobs. "Luke…"

She held him to her, and they were silent together. It was a new kind of silence; not the pained, angry emptiness that had populated the past week, but a sad open space in which they huddled together, clinging to the moment, clinging to the warmth of each other. She wanted to find the right words, to beg him for something more, for some idea of what monsters were lurking in his head.

She wanted something to fight, some battle to wage. Not this crushing nothingness. She stroked his hair, kissed his forehead, more mommy than wife, and more wife than anything she'd ever been in her life. She felt it, solid within her, this feeling of wife, and it hurt her just as much as it always had. It hurt her knowing that the feeling was one-sided, yet again. As it had always been, and probably always would be.

But Tracy had trained herself to be strong through pain, and now more than ever she had to be strong. "Luke, talk to me," she murmured into his temple, her hands on his back gentle but reassuring. "Let me help."

He pulled away, shaking his head. His lips parted, like he wanted to speak, but nothing came out. He turned away from her, bending over his folded arms.

"Please…" She had never felt so helpless, so lost. Why was he doing this? Why was he fighting her? He couldn't think she was so desperate, so stupid as to think she could keep him now. She wasn't so delusional that she thought she had a chance of winning him over Laura. "I want to help." It seemed so feeble.

"Back away, Wife," he said in a dark voice. "This is a member's only train wreck."

"I've paid my dues," she whispered. "I get a front row seat. Talk to me." At his continued silence, she added, "Say something."

"What do you want me to say, Spanky? Does your dog-eared copy of Emily Post have something in it to cover this situation?"

Tracy breathed in, stung, impressed as she always was at the ability of people to hurt those who were reaching out to them, at the human capacity for casual cruelty. "Ouch," she murmured.

He groaned, dropping his face into his palms. "Just ignore me, Trace," he said, his tone bland and self-deprecating. "I'm not fit for human companionship just now."

"Well, since everybody knows I haven't got a shred of humanity in me, you're just gonna have to try harder."

He twisted slightly, one eye peering up from his hands to stare at her. "What are you after?" he asked suspiciously.

Tracy folded her arms across her chest. The wind over the water was cool, and her jacket wasn't really sufficient to the chilly evening that was descending around them. "Honestly, I don't know what I'm after," she admitted. "When I first saw you sitting here, all I really wanted to do was push you in the water."

Luke chuckled softly. "Glad you reconsidered, my winsome water nymph."

"The splash might have ruined my shoes," she dead-panned, glad at least that he was talking and even laughing a bit. It was better than the sobs, much better than the hollow look in his eyes. "We can't have that, can we?"

He reached out, stroked the line of her chin. Tracy fought herself, fought the chills even his lightest touch sent through her. She had always been weak around certain types of men, had always let her heart lead her in to places she'd have been better off avoiding. She knew she was someday going to have to put a stop to that tendency, but there was no need to start now.

She leaned forward to place a soft kiss on his lips. It wasn't one of the hungry, passionate kisses that kept insinuating themselves into her mind's eye at very inappropriate moments, or one of the deep, soul-warming kisses that populated her dreams. No, it was just a kiss, nothing more or less, nothing spectacular. But it was enough, and Luke's shoulders relaxed, his arms wrapping themselves around her shoulders as he held her in a warm embrace for a long moment.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair, his breath warm. "I should have warned you about…"

"Yeah," she said, her voice too hard for the tenderness of the moment. "Yeah," she croaked again, not wanting to let the emotion show, not wanting to share this much with him. "You should have."

He pulled back slightly, still holding her, but spreading the space between them just a little so that he could face her, so that they couldn't avoid each others' eyes as they had been doing for the better part of the week. "Things have been so weird between us lately, Spanky," he murmured, the expression in his dark eyes incomprehensible to Tracy.

"When have things not been weird between us?"

"I had to go. When Robin told me about the treatment, I had to go," he said. As if it needed saying. Laura had always been the true focus of Luke's life, from the moment he laid eyes on her decades before. Everyone in town knew that, especially Tracy.

"I wouldn't have stopped you," she choked. She tried to pull away, struggled as he maintained his grasp, his embrace, his closeness. Tracy blinked hard, turning her face away, not ready for him to look into her eyes and certainly not ready to look into his…

…and find emptiness.

Or worse, to find fondness where love should have been.

When he wouldn't let her go, she squeezed her lips together hard, eyes shut tight, turning away from the tears that wanted to fall. She didn't want him to have this much power over her. She didn't want him to know how much it hurt. Tracy had never been first in any man's life. She'd never looked into a man's eyes and known that she was his one and only. She'd spent the better part of five decades learning to stomach that reality, only to have this man sweep into her life, burst through her defenses, and turn her world upside down again.

Neither of them said a word for a long time, although Tracy allowed him to rest her head on his chest, to stroke her hair with his strong, large hands. She bit down the thought of how she much wanted those hands on her body, not just her hair, not just her cheek. How much she wanted his mouth on hers, not just for the briefest of moments, but for an eternity, for the time it took for two hearts to become hopelessly intertwined. Her cheek lay against his chest, and she could hear the faint thumping of his heart beneath her. He was warm. He was real.

And she knew what she had to do. "I think," she barely breathed out the words. "I think we should just…" His heartbeat kept interrupting her train of thought, a low counterpart to the lapping sounds of the waves beneath the pier. She'd never been very musical, not like her sons or her mother, but for that moment Tracy felt the combination of water and heartbeats to be the most incredible music ever created, the most miraculous symphony any human could ever hear. She wanted to be silent, to let it surround her.

"Sweetheart?" he whispered, and the brutal irony of his word choice was enough to break the spell.

Tracy Quartermaine had never been anyone's sweetheart. Lover, wife, seductress, ball and chain, yes--but never something so wholesome, never something so true as a sweetheart. It destroyed something inside of her, hearing his voice wrapped around this sucker punch of a word. The crushed remains of whatever died in her every time he came that close to being what she needed provided her a lift, a pedestal on which to stand, just enough leverage to get the words out of her mouth at last. "I think we should get a divorce," she whispered into his shoulder. "I think we should end it now, while we can still be friends."

His arms stiffened around her, and there was a long moment of silence before she felt his hand on her chin, lifting her face up, forcing her to look him in the eyes. The look of utter shock and disappointment there almost broke her resolve. Almost.

"Spanky, I said I was sorry."

She almost laughed. Sometimes he was such a seven-year-old. "I know. And I've already forgiven you." Tracy placed her palm over his wrist, the combined weight of their hands heavy against her skin. "I still think we should end it now, while we can do it amicably, while we can walk away relatively unscathed."

The look in his eyes told her beyond a doubt that they'd long since passed the point where either of them would come out of this unscathed. "Why now?" he whispered. "Why now, instead of when I threw you in bed with Coleman--"

"I tried to give you a divorce back then," she reminded him.

"--Or Scorpio? Why not when I tried to gaslight you, or when I brought a fucking plague back from the Maarkam Islands and almost killed your kid?" His voice was rising, and his grip around her grew hard and unrelenting. "Why the hell would you go and drop a bomb like this now?"

Tracy felt the own fire rising. She pushed out of his arms so hard they both had to grab for support, hands clutching at the weathered boards that formed the pier. "You have no right to be angry with me. I've put up with more crap from you than from any ten men I've ever known."

"And you choose now to get touchy about it?" He was yelling at her, his eyes blazing with fury. "Come on, Spanky, we both know what this is about. Do us both a favor, and be honest with yourself."

"Be honest with myself? Alright, here's honest for you." She shook her head, pivoting away so that she didn't have to face him. "I've already transferred your half of the fifteen million into a separate trust for you. The divorce papers are drawn up and ready to sign. They have been since you bailed on me this summer."

"You're not leaving me because of this summer, and we both know it."

"I'm leaving you because I'm Tracy Fucking Quartermaine," she hissed at him. "I'm Tracy Quartermaine, and it's about time I started acting like it." She shrugged his hand off her shoulder, no longer fighting the tears that streamed down her cheeks. "I'm leaving you because I'm done with living my life on somebody else's time table."

"Tracy," he whispered. His breath was hot on her neck, his scent everywhere, combining with the smell of water and windswept wood, confusing her senses. "Tracy, I know you're scared…"

"I'm not scared," she growled. "I'm fed up. I'm fed up with you and with your mind games and with your freeloading--"

"I heard them, Tracy. I heard what Monica and Bobbie said today at the hospital." She cringed as his hand squeezed around her shoulder, unrelenting. "I know you heard them, too. I know you heard them talking about you, about how wrong it was for you to keep me trapped in this marriage, about how when Laura came out of her--"

"I heard it the first time," she whispered. Her tone was flat and lifeless, slack against her throat and devoid of any passion. She didn't fight his hand anymore, didn't fight her facial muscles from going slack as well. Her expression wasn't a frown. It wasn't a sob. It was just…nothing. "That's not the reason I'm ending it, Luke. I don't care about gossip. They've been gossiping about me since I was fourteen and let Richard McArdle see my bra at the freshman dance." She ignored his chuckle. It wasn't going to soften her now. "I am tired of being second choice, Luke. Hell, at this point, second choice would be a trade-up. I'm lucky if I rate fourth or fifth with you. Holly, Skye, Laura. Anybody else I should know about, moving me down the ladder?"

"Spanky," he cajoled, and suddenly she felt very unimpressed by his moves. It was an old song, and she didn't really feel like listening to it.

"Face it, Luke, our marriage is dangling on the end of a very fine thread." She turned to face him, her expression hard and remorseless. "If this treatment works, we both know what's going to happen…"

"We don't know if it's going to work."

"Wrong answer," she said. "And if it doesn't work, well then, you still have Old Trace to fall back on." She narrowed her eyes, piercing him with the ferocity of her gaze. "Well, Old Trace has no intention of putting her life in a vacuum while you wait around to see if the woman you really want comes out of her rutabaga state."

"Stop it," he warned.

"Oh, forgive me. I forgot. We're all supposed to dance around Poor Luke's fragile heart. Well, I have a heart, too, and frankly I didn't bring my damned tap shoes."

"You have no idea what's in my heart," he said darkly. "You have no clue what I am, or what I'm capable of."

"Will you please just give the 'Luke's Dark Side' thing a rest? I know all about your poor tortured soul, Luke Spencer, and frankly, until you've withheld heart medication from your dying father, you really have nothing to say to me about dark sides."

Luke blew out a hard breath, lifting his hand so swiftly that, for a moment, Tracy thought he was going to hit her. Instead, he brushed it through his hair with one ferocious swipe, his entire face contorting with an odd combination of pain, rage and loathing. "You want honest, Spanky? You really want honest? Well, here's honest for you, my pretty pink peppermint fucking popsicle." He spat the words at her like bullets, and each alliterative syllable just made it worse. "When Patrick Drake warned me that the treatment might kill Laura, you wanna know what my first reaction was? My first, overwhelming, undeniable fucking emotion?" He paused to breathe, his entire body shaking with emotion. "Relief. That's what I felt when this kid told me my decision might kill Laura. Relief. Overwhelming relief. That I'd be done with it, that I'd be free of it. That finally this nightmare would be over…." The last was said through sobs, and then he was crying again, then he was doubled over again in pain, rocking back and forth. "That's what I felt, Tracy," he mumbled into his hands. "That's what I wanted for this gentle woman whose only crime was to fall for somebody like me."

Tracy swallowed the blade that seemed to have formed in her throat, choking, cutting, hurting her so badly it rocked her to the core. "You…didn't cause Laura's catatonia, Luke." Her voice was gravelly, forced through a throat suddenly too narrow for the space of both words and oxygen. "You didn't."

"I forced her, pushed her too fast, too far…"

And Tracy knew Luke wasn't there anymore, that his mind and his spirit were nowhere near the pier that supported his body. He was years in the past, Tracy guessed, in that ramshackle barn where he'd hidden Laura to protect her from the law, to protect her from the reporters and photographers, to protect her from her own disastrous truth.

"You didn't cause her to get sick, Luke," she repeated. This time it was her hand reaching for his shoulder. "You didn't cause her to crack."

"I know it wasn't my fault," he snarled, shaking off her hand, his back to her. "It was Baldwin. He let his hatred of me override any concern he might have had for Laura, even though he once swore he loved her."

"No, Luke." Tracy forced her hand onto his shoulder, forced him to turn and face her. "It wasn't your fault and it wasn't Scotty Baldwin's fault and it wasn't the damned paparazzi." She gasped for breath, her pulse racing now, her mind rushing places she might have avoided had her emotions not been running so high. "Laura didn't crack because of any of those things. She cracked because she was weak. Because she's always been weak. Because she never had the strength to fight, or to stand up and face the darkness all around her." She paused, waiting for the returning blow, waiting for the inevitable fallout of daring to speak poorly of Saint Laura of Port Charles.

But it didn't come. Luke just stared at her, his dark eyes moist and unfathomable. They watched each other in silence, neither of them choosing to speak, neither of them moving from the position they were in.

Finally, Tracy said softly, "I'm sorry, Luke. I know you love her, and I know you want to think the best of her. Laura was…is a sweet woman, gentle and caring and good. But the world isn't always gentle or caring or good, and women like Laura tend to get chewed up unless they can develop either a spine or a shell."

"Like you did?" It was a whisper, just barely loud enough be heard over the lapping waters beneath them.

"We're not talking about me."

"I've seen it, Tracy," he said, leaning forward. "I've seen that softness, that tenderness inside of you that you try so hard to hide." She tried to shrug him off, but he persisted, his voice soft and honest. "I've seen what you live through, what you put up with--and not just from me." He shook his head, a sad expression on his face. "It wasn't supposed to be like this, Tracy," he murmured, moving closer. "It wasn't supposed to go down like this. Just an in and out job."

"What are you talking about?" she breathed, his nearness and her own emotions confusing her, throwing her off balance.

"Marry you. Get the alimony. Get the hell out." His fingertips brushed her cheek, sending a thrill of shivers through her body. "You had to get stubborn. You had to get creative."

"Stop," she begged.

"Tracy Quartermaine, Chief Bitch and Bottle Washer. Ice water in her veins," he whispered.

She felt his eyes on her like a microscope, like she was some fascinating experiment he wanted to study. She struggled not to squirm, struggled not to cringe under his examination. "Luke…"

"It's your fault," he breathed. "You weren't supposed to be decent. You weren't supposed to be warm and fascinating and tough and fragile."

"Don't you dare, Luke Spencer," she hissed. "Don't you dare pull that 'I treated you like dirt because I cared too much about you' bullshit on me."

Luke laughed. "Actually, I treated you like dirt because I'm a shit, and you made it entertaining."

"Stop," she said, laughing in spite of herself. "Please just stop."

"You wanna know why I left this summer, Spanky? Do you really want to know?"

"We're not talking about this summer anymore."

"It was the night of Justus' funeral."

"Don't…." She didn't want to think about that night, about that kiss, about how she'd felt, the confusion and the desire and the pain of that night.

"You just listened to me. You let me open up." He scratched his head, the spikes of his hair wild and lopsided under his hand. "And I got this feeling, this completely unexpected insight. Nothing major, no fireworks or violins, just--hey, I'm glad I'm married to this woman. I'm lucky to have her. I like being around her."

"You overwhelm me with sentiment," she murmured.

"Then I went to see Laura, to tell her about Justus. Same as always, just me and her in that awful place. Same empty gaze. Same soulless eyes." He shook his head. "That night, same old nightmare..." He drew in a heavy breath. "The same nightmare I've had for the last almost five years. It was in the house on Charles Street. I was running through the place, room after room after room, searching. And I ran into that same room, the one I always find myself in when I have this dream. Same damned chair. Always that same ugly chair, and the hand on the arm, limp, heavy. And I rushed to the chair, Trace, like I always do." He stopped, his eyes boring into her like a laser beam. "But it wasn't her, Baby. It wasn't Laura. It was you in that chair. You with your hair all a mess, you with the dark circles under your eyes, blank, vacant." His voice trailed off. He bit his lip, eyes lowered. "The next morning I woke up and all I wanted to do was run. I didn't care where or why. When Holly called, it was all I needed."

"I'm not Laura," Tracy whispered, reaching out to stroke her fingers through his hair. "I'm not Laura."

"I couldn't live with it. I couldn't survive it."

"I'm not Laura. I'm not going to crack just because the going gets tough." She smoothed his hair, a never ending battle with his messy spikes. "If almost sixty years as a Quartermaine hasn't turned me into a rutabaga, Luke, nothing you can come up will do the trick."

"You overwhelm me with your sentiment," he echoed, taking her hand in his. "You're tough, Baby, but you're not that tough. There's something inside of you that can be hurt, that can be broken, and I don't want to be the one who finally pushes you there."

"So you push me away instead? So you hurt me in a million little ways trying to avoid that one big one?"

"It wasn't supposed to go down this way," he whispered again, leaning forward to kiss her softly. He lingered there, eyes closed, his breath mingling with hers as he spoke against her lips. "I wasn't supposed to fall in love with you."

"Sorry," she breathed, leaning into the kiss, unable to resist anymore, unable to fight it. She was exhausted. She was beaten, and she knew it. Her heart was too strong, just as it had always been, just as it would always be. No matter how hard her brain worked to protect her, that damned heart always got in the way. Now it forced her against him, forced her into his waiting arms, tricked her into melting against him, letting him devour her, destroy her, consume her. It wanted to be in love, wanted to be swept away, and it didn't care who or what it hurt--including Tracy herself--to get what it craved. "Luke," she moaned as his body pressed against her, as his warmth overwhelmed her. She wanted to say it over and over again, like a schoolgirl trying it on for size, like a character in some silly romance. But she held herself back, controlled herself with Herculean effort. "Stop…."

"I don't want a divorce, Tracy."

"I'm not going to hang around here, waiting to see if you're going to leave me for Laura or if I'm going to be your consolation prize. I'm too old for that, Luke. No matter how hard it hurts, no matter how much I just want to ignore it, we both know what needs to be done."

"I don't want a divorce." He held her close, resting his chin on the top of her head. "Baby, please…."

"Do you really want to wait around, see what happens, and deal with this when Laura's feelings are part of the mix? Do you want her to come out of that nightmare to find that her husband--"

"Ex-husband."

"Is married to the town bitch?" Tracy shook her head, squirming out of his grasp. "Let's be honest with ourselves. If the treatment works, how long is this feeling between us going to last? How strong is it against all that history?"

"It's gonna be complicated, Tracy, I know. But--"

"And if it doesn't work, I will always feel like what's left over, what you got instead of what you really wanted."

"I want you…"

She was silent. She didn't want to examine those three words of his, didn't want to try to figure out which of the many nuanced meanings were implied by his statement.

"And if she dies?" Luke asked darkly.

Tracy closed her eyes. It was really beginning to get cold, and her arms were now tight across her chest. "If she dies, I will make a very generous donation in her name to whatever charity she supported." She cast him a look. "No doubt something involving puppies and babies and sunflowers," she said wryly.

Luke grinned. "Yeah, she was always about the cute."

"You love her. And you have no choice in this matter, Luke Spencer. We will be getting divorced." She shrugged her shoulders, shivering, and he took off his coat and draped it around her. "Your only choice is whether we part as friends or as enemies."

"And how I'm going to win you back," he added as he fixed the collar around her neck.

"You're welcome to try," she said. Her heart was screaming in outrage inside of her. How dare you, it accused. He's so close, he wants us, he wants to make love to us, to stay with us. How could you throw this away? But Tracy knew she had to be stronger than this, and that meant pulling away, for now at least. She knew Luke had to be free to figure this whole thing out, without complications from her.

She also knew she had to have room to figure Luke out, what he meant to her, where he fit into her life. And she wasn't going to do that with him underfoot, mucking things up with hormones and crooked smiles and unruly hair that tempted her fingertips.

"We should go," she said. "It's getting late, and you have to be at the hospital early in the morning." This time Luke helped her to rise, and she slipped her feet back into her pumps. The air had chilled the insoles, and she shivered at the unexpected coolness against her arches.

He was about to speak when his cell phone rang. There was a long pause, heavy with expectation, before he pulled out his phone and answered it. "This is Spencer." He listened, nodding occasionally, then said, "Okay. Yeah, thanks. I'll be there." Then he snapped the phone shut, his face white in the moonlight. "She's responding to the pen light."

Tracy felt her stomach clench, but she fought it. Resolve, Tracy, she said to herself. Tough it out, kid, she told her heart. "You should go."

"Will you come with me?"

The look on his face broke her heart, and she was tempted to go with him, to brave the stares and innuendos and unspoken accusations just so she could protect him from pain. But she had to be strong enough, stronger than Laura, stronger than Luke. "You go," she said. "I'll see you when you get home."

And then she was gone and Luke was alone, staring after her for a long moment before he turned and headed back to the hospital to see his angel.

The End

Written for the LJ 100 Situations ficathon.

13