General Hospital: For Warmth, Of Course (Tracy/Luke)
Title: For Warmth, Of Course
Author: MinervaFan
Fandom: General Hospital
Rating: R (Mild sexual situations)
Word Count: Approximately 7500 words
Characters/Pairing: Luke/Tracy
Written for the TracyQ Fake Spoiler Ficathon: Yes
Fake Spoiler: Luke and Tracy go on an adventure together.
Summary: The ELQ jet crashes en route to Los Angeles, and Luke and Tracy are the only survivors. Can they make it in the wilderness, and how will it affect their relationship?
She was just taking her first sip of the martini when she heard the grinding noise. Tracy Quartermaine shot a concerned look across the cabin of the ELQ jet. Her only traveling companion was her husband, Luke Spencer, who seemed to live for the opportunity to test her patience.
If he couldn't divorce her or sleep with her or refrain from annoying the crap out of her, she'd thought when he parked himself across from her just before take-off, the least he could do is travel commercially. But, no. He'd managed to finagle a layover in Las Vegas from her soon-to-be unemployed pilot, delaying her trip to LA by several hours. And he'd also managed to make friends with the flight attendant, thus assuring Tracy of a miserable cross-country flight.
That had been two hours ago. Two long hours of Luke bouncing up and down, flirting outrageously with the flight attendant, popping in and out of the cockpit to chat with the pilot, and generally making a nuisance of himself.
There was another noise, then a loud metallic groan. Tracy hit the call button, but there was no response. The cabin lurched hard, sending her martini glass out of her hand and across the cabin. She was too stunned to give more than a passing notice to the glass, now rolling haphazardly under the row of seats. She pounded the call button, cursing silently as no response came.
Tracy was not the type to sit around waiting for things. She stood up and was half-way to the cockpit door when Luke burst out, followed immediately by the flight attendant. They both looked pale, serious.
"Get to the back of the plane," Luke said without preamble. He didn't allow her to protest, didn't even give her time to turn around. His hand was on her forearm, a grip so tight it almost hurt.
"Luke…"
"Get to the back of the plane, Spanky. No arguments." The look on his face, the look of fear and determination, was enough to forestall any arguments or complaints she might have had. "Back row, kid. Buckle in and lean forward, arms folded against the seat in front of you, feet pulled back as far as you can. Rest your head in your arms and brace yourself." She stared at him as he turned to help the flight attendant, but he just barked at her. "Now, Tracy. For once, please, just do it now."
She didn't think. She didn't speak. She just did as she was told. The plane was rocking furiously now, a screeching of air against metal-no more streamlined hum, this was hard-core physics at play. She tripped on the martini glass, which had found its way to the back of the lurching cabin. Kicking it, she lunged into the back row as instructed, buckling herself with shaking hands, and assumed the crash position.
There was a terrible noise, the worst noise she'd ever heard in her life, a noise worse than any noise that had existed since the dawn of time. Tracy looked up to see a huge gaping hole where part of the cabin wall should have been. The noise was unbearable. Papers were flying everywhere-the last of her presentation to the West Coast office-and she could barely see from the blast of wind in her eyes. Luke and the flight attendant were coming toward her, Luke in the front position, both grabbing the seat backs to pull themselves forward.
She thought she heard herself screaming. Thought she heard herself calling his name as the refreshment cart hurtled through the cabin, knocking the flight attendant off her feet. She thought she saw Luke turn, she thought she saw him move…
Then she thought nothing at all…
***
"Tracy, wake up."
The world was black.
"C'mon, sweetheart, open those pretty eyes and look at me."
She ached. That was the first thing she was aware of, followed by an almost palpable feeling of wrongness. She felt fingers gently tapping her cheek--in a right place, it might have been soothing, sweet even. But here, in this dark place of wrongness, it was like a hard slap. "Stop," she murmured. "Stop it…"
"Spanky, you're with me!" It was her husband. It was Luke, she realized as she forced herself to open her eyes. "Thank god, baby. I thought…"
"What happened?" Her voice was raw against her throat, as if she'd been screaming. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized to her horror that she had been screaming. "Oh, my god…"
Luke's face and neck were scratched and bruised as he hovered over her in the wreckage of what had been the ELQ jet. She was still strapped into her seat, which explained the pain across her lower abdomen. It had been an awful landing, as evidenced by the tree branches and dust everywhere, mangled metal and broken glass. Luke looked pale, as if he'd seen a ghost. "I have to get you out of here," he whispered, reaching for the buckle of the safety belt.
Stunned, she moved to help him with the fastener. She couldn’t tell for certain whether it was his hands or hers that were shaking so much, but eventually they got her loose, and he pulled her out of the awkwardly tilted seat, into a fierce embrace.
"You're gonna be okay," he whispered into her hair. "Are you hurt? Anything busted or punctured or just plain shaken too hard?"
He was babbling, but she understood, shaking her head to the negative as she held onto him for a long moment. "You hurt?" she asked, and was relieved when he shook his head no. "Where are we?"
"I don't know, Spanky, somewhere over northeastern Ohio, I think. Let's get out of here. We need to get clear of the wreckage."
Tracy felt her heart pounding. "You don't think…it's not going to explode, is it?"
"Pilot ditched the fuel when he realized we were going to crash," Luke grunted as he helped her to her feet. The part of the cabin that was intact was tilted hard on its side, braced as it was on the broken wing. Sunlight was streaming through the hole that had been punctured in the right side of the cabin. It was a beautiful day, she thought ironically as she stumbled towards the exit. "Navigation was gone, so there was no way to force a safe landing."
Her knees felt wobbly as they finally made it to safe ground, and she held onto his arm for balance as they leaned against the wreckage, resting from the exertion. "What happened? Is the pilot okay? What happened to the stewardess--"
Luke shook his head, leading her away from the plane. "Let's not worry about that, Spanky," he started in that dark tone he got.
"But they could be hurt. Shouldn't we--" She stopped when she saw his eyes, knowing instinctively that it was too late for either the pilot or the flight attendant. "Oh."
"Yeah. Well, we're okay, and we're gonna stay okay if I have anything to say about it." Luke shook himself slightly, as if to clear away the moment, and began again in a bright tone. "Now, we got a lotta work to do, Sugar Plum, before night falls."
"Night falls?"
He shrugged, the thick lining of his jacket brushing his ears as he did. "The pilot did get a distress call out before we lost communications, but we can't be sure how long it'll take for someone to find us. Now, I don't know about you, Spanky, but if and when night falls, I'd rather be ahead of the game. We'll need to build shelter, get a fire going, and salvage as much food and water as we can from this heap before it's too late to work."
"Why can't we just stay in the cabin?" She could hear the panic in her voice, and hated herself for it. Tracy Quartermaine prided herself on being cool in a crisis, but being crashed in the wilderness overnight was not something she relished. "Or maybe we should try walking?"
"Where?" He looked around them. Aside from the brand new clearing cut by the crashing plane, there was nothing but forest in all directions. "It's not like we're three blocks from the nearest Motel 6. How are we gonna find anything? You don't happen to have a car or a map or a pogo stick on you, do you?"
"Okay, okay. You've made your point. You don't have to be sarcastic," she snapped. "So walking's not the greatest idea, but why can't we stay in the cabin? It's sturdy and can protect us from the elements…."
"Look," he said, walking her around to where the wing was supporting the weight of the cabin. The bolts holding the wing to the plane were tugging hard, and the metal looked as if it might shear at any moment. "Not exactly stable. We fall asleep in that thing and the wing falls off, it could roll and we could be trapped underneath."
"Okay, so the cabin is out." Tracy was starting to feel nauseous. How long would it take to be found…? "Are you sure the radio doesn't work," she asked. "What about my cell phone--yeah, my cell phone should be in there." She started back towards the opening.
"Tracy, it's not going to work. The trees will block the signal, and besides, we're too far from a tower."
She gave him a look as she reached up to climb back into the wreckage. "Gimme a lift, will ya?" He placed his hand on her bottom and helped her scootch up into the cabin. "9/11, remember? Ever heard of satellite phones?" She heard him laugh as he smacked her ass gleefully.
"Spanky, you're brilliant! Leave it to my wife to have all the niftiest high-end gadgets." He hefted himself upward into the cabin behind her, groaning as his muscles protested the efforts. "Where did you leave it?"
"It was in my carry-on. I had it stowed above my seat with my laptop." She was making her way through the cabin, picking gingerly through the debris as she headed for the row where she'd been seated before the crash. The refreshment cart blocked the last of her way. Luke put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her from moving the cart and continuing on.
"Um, I'll take it from here, kid," he said. She turned to him curiously, then remembered what had happened right before she lost consciousness. "You might want to look the other way, Spanky," he added.
Tracy held her breath, turning toward the back of the cabin as he lifted the damaged cart and headed towards the front of the cabin. Maybe it was her mind playing tricks on her, but she was almost certain she'd heard the sound of something heavy and soft being dragged several feet. She shut her eyes hard against what she imagined was happening and waited for the all-clear.
"Row 4?" he called.
"Yeah." It seemed weird to be talking like this, on opposite sides of a demolished plane cabin, all alone together in the wilds of one of those forgettable middle states where people married their second cousins. "On the right side, in the overhead compartment."
"Gimme a sec--woot! One Louis Vuitton rescue bag, in hand. Let me get my carry-on, and we'll see what we got. Can you make it out of the cabin okay? I don't want to be in here any longer than necessary."
"I'll meet you on the outside," she said as she eased her way back to the opening. It was easier this time. Her legs weren't shaking, and she had a better grasp of what she was doing. Knowing that her bag hadn't been sucked out of the cabin and that her cell was still there gave her strength. She was even beginning to enjoy the view when Luke finally sidled up behind her carrying both their cases.
"Don't know how to tell you this, Spanky, but your laptop is a thing of the past."
She shrugged and took her carry-on from him. "Over it. All that matters is my little piece of communications gold. Come to Mama, baby," she said as she reached into the side pocket where she kept her cell, only to pull out a twisted hunk of metallic junk. She turned to face Luke, her face pale as she showed him the destroyed phone. "Oh…dear…god…."
"Hell." If Luke was angry or afraid, he didn't let it show on his face. He nodded stoically, his eyes set and determined as he took the phone from her hand and tossed it behind him into the wreckage. "So, Spanky Buns. On to Plan B."
***
Tracy could not remember ever being so tired. She estimated they had crashed at about eleven in the morning, and the sun was lowering in the west when she finally got a chance to catch her breath.
She had to admit, she was pretty impressed with Luke at this moment. He'd taken charge immediately, working out a plan to provide for food, water, shelter, and heat before nightfall. As he'd said, if they'd been planning a hostile takeover, Tracy would have been in charge. But when it came to surviving a bad situation in a rugged environment, she had to concede his superior experience and ability.
First, they'd salvaged everything of use they could from the plane--packages of food, bottled water, little bottles of alcohol that he wouldn't let her drink, three blankets, some pillows, a flare gun with flares, a big sheet of plastic, a first aid kit, and even a book of maps from the cockpit. Luke had not let her anywhere near the dead bodies, sending her instead to search for kindling and giving her strict instructions not to wander too far from the wreckage.
As if she would. It galled her to admit it, but Tracy was so far out of her element as to feel completely dependent on her husband. It was not a feeling she liked, but she was at least glad that he knew what he was doing. Granted, as many times as he'd been on the run, she had to imagine he'd learned to survive in worse places.
She'd argued, though, when he'd started her digging holes. One was for a fire pit, which she understood, but the second was for something he called a solar still. It had to be two feet deep and as large as the sheet of plastic they'd found. It was a device to gather fresh water, which seemed redundant considering they'd found several bottles of water in the plane.
That's when it hit her, really hit her, that Luke did not expect to be rescued any time soon. He hadn't said anything overt, but something about his expression told her he wasn't giving her all the information he had.
So she did as she was told. She dug holes, and she helped him build their lean-to, and she gathered wood and shoved sticks in the ground for purposes she didn't quite understand, and she kept her mitts off the teeny bottles of alcohol he intended to use for sterilization purposes if needed even though she desperately wanted a drink. She used the bathroom where he told her to, and didn't complain. She broke her nails and ruined her shoes and smeared her arms and face with sunscreen like he told her to.
Because, sooner or later, he was going to give her the whole story. And she fully intended to be alive and healthy at that time, just in case she needed the strength to kill him.
***
"Beautiful, isn't it?" She hadn't heard him come up behind her. Probably one of those Luke talents she kept hearing about from his on-the-road life. She'd been standing by the wreckage, scanning the distance for any sign of a plane or smoke or search lights. The sun was almost completely setting, and it was starting to get cold.
Luke put his arm around her shoulders, leaning her head against him with a gentle pull of his hand. She wanted to roll her eyes, but instead she just let him hold her. "Under the right circumstances, this would make an excellent vacation spot," he added.
"Yeah, for the Donner Party," she said sweetly. "No, Luke, roughing it is not my thing, so you can keep your family camping vacation fantasies to yourself from now on. Once we're rescued, I do not intend to have even a passing familiarity with nature."
He chuckled, kissing the top of her head. "Well, for a Park Avenue Baby, you did very well today. Wish I had a mint to put on your pillow."
She looked up into his face, searching for any clue of what he was really thinking under that sense of humor. Luke was just tall enough that she could do that--look up to him…at him, she corrected herself mentally. He was still sporting his ragged beard, roguish enough to remind himself and anyone else who might come along that Luke Spencer had never completely been domesticated.
"Dinner was fantastic," he added, still playing the joker. She wanted to grab him sometimes and shake him, to remind him that not everything was a joke. But she just smiled, tiredly, as he continued. "I particularly liked the trail mix tartar. The honey-roasted peanuts were a great appetizer, but that trail mix…bon appetit, right?"
She stared at him for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and calm. "There's nobody coming for us, is there?"
He frowned, tried to make another joke, but she put her fingers over his lips and asked the question again. "There's nobody coming for us, is there?"
"I don’t know, Trace," he admitted, his voice as dark as her own. "Systems started going crazy; it all happened so fast." He shrugged, pulling her in tighter. "The pilot managed to make the distress call, but we didn't get a response. I don't know if the message actually went through."
"You weren't going to tell me?"
"I didn't want you to get scared."
She smiled at him, a generous smile considering their situation. "I was scared the minute I woke up. You didn't want me to give up." It was getting colder, and she shivered under the thin protection of her clothing. Luke noticed, and opened his jacket to wrap her in his arms.
"I didn't want you to give up, and I still don't. If they'd gotten the message, we probably would have heard a plane by now. That worries me, because we were taking a standard flight route to Las Vegas."
"You said communications and navigations were out. Is it possible the navigations systems were malfunctioning before the crash? That we'd already strayed from our flight plan?" She shivered again, burrowing against him for warmth.
"It's possible," From his expression, Luke didn't like the possibility.
"Well, he logged the flight plan before we left," she said brightly, forcing herself to express a positive outlook she certainly didn't feel. "When we don't arrive in Vegas on time, somebody is going to notice. Somebody is going to come looking for us."
"Yeah, Spanky. Of course, they will."
He sounded about as confident as she felt.
***
He'd started the fire with a cigarette lighter and a strip of cloth covered in oil from the plane engine. The smoke at first smelled awful, but as the temperature dropped like a bowling ball off the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Tracy found herself ignoring the smell in favor of the warmth. "What time is it?" she asked Luke. Her diamond watch had mysteriously disappeared during the crash; maybe the band had broken or something, but it was driving her crazy.
"It's night time, wife," he answered, just as he'd answered every other time she'd asked. "You're going to drive yourself and me crazy if you keep watching the clock."
"Well, gee, Luke. Sorry if I'm lousy company." She took a twig and started poking the ashes around the fire. "I have nothing to read, and no light to read it by. My phone is a mangled mass of junk, my computer is shot, and gee whiz, I forgot my banjo at home."
"Aw, and I was so looking forward to the sing-along."
"In your dreams, Mister," she said, rolling her eyes.
"Hey, now. Both Dillon and Ned have musical talent, and their only common denominator is you, Tracy. Who knows what vocal wonders you're hiding from the world?"
"None. At. All." She shook the twig in his direction as he chuckled. He was drinking a bottle of water, something of an odd sight where Luke Spencer was concerned, and he reached over to offer her a sip. She took it, and swallowed just a little bit. "I do not sing, my husband, and you'd be better off…" She handed him back the water. "Better off forgetting you ever mentioned it to me."
"Oh, they say musical talent is passed on through the maternal line. It's a scientific fact. I read it in Discover magazine, or Highlights for Kids, one of those." He took another swig and laughed at her look of disgust. "Besides, you said that you don't sing, not that you couldn't sing."
"Could we please get off the subject of my non-existent musical talent? Please?"
"Okay, then, Spanky. If you don't want to talk about music, how about sex? When did you lose your virginity?"
She waited a beat, then began singing the first lines of Feelings….
Luke laughed uproariously, lifting his water bottle in salute. "To your impeccable timing, wife of mine."
She smiled, happy to have distracted him. Things with Luke were…odd, and she felt uncomfortable any time they delved too far beneath the surface. She leaned over and grabbed a pack of nuts from the carry-on. Opening it, she poured half in her hand and gave the other half to her husband. "So," she said, wanting to broach the subject carefully. "What exactly do you think caused the malfunction on the plane?"
He popped a couple of honey-roasted peanuts into his mouth and shrugged. "Wiring problem, most likely."
She examined him closely, trying to determine if his comments were true or just another attempt at sparing her worry. "It seems kind of odd that the navigation and the communication systems would go out at the same time, doesn't it?"
"What are you suggesting, wife?"
She shrugged, not wanted to look into his eyes. "There are a lot of people who wouldn't mind seeing either one of us dead…"
"Sabotage?"
"Well?"
He shook his head. "Don't go there, Buttercup. If you let your mind walk down that primrose path, you're gonna have us both spooked out of our minds and looking for assassins around every corner. Besides, nobody even knew I was going to be on this flight."
"I was a last-minute substitution, too," she admitted. "Daddy was scheduled to attend this meeting, but he got sick last night. I stepped in for him." She rolled her eyes and added bitterly, "When nobody else on earth was available, that is."
"It really galls you, doesn't it? No matter what you do, no matter how many successes you have, your father never seems to give you any credit whatsoever."
"You noticed, huh?" But she was smiling. Maybe it was the way he was playing with the peanut wrapper, folding and unfolding it as he watched her reactions. Maybe it was just the unusual feeling of being exhausted, physically spent, after a day of hard work. Maybe it was just the reflection of the firelight playing on his skin. She shook herself, back to the topic at hand. "It doesn’t matter, really. Daddy knows how much I care about the business, and the family, even if he doesn't show it."
"What if he never does?"
She tilted her head to the side. "Never does what?"
Luke leaned forward, easing closer until he was seated beside her, one thigh pressed against hers and his arm around her shoulder as they watched the fire together. "What if you do all that you do, sacrifice all that you sacrifice, work your fingers to the bone for that family and for ELQ, and Edward never acknowledges you? What if he dies without ever telling you how proud he is of you, or how much he appreciates you, or even that he loves you?"
She turned away, angry at the question, but he pressed on. "Seriously, Tracy. I see all that you do for the Quartermaines, and I see how they treat you. And I think I know what I'm looking at, and just how far you'll go to win Daddy's approval. What if you knew, right now, without a doubt, that you'd never get Edward's approval? What if you knew that he'd never tell you how much he cared?" He reached out to touch her chin, turning her to face him. "Would you still do it?
"You really don't understand anything at all," she said softly and stood up as quickly as her tired muscles would allow her. "I'm going to bed," was the only other thing she said before she disappeared into the lean-to.
***
She pretended to be asleep when he finally joined her. It was crowded in the lean-to, and she didn't want him getting any ideas about chit-chat and pillow talk. She wasn't mad at him anymore; she just didn't want to talk about it.
They had lined the ground with evergreen boughs and covered them with one of the blankets. In her anger, Tracy had taken both remaining blankets for herself, fully intending to let him shiver himself to sleep. To his credit, Luke didn't just snatch the second blanket off her when he came to bed. Instead, he wrapped his jacket tightly around him and lay down behind her, facing in the other direction.
Perhaps that was why she felt guilty. And several minutes later, when she heard his teeth chattering, felt him shivering next to her, she found herself feeling guilty enough to whisper, "Oh, come on" and lift the blankets for him to join her underneath.
He rolled over almost immediately and wrapped himself around her, spooning her from behind as they huddled together for warmth. She had to admit it was an improvement. His body warmth was amazing, and the feel of his breath on her skin was soothing. The sounds of the forest were overwhelming, from owls to crickets to god-knew-what, and she felt safer with him close. She was a city girl at heart, and all this wildness was disconcerting.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair, squeezing her gently as he said it. "I shouldn't have brought up…well, family stuff. We've already got enough to worry about."
"Just go to sleep," she whispered. She didn't want to get into this again with him. She hated that he saw so much, that he seemed to intuit what was really going on. As much as she hated to admit it, her family's lack of insight into her was all she knew. It was how she'd lived for her entire life. She knew intellectually that she wanted a better relationship with her father, that she wanted his approval, but on a gut level it scared her. It scared her because it was possible that Luke could be right--that she could work her entire life and never get her father's love and approval. That all her fierce belief in her father's love, however hidden it may be, was just denial.
That was one bit of denial she didn't want to let go of. Tracy drew in a long breath, and burrowed down under the blankets. It was cold tonight, even with Luke pressed against her, and she suppressed a small shiver. "How did you know I was awake?"
"You weren't snoring," he said.
"I do not snore," she insisted, poking her elbow backward into his ribs.
"Oh, not a big moose snore," he amended, pulling her tightly against him. "A cute, womanly snore. Dainty, even."
"Go to sleep, Spencer," she said, trying not to smile.
He kissed her cheek, whispering, "Good night, sweetheart," before laying his head on the pillow beside her.
***
It was still dark when she woke. At some point in the night they'd switched positions, and now she lay in his arms, facing him with her arms wrapped around his neck. Their bodies were pressed fully against each other, and she could feel his heart beating against her chest as they lay together.
Tracy struggled against the drowsiness as she wriggled against him, trying to find a comfortable position. Her cheek was soft against his chest, and his entire body felt warm and safe against hers.
"Shh, baby, go back to sleep," he murmured into the top of her head.
"You're…you're on my sleeve, I think," she whispered back. He lifted himself slightly until she could move, then they both settled back down in each other's arms. "Thank you," she yawned.
"No problem," he said, and leaned down to kiss her gently on the lips.
Tracy moaned slightly and kissed him back. It wasn't a conscious thing, really, just the normal reaction of a healthy body that had gone too long without physical pleasure. Neither of them was fully awake, or at least, that's what they might eventually tell themselves. Neither of them realized what was happening as they deepened the kiss, as their bodies molded together, as they forgot that they were supposed to despise each other, that they were not supposed to want each other, that it wasn't supposed to feel this wonderful. They were just two scared, sleepy people in each other's arms, making love, sharing comfort and warmth and refuge in a difficult situation.
And it was amazing. That was another thing they might never admit to, once the deed had been done and the sun had risen to find them wrapped in each other's arms, naked and shy and satisfied.
***
The solar still had gathered enough water to fill the two water bottles they'd drained the night before. Tracy had changed into her "day after" clothes, a comfortable flying home outfit of soft black slacks, a black tank, and a loose-fitting green over-shirt. Her business suit, the one she'd worn for the meeting, was destroyed, but she wasn't too upset about it. She'd used a little of the bottled water to brush her teeth while Luke went rummaging through the wreckage. Neither of them had said much that morning. It was a beautiful day. She'd seen the sunrise for the first time in years; well, the first time sober, that is.
Everything felt cleaner, even though she hadn't showered. They'd heard what sounded like running water the day before. Maybe, if they were stuck here much longer, they'd go looking for it. She didn't want to think about what would happen when the plane food ran out. They'd been cautious, rationing it, sharing it. Tracy had no doubt that, if push came to shove, Luke could find food for them. But she didn't relish the idea of having to hunt and cook her own food.
"Morning, sunshine." It was Luke, coming back toward the campsite with a carry-on bag in his hand.
"Good morning."
"Well, I tried what I could with the radio, but it is yeah, verily shot, m'dear." He had a grin on his face. "But lo and behold, Missuz Spencer's little boy did not come home empty handed."
"What is that?" she said, eyeing the bag. It was a small black bag, the kind that normally went on wheels. She got a sick feeling in her stomach as Luke reached in and pulled out a pair of low-heeled women's shoes.
"What size are you? Six? Seven?"
"Oh…my…GOD! Luke Spencer, if you think for a moment that I'm going to wear some dead woman's shoes…"
"Hey," he said, handing her the shoes, which she steadfastly refused to take. "It's not like I ripped them off her dead body, Spanky. It's an extra pair, and a damn lot better than those death traps you're wearing now."
She had to admit, her shoes had been a problem. The Gucci pumps were great for looks, and gave her legs a nice little boost as far as shape was concerned. But they were hardly practical for rummaging around in the forest playing Swiss Family Quartermaine. "It's disgusting," she griped, but took the shoes anyway. They were a half-size too large, but they would do in desperate times. "Um, Luke," she began, but he cut her off.
"Tracy, I know. I know you feel…odd about what happened last night between us. Believe me, I'm kind of weirded out by it, too. But it happened, and we can't change it." He pulled her into a gentle embrace, stroking her hair with his fingertips. "And it wasn't all that bad, was it? I mean, wow. You were…wow."
She bit her lower lip, drawing in an embarrassed breath. "Actually, I was thinking about the bodies. Don't you think we should…do something with them? Bury them, or something?"
"I think we should have the authorities do that," he said, covering his blush with a cough as he extricated himself from her arms and reached in to pull, ta-daaa, a satellite phone from the flight attendant's carry on bag.
"Is that what I think it is?" she whispered.
"Hell yeah, wife," he said, handing her the phone. "And it has a dial-tone!"
She threw herself in his arms, kissing him hard as she hugged him fiercely. "Luke Spencer, you're a genius."
"Well, yeah…." He watched as she pulled away and began frantically dialing. "Who ya gonna call?"
"The only person who might still give a damn whether I live or die…" She looked up with an embarrassed grin. "Present company excluded, I think. It's ringing." She looked up and gave a gleeful nod as the phone picked up. "Dillon?"
Luke could actually hear him screaming over the line.
Mom! Mom! Oh my god, Mom! You're alive!
"Dillon, honey, Dillon--" She struggled to get a word in edgewise. "Baby, we're fine. Luke and I are okay, but we're stranded."
We got a call from the FAA that the ELQ jet hadn't made it to Vegas. Ned and I are here; Lulu came, too. We tried to get her to stay in New York, but she wouldn't even think about…
"Where's here, honey?" She shrugged Luke away as he tried to get the phone from her. "Honey, Luke wants to talk to you." She handed him the phone with a frown. "Don't talk too long."
"Hey, Young Spielberg, good to hear your voice." Dillon had apparently calmed down, because Tracy could no longer hear him in the open air. "Yes, yes, we're okay. We'll need to have the authorities here, because…yeah, son, there were casualties. Yes, Dillon, we're okay. We were lucky. Okay, let me talk to him." He put his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered to Tracy, "They're at the airport in Akron. He's putting me on the line with the authorities." When she nodded, Luke turned his attention back to the phone. "Hello? Oh, yeah, hey. Yes, we're fine. We're okay, but we would really like a nice meal and a shower, if you know a good place in the area." He laughed, and then continued on with the guy from the FAA.
Tracy pulled away, wrapping her arms around her as she did. The sun was up, yes, but it was still chilly. She paid little attention to the plans Luke was making over the phone. It was odd, but she already felt out of the loop, redundant.
Luke would make things better. Luke would guide the authorities to the wreckage, and get them safely out of there. Still saving the world, two little lives at a time, it seemed.
She, on the other hand, would go back to being Tracy.
She hated to admit it, even to herself, but the last few hours had been amazing. She'd done things she never thought she could do, survived a catastrophe that she'd never imagined surviving. She'd felt capable, strong even, as she worked with Luke to build their camp and the fire and gather water. She was glad to be rescued, thrilled to hear her son's voice, and she knew that when she saw Dillon and Ned again, she'd hold them as tightly as she could to guard against ever being separated again.
But a part of her felt angry, cheated. They'd done it. They'd survived, and she felt in her heart that, if necessary, they could have continued to survive. She and Luke, together, could beat any odds. She wanted the chance to try, to prove (if to no one but herself) that she was more than a pampered wealthy woman, that she was more than a sheltered rich girl who never had to struggle or survive.
That's what she told herself as she looked over at Luke, still trading jokes with the guy from the FAA. He looked so happy, so relieved.
Was he happy to be rescued, or happy to be free from her? Was he relieved that they were going back into their own world, where there were so many distractions, where they didn't have to know each other, talk to each other, hold onto each other for support?
Would he forget how it felt to be so dependent on each other, for safety and company and warmth?
Would she forget?
She barely noticed when he hung up the phone.
"Good news, Spankster. We're talking half an hour. We're gonna need your over-shirt--we can tie it to a stick and use it as a flag to help them find us. And find that signal mirror, that'll come in handy, too." He paused as he got a good look at her face. "What's this, Tracy?" He touched the tear that had fallen onto her cheek. "Tears of joy?"
She nodded, holding her jaw set and pretending with all her might. "Exactly," she whispered, and then joined him in preparing for the rescue party.
Epilogue
She had to admit, the Akron Hilton had a pretty nice bar. She and Luke and Dillon and Ned and Lulu had decided to spend the night in town, choosing to wait a while before flying back to New York. There were legalities, reports to be filed with the authorities, testimony as to the events of the crash. It might be weeks before they found out what actually caused the crash.
And there were hugs and phone calls to all the people who actually did care whether they lived or died, and toasts over dinner and toasts at drinks and toasts to the dead and more hugging between them all. And when they finished, they went to their separate rooms, more hugs, more hugs all around.
And Tracy felt good as she eased under the covers of her king-sized bed. She felt good that her sons loved her and Lulu loved Luke, and that they would survive and that, just this once, they'd been able to put the nastiness aside.
They'd actually felt like, god forbid, a family.
She was just drifting off to sleep when a knock came on her door. Probably Dillon, wanting another hug before bed. Where he got his emotional streak from, Tracy had no idea. But she loved him for it as she slipped on her new robe and slippers and opened the door.
It wasn't Dillon, but Luke who stood outside her hotel room door, also dressed in one of the new robes they'd bought that afternoon. He had shaved. He still had the beard, but it was neat and trimmed and looked surprisingly dapper on him. She swallowed the knotted feeling she got in her throat as she saw him, and invited him in.
"Hell of a day, huh, Spanky?" he asked, placing his hand on her elbow.
"Hell of a day, Spencer," she agreed, easing out of his reach. It felt weird, after everything that happened, to be alone together. "Aren't you tired?"
"Exhausted," he admitted. "But I thought…well, I kind of thought…."
"It really is late, Luke," she interrupted. She had a feeling she knew where he was going, and she didn't want to discuss it. Not tonight, anyway, when she still felt loved and wanted and surrounded by joy. She wasn't up to the brush-off tonight. She couldn't deal with the platitudes, with the "look, it was one of those things" and the "we'll always be friends" and the "we don't want to ruin what we already have." "You should get some sleep. We have an early flight home."
"We need to talk, Tracy," he insisted. His hand was in hers, and he guided her to the bed.
When it became apparent that he wasn't going to back down, Tracy sat down on the edge of the bed. :"So, talk," she muttered, preparing herself for the inevitable.
"Um, okay…" Luke sat beside her, suddenly at a loss for words.
So it wasn't as easy for him as she thought it would be. Good, Tracy thought bitterly. Let him squirm. She wasn't going to fight him for the privilege of sharing his bed, but she sure as hell wasn't going to make it easy for him to drop her, either. She said absolutely nothing as he struggled to find the words.
"About last night…"
"Oh, of all the clichés!" she groaned. She hadn't meant to talk at all, but there were some things she just couldn't help.
"Yeah, I know, Spanky. It's a stupid opening, a really stupid opening, but what am I supposed to say?" He shrugged helplessly. "I want to talk about last night. About what happened between us."
"There's not much to discuss," she said blandly. "It happened. What's to discuss?"
"Well, for starters, there's what happens now?"
She folded her arms across her chest in a protective gesture. The robe was thick, making the position not quite so comfortable, but she wanted a barrier between them. She didn't want to be any more vulnerable than she already was. "What happens now is that we go to sleep and get on a plane in the morning and fly back to Port Charles. End of discussion. Good night." She tried to stand, but he pulled her back down.
"What happens between us," he corrected.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Come on, Tracy. Don't be stubborn. We made love," he said, not letting her turn away from him. "You and me, together, in the lean-to. Remember?"
"It rings a bell," she admitted, focusing her eyes on the tie of his robe. It was backwards, a left-handed knot, and she found her mind drifting. Was Luke left-handed, or was she just getting her directions mixed up--
"Tracy!" He was staring at her, trying to get her attention.
"What?" she snapped. She didn't want him here, didn't want to be having this conversation. She wanted to sleep, without dreams, until she had to wake up and return to her life.
"We can't just sweep this under the rug. We did it, and it changes things." He cupped her chin in his hand, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "It changes everything."
"Don't dramatize, Luke," she whispered. "It was just one time."
"It changes things," he repeated. His hand was soft against her chin, and it took everything she had not to lean into it, to let him support her, to let him caress her.
She hadn't been this afraid in years, not even when the plane went down.
"You're not getting a cent of that fifteen million," she said, falling back on the safe and familiar.
He silenced her with a kiss, a long, gentle, serious kiss that cut straight to her core, dredging up all those forgotten fears and insecurities and desires she'd worked so hard to trap deep inside her. And in a moment, even those were irrelevant as she lost herself in him, in his touch and his smell and his beard scratching her chin.
"It changes nothing," she said as he began to work the ties of her robe, revealing her bare shoulders to his warm kisses, freeing her to untie his robe as well, until they were both exposed and vulnerable, until they were both too aroused to care anymore about money or power or leverage.
"It changes everything," he corrected as he pulled her to her feet, leading her around the bed until they could lie together, under the covers, as man and wife.
She reached up to turn off the lamp, shivering with delight as his hand found the small of her back and began to tickle her lightly. "We'll see," was all she said before she turned off the light and snuggled back against him. For warmth, of course.
The End.
Author: MinervaFan
Fandom: General Hospital
Rating: R (Mild sexual situations)
Word Count: Approximately 7500 words
Characters/Pairing: Luke/Tracy
Written for the TracyQ Fake Spoiler Ficathon: Yes
Fake Spoiler: Luke and Tracy go on an adventure together.
Summary: The ELQ jet crashes en route to Los Angeles, and Luke and Tracy are the only survivors. Can they make it in the wilderness, and how will it affect their relationship?
She was just taking her first sip of the martini when she heard the grinding noise. Tracy Quartermaine shot a concerned look across the cabin of the ELQ jet. Her only traveling companion was her husband, Luke Spencer, who seemed to live for the opportunity to test her patience.
If he couldn't divorce her or sleep with her or refrain from annoying the crap out of her, she'd thought when he parked himself across from her just before take-off, the least he could do is travel commercially. But, no. He'd managed to finagle a layover in Las Vegas from her soon-to-be unemployed pilot, delaying her trip to LA by several hours. And he'd also managed to make friends with the flight attendant, thus assuring Tracy of a miserable cross-country flight.
That had been two hours ago. Two long hours of Luke bouncing up and down, flirting outrageously with the flight attendant, popping in and out of the cockpit to chat with the pilot, and generally making a nuisance of himself.
There was another noise, then a loud metallic groan. Tracy hit the call button, but there was no response. The cabin lurched hard, sending her martini glass out of her hand and across the cabin. She was too stunned to give more than a passing notice to the glass, now rolling haphazardly under the row of seats. She pounded the call button, cursing silently as no response came.
Tracy was not the type to sit around waiting for things. She stood up and was half-way to the cockpit door when Luke burst out, followed immediately by the flight attendant. They both looked pale, serious.
"Get to the back of the plane," Luke said without preamble. He didn't allow her to protest, didn't even give her time to turn around. His hand was on her forearm, a grip so tight it almost hurt.
"Luke…"
"Get to the back of the plane, Spanky. No arguments." The look on his face, the look of fear and determination, was enough to forestall any arguments or complaints she might have had. "Back row, kid. Buckle in and lean forward, arms folded against the seat in front of you, feet pulled back as far as you can. Rest your head in your arms and brace yourself." She stared at him as he turned to help the flight attendant, but he just barked at her. "Now, Tracy. For once, please, just do it now."
She didn't think. She didn't speak. She just did as she was told. The plane was rocking furiously now, a screeching of air against metal-no more streamlined hum, this was hard-core physics at play. She tripped on the martini glass, which had found its way to the back of the lurching cabin. Kicking it, she lunged into the back row as instructed, buckling herself with shaking hands, and assumed the crash position.
There was a terrible noise, the worst noise she'd ever heard in her life, a noise worse than any noise that had existed since the dawn of time. Tracy looked up to see a huge gaping hole where part of the cabin wall should have been. The noise was unbearable. Papers were flying everywhere-the last of her presentation to the West Coast office-and she could barely see from the blast of wind in her eyes. Luke and the flight attendant were coming toward her, Luke in the front position, both grabbing the seat backs to pull themselves forward.
She thought she heard herself screaming. Thought she heard herself calling his name as the refreshment cart hurtled through the cabin, knocking the flight attendant off her feet. She thought she saw Luke turn, she thought she saw him move…
Then she thought nothing at all…
***
"Tracy, wake up."
The world was black.
"C'mon, sweetheart, open those pretty eyes and look at me."
She ached. That was the first thing she was aware of, followed by an almost palpable feeling of wrongness. She felt fingers gently tapping her cheek--in a right place, it might have been soothing, sweet even. But here, in this dark place of wrongness, it was like a hard slap. "Stop," she murmured. "Stop it…"
"Spanky, you're with me!" It was her husband. It was Luke, she realized as she forced herself to open her eyes. "Thank god, baby. I thought…"
"What happened?" Her voice was raw against her throat, as if she'd been screaming. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized to her horror that she had been screaming. "Oh, my god…"
Luke's face and neck were scratched and bruised as he hovered over her in the wreckage of what had been the ELQ jet. She was still strapped into her seat, which explained the pain across her lower abdomen. It had been an awful landing, as evidenced by the tree branches and dust everywhere, mangled metal and broken glass. Luke looked pale, as if he'd seen a ghost. "I have to get you out of here," he whispered, reaching for the buckle of the safety belt.
Stunned, she moved to help him with the fastener. She couldn’t tell for certain whether it was his hands or hers that were shaking so much, but eventually they got her loose, and he pulled her out of the awkwardly tilted seat, into a fierce embrace.
"You're gonna be okay," he whispered into her hair. "Are you hurt? Anything busted or punctured or just plain shaken too hard?"
He was babbling, but she understood, shaking her head to the negative as she held onto him for a long moment. "You hurt?" she asked, and was relieved when he shook his head no. "Where are we?"
"I don't know, Spanky, somewhere over northeastern Ohio, I think. Let's get out of here. We need to get clear of the wreckage."
Tracy felt her heart pounding. "You don't think…it's not going to explode, is it?"
"Pilot ditched the fuel when he realized we were going to crash," Luke grunted as he helped her to her feet. The part of the cabin that was intact was tilted hard on its side, braced as it was on the broken wing. Sunlight was streaming through the hole that had been punctured in the right side of the cabin. It was a beautiful day, she thought ironically as she stumbled towards the exit. "Navigation was gone, so there was no way to force a safe landing."
Her knees felt wobbly as they finally made it to safe ground, and she held onto his arm for balance as they leaned against the wreckage, resting from the exertion. "What happened? Is the pilot okay? What happened to the stewardess--"
Luke shook his head, leading her away from the plane. "Let's not worry about that, Spanky," he started in that dark tone he got.
"But they could be hurt. Shouldn't we--" She stopped when she saw his eyes, knowing instinctively that it was too late for either the pilot or the flight attendant. "Oh."
"Yeah. Well, we're okay, and we're gonna stay okay if I have anything to say about it." Luke shook himself slightly, as if to clear away the moment, and began again in a bright tone. "Now, we got a lotta work to do, Sugar Plum, before night falls."
"Night falls?"
He shrugged, the thick lining of his jacket brushing his ears as he did. "The pilot did get a distress call out before we lost communications, but we can't be sure how long it'll take for someone to find us. Now, I don't know about you, Spanky, but if and when night falls, I'd rather be ahead of the game. We'll need to build shelter, get a fire going, and salvage as much food and water as we can from this heap before it's too late to work."
"Why can't we just stay in the cabin?" She could hear the panic in her voice, and hated herself for it. Tracy Quartermaine prided herself on being cool in a crisis, but being crashed in the wilderness overnight was not something she relished. "Or maybe we should try walking?"
"Where?" He looked around them. Aside from the brand new clearing cut by the crashing plane, there was nothing but forest in all directions. "It's not like we're three blocks from the nearest Motel 6. How are we gonna find anything? You don't happen to have a car or a map or a pogo stick on you, do you?"
"Okay, okay. You've made your point. You don't have to be sarcastic," she snapped. "So walking's not the greatest idea, but why can't we stay in the cabin? It's sturdy and can protect us from the elements…."
"Look," he said, walking her around to where the wing was supporting the weight of the cabin. The bolts holding the wing to the plane were tugging hard, and the metal looked as if it might shear at any moment. "Not exactly stable. We fall asleep in that thing and the wing falls off, it could roll and we could be trapped underneath."
"Okay, so the cabin is out." Tracy was starting to feel nauseous. How long would it take to be found…? "Are you sure the radio doesn't work," she asked. "What about my cell phone--yeah, my cell phone should be in there." She started back towards the opening.
"Tracy, it's not going to work. The trees will block the signal, and besides, we're too far from a tower."
She gave him a look as she reached up to climb back into the wreckage. "Gimme a lift, will ya?" He placed his hand on her bottom and helped her scootch up into the cabin. "9/11, remember? Ever heard of satellite phones?" She heard him laugh as he smacked her ass gleefully.
"Spanky, you're brilliant! Leave it to my wife to have all the niftiest high-end gadgets." He hefted himself upward into the cabin behind her, groaning as his muscles protested the efforts. "Where did you leave it?"
"It was in my carry-on. I had it stowed above my seat with my laptop." She was making her way through the cabin, picking gingerly through the debris as she headed for the row where she'd been seated before the crash. The refreshment cart blocked the last of her way. Luke put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her from moving the cart and continuing on.
"Um, I'll take it from here, kid," he said. She turned to him curiously, then remembered what had happened right before she lost consciousness. "You might want to look the other way, Spanky," he added.
Tracy held her breath, turning toward the back of the cabin as he lifted the damaged cart and headed towards the front of the cabin. Maybe it was her mind playing tricks on her, but she was almost certain she'd heard the sound of something heavy and soft being dragged several feet. She shut her eyes hard against what she imagined was happening and waited for the all-clear.
"Row 4?" he called.
"Yeah." It seemed weird to be talking like this, on opposite sides of a demolished plane cabin, all alone together in the wilds of one of those forgettable middle states where people married their second cousins. "On the right side, in the overhead compartment."
"Gimme a sec--woot! One Louis Vuitton rescue bag, in hand. Let me get my carry-on, and we'll see what we got. Can you make it out of the cabin okay? I don't want to be in here any longer than necessary."
"I'll meet you on the outside," she said as she eased her way back to the opening. It was easier this time. Her legs weren't shaking, and she had a better grasp of what she was doing. Knowing that her bag hadn't been sucked out of the cabin and that her cell was still there gave her strength. She was even beginning to enjoy the view when Luke finally sidled up behind her carrying both their cases.
"Don't know how to tell you this, Spanky, but your laptop is a thing of the past."
She shrugged and took her carry-on from him. "Over it. All that matters is my little piece of communications gold. Come to Mama, baby," she said as she reached into the side pocket where she kept her cell, only to pull out a twisted hunk of metallic junk. She turned to face Luke, her face pale as she showed him the destroyed phone. "Oh…dear…god…."
"Hell." If Luke was angry or afraid, he didn't let it show on his face. He nodded stoically, his eyes set and determined as he took the phone from her hand and tossed it behind him into the wreckage. "So, Spanky Buns. On to Plan B."
***
Tracy could not remember ever being so tired. She estimated they had crashed at about eleven in the morning, and the sun was lowering in the west when she finally got a chance to catch her breath.
She had to admit, she was pretty impressed with Luke at this moment. He'd taken charge immediately, working out a plan to provide for food, water, shelter, and heat before nightfall. As he'd said, if they'd been planning a hostile takeover, Tracy would have been in charge. But when it came to surviving a bad situation in a rugged environment, she had to concede his superior experience and ability.
First, they'd salvaged everything of use they could from the plane--packages of food, bottled water, little bottles of alcohol that he wouldn't let her drink, three blankets, some pillows, a flare gun with flares, a big sheet of plastic, a first aid kit, and even a book of maps from the cockpit. Luke had not let her anywhere near the dead bodies, sending her instead to search for kindling and giving her strict instructions not to wander too far from the wreckage.
As if she would. It galled her to admit it, but Tracy was so far out of her element as to feel completely dependent on her husband. It was not a feeling she liked, but she was at least glad that he knew what he was doing. Granted, as many times as he'd been on the run, she had to imagine he'd learned to survive in worse places.
She'd argued, though, when he'd started her digging holes. One was for a fire pit, which she understood, but the second was for something he called a solar still. It had to be two feet deep and as large as the sheet of plastic they'd found. It was a device to gather fresh water, which seemed redundant considering they'd found several bottles of water in the plane.
That's when it hit her, really hit her, that Luke did not expect to be rescued any time soon. He hadn't said anything overt, but something about his expression told her he wasn't giving her all the information he had.
So she did as she was told. She dug holes, and she helped him build their lean-to, and she gathered wood and shoved sticks in the ground for purposes she didn't quite understand, and she kept her mitts off the teeny bottles of alcohol he intended to use for sterilization purposes if needed even though she desperately wanted a drink. She used the bathroom where he told her to, and didn't complain. She broke her nails and ruined her shoes and smeared her arms and face with sunscreen like he told her to.
Because, sooner or later, he was going to give her the whole story. And she fully intended to be alive and healthy at that time, just in case she needed the strength to kill him.
***
"Beautiful, isn't it?" She hadn't heard him come up behind her. Probably one of those Luke talents she kept hearing about from his on-the-road life. She'd been standing by the wreckage, scanning the distance for any sign of a plane or smoke or search lights. The sun was almost completely setting, and it was starting to get cold.
Luke put his arm around her shoulders, leaning her head against him with a gentle pull of his hand. She wanted to roll her eyes, but instead she just let him hold her. "Under the right circumstances, this would make an excellent vacation spot," he added.
"Yeah, for the Donner Party," she said sweetly. "No, Luke, roughing it is not my thing, so you can keep your family camping vacation fantasies to yourself from now on. Once we're rescued, I do not intend to have even a passing familiarity with nature."
He chuckled, kissing the top of her head. "Well, for a Park Avenue Baby, you did very well today. Wish I had a mint to put on your pillow."
She looked up into his face, searching for any clue of what he was really thinking under that sense of humor. Luke was just tall enough that she could do that--look up to him…at him, she corrected herself mentally. He was still sporting his ragged beard, roguish enough to remind himself and anyone else who might come along that Luke Spencer had never completely been domesticated.
"Dinner was fantastic," he added, still playing the joker. She wanted to grab him sometimes and shake him, to remind him that not everything was a joke. But she just smiled, tiredly, as he continued. "I particularly liked the trail mix tartar. The honey-roasted peanuts were a great appetizer, but that trail mix…bon appetit, right?"
She stared at him for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and calm. "There's nobody coming for us, is there?"
He frowned, tried to make another joke, but she put her fingers over his lips and asked the question again. "There's nobody coming for us, is there?"
"I don’t know, Trace," he admitted, his voice as dark as her own. "Systems started going crazy; it all happened so fast." He shrugged, pulling her in tighter. "The pilot managed to make the distress call, but we didn't get a response. I don't know if the message actually went through."
"You weren't going to tell me?"
"I didn't want you to get scared."
She smiled at him, a generous smile considering their situation. "I was scared the minute I woke up. You didn't want me to give up." It was getting colder, and she shivered under the thin protection of her clothing. Luke noticed, and opened his jacket to wrap her in his arms.
"I didn't want you to give up, and I still don't. If they'd gotten the message, we probably would have heard a plane by now. That worries me, because we were taking a standard flight route to Las Vegas."
"You said communications and navigations were out. Is it possible the navigations systems were malfunctioning before the crash? That we'd already strayed from our flight plan?" She shivered again, burrowing against him for warmth.
"It's possible," From his expression, Luke didn't like the possibility.
"Well, he logged the flight plan before we left," she said brightly, forcing herself to express a positive outlook she certainly didn't feel. "When we don't arrive in Vegas on time, somebody is going to notice. Somebody is going to come looking for us."
"Yeah, Spanky. Of course, they will."
He sounded about as confident as she felt.
***
He'd started the fire with a cigarette lighter and a strip of cloth covered in oil from the plane engine. The smoke at first smelled awful, but as the temperature dropped like a bowling ball off the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Tracy found herself ignoring the smell in favor of the warmth. "What time is it?" she asked Luke. Her diamond watch had mysteriously disappeared during the crash; maybe the band had broken or something, but it was driving her crazy.
"It's night time, wife," he answered, just as he'd answered every other time she'd asked. "You're going to drive yourself and me crazy if you keep watching the clock."
"Well, gee, Luke. Sorry if I'm lousy company." She took a twig and started poking the ashes around the fire. "I have nothing to read, and no light to read it by. My phone is a mangled mass of junk, my computer is shot, and gee whiz, I forgot my banjo at home."
"Aw, and I was so looking forward to the sing-along."
"In your dreams, Mister," she said, rolling her eyes.
"Hey, now. Both Dillon and Ned have musical talent, and their only common denominator is you, Tracy. Who knows what vocal wonders you're hiding from the world?"
"None. At. All." She shook the twig in his direction as he chuckled. He was drinking a bottle of water, something of an odd sight where Luke Spencer was concerned, and he reached over to offer her a sip. She took it, and swallowed just a little bit. "I do not sing, my husband, and you'd be better off…" She handed him back the water. "Better off forgetting you ever mentioned it to me."
"Oh, they say musical talent is passed on through the maternal line. It's a scientific fact. I read it in Discover magazine, or Highlights for Kids, one of those." He took another swig and laughed at her look of disgust. "Besides, you said that you don't sing, not that you couldn't sing."
"Could we please get off the subject of my non-existent musical talent? Please?"
"Okay, then, Spanky. If you don't want to talk about music, how about sex? When did you lose your virginity?"
She waited a beat, then began singing the first lines of Feelings….
Luke laughed uproariously, lifting his water bottle in salute. "To your impeccable timing, wife of mine."
She smiled, happy to have distracted him. Things with Luke were…odd, and she felt uncomfortable any time they delved too far beneath the surface. She leaned over and grabbed a pack of nuts from the carry-on. Opening it, she poured half in her hand and gave the other half to her husband. "So," she said, wanting to broach the subject carefully. "What exactly do you think caused the malfunction on the plane?"
He popped a couple of honey-roasted peanuts into his mouth and shrugged. "Wiring problem, most likely."
She examined him closely, trying to determine if his comments were true or just another attempt at sparing her worry. "It seems kind of odd that the navigation and the communication systems would go out at the same time, doesn't it?"
"What are you suggesting, wife?"
She shrugged, not wanted to look into his eyes. "There are a lot of people who wouldn't mind seeing either one of us dead…"
"Sabotage?"
"Well?"
He shook his head. "Don't go there, Buttercup. If you let your mind walk down that primrose path, you're gonna have us both spooked out of our minds and looking for assassins around every corner. Besides, nobody even knew I was going to be on this flight."
"I was a last-minute substitution, too," she admitted. "Daddy was scheduled to attend this meeting, but he got sick last night. I stepped in for him." She rolled her eyes and added bitterly, "When nobody else on earth was available, that is."
"It really galls you, doesn't it? No matter what you do, no matter how many successes you have, your father never seems to give you any credit whatsoever."
"You noticed, huh?" But she was smiling. Maybe it was the way he was playing with the peanut wrapper, folding and unfolding it as he watched her reactions. Maybe it was just the unusual feeling of being exhausted, physically spent, after a day of hard work. Maybe it was just the reflection of the firelight playing on his skin. She shook herself, back to the topic at hand. "It doesn’t matter, really. Daddy knows how much I care about the business, and the family, even if he doesn't show it."
"What if he never does?"
She tilted her head to the side. "Never does what?"
Luke leaned forward, easing closer until he was seated beside her, one thigh pressed against hers and his arm around her shoulder as they watched the fire together. "What if you do all that you do, sacrifice all that you sacrifice, work your fingers to the bone for that family and for ELQ, and Edward never acknowledges you? What if he dies without ever telling you how proud he is of you, or how much he appreciates you, or even that he loves you?"
She turned away, angry at the question, but he pressed on. "Seriously, Tracy. I see all that you do for the Quartermaines, and I see how they treat you. And I think I know what I'm looking at, and just how far you'll go to win Daddy's approval. What if you knew, right now, without a doubt, that you'd never get Edward's approval? What if you knew that he'd never tell you how much he cared?" He reached out to touch her chin, turning her to face him. "Would you still do it?
"You really don't understand anything at all," she said softly and stood up as quickly as her tired muscles would allow her. "I'm going to bed," was the only other thing she said before she disappeared into the lean-to.
***
She pretended to be asleep when he finally joined her. It was crowded in the lean-to, and she didn't want him getting any ideas about chit-chat and pillow talk. She wasn't mad at him anymore; she just didn't want to talk about it.
They had lined the ground with evergreen boughs and covered them with one of the blankets. In her anger, Tracy had taken both remaining blankets for herself, fully intending to let him shiver himself to sleep. To his credit, Luke didn't just snatch the second blanket off her when he came to bed. Instead, he wrapped his jacket tightly around him and lay down behind her, facing in the other direction.
Perhaps that was why she felt guilty. And several minutes later, when she heard his teeth chattering, felt him shivering next to her, she found herself feeling guilty enough to whisper, "Oh, come on" and lift the blankets for him to join her underneath.
He rolled over almost immediately and wrapped himself around her, spooning her from behind as they huddled together for warmth. She had to admit it was an improvement. His body warmth was amazing, and the feel of his breath on her skin was soothing. The sounds of the forest were overwhelming, from owls to crickets to god-knew-what, and she felt safer with him close. She was a city girl at heart, and all this wildness was disconcerting.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair, squeezing her gently as he said it. "I shouldn't have brought up…well, family stuff. We've already got enough to worry about."
"Just go to sleep," she whispered. She didn't want to get into this again with him. She hated that he saw so much, that he seemed to intuit what was really going on. As much as she hated to admit it, her family's lack of insight into her was all she knew. It was how she'd lived for her entire life. She knew intellectually that she wanted a better relationship with her father, that she wanted his approval, but on a gut level it scared her. It scared her because it was possible that Luke could be right--that she could work her entire life and never get her father's love and approval. That all her fierce belief in her father's love, however hidden it may be, was just denial.
That was one bit of denial she didn't want to let go of. Tracy drew in a long breath, and burrowed down under the blankets. It was cold tonight, even with Luke pressed against her, and she suppressed a small shiver. "How did you know I was awake?"
"You weren't snoring," he said.
"I do not snore," she insisted, poking her elbow backward into his ribs.
"Oh, not a big moose snore," he amended, pulling her tightly against him. "A cute, womanly snore. Dainty, even."
"Go to sleep, Spencer," she said, trying not to smile.
He kissed her cheek, whispering, "Good night, sweetheart," before laying his head on the pillow beside her.
***
It was still dark when she woke. At some point in the night they'd switched positions, and now she lay in his arms, facing him with her arms wrapped around his neck. Their bodies were pressed fully against each other, and she could feel his heart beating against her chest as they lay together.
Tracy struggled against the drowsiness as she wriggled against him, trying to find a comfortable position. Her cheek was soft against his chest, and his entire body felt warm and safe against hers.
"Shh, baby, go back to sleep," he murmured into the top of her head.
"You're…you're on my sleeve, I think," she whispered back. He lifted himself slightly until she could move, then they both settled back down in each other's arms. "Thank you," she yawned.
"No problem," he said, and leaned down to kiss her gently on the lips.
Tracy moaned slightly and kissed him back. It wasn't a conscious thing, really, just the normal reaction of a healthy body that had gone too long without physical pleasure. Neither of them was fully awake, or at least, that's what they might eventually tell themselves. Neither of them realized what was happening as they deepened the kiss, as their bodies molded together, as they forgot that they were supposed to despise each other, that they were not supposed to want each other, that it wasn't supposed to feel this wonderful. They were just two scared, sleepy people in each other's arms, making love, sharing comfort and warmth and refuge in a difficult situation.
And it was amazing. That was another thing they might never admit to, once the deed had been done and the sun had risen to find them wrapped in each other's arms, naked and shy and satisfied.
***
The solar still had gathered enough water to fill the two water bottles they'd drained the night before. Tracy had changed into her "day after" clothes, a comfortable flying home outfit of soft black slacks, a black tank, and a loose-fitting green over-shirt. Her business suit, the one she'd worn for the meeting, was destroyed, but she wasn't too upset about it. She'd used a little of the bottled water to brush her teeth while Luke went rummaging through the wreckage. Neither of them had said much that morning. It was a beautiful day. She'd seen the sunrise for the first time in years; well, the first time sober, that is.
Everything felt cleaner, even though she hadn't showered. They'd heard what sounded like running water the day before. Maybe, if they were stuck here much longer, they'd go looking for it. She didn't want to think about what would happen when the plane food ran out. They'd been cautious, rationing it, sharing it. Tracy had no doubt that, if push came to shove, Luke could find food for them. But she didn't relish the idea of having to hunt and cook her own food.
"Morning, sunshine." It was Luke, coming back toward the campsite with a carry-on bag in his hand.
"Good morning."
"Well, I tried what I could with the radio, but it is yeah, verily shot, m'dear." He had a grin on his face. "But lo and behold, Missuz Spencer's little boy did not come home empty handed."
"What is that?" she said, eyeing the bag. It was a small black bag, the kind that normally went on wheels. She got a sick feeling in her stomach as Luke reached in and pulled out a pair of low-heeled women's shoes.
"What size are you? Six? Seven?"
"Oh…my…GOD! Luke Spencer, if you think for a moment that I'm going to wear some dead woman's shoes…"
"Hey," he said, handing her the shoes, which she steadfastly refused to take. "It's not like I ripped them off her dead body, Spanky. It's an extra pair, and a damn lot better than those death traps you're wearing now."
She had to admit, her shoes had been a problem. The Gucci pumps were great for looks, and gave her legs a nice little boost as far as shape was concerned. But they were hardly practical for rummaging around in the forest playing Swiss Family Quartermaine. "It's disgusting," she griped, but took the shoes anyway. They were a half-size too large, but they would do in desperate times. "Um, Luke," she began, but he cut her off.
"Tracy, I know. I know you feel…odd about what happened last night between us. Believe me, I'm kind of weirded out by it, too. But it happened, and we can't change it." He pulled her into a gentle embrace, stroking her hair with his fingertips. "And it wasn't all that bad, was it? I mean, wow. You were…wow."
She bit her lower lip, drawing in an embarrassed breath. "Actually, I was thinking about the bodies. Don't you think we should…do something with them? Bury them, or something?"
"I think we should have the authorities do that," he said, covering his blush with a cough as he extricated himself from her arms and reached in to pull, ta-daaa, a satellite phone from the flight attendant's carry on bag.
"Is that what I think it is?" she whispered.
"Hell yeah, wife," he said, handing her the phone. "And it has a dial-tone!"
She threw herself in his arms, kissing him hard as she hugged him fiercely. "Luke Spencer, you're a genius."
"Well, yeah…." He watched as she pulled away and began frantically dialing. "Who ya gonna call?"
"The only person who might still give a damn whether I live or die…" She looked up with an embarrassed grin. "Present company excluded, I think. It's ringing." She looked up and gave a gleeful nod as the phone picked up. "Dillon?"
Luke could actually hear him screaming over the line.
Mom! Mom! Oh my god, Mom! You're alive!
"Dillon, honey, Dillon--" She struggled to get a word in edgewise. "Baby, we're fine. Luke and I are okay, but we're stranded."
We got a call from the FAA that the ELQ jet hadn't made it to Vegas. Ned and I are here; Lulu came, too. We tried to get her to stay in New York, but she wouldn't even think about…
"Where's here, honey?" She shrugged Luke away as he tried to get the phone from her. "Honey, Luke wants to talk to you." She handed him the phone with a frown. "Don't talk too long."
"Hey, Young Spielberg, good to hear your voice." Dillon had apparently calmed down, because Tracy could no longer hear him in the open air. "Yes, yes, we're okay. We'll need to have the authorities here, because…yeah, son, there were casualties. Yes, Dillon, we're okay. We were lucky. Okay, let me talk to him." He put his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered to Tracy, "They're at the airport in Akron. He's putting me on the line with the authorities." When she nodded, Luke turned his attention back to the phone. "Hello? Oh, yeah, hey. Yes, we're fine. We're okay, but we would really like a nice meal and a shower, if you know a good place in the area." He laughed, and then continued on with the guy from the FAA.
Tracy pulled away, wrapping her arms around her as she did. The sun was up, yes, but it was still chilly. She paid little attention to the plans Luke was making over the phone. It was odd, but she already felt out of the loop, redundant.
Luke would make things better. Luke would guide the authorities to the wreckage, and get them safely out of there. Still saving the world, two little lives at a time, it seemed.
She, on the other hand, would go back to being Tracy.
She hated to admit it, even to herself, but the last few hours had been amazing. She'd done things she never thought she could do, survived a catastrophe that she'd never imagined surviving. She'd felt capable, strong even, as she worked with Luke to build their camp and the fire and gather water. She was glad to be rescued, thrilled to hear her son's voice, and she knew that when she saw Dillon and Ned again, she'd hold them as tightly as she could to guard against ever being separated again.
But a part of her felt angry, cheated. They'd done it. They'd survived, and she felt in her heart that, if necessary, they could have continued to survive. She and Luke, together, could beat any odds. She wanted the chance to try, to prove (if to no one but herself) that she was more than a pampered wealthy woman, that she was more than a sheltered rich girl who never had to struggle or survive.
That's what she told herself as she looked over at Luke, still trading jokes with the guy from the FAA. He looked so happy, so relieved.
Was he happy to be rescued, or happy to be free from her? Was he relieved that they were going back into their own world, where there were so many distractions, where they didn't have to know each other, talk to each other, hold onto each other for support?
Would he forget how it felt to be so dependent on each other, for safety and company and warmth?
Would she forget?
She barely noticed when he hung up the phone.
"Good news, Spankster. We're talking half an hour. We're gonna need your over-shirt--we can tie it to a stick and use it as a flag to help them find us. And find that signal mirror, that'll come in handy, too." He paused as he got a good look at her face. "What's this, Tracy?" He touched the tear that had fallen onto her cheek. "Tears of joy?"
She nodded, holding her jaw set and pretending with all her might. "Exactly," she whispered, and then joined him in preparing for the rescue party.
Epilogue
She had to admit, the Akron Hilton had a pretty nice bar. She and Luke and Dillon and Ned and Lulu had decided to spend the night in town, choosing to wait a while before flying back to New York. There were legalities, reports to be filed with the authorities, testimony as to the events of the crash. It might be weeks before they found out what actually caused the crash.
And there were hugs and phone calls to all the people who actually did care whether they lived or died, and toasts over dinner and toasts at drinks and toasts to the dead and more hugging between them all. And when they finished, they went to their separate rooms, more hugs, more hugs all around.
And Tracy felt good as she eased under the covers of her king-sized bed. She felt good that her sons loved her and Lulu loved Luke, and that they would survive and that, just this once, they'd been able to put the nastiness aside.
They'd actually felt like, god forbid, a family.
She was just drifting off to sleep when a knock came on her door. Probably Dillon, wanting another hug before bed. Where he got his emotional streak from, Tracy had no idea. But she loved him for it as she slipped on her new robe and slippers and opened the door.
It wasn't Dillon, but Luke who stood outside her hotel room door, also dressed in one of the new robes they'd bought that afternoon. He had shaved. He still had the beard, but it was neat and trimmed and looked surprisingly dapper on him. She swallowed the knotted feeling she got in her throat as she saw him, and invited him in.
"Hell of a day, huh, Spanky?" he asked, placing his hand on her elbow.
"Hell of a day, Spencer," she agreed, easing out of his reach. It felt weird, after everything that happened, to be alone together. "Aren't you tired?"
"Exhausted," he admitted. "But I thought…well, I kind of thought…."
"It really is late, Luke," she interrupted. She had a feeling she knew where he was going, and she didn't want to discuss it. Not tonight, anyway, when she still felt loved and wanted and surrounded by joy. She wasn't up to the brush-off tonight. She couldn't deal with the platitudes, with the "look, it was one of those things" and the "we'll always be friends" and the "we don't want to ruin what we already have." "You should get some sleep. We have an early flight home."
"We need to talk, Tracy," he insisted. His hand was in hers, and he guided her to the bed.
When it became apparent that he wasn't going to back down, Tracy sat down on the edge of the bed. :"So, talk," she muttered, preparing herself for the inevitable.
"Um, okay…" Luke sat beside her, suddenly at a loss for words.
So it wasn't as easy for him as she thought it would be. Good, Tracy thought bitterly. Let him squirm. She wasn't going to fight him for the privilege of sharing his bed, but she sure as hell wasn't going to make it easy for him to drop her, either. She said absolutely nothing as he struggled to find the words.
"About last night…"
"Oh, of all the clichés!" she groaned. She hadn't meant to talk at all, but there were some things she just couldn't help.
"Yeah, I know, Spanky. It's a stupid opening, a really stupid opening, but what am I supposed to say?" He shrugged helplessly. "I want to talk about last night. About what happened between us."
"There's not much to discuss," she said blandly. "It happened. What's to discuss?"
"Well, for starters, there's what happens now?"
She folded her arms across her chest in a protective gesture. The robe was thick, making the position not quite so comfortable, but she wanted a barrier between them. She didn't want to be any more vulnerable than she already was. "What happens now is that we go to sleep and get on a plane in the morning and fly back to Port Charles. End of discussion. Good night." She tried to stand, but he pulled her back down.
"What happens between us," he corrected.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Come on, Tracy. Don't be stubborn. We made love," he said, not letting her turn away from him. "You and me, together, in the lean-to. Remember?"
"It rings a bell," she admitted, focusing her eyes on the tie of his robe. It was backwards, a left-handed knot, and she found her mind drifting. Was Luke left-handed, or was she just getting her directions mixed up--
"Tracy!" He was staring at her, trying to get her attention.
"What?" she snapped. She didn't want him here, didn't want to be having this conversation. She wanted to sleep, without dreams, until she had to wake up and return to her life.
"We can't just sweep this under the rug. We did it, and it changes things." He cupped her chin in his hand, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "It changes everything."
"Don't dramatize, Luke," she whispered. "It was just one time."
"It changes things," he repeated. His hand was soft against her chin, and it took everything she had not to lean into it, to let him support her, to let him caress her.
She hadn't been this afraid in years, not even when the plane went down.
"You're not getting a cent of that fifteen million," she said, falling back on the safe and familiar.
He silenced her with a kiss, a long, gentle, serious kiss that cut straight to her core, dredging up all those forgotten fears and insecurities and desires she'd worked so hard to trap deep inside her. And in a moment, even those were irrelevant as she lost herself in him, in his touch and his smell and his beard scratching her chin.
"It changes nothing," she said as he began to work the ties of her robe, revealing her bare shoulders to his warm kisses, freeing her to untie his robe as well, until they were both exposed and vulnerable, until they were both too aroused to care anymore about money or power or leverage.
"It changes everything," he corrected as he pulled her to her feet, leading her around the bed until they could lie together, under the covers, as man and wife.
She reached up to turn off the lamp, shivering with delight as his hand found the small of her back and began to tickle her lightly. "We'll see," was all she said before she turned off the light and snuggled back against him. For warmth, of course.
The End.