Author: Regency

Title: Fear Not

Rating: PG if that high

Pairing: Luke/Tracy

Summary: It was frightening for Luke to speak to Tracy and know she feared nothing.

Disclaimer: I don’t own ‘em, I just abuse them.

~~

He was about to touch her shoulder, but he immediately thought better of it as she subtly tipped her head as though she’d heard him coming. She’d become almost predatory that way. She sensed everything around her and everyone. No one was passed over in her scrutiny. Certainly not him.

“You want something,” she asked in lieu of a greeting. She was beyond common courtesies. Her manners existed in the silence she gifted to her partners in conversation. All of them had come to know better. They didn’t admonish her anymore.

“Just wanted to see how you were.”

She watched him in the bar mirror, raising an eyebrow in response and taking an absent sip of her martini. Alcohol was pointless. She’d even go so far to say it no longer had any influence over her at all. She took another sip and nodded for Luke to sit down beside her.

He tapped the bar and the bartender brought his usual. He’d been spending an inordinate amount of time here in the last few months. That didn’t change when Tracy started coming.

By force of habit threw back her head.

Luke noticed but didn’t say anything. The both of them were still adjusting to her hair being so short. It would be a while before it was the same length as before. He didn’t like to think of where it had gone, how he had stepped over the jaggedly shorn locks on the floor of a brand new high-rise apartment where Tracy had been imprisoned for too long. Her skin was still pale, and in the sunlight, he could see through it.

The fear had abandoned her, extinguished by a desperate desire to survive. And now that she had, living was all there was. Even though it felt like a half-life. Without reticence, what became of courage?

Tracy rolled an olive between her fingers idly, smiling at it for no reason. In times like these, she didn’t know how to feel, when she felt anything at all, that is.

“The family’s concerned.”

“Ah, ‘The Family’ is concerned. Whatever for?” She popped the olive into her mouth.

“You act like you’re okay, Tracy. We know better.”

She turned towards him, a modicum of sympathy visible in the downward turn of her mouth.

“You’re one of us now?”

“Don’t play games. I’m not trying to attack you.” The choice of words, he could’ve smacked himself for his words.

Tracy narrowed her eyes as the moment filled itself with awkwardness.

“Good. I’ve been attacked enough. Thank you.” She tossed a few bills on the counter and hopped down from her barstool. “I’m tired, Luke. I’m going home.” She strode past him, powerful in the forbidding sphere she carried with her.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.” The words reverberated over the near-empty room and she stopped. Her straight back--upright and unbending since she left the hospital--curved and she dropped her head.

The healing bruises on the back of her neck tore at him. It reminded him of what she’d said the only time she’d spoken of her ‘stay.’

He only hit me when he felt guilty. He’d hit hard, though, so hard.

He followed her, cradling her hands in his from behind. He was desperate to take her into his arms, to shun the night terrors that came with a scream she would truncate so quickly none of the family was sure they had heard it.

He didn’t doubt it for a moment and found himself outside of her bedroom often in expectation. Every night he would steel himself to go in and comfort her. Every night his heart would hammer in his chest and he would buckle against the wall at her fear. The dark was so dark for her; it was a place only brave men dared to tread.

“I should’ve found you sooner.”

She drew her shoulders back, the triumphant woman in her place, aligned perfectly with the boundaries of Tracy Quartermaine. He wished he’d seen her eyes. Maybe it would’ve given him a clue as to who she’d become in that spacious penthouse where she’d had no space, and her wrists had been forcibly bound to an iron bedstead in closet storage.

She closed her fists and pulled them from his grasp. She hated being restrained. It pissed her off and she didn’t feel like being angry right now.

“It was fortunate you found me at all. Or should I say, it was fortunate Robert knew where to look?”

The words put two miles between them. Distance was good. The solitude was better than what he was trying give her.

“Don’t do this, honey, don’t”

She winced. Words hurt. He’d taken to calling her these endearing names at the hospital. So had Dominic, the man who’d held her. She knew they were different, but they felt exactly the same.

“Don’t stay out too late.” The retort left her mouth before she was able to formulate something better. She needed darkness, quiet and interpretive. She cried to it, suffered beneath it, and it was the only thing she understood.

She had come to follow her sterner whims and took her own lead, leaving her defeated husband in her wake. She walked out of the Metro Court and felt cold. They sky was an open face above her head; she saw a million expressions peering down at her curiously. She walked quickly through the dead street, meeting few people and wanting to meet fewer than that.

Behind her, she heard the falling of feet in harmony with her own. The thud was almost comforting when there was nothing else to be heard beside her own breathing. She should’ve speeded up, been prudent, stepped aside. She didn’t.

She came to a parked SUV and walked in front of it to cross the deserted street. She felt the very essence of her pursuer brush past her. She inhaled the night. He inhaled her perfume and the scent of vodka on her clothes. A new waitress had spilled it in her lap and she hadn’t yelled. There were worse things than a dry cleaning bill.

On this side of the street, she headed in the direction she had come. Her heart should’ve raced in her chest and her palms, in her mind, were wet with perspiration. She rubbed one on her pants. Nothing.

She heard the steps pick up speed as the hotel awning came in sight again. She sighed despite herself. Fallen leaves whistled about her feet on an angry breeze. There was grunt of effort behind her and she stopped, completely stupefied.

She turned on her heel and stared at the man who’d followed her for God only knew how long. He was in a suit, a navy suit, and he had warm eyes. They were so warm that she might’ve followed him if not for the leering turn of his mouth. It was another testament to a lesson she’d already learned: beauty veils the darkness.

She glared at him with her hands clasped in front herself. She didn’t appear the least bit unnerved.

He waffled, uncertainty flickering on his face.

“Walk away.” She ordered him solemnly. She spoke in steel. He didn’t have to listen, he could’ve defied her, but he didn’t. He recognized her from the Society Pages, he recognized her from the news.

An imposing voice from behind forced him to take a step away from this prominent woman.

“You heard the lady. Walk. Away. Quickly.”

For the first time, he’d done something stupid. It had always been easy before, but this one wasn’t going down. Something told him she wouldn’t have even if they were alone. He disappeared on the opposite sidewalk, leaving the lit district of the Metro Court to places where heroism was a rarer thing.

Tracy observed her husband stoically and wasn’t able to decide if she admired the anger radiating from him or resented it.

He rubbed his eyes in frustration. He didn’t get it anymore; he didn’t get Tracy.

“I cannot express how stupid what you just did was.”

She crossed her arms.

“Excuse you.” Her voice had descended from steel to permafrost; still hard but lacking in the same harshness.

“Excuse me!” He slapped his chest. “I just kept you from being mugged, beaten, raped, or worse!”

“I can take care of myself, Luke.” She hated that overbearing emphasis in his voice. It brought Daddy to mind and his condescending remark that she’d need a bodyguard to stay alive. It brought Dillon who’d stuck to her for two weeks before she’d had the heart to dismiss him. It brought Ned who felt the need to defend her as soon as someone spoke against her. She wanted their compassion, but not this way.

“That doesn’t mean you get to be reckless with your life, Tracy. People love you. I…” He shook his head and tossed up his hands. He couldn’t do it anymore. She wasn’t there; he didn’t even see the same woman when he looked into her eyes.

She approached him cautiously.

“You what?” Her fingers brushed his wrist and his entire body stiffened at her nearness. It was almost unnatural.

He couldn’t look at her. Instead, he eyed a plastic bag clinging to the grill of a high-end sedan. Inside, he chuckled. That was he and Tracy, a piece of trash clinging to an expensive thing. Eventually, the bag would be blown off and thrown away.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m just beginning to understand that.”

“It matters to me.” She turned his face towards her, holding his chin on the tips of her fingers.

At her touch, he was candy glass, hers to have and to break.

“I love you, Tracy. It’s not a game. It stopped being one when they gave me your purse and your ring fell out. If you weren’t in trouble, I thought, at the very least, you were divorcing me. Both possibilities scared the hell out of me.”

“There should be an reward for that.” She picked unseen lint from his jacket lapel.

The corner of his mouth flicked up.

“I’m it.”

She leaned up and pressed her lips to his jaw.

“I know.”

His balmy breath tickled her cheek as he exhaled. She hadn’t killed him, neither had she reciprocated his feelings. His hands acted without him; one came to stroke her cheek --it quivered with a small smile, the other combed through her sleek short hair and she leaned tiredly into it.

He found her. His Tracy was existent in the dark colors beneath her eyes and the urge to carry her home was stronger than it had ever been.

“I love you so much.” And, in that moment, he wanted to die.

Her eyelids parted and he was effectively pinned in place by her gaze.

“Thank you.”

He blinked incredulously. That wasn’t exactly what he was going for.

“Thank you.” He tasted the phrase and discovered that he never wanted to hear it again. “That’s not what I wanted to hear.”

She shrugged her classy shoulders.

“I suspected as much.”

“You know, if you don’t feel the way I feel, I can accept that. But, if you’re denying it because you’re scared, don’t be. I will never hurt you.”

“If you have to say that, you have no idea who I am now.” She stepped closer to him, close to his mouth, to his scent, in his arms. “I fear nothing.” Only the night, only the memories. “I’m not afraid of you.”

He cradled her face and, bumping their noses together mischievously, grazed her bottom lip with his teeth. He was overcome by improbability of this moment. Given any other happening, they wouldn’t be here and he wouldn’t be holding her on a lonely Port Charles street.

“I love you,” she whispered from behind closed eyes. The sensation of pins and needles swept through her and it was love. Luke’s love, with all the side effects.

He rested his forehead against hers.

“Thank you.”

She scoffed.

“You’re welcome, husband. Now, can we please get out of the street before we freeze?”

He pulled her protectively against him, partly shielding her from the air’s sting.

“My pleasure, sugar plum.” He led her towards the yellow bulbs of light where the civilized people were sleeping.

“I’m not a fruit, Luke. Do not refer to me as one.”

“I’m sorry, my pretty pink peppermint.” He ignored her glower of distaste in his direction.

The doorman saw them coming and opened the door, tipping his hat to them as they passed. They stood in the lobby to bask in the warmth of the indoors. It so happened that they basked in each other’s arms. He rubbed circles on her back, ever aware of the tender spots concealed by her clothes.

He smiled into her sweet-smelling hair.

“We should get a room.”

She leaned back to look up at him.

“What for?”

He wiggled his eyebrows.

“You know, to recreate our first night as man and wife.”

“Ha! I was there. It was good. No recreation necessary.”

He grasped her hips possessively.

“Well, I wasn’t. Maybe you can refresh my memory.”

Tracy wiggled from his embrace and sauntered towards the check-in desk.

“Maybe.” This tone was lower, almost dangerous. The steel and permafrost was gone. Temptation was all that remained.

He rubbed his hands together gleefully.

They spent the night and woke the neighbors.