Chapter Three -- We Gather Together

Tracy stood outside the den and peaked in through a crack between the sliding doors. Their chatter was like music, a balm on agitated wounds. They were close enough to touch.

As she knew they would, her family had returned to this place and had found their way back together. It was a dream she had entertained often since her arrival here and it had become a reality.

She heard Alan. “Where’s Tracy? It’s been too long since I’ve seen her.”

Monica, as aware as anyone of Tracy’s own longing, placated him. “She’ll be here. Give her time, Alan.”

Tracy spied Brooklyn nestled between her parents, seemingly content in her reunion. Ned lifted his eyes just then and saw her. He smiled and touched his palm to his heart. She nodded. She had taken good care of her granddaughter, better care than she had taken of him.

Dillon clung to Georgie, hiding his face in her shoulder as he rocked her side to side. The peace she had wished for him had been long in coming--a lifetime away in fact-- but it had come.

Emily and Skye were laughing over some foible of youth, giving one another thorough once-overs. The last time they’d been in the same company they were old women with a furnace worth of hell behind them. They’d only looked like this in pictures.

Tracy saw Lila standing beside Edward at the window and looked away quickly. Their relationship hadn’t been the same after his appearance. What could she say? Her mother’s heart was no wiser than her own was, and neither had ever been able to refuse it. Therefore, Edward and Lila and their eternal love were bonded again, before Tracy, Luke, Brook, Morgan, Melanie, Jason, AJ, and Monica. From then on, Tracy hid her emotions from her mother. She would love her until she no longer could, but she would not trust her.

She sighed and leaned her forward against the treated wood. If she took a single step, she could join them in their joy. This was paradise, their paradise and it existed, finally. If she wanted it, if she could summon the courage, she could do it. Her feet remained resolutely on the floor and her fingers fell away from the door. She couldn’t. Perhaps too much had changed.

She stiffened when the floorboards of the stairs creaked under a known burden. She smelt his spicy cologne before he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her ear.

“Hello, beautiful. Fancy meeting you here.”

She smiled, his presence exactly the loving constant necessary to calm her.

“And who might you be?” She tipped her head giving him unimpeded access to her neck. If he was anything, he was a master of the throat kiss. Worship in its finest incarnation.

“Your loyal consort here to carry you away to our bedchamber for a rousing bout of lovemaking.”

She shuddered. “Ooh, a man after my own heart.”

He nudged a hand between the folds of her coat, subtly nibbling at her jaw. “Baby, your heart isn’t exactly what I’m aiming for at the moment.”

She chuckled. “You’re shameless.”

He turned her around slowly and leaned down for a kiss without answering. She rubbed his sides until his intercostals twitched at her ministrations. His lips rippled against hers. She grinned as he began to fidget in her arms. He pulled away, further evading her taunts.

“Cut it out. I am supposed to be seducing you, here, and you bring on the tickling. Red-faced and twitching isn’t the look I was going for,” he pouted, appealing to her compassionate nature. She smirked because he knew failure was imminent.

She thumbed his pout and mimicked him, unsympathetically. “Poor, Lukey. My heart goes out to you.”

He growled, narrowing his eyes as if eyeing a fine prey such as herself. “Watch it, wife. Keep taunting me and I may not be able to restrain my…baser instincts.”

Intrigued, she stepped deliberately into his personal space and filled her lungs with the heavy scent of him. She nuzzled his jaw and his neck, scraped her teeth along his Adam’s apple, and beamed naughtily as he shivered. She hooked her fingers around his belt loops and bodily dragged him in her direction.

“I think your concern should be my baser instincts…husband,” she whispered warmly, her lips falling short of colliding peacefully with his.

As though summoned by Tracy’s inner aide, Alice appeared from the kitchen, old uniform in place. She had to laugh; their housekeeper had become as much a part of the family as any of them.

“Miss Tracy, dinner’s ready. You want me to tell the family?”

Keeping a subtle eye on her tightly wound husband; she shook her head and dismissed Alice. “I’ll handle it. Thank you.”

Alice nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen.

“Control yourself. It’s time to eat now.”

His gaze to a nosedive below her neck and she pursed her lips to hide a smile.

“Food, Luke. Think of food.”

He brushed his knuckles against her cheek, smirking in his oh so cavalier way. “Have I mentioned I’m a cannibal lately?”

She tapped his chest, stepping away from his incredibly tempting, though unvoiced offer. “Behave. This is the family’s first dinner back together. It doesn’t need to be rife with sexual tension.” She stiffened her spine and wrapped her fingers around the door handles.

He touched her shoulders in some well-needed support. “I don’t know about that, sweetheart, Mom and Pop can definitely make a room sizzle.”

She threw a disgusted look over her shoulder and shuddered without pleasure. “Gack! Are you insane? What could you possibly gain from filling my head with that image?” She rubbed her eyes shortly to steel herself.

She touched the door again and pulled away, completely repulsed. “Oh, God, it’s not going away.”

“Well,” he began to massage her neck suggestively, “maybe I can distract you.”

She chuckled dryly, “No more of your distractions, please. I have to eat soon.”

Knowing the game was up, he kissed her crown gently and stepped back. She needed to be strong and, with his help, she was.

She took a deep breath and threw open the doors.

Tracy whirled her glass of the good stuff around before taking another sip. She had been silent, immersed in this glass for most of the evening. She was content just to listen to the casual and passionate murmur of her relatives. There was so much time to relate, for both. Sure, she’d kept fairly abreast on the happenings of the living, but small moments tended to pass her by.

She snickered at her brother’s red-faced indignation as Monica teased him about his one and only date with Bobbie Spencer following her death. It was easy to laugh now, for she and Monica, but she knew they’d seen his struggle to survive Monica’s loss. They’d seen him shatter and break, fall off the wagon, and crawl back on his hands and knees. It was easy to laugh now that they were together again, now that all was finally right.

Skye elatedly related tales of her eldest child, Lila Rae, and the birth of her first grandson. Tracy raised a toast to that young woman, now the Chief Executive of the living ELQ. No, she wasn’t blood, but she had become family.

“To our children--those that are with us,” she nodded to her Dillon, Ned, and Melanie, “and those that will join us much, much later.”

“Here, here.” Everyone drank deeply, despite their happiness praying for a long duration before their next reunion. Their children were precious, their posterity, and were the only chance they had to rebuild the body that was once the Quartermaines--in that life, at the very least.

Swirling her glass again--a habit she’d developed to hold more and drink less--she wasn’t surprised to feel a set of finely tuned fingers lacing with hers. She snuck a look to her left to find the husband speaking animatedly with AJ over something or another involving their Haunted Star. They were unlikely business partners, but their business was a whopping success. She could only say it made for a very wealthy marriage, on both ends.

She thought he must have felt her watching him when he suddenly turned away from his lively debate to lift an innocently questioning brow. She gestured towards their linked hands. He beamed, still playing innocent.

“Oh, Spunky.”

She rolled her eyes and gulped down the rest of her drink. Oh, please. She sighed inwardly. Damn him for being so charming. She almost bought that wide-eyed look.

Still, she was ever aware of her better half and noted his leaning over to whisper conspiratorially with her brother’s eldest son. What are you up to, husband?

As though she’d spoken aloud, he smiled at her, disarmingly affecting a “who me?” expression. She wasn’t buying it. She knew he was aware that she wasn’t buying it, but she let him play. After all, role-playing tended to be the more fun part of their games.

He and AJ shook on some unheard deal and Luke stood from the table, buttoning his jacket like a perfect gentleman.

“If you will all excuse me, I’m gonna have steal the missus away for the rest of the evening. You may not recall, but today’s our anniversary.”

Tracy sat up, eyes wide in anything but innocence. She hadn’t necessarily forgotten, but other matters had taken precedence. They’d agreed to put off celebrating until things were back to normal; she was fairly certain they had anyway.

Her husband noted her stunned demeanor and clapped his hands jovially. “Now, sugar plum, tell me you didn’t forget the anniversary of our very special day,” he wiggled his eyebrows.

She tamped down on her surprise. “Of course not, but I was more focused on this little gathering we‘re having. I assumed we were going to celebrate later.” Not that she wasn't for it. She was always up for a celebration, just not now.

“You assumed wrong.” He ignored her indignant muttering. “And on that note. Before we go, I’d like to propose a toast.” He lifted his glass. “To this family. To us, and our children, and their children.” He lifted his champagne higher to Brook Lynn and Melanie, who he had come to love.

On his cue, AJ rose and lifted his glass, a smile of pride and triumph lighting his many-times darkened face.

“To our roots and our branches. To the love,” he gestured to Alan and Monica, Edward and Lila, Luke and Tracy, “that sustains us and will continue to sustain us.”

The couples shared intimate smiles; Tracy shook her head at Luke’s romantic streak, mockingly berating it with her smile. She blinked away the drops swelling under her eyelids; as did the prideful others seated with her.

“To this house and the souls that keep coming back to it.” He paused, taking in the full serendipitous view of his clan. It was right. “To the Quartermaines!” he finished.

“To the Quartermaines!” they chorused and clinked their crystal flutes together, various nectars sloshing on the formerly pristine table setting and inciting tipsy and meaningful laughter as they finally came to drink.

“Happy anniversary, wife,” Luke whispered as he kneeled at Tracy’s side.

“Thank you,” was all she managed before she kissed him into dazed delirium. This house was no longer a tomb, but a home.

“Come to bed,” he coaxed as he led her from the candlelit dinner of her family. Upstairs, she would find that he had prepared their bedroom to make this the evening their wedding night should have been. She was enthusiastic and heart-felt in her reward for such forethought and romance from her dearly beloved.

The rest remained late into the early hours recounting the space and time that had separated and shattered them. Old feuds were laid to rest as their holders had been and even older connections were reborn in the mournful seconds that remained of the dying day.

Tracy had already forgiven as much as she could be asked to and had every intention of meeting the coming dawn with a smile. She was free of decades filled with yawning half-emptiness and the sense that part of her was missing. Laying in her dearly devoted lover’s arms, she was whole and content.

The destruction had been done, but so had the rebuilding. Once again, this family was tethered by more meaningful threads than the diluted and questionable binding of blood. They were bound by love and it would keep them together, now, and in the next phase, where they would be tossed into the ether for one more round of life. This time, without the benefit of all they had learned.

The name might differ, the tears and trials would be new, but the love could never be altered. It would guard them on their journey, following along and shielding them from the bitterest of blows until, at last, all things stopped. And they landed, weak-legged and exhausted at this place with these people, and realized that they needed nothing else.

Last Part