#laryngitis

“You can breathe fine, kid. I don’t know. You never used to complain when you had to dress up for piano recitals.”

A rasping sound had Virgil glaring at Scott. “Don’t you start. If you’d only listened when we told you to wait, you’d not have caught that cold, you wouldn’t have developed laryngitis, and I wouldn’t be here doing your job for you.”

Scott held up his hands defensively, before signing “Sorry”.

Virgil’s glare didn’t let up.

“I still don’t know why you couldn’t do it. We had enough recordings of you practising that you could have just lipsinced to it.”

“Because everytime Scott practised his speech, Gordon played his ‘subsonic’ sound effects in the next room. When they were played back, all you could hear was ghost noises, explosions and fart noises.” Kayo wasn’t even trying to pretend she wasn’t finding this amusing.

Virgil turned his attention to John. “And don’t you think for one second that the speed with which you ‘came down’ with the laryngitis isn’t suspicious. I don’t know what you've blackmailed Grandma with, but I will find out.”

Grandma sighed. “There’s no blackmail, Virgil dear. John just spends too much time in orbit, and his immune system isn’t up to spec.”

Virgil turned a dark look at John. “I am so revising your allowable flight hours,” he growled.

John shrugged and gave Virgil a look that was so clearly an ‘I dare you’ with promises of retribution that even Kayo stepped away from the line of fire.

The sound from the crowd hidden behind the curtain swelled to a roar, and Virgil paled and gulped.

“Why can’t you do it, Scott?” He asked, eyes a little wild. “You can sign and a translator can speak?”

Scott frowned. “We’ve been over this, Virgil,” he signed. “Just having a Tracy on stage isn’t enough, it needs to be a Tracy’s voice.”

Virgil’s shoulders fell. “Why can’t Grandma do it?”

“Wrong image, kiddo. This is about the future. Having some old fossil banging on about the future isn’t going to work.”

“You’re not old Grandma,” Virgil mumbled.

“You’re a good boy, Virgil. But yes I am, the hint is in the title: ‘Grandma’.” She tapped the underneath of his chin to lift his head. “I’m old enough to qualify for a new title: ‘Great-Grandma’.”

“Gordon wanted to do it,” Virgil was clutching at straws. “He even re-wrote the speech…”

John poked him sharply in the ribs, before signing, “He was going to announce the re-working of all aerospace and astrospace manufacturing facilities into marine engineering facilities. By this time tomorrow we’d be lucky to have the shirts on our backs!”

Scott pushed him back. “Gordon has a public profile that … isn’t compatible with this arena.” There was an apologetic expression on his face.

“It will be okay, Virgil. The teleprompter is there, just read off what it says. I’ll be right next to you there. We’re skipping the live Q&A in favour of a virtual one. The MC is making my apologies, and explaining the laryngitis. The stagelights are set to hide the audience. You won’t see them. Just go out there, and read what the teleprompter says.”

While Virgil was focused on Scott’s hands, Grandma had been rubbing soothing circles on Virgil’s back. And somewhere, amongst all that, without Virgil realising it, he was now standing on the edge of the stage, right by the curtain.

Virgil started as the huge yawning space between him and the podium stretched out into infinity. Somewhere, over the sound of the MCs slick professional patter setting out the agenda for the day he could hear the sounding of rustling, people moving, the occasional cough, the sound of breathing. Oh, god, he could hear them breathing. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t…

A soft chime sounded in his discreet earpiece. “Thunderbird Two, standby.” It was EOS, and the use of the callsign had Virgil’s breathing evening out, and his spine straightening.

“Thunderbird Two, deploy.”

And with Scott leading the way, and acknowledging the audience, Virgil Tracy – Thunderbird Two – stepped onto the stage.

Notes:

Work has been eating both all my time, and apparently, all my brain. But I’ve finally got a piece written for Febuwhump!

The standard disclaimers, I do not own Thunderbirds, either the Original Series, the Movies (both Supermarionation and Live Action), or the Thunderbirds Are Go Series. (Although I do own copies on DVD.)