God, why had he done it?  The question circled about in Alan's head endlessly and he was no closer to the answer then he had been when he parked his ass in the hard plastic seat at his brother's bedside.  

With a groan of displeasure, he dropped his tired head into his hands. The exhaustion and worry weighed on him heavily and the walls he'd erected around his emotions were beginning to fail under the pressure.  This just wasn’t fair.

The last week had been test in endurance, an all too common occurrence lately for International Rescue.  The last 24 hours though,  a complete nightmare.  What had started out as standard operation had turned into a complicated mess of secret agendas, hidden rooms and black market profits or so he had gathered from the little snippets he’d heard from Scott’s conversations.  

Alan used ‘conversations’  very loosely though as it had been much more like a verbal assault and evisceration.  Scott; when prompted, was truly masterful and scary at assassination by oral expression. Alan was pretty sure that whomever the words had been directed would be licking their wounds for some time to come. 

Not that any of that creative expression was going to change their current predicament in any way.

Staring blindly at the floor, Alan rubbed at his aching, tired eyes and the whirlwind of this thoughts started up again, circling back to the beginning for a joyful trip down memory lane.  

The snap shots of what his witnessed first hand at that facility made his breath shudder and he clenched his lids to stymie the threatening tears.

‘I will not cry.  I will hold it together.’  He repeated it like a mantra in his head,  lips moving along though no words came out.  

Virgil had only been unconscious for a short time but in that brief measure  Alan swore he had lived a life time. The heft of his brother’s frame slumped against his shoulder as he’d half dragged, half carried the pilot from the newly ignited inferno was an experience he never wanted to revisit. 

The blood; there had been so much of it, had stained the side of his own uniform.  It had seeped into the joints of his chest plating, the seams of his flight suit and had taken hours to get out of the crevasses.  

He’d though at the time as he scrubbed away the evidence of the days events, that everything was going to be just fine.  Virgil was home and resting in the medbay. Being monitored around the clock and tended by his loved ones. 

The idiot had insisted after being patched up for what their family considered a minor laceration - twenty sutures in all - that being home would be more beneficial to his well being and recovery then being cooped up in some GDF medical ward.  

Scott being Scott, hadn’t put up much of a fight and had conceded when Virgil had expertly sweetened the pot. Alan could still see the look in brother’s gaze and hear pleading in his voice as he’d all but begged.     

‘Scott, you know you won’t be satisfied unless you can mother hen.. I’ll submit to whatever you want without complaint.  I just want to go home.’    

Scott had sighed.  The simple sound speaking of the many years and gray hair that the family had added to his tall frame.  With a single nod, a doctor’s sign off and a bucket full of antibiotics and they’d all headed home.   

It had been the wrong move and the repercussions of that decision had yet to fully be revealed.

Within hours of them setting foot on their island paradise the fever had started. Minor at first and brushed off easily with a top of on drugs, wound cleaning and a bandage change. They were tired, worn down and stressed so the temperature spike had been attributed to that.   

A mainland doctor had been consulted just to be safe and the orders of bed rest had been repeated.  

The fever had climbed and the delirium had set in not long after.  

They’d had to resort to restraints just to get him to Auckland. Even with him being drugged and out of it, Virgil was a powerhouse.  It had taken himself, Scott and Gordon to get him secured and stowed away on Two for the short trip to the mainland.  By the time they’d arrived; engines pinging as they cooled from being pushed so hard,   Virgil had slipped into a coma.  

Why?  His tumultuous mind spat out again.  

Why had Virgil insisted on coming home?  

Why had Scott let him? 

Why had his big, stupid brother used own body as a  shield? The idiot didn’t have chest plating like he did, so why?

Walls crumbling, Alan cracked wide open.  Tears welling and spilling over his cheeks.  This wasn’t right.  This couldn’t be happening.  Virgil was dying and they couldn’t do anything to stop it. 

The fleet of Doctors didn’t have a clue as to the cause. They placated and offered their sympathy but they were doing everything they could.  Virgil just wasn’t responding to treatment.  The wound was clean, surgery had confirmed that there was no debris or shrapnel present. Still, the infection raged on. 

More tests were being run. Infectious Diseases had been brought in to assist but still they were doubtful and had said as much to the family.  

The news had destroyed their Grandmother. The usually strong battle axe had just lost too much over the years and the down cast eyes and shaking heads of the doctors broke her. 

A sedative had been administered and the calming presence of Lady Penelope had steered her to a private waiting room to rest.  

The others?  Well, Alan suspected they weren’t faring much better than he was but he hadn’t conversed with them to verify.  They’d just  ghosted in and stay for a while and ghosted back out again, registering much more than that had been beyond Alan.  

Regaining some semblance of control over himself, Alan wiped at his face and looked over to the bed and the still figure that laid upon it.  Monitors blipped with readings for heart rate, oxygen saturation levels, blood pressure and temperature.  

He was well versed in form and function of each machine and in this situation he wished he wasn’t. All they did was emphasis that death was creeping into the sterile room one blip at a time. Turning his gaze away from them almost immediately, he took in the ghost like appearance of his sibling. 

Virgil’s hair hung dark and limp over his sweat dampened brow. Dark shadows bruised the hallows of his eyes, lightly tacked shut with surgical tape.   An intubation tube snaked down his throat and was feeding his failing lungs oxygen via a mechanical ventilator. He looked waxen and unreal except for the shallow rise and fall of his chest. 

Every manner of mechanized assistance was being utilized and even to Alan’s young mind, he knew things were bleak.  He’s seen and been witness to just too many things to think otherwise.  

Reaching over he took one cold hand in his own and dropped his head to the back of it, mindful of the IV lines and O2 monitor.  “Virgil,  please.”  He begged, his breath hitching as a new wave of tears threatened.  “You can’t do this to us…”

The soft hand that landed on his shoulder surprised him and made him squeak in a way that he didn’t care for.  Jumping up and turning, he came face to face with the one person that had been missing through all of this.  

Tanusha “Kayo” Kyrano, stood pale and for the first time since he had known her,  small before him.  A twitch of a smile, tweaked the corner of her lip but it didn’t reach her red rimmed eyes.  

“Hey.”  Her voice was hoarse,

“Kayo..”  Alan didn’t know what to say to her.  Really what was there that he could say.  Instead he opened his arms in invitation.  She accepted and stepped into his embrace,  strong, slender arms wrapping around him, head falling to his shoulder.  

Holding her slim form he whispered in her ear. “I am so so sorry…”  

She pulled back from him, eyes flashed with a hint of anger.  “This wasn’t your fault, Alan so don’t you dare blame yourself for it.”  

Alan swallowed, shocked by the strength of the vehemence behind her words. “Kayo….”

“No!”  She cut him off.  “The blame lies in someone else’s hands and I will not let this family suffer more for their actions. Do you hear me?”

Alan nodded. 

“Good.”  

It was then that he noticed Scott standing by the large windowless door.  His arms crossed protectively over his chest,  shoulders slouched, his dark brown hair in complete disarray as if his hand had carelessly racked through it countless times.

Piercing blue eyes stood out in stark relief and looked directly into his own, his brow arching up in question.  

Alan gave a nod in understanding and stepped back from Kayo,  hands resting on her arms. “I’m going to go take a walk.. I need some air.  Do you want anything?”  

Kayo’s weakly shook her head, her pale green eyes now glued to the bed. 

Giving her arm a supportive squeeze, he stepped past her and made for the door.  Passing through on the tail of Scott into the busy hallways beyond. 

As the door started to quietly close, he glanced back and pulled up short..  His hand shooting out to bar the progress of the hinged obstruction that was determined to separate them.  

He watched unable to command his body to move as the solitary tear carved a path down Kayo’s finely boned face. Her lips were moving in what he could only guess was silent prayer as her fingers twirled a strand of Buddhist prayer beads.  The length sliding through her daft digits over and over again with each silent utterance.  

The pain blooming in his chest caused his breath to catch in his throat and Alan grabbed at the door frame to steady himself. This wasn’t fair.  Oh God, it wasn’t fair.  

And as he stood vigil, bearing witness to the sad, tender moment between his fallen brother and his adoptive sister the soft light of the setting sun peeked through a small fissure in the blinds. Haloed,  Kayo lent down over the shell of a once strong man, pressed her brow to his own and wept. 

oOo

Next part HERE

He wanted to sleep. Forget for a while that the things that were never supposed to happen had happened, twice now to him and his family.

Two. 

Two times.

It kept adding up. It kept adding up and John needed it to stop because if it didn’t stop next time it would be Grandma or Kayo or his brothers-

Brothers. Four of them.

He needed them all.

His bedroom door creaked open and, as if summoned by the thought, a little blond boy with race car pajamas tip-toed in. A boy who was supposed to be asleep, like John wanted to be, because sleeping children didn’t know about the numbers- adding and subtracting in all the wrong directions.

“John, I had a nightmare.” 

Oh Allie, you’ve woken into a far worse one believe me-

“And I guess Dad’s still out ‘cause I couldn’t find him.”

We couldn’t either… 

“Can I count the stars with you?”

I’m sick of counting, Allie.

But John didn’t say any of that. Didn’t tell him about time shifting. About sleep that didn’t come. Didn’t tell him that the numbers had decreased again. 

Zero.

Zero parents now.

Didn’t tell him because he couldn’t. 

Couldn’t take away from Alan what John wanted so badly for himself.

Just one more night. One more night believing the world was all in place. That the sky wasn’t about to shatter.

So John said yes, and he counted the stars and told their stories until Alan fell asleep again. And if Alan had thought it was strange that John held him tight the entire time, he didn’t show it, just accepted the attention contentedly. 

Because Alan was only nine. 

He didn’t think of an extra hug as a warning sign. That the arms around him wished they were shields, wished they could keep out all the things that were going to hurt him. 

But Alan wouldn’t be nine forever. And John wished he could stop those numbers too, because his brother would grow without any parents watching him.

He would have instead a grandma, and a sister, and many brothers. People that loved him, true, but none who had thought they’d have to raise him.

John had a longing for them, his brothers. All of them at once. He loved them too, after all.

So John, with sleeping Alan in his arms, tip-toed down the hall to Scott’s room.

That’s where they would be of course. When you were having a nightmare, you went to your big brother.

There were three inside Scott’s room, just as John knew there would be.

Gordon, asleep in Scott’s bed, face flushed from tears none of them wanted to admit to. Virgil, sleeping as well, sitting on the floor with his back against the bed, shivering despite the blanket on his shoulders. And Scott, the only one awake among them, Virgil’s head on his shoulder, ever awake and watchful.

When Scott saw John standing there with Alan in his arms, he smiled. And it was such a painfully sad thing John almost wished he hadn’t smiled at all, because Scott was trying so hard. Just like he had before.

Scott was twenty. That was supposed to be a good number. Why did the world always shatter on Scott’s good numbers?

Fourteen had been Mom. Now twenty was Dad. 

And Scott was left playing the roles of both parents when he should just be flying fast planes and teasing little brothers, not raising them.

But when Scott invited him in with a look, how could John say no? You didn’t say no to anyone on a night like this. He didn’t want to be alone.

John laid Alan gently down next to Gordon, covering them both with blankets that would surely be kicked off, then he sat down on Scott’s other side, relaxing into his brother’s hold when he put his arm around him.

In his head, John counted each of Scott’s breaths. They were even in a way that meant Scott was trying hard to keep them that way, but John could hear the threat of tears at the end of each. But he counted them anyway, there were far worse things he could have chosen.

Each time he reached five he started over again, because five was another good number. He could count five on one hand. A finger for each brother, and one more for him.

Five of them. 

It was a good number to be. 

When I Drown

“Crap!”

Gordon cut off his laser and jerked Thunderbird Four back from the ship. But it was too late, his laser had ignited the oil, and flames burned bright inside the flooding ship.

“Gordon? What’s happening?”

“Why the heck is there a leak in here? I thought this was a cargo hold!”

“Gordon! Report your situation!”

“There was a spill or something, Virge. I set an oil fire.”

“If the flames reach the engine room…”

“Exactly. This boat’ll go sky high.”

I’m a sucker for action and drama so I end up writing a lot of scenes for missions... and then make everything go wrong... Sorry Scotty, I’m probably to blame for a few of those gray hairs 

Seaspray and Stardust

The sea will always reflect the sky above it,

John thumbed his comms, eyes never moving from the read outs that were putting a crease between his brows. “Thunderbird 4, come in.”

The hologram came to life on his dash. “Here, John, what’s up?”

“I just got word from Virgil. He’s been held up, you’re looking at another ten minutes.”

Gordon’s voice lowered, and there was shuffle as he moved away from his crowd of- supposed- evacuees. “John, this building hasn’t got another ten minutes, we’re practically swaying where we stand. Can we wait this out somewhere else?”

And this last one is composed of a bunch of snapshots concerning John and Gordon, and is kind of sewn together with a poem that I wrote (that italicized line is a snippet of it). It’s going together like a jigsaw puzzle right now and I’m hoping it’ll read cohesively when I’m done *crosses fingers*