Fate

Once the credits started to play, Paul only delayed his trip to the gym long enough to get changed. He needed to finish getting his emotions out before the others went on to standby and had their chance to watch it; if he was going to help them decompress, he needed to blow off steam first, otherwise they’d set each other off like so many blocks of C4. The emotional catharsis of it would have been so very visceral and so very, very satisfying, but it would not have helped the situation. They needed to be calm and controlled, not infuriated and ready to make rash decisions.

With a certain clinical detachment, Scarlet fished his wraps out of his locker in the changing room, wound and wove them over knuckles and between fingers, then strode into the officer’s gym. He’d heard the dull thudding of fists into canvas while he was getting the wraps on, now he could see the source: Colonel White, sweat making dark triangles on his tee-shirt as he pounded the punching bag.

‘He was down here before it even finished…’ Without a word, Scarlet steadied the bag for White, who acknowledged him with a short nod before returning to pounding the bag.

It didn’t take an oracle to divine why the Old Man was here. As a man who prided himself on discerning fact from fiction, of seeing through lies and illusions, to find out how thoroughly he’d been tricked would have been a bitter pill to swallow. ‘And it very nearly worked…’ was the thought that Paul allowed himself. If it hadn’t been for Cobalt getting shot and Five boarding the base to get to his brother, kicking off the chain of events that led to them digging deeper, UnNamed would have been able to take the election in a clean sweep and plant his flag on Mars only a few short years later, his empire built on the backs of literal slaves.

‘And that man would have had access to so many of our secrets... would the knowledge of the War have stopped him? Or would it have spurred him on to announce himself as the one to officially make first contact with intelligent alien life? And what would he have done with me?’ Paul shivered at the thought. ‘All going well, we’ll never get to find out.’

The pounding on the bag stopped. White paused long to suck down air and water in roughly equal quantities and wipe the sweat off his face and neck with a towel, then he was steadying the bag and bracing himself. “Your turn, Captain.” 

Scarlet nodded, rolled his shoulders, and unleashed his fury on the canvas.

T H U N D E R F A L L 

"Hello, darling." 

Startled, Gordon bounced out of the pew and to his feet. "Penny!" His heart settled down a little, Parker was behind the hover chair. "Uh.. how did you find me?" The interfaith chapel in the early part of the morning would have been the last place for someone to look for him. Well, maybe not Salt or Virgil, but everyone else, yeah. Waking to find Scott and Kayo gone and knowing what his brother would be doing, he’d left the iso pod when the nurses came to check on John and Virgil, watched the broadcast and then came straight here to clear his head.

"I asked Cloudbase, and he most kindly told me." She held out one hand to him and patted Parker's on the handle with the other. "I'll be fine here, Parker. You should check on Lil, I'm sure she can use some company." 

"h'If you're sure, M'Lady?" It wasn't that Parker didn't trust Gordon, just that M'Lady was - fragile right now. 

"Captain Xanthic will take excellent care of me." 

Gordon took her hand and kissed the knuckles gently. "I'll protect her as much as she'll let me." Which was pretty much the best statement Gordon could make. It was the one that Parker did himself. "As you say, M'Lady." He gave Gordon a look and got a nod back. "Hi’ll will be back in an 'our m'lady, Doctor Burgundy wan's 'o check your dressin."

"I promise not to leave this room for any other reason than the base falling out of the sky."

Gordon took over pushing the chair and parked it next to the pew he'd been sitting on. He sat back down and took Penny's hand, running his thumb over her first two knuckles in slow circles.

She reached over and ran her free hand through his hair. "Do you want to talk, darling?"

Gordon leaned into the affection like a giant cat. “...I don’t know... it’s... like... I know about what happened, but now I know about what happened.” He stared out the windows for a long time, silent and still.

Penelope let him think. She too had a lot to ponder. While she’d come late into the game and young as she was at the time, the thought that she or her father should have seen something, that they should have detected something... it was a thought that sat heavily on her soul, hard and sharp and jagged like so much broken glass.

“...Scott’s getting, like, the biggest Squid hug I can make happen,” Gordon said at last. “He’s shielded me and Al from more than I realised.”

“Where is he?” Penelope asked, her fingers sifting through his hair again. “I daresay that this is not a time for him to be alone with his thoughts for too long.”

“He and Kayo slipped out of Medical while the rest of us were asleep. If he’s not in his room, he’ll be in the hiding spot on the Promenade.”

She pursed her lips. "I'd say we should go seek him out, but I promised Parker I'd stay here." "And I promised to keep you safe." Gordon took a slow breath. 

She ran her fingers through his hair again. "Cloud?" Yes, Lady Penelope?

"Can you tell me where Captain Cobalt is, please?" I am very sorry, Lady Penelope, but I cannot. He has requested privacy. 

"I see." She tilted her head for a moment. "Can you tell us if he is alone? Because if he is, that is not healthy for him right now."

Silence stretched on for over a minute while Cloud mulled over the question. I can tell you that Captain Cobalt is not alone. He still requests privacy. 

"Thank you, Cloud. That was most kind of you." She smiled at the small camera in the corner above the window. 

You are welcome, Lady Penelope.

Penny laced her fingers with Gordon’s. “I understand if you are not quite ready to talk in detail yet, but when you are, I am here.”

Gordon gave her hand a little squeeze and offered her a weak, but genuine smile. “Same here, gorgeous, same here.” With that he leaned his head against her shoulder and they sat together until Parker came to fetch Penelope back.

T H U N D E R F A L L 

Triage, Virgil decided, was a word he didn’t like very much right now. 

He'd woken up just as the nurses arrived and Gordon left, and while he wasn't happy about why Gordon was leaving, he understood. 

The problem was that he also wanted to see the broadcast, if only to be able to help Scott to carry his burden a little better, but with the injuries he had and the strain his body was under, it had been explained to him that ‘getting healthy’ was a bigger priority than ‘knowing’, that he had to triage himself above watching the expose, and that he had very hard limits right now. ‘The doc’s right,’ was his sour conclusion. ‘I won’t rest, much less sleep if I watch it, and I need that right now. I’ll crash if I don’t get enough rest and I can’t afford a crash right now.’

A glance at Alan, curled up between him and a recently awakened John, reassured him that the youngest was still drowsing, then Virgil turned his attention back to what he was working on in lieu of watching the broadcast. The notebook in front of him was covered in angry shapes, dark and sharp lines as he tried to get his emotions out of his head.

He was in the middle of laying down a band of brick red when the intercom buzzed, getting both his and John’s attention and a muffled snort out of Alan.

“Hello, it’s Doctor Orchid, may I come in?”

Virgil looked over at John, who nodded. "Sure, Doctor." Part of him wanted to make himself more presentable. This was the first time he'd be meeting her in person. But she'd seen him at his absolute lowest, medical scrubs wouldn't bother her. 

The door slid open to reveal an older woman of medium height, with grey hair streaked with white and kind blue eyes. She dressed like no one else they'd seen on Cloudbase so far; a brilliant tunic style shirt in colours that Gordon would have loved, over a long black skirt. 

She turned the recliner around more to face him and made herself comfortable in it. "I'm sorry it's under these circumstances, but I'm very glad to see you in person, Two." 

Virgil set his crayon aside. "Me too." Her smile was soft. "So, who are your friends?" "Oh. Uh - Doctor Orchid, this is Five." He gestured at John, "and this is our brother Three." Virgil looked down fondly at the form curled up next to him. 

"I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance Five. I've heard a great deal about you."

John's face stilled. "Oh?" How such a simple syllable could have that much weight was beyond Virgil's knowledge. 

"You stormed and boarded Cloudbase, you sent Security and Technology into tizzies, and you made the Colonel swear, and in my presence, no less." Her smile was fond. "I have heard many things about you." "Oh." The embarrassment that showed on John's face also filled the word.

She nodded to the notebook. “I’m glad to see you’re still journaling, is it helping?”

“It is,” Virgil nodded, fidgeting with his crayon.

“Good.” Orchid resettled herself in the chair, rearranging the folds of her skirt. “We don’t need to discuss anything big right now, I’ll come back later so we can talk in private,” she started, “but I wanted to visit, I know what it’s like to be shut away when everything is happening just out there and you desperately want to be on the front lines where you belong.” In answer to John’s querying look, Orchid pointed at her right eye. “Prosthetic. Once upon a time I was a WAAF med-evac helicopter pilot until some career-ending shrapnel. There was too much damage to the nerve for a cybernetic one.”

“I’m sorry,” John told her, and he was. Losing a job that you loved... well, there were reasons why he and Virgil had stuck it out.

“Thank you,” Orchid nodded to him, then she smiled, a wicked twinkle in her eye. “So, how many languages can you swear in, Five? I’m always looking for new ways to get my point across with the captains.” Her smile turned conspiratorial. “I suspect that half the time they just like the shock value of hearing a grandmother-type like me swear about their problems, so I like to surprise them with something new every now and again.”

Virgil and John exchanged a look, then a slight smile tugged at John’s mouth. “How familiar are you with Finnish and Hungarian?” he asked.

T H U N D E R F A L L 

It felt like he hadn’t seen the inside of his quarters in days. It hadn’t been, but thanks to how the Room of Sleep mucked with his internal clock, it sure felt like it.

Blue dragged himself inside, shucked off his uniform and sank onto his couch with a weary groan. The RoS was good, but it wasn’t a proper rest, not by a long shot. A few minutes of flopping, then he grabbed his personal phone off the coffee table to check for any messages and see if his broker had been able to scoop up any more TI shares, then he’d crash out for two hours before going back onto standby. 

Well, that had been his intention, but on the list of waiting messages was one that had him freezing. 

It was from his father. 

Adam steeled himself and opened it. 'Adam, please call me as soon as you get this.’

That was it, ten simple words, nine if you didn't count his name. It could mean anything, but since it was after the expose, he had a decent idea what this might be about. Dreading it wouldn't get it over any faster.

The call connected on the first ring, "Adam?""Hi Dad." Adam kept his voice as bland as possible. "Everyone okay?" Which he really hoped wasn't the reason for his father calling.

"What? Oh, no, everyone is fine." There was silence, then, "This is what you were talking about when you visited."

There was no need to explain what 'this' was. "Yes, sir."

"That damn slimy bastard!"

Adam blinked, his father didn't swear. "Dad?"

"All that is true, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir, it is."

There was a sharp intake of breath. "This isn't insider trading, and I'm sorry I accused you of that."

Adam blinked, his father never apologised.

"I'm going to buy every damn share I can and force that bottom feeder out. Again, I'm sorry."

The line went dead and Adam was left looking at his phone, stunned. He'd never seen this side of his father before. Ever. 

He would have been lying if he said that it didn't give him a spark of hope: for the first time in a very long time, he and his father were on the same side.

T H U N D E R F A L L 

Curled up on the bed in the VIP quarters allocated to Kayo, Scott lay with his head on her lap, one of her hands stroking his brow and the other on his shoulder, and found that he quite simply didn’t have any tears left to cry.

Secrets and shame that he’d carried for literal decades were now laid out for the consumption by the viewing public, to be taken apart and analysed by pundits, talking heads, panels, armchair psychologists and chat show hosts. It’d be the subject of blogs, vlogs, podcasts, re-runs, tabloids, documentaries and news headlines. Journalists would be shoving their microphones before anyone they could find with a possible link to him, and of course there’d be the vultures, people happy to leap in and make a claim on camera for a quick buck and a few minutes of fame.

His history was out in the open now, and there was more to come.

‘I don’t know what I’d be doing if I didn’t have Kayo right now,’ was his thought. Around his brothers he wouldn’t have been able to cry. And yes, while he’d had a proverbial smack upside the head about being the ‘lone guard’ when the Mercy Protocol had been activated in Ireland, this... this was different. This was all the things he’d been protecting his brothers from since they were kids, and he couldn’t let them see him like this, not yet. They still needed him to be strong, unshaken, the anchor for their world now tossed upside down and inside out. What had happened in the physio bathroom with Alan had only reinforced that.

But it was safe to fall apart here, in front of her.

He didn’t need to put that mask up for Kayo. He could show her all his cracks, his flaws and frailties, and he could safely lean on her for the strength he just didn’t have right now.

Scott reached out and found her knee, tapping out ‘Thank you’ and ‘I love you’, before starting to sit up. There was work to do, family to check on, and he’d been here for plenty long enough.

The gentle hand on his shoulder became iron, pressing him back into place. “Oh no you don’t,” Kayo informed him, brooking absolutely no opposition. “You’re off duty. You aren’t going anywhere just yet.”

Scott sank back down, warmed by the ferocity in her voice and the message it sent: He was safe. He was loved. He was cared for. He was protected. ‘I needed that reminder.’ 

Well wrung out by everything that had happened, Scott let himself doze off, knowing his beloved was watching over him. 

T H U N D E R F A L L 

Standing in his office, the muted credits still rolling, Lord Hugh Creighton-Ward impatiently waited for his phone call to connect. 

“Father?” 

"Penelope, please tell me that some of that - report - was exaggerated." Lord Hugh ran a hand through his hair, not caring that he was ruining his valet Dorian's handiwork on his 'lion's mane', as the papers liked to call it. He had no idea what the time was in the safe bolt hole she was in, but he had to have the truth of the matter as quickly as possible to inform his next moves.

There was a soft sigh from the speaker. "I wish I could Father, but I rather suspect that some parts were understated." 

"Damnation." Which was the strongest language he would use, then he shook himself. "First things first; is Scott safe?"

"He is as safe as he can possibly be." 

"I should hope so, if he's under Spectrum's aegis." Hugh started to pace around his desk, confident that the microphone would pick up his voice. "My broker has called me twice to make sure that I still want to buy any loose Tracy Industries stock." He chuckled, "Rachel is sure I've lost my mind." 

"Are you having doubts, Father?"

"Absolutely not!" Hugh turned to glare at his desk. "I was certain that things couldn't have been as bad as you made them out to be, but - " he shook his head. "I should have known better than to think that you would exaggerate anything, my dear." 

"I rather wish I had." There was a very delicate sniff. "Father, how did we miss this?"

Hugh sighed, "It's not that we missed it, my darling. It's that our vision was clouded by charm, cunning, and slippery words from someone we thought we could trust." He returned to his desk and sat down heavily, worn by the things he'd overlooked. "How is your young man?"

"He too is safe. Spectrum has him and the others." 

"Thank goodness for that!" Hugh looked at the messages flashing on the discreet screen on the side of his desktop. "Penelope, my dear, I have to go. I love you and stay safe." 

"I will do my best. I love you too, stay safe." 

Hugh made sure that the call ended before he let the snarl cross his lips. "There will be ice skating in Hell before I speak to you again Jeff Tracy!" A decisive jab of his finger, and he deleted the waiting messages. Another button press connected him to his valet. “Dorian, have my bags packed for a standard business trip, three days. Tell Katerina I need the first flight to Boston that she can find, a car reserved there, an air taxi waiting to take me from Boston to New York at a moment’s notice, and a car and a hotel room there as well.” 

“Yes sir.” Dorian sounded utterly nonplussed by the sudden change of plans. “There is a flight in four hours and I will have a car meet you at the airport.” 

“Perfect.” Lord Hugh checked on his information - and specifically who else was buying shares - confirmed his suspicions, then swept up his phone and tablet, plans clicking into place. 

He had recruiting to do.

T H U N D E R F A L L 

In her room at the Plaza in New York, Ruth ‘Sally’ Tracy checked the caller ID on her phone, saw it was yet another person from Kansas and ignored it. She didn’t have the time or the energy to spend on talking to yet another gossip who wanted to know if it was true and fish for more under the guise of false sympathy or a veneer of care and compassion.

She hadn’t watched the expose. She couldn’t, not yet, not with all the work that she had to do on behalf of the children that she’d failed. If she did she’d fall apart, and she absolutely couldn’t lose momentum, not now. ‘But they’re safe now, they’re all safe and they’re well away from him,’ she reassured herself, soothing a small fraction of how heartsick she was over it all. 

The phone buzzed again for attention. A check and she accepted this call. “Hello, Lord Creighton-Ward.”  

“Good afternoon, Dr. Tracy,” he replied, warm and sincere as he continued on with “I have just spoken with Penny, she reports that she and her household are safe and well. Have you heard from the boys?” 

“I have, they’re safe.” 

“I am glad to hear that,” Hugh responded, then switched to a more professional tone. “Addressing the business at hand, I wish to confirm I shall be in New York by six thirty tomorrow evening. As we discussed earlier I’m going to Boston first to lure in that Svenson chap you mentioned. All going well, we three shall meet for dinner at eight at Harvest to firm up our strategy.” 

“That sounds good to me. Thank you, Lord Hugh.” 

“You are most welcome, Dr. Tracy,” Lord Creighton-Ward responded, then his tone gentled again. “Do take care of yourself, my dear.” 

“I’ll try, Lord Hugh, I’ll try.”

“That is all I ask. Good bye.” 

“Good bye.” 

Scott bit his lip as Gordon pressed a little harder on his leg. He knew that they had equipment that could do the job well enough but he also knew that Gordon needed the tactile comfort since no one had been around when it had happened. So he lay there and said nothing and watched his brothers fuss over him.

Stripping his uniform gloves off and switching them for medical ones, Virgil looked more closely at the three leeches that had attached themselves into Scott’s wound, no doubt happy at the free meal when his brother had fallen into the same stream as Gordon had.

How to remove the leeches was the problem. Ideally he should use something flat to slide underneath their mouths and dislodge them, but being actually in the wound meant that the surface wasn’t that easily accessible.

Fingernail it was, then.

Bending over Scott’s leg with a emesis bowl Virgil carefully removed the first two leeches with ease. But the third one was a little deeper in the wound and try as he might Virgil just couldn’t get his nail underneath it. He shifted position, tried to come at it from a different angle, but as he finally managed to get it free the leech regurgitated blood all over the wound.

Cursing, Virgil immediately tried to clean out the wound but he knew it wasn’t going to be enough. EOS had been quite loquacious in her descriptions of what could happen if he didn’t remove the leech properly…

One problem at a time.

Now the leeches were removed – and rehomed into a nice little jar in case they were needed by the hospital – they could finally treat the gunshot wound properly.

While Gordon carried on putting pressure on the leg Virgil ran the Medscanner over. As expected there was major trauma to Scott’s musculature with nerve damage. They had been ridiculously lucky that the femoral artery and vein and Virgil could only hope that Tracy luck would hold out further.

Carefully Virgil eased the bandage from the top of his brother’s thigh while Gordon kept the pressure up a little higher up and sprayed in a small amount of wound foam. The foam immediately expanded on activation.

Scott gritted his teeth. That foam, a massive aid in quick stabilisation that Brains had tweaked with his usual skill, was painful as heck and he could feel his leg trying to spasm away. Gordon clamped down harder with a grimace of apology and the pain whited Scott out for a moment.

When he came to Virgil had gone and Gordon was beside him grasping his hand and talking about something…fish-related? Of course. He gave his brother’s hand a squeeze and immediately felt Gordon relax.

‘Hey Scotty. Welcome back.’ ‘How long was I out?’ ‘Only five minutes. We’re on approach to Port Moresby General.’ ‘We’re not going home?’ ‘Oh, we will. But you, my dear brother, need some blood tests run to make sure you don’t have an infection that we cannot treat at home.’ ‘Wait – what?’ ‘The leeches, bro.’ ‘But I thought leeches weren’t toxic to humans?’ ‘Well…not, they’re not. You’re gonna take a little longer to stop bleeding due to the hirudin but our main concern is the potential bacterial infection. It’s mostly precautionary.’ ‘Great. More needles.’

Gordon patted his arm, not bothering to hide his grin. If Scott was up to grumbling he was definitely feeling better, so he launched into a detailed soliloquy on Sailback Houndsharks…

Two touched down less than ten minutes later and Scott was whisked away by the waiting medics while Virgil and Gordon were shown to a private waiting room. They were joined by the rest of the family half an hour later.

Kayo immediately hugged both her brothers before slipping away to organise security. Even if they were only going to be here a short while there was no way she wasn’t going to do her job. She’d already let Scott down once today, she wasn’t about to let anything else happen to him.

It took longer than they expected for a doctor to appear, but eventually there was a knock at the door and everyone sat up.

‘Mr Tracys, Doctor Tracy, I have good news.’

There was a collective sigh of relief and grins all around.

‘Scott is doing well. We removed the foam – excellent technique by the way, probably saved his leg – and have temporarily packed the wound to allow it to drain and prevent infection.’ ‘Are there going to be any long-term complications from the injury?’ ‘We won’t know for sure until the swelling goes down. There’s a lot of nerve damage which is of concern but as long as there are no complications from the leeches all that Scott will need as time to rest and then some extensive and careful physio.’ ‘What kind of problems could we see from the leeches?’ ‘Well, we’re monitoring his blood for Aeromonas bacteria.’ ‘Oh. Oh, that’s not good.’

All eyes turned to Gordon.

‘We’re taught all about bacteria in water both with WASP and with the various environmental groups I’ve worked with. Aeromonas bacteria is nasty. Gram-negative and often antibiotic resistant, if Scotty’s unlucky to be infected it will mean some heavier antibiotics.’ ‘You are well informed, Mr Tracy.’ ‘Gordon.’ ‘Gordon. Yes, we are going to have to monitor Scott for the next 8-12 hours to ensure there is no bacterial infection.’ ‘Oh, Scott’s not going to like that!’ ‘What – the being confined to the hospital?’ ‘No – the blood draws.’ ‘Well, we’re not going to be too invasive. If he shows no sign of infection within the next three hours we’ll wait to do the draw. But if there is infection, and depending how bad it is – and I’m not going to sugar-coat it, a bullet wound is not a great place to get an infection – then the draws will become more frequent. Give me another fifteen minutes and I’ll send a nurse to bring you to his room.’ ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

They shook hands and the doctor left.

Gordon nudged Virgil.

‘What’s the betting Scott’s going to get an infection?’ ‘No bet. He’s a Tracy. The bet will be how bad an infection he’ll come down with.’ ‘Yeah…John?’

John didn’t even look up from the computer he was typing away on.

‘I’m not betting on which infection our eldest brother will come down with, Gordon.’ ‘Pfff…as if I’d stoop so low!’

Looks were exchanged as well as smirks, and Gordon muttered darkly about suspicious brothers while Sally just smiled at the release of tension.

^^^ First things first, a chat between me and Silver from when Scott helped her figure out her name finally... Side note: Yes, Jeff has feelings about hearing this name again. Not only did he get to indirectly help Kat with her name change... Lucille did too, from well beyond the grave. May have been part of the reason Kat latched on to the name so hard

... Meanwhile Gordon thought picking on his sister by making silly nicknames was the next step when he was told.

Self Explanatory.