Edge of the World: Tin Soldier

Notes:

This story follows on from Edge of the World: Here Be Dragons.

When we left them, Penny and Gordon were very much at odds. Gordon, traumatised and distressed following the events on Rona, had pushed her away in a misguided attempt to spare her from his self-perceived flawed character. Wise words from Virgil on a lonely northern beach and several weeks back on Tracy Island have helped him to see things differently, and now the situation he finds himself in is one that is not what he wants.

Of course, the idea of sitting down with her and honestly telling her what happened and how he feels now is far too sensible for him. He is A Bloke. And Gordon.

So this is the tale of What Gordon Did Next, and it's about as daft and over the top as you'd expect. The course of true love never dd run smooth, but I doubt it was ever forced over quite so many ridiculous bumps - in a speedo.

The first half of the story is Gordon's point of view. Penelope will take over after that, because really, someone has to.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Gordon Takes a Call

Chapter Text

Gordon rolled over in bed and reached for the remote that would shift the molecules in his window wall to allow daylight through, and without fail the brilliant South Pacific sunshine stage-lit his bedroom, even though it was technically only just dawn. High up in one corner the display that told him temperature, time and date appeared. It showed, as he already knew, that it was exactly seven weeks since Edinburgh, and the hospital, and his absolutely stellar decision to push away Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward in order to protect her from his wicked heart. Somehow, at that somewhat low point in his life, he had decided that this act of utterly criminal stupidity was a really good idea.

Well, it seemed so at the time. But then, he'd also thought that painting Grandma's chickens with food colouring one time was a good idea. And taken on one measure, it was – hell of a lot of fun to do, and the chickens looked awesome. Taken in terms of the consequences – yeah, not so great.

Getting out of bed at 5.45am was a no-brainer (he'd done that even before he began his gruelling swimming routine as a teen – life was too good for bed, and besides, he preferred to catnap through the afternoon on the nearest semi-flat surface), and he was diving into the ocean in less than ten minutes since his eyes opened. The pool didn't offer him enough challenge these days, and he had no fear of the creatures who might lurk in its depths. They wouldn't eat him. Hell, even sharks had standards.

Penelope. Pen. With each wave, each kick, he thought of her, a rhythm that felt like a heartbeat even if his own heart was dark and dead.

If she was the systolic blood point, the diastolic was a pulse of three words; stupid. Idiot. Moron.

He'd done it to himself. He was the one who sent her away with a kind of cruelty that lay beyond forgiveness. He was the one who hammered up the boarding that now occluded his heart, and then the one who spent long, useless hours feebly pulling at the boards with splintered fingers. It was a kind of Sisyphean punishment he'd laid upon himself, the maintaining and demolishing of the wood and nails that protected and killed him at the same time.

A sudden sound behind him made him pause in his stroke and turn back towards the island. As he watched, Thunderbird One burst up through the launch space and high into the air above him, becoming a speck in the soft lemon sky before he had time to even consider where Scott might be off to.

Good thing he didn't choose the pool this morning.

The mordant chuckle was the only kind of humour he allowed himself these days.

He treaded water for a minute or two, letting the ocean lift and drop him effortlessly, then kicked out into the horizontal and began the long swim home. By the time he could bring his feet to the ledge of the underwater shelf that edged the northern side of the island he could imagine someone might be cooking breakfast, and the fact that it registered as nothing more than something else to negotiate in his day was yet another sign that Gordon Tracy was as much a piece of jetsam as the empty plastic bottle that fetched up beside him.

In the kitchen it was Alan messing about with the microwave, bacon frying soggily on the stove.

"Hey, Gordo. You're up early."

"I'm up this hour every day. You're just not usually up to see me."

Not quite grouchy, but close.

"Yeah, I guess. Did you hear about Scott? There's an SOS from Antarctica, some dude hanging over an ice crevasse. He's quickest. He'll get there. Can you imagine? Hanging over a huge great ice hole and just waiting for Scott to come along and save his ass? I wonder how he managed to call. Maybe hanging on with one hand, calling it in with the other. I wonder what he was doing out there? Was a long way from the base. Maybe he got lost. Though I looked at the weather chart, it's pretty stable down there just now, pretty clear, Scott's not gonna have any trouble finding him. I'm making my special Alan's strawberry milk. You want some?"

Some days, Alan was just so – Alan.

"Nope. I'm good."

Which was a lie that reverberated on several levels, so yay him.

"Yeah, like I didn't mean to get up this morning, not this early, I mean no point, right?"

"Unless you like ocean-swimming."

"Yeah, well." Alan waved the carton of milk as though dismissing the weirdness of that concept. "But first Scott has to go galloping through the place in his size nine thousand boots, and then Penny called."

Gordon carefully lowered himself to a kitchen seat. He tried to form the word twice before any sound came out.

"Penny?"

"Yeah, she wanted to speak to you but y'know."

"I know - ?"

"You were out being Aquaman."

"She wanted to speak to – are you sure?"

"Am I sure what?"

"She – she wanted me?"

The microwave buzzed, and Alan turned to retrieve some kind of hellish froth concoction in a tall glass.

"Oh, yeah. Wanted to talk to you about something."

"What?"

Alan took a huge slurp, then made a face.

"Ugh. Too much ketchup."

"What?"

"Don't worry, a big ol' dose of caramel syrup will fix that."

"Alan!"

Alan finally seemed to register Gordon's agitation.

"Yeah?"

"What did she say?"

A teenage shrug.

"I don't know. It wasn't for me."

Gordon took a long, deep breath and fought the surging wave of fratricide that threatened to swamp him.

"Does she want me to call back?"

Alan frowned at him.

"Hey. Chill. Seriously. Why are you such a grump these days?"

"Alan!"

"Relax. It's recorded. You can go and watch it yourself."

Gordon pushed past him at a run and bounded up the stairs to the living room-cum-control area. Sure enough, there was a bright red light blinking on the console.
Penny. Caught in that redness, his Penny. Not his anymore, but his forever nonetheless. And what she had to say – well, it could be the beginning of something. Or the end of everything.

He stood there, breathing deeply, caught in the moment when either outcome was possible. He could ignore the message, he supposed, and sustain that tiny hope for longer.
But if he prided himself on anything, anything at all, it wasn't gold medals or deep-sea exploring or awesome jokes. It was the idea that no matter what, Gordon Cooper Tracy never ducked out on a dare.

And wasn't she just daring him. He could see her, those dark blue eyes lit with mischief, those lips curved into a teasing smile, he could hear her mellifluous English accent as she taunted him, the lightest of laughs.

"Come on, Gordon. Goodness. You're not afraid, are you?"

Not afraid, no.

Terrified.

Another breath, deep as the Marianas, and he pushed the playback button.

Gordon reached down and carefully picked up the long nail dropped there. It was particularly sharp, but his hands didn't tremble as he placed it against the board that lay across his heart and hammered it home.

Every time her name was mentioned. Every time he caught a flash of red out of the corner of his eye, or heard a piano playing, or smelled the sweet scent of the ylang ylang trees at the bottom of the rock that made their island.

Another nail. Another piercing pain to his heart, now shored up and boarded across like the worst derelict slum, abandoned and despised.

The problem with having a secret love, he decided, is that there was no one he could talk to about it once he'd carefully and completely trashed it, all while fully cognisant of his actions.

Virgil knew. Or at least, Virgil thought he knew. Virgil called it a first love, and Gordon knew he figured it was doomed to run its course in due time. His brother was wise and insightful and caring and calm, and utterly wrong about this.

For Scott it was some kind of bewildering cosmic joke, better forgotten.

Kayo felt sorry for him, and that was the worst of all.

There was one person he thought might be of some help. He wasn't sure exactly what form that help would take; he didn't really want sympathy, or condolences, and he probably didn't even want advice. He wanted –

Ah, yes. He wanted.

What most people didn't know was that Gordon thought the world of Brains. He was a genius after all – and yeah, so was John, but Brains was a useful one. Gordon's practical mind loved the fact that Brains could see a problem and just do something about it and he seemed to summon up solutions as Gordon summoned up pranks, effortlessly and with endless variety.

So it was to Brains that he went this Thursday morning, when the call from Penelope still buzzed in his head on a self-destructive loop.

"Gordon! What brings you down here?" Brains was busy, because Brains was always busy, but he paused in doing whatever the hell it was he was doing to that defenceless Bunsen burner in order to smile up at Gordon's entrance. Given his somewhat picaresque habits, Gordon wasn't always assured of a welcome, so he took it for the win it was.

"Hey Brains. You busy?"

"I'm always busy."

And pleasantries over, Gordon plunged right in.

"Brains, I got a question. Okay, it's a hypothetical that's not really a hypothetical. Except it is for you."

"If the p-point could be reached in any time even remotely soon..."

"Yeah, well, say Moffy and you. What would you do if you acted really badly and made her upset and she broke up with you?"

It was hard to put Brains back on his heels, figuratively speaking, so if there was any scintilla of pride left in Gordon he guessed he could add another speck.

"M-my goodness!" Brains pushed his glasses up on his nose, always a bad sign. "Why on Earth would I do something so silly?"

"Because – maybe they invented a ray that sucked out half of your IQ? More than half? Maybe it left you a gibbering idiot and you did this dumb thing."

"That's an alarming notion." Brains looked at him, perplexed. "Why would I want to think about that?"

"Because – you like redundancies, right? So maybe if you think about this now, you will have a plan in place."

"For when an evil genius invents a m-mind-sucking ray that turns me into an idiot?"

"Brains, I'm going to say this, and it's not something I say often, just so you know: you're not helping."

"Perhaps," said Brains, with understandable asperity, "if I knew what you were b-blathering about, I could."

"Okay. Fair enough." Gordon blew out his breath. "Okay."

A pause.

Brains' eyebrows lifted.

The pause continued.

"Gordon, if you really don't have anything to - "

"I screwed up with Lady Penelope. Big time."

"Oh, m-my. Why would you do that?"

"Because ray gun?"

"Ah."

"Yes, 'ah'. And now I feel bad whenever I take a breath, so – what should I do?"

Brains frowned.

"Uh- apologise? M-make amends?"

Gordon groaned and flung himself dramatically onto the seat at the bench upon which Brain's equipment was displayed.

"But she kills, Brains! She slays me, with a look, and when she liked me I could manage but now she hates me. Like, here, let me slice your eyeballs out with a scalpel and stick them on the wall so I can throw darts at them levels of hatred."

A slight shake of the head, and Brains muttered, "Your b-brain is astonishing to me."

"Right? My brain is astonishing to me, too, Brains ol' buddy. It astonishes that I could ever be so damned stupid to fall in love with someone so amazing as her."

"Wait, what – love?"

"And having made one dumb decision I then go and do the next dumb thing, which is let her know."

"D-did you say –"

"And then my astonishing brain goes and tells me that the best thing to do now is to make her hate me because that's a plan."

"I'm afraid I don't follow what –"

"So now she does hate me, because I'm nothing if not thorough, so yay, success, only my stupid brain didn't tell me to hate her, and I can't. I just can't."

Brains was just staring at him now, which was not at all helpful.

"So what do you think?"

A deep breath as Brains rallied, because he was good like that. Whatever the Tracys threw at him, Gordon knew he'd cope.

"Why are you asking me this of a s-sudden?"

"Oh. Yeah. Good call." Gordon sat upright. "Because Penny's just gone and invited me over for some shindig on Saturday night. Why would she do that, Brains? Some real fancy ball thing. She told me she has my measurements, so she'll organise the suit."

"Well, th-that sounds hopeful?"

"You'd think, right?" Gordon let his gloominess pervade his voice. "Only you didn't see her face. You didn't hear her. So polite. So friendly."

Brains blinked.

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"No! Brains, no. Imagine if Moffy was polite and friendly to you!"

Gordon could tell that Brains was just not getting it. It was the look of utter bewilderment that betrayed him.

"I would hope for nothing less?"

"No, dammit. If she was like me, if – if everything hurt, she wouldn't be polite and friendly. She'd be angry. She'd be cold. She'd be like the one woman permafrost I got last time I talked to her. Don't you get it?"

"G-get what?"

Gordon gave a long sigh, the exhalation of the pain from the latest nail, hammered home so diligently.

"She's over it. Heartbreak done. If she ever was heartbroken. Not that I wanted her to be. Gah." Gordon threw his arms out. "Maybe Scott's right. Maybe I'm just a stupid spoiled brat who should just leave her be. I was the one who didn't want to bring my damage. I've done that. I've saved her from me. So now she's good and happy and she's all polite and friendly and it just – " He drew in a deep breath, as Brains had done, but this was like the breath taken before plunging to the bottom of the sea, free-form. "It just sucks."

Brains put down the beaker he had been holding all through this, and looked steadily at Gordon.

"I cannot p-pretend to be any kind of expert when it comes to – to such things. But it would seem to me that you have two choices."

"I do?"

"One." Brains held up a finger. "You can avoid her or any mention of her for the rest of her life. Expunge her from your m-mind and heart as you would drive out a bacterium."

"That – " Gordon took another swift breath. "No. I couldn't. I can't."

"Well, no, you can't because we will continue to work with her, I would imagine."

"Well, yeah, that, and I couldn't - if she wasn't in my world in some way, I – no. No, I couldn't do that."

"Then, you need to see her and talk to her."

"And say what?"

"Whatever it is you must? Gordon, this will either get better of its own accord or n-not. If you can't wait it out, you need to m-meet the problem head on. And for what it's worth, I have always considered you someone who would f-fight for what he wanted."

"So you're telling me to go to England?"

"That would be one thing to do, yes."

"Ugh."

"I take it that's an enthusiastic 'yes, I will'?"

Gordon pulled himself to his feet, as weary as if he'd taken a beating. "It's a 'damn you for being such a genius'."

"H-hardly. Reduce the problem to its working components. Continue as you are. Look to make a change. One requires inertia. One requires action. M-make a choice."

"Alright. London. I'll go."

Brains frowned. "I thought you were already going?"

"Yes, but now I'm going, going. And I'm going to say something."

A small smile came to Brains' face. Which, you know, good to see his pain was providing amusement for friends and family alike, but at least it was a kind one. Brain's smiles almost always were, which was another reason why Gordon liked him so much.

"Any idea what you will say?"

"'I'm an idiot' is redundant. 'Please forgive me and love the damaged mess that is me because I will make you happy' is an oxymoron. I think. I dunno. I'll wing it. Maybe I'll strip off and show her what she's missing?"

"It's an idea," said Brains, dubious, and that made Gordon laugh, something he hadn't thought possible when he wandered down in search of advice.

It was an idea, but he had two days to come up with a better one. He left the lab with a wave of thanks and found his way up to the open air and the sight of his beloved sea.
Maybe somewhere in the unknowable, unpredictable, beautiful heart of her, she'd have answers for his.

Notes:

The 'Tin Soldier' part of the title is inspired by the story by Han Christian Anderson - and god, what a heart-wrencher that is, seriously Hans, your head is a fascinatingly sad and dark place to visit - and the Small Faces song of the same name.

Series this work belongs to:

Part 1 of the Edge of the World series