Well, folks, I'm taking a break from all the shenanigans in Oh, Brother! to give my angst bunny a bit of a run.
To those who've read Crash 'n' Burn, you'll know I created my own backstory for Scott, to explain why he left the Air Force. As you remember, I really put him through the wringer too, with a lousily timed bout of PTSD - and there'll more of the same here!
So, for all you angst lovers out there, here's the story of Delta Fifteen, and how its repercussions changed Scott's life.
Enjoy!
Delta Fifteen
Chapter One - Death Of A Dream
Jeff Tracy stood staring at the door in front of him - hating the emotions that were stopping him from stepping through it. He'd been an astronaut's for Christ's sake! Faced the greatest fears in mankind, as he'd felt the rocket beneath him roar to life. A controlled explosion of fire and fuel, that could have engulfed him at any moment.
Killed him as horrifically as it had killed his childhood hero, whose legacy now lived on through the name of his third born son.
He'd faced all that. Beaten back the fear, and defeated it. Yet his hand was shaking now. Frozen in front of a simple, harmless door, and... damn it!
Anger now joined that melting pot of emotions. Anger that no amount of whisky in the world could quell. A rage that overwhelmed him. Made him open the door to Scott's room, while a voice ghosted through his mind, trying to offer him comfort.
'Today will be better. Today has to be better.'
Her voice. Trying to offer him comfort, even as his own voice cracked in the fresh anguish that it brought him instead.
"Scott? Hey, son, it's - it's me."
Trite? Banal? The kind of pointless small talk that deserved an equally pointless answer? Just like all those awkward, damn insensitive questions that he'd had to field after Lucy's death?
"Jeff, how... how are you?"
"Do the boys realize what's happened?"
"You're taking them out of school? Oh, Jeff, do you really think you should? I'm sure Lucy would-"
- find some way to reach him, Jeff thought, forcing those still painfully raw memories out of his mind as he sat down beside Scott's bed.
Same chair, he noticed. Same chair, unmoved from where he'd sat in it the previous day, and through so much of last night. And the day before that. Three more before that.
Same chair. Same room. Same bed. Same heartbreaking sight, lying inside it.
That was the worst part. Not the sound of jets, taking off from Miramar, and soaring out on their latest sorties. Sounds he'd always loved, but that now made this tragedy all the more cruelly ironic. Not the hustle and bustle of people moving through the halls outside, reminding him that... yes, life still went on. As it had to do, life still went on.
No, it was the silence inside this one, tiny part of his life.
Scott's life.
A life that now lay broken in front of him. A life, and dreams, as cruelly shattered as his eldest son's body.
That he was alive at all was beyond miraculous. Left leg broken in two places. His right thigh, blessedly, just once. Three ribs, cracked sternum. Torn spleen, compound fracture of his right hand. A concussion that had almost, almost, taken him all by itself.
'Scott's in a deep coma, Mr Tracy... we're doing everything we can for him, but-'
Everything that sad-faced surgeon had said after that had passed straight through Jeff's mind. Already in shock from the accident, he'd refused, just point blank refused, to believe that his eldest son was going to die.
Maybe that was it - the famous Tracy stubbornness - that had brought him back. Lucy had always loved to tease him about that, and... oh, God.
'Lucy.'
God, how he'd needed her then, while that surgeon had tried to make him face the unthinkable. How desperately he'd wanted to reach out to his side, and feel the comfort of her hand around his.
But no. His anchor was gone, and several whisky bottles had taken its place. He'd drained the first, and hurled the others against the wall of his motel room, until the godsend of her voice had told him to stop.
'No, Jeff... no, this isn't the way... our baby needs you, Jeff... he needs all of you, not the dregs of some damn bottle!'
Better than anything else in the world, that had snapped him out of it. Sobered him up faster than any hangover cure on the planet. His boy had needed him.
Needed him then - still needed him now. Needed his love and strength to guide him back from... well, wherever he was right now.
Jeff just wished he knew where that was, because... God, for the life of him, he just had no idea. All he did know was that his boy, his Scooter, needed to know where he was. Where he had to be, for as long as it took to bring him through this.
Where the bastards who'd hung him out to dry should have been. Right there beside him.
Gently, so gently, he took Scott's less injured hand. Ran his thumb over still bruised, bandaged fingers, while his other hand brushed back his hair. More than anything, he prayed it hadn't been a trick of the light that had made those lashes flicker towards him.
No, it had been his presence. Right? It had to be his presence that he'd responded to.
Just like that whisky, Jeff needed more. Craved more, so much more than the twitch of an eyelid. He needed those eyes to focus on him. Acknowledge him.
But no. All he saw was stillness. All he heard was silence. Physically, Scott might have been just inches from him, but... no, for far too much against that, he was an immeasurable distance away.
The only signs of conscious awareness were those that his own body were forcing him to do. Breathing, to keep him alive. Blinking, to keep his eyes from drying out - to wither like the grass that lay outside his window, scorched by a merciless sun.
Eyes like the sky. That's how Lucy had always described them. Her firstborn son's eyes were her very own sky. Perfect innocence, perfect sweetness. Perfect blue.
Except they saw nothing now, except the ceiling that held some secret fascination inside it. A tiny part of it, that lay high above Scott's head. The same patch of plaster that his bright, brave, brilliant son had spent staring at, for the last five days.
Staring at it, in complete and utter silence. A world that had become his prison. Trapped him in the hell of this living nightmare, until his medications pulled him back down again, into the blessing of synthesised sleep.
Still watching him, Jeff released a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding. For every part of him that told him this wasn't happening, a greater part of him reminded him that... yes. Yes, it was. This was reality, of the cruellest kind.
His boy was broken. No part of his enormous wealth could put him back together. And that, right there, was what terrified Jeff Tracy the most. That's what made him bow his head now, and close his eyes against the tears that he wouldn't, couldn't, allow to fall.
