A/N: I got it out earlier than I expected, so here it is!

This preamble does contain spoilers for the previous instalment, and I highly recommend that you read that part first before moving into this one, as your understanding of it entirely depends on prior knowledge of the plot. So turn back now!

Okay. So some of you are no doubt wondering why I chose to write the next part beneath a whole new title, and I figured that I had better explain.

Basically, Bound was the part of the story leading up to and including the final chapter; John's turning point, and the step forward on the road he has chosen to take, and Determined is from that point to wherever and however it may be that this story might end. Yep. I'm being deliberately cryptic right now; so if anyone kind of skipped my note up there, there will be no spoilers that may give away the previous story. So if there are any people, who have come across this by accident, perhaps go to Bound and find out what happened first, and then return. So turn back now, before all is prematurely revealed to you!

For those of you who have read before; be my guests, and continue happily!

When I set out to begin writing Bound, I really didn't expect to receive even the smallest fraction of the reviews I have, and it is all thanks to all of you that that has occurred. I have had many beautiful comments that have really given me confidence in my burgeoning writing abilities; from the characterisation of John to the emotions and feelings that I have apparently been able to communicate through the telling.

I must confess that I have been extremely lucky never to have experienced or have had to watch anyone I know battle with any sort of life-threatening condition, and I just want to say that I admire the lot of you for sticking with me on this. Truly; some of the things that have and will be touched on in these stories will very graphic and scary, and will most likely be extremely difficult to both write and read. There are a couple of people who had been reading this, that also gave me some truly amazing comments, but they have unfortunately had to cease following the story because the subject material was too close to home for them to cope with, and that is totally understandable.

It may seem strange that I am writing this now, instead of at the very beginning of Bound, but I have seen so many things on the news and in the newspaper lately, and I do not want to claim to know what those brave people are going through every day as they battle to survive their respective illnesses and injuries.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: If not for Sylvia and Gerry Anderson, I would not be able to play in this wonderful playground, so no; I do not own the Thunderbirds.

There are some things that are meant to be experienced only once. Loss of confidence in self and loss of motivation are at the top of that list. And then there are things that are never meant to be experienced at all. Almost dying and the violation of a sacred place are two of them.

It had been three weeks since I had been diagnosed as a relapsed b-cell lymphoma, and three-and-a-half since the events that had occurred that had gone and taken just about everything that was important to me; my stars, my freedom to move without pain, and the safety of our home base and the security and well-being of each member of our family.

I hated the fact that I found myself in this particular place again. Eight years is really not enough time to forget the terrible experiences that being almost terminally ill gives you. At a time where you should by all rights be tearing about the town with your friends; making mischief and your own fun, a fourteen-year-old shouldn't be enduring months of intense treatment; frequent needle-sticks, blood-tests and constant monitoring of vitamin levels and life-signs, to ensure all that was as well as could be expected for someone who was literally being eaten from the inside out. I had hated watching my family watch me wither before their eyes, wondering how and if they were coping with all of it.

It was much the same this time around, but it was rendered many times more difficult to remember the memories of my last bout with cancer, because of my all-too-clear memories of attempting to stay strong when all seemed so close to being lost; that and the addition of fact that we had almost been murdered by a megalomaniac. It was much the same now; only I wanted to reverse time —not to before my teenage years— but to rewind to before the attack, and forget that any of it had ever happened.

The week that we had spent in Topeka while I had taken in my first several infusions had brought strong recollections of the struggles I had faced all that time ago. The times where I had felt so bad, both physically and mentally, that it was an effort to blink let alone even think about trying to get out of bed, and attempt to face another day. Those feelings were renewed, recalled and proved just as terrifying as before, when I was faced with the return to the island; increased a hundred-fold with Tracy One's touchdown on the main landing strip.

As we spent the first twenty-four hours back on the island, it was clear that many things were different. I wasn't sure a word even existed as a suitable descriptor for the feelings that I had as we taxied into the hangar on the south-west shore. No, it was not for lack of warmth or familiar and welcome faces that were the pieces that didn't fit in the puzzle of 'what doesn't belong' Oh no.

It was the fact that our home seemed somehow darker; less welcoming, and much more menacing all of a sudden. We had all been somewhat calmer back in Lawrence because of the distance from the scene of the crime. Now we were home we were forced to confront the idea that we had been invaded, ransacked, and had very nearly been killed because we were trying to protect our home and our own.

The members of our little community who had remained on the island had done a stellar job in repairing all the damage that had been inflicted, of returning the house almost completely to the way it had always been; but there was still evidence of the disaster that Trangh Belagant had left in his wake, reminders everywhere that our most cherished secrets, and the one place where we all felt the most secure had been irrevocably and irreparably tainted by the machinations of a nutcase hell-bent on gaining ultimate power.

It was not only the emotional and mental aspects of the Hood's attack that had changed us; it was the missing or damaged pieces of the aesthetic environment that had been stained with a madman's desires, damaging all of us in every single way imaginable, by brutally destroying and taking away the little things that had been a part of our environment for so many years. The couch in the lounge was no longer there; glasses that had been used for celebratory toasts; the ancient chipped-blue mugs that had been a wedding gift to our parents; Grandma's favourite set of antique china settings, were all gone. Items that represented memories, thoughts and fond recollections had all been discarded as though containing the deadliest of all plagues; ending their lives as serviceable items turned against us; used as shatter-edged projectiles. They had been forced into service to become artillery bombs and shrapnel-fire, launched from the hands of the invading army, and turned against the defenders of the castle in the siege that had almost been lost.

Everywhere we went, there was ever more evidence of the trauma our home had experienced, and been altered by; the churned-up earth from the quad-bikes; crushed foliage in the garden where both my father and Kyrano spent their time; the cracked and battered tiles on the pool deck, and the frame where the wide-panelled window in the lounge had been was nothing but empty. It let in all the cold things that we tried to shut out as the sun went down.

It was as I had predicted; the issues that had been festering for the preceding few weeks had come out full-force once we had gotten used to our deep-set relief that we were home and relatively intact.

I had heard Scott screaming in his sleep twice and sometimes thrice-nightly about the terror of the idea of watching us all burn. Alarmingly, when I had gone in to check on Big Brother, I had seen the edge of his old service revolver poking out from beneath his pillow; he had slept with it there for months following his being shot-down on an aid-mission to Afghanistan three-and-a-half-years ago. I knew that it was the only thing that was allowing him to drift off at all, despite the terrors he faced when he did.

Gordon swam non-stop; dealing with his own demon aftermath by tiring himself out so badly that he could barely walk, let alone have energy left enough to dream. He was subdued and silent, withdrawing more than I ever could have done, and I found myself planning to speak with him as soon as heavenly possible; because he was still just as much a child as Alan.

I had not yet worked out exactly where Virgil was letting out his stress, but his neatness had become borderline obsessive-compulsive; worse than he had ever been, and that alone worried me, because it meant that he wasn't playing the piano, or sketching or any of his usual pursuits; so deep was his distraction with the cleanliness of the villa. His temper was getting more and more frayed as well, which was even stranger, but not really surprising considering the circumstances.

Alan was the easiest to decipher; he had found comfort merely by slipping into my bed each night, apparently under the impression that because I was so tired all of the time; wiped out from the intravenous meds, the chemo and the residual exhaustion from my injuries that I was automatically able to sleep through the night.

I was silent and still during those times; all the kid really wanted was the sensation of someone warm and familiar near him, and never would I embarrass him by telling him that I heard every sound and movement he made from the moment he crossed the threshold into my bedroom until the fading of his footsteps that signalled his departure in the early hours of the morning.

My father too was on edge. I knew that he wasn't sleeping more than three hours a night; prowling through the villa by moonlight; patrolling the corridors with eyes as sharp as a tiger's, unable to even think about retiring to his room until he had double and triple-checked all of the locks and windows, until he was almost content that nothing else was lurking, ready to strike from the shadows at any moment.

The other two families on the island had thus retreated to their own private apartments, perhaps unwilling to let their own members out of their sights; but I wanted to protect them all the same. Myself, my brothers and sister, my father, my 'aunt' and my 'uncles'; all were changed by this loss of innocence that we had been forced to endure.

All of this was made infinitely more complicated with the addition of my treatments. I was entering my last week of the chemo part of the first cycle, and I was already at my wits' end, both physically and mentally. Lack of sleep from listening to the island's night-time wanderers was inevitably leaving me exhausted, and I spent most of my time on the couch sleeping than actually trying to participate as I had initially wished, and I was sick, ill and still wracked with pain from the injuries I had sustained up on the satellite.

I was worrying my family, and I was worried by them; and there was no doubt that what was to come for us next was going to throw us a curve-ball so far off of straight, that there was no way we would be able to find our way back alone.

A/N: Okay, so what did you all think of that? I'd like to hear about what you guys think may be coming next! So please review and tell me what you thought!

-Pyre Xx