Authors notes: This story was written for the 2014 TIWF ficswap challenge. The précis I was given was: "John is in critical condition, and it's your choice whether he gets to the hospital on time, or dies on the way. Whatever got him into this situation is up to you as well." My thanks go to thunderbird 5 for the challenge, I hope you like what I did with it.
I do not own International Rescue, the Thunderbirds or the characters from the show. This story was created for the challenge and my own entertainment and not for profit. I only own the OC's and the scenario I have created here. Any similarity between my OC's and any person real or fictional is a matter of coincidence. Please do not copy or repost any part of this story without permission.
This story is rated M for violence and drug references. If you don't want to read about either of these or are easily offended, then please don't read this story.
The Transition Zone
The taxi crept along in the early morning gridlock, hemmed in by other traffic, diesel fumes and the constant blaring of impatient horns. As the taxi stopped in line at a red light, John Tracy, the sole passenger in the back seat, smiled to himself and brushed a blond forelock out of his eyes. In the distance he could see the convention centre that was his destination. He'd been looking forward to this conference for the past year and finally, the day had arrived.
The light turned green and the cars at the head of the line jumped ahead. The taxi was slower to start, but there was no real hurry. John had allowed plenty of time, he was just eager; he wanted to look through the displays and network with the other astronomers before the lecture started.
Suddenly, a loud imperious blaring on his left caused him to turn his head. Time slowed as a truck hurtled through the intersection, its brakes squealing. John felt himself stomp on an imaginary brake pedal and his arm came up to ward off the collision. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the driver, open mouthed in horror. But then the front grille, large and looming dominated his sight.
The truck ploughed into the taxi which crumpled as if made of cardboard. It tore through metal and flesh alike, shattering bones and glass with equal ease. The driver's head burst open in a cascade of red blood and pink tissue. The rest of his body was tossed across the front seat and partially out of the open window.
A nanosecond later the force of the impact reached the body in the backseat. John's seatbelt failed and he was flung around what was left of the cab. The truck's momentum pushed the taxi across the road where it flipped onto its roof. With a duet of sickening thumps, John's head hit the window, then the roof and mercifully he knew no more.
In the sudden silence, the cooling engine beat a staccato ticking, keeping perfect time with the dripping of blood that pooled into an ever -widening puddle of sticky, iron-smelling liquid.
oo-oOo-oo
The setting sun cast an orange glow over the island and reflected off the waves that lapped lazily onto the shore. Leaves rustled as the palm trees swayed gently in the breeze and flowers closed their petals against the approaching darkness. A few lone pelicans that used the island as a haven at night squabbled briefly for space in a rocky cove, before settling down to rest.
Tracy Island was tranquil and serene, as it often was at this time of day.
The serenity was short lived as a hangar door in the base of a cliff opened and a large private jet emerged. It taxied quickly to the runway, paused briefly as it gathered power, then thundered down the strip and flung itself into the sky. As it banked around and gained height, the sun glinted off the windows briefly. Then the plane was gone, the hangar door closed and peace descended over the island once more.
oo-oOo-oo
John was used to floating weightless in space. In fact, he enjoyed it, found it as relaxing as Virgil said the hammock was. He certainly preferred it to the rocking of the boats that Gordon loved. So he gave in to the feeling and let himself drift, lost for a moment in the familiar sensation.
But something was wrong; something was missing. It was the same ... only …
Then he knew.
He couldn't feel a spacesuit enclosing his body. When he thought about it, he couldn't feel much of anything. He opened his eyes and tried to see, but all was still inky blackness. He should have been able to see the stars twinkling ... but he couldn't.
He blinked again to make sure his eyes were open, but he couldn't feel the lids move. It felt like he was disembodied… a brain floating inside his head.
He remembered feeling like this once before, after he'd woken from an operation. The difference now was that after the operation he'd had total recall. He knew instantly where he was and what was happening. Now he felt disorientated and off-balance. He couldn't remember where he'd been or what he'd been doing, or even how he came to be in this place. Where, or what, was this place? There was no sound, no light, no sensation… only darkness. It was like he was blindfolded in space.
As much as he should be concerned, he wasn't. He felt strangely relaxed and at peace.
The nagging question of where he was ticked away at the back of his mind. Normally, he couldn't abide unanswered questions; he had to know the answers; all the whys and wherefores. He could remember everything about himself; all memories and knowledge slotted neatly into place, exactly where they should be. Everything except the reason he was in his current situation. He tried to figure out where he was and racked his brain for clues, but there was nothing. A tiny tendril of unease flicked itself to life and took residence in his mind.
He wondered if the power had failed in Thunderbird Five; that would explain the darkness and floating. But he knew that wasn't possible. Well, a power failure was a remote possibility, but if it had, he would still be able to see the Earth, or the stars. He had never encountered such obsidian blackness before.
"Hello! You're new."
The voice appeared from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. It resonated inside him, felt more than heard.
John tried to look around, sightless with no eyes.
"What's your name?"
There it was again. John tried to speak, but no sound came. He tried taking a deep breath but even the sensation of filling his lungs was absent.
"You can't talk, you've got no voice. Just think the words."
"Think?" John thought he was losing his mind.
"That's it," the voice said. "What's your name?"
"John."
"Hi, John, you may as well call me Tich. Everyone else does."
"I can't see anything, it's too dark. Can you turn some lights on?"
Tich laughed. John sensed it inside him, like a rumble.
"Lights, eh? They won't help you any, mate. You can't see, 'cause you've got no eyes."
John frantically clawed his face, trying to discover what had happened. But he couldn't feel his arms moving, couldn't feel his face. It was as if he was paralysed.
"I'm blind?" He felt around for his eyes again, to no avail. "I am! And I can't feel my body!"
"Settle down, John. You can't feel anything because at the moment, you don't have a body."
"What? What's going on? Where am I?"
"Ah ... well ... you're in the transition zone. It takes a bit to get used to, but you'll get the hang of it. The sixty four thousand dollar question is 'why' you are here."
John realised the only way to get the answers he so desperately needed, was to do as this 'voice', for he couldn't yet think of it as a person, said.
"Okay then, why am I here? And what's this transition zone?"
"What's the last thing you remember?"
John let out a figurative sigh of frustration. All he wanted was straight answers, dammit!
In his mind, at least he guessed it was his mind, he remembered waking up in a hotel room then having breakfast in the restaurant. He then recalled the conference he was to attend, but there the memories stopped. He had no recollection of attending the conference, or even of leaving the hotel.
It seemed that even his thoughts were audible, for the voice, Tich, spoke again.
"Sounds boring, mate, but each to their own".
"You keep calling me 'mate'," John observed at last. "You must be Australian."
"Yeah, and you're a Yank, but I won't hold that against you. So, how were you planning on getting to this conference?"
An image of a taxi appeared in his mind's eye and the voice seized it.
"There you go; it must have been a car accident. Nasty. But it explains why you're here."
"Where IS here?" John questioned again. He certainly could not remember any car accident.
"I told you, it's the transition zone. It's where you end up if it's not your time to die, or cross over, as some people like to say."
"Wait! What? What are you saying? That I'm ... dead?"
"Geez, mate, let me finish will you? I was going to say that if it's not time for your soul to cross over, it's where you come to wait and see if your body will survive."
John reeled, or what he thought of as his mind, reeled. Tich waited while John processed the information.
"So I could die?"
"Can't say for sure, John, that's why you're here. Medicine can do amazing things these days. See, how it works is, if it's not your due date to die and your body survives, you go back and good luck to you. The rest of us wait here until we know if we are to cross or get reassigned."
"Reassigned?"
"Yep, if it is your time to cross, but the medics save your body, someone gets reassigned into your body until it's their time."
"I don't understand."
"You've heard of people waking after years in a coma? Or people with head injuries waking with different personalities or even speaking in a foreign language?"
John nodded before remembering that Tich wouldn't be able to see it. "Yes."
"There you go. Reassignment. I've even heard that some go back as animals, but that might be just talk. Who knows? Most people are only here for a short time but some of us, like me, hang around."
"I'm not going to die." It was a conviction John felt, as deep seated and fundamental as the need to breathe. He would not give in. "I'll fight it. I'll do whatever I have to. But I won't die."
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that, mate. But when it comes to crunch time, you don't get a say in it. It comes down to flesh and blood. Oh, and the medics, with their drugs and stuff. You're just a soul going along for the ride."
John was having trouble coming to terms with his new situation. He was an astronomer, a scientist. He trusted logic and solid evidence, not unrealistic thoughts and ideation. The concept that people's souls were a reality instead of the firing of synapses in a human brain was not something he'd spent a lot of time thinking about. Despite the 'reality' he now found himself in, he still thought of himself as a person, not just a soul. The scientist in him could not, would not accept this new situation until he had concrete proof.
"I want to see for myself."
"Yeah, everyone says that, but trust me, it's not a good idea."
"It's my body and it's my life," John was resolute. This was something he needed to do. "How do I see myself?"
"Look, John. It's really not a good idea. Most people can't handle it."
John thought of himself as a rational person, but he'd never responded well to being told he couldn't do something. Uncharacteristically, he lost his cool and "yelled".
"I NEED TO SEE MY BODY!"
Immediately he felt a pulling sensation, like he was being stretched and squeezed. A loud roaring in his ears added to his confusion and just when he thought he'd break, the sensations and noises stopped and he found himself whole again. He was standing in what was obviously an emergency trauma room. Although he'd never been in one before, he'd watched reality television shows.
It was, to his untrained eye, chaotic. People wearing gowns and surgical gloves were scurrying around, doing things to the body on the gurney. The body that he knew instinctively was his. He felt drawn to it, yet he was unable to get closer and see himself. What he could see scared him, and John was not someone who scared easily.
His body was broken; battered and bloodied. Arms and legs bent at angles they weren't supposed to. There were tubes entering and leaving his body from every orifice, and even places where there weren't supposed to be any. IV's hung overhead, bags of various fluids attempting to replace the blood that dripped continually onto to the floor. Absorbent pads had been thrown haphazardly around to collect it, but the many feet had spread red footprints around in a bizarre abstract.
Machinery beeped and hummed and voices were terse and urgent.
"Pressure still falling..."
"Can't ventilate..."
"Ectopics..."
"We need another chest tube..."
"More plasma..."
"I can't find the bleeder..."
Eventually he could see a sense of order in the chaos, but it was the man whose hand was deep inside John's own abdomen that held his attention. A large gaping wound spilled intestines as the hand rummaged around inside. Then it stilled and "I've got it! Clamp, quick!"
A package was opened and the man grabbed the long handled forceps and slid them along his hand, manoeuvred them around a bit and ratcheted them closed.
"Right, I think I've got it..."
"Pressure holding, MAP 54..."
"Left pupil's blown..."
"Second tube in..."
"Ventilating easier..."
"Theatre's ready," a woman called over as she hung up a phone. "Surgeons are scrubbing, neurology ready, orthopaedics standing by."
"Good work people," John saw an older man standing a step away from the action, obviously co-ordinating. "He's stable enough to scan on the way. Who's going with him?"
"I am," came from a sandy haired man at the head of the bed and who was squeezing a black bag rhythmically. "What drugs have we got?"
"Epinephrine, five milligrams plus minijet, Vec, Prope, Fent and Midaz, just in case." A nurse, John guessed it was a nurse, dumped a kidney dish of prepared syringes on the bed. "Fluids, crystalloid and colloid. Blood's in the box. Current IV's are Ringers on rapid infuser, third bag, packed cells over an hour, first bag straight in. Gelofusine over an hour, Norepi's on seven. No sedation yet but has had ten of Vec."
John watched as his body was covered with a clean sheet, a table fixed at the foot of the bed and equipment belted in place. Wires and tubes ran along the sheet from his body to the machines. Two other people, one sporting a large backpack with "ED" stamped on it, clunked off the brakes and began slowly wheeling the gurney. The nurse grabbed a chart and walked alongside the doctor.
They headed straight for John but before he could think about moving, he felt a few seconds of extreme heat and nausea, and then they were gone. They had walked right through him! He gasped in shock, felt himself all over to make sure he was still in one piece. He could see himself as well, he realised, seemingly whole and hearty, dressed in the clothes he had been wearing to the conference. Obviously though, he was neither whole nor visible.
He reeled. It was too much, too soon.
He'd known there was always the chance that something might happen while on a rescue or maybe Thunderbird Five getting hit by an asteroid, but it had been in the realms of getting hit by a bus or getting struck by lightning. Or getting hit by a car, he thought gruesomely. Something that in all probability would never happen. He'd never worried much about his mortality before. Yet seeing himself like that ... so broken and injured, made him realise the possibility that he might die was all too real.
He felt sick. He could be dead in minutes! He would never have the chance to see his family again. Never meet that someone special he knew was out there, or grow old with his own children around him.
"Geez, mate. You've made a right mess of yourself."
He started at Tich's voice, and then saw a young man standing beside him, watching him intently.
"Tich?"
Tich nodded, still watching.
"You can see me?" John asked.
Tich rolled his eyes. "Yee-up, knew that was coming. I can see you just like you can see me, but they …" He indicated the hospital staff setting the room to rights. "They can't see us." He squinted his eyes and peered intently at John. "You don't look so good. See? I told you it wasn't a good idea, but you didn't listen. Now, if you're like everyone else who comes here, you'll be wanting to see your nearest and dearest. Am I right?"
John doubted if his family even had time to leave the island yet, let alone fly all the way here. Tracy One was fast, but not that fast. Yet Tich was right.
"Yes, I would, but they don't live in this country. It will take them hours to get here."
"Weeell," Tich drew out the word. "You're in luck see, 'cause in the zone, time is fluid."
"What do you mean ... fluid?"
"It means there are no clocks in the zone. That you can jump around from the past to the future as long as you don't go too far and only as long as it concerns you and yours. You can't change or influence anything though, you can only watch."
"So how come you're here?" John asked.
"I learnt how to tag along," Tich shoved his hands in his pockets. "It gets boring over there."
"So how do I see my family? What do I do?"
"Concentrate really hard and wish like you've never wished before," Tich shrugged. "Least ways, that's what I do, and it works for me."
John pictured his father's face, imagined his voice and realised that despite being a grown man himself, he wanted the reassurance of his father's presence. He wanted his father to pat him on the back and tell him everything was going to be all right. This situation was too strange, too unbelievable, too ... scary and John was lost and out of his depth. No child ever truly outgrew the desire for the comfort that only a parent could provide and John needed his father now.
John suddenly felt the stretching and squeezing again, but this time he'd been ready for it. He found himself in a standard hospital waiting room, as bland and impersonal as only a waiting room could be.
He saw his family spread out around the room, but he had eyes only for his father, struck by the realisation that he may never see him again. He studied the familiar lines and wrinkles, trying to commit them to memory. He wanted to sit next to his dad and draw comfort from his closeness, but like the trauma room, John was stuck to the spot, unable to move.
He glanced around at the rest of his family, all waiting for ... news, he figured. Just as he was.
His father and grandmother were seated together, occasionally talking, but enduring the wait stoically. His father was not completely patient, John noticed. His inner turmoil was given away by the constant crossing and uncrossing of his legs.
Scott, typically, was a wound up spring, pacing the floor. Six strides to one wall, stare at it for a couple of heartbeats, turn and stride six paces to the opposite one. Back and forth, back and forth; impatience in action.
Gordon seemed to be coping just as badly as Scott. He stood with his head against the window pane, stuck in a cycle of staring out of the window, sighing noisily, glancing at his watch and looking around the room before beginning the cycle again.
John had always thought that Virgil was able to hide his feelings better than any of the other brothers. He sat in one of the moulded plastic chairs now, eyes closed, head resting on the wall behind him. His fingers tapped out the rhythm to a tune only he could hear.
As John around looked around at his family, he realised that Alan was missing. Not surprising really, as he had been on Thunderbird Five and was, in all likelihood, still there. He would have liked to see Alan as well, but knew how hard it was to get back from Five in a hurry.
As one, his family stood and looked directly at him.
Just as he was thinking they could see him, John felt the strange sensation of heat and nausea as a man walked through him into the room and approached his father.
"Are you John Tracy's family?" he asked, extending his hand.
"I'm his father," Jeff nodded, shook his hand and introduced the others. "This is my mother, my other sons."
"I'm Ian Marshall, the trauma specialist in charge of your son's care. Please," he indicated the chairs, "have a seat and I'll tell you what I can."
Everyone quickly sat together, anxious for good news. The doctor leant forward, elbows on knees. He looked Jeff in the eye.
"What have you been told so far?"
"I spoke to the police officers downstairs," Jeff began. "They've informed us of the basic mechanics. But I want to know how my son is. And don't sugar coat it. Give it to me straight."
"Alright, Mr. Tracy. To be blunt, I'm surprised he survived long enough to get here. We have stabilised him enough in the ER for him to go to scan and theatre, but he's got a long way to go before he's out of danger."
"And his injuries?"
"His right side has taken the worse of it. Arm, leg and pelvis all have multiple fractures and he also has several broken ribs. Some of the ribs have perforated his lung so his breathing is problematical. We put a tube in his throat and he's on a ventilator ... what lay people call a life-support machine. He has a large penetrating injury to his abdomen with a ruptured spleen, liver lacerations and bowel perforations. He's in the OR at the moment to get the abdominal bleeding under control, then we'll take him to the Intensive Care Unit overnight to stabilize him. Tomorrow we'll take him back to theatre to set the long bone fractures and have another look at his belly."
The doctor sighed and sat up.
"He's lost a considerable amount of blood, but his head is the next biggest concern. He's had a fairly significant hit on the head which has caused some bruising and swelling of the brain. The neuro guys will take steps to try and relieve that while he's in theatre."
John felt sick. He didn't realise it was this bad. This was HIM they were talking about. His body. His brain.
It hit his family hard as well, he noticed. He almost couldn't look at them, yet perversely, he couldn't look away. He was the cause of the pain etched on their faces. While his head told him it wasn't his fault, his heart said otherwise and he felt it keenly.
He wondered what his chances of surviving were and he heard his father ask the same question. The doctor sighed, palms out.
"Impossible to say at this stage ... Let's just take it one step at a time. If he makes it through this operation, then we'll see how he goes overnight. He's young and strong, so he has that in his favor."
"What about his brain?" Grandma asked, wiping her eyes with a balled up tissue. "Does he have brain damage?"
"We'll keep him asleep for the moment, so we won't know for sure until he's well enough to wake up. Nothing has showed up on the initial scan, but it quite often doesn't. Frankly, if he has any damage, then there's nothing we can do about it now. All we can do is protect his brain from any further damage caused by the swelling."
John didn't want to contemplate the possibility of brain damage, or any permanent injury, come to think of it. Yet dying would be worse, and the actuality of how close he was to dying hit home with all the subtlety of a freight train. If he did die, this would be the last time he saw his family.
He watched as his family spoke to the doctor, but he didn't listen to the words. He listened to the sounds of their voices. Scott's slightly abrupt speech, clipped short with worry. Gordon's higher pitched voice, strikingly at odds with his normally serious countenance. And Virgil's mellowed tones, the perfect foil in a family of military men.
He felt the now familiar pulling sensation dragging at him, taking him away. He fought to stay, eyes fixated on his father, using him as a lifeline, but he was flung back into the darkness of the zone. The darkness that had seemed peaceful before, now felt suffocating.
He was a mess of emotions. He raged against the unfairness of it, the urge to lash out overwhelming. He may not have had a body to manipulate, but he did have an imagination. He punched, kicked, ran and screamed into the void.
John had been trained to hide his insecurities; to show no weakness, but seeing himself like that and hearing the doctor's prognosis, was almost his undoing. The urge to hide away and release his sorrow was as overwhelming as the urge to lash out. Now his worry was not just if he would survive, it was what state he would be in if he did.
His time in space was over, that much was certain. He doubted he'd be able to participate in International Rescue again either, unless Brains found some way of permanently relaying Five's feed to the Island. What would brain damage be like? Would he be forever trapped in a useless body, unable to communicate? He wasn't sure he could handle that.
He stopped his introspection when Tich returned.
"You okay, mate? You were out of control for a minute there. Did you see your family?"
"Yeah, except my youngest brother wasn't there yet."
"Try not to stress too much, there's nothing you can do anyway. You'll probably go back though, most people do. You'll get to see your brother then."
John shook his head, not caring that Tich couldn't see it. "I don't know … I heard what the doctor said."
"Ah. That's sometimes worse than just seeing your body. What did he say?"
"He said that I could have …" John was unwilling to verbally acknowledge the possibility of brain damage, for the fear that it would make it real.
"Let me guess, you broke your brain?"
"How did you know?"
"Why do think I've been here so long?"
"I thought you had to go back if your body survived?"
"You get a special dispensation if you've stuffed your brain completely, which I did."
"What happened?"
"When I was young and stupid I went train surfing on some electric trains back home, got zapped and fell head first into a pile of bullshit …"
"What?"
"Cow manure. A huge steaming pile of it. By the time they dug me out of it I'd stopped breathing. Don't know who did mouth to mouth, but they're braver than I would have been."
"How long have you been here?"
"Wow, now you're asking something. Ahh ... judging by how old my body looked last time I saw it, it would have to be years."
"Why haven't you been reassigned?"
"My body isn't dead yet, though it may as well be; it's in the vegetable patch. All it does is breathe and take up space. They pour food down a tube one end and clean it up when it comes out the other. It's a crap shoot."
"I'm sorry."
"Not your fault, mate."
A sudden feeling of unease spread over John, and he wondered why. His first thought was that something bad was happening to his body, but he wasn't being pulled away so he breathed a sigh of relief. The air crackled with static electricity, burbled into a mix of jitteriness and anxiety. The feeling continued to grow and intensify, yet felt chaotic and jumbled. It made John suddenly nervous, convinced it was connected to his body, but then he heard Tich's voice.
"Look out, here comes trouble."
Before John could ask what he meant by that, another voice joined in. This voice wasn't calm like Tich, it was shaky; tremulous and desperate, all at the same time.
"You...new guy. Have you got any glass?"
"What?" John was confused; he couldn't begin to understand what this new person was talking about.
"You know...glass! Crystal, smack, crack, anything! I'll even take some weed."
"Uh...no, sorry."
"Come on man!" The voice became even more desperate. "I need a hit something fierce."
"Settle down, Jack," Tich's voice was calm and reasoning amid the turbulence of emotions leeching from the new person. "You know that no one has anything like that here."
"Piss off Tich! I need a hit! You've got no idea what it's like!"
With a suddenness that was completely unexpected, the skittish atmosphere dissipated, and the relaxed atmosphere returned, although it left John with a residual uneasiness.
"What...I mean...who was that?" John asked.
"That was Jack. He was a junkie in his previous life, and now it's his own personal hell."
"You mean that his addictions stay with him? Even if he has no body?"
"Well, not always, it seems to depend what they did in the real world. Jack's problem was that he got so deep into the drugs that he ended up working for the dealers just so they would keep supplying his drugs. One time, one of his robberies went wrong and he killed a couple of people. So, unfortunately for Jack, he's destined to be continually withdrawing with no possible way of getting relief."
"What...forever?"
"For all eternity. Mind you, I've not crossed over myself so I don't know for sure, but I've seen it here a few times. All that heaven and hell bit they teach you in bible class? That fire and brimstone, where all the unsalvageable souls go? I don't think it's like that. It seems to me like they have their own private hell tailor made for them."
John shuddered at the thought of being trapped like that, it would be a nightmare. He tried to think what his personal hell would be like but couldn't, unless it was never to see the stars again. Could that be his hell? He didn't think he'd done anything in his real life to warrant that, he'd certainly never killed anyone. Well, not intentionally, but he wondered about the people he and his brothers hadn't been able to save. Would that count against him? Surely not, those people would have died anyway, even if International Rescue hadn't tried to save them.
The more he thought about it, the more he reasoned that not seeing anything in this place seemed to be the norm. Tich had certainly implied that at the beginning. He also thought his mind was functioning as well as it did on any normal day and apart from the lack of a body, he felt like he always did.
Except this particular day was anything BUT normal.
He recalled to mind the hospital scenes he'd just witnessed and the diagnosis he'd heard. What if he didn't go back?
"What's it like? Crossing over?"
"Don't know for sure, mate. No one knows until it happens, and no one knows what the other side is like until you get there. Of course, once you're there, there's no coming back. At least, I don't think there is. Maybe you'll get to stay here for a while. No offence, but I hope you do. It would be nice to have someone sensible to talk to for a change."
"Sorry, Tich, but I plan on going back, even if I can't do the same work as before."
"What did you do?"
An image of Thunderbird Five's control room flashed through his mind along with his favourite view of Earth through the viewing port.
"What's that? Is that a space station? Are you an astronaut?"
Shit. John had forgotten that his thoughts weren't private here.
"Ahhh, yeah. I don't think I'll be able to do that anymore though."
"Bummer. But that's way cool; I've never spoken to an astronaut before. Were you in NASA? Did you go to Mars? What's lift off like? Did you ever throw up?"
Before John could formulate a reply, he felt the stretching sensation pulling at him and wondered where he was going this time.
He heard Tich's voice fading as the stretching increased. "Wait! Aw ... shit. Good luck, John."
This was it then, John knew. Time to cross or go back.
And he wanted to go back. Even knowing he wouldn't travel to space or go out on a rescue again, he needed to go back. He wanted to stay with his family. No matter how long it took him to recover.
But then he thought about Tich. Stuck in a void because his brain was mush. If that happened to John, how would it be? In the void for however long, only getting glimpses of his family and never able to talk with them. But however bad that would be, John knew it would be harder for his family. Years spent waiting for him to wake up, watching his body slowly deteriorate. That would be worse, he knew, than if he died outright. Maybe it would be kinder to his family if his body did die. But then if wishes were horses, he would ride. According to Tich, he could not wish himself back. He had no say in where he went.
He was rushing, hurtling through the void faster than before and the sensation was disconcerting, almost painful. He felt like he was being pulled further, stretching like a band, his feet stuck back in the zone, the rest of him heading toward...somewhere. With a bang his feet were released and flew toward him, tumbling him over and over.
Finally, with a thump, he landed on his back.
He knew he was back in his body. He could feel it; the pressure of gravity pushing him against the mattress, the sensation of his lungs expanding and contracting, the slight tingling of his fingers where they rested on the bed.
The brilliance of lights burned through his lids to eyes that had been sightless for so long. He welcomed the discomfort. It meant he was back. He tried opening them, feeling a twitch, but they were too heavy to lift. His entire body felt heavy, weighted down by more than gravity.
He could hear voices; hushed as though not to disturb, but also to pass the time. There were two voices, he could tell, one male, one female. He didn't recognise the woman, but reasoned that it must be a nurse or doctor. The other voice was familiar to him. The deep timbre of it washed over him, relaxing him. He found he could move his head and turned toward the voice.
A second of silence, a soft rustle of clothing, then:
"Come on son, open your eyes."
John opened his eyes the merest a sliver, but the light was too bright to see any more than the outline of two people. He moved his head restlessly and the lights dimmed, allowing the faces to come into focus. Silvery blonde hair framed a woman's face; a face he recognised. It had looked out from the picture on his father's desk for as long as he could remember.
"Mom?" he asked, husky with disbelief.
The face creased in a sad smile.
"Hello, John."
John turned to the other person, remembered the lined, weathered face.
"Pop …" his voice died out as he realised the implications.
His grandfather nodded and stretched out his hand.
"You need to come with us now, son."
The End