Just a piece inspired by a few of the recent remarks about Jeff. It is pre-series, set around the time Jeff disappeared, so not before 'Ring of Fire' (Series 1).
"The sea. It contains so many colours. Silver at dawn, green at noon, dark blue in the evening. Sometimes it looks almost red. Or it will turn the colour of old coins. Right now the shadows of clouds are dragging across it, and patches of sunlight are touching down everywhere. White strings of gulls drag over it like beads. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel."
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See
Dark was drawing in. Twilight was dwindling, the sun long expired, the moon coming to its peak. The full moon. The white circle casting ripples down onto the dimmed blue surface, peacefully, beautifully, quietly unaware of the predicament it bore witness too.
The water wasn't entirely as calm. There was a choppy undercurrent aided by the breeze swishing through it, creating ripples on the surface, their size increasing as pale flesh slipped in beneath. White flickered, glimmered as it retracted, pulling itself back together with a forceful grace.
Lover of space stared up at the sky in silence, his eyes focussed on the black dark drop and sole white bright circle. Love of sea stared down in despair, his eyes intent on watching each move, each breathe and colour, each moment of life in dead waters.
There were no words. Music from the water's chattering words were all the accompaniment gracing the night air, the deep sea answering the call with louder, choral sounds, the wind providing the undertone chill like the shrill song of Sirens desperate to call you forth to fall into their waters, to flounder and eventually give in: to let yourself drown as much as you did in the hurtling waves of grief.
Supposedly, the waters may grieve too: they could be still enough to give a mournful note, quiet enough to appear as though in deep contemplation of life's way and indeed their course. Water chose the swiftest, the easiest course… never did they, as humans, seem able to replicate it. Water was natural whereas they had strayed from that course. One thing to love about the Island was the amount of natural life, the never ending surround of swallowing emotion. The blue expanse was big enough to contain every feeling.
Some feelings it could strip from humans with no complaint.
Happily he would give it his grief. He would spill his heart openly to the shifting tides should it allow him scope to impart greater tidings, happiness. Happiness for them all. If the ocean wanted their feelings then so be it. If the ocean wanted to reflect colours back at them, so he would watch with tinted enjoyment. It used to be his favourite thing, but now there was too much flooding through with it.
When it was blue he thought of open skies, of the deepest pools, of stability, of Thunderbird One; green brought to mind nature's reaches, the refreshing and health-giving, of Thunderbird Two; red gave him only thoughts of passion, danger and anger, and Thunderbird Three. When he caught glimpse of those fleeting orange hues he instantly thought of compassion, of strength, of some strange warmth, of Thunderbird Five. When it was silvery in its early yawning's he couldn't help but let his mind float to the plane lost, dead, which carried away their beloved father across the airwaves, into the sea, not back to the land from where he ventured. It had been his only wish to see the elder return. There had been nothing anyone of them wanted more, though the obvious feeling was dulled, they'd had him come and go so often it was almost accepted he would return at each and every journey's end.
He forgot he had his role as an illustrious rescuer when he stared so deeply, became lost in the entrails of the bodiless. That alone reminded him they had no body. In the earliest moments he'd thought that was hopeful, but searches were fruitless, trails dead, hints non-existent. There was no road to follow, no path to tread. It was just them, trying to get by, all of them on an island: together yet alone.
His auburn locked companion tonight was as quiet as ever, not an unusual sign in the elder, though in the younger silence was a rarer trait. It was a companionable, thoughtful quiet. There was one link to bring them here, but to it no account was held. The aquanaut was there to watch the colours of water, the spaceman the phases of the moon.
Usually the elder saw colours in the sky, though tonight it was pitch black.
He didn't know where it came from; the power to make sound or the strength to sustain it. Simply expelled the words were raw, not dressed up or meant to mean anything other than what they stated.
'What do you see?'
'The moon.'
'Colours.'
'Water.'
'My brother.' For the first time eyes diverted from the moonlight. 'One of them.' They were all that were left. Five brothers, five always sons.
He decided he was happy to sit in silence. There was nothing uncomfortable, nothing unbearable, not at all like that silence, the one which pulled back down to Earth the gravity disliking fellow. The one which left all thinking about the presence of an empty desk, an abandoned piano. It had been the hardest day. The fourth son didn't swim, the third released the piano keys, the second came back. The first said nothing, the fifth everything.
'Colours?'
He didn't know how he was supposed to answer that as matching blond hair sat beside the elder space pilot. There was no answer. The youngest was looking up at the moon too, John glancing between them as the chilled winds became stronger, their whispers indecipherable. It wasn't important. It didn't need an answer and so the point faded away. Their little brother seemed happy with that, falling into quiet companionship with them.
Without removing his feet from the cooling pool he shuffled closer, sitting peacefully next to them both.
'Reflection.'
The voice was meeker than usual, but still as clear.
'I'd say stars.' They were none though. The sky was black like oil though no dot like shapes twinkled over its surface. It wasn't a game. It wasn't as though he had to say something even with the compulsion great he refrained as he simply did not have the words.
The water had chilled his feet by the time he realised Alan was dozing against John who had wrapped an arm around the younger for warmth and support. Personally he didn't want to sleep. He wanted to jump into the blue, wake himself up and keep going that way. They'd all struggled with sleeping though continued working regardless. They all struggled with certain comments or actions but done their best to bypass them. They just kept going. If they stopped they'd be unable to start again, they all knew that.
A towel was dropped into his lap, a blanket laced over his shoulders as a large shape sat beside him, the dim night mixed with his dozing eyes and switched off mind requiring a moment to process exactly who. The sound of footsteps continued around, stopping in Alan's direction. Those steps were easy enough to comprehend though. Scott and Virgil.
'An island.'
'Five brothers.'
The addition of voice helped him place Virgil to his right, Scott off a far. The noise too seemed to bring awareness flooding back to Alan who lifted his head, body now covered with a blanket too. The eldest appeared thoughtful where he sat beside the youngest.
'What are we all watching?'
They weren't really watching anything now.
What had started with him watching the water and John watching the moon had changed into the watching of colours, reflections and darkened skies. Truthfully, the three of them had just fallen into companionship to avoid each of them descending into a heavy void they wished to leave well alone. It started with musing for him, love for John and most likely interest for Alan. It was worry and care which probably called the remaining Tracy brothers and now they were sitting once again on the brink of conversation.
Alan shrugged. That was telling enough. He'd come out for the company as opposed to a particular desire to watch anything. John inclined his head skyward. If Thunderbird Five could be seen he'd nearly have a homerun. His feet kicked against the water, the resistance harder than he'd imagined it would be, the time having flown by, the long moments of stillness uncounted. They were colder than he remembered and his mind became glad someone had thought to bring him the towel out.
'Do any of us know?'
It seemed the right question for everything seemed to be gone. Or at least everything they had known for so long that it really seemed there was nothing left save an Island, a selection of machinery and five sons. Five grieving sons who knew not what to do.
The silence moved on. They were all lost in their own worlds, their own set of thoughts; yet they were gathered, they were a collective always, it didn't need to be expressed in words. Collectively, they were grieving, a piece of their hearts had been pierced by a hunters arrow and torn out, waiting to be eaten. There was a hole as though shot through, the bullet flown straight out, the exit wound harder to stem – a single bullet shot through them all. An exact shot. With all of them wounded there was no man to stem the bleeding. A wound so deep the red run refused to seep.
The silence moved on.
'I have an idea.' The elder's leaned over Alan to whisper quietly before Scott rose to his feet as graceful as ever, the late night cold seeming to avoid gnawing at his bones. He disappeared in the house and for a long time the suspense was overriding to all other thoughts. It was almost anticlimactic when he returned with a box of matches and tea lights the younger were evidently unaware of until he handed them out, Alan eyes mirroring confusion in the silver cases rim. Gordon gaze his a momentary side glance, whilst Virgil was looking at his own far more quizzically. It was amazing the wick didn't just light itself with the effort he must have been taking. John seemed to understand whether through knowledge, experience or just that intense brotherly connection he shared with Scott was unknown. Gordon could kind of understand it: he had a similar thing with Alan.
The teas lights themselves were a lot harder to process.
'And these are for..?"
'Yeah, Scott. What are we gonna' do?' Even with no knowledge as to what might emerge past Scott's lips, Alan's unbound excitement was present.
'We're going to light them.' Virgil pulled his brows together and Scott's perfectly calm and simple response.
'That's it?'
'No.' He didn't explain though. He simply raised the boxes of matches and removed one before lowering it back out of sight. Then his hand clasped a blue plate, one of their mother's old dishes for sitting candles in. With the tea light set upon the dish the eldest struck the match with perfect and exemplar ease.
'I'm thankful dad left us International Rescue.'
The light brought a completely new twist onto the water as Scott lowered blue to meet blue, the simple colour offsetting the moon's stilled tides, dispersing some of the white shine to make room for the golden blued glow. It looked incredibly beautiful. It also looked incredibly simple to recreate though the finesse at which Scott could work delicate actions and the very way he had instigated the conversation to hold attention was not so easily done. The whole lighting the tea light bit, yes, the way Scott had done so though, no chance.
John stretched across the younger blond and took the box of matches from his elder counterpart with almost practised ease, Scott having already passed him the orange plate. The spaceman had done this before too if the smooth running was anything to go by.
'I'm thankful dad introduced me to space.'
The addition of the second colour knocked the first and created an odd reflection upon that of the moon, once more shifting the half calmed tides.
Alan took longer to think as Scott passed him a dish and John the matches.
'I'm thankful…' They could all sympathise to the silence. There was a lot to say about their father, personal or open. A light bulb seemed to switch on in Alan's head as he lit the wick. 'Dad chose to have five sons.'
The red hues warmed up the cold waters, the blue drifting as though fire and ice had the chance to collide. It made him smile at the simple images colour could create, let along colour on water. Scott passed to John in relay to give to him a coloured plate as Alan extended the match box to him and for a moment he hardly knew whether or not his hand would take it.
As he struck it, he knew exactly what he wanted to say despite his mind being blank to begin with. Blank, because there was too much that could be said.
'I'm thankful dad chose to live on the island.' Gordon let his own candle filter into the pallet. Virgil was smiling, a sign that the artist clearly approved of what he saw. He passed on the match box, the wooden sticks jumbling around. Scott passed down a green dish which Virgil took from John with silent thanks.
He took a moment to strike his own match, lighting the wick.
'I'm thankful we had dad for a dad.'
Scott nodded in silent agreement as the fifth candle was set afloat, making the pallet practically complete. Alan looked thoughtful, John wrapping an arm around him. Virgil gave him a nudge, showing off an equally good smile. It made him pull one too despite the urge being incredibly far away. There was something lifting his spirits… lifting all of their spirits.
Maybe it was simply each other.
The tea lights may only have small fuses yet they looked pretty in their silver cases with golden glows from the flames, sat in the coloured dishes as they floated along the surface of the water. It was a new palate of colours entirely. The surface of the water was marred and mixed with nearly every shade that passed through it at some point within the hours. It was decorated and graced like something should follow, but the house in comparison looked uninhabited, almost as lost as those who were supposed to live there.
Life hadn't quite seemed like living though now there seemed a different vision. Dancing hues spun and twirled on heels and toes as the waves carried their course. It was light in a dark pool. All of them had a point of focus, a unified, collaborative point, the energies they were diverting to it seeming to keep the sparks burning. It was beautiful, the ripples of the moons shine glinting off them as they passed beneath it, crossing paths, dipping and travelling peacefully. It was eye-opening, illuminating, the perspective completely shifting.
There was something in the light, something you don't notice at a glance or even at sustained points of sitting beneath it, something you only see when you're looking for it, though even then it is hard to pin point exactly. It's there though, that he thought was true.
'Light we cannot see.'
…Until we do.
Jeff Tracy wasn't entirely far away. He was completely gone from their lives. It didn't make it easier but despite that knowledge the picture it created warmed their bones and lifted their hearts. It was one moment in which all had gathered and seen the same thing, honoured the same person and thought as deeply as they possibly could bare. The flickers of flame illuminated all details, even the smallest tear as they circled the enclosure of the pool, spinning around and around like cups.
The colours on the water had changed again by the time the flames died. The sea had become a light picture of green visible over the trees and the rocks, the moon slipping away in the early sky as the sun sought to emerge.
Still they were gathered though, focussed on the dying embers of the lights which had kept away the night. A new dawn had risen on a new day. There was still nothing to pull them away. Scott struck another match and loosed the light upon the ripples renewed.
They couldn't explain it, but they didn't need too. They'd understood the feelings which passed between them, the senses they received, the atmosphere in which they lingered. And there was a reason water was a favourite. There were so many things it could see, hold and reveal when you needed it to: just like the light to help lead you onward when you've lost your way in the dark. The one you can never see until someone helps you find it.