Author's note: Thanks many times over to my beta.

Lost – Chapter 1

Scott woke to the sound of the emergency signal from his wrist comm. Urgent! Action! Rescue! He must get straight up and go to his father's desk for a briefing. His legs felt heavy and he struggled to fight his duvet off and get out of bed. He ran to the door unsteadily and went out to the hallway beyond, which stretched into the distance looking longer than usual.

He urged himself on but although his head was telling him to run his body was not responding and he lumbered frustratingly slowly towards the lounge. His head was swimming and he couldn't shake sense into it.

Finally he arrived by his father's desk and was surprised to see his brothers hadn't beaten him to it. Jeff was looking at him with exasperation and clicked the stopwatch in his hand.

"9.28 minutes from your bedroom to here. That's not good enough Scott! What if this was a real emergency? Go back to bed, go to sleep and we'll try again in half an hour."

Scott's mouth dropped open. "What in the name….?"

SNAP!

Scott woke up with a jump and sat upright in bed. Dammit! It had been a stupid dream. What in the hell was that all about?

Beep, beep.

His wrist comm was what had woken him and he realised his father was trying to contact him. He pressed the button, still slightly bemused.

"Yes, Father?"

"Do you know where Virgil is? The plane isn't in the hangar and I can't contact him on his wrist comm."

"Virgil… um….well, last he told me he was only going to be on the mainland for the day. He planned to go to a concert last night and then come back after."

"Well, he didn't."

"Maybe he felt too tired to fly. I expect he'll be back for breakfast," Scott replied glancing at his clock and seeing it was 5.30am.

"Then why isn't he answering his wrist comm?"

"Dunno. Give me a minute and I'll join you." Scott flicked off the connection and leapt out of bed. Reassuringly, after his dream, his legs felt in good shape and his body and mind were alert. However, where Virgil was and why his Dad was worrying about it at 5.30am was a different matter.

He pulled on some sweatpants and a t-shirt and left his room. He had seen from the vid call that his Dad was in the lounge but on the way he poked a head into Virgil's room and also tried to contact Virgil's wrist comm and Thunderbird 2's workshop just to cover a few bases.

His Dad was at his desk tapping some keys on his computer keyboard in a rather firm manner.

"He's probably stayed over at a friend's," was Scott's opening gambit. "Wake John up and get him to get a location fix on Virgil's wrist comm."

"I've tried that. John can't trace it."

"Oh!" Scott at last started to match his father's worry level. Half-heartedly he continued, "Well, how many watches did Virg break when he was a kid?"

"Yes," replied Jeff, "and how many of Brains's indestructible wrist comms has he broken?"

"Good point," Scott conceded. "In non-rescue situations not many, if any."

"I know your brother has his head in the clouds sometimes when he's thinking about paintings or music but since we formed International Rescue he's always been reliable on rescues and contactable at any other time. John has confirmed that his plane is still at the airport so he's disappeared on land somewhere. I don't like it."

"Do you need him urgently?"

"No, I just don't enjoy not knowing where one of my team is."

"You're right," said Scott, "It is unlike him. It's also worrying about the wrist comm. I can't think what would have happened, though. I mean, how much trouble can he get into going to a few art galleries and a concert?"

TBTBTBTBTB

Virgil groaned as he woke. His was lying on a hard floor, his arm hurt, his ribs hurt and his head hurt but he was alive. That was a good start. He cracked an eye open tentatively.

"He's awake," a female voice whispered from nearby. There was some rustling and Virgil moved his head to see who had spoken. Big mistake. He had a huge pain at the base of his skull and moving his head made it worse.

A shadow fell over him and he looked up to a see a man staring down at him. The man spoke harshly.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Virgil cast his mind back to the last thing he remembered and swiftly realised that he couldn't pinpoint anything. What the hell had happened to him?

"Who are you?" insisted the man.

Virgil's mind was blank. He had no answers. With growing horror Virgil realised he had no idea who he was.