Gordon injured his back, but John broke his. You always have to go one better, don't you? Gordon had joked as he sat for the umpteenth hour at his brother's hospital bed. Laughter was too painful, so John could only afford his sibling a strained smile. Nothing seemed particularly funny, anyway. Certainly not after hearing those three dreadful words: spinal cord injury.
It had been a relatively routine rescue. The foundations of a badly constructed tenement block in a Rio neo-favela had given way, stranding hundreds of people underground and even more in the precariously tilting upper floors. International Rescue had led the recovery effort. Virgil took charge of the subterranean efforts, while Scott and John worked on what remained of the upper storeys.
And then John dropped fifteen feet onto concrete.
Quite how it happened, John still did not know. One moment he was helping lift debris and the next there was nothing under his feet and only blue sky above him. The sun had never seemed as far away as it did in that moment. At least he didn't remember the impact; that was a small mercy.
It wasn't the fall that did it, though. A fall from fifteen feet wouldn't necessarily have caused paralysis, the doctors had said. No. It was the fall onto a razor-sharp metal panel that sliced right through to his spinal cord that did it. Unlucky, they called him. John had snorted. Unlucky.
Five months of recovery and rehabilitation followed. Even in 2060, there was no quick fix or miracle. Even with Brains' expertise, his experiments in exoskeletal systems, there was no magic bullet for recovery. John spent endless sweat-soaked hours in leg braces and on parallel bars and in gait harnesses, but to no avail. Your muscles won't fully recover, the doctors had said. You'll never be able to push fully against gravity again. You're unlucky.
There was that word again. Unlucky.
When he rolled himself into the villa for the first time, no one had known where to look. This wasn't supposed to happen. Yes, they did a dangerous job, but no one was meant to get hurt. No one was meant to suffer. John had wheeled himself past the awkward shuffles and downward stares, propelling himself along the honey-coloured hardwood floor that gleamed in the hazy dusk. He didn't come out of his room for three days, not because he was depressed, not because of the pitying tint to their eyes, but because he couldn't take the level of discomfort in their looks. They didn't know how to take him. He didn't know how to take himself.
Max made himself useful and became a sometime companion for John while he was grounded. The worst part of being wheelchair bound was being several feet shorter. Stairs could be usurped by lifts. Personal hygiene could be conquered by medical aids. However, the former six-footer found kitchen counters and high shelves to be the enemy. Those, and gravity. Unlucky.
So, Max reached and carried, and John learned to appreciate life from a new perspective. At least the stars were the same.
In time, his brothers and the others learned to appreciate his new life too. Nothing could bring back what was lost but there were new things to be gained. Virgil taught him basics on the piano and Gordon spent hours with him in the pool, trying to bring strength back to his atrophying muscles. Scott did likewise with the parallel bars he had installed in the gym, whether John wanted them or not. Last but not least, Alan's incessant chatter never ceased to amuse and entertain.
In time, the question of a return to Thunderbird Five came up. John was the first to suggest it; Scott was the first to shoot it down. Ever patient, John pressed his point until eventually his older brother agreed to an accompanied trial run.
Never had John's heart drummed so fast as when Thunderbird Three's nose cone approached the docking ring.
This was what he had been waiting for. This was what had kept him going through pain-filled hours of physiotherapy and counselling sessions and awkward silences and strained games of wheelchair basketball. Gravity is my enemy, he thought, but up here it can't get to me.
Of course, in Thunderbird Five's spinning section artificial gravity was maintained. John wheeled himself over to the conduit that led to the one place he wanted to be. He gestured for Scott to come over.
"Lift me," he said.
Without question, Scott did as he was told. He raised his brother upwards until gravity lost its death-grip on its victim and John pulled himself to freedom.
It wasn't the same. How could it be? It wasn't the same.
It was better.
Relief and gratitude flowed from deep within him and John floated among his spherical tears as Scott joined him in motion. Nothing was said. Nothing needed to be said. The graceful arc of John's body as he twisted through the lack of gravity was enough. He propelled himself upwards and downwards, using the strength of his arms to make up for what was lacking elsewhere. Mid-air, he grasped his brother's hands and turned in an anti-gravity dance. Scott's glassy eyes met his own.
"John, I –"
But John shook his head. No words were necessary.
Unlucky, they had said. Unlucky to fall at all, even more unlucky to fall the way he had; unlucky, to never fully recover.
As he released his brother's hands and slipped through the air like a supple bow, John asked himself, was he truly unlucky? If so, he was happy to be the unluckiest person alive.