I've been losing my stride with writing lately…but this one wanted to be written.
I don't own the Thunderbirds, and I am making no profit from this story.
A cold rush of water against Gordon's face had him sputtering and reluctantly forcing his heavy eyelids open. He frowned and blinked rapidly to confirm that his eyes were actually open – things didn't look much different than when they had been closed. The darkness made his pulse trip along a little more quickly before he remembered that it was night – he was on a rescue in a town flattened by a tornado. Ignoring a throbbing pain in the back of his skull, he tried to turn his head to look around.
Gradually, things came into focus. There actually was somelight, but it appeared to be shining from a distance, creating harsh contrasts of black and white in the cracked timbers criss-crossing high overhead. Barely any light trickled down to where Gordon lay, pressed face-down on a hard surface, apparently in the basement of some building.
Wood creaked and groaned all around him; nails screeched as a board pulled loose and crashed to the ground nearby. Chunks of plaster plopped into the water, splashing Gordon.
The water was an inch deep already, and it was cold. The pipes in the building – which was a large, old house, Gordon remembered now – must have been damaged by the tornado, allowing the water to flow unchecked into the basement. It sounded like a waterfall, so it was probably coming from one of the upper floors.
"Okay," he muttered, trying to focus his thoughts. "I'm in the basement. The basement is flooding. I should probably get out of the basement at some point fairly soon."
He tried to push himself up, but fell back with a yelp and a splash, two things immediately registering in his mind – one, that his left wrist was either broken or sprained, and two, that there seemed to be an immovable weight across his back.
He lay still for a minute, waiting for the sharp pain in his wrist to subside and wondering how he hadn't noticed before that he was pinned in place. Whatever was on his back was so heavy that he couldn't even take a full breath of air.
"Okay, I guess it's not going to be that easy," he grumbled. "Time for Plan B – call for backup!" Gritting his teeth against the pain, he slid his left arm closer to his face.
Before he could speak, though, John's voice came over the radio, his tone urgent. "Gordon, what's your status? The guys need your help over at the Veterans' Home – they have a large number of people trapped, and the building is on fire!"
Gordon gave a small, silent sigh. So much for calling in the cavalry. "Sorry, John, I can't make it – I got myself stuck in a basement, and it could be a while before I can figure out how to climb out." If he couldn't help his brothers, he could at least keep from adding to their troubles.
John instantly went into big brother mode. "What? Are you okay? I guess I could send Alan or Virgil to help you out…"
"No, don't bother," Gordon cut in. "I'll be okay." The water rose over the face of the watch, and he grimaced, painfully lifting his arm a little higher. Hopefully John hadn't heard that. "I can wait until they're done with those other people."
"Well, okay, if you're sure," John said, his tone distracted. "Hey, gotta go!" He ended the call abruptly; apparently his attention was needed at the main rescue site.
The water was deep enough now that Gordon had to hold his head up to keep his mouth out of the water. He wedged his right hand under the side of his head to take the strain off his neck.
Okay, so with no brothers coming to the rescue, he would have to get himself out of his sticky situation on his own. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, narrowing his focus like he did before he swam, thinking through his objectives. What was his goal? To get out of the basement? No – that was too vague; his first priority had to be to escape the weight that was pinning him down and threatening to hold him under the rising water. It would take hard work, but he was used to working hard to achieve his goals.
With his mind set on a singular goal, he considered different approaches. He'd tried brute strength already, but he hadn't been expecting either the weight or the pain from his injured wrist, so it made sense to give that approach another chance.
Bracing himself, but carefully avoiding using his left arm, he pushed upward against the weight. Based on its shape, he would guess that it was a single large beam; it lay across his back from his left hip to his right shoulder. It rose slightly as he pressed against it, but then it shifted and dropped lower, driving him back to his stomach with a grunt. Scott and Virgil were going to have a fit over the beam-shaped bruises across his back, he thought wryly. Since he always took his shirt off for his daily swim, he had a hard time hiding injuries from his brothers.
Deciding that lifting the beam wouldn't work, Gordon tried to slide free, wiggling forward an inch at a time in a one-arm belly crawl. When that didn't work, he attempted to roll onto his side, but nails on the beam snagged his uniform and kept him from turning.
At the end of five minutes' struggle, the water was six inches deep and Gordon was no closer to getting free than when he had started. He noticed with some trepidation that if the water rose another few inches, he would no longer be able to keep his head above the surface.
He gritted his teeth. He was an Olympic gold medalist, for crying out loud! He absolutely refused to drown in less than a foot of water – although his indomitable sense of humor pointed out that that would make for quite an ironic newspaper headline.
In the worst case scenario, he thought, the water would eventually rise high enough to float the beam. The reason it was a worst case scenario, though, was that he would probably be holding his breath at that point – and he wasn't even entirely certain that the beam would float, since it was probably wedged in place by other debris.
He considered calling for help – he'd given escape a good try, after all. But then he shook his head. People might die if he called his brothers away from their rescue. He figured he had about ten minutes before he'd be completely under water; he'd keep working until he only had five minutes left. If he wasn't free by then, he'd see if one of his brothers was available to help.
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John sat back in his chair, frowning. The previous ten minutes had passed by in a flurry of activity that had driven his conversation with Gordon entirely from his mind. The situation at the Veterans' Home had been stabilized – residents were still trapped, but Scott, Virgil and Alan had put the fire out, significantly reducing the urgency of the evacuation.
With a few moments of free time, John's mind began to work of its own volition on things he'd barely noticed when speaking with his aquanaut brother – things that had given him a niggling sense of unease, but that he hadn't had time to get to the bottom of.
Hitting a button on the console before him, John played the conversation back. He'd been distracted before, but now every word his younger brother spoke clanged like a warning bell in John's mind – there was something off in Gordon's tone when he said that he was stuck in the basement, and he had spoken too quickly, clearly glossing over details. Then, when John had offered to send help, Gordon had again jumped in too quickly – and what was with the muffled, watery sound? Was that splashing in the background?
John hastily ran a scan of the rescue scene; a dot on his screen showed Gordon's tracker signal inside a large house, and a 3-D scan confirmed that his little brother was indeed in the basement...and…why was the basement registering as a body of water on his scanners?
"Gordon, come in," he called.
He frowned again – it sounded like the watch was underwater. He hit a button that would make the watch vibrate.
The response was a loud splash and then coughing. "John?" Stifled cough. "Uh, hi…how's it going?"
"Gordon, what's going on down there?" John demanded sharply. "My sensors are showing a lot of water in that basement. Are you okay?"
"Well…" Gordon hesitated, then sighed. "Can I change my mind about being rescued? I hate to pull any of the guys away from what they're doing, but I could definitely use a hand."
"Yeah, no problem," John said. "They put out the fire, so now it's just a normal evacuation. I'm sure I can get one of them to your location in less than ten minutes."
"Okay," Gordon said slowly. "Can you get them to hurry just a little bit? I figure I've got about five minutes left – and that's counting holding my breath for two minutes."
John sat up straight. "Five minutes? Gordon, what-? Never mind. I'm calling Scott now. Hang in there, Gords!"
He broke the connection and barked out, "Scott, come in!"
Scott took ten seconds to reply, which somehow felt like a lifetime. "John. What's up?"
John's words tumbled over one another. "Scott, get moving now toward that big house to your northwest – Gordon's in some kind of trouble, and he's only got four and a half minutes left!"
John heard feet pounding, and knew that his older brother was sprinting toward the shattered building.
Scott's voice was slightly choppy as he asked, "What happens in four and a half minutes?"
"I'm not sure," John admitted. "My scanners show water in the basement, and Gordon said something about holding his breath."
Scott growled, but didn't speak any more, instead picking up his pace.
It couldn't be an easy journey, John thought – the street was littered with debris from the tornado. He nervously drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, watching Scott's progress on the screen in front of him and keeping an eye on the time.
He waited until Scott was almost to the front door of the house before he spoke up again. "Three minutes, Scott. Be careful – my computer is saying there's an eighty-five percent chance that the entire structure will collapse at any time."
"It does look pretty bad," Scott agreed breathlessly. "Where's Gordon?"
John could hear the wood creaking as Scott stepped inside the house.
"Thirty feet dead ahead, and ten feet down," John said. "Can you see him?"
"I see the hole in the floor that he fell through. Hang on – the basement stairs are still intact. Wow, yeah, the pipes are totally sheared off over here. There's probably a foot of water in the basement so far."
Suddenly his voice sharpened. "Gordon! Hang on – I'm coming!"
There was a loud splash.
John felt a shiver ripple down his spine as he waited.
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Gordon saw the light from Scott's flashlight a moment before he heard his older brother's voice.
"About time," Gordon muttered.
He shoved himself a fraction of an inch higher, but the angle was extremely awkward, and a moment later, he had to let his head drop below the surface of the water. He rested underwater for a few seconds, knowing that the end had come – he would get one last gasp of air, and then he'd have to hold his breath either until Scott freed him or until he drowned.
Bracing his right arm as far underneath himself as he could, he lunged upward. As his head broke the surface, he heard Scott calling his name, but kept his focus on one thing: getting enough air to last a little while. He managed one deep breath before the water closed over his face once more; he let his body relax in order to conserve his limited supply of oxygen as long as possible, sinking slowly down to the bottom.
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Scott's pounding heart dropped into his stomach as his flashlight beam illuminated Gordon's face appearing briefly above the surface of the water for a moment before disappearing again. Scott shouted something – he wasn't even sure what he said – and plunged forward, tripping and splashing his way through the maze of debris.
He was at Gordon's side in seconds and crouching down to seize the massive wooden beam that pinned his brother down. He heaved with all of his might, but it only rose an inch before settling back down. "No!" he shouted. "John, I can't lift it!" he cried frantically. "Where are Virgil and Alan?"
Two large splashes sounded near the stairs. "Here, Scott," Virgil called. "What's going on? We saw you running and followed you."
Virgil and Alan plunged through the thigh-deep water to Scott's side.
"Gordon's under there," Scott shouted. "Help me with this beam!"
Identical expressions of horror crossing their faces, Virgil and Alan lunged forward and grabbed the beam just as Scott tried to lift it again.
Even with their combined effort, they could only to raise the beam a few inches. Muscles trembling with the effort, they held it in place, waiting for Gordon to surface.
"Where is he?" Alan panted. "Can he get out on his own?"
Scott scanned the dirty surface of the water, his panic mounting with each second that passed.
Then a head burst up from the water in their midst, and Scott felt Gordon's hand grab his leg as he pulled himself out from under the beam.
"I'm clear," Gordon sputtered. "You can let it go now!"
They dropped the beam; it fell with a tremendous splash, sending a small wave washing against their legs. An ominous creaking and groaning sounded from above. Scott shot Virgil a quick glance, and they each grabbed one of Gordon's arms and heaved him upright, making a dash for the stairs. Alan followed at their heels with the flashlight.
They stumbled up the steps and practically sprinted across to the front door, dragging Gordon along between them. As they leaped through the door, Alan crowding out with them, a loud crack reverberated through the house, and the entire structure dropped down a few inches – and then slowly crumbled into the basement with a roar that Scott could feel through his feet.
Scott and Virgil let go of Gordon, and he sank to his knees, gasping for breath, cradling his left arm close to his chest. He was shivering and a little blue.
Virgil produced a thermal blanket from his pack and draped it over Gordon's shoulders.
John's voice crackled over Scott's watch. "Are you guys okay?" he demanded. "What happened? How's Gordon?"
Scott turned on his watch's vid-comm function and pointed the tiny screen toward Gordon so John could see his younger brother. "We got him out just in time," he said grimly. He turned the watch back around and watched John heave a huge sigh of relief. Then, to his surprise, John's face reddened with anger.
"The idiot!" John exclaimed. "Gordon, what were you thinking? Scott, I talked to him fifteen minutes ago, and he said he didn't need your help – that he was okay! He didn't tell me he was trapped and about to drown!"
Gordon's pale cheeks flushed slightly, and he looked down at the ground. "Sorry, Johnny," he said. "I just figured that since the guys were busy with the fire at the Veterans' Home, I should try to get out on my own. I would've called someone in another minute."
"In another minute, you would have been dead," John snarled.
"I don't think it was that bad," Gordon muttered defensively. "I can hold my breath a long time, and the beam would have floated eventually."
John growled. "Scott, I can't do this right now. I'll talk to him later."
The screen went black.
Scott shook his head as he stared down at Gordon. "Really, Gordon? You weren't going to ask for help? He's right, you know – another minute, and it would have been too late. Even if you could have held your breath long enough, and if the beam floated, did you miss the fact that the whole house just collapsed?" He sighed, feeling weary as the rush of adrenaline left his system. "Gords, think of it this way – how would you feel if one of us had done that?"
Gordon rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, so it was stupid," he admitted. "But what would you have done if you had been in my place?" He raised his head and looked Scott in the eye, his expression defiant.
Scott opened his mouth to say that, of course, he would have called for help, but then he thought of the multiple victims trapped in the burning building, and he shut his mouth again. Would he have called for help, knowing that to do so would be to take his brothers away from saving other lives?
Virgil and Alan cast each other uncomfortable glances, clearly thinking along the same lines.
"Ha! See?" Gordon's voice was triumphant. "You guys would have done the same thing. If I'm an idiot, so are all of you!"
Scott sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose – he could feel a headache coming on. Little brothers sometimes had that effect. "All right, forget it. We'll discuss this later. Virg, take Houdini here back to Two and patch him up, will you? Alan and I will wrap things up at the Veterans' Home."
"FAB," Virgil replied.
Scott and Alan trotted back toward the main part of the danger zone.
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Gordon, dressed in a dry uniform and no longer shivering, sat on Two's exam table and watched as Virgil wrapped his sprained left wrist. He grimaced – the injury meant no real swimming for at least a week or two. Still, it was better than if he had broken a bone.
"How long can you hold your breath?" Virgil suddenly asked him. His face was calm, but his brown eyes were dark with suppressed emotions.
Gordon shrugged. "A couple minutes."
Virgil looked him in the eye. "So you're really not bothered by the fact that you almost drowned tonight?"
Gordon shrugged again, but the movement was slower this time as he considered the question. "Honestly, I had a few moments here and there when I thought things might get tricky, but as soon as John said he was calling Scott, I knew everything was going to be okay." He grinned.
Virgil snorted. "He couldn't lift the beam on his own, you know. If Alan and I hadn't followed him, this little adventure might've ended differently. It's not like Scott has super powers or anything."
"You sure about that?" Gordon asked in a hushed voice. "Sometimes I wonder…"
Virgil cuffed him lightly on the head. "Yes, I'm sure. I'm also sure that you'll never grow gills, so I'd appreciate it if you don't ever do this to us again. Okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, sure – I promise to call you the next time I'm trapped under a beam in the basement of a flooding house, even if you're busy saving veterans from a fiery death."
Virgil rolled his eyes and spoke into his watch. "Come in, Scott."
"Yeah, go ahead," Scott replied.
"Gordon's good – sprained wrist, a few bruises, mild concussion. Weird sense of humor fully intact. You need me for anything else, or should I take him home?"
"No, go ahead," Scott said. "We're just wrapping things up before we head out too – we'll probably still beat you home."
"All right, see you there," Virgil replied. "Over and out."
He headed toward the bridge, but paused in the doorway when Gordon started to follow him. "Stay put," he said sternly. "I want you to rest."
With a sigh, Gordon settled into one of the chairs, wondering how it was more restful to sit in the sickbay than in the cockpit.
They had just taken off when Gordon's watch buzzed. It startled him because it was on his right wrist instead of his left. He glanced down and saw John's face staring up at him from the tiny screen.
"Hey, Johnny!"
John watched him in silence for a moment before letting out a long sigh and rubbing a hand over his face. "Sorry for yelling, Gords," he muttered. "You sure know how to give a guy gray hairs, though."
Gordon shrugged. "Hey, it's one of my specialties. I promised Virgil I wouldn't do it again, though."
"Yeah, I heard," John said. "We might have to work on the parameters of that promise, but it's a start."
"Well, thanks for calling for help on my behalf," Gordon said. "That was good timing."
John shuddered. "Yeah, no kidding," he muttered. "Well, I'll see you in a bit."
"Oh, are you coming down?"
"Well, yeah – how else am I going to strangle you?"
"Hmm…I wonder if it's too late to ask Virgil to let me off in Hawaii?"
John laughed. "All right, how's this – I'll promise not to strangle you if you promise not to ever ever ever scare me like that again."
"Um, I'll try?" Gordon said.
"Good enough, I guess," John sighed. "Just remember, Gords – you can't rescue anyone if you're dead." He ended the call.
Gordon sat back in his seat, closing his eyes, suddenly very weary. He was glad he was okay, too – despite his automatically cheerful responses, it was gradually dawning on him just how close he had come to losing his life in that dark basement.
He forced himself to face the thought. Could he have done anything differently so that things hadn't been so close? What if when John had first called, he had admitted that he needed help? One of his brothers would certainly have come, and he wouldn't have nearly drowned…but maybe that would have led to the Veterans' Home burning down, taking multiple lives with it. Could he have lived with that consequence? He didn't know.
On the other hand, what if he had died? They had never really talked about it – it was kind of a taboo subject – but he suspected that if any of them died, International Rescue would cease to exist. And as John had said, he couldn't rescue anyone if he was dead.
Would he have done anything differently? He sighed and admitted to himself – no. Even though his death might mean the end of International Rescue, he refused to put his own needs before saving the lives of other people.
It was a strange thought, and not something he cared much to dwell on – honestly, it sounded a little too lofty, like he was trying to be heroic or something. He preferred to think of it as a natural response to the beliefs and morals instilled in him by his parents and family members. He firmly believed that each of his brothers would respond in the same way, too, as much as they might scold one another for taking risks.
He raised his watch to his lips. "Johnny? I don't think I can keep that promise," he said softly.
John's face appeared. His eyes looked sad. "I know," he said. "Just give it your best effort, okay?"
"Yeah," Gordon said.
They sat in silence for a long moment before Gordon decided it was time to lighten things up.
"So do you think it would be a bad idea for me to prank Scotty with the Dead Man's Float tomorrow?" he asked.
John nearly choked in his indignation. He got his voice back after a moment. "Gordon, if you try the Dead Man's Float any time in the next six months, I'll…I'll paint stars all over Thunderbird Four!"
"Hmm, that'd be interesting," Gordon mused. "I suppose it might be good nighttime camouflage."
John sighed. "You are incorrigible."
"What, like cardboard?"
"No, that's 'corrugated.' Haven't you ever read the dictionary?"
"Uh, hate to break it to you, Johnny, but most people use the dictionary for occasional reference. You're not supposed to read it like a novel."
"Yeah, yeah," John said. "Make fun of me if you want, but my large vocabulary has come in handy plenty of times! Oh, hey, Thunderbird Three's on final approach. I'll talk to you in a little bit!"
"Later, gator!" Gordon replied.
This time, when he closed his eyes, he had a smile on his face. He might have to come back and think about the events of this day again later, but for now, it was enough to be going home, where he was surrounded by his family.
Hmm…stars on Thunderbird Four. Was it worth it? He smirked. Yes, yes it was.