Open Your Eyes
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the Thunderbirds universe they are the property of their creator and the only characters I do own are any OC's that might appear in this story. As with any other story that I write on this site I make no money and no copyright is infringed.
Summary: It has only been a few days since the tragedy that took Lucille Tracy from her family. Little Alan has been rescued but he had yet to wake up and his family does not want to leave his side until he does.
The machines continued to beep beside the bed that contained a small human shape of a boy, a boy who had survived the avalanche that had taken his mother, his father and older brothers constantly at this side as they waited for the moment when the baby of their family would open his eyes.
For days the child had lain silent, unmoving, the only sound, the beeping of the machines which were keeping the boy alive. At his side his father sat in deep thought, alone, having sent his other boys back to the hotel that they had been staying in since the avalanche and for the days of waiting, waiting for their baby to awaken.
Jeff Tracy leaned back in the hard hospital chair, uncomfortable, having sat in the chair for hours but nothing would make him move, nothing until his little boy opened his baby blue eyes. No matter how long it took, he was going to remain by his baby's side, keeping watch making sure that the boy still lived. His heart was heavy with pain for although the baby of their family lived his beloved Lucy was gone, dead and frozen to death, beneath the cold hard packed snow that had taken her life.
After his son had been rushed to the hospital with himself and his other sons following closely behind, the rescuers had gone back to the area where Jake and the dog had found the dead mother and her child and they had retrieved Lucy's body from its frozen tomb.
The sound of slight movement from the doorway had Jeff looking up to see one of the nurses enter and go about her job, checking the equipment that making the difference between one funeral or two, her eyes and hand hovering over the heart monitor.
The soft beeping of the heart monitor the only sound that seemed to register in his tired mind as he watched the nurse do her calculations and checks, before nodding half to herself and half to the wary father sitting in the chair next to the bed.
He could see the concern in her eye not for his son but for him, and the unuttered question in her mind of why he did not go home and get some rest, he knew that by staying here that he would probably make himself ill and therefore be of no use to his boys especially the one in the bed next to him but he just couldn't leave him, he was the only parent the boy had left and he had to be here for when Alan woke up, he just had to.
The nurse, smiled sadly as she left the room, knowing the man in the room would not leave the small boy that he stood guard next to, like a lion guarding it's young cub, regardless of the pleas of the medical staff or that of the other young boys to whom he was a father. She knew something had to be done about it, but it was not her place to say anything and she was not sure if anything was said if he would in fact go back to the hotel and rest.
XxX
An elderly but smartly dressed lady stood on the sidewalk, looking grimly at the hotel that stood in front of her, she had travelled a long way to be standing here at an urgent call from one of her family and although she was desperate to see her family, she needed a moment to catch her bearings.
She was still in shock at the events of the last few days that had taken her beloved daughter-in-law from her, and left her husband without a wife, and her grandchildren, motherless.
Taking a deep and meditative breathe, Ruth Tracy picked up her small suitcase and made her way into the lobby of the hotel, there were still many people staying there since the avalanche although that number had declined somewhat with people going home. However, for a few who had family still in the hospital or were waiting for news that their loved ones had been located even though the official rescue efforts had now been basically stopped, they still stayed on if only for the very small chance that someone might yet still be found even though it had been a week now since that terrible event.
"Can I help mam?"
"Yes I need a room and also can you tell me where Jeff Tracy and his sons are staying?"
The man behind the counter looked at the dominative lady standing in front of the front desk and although she looked to him like someone's grandma, he knew that was probably unlikely considering the number of reporters who had tried to get up to see the Tracy family in the last few days, especially when they found out that only the boys were at the hotel at the moment and the father was at the hospital.
"I can book a room for you certainly but as for the Tracy family, that is something I cannot and will not tell you."
Ruth Tracy stiffened her shoulders and was about to answer the young man in front of her, she could understand his reticence in telling her which room her family was in and also that he was only doing his job but nothing was going to keep her from her grandchildren.
However before she could say anything to him a voice piped up behind her.
"Grandma?"
Ruth turned to see her middle grandson standing behind her, looking tearful but happy to see her, kneeling down she held her arms out to him, smiling although her eyes looked sad. Virgil launched himself into his grandmother's arms, clutching tightly to her.
Clutching each other tightly, they were unaware of those around them who had stopped momentarily what they were doing, mostly to watch the elderly lady and young boy holding each other, all except one, a reporter who had been hanging around the hotel hoping to catch a glimpse of either Jeff Tracy or even better one of his sons and now he had what he knew would be a money making picture of the billionaires grieving mother and grandmother to one of the boys she now held tightly.
"Mam?"
Ruth looked up to the young man she had been addressing when she had been interrupted by her grandson peering down at her from his position on the other side of the front desk.
"I think it might be best for you to take your grandson back to the room that his father booked and I have booked the room immediately next door."
The receptionist had caught the flash of the reporters camera go off in the corner of his eye and he knew that he had to get the lady and the young boy moving out of the lobby and back to the privacy of the room the boys were in. He would do his best to deal with the parasite and his camera as soon as he could and he nodded towards two of the porters at the side of the lobby, one coming forward to help Mrs Tracy and the other he made a discreet nod towards where he could see the reported trying to make a discreet exit, the other porter caught his look, nodding his understanding as followed the man out of the hotel.
XxX
Scott looked up as the door to the room opened, he had expected to see his brother Virgil, whom had gone to get some fresh air but instead he saw his grandmother at the door, which had the young lad flinging himself off the bed and towards her outstretched arms. Pleased more than anything to see his grandmother.
"Grandmother, I thought you wouldn't be here for at least another day," he cried.
Ruth hugged her eldest grandchild, pleased that at last she was here with her boys, she had been so worried about them and especially their father, who she could see was not in the room. On the bed she could see her other two grandsons curled up together on the bed.
Gordon was half on and half off his older brother John's chest as both lads slumbered and she smiled as she saw Virgil walk over to them and pull a blanket more over the two and he perched on the edge of the bed as she came further into the room, her arm still around Scott.
"Where is your father?" she asked the boys.
"He's at the hospital with Alan, hasn't left there since the kid was found. We've been in a few times but there is nothing we can do but sit there and wait for Allie to open his eyes, so dad told us to come back here and stay in the room, to not go out because of the reporters but we want to see Allie. So that he knows that we are there for him and are desperate for him to wake up."
An almost tearful Scott told his grandmother. He felt his grandmother pull him closer when she sat on the only chair in the room pulling the lad onto her lap. Scott leaned in close to her, feeling safe in her arms even thou he knew he should be strong but he just felt like feeling like a kid his age should be feeling. If only for a little while before he took back the mantle of responsibility for his brothers again.
XxX
The sound of the machine still beating was a sound that Jeff Tracy thought he would never get use to or forget as he awoke from the sleep he had deeply immersed in. He jolted awake, reaching forward to check on his baby but Allie still slept as if the sleep of the dead, Jeff closed his eyes briefly as he prayed that his baby would open his eyes and soon.
A sound of a footstep near the door had him moving his eyes from his still silent son and he gasped as he spotted his mother by the door, he quickly moved from the chair that he had spent the last few days in and embraced his mother, a sob breaking from his mouth as he grasped the woman who gave him life.
Ruth held her son tightly in her arms as he sobbed, although Jeff was a grown man and father himself, he would always be her little boy, her baby and it was with all her love pouring in to him that she held him. They would make quite a bit of money for any reporter who caught them like this she knew, the great Jeff Tracey blubbering like a baby in his mother's arms but she did not care, in fact if any tried it, she herself would knock them out. She may be an elderly lady now she thought to herself and seem harmless but woe betides anyone who harmed her family, she thought to herself.
They stayed as they were for a few moments longer until she felt her son's sobs begin to lessen and he got control of himself again. She led back over to the chair he had been sitting in, half asleep and pushed him back into it, she could see the exhaustion that was radiating off her son and she knew that she had arrived at just the right time to get him to get some much needed sleep and rest.
XxX
Ruth sat and watched her grandson after she had managed to get her son Jeff, finally to return to the hotel for some much needed rest and food. Plus also she thought to herself hopefully he will have a shower as he had certainly needed one, after spending the last few days at his baby's side.
She watched with the patience of a wise old owl, her fingers in movement as she continued with the jumper she had been making for him prior to the family coming away on what would be their last holiday together, not that anyone would have known at the time and had they known she would have done everything that she humanely could have to stop them.
She thought of her late daughter-in-law, Lucy, it was hard to do without a tear or two coming to her eyes, she knew not what her son would do now, with the running of his company and to now having to be not just a father but now a mother to his five boys.
The thought that the baby of the family was not going to make it was one that she refused to entertain even though the logical part of her being knew that with everything they had been told that it was unlikely that little Allie would ever open his eyes but she always believed that the power of love and her family had lots of it, would bring their baby back to them. Just as she knew that it had been his mother's love that had kept the little one alive while they waited for rescue.
She had heard some of how Allie had been found and the mysteriousness behind it, for it did not to her seem to be of this world, how the little one had been found, the rescuer, an experienced rescuer, she thought to herself had gone against all his trainings and instinct to bring the boy in when he had found him instead of going back for help, it had been his words of a mysterious force that seemed to make him do it, that she knew without a doubt that it had been Lucy. Even though everyone else had thought it was just a miracle, she knew that miracle was Lucy even if no one else thought it but in time she felt they would or at least Jeff would, once some time had passed and he had come to accept his wife's death more.
The sound of the machine beeping a little faster, as if in alarm, had Ruth reaching towards the bed and the call button for the nurse. The woman running in not long after the button had been pressed and also the doctor just behind her.
"What is happening?" Ruth asked them, concerned, as both the doctor and nurse started to check the other machines surrounding her grandson.
"Mother?"
Ruth turned to see her son and grandsons at the door, looking in fearfully at the commotion going on in the room as the beeping got louder. The doctor noticed them there but he carried on with what he was doing, nodding quickly at the nurse who turned from the bed and tried to remove Ruth from the room along with the rest of the family.
"Please, we need to leave while we deal with this."
"Deal with what?"
The nurse glanced back to the bed before saying.
"He's waking up."
A/N: This was going to be a one shot but instead it has taken on a life of it's own and so there will be at least a second chapter.