Summary: Does Scott Tracy's prediction at the end of "Projected Losses" come true?

Author's Note: This is a sequel (er…obviously) to my story "Projected Losses." Rated for language and hints of sexuality (the horror).

TIDINGS OF COMFORT AND JOY

So bring him incense, gold and myrrh. Come peasant, king to own him. The King of kings salvation brings, let loving arms enfold him.

He turned as the door opened and smiled as he watched her walk in. Snow lingered on her hat and coat. It melted on her nose and clung to her eyelashes.

This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing.

She dropped her purse by the door and smiled as her hat and coat fell to the floor.

Haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary.

The music played softly in the background amid shadows cast by the twinkling lights of their first Christmas tree together as husband and wife. A star shone from the top and beneath its sweet-smelling boughs lay gifts stacked three and four high.

What child is this, who laid to rest on Mary's lap is sleeping?

He rose to his feet as she entered the room, her hair shining in the lights, her eyes sparkling because they loved him. That look, he knew, was his alone.

Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping.

He gathered her in his arms. "Well," he whispered into her ear. "What did the doctor say?"

She leaned back, and like the age-old tale told the world 'round, her face seemed to be glowing. "You're going to be a daddy," she said.

This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing. Haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary.

He enveloped her in his arms. "Oh, God," he said, fighting the emotions building inside. "Lucy." Then he leaned back again to look into her eyes. But it wasn't Lucy this time. It was...

"Jenny!" he cried, sitting bolt upright in bed. He looked around wildly, half expecting to find himself in her home in Kansas. But of course he wasn't there at all. He was in a suite in Manhattan. His bedroom door was thrown open, startling him.

"Dad?"

"What?"

The light was flipped on and there stood Scott, clad only in boxers, hair sticking out at all angles. "Jesus, Dad, what the hell happened?"

"What do you mean?"

Scott looked meaningfully at his bed. When Jeff looked down, he realized it was in a state of utter chaos. The comforter, sheets, blanket and pillows were everywhere, mostly on the floor. The mattress pad and sheet beneath him were soaked and he grimaced when he realized he was sweating profusely.

"Another nightmare?"

"I guess so," Jeff sighed, swiping at his forehead with his arm as he swung his legs out over the side of the bed.

"Dad, let me call the maid, we'll get you some clean sheets."

"No, son, don't worry about it." Jeff looked at the bedside clock. It read five a.m. "I doubt I'll be getting any more sleep anyway."

"You were dreaming about her again, weren't you?" Scott asked, perching on the edge of the room's one large overstuffed chair. "About Jenny North."

Jeff cast a sharp glance in his son's direction, fully prepared to tell him to butt out. But when he saw the concerned look on Scott's face, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Scott cared about him, that was all. "Yes, about her. And about your mother."

"About Mom? Really?"

Jeff knew he had Scott's full attention now. "Yeah. About the time she came home right before Christmas and told me she was pregnant with you. At least, that's what I thought at first."

"Dad, she would've found out about me long before Christmas."

"I know. It wasn't really her. It looked like her when she came in the door, but then later it turned out to be..."

"Jenny." Jeff nodded. "Jenny telling you she was pregnant." He nodded again. "With your child." Jeff nodded a third time. "Wow."

"I know." Jeff sighed again as he pushed himself to his feet. "Oh, well. Guess I'd better get in the shower before I drive the birds away."

Scott cracked a smile at the familiar use of his grandmother's saying and watched his father enter the master bathroom. Leaning back in the chair, he contemplated how much his father had changed since what he and his brothers had come to call The Jenny Incident. Jeff had been pretty tight-lipped about it while awake, but on occasion Scott had heard him call her name in the middle of the night when they were traveling together. He'd also caught him staring out over the ocean when he thought no one was looking, or gazing up into the night sky, probably wondering where she was and what she was doing.

There was no doubt about it. Their father had been hit by Cupid's arrow but good where Jennifer North was concerned. Of course, that wasn't her name any longer – none of them knew what it was. But even now, nearly a full year after Jenny had entered Jeff's life and walked out of it only two days later, everyone in the family could see how deeply she'd affected him. They'd talked about it amongst themselves, and they all felt bad for him. In fact, nobody understood it more than Jeff's sons, for each of them, at some point in their lives, had felt the same way about someone as their dad obviously felt about Jenny.

But there really wasn't anything to be done about it. With the Hood still at large, Jenny would never be safe being herself, nor would she be safe around the Tracys. The Hood would be looking for her wherever they went, knowing of Jeff's feelings as he did. Yes, his dad had even confessed that to him one night. Oh, not that he had the feelings, of course. Just that the Hood had said he did. It made things dangerous for both Jeff and Jenny. And then, of course, there was all the rooting out they'd been doing. Over the past year, they'd found no less than twenty-three employees the Hood had planted. It hadn't been easy finding them, but each had been dealt with according to their situation, and Scott felt good about how much they'd accomplished in that arena.

But the project...well, that was the one down side to everything. They were so busy trying to get rid of the Hood's spies...and rescues around the world had increased almost exponentially...that they'd had little time to take Jenny's place on either the Moon Colony or Long Range Space Exploration projects. Scott, John and Alan had been working as much as possible with the team Jenny had assembled, but over the year they'd dropped off one by one, citing loss of interest or lack of cohesion. Without someone there full-time to keep it all together, the Moon Colony and LRSE projects were quickly becoming terms that were persona non grata in the hallowed halls of Tracy Corporation.

Even with six Tracys, they couldn't do it all. Most of the rescues took all five of Jeff's sons, now that Thunderbird Five was completely automated, with him on Base having to keep up with regular daily Corp paperwork and International Rescue business. Keeping tabs on, and in contact with, all of IR's agents was a task in and of itself. Jeff had delegated most of that to Penny, much to everyone's relief, but it still left the core of the work for both organizations to Jeff and Scott. Gordon had half-jokingly stated he was certain the world must be about to end because the sheer number of disasters, both natural and man-made, had increased by 432 over the past eleven months. That meant the boys were gone for days at a time, if not on duty, then traveling with their dad to investigate possible spies within the company.

As it was, Scott had been hard-pressed to leave Tracy Island this time around. But his father had needed him for this particular trip, and Scott felt responsible for supporting his dad, especially as the holidays drew near. Thanksgiving was approaching, and he knew Jeff wanted this latest business taken care of before the end of the month. They'd found what they suspected to be one more spy, who had a home on the eastern end of Long Island where he spent the weekends. But during the week, he was a Tracy Corp employee, one of the accountants in their Manhattan office. So Jeff and Scott were off once again to root out the bad guy and try like hell to keep their company's...and family's...secrets safe.

It was Saturday morning. Today they'd be traveling out to Greenport, on the North Fork of eastern Long Island, to pay a surprise visit to Howie Michener. The man was nearing retirement, and had a wife and six grandkids to spoil. Jeff and Scott had talked it over, and neither had any doubt that a few low-key threats would make Michener crack like an egg. They planned on being away from home no more than three days, max. By Monday, Jeff had felt, they'd have plugged this leak for good.

But as the sounds of the shower came his way, Scott wondered how much longer things could go on like this. Every one of them was burning the candle at both ends, and it was showing in their response times and on their faces. Gordon was rarely animated any more, and Alan never started fights, which was more than a little unusual. Virgil was too tired to ever play the piano, and John spent most of his time in his room sleeping when he wasn't working on business. And then there was the maintenance on the Thunderbirds. Brains and Tin-Tin had been working overtime to cover what the Tracy sons could not due to being gone so much.

Scott knew something had to give somewhere. Almost every IR agent was keeping their ear to the ground for the Hood, who hadn't shown his face since Virgil had shot him in Kansas. Thorough searches throughout a two hundred mile radius from the sight had turned up no trace of the master criminal. He'd slipped through their fingers like sand, and Scott had an idea his father had been kicking himself every day since that one, eleven months and three weeks ago. In whatever time he could make, Jeff was constantly trying to follow up leads with Penny or one of the other agents, but as time had passed, Scott guessed his dad had realized how futile his attempts were going to be.

And he knew why Jeff was so hell-bent on capturing the Hood. But there simply wasn't time to do it all. Scott had even talked with his brothers about the need for bringing on fresh blood. Eventually, they all knew they'd have to disband sooner or later. Scott and Virg were both already feeling the tug of time, and the fact that they'd not yet had a chance to start families of their own. John had started longing to be part of things in the outside world, and Gordon had even been overheard talking about WASP again. Alan had all but given up racing. There just weren't enough hours in a day. And Jeff...well, he and his brothers had reasoned, Jeff had put in his time, from the time he'd joined the Air Force at 18 through to now, Jeff Tracy had worked like a sonofabitch. Maybe it was time he got a chance to enjoy life rather than being chained to a desk and a secret organization 'til his dying day.

Yes, Scott thought as he rose to his feet, things had to change. How or when, none of them knew. But if they didn't change soon, Scott didn't know how much longer his family could keep on this way. Most of the world viewed the men of International Rescue as supermen. But in reality they were flesh-and-blood people who had dedicated themselves to an idea and a way of life. A way of life that was becoming harder and harder to keep up with.

"Maybe it is time for fresh blood," Scott said softly as he left his dad's room. "Maybe we no longer have a choice."

It was nearly eight a.m. when the limousine hit the small coastal town of Greenport, Long Island. Scott remembered when Long Island had gained independence as its own state, separate from New York. It had been nearly four years now, and the new state was thriving, beating every negative opinion about the move that had ever been made public. So much so that the island of Manhattan was itself considering a separation. Scott nearly laughed out loud. That fight had been going on for over six months and had all of New York in an uproar. For their part, it didn't matter to the Tracys one way or another. They'd do well whether their headquarters was in the state of New York or the state of Manhattan.

As they drove along the quaint town's main street, Jeff watched the early morning joggers with or without their dogs, as their breath puffed in the chilly Atlantic air. The gray ocean was in stark contrast to the brilliant blues of hisisland, but there was something about the eastern seaboard that Jeff always found refreshing. The nip in the air, the smell of fish, the threat of storm clouds and the salty sting in your nose reminded him of the old sailor stories he'd heard in his youth. Salty old seamen who spent weeks on the unforgiving Atlantic in boats Jeff himself wouldn't be caught dead on out there nowadays. Striving to catch enough fish to feed their families for the year, tales of accidents and unfaithfulness, of lovesick wives standing on the shores day in and day out watching for their menfolk to return.

The East Coast held hundreds upon hundreds of years of history in its berth. Jeff felt a connection with it, personifying the United States of America, the country's struggle for freedom and independence, and the birth of a nation. Things had been new and fresh for the people who settled here, and the history books were full of the exciting stories that Jeff had loved as a young man. Excitement and adventure, those were the days, he thought. Now, however, though he still loved the historical aspects of such tales, he wasn't feeling as keen to be a part of the adventure as he once had.

He supposed he could chalk it up to old age. Whatever happened to the old man sitting in his living room with grandkids playing at his feet? Looking up to find his wife of many years smiling fondly down as he regaled the tots with stories of flying through the air, of landing on the Moon, of the feats of Thunderbirds One through Five. You are getting old, Jeff Tracy. Yes, that must be it. He was sixty-six now, which was only four years away from seventy. Hell, his mother was already ninety-five and still as spunky as ever, so it wasn't longevity that concerned Jeff. It was life itself. When was the last time he'd sat out on the beach just to watch the sun set in a blaze of glory? When was the last time he'd enjoyed a lazy day in bed? When was the last time he'd just sat down on a cold night with a cup of hot cocoa-?

He closed his eyes. He knew damn well what the answer to that last one was. Sighing, he rubbed his eyes wearily as the limousine pulled to a stop at a house nestled among the dunes right on the beach. Scott placed a hand on his arm. "We're here, Father."

"Yes, I see that," Jeff replied. "Got the paperwork?"

"Right here," Scott said, patting the briefcase on the seat between them.

"Okay. Let's go, then."

The two men exited the limo and walked up the driveway to the home's front door. Jeff rang the bell, but there was no answer. "Maybe he's not up yet," he suggested. After a few seconds, Scott knocked on the door, but again, no one answered. "Are you sure he's here?"

"Agent Twelve reported in this morning. Said Michener and his wife came home at around six-thirty last night and hadn't left the house since."

Frowning, Jeff tried to peer through one of the front windows, but its blinds were drawn and he couldn't see in. "Try his number," he said, going for a look through a second window. What he saw made him pale. "Forget that," he said to Scott. "Call the police."

"What?" Scott asked, cutting the cell line he'd opened. He walked up next to his father and nearly dropped the briefcase. "Oh, shit."

"Exactly. Call 911 now."

Scott nodded and dialed the number on his phone. Within moments, he'd been connected. But Jeff heard nothing except the sound of the surf not a hundred yards from the house. He couldn't take his eyes off the two dead bodies inside. Nor the pool of blood so obvious beneath them. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He backed away from the house, eyes darting everywhere at once. Scott was still on with the dispatcher, but he grabbed his arm and pulled him backwards with him.

"Dad?" Scott asked as he hung up the phone. "What is it?"

"I don't know," Jeff said, still looking in every direction. "I don't know, but we have to go."

"We can't, I just called the cops!"

"I know, but...we have to go, son. Something's not right here."

Scott frowned. His father was acting very, very odd. Still, he supposed they could call the local police later and come up with some sort of explanation for not staying at the scene. Then again, Scott thought, he hadn't given them his name. They would never know he and his father had been here. But only if they high-tailed it out of here now. Scott nodded at his father and the two hurried back up the driveway and into the waiting limousine.

"Where to, Mr. Tracy?"

"Main Street," Jeff replied. "And fast."