The author wishes to express thanks to anyone who may read his story and encourages them to leave reviews, comments or even flame it hard. As with any who try their hand at publicly expressing an idea or story concept, all feedback is important and welcome.
Disclaimer: I do not own Thunderbirds, nor any other sci-fi or fantasy series, movies, comics, cartoons or news items used in this fiction as they belong to the creators or broadcasters or publishers who put them out for consumption by the public.
Thunderbirds
ABSTRACT
Things on Tracy Island are not the tropical paradise the public was made to believe, and Jeff was never much of a father to begin with, dominating and exploiting his sons like a guru in a sect. Now, at the end of the school year 14 year old Alan is coming back to reunite with his family. But what about the events from January? What about the fire at McVeigh Academy in the chemistry lab that he was accused of starting? Jefferson's reaction at the time was not anywhere near nice and understanding, Tracy's not being known for their patience. What about the injuries Alan suffered? Will it be the same son that comes or will something harder, less tolerant, less amicable come to the shores of Jefferson's sectarian utopia?
Anti-IR; plentiful bashings of Jefferson, Grant, Ruth, Penelope, adult Bellegants. !survivor Hiram and !damaged !abused Tracy brothers.
This story takes place in a world that combines the elements of Thunderbirds 1964, Thunderbirds are go 2015 and Thunderbirds 2004 live movie. I know there is a long series of comics written but I never saw one and have no idea what canon they contain so I won't be taking those into account.
IMPORTANT: for the purpose of keeping this story logical and relevant, I will use the original names of the Bellegant family meaning Onaha (mother), Kyrano (father) Tanusha / Tin-Tin / Kayo (daughter) and Trangh (Uncle / The Hood). Brains is married but his wife disappeared & presumed murdered while his son Fermat is 2 years younger than Alan.
This story is Alternate Universe, most characters are OOC. Grandma Ruth Hardale Tracy is less active than in TAG 2015 but more than the movie or original series (that's easy to do!). The Hood is even more ambiguous and clouded in ethereous mists of chaos. Alan and Tanusha are solidifying their burgeoning relationship against all odds, especially Alan's age and objections of his family.
Grant Hugh Tracy, age 82 (deceased at 73)
Ruth Hardale Tracy, age78
Jefferson Tracy, age 63
Lucille Evans Tracy, age 53 (deceased at 42)
Scott Carpenter Tracy, age 25
John Glenn Tracy, age 23
Virgil Grissom Tracy, age 21
Gordon Cooper Tracy, age 19
Alan Sheppard Tracy, age 14
Hiram Jebediah Hackenbacker, age 36
Audrey Evelyne Hackenbacker, age 39 (presumed murdered at 28)
Fermat Peter Hackenbacker, age 12
Trangh (The Hood) Bellegant, age 52
Kyrano Bellegant, age 55
Onaha Bellegant, age 48
Tanusha (Kayo / Tin-Tin) Bellegant, age 19
The Honorable Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, age 29 (British MI6 spy)
Aloysius Parker, age 57
PS; I like flames, they're fun to read so don't hesitate to write them.
WARNING; the language level of this one is not too particularly trashy when we consider a story based on ex-cons, ex-military men, high risk situations and rescue specialists dealing with everybody's crap and messes on top of their own. Also, it was series canon that the entire Tracy household swore like drunken sailors on an hourly basis. They cleaned up the language a whole lot more than spic-&-span in the 2004 movie and 2015 series. Remember the internal joke that the "all clear" call phrase "FAB" actually spells out "Fuck It All, Boys!" because of how often Jefferson was absolutely livid with rage at all five sons at the same time. It was transformed as a familial joke to tell each other that if Dad was able to get angry to scold or punish, then they were all healthy and doing fine at whatever was happening as Jeff had always told them "Rescue first, heal second then order the House after everything else is done and packed away."
However, as I always warn people who read my work: this language was pretty much normal in the school yard 30 years ago when I was a teenager. So, how can you have such a thin skin and be part of the same culture on the same continent if this is really that offensive to you? Where did you spend the last few decades, if you can't take a few hard words from the mouths of kids when these words have been around since before World War I?
LOST VOICE chapter 1
Prayers of Contrition
(Thunderbirds are go! – opening theme)
Friday 25th of June, 2060; 16:37pm
Tracy Island, office of Jefferson Tracy
North of the Australian coastline
Jefferson Tracy sat in his office, half sunk into the sinfully plush cushions of the massive executive chair that his sons had playfully dubbed the 'Throne of International Rescue's Tyrant' in one of the earlier days of the operation's first year online. How he missed those days and the carefree attitude, the positive energy and drive to excel just to help save and heal others without thinking about rewards, publicity or security.
"How times have changed, my poor Lucille. How I have botched and destroyed all that we built in our married life and afterwards." he thought in melancholy as he gazed longingly at his dead wife's solo portrait. It was taken when Alan had been only a year old. Even after giving birth to five boys she had always slimmed back to her original figure, just as he had met her when she had just left University for her first full-time job.
How she managed to lose weight after Virgil came out had always been a mystery. Hiram had once joked with him in secret that this incredible feat of human self-expansion and industry was his inspiration for the POD auto-assembly gantry in the drop-module of Thunderbird 2 and the factory-hangars beneath the house. Them having the first four boys in close succession might have inspired Jeff with designs for the rails and dock-mules that moved the chain of Modules during Two's equipment phase pre-mission. Needless to say Hiram and him would NEVER have told Lucille that tidbit when she was alive; both men remembered her temper and valued their lives quite a lot. She would have FAB'ed them both in a wild way if she had known!
How his Beloved had survived carrying Alan well passed the safe period for birthing without the caesarian section that had been recommended was an even greater mystery. That she actually recovered from the health troubles of the difficult gestation and eventful birth was a miracle in all their minds. They weren't even sure Alan would make it out alive until he screamed in the nurse's hands while she was cleaning him from all the fluids.
Following a suspicious avalanche three years after the boy's birth Lucille died and Alan was hospitalized, grievously injured and deeply comatose for three months. All the family changed. They had needed months of patience after his return as doing physiotherapy on a damaged three years old isn't mechanically easy in any form. That he was mute for almost a full year after he awoke in the pediatric ICU made them all wonder if the coma had made him less, had rendered him defective in some way. The infant had been suffering emotional trauma of a deep, abiding kind that only Jeff could have really related with, but that realization came far too late to be of any help. Especially to Alan, poor innocent child.
It hadn't been a good change at all.
After eleven years passed crawling blindly in the dark underbelly of his own rage like a rabid maggot chewing through a gangrenous carcass, despondent and, yes he could now admit it, depressive on a clinical scale, he finally saw the light at the end of the long tunnel of pain for himself and his sons. For four of them at least. Again, little Alan wouldn't been so fortunate.
Jefferson let the tears of shame and misery flow down his face unhindered.
It was too late for them now.
His Household lay broken in shameful pieces, each one warped by his deeds and uncontrolled emotions that as father and adult he should have reigned in well over a decade ago. Now it was time to pay the Butcher his due; he came bearing the Bleeding Meats he cut in a satchel at his shoulder, his Unmerciful Bill in one hand, his Baneful Cleaver in the other. Jefferson feared he could not afford what he owed and his sons would end up paying his Debt of Bloodied Shame for him, again worsening his unworthiness and justifying the decisions he knew were going to tear the Tracy Name and International Rescue apart at the seams like old sailcloth worn out by the elements at sea.
Jeff leaned forward, placing his elbows on his desk so he could join his hands in desperate prayer, giving in to the yawning pit of hopelessness that opened inside of him three days ago when the letters came in by their private courier service: namely Gordon having done a flight to New York and back.
"Forgive me, Holy Father, for I have sinned against the Flesh born of my flesh and sullied a Pure Soul repeatedly against all Justice and Law. Betrayed mine own Blood and Creed, I have. Sundered my Bounded Oaths, I have time and again. On me this shame goeth. On me, the burden to bear, it is. Please, if they have earned any mercy from Thee, spare my children further sorrow from my hands and mouth. Thank you, Jesus our God, our Savior and Guide. Amen."
There was no answer to his prayer, however faithfully delivered it was. No amount of faith, belief or repentance would change the course of History any longer.
The evening would bring news towards the island home of the Tracy clan, and none of it would be good. Even with the homecoming of all their kin and extended members, the storm clouds were already gathered and he could hear the thunder in the far, out at sea.
A maelstrom was coming.
Not physically or elementally, no. It was not Nature throwing her vengeful clouds, rains and winds at them this time. It wasn't a mere tropical depression they could ignore by battening the hatches and retreating to the underground hangars to work or play until the sun was back out tomorrow afternoon. If only it were such a simple precipitation that came on the horizon, he could smile at it and endure until the next dawn as he always had, even through the deaths of his three older brothers, his father and his beloved wife Lucille.
Not anymore.
Through the opening of the wide panoramic sliding doors that lead from the office unto the massive terrace, this sector closed in by a hedge to have some privacy from the kids when he had a migraine or extra hard hit of depression, he could hear a welcome noise. The very particular and distinctive sounds of FAB-1, his friend and ally's pink monster on wheels. It had finished its approach run and was now coming down from flight mode, the whine of the OmniVek thrusters dimming and wings retracting back inside as the car returned to its more ordinary roadway configuration.
Thankfully he still had about thirty minutes to pull himself together before they walked up to the house from the publicly visible lower landing strip and hangars where he had asked Parker to place the car whenever they came for a visit.
Flying cars were still not a banal occasion, even in the lives of the Tracy's and her Ladyship's arrival was sure to draw a crowd. Especially since she was carrying precious cargo on this run; Alan and Fermat were coming home from boarding school at Wharton's Academy in Massachusetts on the American eastern seaboard. Penny had quite kindly accepted to pick them up for transport to the island since she had a mandated (MI-6) flight to Washington DC anyways before coming for a week in the sun for her own vacations.
Alan, his poor beleaguered, mistreated son who suffered so at his hands.
He had already received the school's report on Alan by email and a much more voluminous paper version in the batch Gordon brought back with him. None of the others knew yet as he had opted to give the young teenager some well deserved time to arrive home and settle into his seldom used accommodation. God knew the boy was always given poor welcome when he came; the least that could be done today was let him arrive in peace before the circus macabre began.
Jefferson wept more, head bowing in silent shame as he thought of the difference in the bedrooms of his four older sons and the one he attributed to Alan. A room he loaned to the child, not formally gave as he had done with each of the others as they had been presented with the key to the knob on the door of their personal abode on the island. Alan's was the only room that could not be unlocked from inside if it were locked from out using the master key that Jefferson had made. It was the only door in the entire compound built like this. To better punish the boy when grounding him, to be certain nobody let him out if Jeff left the island on a rescue or business.
An armored, one way door to a small dark room with a single small window above the simplistic single bunk bed. No large bay window or wide patio doors leading to the expansive common terrace shared by all the brothers' rooms. No full bathroom with a soaker tub, shower stall, vanity and toilet. No, Alan only had a stainless steel closet set up as a wet bath, equipped with all-in-one fixtures like a prison cell. The toilet bowl and sink were extruded and molded out of the back wall; the shower was a set of holes in the ceiling plate. No bathtub or vanity, not even a medicine cabinet covered by a mirror as he had a flat mirror mounted above his small utilitarian desk. Everything in his bathroom was built as inseparable, almost indestructible penitentiary-grade elements that were cold, unfeeling and offered no comfort whatsoever.
You could see in the small room, barely less devoid than a monk's cell, or that of a prisoner doing hard time for high crimes, the harsh difference of social and emotional status between his sons in his heart and eyes. His other sons each had a livable space at least five times the size, with their bathrooms being about the size of Alan's entire rooming area, wet bath included. To better remind the boy that he was only tolerated on the island and in their lives, never actually welcome as a peer or son of the family.
And yet, after all these years, Alan always simply looked at the bedroom with melancholy, tiredness and resignation that he could never climb high enough in the consideration and love of his parent to earn anything close to resembling the material wealth and luxury the others were given without ever asking. It was unspoken but well known around the island that Alan had to beg his father for basic necessities when his siblings could get junk items and luxuries just by a passing mention or looking at an ad on TV too long, if Jeff was in the room at the time.
Sick, twisted bastard that Jefferson really was.
Little gifts from a doting parent who was privately exceptionally strict, unyielding and prone to harsh fits of distemper. A classic angry bipolar predator, an unrepentant physical abuser and emotional blackmailer, who beat his children in the name of christian corporeal disciplines even passed the age of 19, then gave them lavish toys like their own customized Thunderbirds, cars, boats, motorcycles, jet skis and many old planes he had designed and kept. All as a transparent way to buy out their tolerance and endurance towards his vicious cycle of senseless blames, assault & battery then empty platitudes of meaningless regrets.
And Alan always suffered the worse physically and emotionally as Jeff had unconsciously, or maybe not so accidentally, allowed the older sons to pick on, mercilessly haze and even 'punish' physically the youngest child under guise of keeping discipline in force when he was not present. He had instinctively done this as a way to let them blow out steam in a 'safe' direction rather than explode violently against him, his haphazard rules of personal deportment and ham-fisted enforcement of such. He had even fallen so low as to physically punish his sons, all of them regardless of age or health, for their failings or mistakes during IR training and rescues while saying it was to keep them attentive in high risk situations and thus alive to return home.
Home to more pains and humiliations.
He had been a colonel in the US Air Force, an astronaut with NASA who helped build the first permanent moon base and been the first US explorer of Mars. Somehow, he didn't think that his patented 'best method to spank your 21 year old astronaut son's rump with a wooden paddle without causing tears through his space suit' was ever going to be put in the NASA manuals just because he had formed and trained his sons to follow in his footsteps in the same agency. They would be more likely to expel him in shame after having recalled him to active duty just to court martial him for conduct unbecoming an officer, armed assault, intimidation, breach of private life and hundreds more he had done in the last ten years.
Escapism
He had moved his family into international waters to escape government inspections of their home and lifestyles, not to avoid the medias and gold-diggers after an easy marriage with his boys. Those had been quick lies he told the kids a decade ago when the project began. He wanted a Utopia where HE would be the ultimate judge, jury and executioner of his own values and morality. It had worked far better and also far worse than he ever anticipated. Without any external retroactions he had degenerated into a brutal guru that tyrannized his small sect of about a dozen souls without rest. Even in their sleep, the children (and other adults) did not escape his reach as he had close to five thousand cameras and nine thousand microphones hidden all around the island in the name of security against home invaders.
In reality he was so fearful of his co-islanders mounting a violent revolt he had spied on them without pause, using military software employed in GDF spy satellites to data-mine the massive footage archive to alert him to potential problems before they exploded. How had he fallen so low in this life without ever noticing he was destroying his children and their futures? How could he have mortgaged their capacity to become decent husbands and fathers to their future families like this? How come no one ever stopped him before now, when it was far too late to repair and heal anything anymore?
First-Born is tarnished gold
Scott could never look him straight in the eyes anymore. He had been backhanded across the face too many times for that seemingly egregious offense of looking his superior officer / parent in the face with naked defiance on his visage. Such mutinous attitude obliged the harshest corrections his now 25 year old first son had ever endured from him. On top of punishing him in many demeaning ways for his own behavior, he had also dished out extra 'leadership sanctions' for whatever the younger ones did in his presence if he didn't stop them and beat them himself before bringing them to Jeff for the actual 'official' punishment to be dispensed.
As a result, Scott had been broken and remolded into having a copy of his father's nasty disposition when angered and was now almost as feared and resented as Jeff by his younger siblings, even those over age 20 who did not escape the system. Scott had become the feared marine's drill instructor for his siblings, but with the authority to slap, spank or whip as needed to silence dissension and erase doubts about the penultimate supremacy of Jeff and his rules over them all. He was no longer the caring, warm and loving older brother he had been as a teenager anymore. Now he was reduced to being the heartless enforcer of the cult guru's dictatorial whims. Well, that's when he wasn't secretly having an emotional breakdown so bad that it was hidden and kept under wraps by Jeff under the guise of sending the boy on a lone cargo mission or business meeting until he calmed down enough to function again.
Second place is first loser
John now avoided coming back to earth unless it was to sit a meeting at Tracy Tower in New York in the stead of Jeff or Scott who had rescues and other business to tend. He hated the island home because it meant that despite being easily more intelligent and better educated than Jeff was at that age, he was constricted to the same silly infantile rules and punishments from dad and grandma as suffered by Virgil, Gordon and Alan. The worst for him was this happened willy-nilly, at the drop of a pin, as both elders were nasty, belligerent and unforgiving. Then he had to add Scott on top of all that shit.
Even now at 23, a published scientific author acclaimed around the world, one of the youngest professional astronauts ever licensed to date and full time space monitor for IR, John feared being in the same room as his father. It was even worse if grandma was there to push Jeff in his violence. This brilliant, gentle and caring young man had developed multiple nervous tics from the repeated belt buckle strikes to his hands by his father who trained him ruthlessly to never touch something unless he knew absolutely what it did and never let anything float around the T5 habitat to avoid damages from bouncing objects that may accidentally hit a button or person. These tics of course brought up questions at NASA during John's short internship period on the ISS that Jeff obliged him to do. That useless month-long job had been far more to boost Jeff's ego about having managed to train one of his sons as an astronaut than for any use the boy would get out of it. The entire family knew John was reserved for Thunderbird 5 ASAP after university anyways; it wasn't as if he could get a good career at NASA, even if the agency's director had made him an offer in person.
Nobody was stupid enough to say 'NO' to Jefferson Tracy's face, especially not his sons, after all.
Except for one case; John had always refused to participate in humiliating and beating his youngest brothers, finding the courage to stand up to Jefferson in a way that Scott who had military training and hand-to-hand combat experience could never find in himself. The tall, lanky blond spacer had even managed to scare the bejeezus out of his father by threatening to use T5's superior sensors and comms to broadcast the entirety of Tracy Island's security camera footage across the world if he ever tried to strong-arm John into being his enforcer and accomplice again. The young adult had reeled physically and mentally from the consequences of that particular punishment for close to two months in solitude up at the satellite. BUT he had never struck his little siblings nor allowed Scott or Virgil to do it in his presence.
Jeff had lost this one good son already due to his own savage cruelty. The events coming around would simply formalize the break by forcing John to publicly choose a side and then move all the ways to consolidate his chosen alliance. With that move done, the others would all follow him out the door.
Third place means you're a worse loser than the guy before you
Virgil was a gentle giant with a golden heart that used to spend his time in the light on the terrace or the beach, painting or drawing the bountiful fruits of nature around his home. Nowadays, he spent most of his time deep inside T2's bowels. He stayed far enough inside the machinery that he was invisible and unreachable for most of the time he was present at home, knowing his father would never interrupt maintenance unless he had really done something provenly stupid. Otherwise, he isolated himself high in the library, away from the main house and its depravities to keep on painting or playing the old grand concert piano Lucille had loved so much.
Jeff would rarely expend the energy needed to climb up all those staircases from the main house for almost twenty minutes just to smack around Virgil. If he absolutely needed to let out stress, he could much more simply reach Gordon in the nearest pool or Alan as he was usually grounded in his room and unable to leave if the door wasn't opened by dad's key.
Poor Alan had few choices on the island; if not consigned to quarters, the youngest was normally with Fermat in Hiram's laboratory or villa. These places were sanctuary territory and Jeff would be forced to wait until the boy came out on his own lest he make Hiram even angrier than he had become. The last time he did, the result had not been pretty as it was proven to him he had never controlled the super-genius engineer at all; he still carried the scars to show for it.
Hiram had been raised in an orphanage since he was born and had learn to use his fists and small knives or other crude, improvised weapons of fortune as soon as he learned to crawl. Jefferson had never realized just how harsh and unfriendly the environment had been for the poor child at the time. Now he did know and carried visible reminders of it.
On the few times that Jefferson had decided to make the climb up to the library though, Virgil had been left an emotional wreck far worse than the mis-colored ecchymosis all over his body would ever indicate. How the physically massive young man with the altruistic, cooperative temperament ever managed to look himself in the mirror after getting beaten like a wild animal by his enraged father would probably never be known. The poor boy wasn't telling. He wasn't talking much anymore in fact.
As time went, Virgil's self-respect and integrity eroded so badly that he spoke out less, withdrew more, farther away inside himself, away from Jeff, Ruth and Scott who all disrespected him so and inflicted pain and shame all the time. Jeff had actually become worried that Virgil had been punished (beaten) too often and too strongly to recover fully anymore as his performances on rescues had slipped dangerously. His leg mobility showed signs of lasting troubles and no manner of returning to healthy standards. Add to this that his son was morally wrecked and no longer interested in trying to heal himself, let alone help others despite being the medic of the family. It was a job he never wanted but was obliged to do as T2 was the group's mobile infirmary so being a field medic was required by Jeff from anyone who wanted to be her main pilot.
Fourth place is not on the podium so nobody cares
Gordon now spent so much time in the water less for his back aches than as a way to stay out of his father's reach to avoid slaps in the face as Jeff was wont to do when the boy spoke nonsense in a futile attempt to lighten up the somber, depressive mood that always followed his father around. The many spankings by belt or paddle depended on Jeff's humor far more than the teenager's offenses and actual guilt. The beatings became so common and aggressive that it had made Gordon lose some reflexes and agility in his legs worse than Virgil suffered. The team's aquanaut had to stay home and miss seven different rescues and four social events in the last year since he turned 18.
When he reached the age of majority, Gordon had tried to ask his father, meekly to the point of begging, to please treat him like an adult and stop spanking him. He was old enough and educated enough to understand with words, no longer needing pain and humiliation to train him further. Jeff did as pleaded; he stopped using his hands to spank and now always employed an item to show the brat he wasn't ready for adult treatment, no matter what he thought. So now Gordon got paddlings, beltings, whippings, brushings, spoonings, switchings, and any other type of physically derived punishment to his bare ass along with punches to the face or shoulders without ever feeling his dad's open hand again because he was too old for it.
Never ask a domestic tyrant or sectarian guru for something: he'll screw you and say it's your fault for being a sinner until you believe him.
As a result, Gordon quickly became depressive, aggressive, moody, ill-mannered, flighty and systematically irresponsible back to the same attitude as when he was 13 years old at the worst of puberty. No matter the punishments that he received from his father, grandma, Scott or Virgil, his temper had been irrevocably damaged and set back to an ingrained immaturity that Jeff now despaired would never be healed. The worse of it was he had to ground Gordon from rescues for the last month as he had discovered the boy was cutting his intake of food, slept haphazardly everywhere around but didn't use his bedroom anymore and had become reckless to the point of self-destructive when on a rescue job.
His fourth boy wanted to end it all to escape the pain because he knew if he fled, if he ran away, his billionaire father with his government and GDF contacts would find him fast and then he would experience real suffering, without any respite in view.
Jefferson did not even want to think about how closely this resembled the reactions of Virgil. Having one suicidal son was enough; if he had two then he was forced to admit that he had blundered along the way. Ignoring similar symptoms in Scott and John was just continuing the established policy of wanton ignorance and self delusion in place for a decade. Even though he could see the impending hecatomb, there was no way in Hell that the reality-denying guru would admit being responsible for the boys' weakness and incapacity to man up and cope with his temper.
And after all that, Alan; the fifth wheel.
What he did to the four first boys was atrocious and unforgivable. What he had done to Alan along with Ruth was deserving of its very own special pit in the ninth circle of Hell Everburning.
Alan's early childhood was a messy miasma of pain, suffering, humiliations and forcible submissiveness towards everybody else in the house as he was the youngest and Jefferson had been raised like his parents and grand-parents before; by strength and fear of strength.
Historically a child was deemed inferior and submissive to every person above his own age while at the same time having the right and authority to lord it over those younger than himself. This system was common worldwide but usually better controlled and implemented with an emphasis on mercy and tolerance. It was meant normally to help teach children responsibility and a decent familial attitude in preparation for their own adulthood and managing their household kindly. The now clinically depressed father put in place the same method but without any safeties as he didn't want any safety, care or comfort for the boy.
Jeff had used that historical system to turn three of his four first boys into senseless abusers who took turns hating and harming the youngest, most vulnerable child. For over a decade, Jefferson had fooled around in complete insanity with the idea that his baby had murdered his wife and orphaned his four good sons as an unconscionable act of petty vengeance for a punishment he had received before they went to their ski vacation. Sometimes, when he was drunk only enough to be tipsy, his mother's poisonous words of half-baked religious nonsense flittered around his head, reminding him that "children were inherently evil and needed the rod to beat the devil out of their heart".
And he was beaten plenty. It's easy to say "a spanking is not abuse" and then demonstrate a gentle little swat on the baby's thickly padded diaper. It even looks non-violent, reasonable and perhaps even effective at correcting the child safely and gently. What a load of bitchcrap.
Try the same spiel "it's not abuse" but after yanking off the baby's diaper, using a big wooden spoon or heavy leather belt to hit until the baby had bruising then multiply by as many people in the house who are older than said baby. With Grant still alive until he was 5 years old, Ruth, Jeff, Scott, Virgil and Gordon that made six prison guards taking turns at hitting the little inmate of the hellish jail their rural farmstead had become.
When Alan was 5 years old and Grant Hugh Tracy died, the pressure in the family lessened a bit for a short while. Grant had been merciless on the poor, miserable baby, being the most vocal about blaming the infant for his mother's accidental death. It is important to note that neither Grant nor Ruth had ever been particularly stable nor in fact really sane at any point of their lives.
As soon as Lucille died, all the boys aged 11 and above were sent to boarding school since Jeff was so emotionally damaged and psychologically defective that he couldn't juggle his unstable parents, the kids and the company at the same time anymore. When IR went from dream to emerging reality, he would never have been able to tolerate the noisy, dirty, disturbing presence of the kids for more than a few days during school vacations. Even then he was now chronically short tempered, unstable, unreliable and had become prone to spontaneous fits of violence like he never had before in his life.
When Jeff bought the abandoned island and US Navy missile base, deep in the southern part of the Pacific ocean to move the entire household, it hadn't been an innocent choice. Jeff would now be away from neighbors, schools, churches, social services and police forces. He removed himself and his children away from anybody with an opinion contrary to his own about rules and disciplining his boys that could have any authority to force him to act like a proper father despite his delusions.
Things got steadily worse from then on for all his boys.
The only way he got his older sons to ever come back home from boarding school or follow the specific career training he wanted them to obtain for their pre-assigned posts in IR was to threaten to give upon Gordon and Alan the punishments incurred by them if they weren't present to receive their proper dues.
Wasn't that a proof of resplendent success for a project based on rescuing the needy and defenseless...
When Alan was 9 years old, he was assaulted badly by Ruth during some sort of mental breakdown she suffered while babysitting Alan, all alone on her farm in Kansas City's rural outer limits. Since he was too young for boarding school, Alan stayed with Ruth at the farm and attended the local public elementary school, going and returning by the county's yellow buses. When he was home, his grand-mother was supposed to make him work physically in the barns, sheds and fields to accumulate muscle mass, strength and develop the agility, speed and reflexes needed for work either in Tracy Industries or International Rescue when he was old enough.
At that time, Jeff had decided to evacuate the island for some major repairs after a rather nasty typhoon and wanted to take advantage of the emptiness to intensify the centrally controlled domotics and spying systems to better command and constrict his boys when they returned. So he wasn't at the farmstead as he had been scheduled, his visceral need to dominate and control taking precedence over the welfare of his children who actually were very happy to spend more time away from the devolving brute or each other to dodge the 'servant of the eldest' system.
Ruth Hardale Tracy however hadn't taken lightly to her precious vacation schedule being undone; she had really wanted time alone to recover her patience and energies without Jeff and his brood of wild piglets running around her house. Then she got the news via some cheap email from an anonymous secretary at Tracy Tower that Jeff was leaving the older boys in their boarding schools during the long weekend while stranding the dirty whining ragamuffin on her lap so he could repair his utopic paradise island in peace. That inane message had her blow every fuse in her brain-box and go berserk.
Poor little Alan had to be rushed to Kansas City's hospital for treatment of the utmost urgency. He died twice on the table during the multiple surgeries needed to save both his life and his crushed larynx. His voice box was almost not saved. He had defensive spiral fractures on both arms, one knee dislocated and the ankle on the other leg was cracked. He had suffered 3 broken and seven cracked ribs. His chest, back, buttocks and soles of the feet were covered in raised deeply bruised welts left by whipping with an electrical cord. Nobody could explain how the young child came out of it without any damages to his eyes, ears or nose as pretty much every other part of him was damaged badly.
It was another miracle that Hiram's medical knowledge and dexterity came through again for Alan's sake, not Jeff's power, authority and mighty status as American Hero who conquered Mars. Following this event, Jefferson was wracked with guilt as there was no way for even his deeply diseased mind and deformed slant on reality to justify murdering a baby boy as discipline, no matter the offense his ailing, elderly mother had imagined he did. Not surprisingly, the local Family Courts didn't see it as legitimate disciplinary methods either.
We wonder why?
Panicking about the high risk of his family being destroyed and his children getting ripped away from his arms (control) Jeff made a (sweet / secret) deal with the local DCFS agents to create an extra trust fund for Alan, separate from the one he already had since his healthy birth as his fifth son. This extra monetary endowment was to pay Alan for the suffering his violent grand-mother had inflicted as well as compensating him for Jeff's complete lack of oversight and follow up with his mother even though he had doubts about her stability at the time. In reality, he was paying off the boy to keep quiet while also bribing the officials who knew by placing them as paid trustees to manage and dispense the trust fund in the child's name. To give it a better layer of legitimacy he had provided the men's salaries separately from the trust itself to say publicly that no one was exploiting his young vulnerable son in his time of need.
That backfired spectacularly as the present events were showing.
Alan had then demonstrated he actually possessed an incredible intellect and rare capacity to see things in multiple dimensions as Michel de Nostradamus was reputed able of doing. Some weird genetic quirk that linked eyes, ears and hands together into a super neuronal computing system inside the child's brain. It allowed Alan to design simple but efficient and cost-effective homesteading devices to help farmers and homeowners better renovate or secure their property. He used his trust fund to manufacture and sell the stuff and rapidly made a tidy little sum. He was actually profitable in his first year of operation, something Jeff had not managed with Tracy Heavy Industries despite the NASA contract he had at the start as seed money to build up his dream company.
Alan continued making efforts, innovations and investments into his company and the trust fund itself, making it completely autonomous. Because of how Jeff had incorporated the fund to make it seem as legit as possible, only Alan and the board of trustees that he, the child, chose and vetoed annually controlled the company, not Jeff. The entire thing jumped out of the strict, power-mad father's control at the end of the first year and became a beast with its own life.
After five years of operation, the trust had made Alan richer than his four older siblings if you discounted the original Tracy-birth trust fund that each had received. THAT was one information Jefferson had always kept hush-hush in fear his other children might use money and lawyers to get out of hand, especially John who also had his own incorporation to manage his book copyrights. Past the age of 21, the older sons exhibited a genuine risk of flying into such a rage at their unjust, inhuman treatments that they could break off his chains of control over them and start using their own considerable education, training and money holdings to fight him to get free from his cult-like hold on their souls.
He had been left with the menace of last resort: threaten to hurt Alan or even Gordon if the three oldest tried anything to leave or take away his authority and power. In his great fear at appearing weak, out of control or unable to instill proper deference and obedience into his children, he had taken the decision to break their strong, free, creative spirits once and for all.
He had been taught this way by his father when he was but a child as he watched his three older brothers taken to the barn to be whipped raw, coming back home with deeply bruised welts. All four sons of Grant Hugh Tracy had been in that barn many hundreds of times over their youth. It was why each enlisted in the services just out of high school, to escape the crazy religious zealot and his partially sane wife who was well matched to him. All three of his older brothers died violently in altercations with the civilian police, all before the age of 25. His mother had burned all their pictures and forbidden they be shown as related to her until she died and no longer cared.
God, how Jeff despised his parents when he was really honest about it. It was just too bad he had been so badly damaged and mis-programmed in his youth that he wound up turning into carbon copies of them both. He was as wrathful and vindictive as Grant but moody, unreliable and doggishly territorial like Ruth.
He had kept his parents at hand only to control what they said to the medias about his childhood and about his own wife and kids, not because of any love remaining. Grant had become a drunken gossip-monger in his retirement while Ruth was stone cold sober but vengeful and prone to vitriolic diatribes about how she didn't raise her sons without values and discipline like the slovenly cads they had become in adulthood. She always said Jeff was too weak and permissive with his boys, especially when they were between 11 and 15 years old. Why that age? Jeff didn't have a clue and probably neither did Ruth. She tended to operate on raw instinct all the time, not logic or thought-out plans. It showed in her choice of husband and how she raised her four sons.
Botched homecoming
(Frederic Chopin – Funeral March)
Friday 25th of June, 2060; 17:11pm
Tracy Island, main common terrace in front of the house
North of the Australian coastline
Jefferson stood up and tried uselessly to wipe his wet eyes and tear tracks on his face. It was a lost cause and he knew it. Might as well get out of the office and go see if Alan needed any help after his new ordeal in the hospital. Another secret, another layer of guilt. Another crime to hide and cleanse with money and gifts he didn't mean or emotionally connect with despite being the giver.
Ever since Jeff had begun seeing a therapist via web-phone four months ago and taking the prescribed anti-depressants and anti-adrenaline medications he had reconnected with reality in a bad way. The mess he had made of all their lives wasn't a hallucination; it was the sad, untenable situation they had to deal with. If things were allowed to progress further down this dangerous slope, they would fall down a chasm and never return.
As the older man walked slowly into the living room at the height of the outer ring and doors to the main terrace in the front of the house, Jeff noticed an absence of youthful noise and brotherly hazing as would normally happen when his last boy arrived back from the mainland. He studiously ignored the fact that said noises were never joyous and always meant to anger or humiliate Alan with queries about his last disaster or how bad his grades had gotten. If they only knew the truth...
Spotting Lady Penelope in the deep shadows cast by the wide awning just outside the wide open patio doors, he crossed the sumptuous living room by marching down through the central lower seating area around the holo projectors and back upwards the far side towards his long time friend and occasional paramour. Another thing his boys growled about more and more but were afraid to comment on in front of him. Apparently, challenging an old dog about his mating habits was bad for the health of the younger mutts. Another bad habit of his he needed to stop and apologize for.
"Hello Penny darling. Was the trip easy? I don't hear my son or Fermat for that matter. Were they okay on the trip back?"
He really meant to ask if they had obeyed and complied to adult decisions. While he could not actually punish Fermat lest he challenge Hiram directly, he could talk with the engineer and ask for some sort of corrective measures to be validated by him with his own eyes. Although, the last time he did that, he had not gotten very far. Not further than Brain's villa's vestibule. To say he had been rebuffed was a joke in poor taste. Hiram pointed a small automatic pistol at his face and warmed him to never again attempt to harm his son the way he did with his own five sons.
The shock was still felt in his jolted nerves, despite it being 7 years since the events. Nowadays, he blessed Brains for having the gumption to stand up to him and actually shelter the boys when he could have done real injurious damages to them. It was just too damn bad he hadn't been present at McVeigh Academy five months ago when he had that altercation with Alan that resulted in the child going to the hospital yet again.
Jeff waited patiently for his dear female friend to acknowledge him but he was beginning to worry. No sign of the younger boys, no Tanusha coming up to see Alan and welcome him back as she had been doing since the last two years. No Fermat and Hiram talking a mile a minute about all they had missed of each other's lives. What was it that suddenly had his fight-or-flight reflexes triggering?
Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, the daughter of a dear old friend from English nobility, slowly turned around left-wise and showed the side of her face to Jeff. He backed off in aghast surprise, followed by immediate rage that was instinctive when facing the blotchy bruise on the side of her face.
"Alan chose alternate conveyances to arrive Dear, but he sent me with a message for you, Darling. He was displeased at the latest batch of surgeries to repair the newest damages that you inflicted upon him, five months ago at McVeigh Academy when you thought him guilty of starting the chemistry lab fire that hurt so many students and faculty. He sends his crassest disregards and a warning: he will no longer tolerate your existence in his life. The injuries are too much; the risk of never recovering too great. Should you try to come near him with violent intentions, he will sell you out. If you try to strong-arm him into submissiveness during the meeting that will happen later on today, he may well take far more extreme and final measures against anyone named Tracy."
Jefferson was dumbstruck by the understated events: Alan who adored Penelope and practically wished out loud that Jeff and her finally tied the knot had hit her across the face in anger. Why in tarnation would the teenager do that? And where had Parker been during that event?
Then he almost doubled over in pain, guilt and self-recriminations as he was forced to remember the events of Alan's most recent suffering at his hands as if they were yesterday. Swaying on his feet as if groggy from too much alcohol, the old airman had no choice but to sit on the patio chair and put his head between his knees in an effort to regulate his breathing and take time to order his thoughts.
{ TB } - { Flashback } - { TB }
Back five months ago, in January 2060, the boarding school had called about a massive fire in the building where the science classes were held. Thankfully, it was a newer construction, less than 20 years old compared to the centenary dormitory edifices. Thankfully the sprinklers had worked and they had enough fire-escape stairwells to evacuate everyone alive. But still, there had been many bad injuries, specifically in the laboratory where Alan and Fermat were sharing a class in chemistry.
Jeff had taken Scott and Virgil to New York on a tour of the Tracy Tower so as to show them the departments and innovations they were working on. It was a banal trip, meant as a way to try and diffuse some of the angry, vitriolic atmosphere that had been festering in the family since the Christmas holidays which had again devolved into anger, recriminations and punishments against all five boys because this time they had tried to stand up together against his abusive attitude. The older man had become partially aware of the state of his children after a decade drowning in the miasma of his own depressive, self-denying idiocy, but not enough to actually stop himself.
He had sent a short-tempered, confrontational Gordon away to Europe on a delivery of IR documents to the GDF headquarters that were really too sensible for a regular currier to handle as the boy had already become markedly unstable at the time. Jeff had thought the small two-day vacation away from the island and his paternal disciplinings would do him good. A little leeway in the leash would refresh his spirits enough to give him new energy and focus. It hadn't, but Jeff hadn't seriously expected any truly positive results either.
Jeff had begun suspecting his kids were all damaged at this point and was trying to find the source. Predictably in his state, he was still looking anywhere but himself at the time, the proof of his depravity not yet having reached the level he could not ignore. But then it did and it was too late to change, apologize or heal anymore.
As they were in their penthouse in the tower's last floor when the call came, Jeff, Scott and Virgil just climbed up a flight of stairs to the rooftop air pad and took off in their present official family aircraft: Tracy six, a hypersonic jet capable of mach 7 and VTOL maneuvers. They reached McVeigh's in record time for a civilian ship. When they arrived, they unloaded the SUV from the plane's cargo compartment and high tailed it to the grounds of the school campus. When they reached the visitor's parking lot, they had a lot of trouble being identified as parents of a student as it was a damned bordello all over the place.
The fire and rescue teams were swamped, the police was overflowing with parents and legal proxies trying to find the kids they were responsible for in the mess, and in the background there were the screams of pain, the moans of the semi-conscious children and the roaring blaze of the inferno going strong. Even more fire-fighting equipment kept coming in, as well as police cars and technical support trucks. It seemed as though every ambulance in the county was on its way to McVeigh's area and ready to roll on top of the parked cars to get there.
Even John aboard T5 hadn't been able to find much more than the usual chatter from the firefighters, ambulance and police frequencies he continuously scanned. The rescuers had been deployed quite rapidly for such a rural area outside of Kansas City, even further away than the Tracy farmstead. Honestly, Jeff and his sons had no blame or complaints against the professionals in the field, they were doing better than expected if truth be told. It' just that Jefferson had fallen victim to his own success: instead of taking almost a full day to get there from New York by normal commercial flights, they had been there in about an hour flat.
There was no news because the people on the ground were still in the basic beginnings of large scale operations that were realistically expected to take all day and well into the night. With a blaze this size, that had started in one building and spread to three others by the winds and underground utilities tunnels that spread around the campus, it was actually a conservative estimate. Scott voiced his opinion they'd be lucky to stop the flames by dawn the morning after while Virgil actually contested that by reminding them of the massive emergency diesel generators and their fuel cisterns that lay in another hundred year old bunker at the back of campus, near the dormitory housings. Things could still become much, much worse if the wind turned or the school's water pipes stopped feeding the water pumps in the firefighting trucks.
As they were waiting around for the police officer to inform them of the status of Alan and Fermat, they heard an ugly rumor going around by some older students in the 16 to 17 year age bracket. They were heinously gossiping amongst themselves, ignoring the adults and professionals around as if they had no care in the world. They were bitching about the fucktard little Tracy tosser in chem lab who should have died for all the trouble he caused them. An enraged Scott had moved before either his father or brother could stop him.
Upon being confronted by the tall, strong and obviously angry young adult, the group of teens responded not by fear but by evasive answers, bitchings, insults, put downs about Tracy's in general and some clearly ill-informed slurs about Alan and Fermat's faggotry and queerness. Then, the burliest of the group, also apparently the dumbest too, came out and claimed that Alan had been dicking around chem class all trimester to date but all the detentions he got never deterred him. The visibly rebellious and ill-mannered little bastard accused Alan, without proof of any kind but his spoken word, of having 'probably done something jack-ass like' to the vials of products used during the experiment portion of the class to make himself some fun at the expense of others. The boy and his cronies all claimed, again without proof in hand, that Alan had a cruel habit of doing that and bullying people who didn't want to bow down to his high and mighty Tracy name.
Jeff saw red as this; if true, this would prove publicly that he wasn't man enough to train and control a mere slip of a boy under his watch. The father, already among the very strict, domineering types and used to physical domination as his modus operandi, lost all self-control and capacity to reason in a torrent of contempt, despise, scorn and raw seething rage against the little defective crud who had the gall to call himself his son.
Jeff plowed through the crowds blindly for almost an hour, searching wildly without any real method or direction when the three angry relatives came upon ambulances a bit more aside, a little less crowded as they had arrived about forty minutes ago and were directed to a secondary school's staff parking. This zone was for the victims triaged as gravely injured but not with life threatening issues, mostly smoke inhalation or superficial burns from touching the hot metal banisters of the stairs as they escaped. It was here they accidentally found Alan and Fermat being tended by a pair of paramedics who had to split their efforts between thirteen patients spread amongst five ambulances parked side by side closely to create a healing hub.
Since both medics were occupied separately inside two different vehicles and Fermat was semi-conscious at that point after suffering a massive asthma attack that made him blackout, nothing stopped Jeff from rampaging his way to Alan's gurney. Out of all reason or logic, no longer in control of his thinking faculties after two hours of stress, anxiety and now a shot of rage, Jeff grabbed his defenseless injured son by the throat with both hands, his thumbs crushing his larynx and voice-box in such a way the young teen could not speak, call for help or even breathe anymore.
Scott looked on with a nasty crooked smirk as if he thought the kid had it coming while Virgil closed his eyes and turned away, hands shoved deep in his pockets, ashamed of his little brother whom he thought had indeed started the fire as the other kids said. Neither of the three older Tracy's had stopped to ask school staff for any information about Alan, the kids who gave the story nor any other sort of evidence research and validation of any sorts. And since John using Five's massive sensors and wiretapping systems hadn't been able to find any informations or proofs either ways, the three on the ground ran with what they had: hateful rumors started by jealous, spiteful little delinquents who wanted to get the other child in trouble with his family in payback for whatever slight they imagined having received from him.
It was another of the victims in the gurney nearby, a large boy of 18 years, rugby player and proctor for the school who bull-rushed Jeff and tackled him to the ground while mercilessly inflicting as many elbow strikes to the face and neck as he could since his hands were swathed in burn cream and bandages. He may also have kneed him in the gonads twice and put all his 210 pounds of well muscled weight on the adult's left foot, dislocating the ankle quite badly enough that Jeff would limp for the rest of his life from then on.
The young adult student's vengeful stampede in the defense of the presumed mass-murderer of children and teachers stunned the two adult Tracy sons even more senseless for about five seconds, giving the paramedics time to hear the commotion and enraged screams of their father as he scuffled on the dirty pavement with the absolutely relentless teenager. Suffice it to say that seeing their juvenile charges being assaulted by an adult while two others stood uselessly with their dicks in hand did not go over well. Neither medic bothered to listen to the wrathful stories spouted off by Jeff and his two eldest; they called the cops and promptly accused them of assault, battery, endangering the life of a child by interrupting his treatment for air, attempted murder by chocking him which was especially grave since his throat and lungs were already damaged and straining to work.
The cops had no mercy and no care that Jeff was rich and the third biggest jobs provider in Kansas at that point: child torture and assassination would always get you a ride to the precinct and a speedy date with a judge.
It was at the booking cells in the courthouse that the shit hit the fan. All three Tracy's were cooling off their rage in the drunk tank of all places since they had been so out of control the cops thought they were drugged on steroids or some other rage-inducing synthetic narcotic with a bad psycho-active side effect. They were all given mandatory blood tests and put under close watch for symptoms of overdose or degenerating to a psychotic state.
Suffice it to say this was a red letter day in the history of Jefferson Grant Tracy and his family at large.
It got worse when the Family lawyer got here almost seven hours later, escorted by both John who had come down from Five and Gordon who flew back to the Island from Europe at Thunderbird 2's maximal velocity.
Alan was in the hospital with pulmonary and laryngeal problems now classed as life-threatening if not surgically treated in the following 12 hours. John had told them in a cold dead tone that the youngest child of the house had slipped into a coma in the ambulance tasked with taking him to hospital after the attack by their father had bumped his case up in the triage list from manageable to critical. The doctors were not certain he would make it as he had a cardiac event just as the ambulance was docking at the hospital's emergency intake portal.
In a scornfully scathing voice dripping venom all over the place, Gordon added his two bits: the group of five teenagers that had told their father Alan was to blame for the fire and attempted mass-murder by arson of some three hundred students had been arrested and were in fact the ones being charged with the entirety of the almost-massacre of the day. The group were the school's worse truants, delinquents, vandals and violent bullies to boot. They ALWAYS scapegoated their misdeeds unto other kids, even if you had video films of them in action to prove their guilt.
All five lied systematically and liberally, never caring whose life their hypocrisy and perjury destroyed in the process as they thought that to be great fun too. All of them had been suspended repeatedly during their stay and two had gone to three or more schools during their adolescence because of problems with violence, theft and vandalism. However their rich parents always paid out the victims to keep quiet and let them change establishment on the sly before charges could be brought up.
Jeff had almost murder his defenseless son for no good reason while his two other boys looked on in emotionally deadened apathy, not caring if he lived or not anymore as with him dead the rest were all adults and they could finally leave the island to start new lives elsewhere, away from Jeff's own relentless emotional and physical violence.
Alan had spent almost five weeks in the hospital. The first two in Kansas City to stabilize him and the next three in New York as there was a medical center just four blocks away from Tracy Tower and it made the transit easier on his sons to visit their injured brother. It took three weeks for him to wake up and he wasn't the same. His outlook on life was changed in a bad way that Jeff could not even fathom as he could not image any logic or rationale other than his own twisted, dislocated fantasy anymore.
Jefferson had needed to swallow his pride, ego and self-important image to deal with the judge and the same team of DCFS peons that he had paid off five years prior. It did not go anywhere near as well this time around. The despondent father and his two depressive sons were released from jail on a hefty bail after four days and then set loose for good after a secret closed-doors meeting with the Kansas Governor who issued a (paid) pardon for the three Tracy's, under a cloud of questionable electoral contributions, heightened taxes for the company's manufacturing plant and participating in a social program to hire children coming out of foster care for their first full-time job.
It had been a financially, politically and socially costly error of judgment, although he hadn't been in any shape to judge anything at the time, but try telling that to the damn bureaucrats...
{ TB } - { End of Flashback } - { TB }
Jeff raised his head and laid back into the backrest of the chair, tilting his head rearwards until he was looking at the awning overhead. He was crying fitfully again and didn't see that ending any time soon.
Ever since that event five months ago, Alan and Fermat had been moved to Wharton's Academy for boys in Massachusetts so that they could finish their high school studies in peace and quiet, away from any other establishment any Tracy had ever been in before. It had been a suggestion from john and a good one to date if his brother's end-of-year report was to be believed. It was his best to date of all his formal school-based education. It was in the same category as John did at that age. Exceptional and beyond what both schools had though he was capable of achieving. Enough that even with an emergency transfer from McVeigh at mid-year, the Wharton Academy placement evaluations committee wanted Alan to skip not one but two full grades. They wanted him to be part of the graduating class with the 17-18 year olds rather than with the 15 year olds, even the advanced placement classes as they were not advanced enough to keep his youngest boy challenged and interested.
And wasn't that a stab in the skull with a pickaxe.
Alan had performed consistently all year far above the bar Jefferson had set as the minimal standard to be admitted into International Rescue as a cadet trainee to evaluate his true skill set before granting him the full membership if he passed all the tests. Alan had been greatly motivated to succeed and had surprised the hell out of his father and four brothers when they did a trial run of those very same promotion tests back in July last year. He aced fully half of them and came within one or two points of the 75% passing grade asked by Jeff on the others despite having almost never any practice time on the simulators or gyms reserved for IR's specific swimming, rappelling and spelunking exercises.
And now this fuck-all mess was about to fall into his lap and he could not find any solution. No matter what he tried, the blame lay on him and the entire family would explode around him. Nothing, no one, no miracle could intervene and stop it.
Giving one last desperate glance towards a woman whom he cared for deeply but did not really love despite all appearances, he stood and walked back to his office, closing the doors and shutters once inside. He sent a priority email to all his sons that an unforeseen visitor was arriving at the island soon; they needed to prepare the lower landing strip for heavy transit and clear out the hangars in case the vehicle stayed for a few days.
Jefferson passed a hand over his stress-wrinkled face, feeling in his bones a thrumming weariness as he had not felt since that fateful avalanche eleven years ago, when Alan had been comatose so long. It was the same all over again, except this time it wasn't nature responsible for his boy's injuries and the incertitude hovering over the family. It was him alone.
The veteran astronaut dropped his tall heavy frame into his plush chair behind his desk and looked again at the picture of his late wife, imagining the shame and horror she would have felt at what he did. She would have divorced him then made him have an accident. Or killed him straight off then divorced the corpse. With her temper, she would have been hard pressed to decide and being prone to impulse control problems when her kids were threatened, it was hard to say what she would have chosen.
Not that it mattered anymore other than for his fevered mind and sorrowful guilt. Jeff was honest enough now that he was finally being treated and medicated properly to admit the last person in the house who should be allowed remorse or sorrow was him. After all he had done to his children, he for sure had passed the allotted quota of mistakes a man is allowed with his precious treasures and forgiveness was no longer an option.