Alan sleeps on the floor. Everyone knows that. And everyone knows why.
He is a teenager. In some ways, that sentence alone could explain it. But it's not that simple. Alan is not just a teenager with all the usual accoutrements: growth spurts, new hormones, acne, mood swings. No.
Alan is also a member of International Rescue and he has finally convinced Scott to let him go out on more rescues. So he has the adrenaline to deal with, the fear, the determination.
Not to mention the mental energy he has to expend, too. On rescues, Alan thinks twice as hard as anyone else, always tried to ensure the decisions he makes are the right ones. He doesn't have Scott's brash 'act now' confidence, nor Virgil's calm analytical mind, nor Gordon's creative 'outside-the-box' thinking, and indeed, nor John's multitasking genius. Alan is new at this. He doesn't always know the right thing to do. He doesn't always have a solution at hand. He has to think. And thinking under that kind of pressure uses more energy than he ever realised.
And so, when all is said and done and the others stay up and debrief, Alan heads off to bed. Eventually, he'll have to join them in picking apart their missions. What went well? What could have been faster, tighter, more efficient? Were there mistakes made and lessons to be learned from them?
But right now, Alan is allowed to go to bed. As his grandmother often says, he's still a growing boy and needs his rest – more so than any other teenager on the planet.
When the bedroom door swings shut behind him, Alan can finally succumb to the fatigue and ennui. After a day of hard work, of hard thought, of growth and learning, he knows that he has earned his rest. But the bed seems like it's a mile away and the thought of peeling off his clothes is more than Alan can bear. And he knows that he'll wake up in the morning with a blanket draped over him and a pillow under his head.
As he collapses on the rug, he's half-asleep and smiling.
One of these days, he'll make it to the bed.