The Tracy Daughters

Disclaimer - I do not own Thunderbirds or the song, Stealing Cinderella by Chuck Wicks. Oh, and as whenever I talk about Kate's family, I do not own Numb3rs.

This is part one of five, which is about the Tracy Daughters(-in-law). I am not going by order of introduction or even marriage. This will follow the birth order of the Tracy Sons. A big part of these stories is the relationship - or, in some cases, lack of - with the women's fathers. These relationships had a big part in the making of who the would become. In Kate's part, she was always Don's little girl, loved and protected but was still subject to pain. She was always part of a dynamic, loving family. This made her the perfect person to assume the role of big sister to the Tracy Brothers. So here is Kate's story.

Part one - Kate Eppes Tracy

Scott Tracy fell in love with Katherine Eppes practically at first sight. He had met the FBI agent when she was helping to rescue his baby brother, Alan, from a former Tracy Enterprises employee just days before Christmas. Kate, who had been injured during the rescue, came back to Tracy Island for the holiday. By the time she had left a few days into the New Year, Kate had accepted Scott's marriage proposal.

I came to see her daddy for sit down man to man
It wasn't any secret I'd be asking for her hand
I guess that's why he left me waiting in the living room by myself
with at least a dozen pictures of her sitting on a shelf

Between Tracy Enterprises and International Rescue – well, mainly IR – Scott was pretty busy until the beginning of February. The few chances Scott had to see Kate were when he had to go to the Aeronautics Division of Tracy Enterprises, located in San Francisco, the same city that Kate was currently assigned to with the FBI. But on this weekend, Kate was in Los Angeles, where Scott met her. Don Eppes, Kate's father, was there that weekend as well. The current Director of the FBI, he and her mother had returned to the west coast from D.C. for a series of meetings.

Don knew why Kate had insisted that Scott be invited to dinner that night. The two had made plans to meet with some of the younger generation of Eppes but for now Kate was in the kitchen helping her mother with the last minute preparation of the meal. Don had chuckled when he heard his only daughter grumbling to his wife. She wasn't fooled for a minute that her mother needed help.

Having been in the small office he kept at the house, Don had heard the bell ring and Kate's voice blended with a deeper one. Scott Tracy had arrived.

The younger man was a good person. Don had seen the man with his family. He reminded Don very much of the protective, loving manner he himself had always shown his own family. Like Don, Scott had been thrust into a primary caretaker role when his mother had died. But while Don's mother had died a long painful death from cancer, when Don and his younger brother, Charlie, were already adults, Scott had been a teenager when his mother was killed in an avalanche while the family was on vacation. From rumors that had been spread as well as things that Kate had said, Don knew Scott had become a primary caretaker for his younger siblings, especially the baby of the family, the now fifteen-year-old Alan.

Don also knew that the boy had been deeply troubled from the incident at Christmas. But Kate had admitted that she had spoken to him about the incident as well as a similar one she had suffered when she was only nine. To this day, Don had to remind himself daily that Kate had survived her brief abduction but almost fatal shooting by a drug lord that Don had sent to prison years before.

Approaching the living room, Don realized that Kate had left Scott alone. Probably not her idea, he thought wryly. His wife would know that Don would want to talk to Scott alone. Oh, yeah. He knew what the younger man wanted to ask. Scott Tracy had mainly been raised in the heartland America, not far from his grandparents' farm in Kansas. He would be entrenched in old-fashioned manners enough that he would want to ask for Don's blessing to marry Kate. Don had noticed the ring on Kate's finger. It wasn't large or flashy. But it was classically designed and obvious older. He strongly suspected that Jeff Tracy had made sure his oldest son had been given his mother's engagement ring. If he remembered correctly, Jeff had still been in the space program when he married. As a government employee most of his adult life – after a brief stint as a minor league baseball player – Don knew the pay wasn't the best. That ring was probably paid for in installments.

Watching Scott, Don knew the man could probably have afforded to give Kate something flashier. But he had chosen to give Kate a link to his past as they entered the future. Scott was a young man who knew the value of family, a person who knew what was important in life. Don should be comforted by that. Seeing Scott examining pictures in the living room, Don smiled as he felt the memories wash over him, memories of his baby girl growing up.

She was playing Cinderella
She was riding her first bike
Bouncing on the bed and looking for a pillow fight
Running through the sprinkler with a big popsicle grin
Dancing with her dad, looking up at him
In her eyes I'm Prince Charming
But to him I'm just some fella
riding in and stealing Cinderella

There was the picture of Kate dressed up as Cinderella in the school play. While Scott could see how lovely she had looked in the costume, he didn't know how a seven-year-old Katie had cried because Pammy Walker had pitched a fit, saying Katie Eppes couldn't be Cinderella because of her dark hair and the fact that she was Jewish. Even though Don had never been as devout as his father in the Hebrew faith, he was never ashamed of his heritage and had made sure his children knew the family history. It had been Katie's first brush with intolerance and Don's first lesson that he couldn't protect Katie from the big, bad world.

Pulling himself from his dark thoughts, Don returned to watching as Scott picked up yet another picture. He knew that was the one of Katie riding her first bike. It had actually been a hand-me-down from her oldest and only female cousin, Maggie. But having recalled how much his oldest son had dinged up his brand new bike, Don was determined not to give either of his other children a bike until they could actually ride one. Don knew in the picture, Katie's braids hung out from her helmet and the five-year-old's tongue was poking out the side of her mouth as she concentrated on the task at hand. You couldn't see Don running behind, except in the shadow that followed the kindergartener as she approached the spot where her doting Grandpa Eppes waited with his camera, capturing the moment.

Don could hear Scott's light chuckle as he set the frame down and pulled another one up. An accordion frame, it held two pictures. One showed a three-year-old Katie, bouncing on the bed, swinging a pillow nearly as big as she was at the heads of her two brothers. It was one of the first times Katie had taken on the boys. And, he chuckled silently, it wouldn't be the last.

The second picture in the frame was one of all six Eppes grandchildren. Their grandfather had taken the picture of the kids after a Fourth of July BBQ. Popsicle stains on their faces, the children were all in bathing suits, running in and out of the sprinkler that had been set up in Charlie's backyard. Don and Charlie had always been glad that their children were close. Growing up on the same street, the kids had frequently cut through the backyard of the house in-between. It was a good thing that eventually Maggie had bought that house. It would be a hard sell with the path they had cut through the backyard – or the fence they had rigged to slip through.

Don was just about to make himself known to Scott when the younger man picked up the photo Don kept next to his favorite recliner. In the days after Katie had been shot, while she had slowly recovered from her physical injuries, she had pulled further and further away from her father. Don had bitterly accepted that on some level his baby girl had blamed him for her injuries. While it had only taken a few months before Katie had physically recovered from her trauma, it had taken years for her emotional recovery. That picture had been at the father-daughter dance when Katie was fourteen. She had yet to experience the growth spurt that would put her on an eye-to-eye height match with her father. Katie had still had to tilt her head back to look up to Don. That picture captured a time in their lives when Katie had once more adored her beloved Daddy. But it still made him a little sad, as he recalled how so many of the other girls had worn their hair piled up or swept to the side. Even today, Katie would wear her hair loose or gathered at the base of her neck – so no one could see the scar that haunted Don as much now as it had the day she had gotten it.

I leaned in towards those pictures to get a better look at one
When I heard a voice behind me say "Now, ain't she something, son?"
I said "Yes, she quite a woman"
and he just stared at me
Then I realized that in his eyes she would always be

"Katie sure is something else, isn't she, Scott?"

Scott jumped when he heard Don Eppes' voice behind him. He had been fascinated by the glimpses into the life of a young Kate. Drawing himself up, he responded to Don's question. "Yes, sir. She is a remarkable woman. You should be proud." Scott became unnerved as Don just cocked his head and looked at him. What had he said wrong? Looking at the way Don smiled at the pictures of a young Katie, he recalled her words to Alan that, "There will always be some people in your life who won't see you as an adult. To them, you will always be a little kid who needs their love and protection. And if you love them, you'll silently grind your teeth, swallow a smart-ass remark and know that they are only doing it because they love you so much." Scott knew that much as he would always see Alan as the little boy he had helped raise, Don would always see Kate as his baby girl.


Playing Cinderella
Riding her first bike
Bouncing on the bed and looking for a pillow fight
Running through the sprinkler with a big popsicle grin
Dancing with her dad, looking up at him
In her eyes I'm Prince Charming
But to him I'm just some fella
riding in and stealing Cinderella

"Sir, I know Kate and I haven't known each other all that long…"

"Less than two months."

Scott almost gulped out loud at the sharp retort but steeled himself. "Anything worth having is worth working for," echoed Jeff Tracy's voice over the years. But he knew having her father's blessing meant everything to Kate – thus making it important to Scott as well.

"Mr. Eppes, I never believed in love at first sight. And I am not going to say I knew I wanted to marry Kate the moment I saw her. Actually, I think she spent a lot of that night wanting to shoot me. I was incredibly stressed, we didn't know where Alan was and then we figured it out and that whole mess…I know we owe Kate our lives. And that isn't why I want to marry her," he said quickly, seeing Don's annoyed expression. "But it did make me want to get to know her better. And I did know by the time she was to leave the Island, I wanted to marry her. Kate accepted my proposal but she wanted…No, she needs your blessing. She might become my wife but I think we both know she will always be your little girl."

Don looked at Scott long and hard. He had known this was coming. He had known since he walked into Kate's hospital room that night and saw Scott kissing his daughter. And when Colby had let slip to Don that Kate had begun the paperwork to resign from the Bureau, he was relieved that his daughter would be safer. But finding out she would be going to work for Tracy Enterprises had made him wonder. Then when he had hugged his daughter as she met them at the airport yesterday, Don had quickly caught sight of the ring on her left hand. So her announcement that Scott Tracy would be joining them for dinner tonight, had made Don aware of what would happen. It was inevitable that Katie would eventually fall in love and marry, and Don was glad that the man she had chosen was one that was worthy of her…

But it didn't mean he had to like it.

Then he slapped me on the shoulder
And he called her in the room
When she threw her arms around him
That's when I could see it too

Kate ran from the kitchen when Don called her name. Pausing at a point between her father and her fiancé, Kate saw the broad grin on Scott's face and looked over at Don. Seeing the bittersweet smile on his face, she knew he had given his blessing. She also knew he was aware that she would be moving even further away than New York and how hard that was for him to accept. But because he loved her, because he wanted what was best for her, he had given his blessing.

She had never loved him more.

She was Playing Cinderella
Riding her first bike
Bouncing on the bed and looking for a pillow fight
Running through the sprinkler with a big popsicle grin
Dancing with her dad, looking up at him
If he gives me a hard time
I can't blame the fella
I'm the one who's stealing Cinderella

A/N - If you like, please review...Emily will be up tomorrow. Thanks to my beta, Sam1, for her unending patience. And if you are reading my story Payment in Kind, chapter two is up and chapter three will be up by Thursday at the latest. - CC