Trouble on Tracy Island by Emma Nisbet (grnfield)
Author's note: This story was spawned by a scene that was stuck in my head upon waking up the other day. The 'picture' in my head was so vivid that it screamed out to have a story written around it. I had an idea what the story would be and how it would go but it very soon mutated into something completely different to what I had planned!
I hope you like the idea and what I've done with it!
Usual disclaimer applies: if you recognise anyone the chances are they were thought up and developed by Gerry Anderson. If you don't recognise them then they are probably mine!
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Summary: As a terrible flu-like virus sweeps the island, some family members are hit harder than others.
~#~ (Chapter 1)
Alan was given the task of flying Grandma back to her farm in Kansas. One of the old woman's closest friends had lost her husband the week before and Ruth wanted to be there to give her the emotional support that she so desperately needed.
Tin-Tin accompanied Alan and Ruth, mainly because Grandma had persuaded Jeff that it would be good for the two youngsters to have some time away from the confines of the island. She had suggested that Tin-Tin would also be able to share the piloting duties with Alan and pointed out that the youngest Tracy boy would probably appreciate some company on the trip back.
Jeff had initially balked at the idea of letting Tin-Tin and Alan go together but soon realised that sending Tin-Tin along for the ride meant that Scott, Gordon and Virgil would all still be available should a rescue be called in. He begrudgingly gave the pair a five day leave of absence from the island and sent them on their way with a stern instruction to behave themselves.
~#~
Tin-Tin and Alan spent a day in Kansas before flying to Colorado to catch up with a couple of Alan's racing buddies. While there they decided to treat themselves and spent the last few days in a hideously expensive hotel in Florida.
Unfortunately by the time they came home, the pair were both showing signs of the start of a cold. This developed over the next few days until the very miserable youngsters both had a high temperature, a raging sore throat and a vicious, hacking cough.
Brains, who was almost guaranteed to come down with the virus due to treating both Alan and Tin-Tin, prescribed zinc tablets to everyone on the island and suggested that they all upped their vitamin intake for a couple of weeks. This seemed to help slow the spread of the virus for a while but gradually, one by one, everyone began to suffer from one or more flu-like symptoms.
~#~
As soon as Brains began coughing, Jeff called Ruth and told her that she would have to remain in Kansas until the island was clear of the virus. Ruth, surprisingly, didn't argue about this and Jeff wondered if she was secretly enjoying the peace and quiet that she so rarely got at home.
John quarantined himself up on Five and told Jeff, in no uncertain terms, that he wasn't to send anyone up to the space station until every last trace of the virus was gone. Jeff had no problems with agreeing to this as he knew that John was terrified of ending up in hospital again with the breathing problems he'd experienced when he was younger. An eight year old John had successfully managed to hide the fact that he was sick from both his parents until one morning when Lucy's shrieks had woken the entire house. Lucille Tracy, heavily expectant mother of four had gone to find out why John hadn't come down for breakfast and had found her second-born son slumped on his bed, blue-tinged and struggling for breath.
John didn't really remember the panic that ensued, nor the ambulance ride to the hospital but he clearly remembered waking up with tubes forcing oxygen into his nose and seeing his grandmother's worry-filled eyes staring down at him.
The concern over John's condition had pushed Lucille into premature labour and Alan had been born, five weeks early, just two and a half hours after John's admittance to the hospital. John remembered how he hadn't been allowed to visit either his mother or baby brother for fear of him passing any infection onto the delicate newborn and how Jeff had been forced to wear a mask whenever he visited John. Ruth, to her credit, had done the opposite to Jeff and had remained with John throughout his stay in hospital and had worn a mask during each of her limited her visits to Alan and his mother.
At the time, Kyrano had been living in a small house that Jeff had built for him near the edge of the Tracy farm in Kansas. A long-time friend of Jeff's, he had moved onto the farm immediately after the death of his wife so that both Lucille and Ruth could help him care for his newborn baby daughter. During the two weeks that Jeff, Lucy and Ruth spent at the hospital with John and Alan, the quiet Malaysian man simply moved himself and his now six month old daughter into the main farmhouse to take care of Scott, Virgil and Gordon.
~#~
Back in the present, Kyrano proved to be a source of amazement on the island. Having been in direct contact with both Alan and Tin-Tin, he theoretically should have been one of the first to succumb to the virus but after almost a month he was the only one who hadn't been affected by it at all.
Brains caught and shook off the cold in less than a week, as did Scott and Virgil who barely had a bad case of the sniffles between them. Gordon discovered that he was unable to swim due to a build-up of pressure in his sinuses and then had a miserable time when the hacking cough, which matched Alan's, caused painful spasms in the already abused muscles of his damaged back.
Jeff's symptoms matched Gordon's in the respect that his nasal and aural tubes became blocked before the virus then settled on his chest and developed into a nasty cough.
Luckily for everyone on the island, things were very quiet on the rescue front. John kept in constant contact, as did Grandma and between the two they managed to keep everyone's spirits up while they were recuperating.
~#~
Gordon's back was still giving him trouble at the end of the following week. Everyone had noticed the tell-tale glassy look in his eyes that meant he was taking the heavy-duty prescription painkillers that he usually tried so hard to avoid and all four brothers had, separately, voiced their concern over his wellbeing to their father.
He was still struggling by the time the next rescue call came in.
Jeff, who was still congested and suffering from a lingering cough, had taken to wearing a thick, brown housecoat even though it was warm enough in the villa to warrant switching the air conditioning on. He had been halfway across the room when John's portrait started to flash and he wrapped the coat tighter around himself and shuffled slowly across to his desk where he flopped down into his chair with a weary sigh.
"What have you got John?" he asked breathlessly and then immediately held up a hand in order to stop the space monitor from answering when a coughing fit overtook him.
Alerted by John's frantic calls from the office, Scott and Virgil rushed in from the kitchen and headed straight for their father. Scott perched on the edge of the desk and clapped him firmly on the back while Virgil poured a glass of water which he pressed into Jeff's hand once Scott had managed to calm him down a little.
Scott's worried blue eyes met Virgil's concerned brown ones as the brothers saw how badly Jeff's hands were shaking as he sipped at the water. Scott opened his mouth to comment but Alan came barrelling into the room before he got a sound out. "Dad!" he cried. "Scott! What's going on? Dad, you look terrible, is everything alright?"
Virgil caught hold of Alan before he managed to literally throw himself into Jeff's lap. Alan gently shrugged off the hand and crouched on the floor beside his father's chair. "Dad?" he asked quietly. "Are you OK?"
Jeff leant back in his chair and handed the empty glass to Scott who was hovering beside him after climbing off the desk. He gave a deep sigh and then took in the worried expressions on Scott, Virgil, Alan and John's faces.
"Boys, I'm alright," he said quietly. "…but I seem to be feeling my age this morning." Jeff reached out to Alan and pulled him into a gentle hug before letting him go and resting a hand in his messy blonde hair. "I'm not as young as I used to be and it's just taking me a bit longer than you lot to shake off this damn cough. I'll be as right as rain by next week, you mark my words."
Jeff looked up and met Scott's eyes in a silent plea for him to remain quiet. Scott's room shared a wall with Jeff's and he knew full well that his father had barely slept for the past week. Jeff's coughing had been keeping Scott awake well into the early hours and several times he had gone to sit in his office in an attempt to allow his eldest son to get some sleep. This had turned out to be a pointless exercise because Scott would generally come looking for him within a few minutes of him leaving his room. Both men had eventually given up all pretence of trying to sleep and had taken to sitting in the kitchen for hours on end which at least allowed the others to sleep in peace.
Scott gave a brief nod before his attention was drawn to a movement in the doorway. Gordon, who had been leaning heavily on the wall just outside Jeff's office had pulled himself up to the doorframe and was swaying slightly as he tried to judge the distance between the doorway and the nearest couch.
Virgil, who had followed Scott's gaze towards the door, crossed the room and, with an arm across the aquanaut's shoulders, directed Gordon over to and onto one of the couches. Once Gordon was settled Virgil then squatted on the floor in front of him and gently tilted Gordon's head towards the window so he could look at the red-head's eyes.
Gordon briefly objected to being manhandled but submitted to the gentle coaxing of his middle brother and allowed Virgil to check him over.
"Not feeling any pain today, are we Gordy?" the artist said quietly as he looked at the slightly vacant expression in Gordon's eyes. "You know I really think we need to get Brains to have a proper look at you. There's no way you should still need so many tablets just to get you going in the morning. If the coughing has caused some physical damage to your back then it needs fixing, not just burying under a haze of drugs. Look at you, you're barely functioning."
"No." Gordon's voice came out as barely a whisper so only Virgil could hear it. "I don't want anyone else digging around back there. I've had enough of that already. Leave it Virg, just leave it."
Virgil shrugged and hauled himself up off the floor before dropping gently onto the couch to the right of his brother. Gordon leaned heavily against him so he hooked his left arm across his younger brother's shoulders before turning to the portrait where his directly older brother still sat. "So, John, did you call Dad or did he call you?" he asked and then frowned slightly when John began to look a little flustered.
"Um," John began. "I called in. We have a rescue…well sort of…I've received…a…a call for help but…well…no-one's in any immediate danger at the moment."
Jeff leant forwards in his chair. "Explain," he said quietly. "You know the rules, John. We don't launch unless there are lives at risk."
John nodded and then looked over at Gordon and winced. "It's…um…well…we're going to need Four, Father. The Darwinian Cloud is the vehicle that's in trouble. She's a research sub that was set to do a deep survey of the Kermadec Trench, just off New Zealand. My information is a little sketchy but from what I can gather the Cloud somehow became entangled in her own tow cables and is now dead in the water. The cables are holding her steady at about four and a half thousand feet down and WASP don't have anything that can reach it. The crew are contactable by radio and they're faring surprisingly well, so far. They have enough air, food and water to last them the best part of two weeks but after that…"
John fell quiet and watched as Jeff turned to look at Gordon's defeated stance. The aquanaut had gradually sunk deeper into Virgil's side as John had been speaking and was now staring sightlessly at his knees.
Gordon felt his father's gaze on him and knew that Jeff was waiting for some sort of response. "I doubt I could even get into Four at the moment," he said quietly. "…and even if I did it probably wouldn't be safe for me to try and do anything with her."
Jeff nodded and then grabbed for the glass, which Scott had refilled, when the movement threatened to set of another bout of coughing. After taking a sip of water and clearing his throat, he decided it was probably safe to speak. "John, tell them we're on our way. Scott, there's no point in taking One as there won't be anywhere for you to put her down so I'd like you to ride shotgun with Virgil in Two. Alan, other than Gordon you've had more hours in Four than any of the boys so you'll be carrying out the bulk of the rescue today."
Alan looked at Gordon who remained motionless. "Yes, Sir," he said quietly and then clambered to his feet and hurried after Scott who was heading towards the passenger lift that would take him down to Thunderbird 2.
Virgil was still supporting most of Gordon's weight and was loath to leave him when he seemed so vulnerable. He knew, however, that he needed to get moving otherwise Scott and Alan would beat him to Two. Neither the oldest nor the youngest Tracy had any patience for waiting and Virgil realised that he'd be in for an uncomfortable journey if he didn't get down there quickly.
He gently wrapped his right arm around the front of Gordon and hugged him tightly. After a long moment he sat the aquanaut upright and leaned over to whisper something in his ear. The red-head finally raised his eyes to meet his brother's and slowly nodded his reply. Virgil smiled and released him and then stood up and wandered over to the hidden doorway to Thunderbird 2. The rocket picture promptly flipped him over and whisked him away into the bowels of the island's dormant volcano.