Here's part two. I'm glad I had some of this penned out before I uploaded part one, so hopefully those of you with hearts in turmoil, haven't had too long to wait.

I just want to say I've never lost a brother, but I do have experience with grief (as I'm sure many of you do), so I hope reactions here seem true. The reactions here are only some examples though, but there are many different ways to react to grief.

"No." The wind carried away the barely breathed word, the anguish it should have held falling on deaf ears. If he hadn't been holding Alan, he would have collapsed. The weight of the younger was all that held him. Sounds were vibrations; noises incomprehensible. The light was playing tricks with his eyes and the weather beating him further down if it was possible.

"Virgil? Gordon?" Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and his mind refused to form the words he was seeking, the words he never wanted to think let alone say. He didn't need to. Alan worked it out for himself, his sobs catching in his throat as he struggled with a thing called belief before he buried his head into Scott's shoulder. The raw tone of the younger's words would never be erased from his mind. The way he'd spoken the names of his elder brothers still with some sense of hope – a sense of hope Scott had crushed.

He hadn't needed to say anything to do it.

Alan's nails clawed at his back, digging deep into his flesh. The younger's weak grip was increasing, becoming stronger and stronger until Scott wondered how blood was still reaching his arm. Alan's body racked with sobs in his grasp and Scott attempted to swallow the tumour in his throat that was the thought of loss. He let his legs give in in the end, covering for their failure as best as he could by slowly lowering himself to the ground. He sat there for what seemed like hours. The rain bounced from them, coating each of them in a layer of invisible silver, licking their hair and catching their eyelashes.

The light rocking was like a cooing, a lullaby which was having no effect upon either of them. The sky was dark, a plume of flames and sparks, lights and vapour. All around them it was like no man's land. No one trod near them, no one made near the rubble of the fallen tower as the flames endeavoured to leap across the ground, to travel further and do more damage than they already had.

"Alan." Twitches of pain ran through his nerves now. Sensations were dull, fading as though his body was falling asleep, though the vulture like grip was clear to him, the only clarity he held in the world being the fifth Tracy, the youngest Tracy. "Alan, let go." It was a selfish request. He couldn't expect Alan to let go of the only other thing he had. He couldn't expect it and he couldn't ask it.

Besides, the pain was bittersweet.

A small distraction from something equally as terrible, a small distraction from something tons worse. A poignant action which only added to the agony of the tragedy which was the past night.

"It's okay." Alan's grip had slacked, so he encouraged it to pick up again. "Hold on to me." The truth was, he needed Alan to. He needed to feel the pressure for so many reasons. He needed it, because it helped. It reminded him of what he still had and it harked back to him of what he had before that he'd now lost – what he wanted back and still needed.

What they all still needed.

The crackling of the radio reminded him of something. The interference buzzed and flicked, attempting to mask the worried words of the stargazer, the one brother not able to see the fiery pit of destruction and despair he was stuck staring at. He'd tried averting his gaze, but he couldn't, his eyes just would not change directions even to look at Alan.

"Scott, are you alright?" Words weren't forming in his mind. He was nodding, however John couldn't see that. "Scott? Scott, can you hear me?"

It was Alan who brought him back to the world, just as it was Alan who was holding him to it. "John."

Finally Scott could look at him, the blue orbs filled with crystal droplets. He had to look away. He had to look away because he refused to cry. His mind was screaming at him to answer, Alan was asking him to answer, and so eventually, finally he did.

"John." He hoped his voice sounded stronger than it did mentally. "I can hear you."

"You made it out." It was a statement. It broke his heart that John believed him capable of saving their siblings. If only it had been a question. He may then have been able to stomach the response he'd have to give. Though he didn't give it. John would figure it out, he was smart enough and knowledgeable enough – especially when it came to his brothers - to be able to figure out that he was stalling, that he was clinging onto the last straws he could.

"I've got Alan." That was his confirmation of everything John could have been wondering, but still the other Tracy was holding onto the same straws he was.

"But, you made it out?"

"I'll let you know." He'd had an idea, a sudden sparks ignition like a bolt of lightning coursing through a tree. An idea was all he knew it was likely to be, but he was going to try. International Rescue: 'never give up at any cost'. So he wasn't about to start now. It should have been difficult to rush through so much chaos, but he managed it like a horse galloping through no man's land: barbed wire catching his legs and death surrounding him. And just like war, it was destruction that should never have occurred. Thunderbird Two was a safe place. No harm could come to Alan there, that he could be assured of. Still, he placed him far enough in to be out of everyone's way, just to be sure.

There was no one here he trusted, no face to recognise and fall into, just foxes found in their places. The only faces he wanted to see were miles away. Miles away with no quick way to get here. Sometimes it seemed like they were poles apart, whether they were deep in the north or far in the south, Tracy Island was at the contradicting extreme.

The blonde seemed so far away, so distant, as though he was unaware Scott was there anymore. He didn't know what made him say it. But something did. Some nagging voice in his head spoke, insisted he say something, say he would.

"I'll come back."

"Don't lie to me." His already broken heart had just fractured. Alan's eyes were like a sea. A sea someone was trying to restrict with a dam, but one which was still over flowing. The younger had been crying all this time, and he'd blanked it out. He chastised himself for that, and he chastised himself for the next words he spoke.

"I'm not lying."

"Virgil said we were going home." Did he now? Scott wished to the moon and back that he hadn't.

"We will." Scott didn't know how literally Alan took him on that use of 'we'.

Virgil would kill him if he damaged the paintwork. Scott would kill Virgil if… No. He'd kill himself for thinking that. He didn't know what he was doing. The heat was frying whatever thought train he'd been following and he no longer knew which end linked to what beginning.

He doubted Alan did either.

International Rescue was finished.

This was the end of the great organisation and the start of a plan to never leave the Island again for as long as he lived. That was the only end and beginning he could work out. The only one which could possibly ever come lose to filling the mass incomprehensible void spreading through his life.

He pulled his knees to his chest, allowing his head to rest upon them. Thunderbird Two was silent. Too silent. Thunderbird Two wasn't his. It wasn't right that he sat there, in the solace when its owner – who loved it so dearly – could no longer. Outside, there was nothing but shouting. Alan didn't need to be out there to know what he'd see, and he didn't need to be able to hear them clearly to know what they'd be saying. But none of that matter. The only thing that matter had been pulled out from under him with no marked road for return. The world he knew was spinning wrong. The axis was tilted out of whack and he wasn't sure if it was possible to reverse it. The stars were dwindling and the moon waning.

Alan wondered if John was watching them too.

John had never craved for anything. He loved the stars, but never had he desired to be among them, until his father offered it as a possibly. Yes, it had been a thought, a childhood wonder, but never something he imagined would come true.

Now, he wanted something.

Now he wanted the feel of Earth beneath his feet, the haze of trapped heat in the Island jungle, the spray from the beachside waves, the breeze of the soughing trees and the echoes of laughter from the pool. He desired to be with those beneath him, he desired to walk through the underground crevices and smell the various oils and fuels left around. He ached to be there, to be home, and yet he longed to stay here – in peace: paradise away from paradise.

He yearned for the first time in his life.

He yearned for his brothers, every one of them. He yearned to see their smiling faces or sad glances, he yearned to see their bright eyes or drained senses, he yearned for his family and wanted them. He sought after the need to see them to settle his utter disbelief. It couldn't have happened. It didn't happen. It never happened.

Not to them.

Hours had dragged past when he finally saw light again. Worn down like rubbed rock. This would be one of those rescues he'd never get out of his mind, except there was a difference. This would be the one. Nothing came close in comparison: they were all forgettable.

The Firefly was a brilliant invention.

It was one he would thank now until the day he died. At least it allowed for something of their own to bury. Something to bury in their own way, place and time, not the bottom of some fiery and faulty pit of destruction.

He thought it a curtsey to bring up the bodies of the two men he had managed to persuade to aid them, only doing so because he thought they had the time. He really had believed they could do it, as International Rescue never failed: they never failed. He'd slipped - allowed himself to start believing they were invincible, when they were purely mortal.

Human.

Names on lists had crosses placed next to them. The odd tick or two came for those who had been elsewhere, vacant of the building and absent from the disaster. The lucky ones (Scott named them), for choosing this night, of all nights. He didn't care about their lists: he had his own, and it had just shortened.

He was tired. His step had turned into an aching trudge, requiring every chunk of effort he could muster. It was distressing him, and that was making him nervous. Those very nerves were making him feel sick to his stomach, those nerves were forcing his mind to worry unconditionally, those nerves were the only thing keeping him going; his motivation, his vitality and the only source he could find. The only one he knew. The closer he got to the green Thunderbird, the more it occurred to him that he wasn't feeling sick, but hollow, like a tree struck by a bolt of lightning to leave nothing but an excavated structure.

His head needed clearing. His mind needed wiping. An image had been etched into it, one that would never be removed, leaving the longest lasting and most painful scar of his life. A red cut line to remind him of how he lost them, not just who. He'd never forget who, but he would give anything to slip up on the how.

The rain didn't bother him now. The weather was all forgotten amongst the rabble of demons clawing at his skull, digging their way in.

He'd never forget anything about this day, just as he'd never forget his brothers. However if someone told him to talk about it, he knew his mind would close up, his thoughts would abandon him and the only thing there would be images. Unexplainable images to some stranger who could never understand.

No, he couldn't talk, but he could do something.

Now, he was going to bring them home, through hell and high-water. He was going to bring them home, because it was where they belonged.

But was it where he fitted?

He couldn't register his mind. Scott Tracy's thoughts seemed lost to him, almost distant. But if he wasn't Scott Tracy, who was he? Who could he be? It was too far to return to the US Airforce, and it was far too late to give the order that they could… no, would not help this time. It was too late to be Scott Tracy. It was unfathomable, because if he was himself, he had to face what he'd done.

He had to accept what he'd lost.

And that, he could never do.

Everything was buzzing; loudly like someone felt the need to blare over a loudspeaker. His hands flew to his ears, wanting to block it out, but still it seeped through as blood from a wound. He wanted to go home, back to where everything made sense, where nothing required concentration. He wanted to fall asleep and pretend he' dreamt it, just like children do. He'd wake up at home and all would be well. His father would tell him, 'you were dreaming Alan.'

'None of it was real, it was just a dream. We're all fine, we're all still here.'

He would. Alan knew he would.

He could hear him now: every word, each syllable…

Light breaths caught and heavy breaths pulled at his rib cage, straining as though they hadn't enough room. At least they had air.

He knew what it was like to be deprived of it. He wondered what it was like to lose it – permentantly.

His veins had turned ice-blue, the very idyllic of the sea taunting him, knowing what he would give to be out there fishing, with Gordon laughing at his lack of skill, or to be splashing in the pool without concern. Uncontrollably, his hands shook and trembled as though sparks were coursing through his blood. The limbs were scarcely feelable, his head line a taut string, all of him numb to the core, as his pounding heart was, the thumps of its rhythm offset. If he could have done something, it would have been different. If he could have done more to never let it happen. If he could have just said what he thought… If he'd said that and said no.

Said no, and meant it. Yes, people would have died, of course they would, but not the ones he cared for.

Alan had a heart of gold.

That's what his family said. Always putting others first, always doing his job.

He had a heart of gold and emotions of disorder. Both of which could be so easily triggered, both of which were fragile sheets of glass waiting for someone to smash through them.

And now, both of them were in turmoil.

He'd been talking to the stars.

He'd been trying to send messages across them, to find a way to communicate, but it wasn't working. Text books had long since been strewn away, but this time, were unlikely to be picked up again. No longer did he feel like writing for the world. He'd write for himself. He'd rewrite time for all of them… and he could do it. They did the impossible all the time.

He could do it.

He had to believe he could, anyhow.

"I've got them." The small broadcast comment was his consolation. The only one though, for that was as good as an assurance of everything he knew. But he had to ask. He needed to know and his mind compelled him to be sure.

"Virgil, Gordon, they…" This wasn't real. If this was real… if this was real, he was lost. "They're dead?" The silence told him everything. Everything - how, when, where, like a story had been painted before his eyes. Not a children's story though: a Grimm's tale of the grimmest type.

"John-"

"I'll tell dad." He should have told the patriarch sooner, but he made an agreement with whoever was listening – the conformation he was slowly losing his marbles. He made a deal to say nothing until he knew everything.

And now he did.

Now he had to tell their father, tell everyone so far away from the entirety of it that they'd been wrong. That they'd failed. That they'd failed their family overall, not some strangers.

"Hello son, what's the news?" John wondered if he'd imagined the slight hope with which the man answered his call. He knew it couldn't have really been there. Jeff Tracy worried during missions. But maybe… maybe he'd committed himself to hoping that no news was good news.

Maybe. And now it was ending.

"Father, I need to talk to you."

It could have gone better if it had been talking. He should have been able to say it, rather than cracking. The words didn't need to come from his mouth. His father recognised the news and mentioned something about bringing him home. He didn't take it in, because he didn't have the capacity in his mind to enable him to do so. He'd lost all abilities to function as a human being in those few moments, in those few seconds of facing a man who wanted to believe his sons were coming home, in those few seconds of facing his father who had been hoping for more.

Facing the man who believed in them all, only to let him down.

Some brainwave must still have been functioning as it programmed his hand to flick the switch for any incoming calls. Programmed his every action to the very point of getting up and walking away, all the way down to wiping at his eyes.

Part of him was glad he was alone, for it meant none could see his weakness.

Part of him was glad he was used to being lonely; because now he most certainly would be.

His cool head told him to stay sat, to ask for more details and work something out. His paternal side, told him to get out there and do something. His human instincts told him to cry.

Kyrano and Tin-Tin were saying something to him, however he couldn't register what. Tin-Tin left after a moment, Kyrano remaining silently at his side. His eyes strayed to the pictures of Virgil and Gordon, his mind conjuring questions and his subconscious throwing in answers. Answers he wanted to throw back out.

"Is there anything you need, Mr Tracy?" Yes. Yes, he needed his sons: all five of them. He needed them home, in flesh and blood, not photos. He needed his family back with him, because he hated them being away. He needed his family, because he'd already lost too much of it.

He had five sons, not three. He'd always have five sons.

But only three were coming home. Only three.

Was it wrong to want all five? Was it wrong to think what he would trade for their lives? Was it wrong to want the dead?

That was – in a sense – what had led to this. The beginnings of this very moment was created from his idea. His idea that people could be saved, maybe not everyone, but some. It started from his hope that people didn't have to stare danger in the face and lose, from his idea that his sons could change the way disaster worked and bring something constructive from it. From his idea of International Rescue: from his creation, from his orders.

And this was what it gave him.

Not everyone could be saved – they all knew that, but it wasn't meant to end like this.

Morning would be rising in London. The sun would be approaching his sons to shine something on their grief, if the rain ever let up. And here, the moon made its appearance, drawing towards them with every event his sons had seen as though as natural satellite to relay what he couldn't know. Like a natural, forsaken connection.

One that was now cut off for good.

Everyone was in anguish.

Scott wondered how many of them - gathering around the emergency services like bees and honey, just to be told exactly what they already knew - could recall the face of their loved one. Could recall a genuine smile or a tear. It was wrong, but their grief meant nothing to him and he didn't even consider it such. No one could feel worse than this. He was one person, and the only person his mind could register the feelings of. Gone were the days the brothers would be doing their best to calm and comfort these people, to reunite them with someone or to take their mind from it.

Gone were the days.

The home of both missing brothers called to him. The only place that seemed safe here beckoned him to come closer. His mind pulled his thoughts and his nerves dragged his eyes away from gazing round. Alan was where he left him, folded in on himself.

Thunderbird Two was a safe place.

Alan didn't even blink as he sat down beside the younger, touching a hand to his sweat laced forehead and feeling for the racing pulse within his wrist.

Shock.

He should have thought sooner. He should have recognised it sooner, returned sooner. All these things he could have done, all the endless what-ifs that made up life, the never ending sequence of regrets which piled higher and higher until you were suffocated under them. Just like being buried beneath storeys high worth of buildings.

It was hot outside. Despite the thunder and streams of rain, the flames had added heat to the city's already smouldering complexes. Thunderbird Two was cold. The engines had been off for so long that there wasn't even a sliver of warmth from them. The metal was like frost to the touch and it may as well be snowing. Alan was cold.

He was as cold as stone.

Yet the astronaut was warm, all of it dripping from him.

Opposites raging within one person. Strange combination. Just like the opposites running wild outside, the opposites constantly streaming through life, the opposites present now that were he and Alan. Opposite in reactions.

Scott wasn't at all warm. He was frozen like the ice Kyrano put in their drinks on the really scorching days. But no, it may as well snow to complete the formula of cold things.

Virgil liked snow.

Gordon liked having fights in the snow, chucking snowballs here, there and everywhere, the occasional burst entering the house before receiving a warning to keep it outside.

Scott like seeing the smiles on their faces, and he knew John did too.

Screw the world; damn it all.

He tried to shake the thoughts from his head, getting up and rifling through the on board supplies until he finally found what he wanted, gradually realising it had been one of the first items he'd pulled out. How does one miss a blanket? He wanted to ask how does one live without a brother?

How does one live suddenly without two?

Or don't they?

As he sat back down next to Alan, he spread the blanket across them. The younger still made no notice he was there, no attempts at communications or inclinations that such would be his intent at any point. The blanket was probably more for him. Alan would likely kick it off with how warm he was, but the comfort could help towards something. Honestly, all training had abandoned him now. He didn't know what to do, or what he was doing.

Training stood for nothing after all, when you had no sense to go with it.

Talking of sense…

He hadn't considered quite how they were going to get home, not even when talking to John. The thought dawned upon him with the steady rising dawn, the slow change being the world's reassurance that nothing had ended. But something had. That something was International Rescue, that something was a very close knit family who had already suffered too much, that something was actually someone.

His cold hand brushed over Alan's warm one as he tucked the blanket around the younger. Glazed eyes like perfect cherries looked at him, still wide and questioning, rimmed with confusion. Alan had been somewhere else, he'd been thinking of someone not here being there. Scott wondered what conversations he'd held in his head, what visions he'd convinced himself were real, and why he couldn't share them.

"You're back?" It shouldn't have needed to be a question. Alan's voice wavered as though Scott wasn't Scott. It was like he needed to check, needed to be certain he still had one brother on the ground with him.

He couldn't smile. He wanted to, but the movement was impossible. So he nodded and spoke softly, "And not going anywhere." Alan's head fell onto his shoulder, the younger's eyes flickering shut, tears rolling from them to hit his cold hands. Absently, his arm curled around Alan's shoulders, pulling the brother closer, breathing in whatever sense of life he could get.

In those moments, the world could do what it liked for all he cared, since he didn't care for the world anymore. He'd wait until they returned home, wait until he felt some reassurance that it was alright to crumble before he did so.

Damn. It. All.

There were times for giving up, and times for giving in. There were times for grieving and times for comforting another. There were times for holding on and times for letting go, but he didn't know what time this was.

He didn't know a thing.

Not one of them did.

Do you want a third part?