Chapter 2

Criticize, please. I mean it. Seriously, I love it when people criticize, it sticks in my brain, and I make the story better for everyone, ps, thanks to Musette12 for the helpful hints on last chapter. It is much appreciated.

Virgil's POV

I said goodnight to Nat, and looked up from my cell. Immediately, I was met with the face of my unconscious brother. What even happened anyway? Our Friday night tradition took a nasty turn, and now that Gordon is in the hospital, everyone in the family is freaking out, and I know that he wouldn't want us to, seeing as how he's the one who will go to school with a fever just because he doesn't want to be the cause of worry.

I looked over to my dad who was holding Gordon's hand like it was going to grow wings and fly away. Alan was hugging him and Scott and John were just staring at him, almost like they were willing him to wake up. The room was more silent than any of us had ever been before. The only thing that you could hear was the constant beeping of the heart monitor echoing through your head. It was like a taunt; something to tell you that you were just sitting there watching your brother and doing absolutely nothing about it.

The digital clock on the wall flashed from 12:58 to 12:59 and it seemed to cause movement in the room. In a flash, my brothers' and my dad were surrounding Gordon, and seconds later, I heard the coarse voice of Gordon asking the one question you wouldn't expect to hear from someone waking up in a hospital.

"Did I miss the end of the movie?"

The silent room turned into a tornado of voices in an instant. Everyone was asking questions, making statements, accusations, and yelling at each other so that only one of us would be talking at a time. Of course, six guys in a hospital, yelling at each other at one in the morning would cause some commotion. Three doctors rushed into the room, fearing the absolute worst, and joined in the yelling, trying to get us all to be quiet. But we're the Tracy's, we like having the last word.

After on of the doctors finally got us all to calm down, he pulled our dad out into the hallway and closed the door behind him. Alan being Alan had to try and listen through the door. It didn't work out well for him. When dad and the doctor walked back into the room, the door hit Alan in the head and the doctor had a look on his face that was something like 'this happens all too often.'

"Can I talk to Gordon alone?" dad asked. Actually, he more so sated it, implying that we should leave the room. Though it didn't sound serious, dad always had to make sure of everything. Since mom died, dad had been playing both mother and father, and trust me, when he tried to cook, things didn't turn out well.

Scott, John, Alan, and I, headed down to the cafeteria, expecting it to be closed, but surprised when we found that it wasn't. We all picked out something to eat and grabbed one of the tables by the farthest window. For only the third time in my life, none of us had anything to say.

Suddenly Alan spoke up, startling us all, "Scott," he said, with a tired voice, "When will Gordon be okay?"

Scott looked at Alan with a sad, small smile forming across his face, "Soon." He stood up and walked over to Alan and grabbed his hand. "Let's get you home, okay?" Alan nodded in response and hopped out of his chair to follow Scott out to the car.

"We should probably go back up to Gordon's room." John said while standing up and grabbing his trash. "Come on."

John walked over to the trash can and Virgil and I mindlessly followed and numbly threw our trash away.

….

Once we got up to the room, dad was sitting down in the chair next to the bed reading a magazine while Gordon was sleeping. None of us had to worry about being too quiet, seeing as how heavy a sleeper Gordon is, he wouldn't hear us until the hour the sun rose.

"He doing okay?" Virgil asked walking over to the small couch in the corner of the room.

"Yes," Dad answered, "nothing to worry about. The doctor said that it should have been just a one-time thing, apparently Gordon had overworked himself and was just pretty exhausted."

"Well," John said, "I guess that's good, so he should be coming home tomorrow right?"

"Yes, he's coming home tomorrow. Where's Scott?"

"He took Alan home to get some sleep; he should be back with him tomorrow morning."

"Do you boys want to go home tonight?"

"No" John and I said simultaneously.

"I want to yell at him the moment he wakes up." John said.

"John," Dad started to say, but John had cut him off.

"I'm kidding dad." He said while holding his hands up in mock surrender.

"You should both get some sleep; we're going to the island tomorrow to start finishing up the Thunderbirds."

Right as he said that, my heart clenched. Every day that we got closer to finishing the Thunderbirds, was a day closer to leaving Nat. My dad and I had talked about telling Nat what we were going to become, but his answer never swayed even the slightest bit to a yes.

I looked at him, pleading with my eyes, but he turned to john in response and started to talk to him about Thunderbird 5.