Hi all! Thank you all so much for returning to read chapter 2! And big heaps of thanks to those who reviewed. I couldn't respond to three of you, Whirlgirl, Overkalix, and Angela-Marie. So I'd just like to say thank you for your feedback and your kind sentiments. I really appreciated them. There is lot more of vulnerable Gordon to come, so hopefully you'll continue to enjoy.

I'd also like to apologize in advance for the one-lined joke about Italy. I mean no disrespect to Italy or the Italian people. I actually am Italian; I've been to Italy; I love Italy; the majority of my friends are Italian; my family is Italian. The joke is just meant to be a joke. I truly apologize if it offends anyone.

And now, on with the story:


Chapter 2: Monday-

The next morning, I awoke, stretching the cramps out of my muscles. I looked at the clock- 5:30 am. Damn. That was early. As I promised my brother, we had called it a night much earlier than I normally would. I had gotten a good eight hours in, which meant I wasn't going to be falling back to sleep anytime soon. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I rolled off my cot and pulled on my uniform. Might as well get to the control room, shut off the auto-monitor, and check the airwaves.

Upon walking into the control room, I froze. The monitors were all up and on-line. My heart stopped. Had I forgotten to put the monitors on automatic? Had there been an emergency that I missed?

With a rush of fear I walked up to the monitors to check their settings.

"Hey."

The chair swiveled towards me and I jumped two feet into the air. Breathing hard with my hand on my chest, I addressed my brother. "You scared the crap out of me! What...How long have you been up?"

He winced. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. I figured since I was up I might as well actively monitor the airwaves."

I noticed that he evaded my question. "How long have you been up?"

His expression was enough for me to know I wouldn't like the answer. Call me glutton for punishment, but I wanted it anyway. "Gordon...how long?"

"Since 10."

My brows went up. "We went to bed at 9:30."

He stared out at the monitors as though he hadn't heard me. He wanted me to drop it, but that wasn't going to happen. He hadn't slept well the night before and now he was running on no sleep? "So you got no sleep."

"I got a half hour...ish."

"So what happened?"

"Nothing."

His playing with the monitors as a means to ignore me was irritating. I flipped the switch that put everything on automatic. The monitors went dead and the sound cut off. I half expected him to argue with me, but he didn't. He just leaned back in the chair and avoided my eyes.

"Gordon."

With the monitors off, his hands became his object of focus.

"Gordon!"

Finally he looked up. God, he looked tired.

"Why'd you wake up?"

He shrugged and resumed looking at his hands. "Couldn't sleep."

We were so not going to pretend that nothing was going on. "Gordon..."

The hands slammed into his lap and he glared at me. "What? What do you want me to say? That I had a nightmare? Fine, I had a nightmare. You gonna make me some milk and cookies now, mom?"

"What was it about?" He was tired so I let the attitude go.

The anger faded, shame taking it's place. "I was alone on Five, doing repairs, a meteor hit and I went flying out into space."

I sighed, silently cursing my brothers, and dropped into the second chair. "Gords, that's not going to happen."

Back to the hands again. "You don't know that. It happened to that Elliott guy."

Who? "Who?"

He looked at me as though I was ridiculous for asking the question. "You know...that astronaut Alan and Scott rescued...the guy that was floating through space..."

Oh, I had a vague recollection of that. "Gordon, don't you think that if Alan and Scott rescued some random astronaut, they'd rescue you too?"

Apparently, I'd hit a nerve. "First of all, I don't want to have to be rescued. Second, how would anyone even know something happened? I could be dead up here and no one would know. We both could've been dead for hours now and no one would know!"

"That's true for anywhere. Anyone who lives on their own could be dead for hours before someone knows about it. And hate to tell you this bro, but most guys our age, if they're not married, are living in an apartment by themselves, not still living with their dad."

He rubbed a hand over his face. "Great, John. That makes me feel so much better."

"Look, if you were ever in a situation where you'd have to go out, you'd call base first and let us know. And believe me, we'd be monitoring the whole thing, any indication of trouble and Alan would be suited up in a second."

Challenge flashed in my brother's eyes. "Yeah? Well, Three's up here with us right now. So how's Alan gonna come save us if something happens this week?"

Hmm...he had a point there. Uh...

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Out of sight, out of mind."

Now that struck a nerve in me. "So for six months out of the year, when I'm up here, you don't give two shits about me because I'm not on the island!"

He jumped back, startled. "No. God, John, no. Are you kidding? I hate that you guys are up here. I'm freaked out, worrying, all the time about it. I hate it. I know that you and Alan like it up here though, like I liked being on the sub, so even though I hate it, I know you're different from me and as long as your happy, I'm fine with it. I just really hate that you're alone. I can deal with the whole space thing. It's the alone thing that I..."

His breathing was picking up again.

"Gordon, look, like you said, we're different people. I like the alone time. To be honest, I find it annoying when I'm at home and people are CONSTANTLY interrupting me or calling me or knocking on my door and everyone's always so loud and fooling around...up here, I control when I talk to people and when I have time to myself. I like it that way. And you're right, I am happy up here. This is home to me. I like the island too, don't get me wrong, but being in space...it's just where I belong."

"But wouldn't you like it better if you weren't by yourself all the time? If you and Alan did the shift together?"

The time I trained Alan was actually one of the best times I ever had. Alan and I rarely get to spend time together and our interests overlapped so much it was ridiculous. Every thing I loved about space, he loved too. Everything I showed him, he was totally into and then managed to point out or find things that I had never even thought of. Would I like it better if Alan was up here with me? Probably, but that was never going to happen.

"I don't think Alan would accept the little room and I'm older, so I refuse to be downgraded. We'd have an issue..."

Gordon rolled his eyes. "John...seriously. I don't see why anyone needs to be alone up here. It's dangerous enough as it is, you shouldn't be alone. What if you get sick?"

"Then I call Father and someone comes to pick me up."

He shook his head and went to say something, but I interrupted him.

"Look, yes, it could be more fun if there were two of us up here, but it's not necessary and I don't mind the alone time. Really, I don't. Besides, if Alan were up here with me, who would take our next shift? If we're up here together, we'd never be able to come down. Gords, I appreciate the concern but right now, you need to stop worrying about me up here and find a way for you to be okay with yourself being up here."

With a grimace, he pushed himself forward in his seat. "Yeah, I'm not doing too well in that arena. It's kind of embarrassing actually."

I gave a silent laugh. "Does that mean I shouldn't call the others and ream them out for scaring you?"

He shot me a sideways glance. "You repeat this conversation to anyone and you'll be on the wrong end of an ass kicking."

I burst out laughing. He sent me a confused glare and I tried my best to stifle my laughter. Normally, that would've been a viable threat. I was a nerd, Gordon was an athlete, but right now? "Sorry Gords, it's just...you're running on no sleep, you're on my turf, and you're a nervous wreck; I'm not really quaking in my boots here."

His eyes squinted in threat. "You don't think I can take you?"

My first thought was to threaten him with any number of the space-related activities I knew would freak him out. Fortunately, I stopped myself before I said them out loud. The last thing I needed was Gordon having another nightmare because I introduced the threat of something he hadn't yet thought of. Unwilling to inadvertently scare him further, I dropped the banter. "You should try to get some sleep. I usually don't get up until 7:30, but if you want to sleep later than that even, it's fine. The training can go at anytime, what with time not existing up here."

He laughed and shook his head. "No, I'm up. Let's just move on to the training."

I gave him an assessing look. He looked like he was about to fall over, but I knew even if I pushed it, he probably wouldn't sleep. My best bet was to just tire him out today and let him sleep tonight. "Okay. Breakfast first though."

I walked into the kitchenette and pulled out some dehydrated fruit. "You want oatmeal with dried strawberries or raspberries?"

My brother slunk into the dining chair and shook his head. "I'm not hungry."

I froze. Not sleeping and not eating. This wasn't good. "Gordon you have to eat. I don't care if you're hungry. You didn't eat dinner last night, you're not sleeping, you have to have breakfast."

"I can't. I'm still really nauseous."

I turned to him. "Here's your choice: you either eat breakfast or go back to your room and sleep for a couple of hours. Pick one."

He shook his head again. "John, I-"

"I'm not budging on this. You're going to make yourself sick. Eat or sleep, which one?"

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I can't eat. I guess I'll try sleeping again."

I nodded and pointed towards the door. "Go. I won't wake you, whenever you get up is fine."

With a grunt, he pushed himself up from the table and walked out the door. I had started to turn around when he popped his head back in again. "Thanks, John."

I blinked and he was gone. Maybe I'd go with strawberries for breakfast...

TBTBTBTBTBTBTBTB

An hour later, I had all the monitors back up and was getting ready for the next part of the training. I opted to go with reviewing the diagnostics. I usually didn't go into the settings and alarms until much later in the training, it tended to be very technical and dry, but I didn't want to go through the normal sequence with Gordon. According to our regular training, right about now is when I would have Gordon flying Five independently before bringing her back into her orbital position. Something told me that I should save that flight for a later date. I didn't need him worrying about the entire ship floating off into space.

I heard a hiss behind me and turned to see my brother walk into the room. "That wasn't long..."

He had his head down as he came and sat next to me. "I couldn't sleep."

Before I could say anything, he was looking at me earnestly. "I'm sorry. I tried, okay? I really did. I'm just too wired."

I nodded. What was I going to do? I couldn't force him to sleep. "Okay, well, let's get started on diagnostics."

He made a face indicating his displeasure at the impending boredom. Maybe I had been wrong in switching the training around...

"If you'd rather, you could try flying Five."

The look on his face was priceless. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're going to have to fly her as part of the training, so if you want to put the diagnostics training off, you can practice flying her first."

I don't think I'd ever seen Gordon's eyes that wide before. "Why...why...I don't...But she just orbits..."

If he hadn't been so serious, I would've been rolling on the floor laughing. "Gordon, you know she flies, you've done it in the simulator."

"But, but that's only in an emergency. You shouldn't take her out of orbit just for fun. What if I fly her out of the gravitational pull by mistake?"

"Then you'll fly her back into the gravitational field-"

"What if I get too close to the atmosphere?"

Wow. I just realized why Scott wanted to pull his hair out when he was teaching Gordon how to pilot Thunderbird One. "Gords, it's no different than when you fly Three."

He scowled. "I hate flying Three."

"Well, then, you'll hate flying Five too. Come on. Put your hands on the flight levers and take her off automatic."

He paled, but followed my directions. The big ship groaned and I could hear Gordon's breaths next to me. Given my brother's phobia of floating into space, I opted to risk burning up instead. "Okay, we're at 22,300 miles from the Earth's surface now, so I want you to take her down to 200 miles and do a round over the poles."

His body remained stiff as his eyes flicked over to me. "You want me to fly around the Earth?"

I nodded. "You won't fly the whole way. At 200 miles out, you'll be entering the thermosphere, but you're still safely out of the stratosphere. Also, our orbiting time will be much faster. So once we're at 200 miles, we'll kick off an orbit and put her back on auto. The centrifical force will keep her from being pulled toward the Earth. Actually, it will be great for you to see the perspective of the Earth from over the poles. The atmosphere is different so you can look at the Earth without getting as distorted a view."

He looked at me as though I was speaking Greek. With a laugh I leaned forward to call base. "Base from Thunderbird Five."

Scott's head appeared. "Go ahead, John."

"We're initiating flight training. Five will be entering a LEO path at 200 miles above the surface. We'll be engaging in a polar orbit. Full orbit should take approximately 90 minutes at 17025 miles per hour."

"How fast?"

Scott laughed hearing our brother's exclamation. "He obviously wasn't paying attention when Alan went over that in the simulator."

I smiled in return. "Well, let's hope he's paying attention now."

"Yeah, otherwise you two will get to play skipping stone as you bounce off the atmosphere and into far space," Scott laughed.

Uh oh. Damage control. "Gordon will do fine. He's an excellent pilot and I'm right here too. We'll call in when we're at 200 miles out."

Scott looked mildly confused. "I know he's an excellent pilot. He'll probably come home and convince Brains to upgrade Four to work at those speeds."

Next to me Gordon snorted. "No thanks. Unlike you freaks, I respect the environment in which I travel. You may be fine with obliterating birds and space debris and whatever else, but I'd like to avoid killing all the fish before slamming head on into the side of a trench."

"Yes, well, that's why we'll be checking for a clear path before setting the orbit."

Scott laughed again. "Okay, well, good luck you guys. Give us a shout before you go back on auto."

"FAB." We responded in unison.

I turned to my brother. "Okay, take her down."

TBTBTBTBTBTBTB

Four and a half hours later, we were back in position, having completed the training flight. Gordon had done a phenomenal job. I actually didn't have to give him any direction, other than the orbiting height and speed. He handled the rest like he'd been doing this for years.

After re-checking all the settings, he flicked the switch, putting Five back on automatic. With a loud sigh, he reclined in the seat covering his face with his hands. "Well, that was certainly an adrenaline rush."

I smiled, stood, and clapped him on the shoulder. "You did an amazing job. Not that I would ever compare you to your brothers, but you demonstrated far superior piloting of Five than Scott or Virgil."

"Ha!" He started laughing. "Can I tell them?"

"Noo...You just keep that to yourself."

He smirked at me. "Yeah right, I'll bet you've said the same thing to each one of us."

I shook my head. "No. Well, Scott was first so there was no one to compare him to and then Alan did do better than both of them. So I may have given the same compliment to Alan..."

The smile didn't leave his face as he looked up at me. "Are you serious? Did I really do better than Scott?"

I laughed again. "Yes, but you are not going to tell him. If Alan could keep his mouth shut, so can you. I don't need Scott all pissed at me; or Virgil for that matter."

"Well, Scott's the one who taught me how to pilot to begin with, so he should probably get some credit..." He winked at me. "But don't worry, I won't let him know how good an instructor he is."

He continued, ignoring my chuckle. "Actually, Alan spent hours with me in the simulator going over this; We should tell him, I think he'd be proud."

"Well, then..." I bent over and reached for the comm. button. "Thunderbird Five to Base."

Once again, Scott answered, not surprising since we had just gotten off with him. "Go ahead, John."

"Hi again Scott, is Alan around?"

"Uh, yeah, hang on."

A few moments later, Alan came into view. "Hi John. Scott said you wanted to see me?"

I moved back and turned to Gordon. "Well?"

Still all smiles, he leaned into the video view. He had his own video link, but for some reason, whenever he was talking to Base, he never used it. "Hey, Al."

Alan raised his brows. "Uh oh. Why do you look so happy?"

Gordon laughed. "Be quiet, I'm calling to compliment you."

"Oh! Okay then." Sitting down, my youngest brother folded his hands behind his head, waiting for his compliment. Behind him, Scott rolled his eyes.

"You remember when you took Five on the training flight?"

Alan nodded.

"You remember the compliment John gave you after?"

Alan smiled, knowingly.

"Well...I just got the same compliment."

Shooting forward in his seat, Alan's jaw dropped. "No way!"

Gordon's grin was practically blinding. "I'm serious! I told John I should call to give you credit since you spent so many hours in the simulator going over it with me."

"That's awesome, Gords!"

"You proud?"

I think just having Gordon ask him that was enough to make Alan beam. "I'm totally proud! You were great with the simulator too. I told you that."

With a shrug, Gordon downplayed the compliment. "Yeah, well, it's different in real life."

From the back, Scott interjected. "Well, I for one am very happy to hear you didn't run Five into the moon. Of course, you might have if John hadn't told you what speed to orbit at."

The smile faded from my face. Why the hell did he have to mention the one thing Gordon didn't know off hand?

"You didn't know the speeds? Gords, we covered that."

Gordon looked disappointed at Alan's comment and I was pissed. "Alan, he ran the entire flight independently. I kept my mouth shut the whole time. The only thing I gave him was the height and speed."

Alan's brow furrowed. "That's great. Why'd Scott-"

"Because he's jealous that Gordon did a better job piloting Five than he did." I know I had told Gordon to keep that quiet but screw it. Scott's head needed to be brought down to size.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gordon's eyes grow wide, and Alan's matched them.

Scott gave me an offended look, walking towards the screen. "John-"

"He did a great job, Scott. Why're you trying to put him down?" I wasn't normally so upfront, but Gordon was really stressed, he was trying really hard, and he didn't need Scott giving him shit.

My eldest brother stopped his travel and looked confused. "I wasn't trying to put him down. I..." He paused, scrunching up his face. "Is that really how it came off?"

Three yeses answered him.

He looked over at Gordon. "Gosh, Gordon. I'm sorry. I-"

I cut him off. "And not two seconds before we called, he was telling me that you should get some of the credit too since you were the one who originally taught him how to fly."

Guilt covered Scott's face. Good, he should feel guilty. "That was the second time today you insulted him. Maybe you should pay more attention to how you talk to people." I snapped the comm. link off.

I was still simmering as Gordon turned his chair toward me. "Whoa, John. You were a little harsh on Scott there, don't you think?"

I shook my head. "He pissed me off. He hasn't said anything nice to you since you got here."

Gordon disagreed. "That's not true. He just said before that he knew I was an excellent pilot. And since when have you been so defensive of me? Not that I don't appreciate it, but normally it's you, Scott, and Virg versus me and Alan. When did you switch sides?"

"I don't have a side. I'm Switzerland."

With a laugh, Gordon responded, "No, Switzerland stays out of it. You switched sides. You're Italy."

I couldn't help it, I laughed. With a sigh, I looked at my brother. "I suppose I should call him back."

Gordon made a face. "Nah, let him stew a little. I mean, after all, he did insult me."

My stomach rumbled, reminding me that it was time for lunch. "You ready to eat yet?"

"Maybe... I feel a little better."

I was relieved to hear that, maybe he'd be able to sleep later too. We walked into the kitchen and I pulled out some lunch packets. I handed him one. "Add water and stir."

He stared back at me like I was crazy. "What is it?"

One of my favorite aspects of the training was watching my brothers' response to my next statement. "Eggs, sunny side up."

Gordon didn't disappoint. The look of disgust on his face was fantastic. "Seriously?"

I nodded. "Add the water. It looks a little off, especially when the egg powder doesn't mix all the way; then you end up with lumpy egg water. But it tastes the same."

He followed my directions and sure enough, he didn't mix well and ended up with the lumpy egg water. I ate mine as he sat at the table staring into his packet.

"Well? Go on. Eat it."

Slowly his eyes rose to meet mine. "It smells disgusting."

I responded with my mouth full. "It really doesn't taste that bad. It's just missing some ketchup." Actually, we had ketchup, but that was in the food pantry that Gordon didn't know about yet.

Making a face of revulsion, he hesitantly dipped a spoon into the packet and pulled out a spoonful of yellow, gloppy, water. Then, quickly, he closed his eyes, shoved the food in his mouth, and swallowed.

I smiled. "See? It really doesn't taste that bad."

Just as I said it, I watched his face turn green. He dropped the spoon and packet on the table. His nostrils flaring as he breathed hard through his nose.

I waited, pausing in my own meal to see where this was going. Sure enough, after a couple of seconds, he made a close-mouthed gagging sound and clamped a hand over his mouth. His torso spasmed again and I saw liquid seeping through the fingers that covered his lips. Shit.

Standing, I quickly got a plastic bag out of a cabinet and handed it over. He took it with his left hand, doubled over completely, and replaced his right hand with the bag. Then the full bodied retching sounds reached my ears.

I felt really bad. I don't know why I didn't think of this when I opted to serve him the most disgusting food we had on board. It was funny with my other brothers, but Gordon had been nauseous since he got here. I should've taken that into consideration before I went along with my typical training schedule. And I had had the nerve to yell at Scott.

Gordon groaned. He was still doubled over, but seemed to have a reprieve from the vomiting- probably because there was nothing in him to expel.

I walked over and put a hand on his back. I still felt pretty guilty. "Gords?"

Slowly, he straightened up. His hand trembled as he brought the bag down from his mouth. The scent of vomit and eggs wafted up at me. Scrunching my nose, I ignored the smell and knelt down so I was at his eye level.

He swallowed carefully and looked at me. "I think I'm gonna pass on the rest of the eggs."

At least he still had his sense of humor. "How about some ginger ale?"

He nodded. As I stood up to go to the pantry, he spoke again. "I'm gonna throw this out and wash my hands in the bathroom."

"Ok."

Two minutes later he returned to a can of ginger ale waiting for him. He picked it up with a perplexed look. "Where'd you get a can of ginger ale from?"

I knew I'd have to tell him about the real food. I mean, I was going to have to eventually anyway, so whether I told him now or later, he was going to realize that I forced him to eat powdered eggs for no reason. Besides, if I wanted Gordon to eat dinner, which I did, I was going to have to break out the real food.

"I got it out of the food pantry."

His forehead wrinkled, indicating he had no idea what I was talking about.

"Come on, I'll show you."

I walked over to the large silver door, opened it, and flipped on the light. Hesitantly, my brother peaked his head in, looking at the shelves lined with various cans and boxes. He gave me another quick look before reaching into the room and picking up a bottle of mustard. "How'd you guys get all this stuff here?"

"Same way you got here. We load it up in Three. Alan and I make a list and call it in before we're relieved."

As I spoke, Gordon returned the mustard and bent himself around the door frame to look further into the room.

"You can actually step into the room you know."

Straightening himself, he looked at me. "I don't wanna get locked in."

"Gordon, you really think I would do that to you? I told you I wouldn't prank you."

The look he gave me let me know loud and clear that he realized what I had been thinking feeding him the egg packets. I winced. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "It's alright. It was no big deal."

I hated it when he was so forgiving.

"It's not okay. I broke a promise and now you're even more stressed."

"I'm not more stressed."

I rolled my eyes. "Gords, you're afraid to go in the food pantry because you think I'm going to lock you in."

He swallowed hard. "Yeah. I am."

Twisting of the knife in my gut. The fact that he wasn't mad at me about it made it even worse.

"Gordon, I really am sorry. I wasn't even thinking of it as a prank. With the other guys, I didn't tell them about the food pantry until day 5. I got a kick out of watching all of you contemplating a month of powdered food. I realize now that doing that's a form of pranking, but I hadn't thought-"

He brought a hand up to stop me. "John, it's okay. I'm not mad at you. It's fine. I've done pranks that have been ill-timed or went bad. Don't feel bad about it; it was probably just karma using you to get back at me."

"I hate you. You have to forgive me? Can't you just punch me or something? I'd feel so much better."

He grinned. "No, I can't punch you. And yes, I have to forgive you. First of all, if I didn't, I run the risk of being here alone and...well, I'm really trying not to think about that. Second, I have never punched a family member in anger and I don't plan to start now. And third, despite what you think, I still overpower you by a ridiculous amount and it just wouldn't look good for me. It'd be like hitting a girl."

I stared for a moment before a laugh escaped me. "The next time we're both at home, you and I are going to meet in the training room for a little sparring."

He clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, I realize you feel bad about pranking me, but suicide isn't the answer, bro."

I laughed again and shrugged his hand off. "Alright, tough guy. Go relax for a few and drink your ginger ale. I'm going to do a check-in on the situation in Madagascar."

"You think we'll be needed?"

"Probably not, the locals have evacuated most of the areas affected by the volcano. There are a few people who refuse to budge, but I've already let dad know about it. There's really nothing we can do for them, they're not going to move because we say so either. You and I just have to monitor if the eruption effects spread further than expected."

"What about the wildlife?"

I raised my brows. "Really? You want to have that discussion with dad again? We only save humans."

My brother looked disappointed, but didn't respond. It let me know that the lack of sleep and food was probably getting to him. Taking him by the arm, I pushed him down into the chair. "Sit. Drink. Relax."

I got a nod of response as he opened the ginger ale. With my brother situated for the moment, I moved back to the control room.


As always, reviews are cherished and very, very welcome. Please let me know your thoughts.