I just want to say a massive thank you to all of you readers, reviewers etc. I was amazed at the response this story has received so thank you very much, I've felt very privileged to read all your lovely reviews and see all the views, favourites, alerts etc. that this has received!
So, here's the third part.
P.S. If you are interested in t-shirts with quotes from both the original and new series, see the note at the end.
It was still lost to him.
The world was moving by, but he was standing still. It was like enduring a crash landing only to find yourself stuck stock to the ground, becoming firmly rooted like a newly growing tree. Yet, his entire life had been deracinated, to the point that it didn't feel right to even attempt to find your feet again.
He'd been home for hours now, but he'd yet to move from his room. He couldn't even remember how he got home. But on the scale of things, it didn't matter. It was one of those trivial things, dismissible by the wave of a hand.
His mind was like a hurricane, images appearing all over the place as he walked. The echo of Gordon there, or Virgil over there, or the pair of them somewhere. Echoes too realistic to be bouts of memory, echoes like visions: visions close enough to touch and hold to make oneself whole again. Echoes and visions so real that the dead simply could not. Be. Dead.
Reality was harsh, unfair and cold.
Especially in the way it reminded you that what you wanted to be the imaginary, to be a fictitious dread of dreamspace, was indeed the stone truth of life.
The gentle tones of piano keys reached his ears and for a moment took him somewhere else. It took him to a world where you come home to the light piano playing which soothed whatever irate tale you had to share, leaving it on the backburner for some other time, the music lessening the flame like music with charms to soothe a savage beast.
But there was no music to soothe a savage beast called grief, resulting from a beast equally as unrestrained, by the name of death.
"Virgil."
"No." John's voice was as calm as ever. It was a trait of his to be the calm, the point in the very eye of the storm where nothing could be disturbed. Something which should be noted as a safe place, for holding John was like holding a key to the reins of destruction, and anything outside of his sphere was bound for disaster. "He was going through Virgil's collection. Once he found it he was determined to learn it."
"How long has he been there?" Scott wanted to know how long this music had been held from his ears. How long this reminder had been going on for, and how he'd missed it.
"About an hour." The younger answered, reverting his eyes back to the other blonde Tracy, who tapped absently at the keys, some sense of timing coming to him the more he repeated the piece. "He could do it, don't you think?"
There was no answer to that, because there wasn't anyone to answer it.
He had to go.
He'd had to pull himself from the room, because if he hadn't, he feared what harm he might cause - to Alan or the piano – in one of those unexpected moments when all you can see if pure blood red.
When he finally gave up, deciding he didn't have anything close to Virgil's talent, and was just destroying the sound of music to ones ears, he headed outside to the pool. The sun was out again now, shinning as brightly as usual. When they'd returned home the rain had followed, but the storm passed briefly, allowing the normal weather of the Island to return in abundance.
Alan wished they could have done the same.
The water gained a strange glow in the sunlight. Gordon had once suggested you could use that to tell the time. But then, Gordon had also suggested they make the pool wider, and buy some fish to keep in the house. Maybe buying the fish would be worthwhile?
He wasn't sure. His mind was full of too many questions to know all the answers. Some he could ignore, but others were too strong. Others were like asteroids burning up in the atmosphere.
It was like that constant question. The one that nags in your head of 'how would you like to die?' Or that one you couldn't not ask yourself in this rescue business, the question of 'will you live to grow old before you die?'
He knew what an answer to that question was now, and it was one he would never let go of. One which would haunt him deep into his old days of age (if he reached them), and gnaw at his bones each surviving day, until it was twinned into them allowing his death to bring final end to that sick, repetitive question. Allowing grief to leave him, because he knew he didn't think he could ever be rid of it. It would chew and nibble at him until there was no Alan left, just a shadow, one which could live without the burdens of grief, without the memory of a tragic day.
Without registering his own footsteps, he wandered further until he was throwing pebbles and stones into the sea. The movement became violent, increasingly violent until his arm was too tired to lob the rocks into the deep and all point seemed to drain away - not that there had ever been any. It was something that passed the time, something that allowed him to curse his own idiocy, something to curse his brothers for dying and something that allowed him space, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to get rid of the crushing grief, and it never would be.
Jeff Tracy tossed the morning newspaper aside rather ungracefully. He had no interest in reading the repetitive story that he knew already through his sons first-hand accounts. He had no interest in reading the over exaggerated, incorrectly reported trash which some reporter had concocted, desperate to get a good story and some readership for their paper. He had no time for their hyperbolic ways of storytelling.
His sons had scattered themselves, the unity of the Tracy family seemingly broken. Since he'd first seen them home, he hadn't seen all three of them together in the same place. Three sons should be easier to keep track of: to that many parents would agree. But for Jeff, his head was still counting to five, searching for five, needing to know five different sets of details.
Three was too little.
It was like working on auto-pilot. Get up, go to bed. Do this, do that. Nothing was really coming from his thoughts anymore, as though some switch had been clicked in his head. He was working on autopilot, Scott was working off something between automatic and manual, something Jeff had never seen.
"What are you doing?"
"Tidying."
"The house is tidy."
"That doesn't matter." Scott was moving extremely quickly, almost too much for Jeff to keep his eyes on him. His eldest son narrowly avoided knocking John from his feet as he exited the lounge, leaving the pair to watch the path he'd taken.
"Is he tidying?"
"Apparently so." He didn't sit at his desk. Somehow that would be wrong. It would be wrong to sit there and look at the photos of his sons. So he sat on the sofa, his back to the wall. John remained in the doorway, his face unreadable, but Jeff was his father and that stood for something. "What is it, son?"
The question snapped John from whatever thought he was mulling over and pulled his gaze. Still the space monitors face remained one of those pictures you couldn't figure out. Something, some words, seemed to hang on his lips, but they did not form his answer, the blonde changing his mind before he spoke. "Nothing."
Jeff wondered if John really expected him to believe that.
The house was too claustrophobic. He'd spent hours inside and decided it was finally time to venture outside. The sun beat down on the gold sand, sand that John could only think of flooding through an hour glass like a silent, undefeatable enemy. Alan was sat by the edge of the land, the water lapping over his feet. But what John instantly noticed, was what he held.
It was worrying. It was worrying when anyone you knew so well didn't appear as their normal self.
Alan must have noticed him from the corner of his eyes, but made no move to change his pattern of actions as the elder sat next to him.
"I thought you didn't smoke."
"I don't." Alan's reflexes had slowed as he pulled the cigarette from the younger's grip and tossed it to the waves in front of them.
"Don't look at me like that. You're only doing it out of grief."
"I am not."
"Alan, you grew up with a family of smokers, and chose not to follow that path. We all know you well enough to know you don't smoke." The slightly childish edge had ever lessened in Alan. Gordon had encouraged it, approving of his stick to younger methods of getting his way. This childish edge had done nothing for the younger's emotion and left them now as a mess, a jumble which the astronaut didn't know how to sort, let alone get a grip on. "Besides, you were doing it all wrong. I'm surprised you weren't coughing."
"What do you want?"
"Nothing, Alan. Nothing."
"You don't even want your brothers back?"
"Of course I do."
"I keep thinking of them. The island is just full of memories and ties which link us to them." Alan knew as soon as he looked to John that if the elder was listening, that was it. He didn't seem there. John Tracy was sat on the beach, but Alan doubted his thoughts placed him there. Some skip seemed to have occurred, and the John who always listened seemed to be having trouble in remaining undistracted.
"Something about that palm tree particularly interesting?"
"Sorry?" Suddenly the other was back, but his mind seemed to take time to fully register Alan's words, as though it was still attempting to pull the other back to something else. Something darker. "The palm tree? No."
It was worrying. It was worrying when anyone you knew so well didn't appear as their normal self.
"Are you alright?"
John nodded. It was a lie.
Alan was good at lying. John was not. In fact, nor were Scott or Virgil. Gordon had the talent for it and Alan had picked it up from his direct elder, who (probably to their father's displeasure) had been overjoyed to teach him the art. But out of them all, John was the worst liar. The best listener, but the worst liar.
If anyone was going to be scatty, it was he or Gordon, not John. It just didn't happen. Each member of the Tracy family was moulded into a certain place, a certain role, and this wasn't right. None of it was, but it was happening. It was happening, when it just didn't.
When it just shouldn't.
"Scott."
"Yes, father?"
"You've tided your room already."
"I'll do it again." He was desperately trying to ignore the weakness of his muscles and hide the tremors. He was running around the house like a child or a firefly, burning his way through the house doing anything he could think of. Tidying was one, cleaning was another, just anything, anything that drew his mind's focus, anything that made him feel useful. Anything that made him feel as though he was helping; to make up for the time he couldn't.
"Why don't you spend some time with your brothers?"
Of all the things he could do, that was at the bottom of his list. He had no idea how to be around them right now. He wasn't sure who he should be, or how he should act nor what to say. No topic of conversation came to mind as valid. Talking about the weather was as pointless as avoiding acknowledging what had occurred. He didn't even know how to say that.
"It might help you all."
Scott desperately wished that could be true. He wanted it to be. He wanted nothing more than his family to be put back together.
It was a shame pieces of the puzzle were missing.
Not just missing, but broken.
Alan hated analysing things. He preferred to work from his instincts, from what he knew and what he felt. Now he stood looking up the wall of the house for anyway in which he could scale it to the roof.
"Tell me you're not thinking of climbing the house." John frowned upon him from the balcony, ignoring the glint of suggestion in his eyes.
"I could do it."
"Alan." The elder chastised, but it sounded like a bundle of exasperation. "It's dangerous."
"Everything's dangerous." Alan, of them all, had always chosen the dangerous past times. Where one might choose reading, he chose racing. Where one may choose conversation, he chose climbing. He'd always been the wild child so to speak. John thought he could see this now as Alan's outlet. The astronaut was using risk and all its wiles to cope and compensate. The blonde only sighed as Alan started his venture.
"What are you doing?" Scott's voice echoed from behind them and Alan pushed himself away from the wall.
"Taking my mind off things."
"By putting yourself at risk of falling and breaking your back?"
"Scott, leave it." John interjected. "He's fine. We're all grieving, none of us our thinking straight."
"We're all going through the same thing, you don't see-"
"No we're not!"
"Sorry?"
"You don't understand anything!"
"I understand clearly."
"Scott." John shook his head, rushing down the steps to try and push between his brothers. A storm was brewing over the island again. A storm mixed from chemicals caused masculine nature and death. A storm named grief and destruction, one set on causing loss and strife. One that was about to start now, even though the skies were blue and clear. His interjections were pointless, his attempts to remove the youngest from the situation. Alan was a trigger, and Scott was a bullet. The pair of them were clashing, and John wouldn't see another catastrophe occur.
"No, you don't."
"Alan, please-"
"Stop it, all of you."
"Dad-"
"We've got enough to deal without you going at each other's throats." He seemed saddened to have caught them arguing, turning with some linger of disappointment. Grief swallowed people whole and it seemed to be doing so for them. Scott storm off like thunder after John's shake of the head, dismissing whatever tumult could have continued. Alan writhed in his grasp.
"Let me go."
"Alan, no. We need to talk." As tears pricked in the corner of the blonde's eyes, John wanted nothing but to cry with him. "You're alright, I've got you."
"It's not alright. Everything's gone wrong. We should have done things differently."
"The past is a foreign country, Alan. They do things differently there."
"Will we ever do things the way again?"
"Maybe." He knew nothing other than his own distance, but he hoped that Alan could find some way to believe him. The past always ended up as distant memories, as bleak visions of what was and hinders to what could be. But the past was also the best way to hold yourself to life, to all those memories you want to remember and those you'd rather forget. It was everything you wanted to hold onto and everything you were desperate to let go of. "Maybe one day we'll go back. One day when we're all strong enough to move from our grief."
"We can't let it go."
"We don't have to. We just have to push forward."
It was never as simple as that: it just couldn't be. Though he thought something could come of it. Something could come of putting one foot in front of the other eventually.
They had to get somewhere.
"Scott, we need you."
"Why?"
"We just do."
"Why, John?" He needed to know, the younger didn't want to tell. The background wouldn't matter if the elder didn't know. John shouldn't have taken his eyes from the younger, Jeff shouldn't have left them alone and Scott should have been there.
"Just come with me?" Eventually the elder rose to his feet, following the blonde through the house and down to the hangars. Scott had had enough risk for a lifetime. Alan had not.
"Alan, please get down." Jeff Tracy didn't want another son to disappear. Enough of their 'normal' life had already been gouged from them meaning anything more would feel anything but fair, if loss ever did. Water and fire, rain and sun, all the opposites were there, and all the sparks had ignited something. They were all drenched in oil just waiting for a lighter to fall.
"Alan?" Who else would it be? Scott Tracy seemed to be returning to him now. The Scott Tracy who cared and worried, who got back up somehow when he crashed down. Whatever depersonalisation he had swiftly became constricted, allowing a true personality to push its way forward. Thunderbird Two was no great height, but height enough to hurt should one fall. And fall Alan could. "Alan, what are you doing? Get down."
"I want to be up here."
"I don't care. Get down now!"
"It's my fault." There were the bolts of lightning again. The bolts that shattered trees and deeply affected them. They were thunder, not lightning. They didn't do the damage, they cleared it. They cleared it for everyone, but they hadn't cleared it for themselves. They had no idea how to deal with this, they were in too deep with no shared understanding of each other for the first time in their lives.
"Sorry?" John couldn't believe what he was hearing, his sense of distance pushed aside, but there. That very sense telling him he could not be hearing the truth.
"It's my fault."
"How? How's it your fault?"
"Talk to us, Alan."
"I should have convinced Gordon to follow you out. But he wanted to get more people out." Two sides to every story, to every coin. This was the side untold, the side that portioned blame if such a thing existed, elsewhere. The side Alan only knew, confined to his mind alone and eating at it. This was what he blamed himself for, this was what he remembered. Alan had always been the child to take risks. Gordon tried and it backfired, so now Alan was seeking those risks again as a way to be close. "I wanted to get him out."
"You couldn't." For a moment John wondered what Scott had thought of, but the elder continued in his fashion, taking a statement one should be saddened by and twisting it to his choosing. "But that shows what Gordon was like. When he was convinced of doing something no one could stop him. And that's what we should remember, Alan, of Virgil and Gordon." There were enough, one just had to be able to think of them, one just had to hold onto them and hope they would not drive them to madness if they could no let go of the worst. "The moments like that: good moments. Moments that show how amazingly talented and human are brothers were."
"How good their hearts were." The whisper, the ear silent whisper that struck nerves in all of them.
"It's still my fault."
"Just get down here Alan, before you give father a heart attack, cause John to go grey and scar me for life."
"Come on. Give me your hand." Risk. That was what their job was. That was what they had all accepted without question when their father proposed the idea to them. That was what they had all considered to be their weakness until it never failed them. Chance, luck, they had nothing to do with it. As a family they took risks, and as a family they paid off. Their skills were greater and their ideas better. It was the one thing that couldn't hurt them; error was the thing that could.
As soon as his brother was safe, it was as though Scott stopped breathing, stopped existing. Back came the mist of trying to be someone you aren't, of trying to cut yourself out of a world which hurt you, to be someone else in order to correct the damage that had been done. Without so much as a word, he spun on his hill and started across the hangar. He knew what he was doing and that was would hurt him when the mists of grief moved away. The wrench may as well been a dagger to their hearts, the scratching of the metal and paintwork like nails on glass.
"Scott!"
"What are you doing?" John looked at him in complete shock, Alan hovering behind him with his mouth gaping. They were all reacting differently, but none quite so fiercely. John was falling distant, Jeff was hiding it, Alan was sensitive to it, and he was blazing through it.
"I'll speak to him." The patriarch followed him out, leaving the blonde pair to hover in the large cavern, Thunderbirds Two and Four behind them, as though they weren't already reminded enough.
It barely made sense to head towards Thunderbird One, but that was where he went, his father following every step. The logical part of his mind shrieked and hollered, desperate to be let free to revive Scott Tracy, not the shadow he was making himself. But he refused. He just couldn't be Scott Tracy, because he'd lost too much, because he blamed himself, because he had no roads left to take, no places to turn just a blank crossroad surrounded by never ending routes to the past.
The past he just couldn't face.
"Virgil loved that machine." He knew that, really he did, and he loved it too. He already regretted the action he just couldn't voice that. He couldn't dwell on that, because that was accepting, acknowledging everything. His brothers were gone: those machines were just taunting reminders well placed to remind him they could have left sooner and been elsewhere rescuing more lives than those lost and keeping their own.
"That's all it is."
"Not to him it wasn't."
"I'm not going to put it in a glass cabinet."
"I'm not saying you should. I just thought…" Jeff wasn't going to argue with him. He wasn't going to let something fester away beneath an already infected issue. Tracy Island was soon becoming the burning tower block, the hangars replacing the basement entrapment. He could picture it, and he hated it. He was worn down and tired, and didn't want to chip anymore off that. If he knew anything, it was that grief – in its many forms – could be like the worst illnesses, deadly contagious and extremely catching, easily changeable from one person to another, allowing ones grief to become theirs until there was no difference between their feelings.
"That we'd treasure it like one of Alan's trophies, or Gordon's medals?" Scott swallowed. That was a crack in the iron armour, the first splinter needed for the rest to eventually shatter. "I can't look at it."
"Then don't."
"How can I?" Words fell on deaf ears. Usually they were the first senses to go in most people. Stop yourself from listening, cut off from what will be announced and it isn't real. "He said he was right behind us. He promised."
"Son." This should never have happened. Not now, nor ever, but it had. It had happened, it had happened when they thought they would be infinite, believed themselves to be invincible, allowed themselves to feel immortal and undefeatable. They'd never lost, and he'd never reminded then they could. He was as much to blame. "You can't save everyone."
"They were your sons too. I haven't seen you cry."
"That's not the only way of showing grief."
"You can't."
"We're not talking about me."
"That's the problem." Scott's rising infuriation was like a ticking time bomb. His anger was his own, directed to himself because of his own helplessness, his own lack of action. This was his (very bad) way of seeking to make up for that. "We never will. You'll bottle up just like you did with mum, because you felt you couldn't talk to any of us."
"Scott-"
"Don't do that." Placating what a technique which had worked well, but was unlikely to work again. None of his sons were children anymore, but as a parent it was often hard to accept the aging of your children. "Don't you dare. I am not watching this family break up, because you can't talk to us. Or don't think you can. It's different this time. We're all old enough to cope."
"You call this coping?"
"Yes, I do." It was anything but. It was everything he thought and nothing he believed. No one could cope by shutting away what they need, those who could were almost sentenced to suffer rebounds later. Jeff knew: he'd done it. He would not have one nor any of his sons doing the same. John had rounded the corner, standing in the aftermath of their discussion, Alan loitering behind him.
"Sorry, can I have a word with Scott?" Jeff lingered in the doorway, his hand on John's shoulder before he exited with his youngest son, leaving the pair of them in silence.
Grief smothered silence.
John wasn't sure what he'd expected, if he had anything at all. When you were alone in space after just receiving the most devastating news of your life, which you never could have believed was possible, the question is what to expect next. It's the only one that can cross back and forth into your mind as he could the floor space, with it still not being enough to douse whatever flames are still sparking or calm whichever storm should take its time to brew.
Those thoughts can only be left to stew until you reach one which no amount of mind power nor will can crack like a weak twig. One which is like the boulder of stone altering the river's course.
"John, why are you not all over the place?" He had no explanation for what he was feeling. He had no sense of control over this. This was not loneliness which one could surpass for the sake of duty or with the knowledge that you are where few have ever been, least of all of so long in one duration. It was a question he could not give Scott an answer to regardless of his usual ability to have whatever details were needed.
"I don't know."
"Shouldn't you be?"
"I don't know."
"Is that all you can say? All you know?"
"If you're the expert, you tell me." The eldest said nothing, the non-dethroned brother, who never had need to fear for his place in the family. Whose change of place would never happen, least he should lose them all. He gave answer to his own question, more for his sake. He was the individual who felt it compulsory to be able to give answers, when to others it was probably of little matter. "Your brain works off impulse and emotion, not reason."
"Interesting." Scott's voice dripped with sarcasm, a tone he didn't recognise almost as much as the brother who wielded it. Still, there was a reason he dealt with his brothers problems, a reason he was their ear to talk to and shoulder to cry on. He hated talking about himself and that was what he would not do.
"We need to do something about dad."
"Like what?" The other asked, sounding as though he was on a train which had just collided into a set of buffers. "He's said barely anything to me and even less to you. He doesn't talk about things like this." He didn't, most likely wouldn't, and John was going the same way, which to some extent he felt increased his resolve to do something.
"He had a bad feeling about that rescue."
"And he wasn't wrong. What do you want to do? Give him a reward?" Scott seemed to have completely lost his control and cool head. John shook his head in disbelief. Grief changed people, grief caused families too much trouble and it was doing just that for them. But it was swallowing Scott whole.
"What on earth has got in to you?"
"Me?" A part of him howled for him to lash back, to say things as they were, but he would not. His restraint went further than that of wolves for blood and conflict was the one thing he didn't lust after.
"I'm not arguing with you."
"Do you not care?"
"Of course I do."
"Then why can't you and dad show that? Why are you hiding it away like it's something to be ashamed of or something to forget?"
"Scott, you're talking rubbish."
"They were our brothers!"
"You don't think I know that?" If it had been a shouting match there would have been a clear victor. If there had ever been a time to cry, it would be now, John ruled for surety it would be, but he couldn't, just as he hadn't since his breakdown in solitude up in the deeps of space where none could hear. "I wasn't there, Scott, but I still lost them."
There was no harsher truth than that.
Solitude was John's thing. Scott wondered if he was beginning to see just why the other kept it as a companion. It was undemanding, unconditional and unjudging. For those reasons he just may keep it for himself. Time passed you by with the merest of snags.
Emotions were the cut off of all reason and logic. He'd never been the ideas greatest friend, but now he would give anything to have them back in full clarity. He was all over the place, unsure of what he was doing and not thinking through what he was saying. He was adding salt to a newly stitched wound, threatening to tear it again.
"I'm sorry, Virgil." The breath he took scarcely seemed fulfilling enough. His head found its way into his hands and tears to his eyes. Tears he no longer understood. He'd cried for too long to have any left. You'd think he'd expressed the grief he had, but it had dug deep within, poised to stay fixed there, like the path of blood to the heart. "Gordon, I'm so sorry."
"Grief talks to you, 'ey?" John sat beside him, their eyes meeting. The younger looked free of any malice or argument. He was calm. The calm posed to a wrecked boat, which would only last so long before it too broke. "Or should I say guilt eats at you?"
"Why are you talking to me?"
"Because I'm your brother and I care about you." It was an admittance, one of the first few the family would face from all corners. One step closer for them all to something seemingly impossible. International Rescue may breathe again one day, but first they had to. They had things to get off their chests, things to be rid of first. They had things to hold on to things they needed to recognise through a process bound to take time, one they had unwillingly been enrolled on from the moment of the fall. "And because it helps."
"I'm sorry."
"Me too."
"For?"
"For not reacting."
Emotions weren't always choice. Grief was the only one which ensured that, the only one which conscripted unthought-of through actions, unmoderated thoughts. It was one which no one could learn to master, one which no techniques could help every living being through their different and complicated pattern of individual grief. Families were more likely to clash because all members were more likely to be different.
Those differences had to go; those boundaries had to give.
Scott shook his head. "That's not worth apologising for. You can't help something like that."
"Got you." Scott didn't get it. John gave him a light smile to show he'd been attempting his hand at joking, trying a turn at humour. Not one of them had the ability to replace Gordon, but that didn't mean they couldn't laugh. They doubted he'd have wanted it that way. "You thought about something else for a minute."
The take-off of a Thunderbird could resonate for miles within the time they spent sat in the bittersweet environment of silence. Night slowly drew in closer, slower than either had ever known. It came as a certainty, but when was simply an anomaly. "Come on. Alan was asking for you."
"Another apology." John halted in the doorway, his silhouette casting shadows across the room as the edges of sunrays hit his figure. Scott didn't think he was seeing double or triple, though he didn't trust his eyes to see things clearly anymore.
"He doesn't want one. Just his brother."
Scott Tracy. That was all the younger wanted. He'd already lost Virgil and Gordon, losing another brother just didn't appear fair, right. Losing another brother, because that brother lost himself, didn't seem like a justification.
"Grief does funny things to people."
"Life does."
He looked forward to the night. There was something calming about it, something simple, continuous. Nights end could bring days break and days end could bring nights beginning – nothing ruptured or fell out of place, it just happened.
He rarely had an issue with sleeping, but there was a pressing one now.
His feet carried themselves to the lounge where the eldest sat drinking wine and smoking. Alan watched them. John – now the middle child, as strange a thought as that be – looked exhausted, a guise seldom seen on him despite his late night stakes to gaze at stars. Tonight his eyes looked not that way, but downward to the floor. There was no conversation between them, for neither brother appeared to really be there, nor did either notice his entrance to the room. He sat with them, that being seen at least, nevertheless a grasp on realism still seemed lacking. He poured himself a glass though never touched it again. The impulse that made him do it had faded and the incessant want for a drink passed as quickly as it had come.
There was something between them. Some bond or way which meant they didn't have to speak. An understanding, no matter how small, was present, and it alone was all they needed to hold a conversation. A tap of the chairs arm here, a sigh there and silence – all were decipherable in some manner.
Scott had finally sat down, finally allowed himself some time to clear his head and avoid clouding it with restless over-activity all comprised of little meaning. His mind could once again think freely and begin to consider the numerous topics to which it debated.
John was another puzzle, a different board game entirely. He still could not shed a tear, far too like their father in his way of grief. He'd built himself a life and it had come crashing down, shattering upon him to remind him how human he was. He could live up in space for all the time he liked, and he could watch the stars whilst thinking of ways to avoid their eventual burnout, but he would never be a part of it.
Space was something different, something disparate to him. He was human, thus mortal, and the reminder he had just received to this was a devastating blow. Not one, but two. Not a near miss, but a tragedy, and that had reminded him exactly of his own impermanence.
"I didn't know grief would be…"
"Like fear?" Alan's voice was quiet, but in the silence of the house it cried out like a scream. "I feel it too."
"What are you all doing up?" They should have expected it to be so, expected for him to be there, for like father, like son was the way of the Tracy bloodline.
"We couldn't sleep."
"Too much to sleep on?" If anything the question was directed to John.
"Yeah. Something like that."
He didn't need to say what he was thinking of. It was an easy guess. The same shadow clouded all their thoughts and the same darkness blackened all their minds to any other consideration. There was no conclusion to this, no happy ending to this one.
No one could reach them out here, out on their island which only they could call home. No one could reach them with their opinions or lies, their unknowing commiserations or provoked glances. Here they were safe and free, safe and together, and together they could stay regardless of what the world willed.
"It's wrong." Too many things seemed wrong for him to guess what Alan sought them to know. "To move on."
"No. It's wrong to forget them." The words of their father sounded rehearsed, as though he'd said them before, or rather, heard them before, been sat in their very position and listened to another speak to him an unknown truth or unconsidered thought. "They wouldn't want you to live like that."
"I don't know how I want to live." Overwhelmed like such none would, however it was harder still to know how someone who loved you would seek you to spend your days without them. You would never know if they highly expected you to live in mourning, or burned with desire to see you sweep through it like a breeze across a desert.
Neither seemed possible, but until now, nothing had seemed impossible.
"We can't stop International Rescue." The suggestion seemed absurd, an illogically drawn conclusion shown through a statement with little meaning, yet it was something. "It's a legacy." John's word prompted something. "Think about it. Should we stop something they gave their lives believing in?"
"No." His own choice of words surprised him. After all this, the least they should think of doing is repeating such a dangerous path, though Scott theorised then it was what had kept them going up to now. Their family had knitted itself into one stitch, allied itself to the people of the world and declared war against disaster. They'd stolen too much from it, but there was still more to take, a greater prise to claim by commemorating their fallen comrades: immortalising their brothers.
"We should make this decision another time. When you're all more sound minded." Jeff Tracy was certainly not within that state and within his time, he done many things out of grief-pushed impulse only to regret them later. If there was one thing this bump was going to cause, it would not be a repeat of his path. Grief never became easier to deal with. One would think that (like wisdom and experience) it was something you could improve with time, although the truth would always be that it was something you could never shake off or evade, never beat or destroy, but something you could stand and face until you found a way around.
That way could be over the tallest mountain or across the widest sea, but it would be there.
"That could be years." It could, John knew it could. They all did.
"Yes."
"Alan?" The youngest had drifted closer to the doors of the balcony, though not away from them. Their conversation was clear to him, every word like crystal. Part of him believed he was back by the building, back huddled away in Thunderbird Two, where all noises tried to drown him and one thing stopped him from going under. One thing, one thought, one person. Now, they were dwindling. Though still excessively loud, though still distinguishable down to the very last syllable, to the final vibration, they were fading, lessening and becoming simple sounds.
Becoming normal, whatever that be.
"What is it?" The patriarch made his way closer, following every move of the younger. Scott looked to John, and he looked back, some vague curiosity on his face, some sense of knowing and a glaze of worry. Scott wondered what John perceived of their feelings, what he picked up on simply through knowing his own.
"I thought I saw something." The younger made his way out onto the balcony, his family following. No eye contact was broken between Alan and the twinkling points above. The light waves provided the only sound, something akin to a lullaby; something akin to the unknown and the known, the future and the past. The stars were reminders. Reminders that they had life spans, ones they could not estimate like one could constellations. "Like a shooting star."
"They're not uncommon." John answered to Alan's light mutterings, unsure if it had been an invitation for conversation or not, but felt that the need had been there. The need for them to have words bouncing back and forth, the need for them to have a return of any form of unity.
"Beautiful, isn't it." The eyes of the other Tracy's turned to him as though he had spoken out of line or as a stranger in a court. "What? I'm not John, does that mean I can't appreciate the sky?"
"All we need is music." A soundtrack of the serene nature which Virgil could compose from a few simple notes, which Gordon could add to with ranging tones of voice, which all of them could enjoy whatever their action be.
"Always late at night." Scott gave his agreement, recalling so many times when the piano bade him from the world of sleep.
"Or after a rescue." Jeff added, eliciting his own thoughts. Hours or days or longer could have passed with the air of the contented silence. Not one without problems, but one which diminished their effects, one which offered some slight release from the harsh constraints of loss and a chance for a new nights cessation to play a different record or swim a different length.
"Can we sleep out here?"
"I don't see why not." Was the patriarch answer to the youngest's query. It wouldn't be comfortable, but the sky was offering them all something. The light air, the sea breeze - all of it was encompassed in one place, just as they were.
Alan's head fell onto Scott's shoulder, his eyelids closing over as an arm wrapped around his back. John wiped at his eyes, something finally giving, bending and snapping. Jeff stood behind them as though a shield from the world, a protective sphere within a wider one. One that blocked them from all but what they wanted, one that had always been there even if not acknowledged. A sphere that appeared when it was needed and vanished when there was no reason. Vanished, but never vanquished.
In time they'd all find a way to sleep. They had a long way to go, but they'd get there. In time they would all find a way to live without looking over their shoulders expecting to see someone, or hearing distant echoes of voices. They'd learn to live without looking back, learn to look forward and face what came towards them. They'd do it together, missing brothers and all. They wouldn't forget, but nor would they dwell. Their time would less be spent chewing over what they could have changed or never done, neither contemplating what they could do to be rid of it.
That wasn't truly what they needed. You could never be rid of grief, not when it saw the closest things to your heart. Virgil and Gordon would always be there, somewhere. They would find a way to live with memories as their solace and dreams as their escape.
In dreams, nothing real mattered; in memories, nothing was taken away.
No one died.
And the imaginary were always real.
Thank you so much for reading, I hope you can have some closure from this, because I never intended to cause as much turmoil to your emotions as I think I might have in some of you.
For those interested in t-shirts, I would need to know what quote you wanted, what colour t-shirt, what size (uk sizes, but I can convert them if you let me know) and roughly where you live for postage. Prices – I think – could work out relatively cheap if you are interested.
Back in reference to this story, in case anyone is curious, there is a small compilation of notes from things within the chapters.
Notes (from all chapters);
[Anything in italics isn't owned by me.]
Chapter One;
The main idea of the building collapse chapter one – Research came from events from the two novels ('The Tower' and 'The Glass Inferno') combined into the film, 'The Towering Inferno' and the real life Ronan Point disaster in East London.
Chapter Two;
Notions of grief were based on real experience. References to effects also came from my mother's numerous books on the subject due to her job and what I know from working around psychology. There are also some useful links and research papers out there. If anyone is interested in the links for them or titles to the numerous books, message me.
Chapter Three;
"Fox found in your place" – Idea that someone sly has switched with someone trustworthy. Also a lyric from 'Black Flies' by Ben Howard.
Stuck Stock – Original meaning of Stock as in Old English 'Stoc(c)'.
"Echoes too realistic to be bouts of memory…" - Based of Nihilistic delusions (seeing things to the contrary belief) or Palinopsic visions (seeing things after they have left). Nihilistic originates from the 19th Century Latin for 'Nothing' (Nihil). Palinopsia is originally Greek for 'Again Seeing'.
"Stone truth of life" – Taken from the metaphoric meaning of stone. Of some title relation to Steve Austin's 'Stone Cold Truth of Life', but of no affiliation to the book.
"Music with charms to soothe a savage beast" – derives from the original "Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Brest" from William Congreve's 'The Mourning Bride'.
"Will you live to grow old before you die?" - Part drawn from: "Yes, but I mean do you think he will live and get to come back home and grow old before he dies?" from 'The Second Coming of Age' by Apostle Walk. Also similar to a lyric in the song 'Echo' by Foxes.
"Tossed it to the waves in front of them" – Can I just say, for the environments sake, I don't recommend chucking cigarettes into the water, and that this was done for creative purposes only.
"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." – 'The Go-Between' by L.P. Hartley.
"I didn't know grief would be…" "Like fear?" – This can derive from a quote by C.S. Lewis, "No one ever told me grief felt so like fear." Many people can also feel that the two collide and it is one thing that can slow your recovery, because you begin to fear allowing yourself to grieve.
* Disclaimer: I don't claim to own any of the above listed material as borrowed sources.
Thank you all so much for reaching, I hope you liked/enjoyed (wrong words I know) it and have some form of closure. x