This is a LONG one. Hopefully you don't mind. After this I think I'm going to break the days up so that more than one chapter covers a day. Otherwise there's just too much...

Thank you all so much for continuing to read this story. I hope that it's been entertaining so far and that it continues to do so. Special thanks go out to everyone who reviewed and specifically Whirlgirl and Overkalix who I can't reply to. Your reviews lift my spirits!

Chapter 3: Tuesday-

Opening my eyes, I rolled over to look at the clock: 7:30 am.- much better than yesterday. Yawning, I stretched and sought out my uniform. Gordon had turned in early again last night; I stayed up a little later this time, but not much. Getting up at 5:30 had worn me out. I had spent most of yesterday afternoon showing my brother which airwaves to monitor at which times and how to contact the various local agencies if he needed more information. He was attentive throughout, but I could also see how tired he was. Hopefully, Gordon had gotten a good night's sleep this time. He was still nauseous at dinner, so he hadn't really eaten anything since he'd arrived. He did manage to drink three cans of ginger ale though, so at least he had some sugar in his system.

Stepping into the control room, my heart sank. All the monitors were on- that meant my brother was awake. Sure enough, as I got closer, I could see his hair peeking up over the back of the chair. I spoke to the few hairs I could see. "How long have you been up?"

"Only an hour."

I let out a relieved breath. That would mean 7 hours sleep, not great, but not bad either. His chair swiveled to face me and I sucked the breath back in. His eyes were completely bloodshot and the bags beneath them were so dark he looked like he was wearing makeup.

"I didn't sleep though."

Disappointed and concerned, I dropped into the other chair. "At all?"

He shook his head. "I just laid there staring at the ceiling." He paused and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "I'm so tired, John. And my head is killing me."

I put my hand on his forehead just to check. He was cool. "Lack of sleep and food will do that."

He dropped his hands and the bags looked even worse- if that was possible. "Yeah, well, I feel even more nauseous now than I did yesterday. This sucks."

"You think you're getting sick?"

"No." He was studying his hands. "I think I'm a loser."

Well, I hadn't expected that. "How's that?"

He slammed his hands into his lap with a sigh and turned back to me. "I told myself yesterday, 'Gordon, you're freaking out for no reason. Just stop thinking about the fact that your 22,000 miles above the Earth and that in a few days you'll be alone here. Just pretend you're visiting John at college again.' And I made it through most of the day, you know? I mean, other than the random puking episode, I thought I did pretty good."

I nodded. He had seemed a lot calmer yesterday than the day before.

"But the second I was by myself, it was like I couldn't stop. I just kept going back to the fact that I would be floating up here completely alone. I feel like I've been sentenced to a month in jail. There's no way out of here." Tears entered his eyes. "What crime am I being punished for? I really don't want to be here. I mean, I really, really, really don't want to be here. It got to the point around 5 this morning that I started seriously thinking about calling it quits and just going home. And you know I have never quit anything in my life. That's not me. I don't want that to be me. I'm proud that I'm thought of as determined and persevering. I'm Gordon, the one who has all the strength and courage to get through anything. That's my main character trait. It's the reason you guys respect me. But I..."

He started gasping and his hands were trembling uncontrollably. I leaned forward and grabbed his shoulders to ground him. "Gordon, you're having a panic attack. Slow down. Breathe. Look at me."

Teary, bloodshot eyes met mine and I could see the pulse in his neck pounding. "I don't want to be the only one who can't do this." The tears fell.

I felt so bad. This was so ludicrous. Here he was, the best aquanaut in the world, the man who clawed his way back from the dead, sobbing because he wasn't an astronaut. Why the hell did he have to be an astronaut anyway? It wasn't good enough that he was the best aquanaut? He had an Olympic gold medal and he felt like a loser because he didn't want to be floating alone in space. This whole situation was just absurd.

"Gords, I watched you fight your way back from death; you'd have to do a lot more than freak out in space to loose my respect. I see how difficult this is for you and just as I'd expect, I'm seeing you fight your way through it with everything you've got. So, I don't see you acting any differently than how you're known to act. But keep this in mind, nobody is great at everything. If this is something you can't do, that's okay- and I don't think any less of you for it."

"Everyone else will."

I was about to argue when he cut me off, wiping the tears from his eyes. "No, John, I know they will. First, Father made it very clear to me when he sent me here that if I wanted to be in IR, I would have to do a tour on Five, otherwise I could go find myself a new career. And second, Scott, Alan, and Virgil have all done this and technically Scott and Virgil aren't astronauts either. If I go home now, I know they'll all think I'm either lazy, selfish, or a wuss."

I let go. "Well then maybe we should send them down to the sea floor in a bathyscaphe and have them spend a month there. Then they can talk."

My brother leaned back in his chair, disagreeing. "They're not trained for that; it wouldn't be the same. I mean, not even just the training, but you need to be in top physical and mental condition for that. At WASP they do at least a month of physical and mental tests to see if your body can handle that level of stress. It would be so dangerous to let somebody go if they couldn't handle it. They wouldn't survive the first 24 hours."

Ironic. "Would you think less of them?"

He looked at me confused. "Huh?"

"Let's say I failed the mental test to handle being under the sea that long, 'cause I more than likely would. Would you respect me less?"

His expression indicated he thought I was crazy for even asking. "You're an astronaut, John. I wouldn't expect you to be mentally or actually, and no offense, physically prepared to do a month in a bathyscaphe at 7 miles below sea level."

"But I'm good at being an astronaut. Doesn't that make me automatically good at being an aquanaut?"

"Noo... As an aquanaut you're body has to be able to come into equilibrium with the ambient pressure on the sea floor. The physical and mental requirements are extremely high. I mean being on the sea floor literally changes the composition of your blood. I'm sure there are major requirements for being an astronaut too, like handling the G-force and zero gravity, but it's not the same."

My point exactly. I stared at him and it took him a minute, but he got it. He rolled his eyes at me. "Well, that's great that you think that way, but clearly dad doesn't."

What pissed me off the most about my father sending Gordon up here, was that my father had been an astronaut. The physical and mental tests Gordon had just been described, they did that in NASA too, for the exact same reasons. Because it would be extremely dangerous to send someone into space if their body and mind couldn't handle the stress. Where the hell did my father get off just skipping those tests? He probably just assumed that because Gordon passed the WASP tests, he'd pass the NASA tests too. But as Gordon had pointed out, the requirements for aquanaut and astronaut were different.

"Gords, maybe dad just didn't realize how hard this is for you."

His eyes flashed at me. "It doesn't matter, John. Even if he knew and even if he cared, I'd still be the loser who couldn't hack a month on Five. Even if he said, 'sure son, come on home,' I'd be a failure. The pathetic weakling who freaked out in space."

I didn't have a response. I hated that he felt that way, but there was some truth to what he was saying. Maybe not as harshly as he was predicting; I doubt he'd be looked at as a complete failure, but there would be ramifications..."

Finally, I found something useful to say. "I think the insomnia is probably causing the biggest problem right now. You've been up for 48 hours, a half hour of sleep in the middle doesn't count. Why don't you go now and try sleeping in my bed? It's a lot more comfortable than the foam mattress."

He closed his eyes and relaxed into the chair. "It's been more like 60 hours and it's not the mattress that's a problem. It's my mind."

I forgot that he hadn't slept well the night before coming here either. I hesitated before suggesting the next step, but the important thing right now was getting Gordon some shut eye. "We have pills on board..."

One eye peeked out at me. "Sleeping pills?"

I nodded.

Rubbing his eyes, he shook his head. "No thanks. I'd rather not go down that road. I can't sleep up here, so I can pretty much guarantee you I'll become dependent." He looked at me. "The last thing I need is to be 22000 miles up in space, alone, and high."

I laughed. Yeah, he definitely didn't need that. "Alright, well I'm going to get some breakfast. You want anything?"

"No. I'll continue the monitoring. What are we going over today?"

I made a face. "Well, typically day 3 is the day we go out." Instantly, his whole body tensed forward. I continued before the next attack set in. "But as the lead astronaut, I have made an executive decision to put that off indefinitely. We're taking it easy today. As low stress as possible." He let out a breath and the tension went with it. "So, I'm afraid today will be incredibly boring. We're reviewing diagnostics."

My brother flopped back in his seat. "God bless you."

I laughed. "Tonight though I want you to sleep in my bed. Okay?"

I got a nod of a response and, satisfied, I left for the kitchenette.

TBTBTBTBTBTBTB

Hour four into the diagnostics and I was beginning to bore myself. Gordon had appeared attentive, but my periodic questions discovered that he was not taking much in. Half the time, his eyes were wide and unblinking. I had asked him at one point what he was thinking about but he just stared at me confused. He also thought we were still talking about a topic that had ended ten minutes before. I came to the conclusion that he was sleeping with his eyes open. Still, I moved forward with the lessons. I planned to quiz him at the end so I'd know if we'd be doing this all over again tomorrow.

"Okay, so if this light starts blinking, it means there's a blockage somewhere in the air ducts. The first thing you need to do is determine where the blockage is."

I looked over to find my brother's eyelids at half-mast, his head nodding toward his chest. I sighed and poked him. Immediately, his head snapped up and he blinked.

"Gords, go lay down in my room."

His eyes sank shut. "No, I'm up."

Clearly. I snorted. "Yeah, I can see that. Your eyes are closed."

A confused expression appeared and I could see him struggling to open his eyes. Finally, with the help of his hands, they opened. "Sorry. I'm just really tired."

"Exactly why you should be laying in a bed." I stood up and pulled up on his arm- it was like dead weight.

"No, no, I'm listening." He rubbed his eyes again and appeared somewhat more awake.

Exasperated, I dropped back into the chair. "This is ridiculous. We're going to have to do this all over again anyway, you might as well just sleep."

"No, really, keep going. I heard you, something about an air duct."

Oye. I pointed to the light. "What's it mean if this's blinking?"

He took a deep breath and stared at it. After about two seconds, his eyelids and head began to droop. He blinked and pulled them back up.

I rolled my eyes. "Well?"

"What?" The lids were sinking again.

I shook my head and went with a new plan. Ignore him and let him sleep in the chair.

Watching him reminded me of when he was little. He used to do the same thing then. Having three older brothers, he was often upset that he was 'missing out on stuff' because he had to go to bed earlier than we did. I don't know what he thought he was missing. But eventually, my mother gave up the fight to put him to bed at 8. So, he was allowed to stay up and watch TV with the rest of us. Usually, by 8:15, much to our amusement, he'd be half-asleep and fighting to stay awake. His head would sink down, he'd pull it back up, quickly look around to see if he got caught, and then his head would droop again. We'd pretend to ignore him, but really we'd be cracking up. Our mother would send us warning glares while trying to contain her own laughter. Gordon, of course, was oblivious.

Five minutes of me not even talking and he was still fighting it. Unbelieveable. It must have been ingrained in his DNA or something not to fall asleep unless intending to do so. Given how tired he was though, one would think he'd want to sleep. Part of the issue was that whenever his head would sink, it'd pull his body to the right and he'd startle himself awake trying not to fall out of the chair. Hmm...

Standing, I moved in back of his chair and pulled the recline lever. The chair back dropped suddenly and my brother's eyes flew open. I was hoping that his mind was still half in dreamland. "Go back to sleep."

Sure enough, his brain accepted my words without seeming to notice his environment. This time when his eyes shut and his head fell to the side, the chair supported him. I sat back down and waited a few more minutes to see if he was still fighting. The lack of movement and even breathing was a welcome relief. He was asleep. Thank God.

Sitting back in my own chair, I realized I had a problem. I was definitely going to have to review the diagnostics again and hopefully, Gordon would sleep straight through the afternoon into tomorrow, which would mean we'd be at least a day behind. There was also the issue of the reparation training... I really didn't feel comfortable forcing Gordon to suit up and go outside, if he'd even do it. It was a very necessary part of the training though.

I shook my head and looked out over the Earth. With the way things were going, I realized that I was extremely hesitant to leave him alone up here. I mean, he wasn't sleeping or eating...at all. Until he was in a regular sleep cycle and had at least two days of keeping food down, I couldn't just take off in Three and leave him alone up here. Shit.

I bent over and rubbed my hands through my hair. This was so stupid. There was absolutely no reason he had to be up here. Like my brother had said, there were 5 team members that could handle Five and only Gordon could orchestrate a deep sea rescue. It was complete idiocy that our one aquanaut would be sent into space.

Okay enough, stupid though it may be, that's the way it was. I couldn't undo my father sending him up. I needed to figure out what to do about it right now. I was trying to ignore it, but every instinct in my body was telling me to take him home. I couldn't even send him home at this point because he was so tired, he'd probably crash Three. How could I take him home though? What he had said before was true, there'd be repercussions to him coming home, unable to complete the training. And I didn't want to give up on him...

He'd hate me if I took him home. I'd be forcing him into being a failure and showing a lack of faith in him. Okay, so going home wasn't an option. Maybe I could convince my father to let me complete the month up here with him. Gordon had said that his main fear was being alone; maybe he'd be able to sleep if he knew I was going to stay up here with him. And this way, he wouldn't be failing per se... Yeah, okay, he would be. But, if he did one week on his own instead of the three weeks, that'd probably count as a success.

What would I say to my father though? 'Hey dad, listen, Gordon needs some extra training so I'm going to need to spend two more weeks here with him.' Riiiight...

A moan took me out of my thoughts and brought my attention back to my brother. Just as I looked at him, he gasped and squirmed in the seat. His hands were gripped on the arm rests, his knuckles white. Beads of sweat covered his skin and his eyes were flicking back and forth under the lids. My stomach dropped. He was having a nightmare.

He so didn't deserve this. I didn't know what to do. Wake him up? But then he wouldn't go back to sleep for a long time and his body needed to sleep. Still, how restful could this sleep be? Was it better to sleep through a nightmare or to just be awake? I had no idea. I wished Brains were with me, he'd know.

"No, that's not..."

I leaned my chin on the heel of my hand, my elbow on my knee. This was like torture, like I was being punished by having to watch my brother suffer. Shit. I didn't know if I should wake him up!

Okay, think. I took a deep breath and calmed my thoughts. Maybe I could try talking to him in his sleep and talking him out of the nightmare.

I leaned toward him and whispered. "Gordon, you're okay."

Wow. That was awkward. Having a one-way, whispered conversation with your sleeping brother is not easy. Not only that, but my words had made no impact. He was still squirming, his face scrunched in pain.

Deep breath, try again. This time I lightly touched his arm.

His eyes flew open and I jumped back. Gordon sat straight up in his seat, terror etched all over his face.

For a moment, everything was still. My brother was totally frozen, the only thing moving was his chest from the rapid breathing. Then, he completely crumpled. Folded in on himself and covered his head with his arms and hands.

I put my hand over my mouth, feeling sick to my stomach. Looking over at the clock, I did some math. Not counting his fighting to stay awake, he had been asleep for 15 minutes.

With a long exhale, I got off my chair and crouched in front of him. As I'd mentioned, I'm not one for physical affection, but Gordon was and I was willing to do anything at this point to help him. I put my arms around him as best I could. Somehow, in about a second, he managed to unravel himself and tangle his arms through mine so that I was engulfed in a full hug. His head was buried in my shoulder.

I didn't know what to say.

"I'm so tired, John."

My heart broke. I hugged him tighter. "I know."

He pulled back and wiped his red eyes with his sleeves. "Sorry I fell asleep."

Seriously? He was apologizing for that? "I'm sorry you couldn't sleep longer."

He shuddered. "I'm not." His voice was thick with saliva.

I moved back to my chair. "What was this one about?"

And back to studying the hands. "What do you mean?"

"The nightmare Gordon, I watched you have a nightmare. What was it about?"

"Did you wake me up?" He was evading the question...

I allowed it for a moment. "I tried not to. I was trying to talk you into a more pleasant dream."

He snorted and my face reddened with embarrassment. The moment had been awkward enough, with him knowing about it, it was even worse. He must have taken pity on me, because he opened up about the nightmare without me having to prod.

"It was weird. There was this couple in Kansas and they had this 25 year old kid who was born on the same day, in the same hospital as me. And they were on TV at first saying that me and this kid had gotten switched at birth. And they both had my color hair and eyes and the other kid looked exactly like Scott and Virg. And it turned out that they were both professional scuba divers and owned the only scuba tour in Kansas." He paused to acknowledge the insanity of that last part. "I know..." Then he continued. "And the kid was a famous rocket scientist who had graduated college early and was leading an expedition on the moon or something."

I went to say something reassuring, but he wasn't finished. "The worst part was, everyone was all, 'oh that's not true, Gords, you're mom and dad's.' But then the kid came to visit and everyone was at dinner talking about space stuff and I didn't understand what anyone was talking about and I just kept thinking that this other kid fit so much better than I did. I felt like shit. I went for a walk on the island and it was like somehow I knew that the other kid's family really loved him and they didn't want me, they just wanted him to know what his real family was like. I was just left over. Then Alan came to tell me something about what he and Jim...yeah, that was the kid's name...I think. Anyway, he came to tell me that Jim was taking him scuba diving on the reef and he knew of a secret way to get to outer space from there and I was scared to go, but if I didn't, Alan would just replace me with Jim, and then I woke up."

Wow. I didn't have to be a shrink to analyze that one. Apparently, neither did Gordon. He rolled his eyes at himself. "Yeah, I get the symbolism..."

I smiled, still unsure of what to say. I had to say something though. "You're not the only one who feels like they don't always fit."

He looked up at me, clearly interested. "You?"

I nodded and he was already shaking his head. "Do you really feel like you don't fit in the family or is it just that you're physically separated so you miss day to day things and then feel out of the loop?"

Talk about taking the wind out of my sails... "It's actually both."

He stared at me, waiting for me to continue. "Even before I was up here, or in NASA, or at college, I always felt different. It was kind of like you said before, you and Alan are really close and Scott and Virg are best friends. I always felt like odd man out."

"I can see that kind of. It's changed a lot though, especially since IR started. I don't know if my accident had anything to do with it. I mean, it must have affected my personality...I mean, I know it did. The dynamics between us all are different now than they were."

He seemed to pause at that. "But anyway, my point is that I have little interest in planes, flight, or space, and well, there's pretty much nothing else discussed at home. Not unless Lady P. is there..."

I went to respond, but was cut off. "I don't think I told you this, but there was this one week about a year and a half ago that I discovered Tin Tin had a love of the sea...or at least could tolerate my own jabbering about it. So it was a really great week, I spent all this time finally just talking to someone on the island about something I was interested in. Then Alan FLIPPED OUT on me. I mean, he went ballistic. Apparently, he'd been giving me all these evil stares throughout the week that I was supposed to pick up on and know that meant to stop spending all that one-on-one time with Tin Tin."

"Did he actually tell you that?" It was obvious that Tin Tin was in love with Alan and Alan was interested as well. But he didn't seem to know how to proceed from there and if one of us ever brought it up, he'd take our heads off.

Gordon smirked. "More or less, after a lot of incoherent rambling. I had been thinking at the time, 'if your so jealous, why don't you ask the girl out?' I didn't say it though. I was just trying to survive the onslaught."

I laughed.

"It's not like I was interested in her, not in that way. I know she's in love with Alan and I don't think of her like that. It was just nice to have someone to talk to where they're actually interested in what I'm saying, not just feigning interest and sending looks to other people, mocking me while I'm talking."

Yeah, we did that. I honestly thought he was oblivious to them. It never seemed to stop him. But I could see now how frustrating it could be having to listen to us all day talking about planes and space and then being 'put up with' when trying to talk about his own interests.

"You know, and I'll speak for everyone here, we never realized that we're just as obsessed with space and flight as you are with the ocean."

That made Gordon laugh. "I don't mind listening to it. Unlike you, I have realized that we're all equally obsessed. My guess is, the obsession gene is genetic...uh, and contagious 'cause Brains has it too. The issue for me is, somewhere along the way, I became obsessed with the wrong topic."

"Maybe we're all obsessed with the wrong topic."

"No, you have the same obsession as dad."

"That makes it right? And anyway, dad's catered to your obsession, he built you Four didn't he?"

"John," He gave me a patronizing look. "Four was the last to be built. It's only Four because it's in Pod 4. AND, in case you weren't counting, that means three other Pods worth of stuff were deemed more important and thought of before my vehicle."

I rolled my eyes. "First of all, FIVE was the last to be built-"

"Only because it took longer to build it. It was started before Four."

I ignored him. "Second of all, Four is in Pod 4 because putting it Pod 1 would be confusing. I mean come on, 'Virg, take Two with Pod 1 and Four'? The numbers being the same makes it easier, that's the real explanation for that. And third of all, your vehicle is Four because it's yours and you are number four in birth order."

"John, your ship is Five."

"Well, maybe Five was originally built for Alan and Three was originally built for me. Did you ever think of that?"

He sat back, surprised. "Really?"

I shrugged. "I actually have no idea. You stumped me with that comment. But it sounded good, right?"

He laughed and some light came back into his eyes. "I'm sorry, John. I don't mean to be so down. I'm not really walking around the island thinking nobody's listening to me. I'm just in a bad mood. I must suck to be around right now. First I fall asleep on you, then I'm whining about a nightmare, and then I'm complaining and feeling sorry for myself." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I'll get it together."

"Don't worry about it. I'm actually glad you're talking to me. I'm worried about you and I can't figure out any other way to help you other than to listen."

He smiled. "Don't worry about me, okay? I'll pull it together. But, um...thanks. I know I've been a mess, but knowing you've got my back...it's...you know."

I did know. I just wished I could help him more. Standing up, I stretched and changed the subject. "Well, here's the thing, I'm guessing you missed about half the diagnostics review. So, even if you can concentrate through the afternoon, we're still a half day behind."

He shook his head. "No, I think I got most of it."

My brows went up. "Okay, so if all the white lights all go out and the red lights remain on, what does that mean and what do you do?"

I could almost see his brain working. "Uh..." His face scrunched in thought. "I know this. I heard you say it."

The fact that I had also walked around pointing at things and demonstrating the procedure had apparently been lost.

"If the lights go out, it means there's a failure in the main power cell."

Well, at least he got that. "Good. What do you do?"

He bit his lip and looked at me questioningly. "Call base and ask you what to do?"

I snorted. "That was a good try. Only problem with your plan is that if the main power cell goes out, so do all the comm. links."

His eyes went as wide as they could go. Wow, they were really red. "You're telling me I could get stuck up here with no power and no way to contact anyone?"

I was caught off-guard by his panic. I mean, I had already gone through this and he didn't freak the first time. Of course, he was probably asleep with his eyes open the first time...

"John, I can't do this."

Full blown attack. He was gasping and his eyes were tearing.

"Gordon, calm down." I crouched in front of him. "Relax. It's just a worst case scenario. It's never actually happened." Actually, it had happened once, but I was hoping he didn't know about that. "And anyway, the communication system can be reset."

Closing his eyes, my brother tried to slow his breathing.

"Good, slow down. You can do this."

He was shaking his head as he opened his eyes. "John," His voice broke. "Please don't leave me here."

He didn't need to worry about that. "Gordon, listen to me." Panicked, wide eyes met mine. "I promise you that I will not leave you here unless I know, without a doubt, that you will be fine."

Breathing hard, he questioned me. "Do you think I'll be fine?"

"No." The word came out before I could even think about it. I immediately felt bad, I mean, my brother needed a pep talk, not me doubting him. However, the relief that appeared in his eyes at my 'no' was unmistakable.

He took a deep breath and visibly relaxed. "I'm beginning to care less and less about what everybody else thinks of me. I'm going back and forth. One minute, I'm determined to see this out, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger and all that, and then the next, I don't care, I just want to go home."

I understood. "If you ever make that decision, I'll take you home. Just tell me."

"I won't be able to look at myself in the mirror if I do that."

I guessed that continually talking about this wasn't helping him. I decided to try for a distraction. "Look, let's go back to the diagnostics and see what we can get through. Try to stop thinking about the fact that you're up here."

He nodded, on board with the idea. Keeping my fingers crossed, I started re-explaining the power failure procedures.

TBTBTBTBTBTBTB

We made it through the rest of the afternoon and my dinner without major incident. Once again, Gordon stuck to the ginger ale. I still wasn't sure how much he absorbed from my briefing; he wasn't able to concentrate through the afternoon any more than he had in the morning. And his irritability had increased over the course of the day. At the very least though, I was pretty sure he'd sleep like a baby tonight...provided he didn't have any more nightmares.

"So, it's 8 pm., which means we set the main frequency to LSB at 6 MHz."

I smiled as my brother followed his own directions; he may not have gotten the diagnostics, but he had learned all the times and frequencies I went over with him yesterday.

Suddenly, my father's portrait started blinking. "Thunderbird Five from Base..."

I flicked the switch that made my father's face appear. "Hello, Father."

The face on the video smiled back at me. "Hello, John. How are you boys doing?"

Well, that was the million dollar question, wasn't it? I had no idea how to answer, so I took a play out of my brother's book: evasion. "Gordon's right here, he was just resetting the frequencies for the evening watch."

My brother pushed his head in front of mine and waved at the screen. Grimacing, I spit his hair out of my mouth. It wasn't like the chairs could move back, they were bolted to the floor. Finally, I pushed him away from me. He looked back with a laugh and slid back into his seat. For the first time ever, he opened his own comm. link.

Virgil's voice floated in through the view screen. "Well, what do you know about that? It does work. Scott, you owe me 100 bucks."

My father squinted in confusion and the voice explained. "We've never seen Gordon's portrait in use so Scott assumed it was broken. I just figured it was Gordon's way of rebelling or something. I win."

Next to me, Gordon laughed. "I just never had a reason to call Base."

Alan's voice called out in disagreement. "No, you've called Base before, but it's always through someone else's portrait."

"Well, that's because one of you always calls before I do...and I've always been with someone else."

My smile faded at that last part. Based on my father's lack of reaction, it went right over his head.

Just as I thought it, my father's expression morphed to confusion. "Son, I think there may be a problem with your portrait after all."

My brother answered warily. "Yeah?"

"Your eyes look very dark."

Gordon sat back. "I've been a little jet lagged up here actually."

That was one way to put it...

"Gordon, you can't be jet lagged if you haven't changed time zones..." That was Alan again. I noticed that Scott was being awfully quiet... I doubted that he wasn't in the room.

Finally, I spoke up. "Father, I'd like more time for training with Gordon."

Out of the corner of my eye, I tried to gauge my brother's reaction. I expected a glare, but what I got was a look of apprehension. He was awaiting our father's answer. The answer really didn't matter to me, I was staying past Sunday regardless.

After giving both of us an appraising look, my Father nodded. "If you feel that's necessary, John."

I felt my face burn in anger. To be honest, I was still furious with him for forgoing any of the tests NASA would have done and forcing Gordon to come up here against his will. Now he was putting me in a position where I had to imply that my brother was either incompetent or goofing off.

"I do, Father. And you should know that it's not due to a lack of skill or effort on Gordon's part."

The confusion that met me begged an explanation. Too bad I didn't have one ready. I didn't want to spill Gordon's issues to the family, I didn't want to lie, and I had to explain myself. See, this was exactly why I never tried to be misleading.

Luckily for me, Gordon had years of experience being sneaky. "What can I say, dad? I'm used to literally tons of atmospheric pressure, I have more of an adjustment to make than most..."

In reality, that explanation made little sense, the atmosphere on Five matched Earth's at sea level. My father seemed to accept it anyway though. He smiled and nodded. "Alright, but I was hoping to upgrade Two next week and it's a four person job, so as soon as you can get home John..."

As soon as I could get home? He was telling me to hurry it up? How about, 'do whatever you need to make sure Gordon is well trained and settled.' It wasn't like I was teaching my brother to fly a kite here. I was teaching him how to be an astronaut and handle a multi-billion dollar piece of equipment 22000 miles above the Earth. He wanted me to train as fast as possible. That was so not going to happen, screw Two.

"I could help, Mr. Tracy."

With a look of appreciation, my father turned to his right. "Thank you, Tin Tin. Your assistance is very welcome."

Addressing us once again, my father moved to end the call. "Okay boys. Have a good night and keep us abreast of any activity."

"FAB, Father." In unison we switched off the comm. links.

I was seething.

"You alright? You're breathing kind of hard."

I turned to my brother. "I am really pissed at him. I mean, really just...furious."

Gordon shrugged.

"You're not annoyed? You tell him you need more time to adjust and his response is 'hurry up so we can update Two'."

My brother just leaned back and shut his eyes. "I am way too tired to be angry. My head's pounding, I can't see straight, I'm fighting the urge to throw up...dad being dad is the least of my issues at the moment."

"Take some ibuprofen and go to bed."

He opened an eye. "You still want me to sleep in your room? I'm so drained at this point, I doubt it'll matter where I am. If the little room's going to bother you-"

"You not sleeping is going to bother me. You're taking the real bed. I'm hoping to wake up tomorrow and not see your ugly mug until the day after."

That earned me a laugh. "I'd love that."

"Go."

Blinking his eyes back open, he stood up and stumbled toward my room. "Goodnight, John."

"Sleep well, Gords."

TBTBTBTBTBTBTB

11 pm. and it was time for me to turn in as well. Sleeping in the little room...wow. I hadn't done that since Brains had come up here two years ago. I was not looking forward to that foam mattress. As long as Gordon was sleeping though, I didn't care. All the worrying I was doing was starting to eat a hole through my stomach.

On my way off to bed, I decided to stop by my old room to listen in and hopefully hear some snoring. When I put my ear to the door though, the noise that greeted me was not what I had hoped. The sounds of sobbing reverberated through the hollow metal door, loud and clear. I shut my eyes in despair. This couldn't continue. It just couldn't. He'd been awake for over 72 hours by this point. Yes, there was an interrupted 45 minutes in between, along with some open-eyed slumber, but there was no way his body could withstand this. I knew from my medical training that 60 hours of sleep deprivation led to symptoms of psychosis and possibly permanent changes in brain chemistry. Gordon was the strongest person I knew, but everyone had a breaking point. He was on full speed towards his.

As I stood outside the door, the cries died down until I could no longer hear anything. I stayed there for the next few minutes, straining to hear something. Thankfully, it was quiet. I wondered if he had cried himself to sleep. He had been half-asleep the whole day; I had no doubt that he'd fall asleep tonight. I just hoped that he'd get a straight shot of sleep, not a series of intermittent nightmares.

With concern eating me alive, I said a prayer, and headed off to the little room.

I know, there was a lot of talking in that one. There's a lot of talking in this whole story actually. I hope it's okay. The next chapter should be more exciting. As always, I'd love to hear from you!