AN: Once again, it's been an embarrassingly long time since my last chapter but please know that I love you all and I'm going to try to get another chapter up a bit quicker! Thank you again :)x
Tina slid through the crowds like an eel, her heart was breaking. Memories that returned spontaneously throughout her life had added details to a phantom voice until a complete being manifested in her mind. Her Silver Boy. She had never known who he was, in fact, she had never known who she herself was. The only thing she had ever known for certain was that once she had found this blond haired, gangly figure, everything would all be alright.
He had taken a lifetime to find and she had fled from him.
His cries faded away as she slipped into the darkness of an ally and scrambled up a fire escape. Years of escaping the police had given her a monkey-like agility and taught her to relish the safety of heights. Puffing policemen thundered past below. She crawled to the opposite edge and gasped in awe. Just beside the smoking remains of the archive building, stood the most magnificent machines she had laid eyes on. The larger, was a green beast of an aircraft, raised to reveal a huge, gaping compartment where the massive fire extinguisher had presumably been stored. The other was a sleek, silver rocket, glinting in splendour beside its larger, more robust companion. She kept hidden as she turned her eyes back to John. He was so close and yet an eternity away.
His skin had been pale to begin with, he looked as if he didn't see the sun too often, but even from a distance she could see his skin had turned an ashy grey. A vivid memory seized her, she was tiny again, trying to clamber onto his knee before he hauled her up to sit on his lap. He read to her from his book, letting her follow the words with the help of a fingertip tracing across the page.
Tina blinked hard, memories were returning to her in floods. Toddling through a maze of shins and knees, someone bending down to fix her hair-clip, another sneaking her something sweet from a pocket, endless noise and energy. At another time, she would have savoured the sweet nostalgia, memories didn't come often enough and were never so clear. Now she needed to focus on the present. She watched as John examined her criminal file and felt guilt knot in her stomach. What would he think of her? Would he even want to see her again? She had never enjoyed stealing, as notoriously good as she was. She only ever took what would not be missed and would keep meat on her bones. A rumbling stomach was easier to bear than a heavy conscience. When she was younger, Martha would shake her head at Tina's pitiful offerings and exclaim that, "a moral high ground don't pay the bills!"
John had started to sway. A smaller, red haired IR member jogged over. Gordon. She became aware of the throbbing of her knuckles, her brother's ever cheerful face was smeared with his own blood. She remembered paddling furiously to reach that face in a cool, blue pool. Boyish giggling sang cool and clear in her ears while her chubby legs kicked their hardest to get to the bobbing head in front of her. "Tina, you did it! You can swim!"
Gordon reached his brother. Her criminal file slipped into John's pocket. Tina watched as the smile slid slowly from Gordon's face. He took John's narrow shoulders and shook gently. Tina wanted nothing more than to sprint to them. Explain herself, ask questions, let them tell her it was all ok.
John was surrounded now. Scott and Virgil. She almost cried out as a wave of emotion threatened to suffocate her. Two massive, protecting presences that loomed comfortingly across the memories she was regaining. Vivid colour splashed across her vision. Virgil had let her do finger paintings, mainly across herself while he hummed softly, unaware. The solid grip of Scott's hands under her arms lifted her to the sink to sponge gently at her hands and face, muttering halfhearted admonishments.
It was easy to tell who drove which Thunderbird. Virgil was a mountain of a man, a heavy arm gripping John's waist as his legs buckled. John fell, caught by his brother before the ground. His limp figure was lifted as easily and carefully as if he were a child. The three conscious brothers exchanged an unreadable glance. Scott's lithe figure jogged ahead, taking the lead while speaking into a device on his wrist. Virgil followed, carrying John who was beginning to stir. Gordon lingered, he cast a thoughtful frown in the direction she had run in and raised a hand to his swelling eye. With a departing nod to the fire-service, he turned and entered the green craft.
In a few minutes of heat and noise, the phantom subjects of hazy memories were as far away as they ever had been.
Tina didn't realise she was crying until salty tears stung her cut hands. She pulled her knees to her chin and sobbed bitterly. Years of imagining that moment, the moment when she would finally have truth - it hadn't gone exactly how she planned.
It was bittersweet. Her Silver Boy was real. He was her brother. He was called John. The big problem was, he was part of one the most secretive organisations in the world, not even the government knew where they were based.
She closed her eyes and remembered. John had fell and their brothers had caught him. She knew physical power when she saw it and she had seen it in those arms that had scooped John up so tenderly. She had seen cunning in their leader whose priority flicked instantly to John, and in the younger brother, she saw that he was more knowing than he was given credit for. She saw that love abounded in that family and realised how cruelly she had been ripped from it.
In a day she had transformed the Shadow, a ghost of a person, to Tina who had been born into the world's most loved family.
As memories of a golden childhood returned in smothering waves, Tina had never felt more alone.