Tears Of The Father.

Jeff looked round the room at the worried faces. Mother was downstairs with Brains and the doctor, but here were his boys...Scott, Virgil, Gordon and John...and young Tintin...no, Kayo!" he corrected himself. His eyes fell on John.

"My Johnny."

John looked pained.

"Dad, please don't call me Johnny. Are you sure Alan will be okay?"

Jeff nodded.

"Alan's young and healthy and strong, and stubborn as a mule, just like you always were." He grinned. "You were always Johnny to me. My little Johnny Tip-Toe."

John's eyes opened wide.

"You remember that? That was years ago, before Gordon was born. Even Virgil was a baby when you called me that. I've not thought of that in a long time."

Jeff smiled.

"My little Johnny boy used to get out of bed in the middle of the night, every night, and tiptoe out into the garden so that he could lie down on the grass and stare up at the stars. That is how you earned yourself that nicknane, Little Johnny Tip-Toe." He drew John to him and hugged him. With dampness in his eyes, John allowed himself to be hugged, and after a few moments, Jeff felt John's responsive squeeze.

"We have missed you dad. Will you please always make sure you come home for tea in future? If something...if you do that again..."

That sentence did not seem to be working out the way it was intended, but Jeff nodded. He reach out a hand.

"Kayo, come."

He hugged them all, sweeping Kayo in with them.

"I have an idea...if Brains can make it work...that would help to prevent something like that from happening to any of us, ever again..."

That night, lying in his own bed for the first time in a long time, Jeff found he couldn't sleep. Nothing to do with the meal ma had made for him...well, in part perhaps. But, so much had happened in the last few days. Tomorrow he would have to get one of the boys to fly him to the mainland to make his existence official. Perhaps he would bring Brains along with him? So that he could start to officially reclaim his properties and bank accounts. He had set things up in advance, naturally, to ensure that in the event of his death, his sons, his businesses and International Rescue all were adequately funded, with his sons in charge, but it as not the same as having control back himself. Mind you, after all that the boys had been through without him for the last two years, he could hardly remove their access...

With much to think about, he got out of his bed and found himself downstairs, standing on the patio, staring out at the dark sea beneath the starry heavens. He was startled when a voice spoke from just behind him.

"Sorry Mister Tracy...I didn't mean to interrupt."

It was Kayo, her hair loose down her back, clad in what he presumed was her nightwear; a short sleeved khaki green T-shirt and black pyjama shorts. For some reason, he had always imagined young Tintin to be the sort to wear a frilly white night-dress. This young woman had changed almost beyond all recognition from the young woman he had known. Considering that she had lost her mother some years ago and apparently her own father shortly after his own ill-fated flight, it had possibly been at least in part due to some feeling of self-preservation. Some need to be indispensable perhaps?

He shook his head and gestured for her to sit. They sat on the edge of the pool, letting the water lap gently over their toes.

"Kayo, considering we have known one another since you were a very little girl, it seems a shame that you still call me Mister Tracy."

She gave a half-grin.

"I'm open to suggestions."

"There's always Jeff. It is my name...or Uncle Jeff if you prefer to be less familiar. Or..."

"Or?"

Kayo had forgotten how very compelling his presence was. How he seemed to fill a room simply by entering, so that you had to notice him. This was what had awed her most about Jeff Tracy when she was a child. She had forgotten until this moment.

"Well...you could always call me...what the boys call me...if you want to..."

"But they call you..." She broke off, staring at him, wondering if he was serious or if he was teasing her...or worse, taunting her. She followed him with her eyes as he stood up and paced in a tight circle before turning to face her.

"To be open and frank with you Kayo...Tanusha Kyrano, if I were to die...your place here would be assured because the boys think the world of you. They always have done. To them you are the sister they have never had. If...look, at the end of the day, if the worst came to the worst, and my death was confirmed, or worse, all of us, you would have no right to anything...any of this. It seems to me that you have worked as hard as any of us to keep this place as perfect as it is. I feel that...I love...look, what I am trying to say is what would you think if I were to make your place here official?"

Kayo did an admirable job of keeping her expression blank and faintly puzzled, only hoping he could not hear the beating of her heart. Jeff coughed and explained more clearly, so that she could not hope to misunderstand.

"I was thinking that...if I were to legally adopt you, make you legally a Tracy? Whether you chose to take the name Tracy would be your choice, but you would be legally entitled to stay here on Tracy Island whatever happened, to have your share of whatever inheritance is left over...and legally entitled to call Scott and the others your brothers, and to call me dad..."

Once Kayo had got her breath back, she whispered;

"Does it mean I am forgiven for...what I did to you earlier?"

Reminded of his still throbbing nose, Jeff resisted the impulse to rub it and smiled ruefully.

"Forgiven this time,,,but if you agree, it means you will no longer be immune from retribution if you ever try it again!"

Kayo rubbed her eyes. It would not mean turning her back on her own family, but simply accepting the honour of joining another one. She had always been treated like sister by all five Tracy brothers, and their father had never excluded her. To be able to truthfully introduce them as her brothers, to introduce Jeff Tracy as...she stood up, and faced him eye to eye.

"Are you serious about this?"

"Perfectly serious."

"What will the boys say?"

"Probably something like `about time'!"

Alan opened his eyes and blinked painfully against the light. Someone touched his shoulder lightly, and grandma's slightly gruff voice said;

"Hang on Alan."

She moved away. He heard a slight swish, and a click, then she was back.

"Open your eyes now. Is that better?"

The room was much darker, and more comfortable. He was back home on Tracy Island, in a bed in the medical bay. His bed had been tilted slightly so that his head was higher than his feet. His ribs were painful and he had a throbbing headache. His mouth and throat felt parched, and he was feeling nauseous.

"Grandma, what happened with Thunderbird Three?"

"Don't worry son. John brought you and your ship back home."

"Is he still here?"

She nodded.

"Of course. He's been worrying about you. You gave him quite a scare you know, passing out like that half-way through a rescue, when there was nothing he could have possibly done to help you.. How are you feeling?"

"Lousy. I wanna be sick..."

She was right there in a moment with a bowl, but although his body convulsed, his stomach was empty, and he brought up nothing but bile. The attack was over quickly enough, but left Alan shaking and crying with the agony it had caused to his damaged ribs. She supported him as he took a few sips of cold water, and checked the drip the doctor had set up in his left arm. A very low dose of something for the pain plus fluids was flowing slowly into his veins. She lay him back and made him as comfortable as she could.

"Just rest Alan love, just rest."

He closed his eyes, and she put her hand to his forehead, shook her head at his slightly raised temperature, and crept out of the room. Her son was pacing up and down, impatiently waiting.

"He's resting, sweetheart." she told him in a low voice. "He's in a lot of pain and he's sick...temperature is slightly raised too, but he just needs a lot of rest. Alan's irrepressible. He'll bounce back in a couple of weeks. You can go in of course, but keep the noise down, let him get his rest, okay?"

Jeff kissed her, and crept into the sickroom. He approached his youngest son lying still on the bed, a drip attached to one arm, a glass of water with a straw on the cabinet beside him.

He sat on the low stool beside the bed and took Alan's right hand, cupping it in his own. How much had he missed of the most crucial years of Alan's childhood? The knowledge that in his absence, Scott and John had taken on the role of father-figures to the boy at the age when a father was the most important role in a boy's life. How would Alan react to his presence? Would he respond to him as he once did? Or would he prefer the administrations of his two eldest brothers? It was in some distress that Jeff realised he was actually jealous of Scott and John. Grateful to them in the extreme. They had clearly done a sterling job in what must have been very trying circumstances, and they were the ones Alan went to for help. He was mumbling now, in his sleep, calling out. Scotty! Scotty!"

He raised the boy's hand to his face, feeling its warmth, its solid reality. He could feel his connection to his son, the same feeling he remembered rushing through him in a hot wave the first time Lucy had put their fifth child in his arms. He looked up, and found Alan's eyes were open. They were looking at him. Jeff smiled.

"Hello son. I'm here for you. I love you, my son."

For a long moment, the blue eyes held his own, then Alan turned his head away and closed his eyes tightly. Jeff found himself unable to take a breath.

Alan had opened his eyes, had seen him. Had turned away and rejected him. Alan! Alan! Lucy's last gift to her family, little Alan, and Jeff had lost him. He stumbled to the door, opened it and pushed blindly past his mother who was about to walk through it with a cup of tea for him.

"Jeff? Jefferson, are you...?"

Jeff couldn't answer, couldn't face her. Couldn't face anyone. Not yet! Alan! His little Alan! He fell into his room, hardly stopping to close the door, fell on to his knees beside the bed, and finally, the dam broke. His dream of a joyful reunion followed by a return to the good old days before the crash died a sad death. None of them had welcomed him home with open arms. There had been suspicion, even slight hostility and anger from each of the four older ones, before the final acceptance, and now the youngest, his baby, his little Alan had turned away from him.

As the hot sun shone through the window onto his back, Jeff felt cold. As his body convulsed with silent, suppressed sobs, his pillow grew damp with his tears.