- 2060 -
It's half a year since they'd first returned to Shadow-Alpha-1. Even back then, the first time around, Lee had done most of the work. Mostly because Jeff had been nursing a bullet wound and in an overall state of desperate flight from the clutches of the criminal underworld. If Lee had seemed suspiciously well prepared at the time, Jeff hadn't thought to comment. That he'd bought and kept an old Lunar Shuttle, maintained it in near mint condition back on his small Kansas farm—well, that was just nostalgia, surely. That he'd had it fully stocked with supplies, been ready to go at remarkably short notice—Jeff had put it down to foresight, to Lee having the sense to have his back. If he'd put it down to anything, Jeff had put it down to the fact that Lee had always meant to go back.
Only six months later, and Jeff hadn't expected to hear from him, had been surprised by the message left at one of his several secret hideouts, scattered around the globe. Its contents had been short, straightforward, and brutally to the point.
Jeff had dropped everything he'd been in the midst of (not that he'd been in the midst of much) to fly to the other side of the world, rent a truck in Lawrence, Kansas, and drive out through the endless fields of wheat beneath the soaring arc of a perfect blue sky. Everything else he might've asked of Lee had been superseded by a single question, and hammering on his best friend's door on a summer afternoon, it had been like they were kids again.
Only the question hadn't been "D'you wanna come out and play?" so much as "What the fuck do you mean you've got terminal cancer?"
So Lee Taylor is determined to die on the moon.
Jeff Tracy has determined that this is a bad idea, for a multitude of reasons, but when your best friend calls in his one big favour, after everything he's done, it's not like you can say no. Ever since the diagnosis, Lee had quietly started his own secret plan in motion, buying up crates full of old lunar gear, supplies, a stockpile to last out his last years of life. The amount of time and care and thought and work he's put into it—it defies Jeff's ability to be furious with him for keeping such a secret.
That's really the worst of it, that there's no arguing with him. Jeff hasn't got a leg to stand on, embroiled up to his neck in his own madcap scheme, his own secrets.
But the less said about that, the better.
To his credit, Jeff holds his tongue until they've passed what Lee must assume is the point of no-return. He's all support and compliance and positivity and everything he expects that Lee must expect of him, until they're sitting in the living quarters of the old abandoned moonbase, passing a flask of Kentucky Bourbon back and forth, and there's just nothing else to talk about.
"You know you can't actually do this, Lee."
The old astronaut grins, like death isn't eating its way into him, like he's not going to be left hollow and empty, alone on the dark side of the Moon. He seems untroubled by the notion that his death will pass unmarked and unmourned, until Jeff manages to find some way to tell the world at large that it's been deprived of Captain Lee Goddamn (Richard) Taylor and no one's even deigned to notice.
"Can and I'm gonna, Jefferson. Surprised you ain't had to spit your tongue out on the floor, you been bitin' it since I told you."
"This is selfish."
Lee actually hoots with laughter at this, slaps his knee and all. "Hell. Oh, hell, we oughta make this a damn drinkin' game. Take a shot every time you say somethin' staggeringly hypocritical. Selfish. Me wantin' the manner and place and time an' the death of my own choosin'. S'selfish. Hell." Lee doesn't miss a beat, taking a swig from the vacuum flask and snorting. "Tell me, Jeff, how's your boys been doin'?"
Jeff doesn't flinch at the mention of his sons. Lee might know what he's looking for, but Jeff doesn't give him the satisfaction. In fact, this is precisely the sort of statement he can turn right back around. "My boys are going to be devastated to think that you wouldn't have reached out to them, let them know about what was going on with you. Uncle Lee."
"The boys oughta remember me how I was. I ain't a sad, witherin' old sack of bones to any one of 'em. Rather I kept it that way." Lee reaches across the couch, holds out the half-full flask of liquor for Jeff to take.
This isn't a conversation Jeff wants to have, isn't a reality he wants to be a part of. Here, in this place, the base that was their home for so many months, so many missions—once again, the worst of it is that Jeff can see the other side, can understand every one of the reasons why Lee would want it to be here. He can even understand why he'd choose to be alone. But Lee's forced him to confront the reality of loss, and the muddied up parallel he's drawn with Jeff's own situation. It forces him to advocate for his sons, to think about just how badly he's hurt them already, and how badly Lee will hurt them again. "They'll think they should have known, should've kept in better touch with you. If you'd just reach out, they'd—hell. I know my boys. They'd be there for you. Whatever you wanted, they'd make sure you were…were comfortable, were somewhere less fucking empty and barren and awful than the goddamn dark side of the moon. And they'd stay. Right 'til the end, every one of them, if it was what you wanted—Hell, Lee. Don't be another person who leaves them like I did."
Of course, it's probable that Lee's already thought this through. The way he just continues to sit, still and solemn and with his feet kicked up on the coffee table—it's like Jeff's asked him who his picks are for the Super Bowl this year and he needs a minute to weigh up his considered opinion.
And true to form, Lee returns the volley with the sort of razor sharp insight that Jeff relies upon and hates him for. "See, y'know, I think that ain't actually even quite your angle, either. You know they never had a funeral for you. You just think maybe they'd put me in the ground and maybe feel a bit better 'bout the fact that poor Lucy's still all alone in a double-wide plot in Kansas. You wanna talk about selfish, Jefferson, it's what you've been doin for—"
"I'm giving up." There's a beat and Jeff takes another drink before he hands the flask over and then corrects himself, "Technically, I guess I've given up."
That stops Lee cold, before he can start his tirade. "What, really? How d'you mean?"
At the far end of the room, a domed bay window is halved by the stark lunar landscape, white albedo gleaming off the surface, and infinite darkness overhead. The faint glow diffuses too quickly, barely brightens the room. This place is darker than Jeff remembers. The topic of conversations seems to leech brightness from around them; it's not a subject for a brightly lit room. Light just doesn't seem to go as far, and the dead man and the dying man sit side by side in the shadows.
"I mean I'm letting the year go by. I haven't contacted Penelope since—since Munich. She knew I'd been shot, but I didn't give her any details. I just left a message with her father, and then I got in touch with you. Last she heard, this is where I was, but I didn't tell her when we went back down. I've been—Kyrano and I—we're making our last efforts, but there's not a lot to go on and I don't imagine much will come of it. And if I haven't found and implemented a solution in the next six months…" Jeff trails off, shrugs. "I'm letting the year go by."
Lee was there, in Tokyo. He knows what Jeff means, and he knows Jeff well enough to know why he still steps around the truth, but this has never been a trait they have in common. So Lee translates, "You're gonna make that girl a murderer."
Jeff winces. "It was her idea. She's…it's Hugh's line of work, she took the exact same path. Presented herself to the World Council in his stead and said 'make use of me'. It's more than possible that she's a murderer already."
"Still don't seem like the sorta thing that'd sit right with you."
Maybe at one point that was true. But now, the truth is sadder, more tired, a truth that's eaten its way through the man Jeff used to be, just the way cancer's eaten its way into Lee Taylor. He shrugs. "It's the sort of thing that has to leave my hands. I've tried too hard and failed for too long, and now that he knows I'm alive—my odds weren't ever what I thought they were. And as long as—as long as he's out there, I can't see my boys again. It's gotten to the point where another man's life seems like a small price to pay."
Even 238,900 miles in orbit, in the company of one of the only people Jeff could possibly admit something like this to, it's still a truth that drops like ink into clear water. The shadows seem to grow darker still. It's lucky that the base is somewhere with so many small, myriad sounds, because otherwise the silence that falls would be unbearable. The moments between Jeff and his best friend fill with the sounds of air recirculating, of various computer systems and their various beeps and whirrs, with the liquid sound of whiskey against the empty space in the flask that crosses the couch again.
"Well," Lee says, after what seems like such a full silence, "at least he ain't a good man."
Jeff chuckles, though it's a weak, weary sort of sound, the sort of strained laughed that belongs to a man who sees too much death in his future. Before the end of the year, he'll face the deaths of his best friend and his arch enemy. Somehow, Jeff's not sure which is going to be worse. "Small consolation. At the end of all of this, Lee, I'm not sure if I will be either."
Thunderbird One is currently undergoing weekly maintenance. Scott's asleep, and there's a little chart above his bed, counting down a ratio of how much sleep he's had vs how much sleep he needs, before he can be back on call. Currently this reads:
[ST1 01:15:34/10:00:00]
[ST2 02:02:57/10:00:00]
[ST3 00:49:23/10:00:00]
[ST4 01:18:19/10:00:00]
[REM 02:37:14/10:00:00]
[SLP 08:03:17/10:00:00]
Thunderbird Two, Gordon, and Virgil are in Alaska, where a malfunction at a pump station has burst a pipeline, and is leaking oil into the tundra at a rate that has Gordon exploding every five minutes into assorted tirades about corporate irresponsibility and just how the hell something like this can happen in this day and age. The audio's off, but a transcript runs in the background, text scrolling in the segment of the commsphere that John's devoted to the mission's status
PODA[Comm1]: What I don't understand is the how the [expletive] World Council allows this entire [expletive] industry to persist in the first place. We're past this. Technologically, morally, as a [expletive] species, we are better than this. And yet I'm still freezing my [expletive] [value not found] [expletive] off, and up to my knees in [expletive] crude oil. [Expletive]!
PODB[Comm1]: Uh huh. So Gordo, as far as the mobeius strip of your morality goes, how do you reconcile the fact that we burnt through about thirty grand worth of rocket fuel just getting out here?
PODA[Comm1]: Not the same [expletive] thing.
PODB[Comm1]: Yeah, right. Explain that one for me, because I'm real interested in the mental gymnastics necessary to separate our means from this end.
PODA[Comm1]: You wanna tangle with me about relative ethics versus ecology versus International [expletive] Rescue? Ooh, Virg, I hope your [expletive]'s as numb as mine is, 'cuz I'm going to kick it to the [expletive] curb. Or I would if there were a curb available. Permafrost is gonna have to do.
PODB[Comm1]: Bring it on, shrimptail, we've got nothing to kill but time.
PODA[Comm1]: Yeah, and local [expletive] wildlife.
Probably for the best that John's got the comm muted. Virgil sounds like he has everything in hand, anyway.
Thunderbird Three is on standby, as ever, and Alan's in the kitchen doing his homework. John's got a copy of Alan's curriculum, has today's lessons pulled up and occasionally glances over to track Alan's progress through each module. He's meandering, dawdling and distracted, taking frequent breaks for water and snacks and the bathroom. At one point he had attempted to wander up to the lounge, but a patrolling sweep by Grandma had sent him scurrying back downstairs. There's a timer ticking down, in five minutes John will call and engage in some responsible brotherly nagging.
Thunderbird Shadow is still in its early test phases, and Kayo's putting it through its paces bouncing back and forth between Tracy Island and up and down the coast of New Zealand. John's cleared her flight path with local authorities and is keeping them posted as to her ongoing maneuvers.
Within the commsphere, his family's life is neatly ordered, manageable, and easy to apprehend.
It's funny, John knows more about his brothers and their day-to-day lives than he ever did, back before he'd quietly made the decision that TB5 was the best place he could be; the place he belongs. John sometimes wonders if his father ever had this same sense of intimacy, of always knowing where and when and what his brothers were doing at any given moment, and usually being responsible for the why and the how. He wonders if he fell under that same umbrella himself; if his father's radar had always had five little blips on it, moving through whatever part of the world on whatever day for whatever reason.
It's not born out of a need to control. If the reasons he has are reasons in common with his dad, then John's learning that this was a myth about his father; that he desired control above all else. Probably it's not hard to make the leap to that conclusion, but John's becoming reasonably certain that it was actually just about awareness, about connection. Dad's desk is at the very heart of the villa, and life on the island still moves around it. John knows, because at any given moment, he's got a schematic of the island up and available, and he spends enough time watching his brothers that he can see the paths they follow, reliable and predictable patterns of rote and routine.
But their father isn't there to be that universal point of contact any longer. That's fine. It's been two and a half years. John's long since taught himself that he can handle that.
He thinks he can, anyway. He's pretty sure. Almost always. Usually, even. It's just—
Some days—every day, really, but some days more than others—John feels like he is Thunderbird Five, just as much as he inhabits Thunderbird Five. Truthfully, even if there's never anyone around to be honest with besides himself, John's not sure what he'd do or who he'd be if he didn't have a role to fill. His station is a world unto itself, but it's a world he made and a world he knows as intimately as he knows his own mind.
And, if John knows his ship as well as he knows himself, then it's impossible not to know that there are things about Thunderbird Five that are starting to make him different, starting to make him feel like something fundamental might have changed.
It had been strange to realize that he no longer marks time as the passage of days. Units of twenty-four hours are something that belongs to the world below him, if day can be defined by the dawn, then he sees a sunrise every ninety minutes. If weeks are meant to be bounded in by weekends, well, it's not like the world keeps a schedule; not like your average earthquake cares whether it hits on a Saturday or Sunday. If the year is supposed to pass in seasons, it had been strange for John to realize that he no longer thinks in terms of summer or winter, spring or fall. Years aren't supposed to add up this quickly, even if Alan's the only one of them to be taking a thirteenth year, slotted into New Zealand's school system, and due to sit his final exams in Auckland in December. That Alan starting up his last term of school had come as a surprise, and beyond that, it makes John feel a sharp stab of disconnection, that his youngest brother is starting to want to talk about college.
None of it bears thinking about for too long. There's too much to do. As long as there's enough to do, he'll be fine.
Scott coming up on availability again, it's time for John to drift out of the commsphere and down into the gravity ring, to pull up the latest global report from his secondary command center, and see if there's anything that needs attention, anywhere Scott can be of assistance.
John skims his fingertips through global weather, but finds nothing of interest. He pulls up an overlay of major news networks, has a look through a projection of recent happenings, but none of it is the sort of thing they can get involved with. He's just pulled up the latest tracking data for global transit networks, when a nearby display chimes and Alan's ID flashes on the screen. Reflexive, still half-distracted by the globe at his fingertips, John picks up the call. His little brother's face flashes up on the screen, bright and cheerful. "Hiya, John!"
"Alan. How's your schoolwork going?"
"Taking a break!" Alan announces and even three hundred miles distant and two and a half years from home, John still knows his little brother well enough to know when he's playing at casual truancy. "Thought I'd say hi."
"Hi. You seem like you're taking a lot of breaks today."
"Pomodoros, Johnny! Keeps my brain sharp."
"They're meant to be twenty-five minutes on, five minutes off, you realize."
Alan laughs like this was a joke. It wasn't, but John lets the assumption slide. "How's it going?"
"Fine. Did you need my help with anything?"
"Oh, nah. No, not really. It's not hard stuff. S'just math."
"You take a lot of shortcuts with your math, let me look it over when you're done."
"You can look it over now!"
John also knows Alan well enough to know that this is a ploy, and he chuckles, shakes his head. "When you're done. This call has been a minute and a half long. Three and a half to go, I hope your brain is getting adequately sharpened."
Alan groans theatrically and flops dramatically over the kitchen table. "You are not fun. You are the least fun out of anybody I know."
"Did you want to talk about the weather?" John's fingers flicker over the surface of the globe, pull up Tracy Island's current conditions. "Ah. Fifteen degrees. Sunny. Wind from the southwest at 24km/h. Chance of showers later in the evening. Tomorrow's projected to be—"
"Johhhhhhhhn," Alan whines and then hesitates, doubt creeping into his tone, "I mean, if you don't wanna talk to me, that's fine, I just—"
Sometimes Alan's got a way of poking needles into John's conscience, though it's the last thing in the world John will ever let him know. "No, sorry. I mean, yes. I mean—sorry, Al, it's fine. Just distracted. We can talk."
"Oh, good!" Alan perks back up, pushes off the table to sit upright again. "We should talk more often."
"Mhm."
John's not really watching him, glancing out of the corner of his eye while he sets various algorithms and protocols to skim through global comm channels, waiting to ping off particular keywords, off the tones and frequencies that crop up in human speech when an operator is in distress. Maybe part of him notices how Alan seems to be looking at him a little more intently than usual, how his little brother's brow has furrowed, how he seems to be trying to work up the nerve to ask a question. He eats up a minute of his breaktime chewing his lip, and John's still only half listening when Alan asks, "Don't you ever get lonely up there, John?"
It's a keyword. It trips a subroutine, triggers a protocol that John's written into his heart, any time the word "lonely" gets used. There are a variety of responses immediately to hand.
Of course not. I talk to you all at least a dozen times a day, of course I'm not lonely.
Not really, no, I'm really too busy to be lonely.
No, Alan. I don't ever get lonely up here.
None of these work on Alan.
Lonely? Who told you to ask if I'm lonely?
Lonely? What do you mean by lonely?
Lonely? Where do you get the idea that I'm lonely?
Lonely? Since when do I get lonely?
Lonely? Why would I be lonely?
Lonely? How could I be lonely?
It takes a particular trick to fool Alan. Even then, John's never sure if he really does. It takes careful choreography, takes careful choice of tone and body language and that falsity of eye-contact, looking up at his little brother and pretending that he meets Alan's gaze as he says, light and easy, "Lonely? With so much going on around me?"
Alan's face screws up into profound doubt at this, and John's reminded of an eleven-year-old, lying on his stomach and kicking his feet, with nothing more to worry about than the plot of his Saturday morning cartoons. "But it's not really around you, it's more...below you."
John glances earthward, impassive as he formulates his answer, an answer of rote and routine; a truth that's true because John needs it to be.
"Well," he says, "It feels like the right distance to me."
And this concludes vault_of_heaven! Thank you for reading. The seventh and final part of Heavenward is called the_horizons_child, and is currently running on my tumblr, tb5-heavenward. When complete, this will be published to in full. Thank you for reading 3