A/N: Hey all! Hope your week has gone well, everyone! I was procrastinating a little yesterday after doing revision all day, and my brain kinda let me know it was over it by producing another one-shot; Flyboy, which has already been read and reviewed by most of you! Thanks! I hope that you'll all take a look at some point if you haven't! Here's chapter eleven!

Disclaimer: If not for Sylvia and Gerry Anderson, I would not be able to play in this wonderful playground, so no; I do not own the Thunderbirds.

Also, I am a university student of Primary Education, so you must take everything I say on medical topics with a grain of salt, as it is only what I have gathered from online sources!

My older brother was the kind of guy who is well known for his inability to lie. He can keep important secrets until the ends of the earth —there was no amount of intensely threatening threats or promises of good-natured fratricide that could pry information out of him, even if said brothers were as determined to extract as he was to keep them. Whenever there was a circumstance where he would be required to hold up under brotherly or fatherly scrutiny however, it was very rare that Scott actually managed to fool anyone into believing him on any account. He was just so easy to read on those occasions when he was required to tell even the tiniest, most innocent falsehood.

It was therefore no surprise when Scott replied to my query as to what Dad's 'plan' with the involvement of our organisation in The Hood's trial entailed, I couldn't exactly give his statement any degree of believability. My suspicions were further compounded when he said to me that Dad had told him that he wasn't to tell anyone until our father gave the cue.

If his stranger-than-normal extended run-on sentence wasn't enough to clue me in, the sheepishly expectant look on his face told all.

"Scott!" or… Dork, as I preferred to call him.

He grinned at me a little. "Never say a guy can't try to fool his brother once in a while!"

I scoffed. Nice try Scooter.

"Yeah, the kids maybe; it's never worked on me and you know it!"

Scott smirked at me, taking another large bite of his rapidly oozing toast; he'd put way too much peanut butter on it, and watching him chew on it wasn't doing much for me right then. "I can dream, can't I?" The rest of the slice then disappeared beneath his teeth, and I realised that I didn't really fancy my toast quite as much anymore.

Any intentions I had about following my previous line of thought were derailed as Virgil emerged into the kitchen, wearing a thick wool top over his jeans, and the yellow in his hair pretty much gone but for the lightest tint of lemon. Obviously Gordon had taken it easier on the guy this time around. He was reading while walking, his eyes glued to the screen of the data-pad in his right hand, and a cup and plate —totally empty of any kind of food or drink— balanced artfully in his left.

I looked at him properly, frowning slightly as he headed to the sink and placed the empty crockery on the bench beside it, still reading whatever figures that were on the screen. There was a slight crease between his brows that indicated some sort of problem that was holding the majority of his attention. I figured that it was the progress chart for something to do with the repairs to 'Two that he and Brains had been consumed with over the last three weeks.

"Two questions Virge. One: is that stuff from Gordon's breakfast, and two: why are you wearing a sweater?"

He glanced at Scott, my face, and then down to my almost untouched piece of toast and shrugged. "Gordon hadn't had breakfast yet, and I was cold." He didn't offer anything else to indicate that he wished to prolong the conversation, nor did he make a comment about me not eating. I was too startled by his apparent bad mood to be quick enough to find another thing to speak to him about that would allow for any further attempts at inter-brotherly communication.

I was a little confused, if I wanted to be entirely truthful. As much as Virgil was a grouch in the morning, he was usually well and truly over it not long after his caffeine and sugar had kicked in. There was also the fact that he was hardly ever cold. Yes, our thermostat was designed to automatically adjust up to a set temperature, and by design each human's body temp registered in different ways, but I hardly ever saw my immediate younger brother in anything more than a tartan jacket and under-shirt. The very fact that he was wearing woolens —even in the cooler weather we were attracting as the southern hemisphere moved into winter— indicated that something was up.

I was so preoccupied with his behaviour as he retreated from the room; carrying something metaphorical and marginally more heavy than anything else I had ever seen on him before, that I somehow had managed to forget that Scott was still perched next to me at the bench.

I jumped about three feet in the air as he muttered something to himself, and I lost my precariously maintained balance on the edge of the bar stool. I yelped as I slid backwards, thumping my arm against the counter-top; my bad shoulder letting out a jagged pulse of unexpected pain as Scott grabbed it to stop my rapid descent to the floor.

"Thanks." I gasped, as my heart deemed my continued existence important enough to recommence beating, and I hissed a little as I prodded the dark bruise already forming where my elbow had whacked the marble edge of the counter. "That's gonna hurt tomorrow!" I frowned, trying my best to rub away the sting that was lingering. I only succeeded in making the ache go deeper. "Damn…" I breathed sharply.

Scott's hand shot up to palm me on the back of the head. "Language." He told me smartly, a grin twitching at the corners of his mouth, and I knew that it was only because our father was somewhere in the vicinity that he was being so pedantic. I knew that if it were otherwise, he couldn't have cared less about what profanities came out of my mouth.

Dad walked in then, and upon seeing Scott and I at the counter, along with my barely-nibbled piece of toast, pointed at me. "Is that all you've eaten today?"

I nodded, and I rubbed my neck. "I'm just not all that hungry, and I don't want to puke either."

Dad nodded sympathetically. I had been like that last time as well. "Doctor Kingston will be here tomorrow; I've just spoken to him. He'll probably have a meal plan set out for you. I really don't want to see you lose any more weight if we can possibly help it, John."

My father's eyes were tired and worried, ringed with purple shadows, and I realised that I was most of the cause for his sleepless nights. He smiled at me though, and clapped me on the shoulder as he continued on his way to the stairs that led to the infirmary, presumably to see how Gordon was going being tied down for the time being.

I was totally distracted from anything else I may have been thinking, as I heard the tell-tale pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof. Immediately perking up —wasn't today great?— I immediately rose to my feet and shuffled over to the double doors that led to the balcony that overlooked the pool deck, and the gardens surrounding it.

The sky had suddenly become a roiling, purple-grey mass of cloud and lightning. The trees were wildly moving around as though they wanted to uproot themselves and do a kind of dance to the beat that the wind and lashing rain were setting off. I wasn't an artist like Virgil, but I knew that my younger brother would be itching to paint this scene when he saw it, as long as he hadn't decided to head back to bed. Being up on 'Five for the majority of the year really made me miss all the simple things like the smell of a thunderstorm. The ozone in the air and the crackly sound of the lightning as the winds howled across the sky was something that had always made me feel that much closer to my mother.

While all the other guys had all been typically afraid of storms as children, I was the one person who would go out with Mom and sit on the veranda of the farmhouse and watch as the dusty ground soaked up all the rainwater, and the deluge rushed its way over the guttering and out of the waterspouts, warm in her embrace on the porch swing. One of my clearest memories of her was when I was around ten years of age, and it was the middle of summer. The clouds had come out of literally nowhere, and not thirty seconds after I had looked out of the tree-house in amazement at them, my brothers had all gone sprinting inside; even twelve-year-old Scott, who had maintained that he was over the fear of storms, had gone and hidden in his bedroom. I had merely cheered and slipped my way to the ground.

We had played in the rain for nearly twenty minutes in the hot summer's air; rapidly cooling beneath the rain as it sheeted down over us. I was hit by the immediately strong need to do it right now, and I stubbornly squared my shoulders.

It seemed that Virgil wasn't the only brother who had learned to read minds, for as soon as the idea had crossed my mind, I felt a hand on my shoulder, trying to stay my actions before they were played out.

"Don't you even think about it." He warned me, fingers tightening as I tensed.

I clenched my jaw, anger suddenly rising poisonously within me. I took a deep breath to try to cool my temper, but I felt my brother's pressure increase, and I shoved him away, stalking to the doors and opening them wide, letting the rain pour in.

"Give me thirty seconds, Scott." I said quietly, as I turned to face him, anger evaporated as quickly as it had come. "I just want thirty seconds, please?"

His jaw tensed, and he nodded. He remembered how much I loved storms, and what exactly they meant to me. My brother was great like that.

I felt his eyes on my back as I slipped out into the pouring rain, and I lifted my good arm up to catch the droplets as they ran down my arm and between my fingers. I was drenched to the skin almost immediately, and I knew that both Dad and Virgil would have my hide and Scott's once they realised that I had come out here, but it was truly something that I needed to do.

Hey, Mom. I smiled widely, looking up at the sky; ignoring the chill of the weather as it began to seep through the thin jacket I wore. How are you? It's been a while hasn't it?

Warmth spread through me as I imagined her touch on the top of my head, visualising the smile that she had always worn when she spoke my name, and I closed my eyes to the world and my worries for just the shortest moment in time.

A/N: I really hope that you liked it guys! See you sometime early next week! And please don't forget to review! Xx

-Pyre Xx