12. John and Alan, aboard Thunderbird 5 during down time.
"Main systems are now in sleep mode."
Everything's dark. Only a thin haze of blue hangs in the gravity ring. Though that's a misnomer, now, since it's not spinning. There is no artificial gravity created by centrifugal force.
Alan floats towards his brother, who stares through his helmet, out the reinforced glass floor, down at the blue and green globe below.
"It's only for a little while, bro," Alan says. "Just while Brains does whatever it is he's doing, y'know?"
John turns and tries to smile. His left eye looks blue and his right eye looks green. They've always shifted, always picked up on whatever colour is closest to them. Alan gives his brother his widest grin. Those eyes are just one of the thousands of things Alan envies about John.
There are things not to envy, too. And John's dependence on Five is one of those things.
"I know, Alan," John replies.
His floating seems lethargic, lacking the zero-g vitality Alan is so used to. John doesn't just need Five. He is Five. Alan suppresses a shudder. I can't imagine being that attached to Three… Of course, Thunderbird Three is his best girl, but he still has his objectivity. Three is important, but family is more so.
Sometimes he wonders if John's lost touch with that reality.
So now that Five's powered down, so has John. Alan swims forward in the nothingness that separates them, his heart so pure and filled with hope.
He latches onto John's shoulders, planting his booted feet on his brother's shins. Their visors bump, and John's green and blue and blue and green eyes blink, opening again wider than should be possible.
"Alan?"
The youngest Tracy sends them into a spin, head over heels, round and round. He doesn't say anything, but starts to laugh.
John's hands linger at his sides, fingers stiff, unknowing. Alan keeps laughing.
Then, the sound comes through his helmet speakers. The sound he wanted.
John starts to laugh.
It's a quiet chuckle at first, but soon enough his hands are on Alan's shoulders and they're spinning anew, faster this time, and John's in full-blown giggle mode—something Alan hasn't heard in far too long.
Together they spin, through the darkness and the dim blue haze.
The gravity ring might have stopped, but their hearts haven't.
Their eyes meet, and there's something sparkling in the depths of the green and the blue, the blue and the green.
Five might be important, but Alan sure as hell isn't going to let John forget which five is most important of all.
