Part Twenty-One

Jeff Tracy sat up in his bed and looked down across four sleeping sons, eyes lingering on the second youngest. Gordon was settled in the bed closest to his father. Faced with the prospect of four hospitalised Tracys, with another three as near-constant visitors and under siege by half the world's media, Mercy Hospital had opened up an unused isolation ward and shunted them into it kit and caboodle. Or very nearly so.

Five hours after his arrival at the hospital, Scott was still in critical care, his mother watching over him as the doctors made cautiously optimistic noises about how well he was responding to the antibiotics. Jeff longed to be there, craved to be there by his eldest son's side, but he and Lucille had already traded off once and almost certainly would do again. He sighed, knowing that Lucy was as torn as he was. Even if Dr Evans hadn't ordered him back to bed an hour ago after a dizzy spell, Jeff would want to be here too, watching over Gordy, Virgil, John and Alan as well. At least this way, the decision over who went where had been made for them.

Alan was waking on and off, for a few minutes at a time, the jet-lagged child alternating between his usual boisterous self and lethargic whining. The constant nightmares and frantic search for his brothers when he woke bore mute witness to how the emotional atmosphere over the last few days had affected the small boy.

John had only woken once, looking embarrassed to be asleep at all. Lucy had told Jeff that their middle child was worried. If the emotional and physical exhaustion he was showing now was any indication, John had been a good deal more aware of the situation, and lost a good deal more sleep over it, than he ever let on to his parents.

Virgil must have realised though. He'd given not just Gordon but also his other two sleeping brothers anxious looks when he woke, asking softly if they were okay. Jeff hadn't made him ask about Scott, giving his second eldest all the news they had at the time. Virgil had listened, worried but with a calm behind his brown eyes that Jeff hadn't realised he'd missed. Jeff still wasn't sure what to make of Virgil's quiet insistence that he be there when Scott woke. He only knew that if it were possible, he'd make sure it happened.

Gordon slept quietly, an IV drip attached to his arm, and monitors, set quiet and dim, all around him. His feet were bandaged, cooling gel smothering the blisters and abrasions. He hadn't stirred when a nurse had sponged him down, or when his father had gently rinsed his hair and towelled it dry before dressing him in pyjamas Lucy had brought from home. He'd been groggy the one time he woke up, calling out urgently and not settling until his father swept him into a tight embrace. He had stayed awake long enough to ask after Scotty and look around for Virgil before dozing off again, too tired to keep his eyes open. Despite that, Jeff knew that his son's condition could have been a lot worse.

"Scott gave him most of their food and water," Jeff realised, speaking softly.

Mina Evans paused in her synopsis of their latest checks, looking down at the sleeping child.

"It looks that way," she admitted. "Gordon's sore and tired, dehydrated and hungry, but not nearly so much so as Scott. I've put him on antibiotics as well as the saline and glucose, just to head off anything getting started. I don't imagine Scott was able to keep him on bottled water the whole time, and they're both covered in scratches and bruises. All in all, though, I'd say you have one very lucky little boy."

Jeff started to rise from his bed, settling back in the face of the doctor's glare. He smiled tiredly down at Gordon. "And a brave one. With a very brave big brother."

"Scott held onto me in the storm and caught me when I fell into the hole in the ground with all the spikes and poison and stuff and he stepped in front of me when the bad man wanted to shoot me," Gordon's sleepy murmur caught both father and doctor by surprise. His eyes cracked open. "But I guess I pulled him out of the water when he almost drowned, so that's sort of fair."

"Water?" Evans pressed gently, moving to straighten the sheets around the little boy. Jeff was still reeling from 'spikes and poison'. He couldn't come close to dealing with 'wanted to shoot me'.

"And I was scared that Allie would forget about us when he grows up, but Scotty said I shouldn't worry 'cause he was going to get me back in time to take Alan to school." Gordon's voice trailed off, his eyes closing and his breathing once again settling into a steady rhythm. Jeff was out of his bed before the doctor could object, caressing his little boy's cheek. There were tears in his eyes, and he blinked them back hard.

Evans gave him a moment, waiting patiently until he looked up.

"Scott?" he asked quietly.

"Getting stronger." Evans offered him the latest update, and Jeff tried not to fret that it was as vague and non-committal as the last half-dozen he'd asked for. Mina Evans gave a gentle sigh. "We've drained the excess fluid. He's starting to fight off the infection now he's not struggling so hard to breathe." She looked down thoughtfully. "'Almost drowning' and the water he breathed in might have something to do with how quickly the infection settled in his lungs, although I'd guess he was already ill before that." She looked sombre. "His fever still has us worried. We thought we'd broken the worst of it, but it's rising again."

Jeff closed his eyes, hand resting on Gordon's forehead. He'd never forget seeing his precious eldest boy wracked with convulsions as his fever spiked dangerously high. He didn't think his weakened son could stand another bout.

"I've only just got him back," he said softly. "I can't lose him again."

"It won't happen." This time it was Virgil's voice that caught them by surprise. Jeff turned to see both Virgil and John watching them quietly. "Scott won't leave us behind."

There was no logic to it, and Evans' expression was cautious to say the least. Jeff should have dismissed Virgil's assertion as wishful thinking. Instead, he drew comfort from his son's certainty.

"Did our talking wake you?" Jeff asked, keeping his voice low and still stroking Gordon's hair.

Virgil shrugged and John glanced off to one side, avoiding the question.

"I'm sorry," Jeff offered nonetheless. He gave his sons a fond but somewhat exasperated look. "You two ought to be asleep. I'll wake you if there's any news about Scott. I promise."

Again, Virgil gave that small, non-committal shrug. He looked up tentatively. "Dad, has Mr Vaughan said anything else about Uncle Jim?"

Jeff couldn't suppress his shudder, concern for his old friend rearing its head beside his deep fear for Scott. Vaughan had left the hospital not long after the Tracys were settled in their ward. His work to secure the Weather Station would go on for some time, not least until the shuttle, hastily prepped on its launch pad, reached the satellite and confirmed that there was anything left up there to secure. With communications physically severed, there was no telling whether Villacana's final, vindictive commands had got through before the lines were cut, only that without Scotty's quick thinking and imaginative distraction they certainly would have done.

"I'll wake you if there's any news about that too," he assured his worried sons. He sighed, rounding Gordon's bed to stand instead between his second- and third-born, and reaching over to tuck first Virgil and then John in. "Come on, boys. It's way past your bedtime." He threw a fond glance along the line of hospital cots. "Even your little brothers have figured that out. Time to follow their example."

John turned over in his bed to look at his brothers, disturbing the sheets Jeff had just arranged. "Gordon thought Allie would forget him," he said quietly, looking up at his father in a silent plea for reassurance.

Jeff perched on the edge of John's bed, meeting his son's eyes. "They're back with us," he said firmly. "We're together. Our family is whole again and nothing's going to break us apart. No one's going to forget anyone."

"'d never forget Gordy!" Alan's sleepy protest seemed to come from a huddle of blankets topped by a mop of golden hair.

Gordon, to all appearances asleep until that moment, sighed and shifted in his bed. He rolled towards his little brother, making a small sound of protest as the IV and monitor cables pulled. "Love you too, Alan," he murmured without opening his eyes.

Evans was watching in exasperation. "How do you cope?" she asked, keeping her voice low, but amused.

Jeff rolled his eyes. "Usually by not trying to sleep four of them in one room," he muttered back. "And with a healthy dose of patience borrowed from their mother. Can you find me a book to read them? Something soothing?" He looked again at his four boys, all of them wakeful and none of them well enough to be. "It's going to be a long night."

Travis rubbed at his tired eyes and glanced up at the clock. Midnight. Near eight hours since he and Vaughan had brought the two missing children in.

He'd co-opted a vacant doctor's office, reluctant to leave the hospital until there was more definitive news about the eldest boy, but still too keyed up to cope with the mindless boredom of waiting. He'd spent the time working on a report, knowing that with firearms discharged and civilians, even suspects, injured, he'd need to make his statement and justification clear.

Coates and Kearney had brought Villacana and his men in, getting them medical treatment where necessary. Villacana himself was under psychological evaluation. The man was catatonic, completely unresponsive to stimuli, as if the emotionless mask he'd always kept between him and the world had finally closed around him for good. With his plans, his life and his grand revenge all torn out from under him, the man had simply stopped, and it was far from clear whether he would ever start again. If he did, he would regret it. The first thing he'd hear would be the charges against him being read out. Vengeance for its own sake was anathema to Travis, but he couldn't fault Jeff Tracy's vehement insistence that the man be brought to justice and would support him all the way in his pursuit of that goal.

And if Villacana never came around…? Well, maybe that would be justice too, in its own way. A large part of Travis thought Villacana's mental implosion was akin to his retreat to San Fernando: just another way for him to deny the reality of his place in the world and escape the consequences of his actions. A quieter, more thoughtful, part of him wasn't so sure. The glimpses of Villacana's mind he'd had over the last few days were enough to give him nightmares. He didn't want to imagine being trapped inside it, with nothing but anger and the bitter knowledge of his own inadequacy for company.

Vaughan had vanished from the hospital some time ago, first to try to provoke a response from their erstwhile adversary, and then to take control of the NASA team that was scouring San Fernando and dismantling the biggest threat to world security since the end of the last war. He'd sent word half an hour ago that between them, one or another of Villacana's recording devices had seen almost everything. The man would be tried and convicted – in his absence if necessary – largely on the basis of evidence that he himself had provided.

More welcome still had been the news Vaughan passed on from the Weather Station. Jim Dale and his crew had not had an easy time of it. They'd had to work quickly to restore environmental and systems control after Villacana's malign influence was removed. After that there'd been little for them to do but speculate about what was happening on San Fernando, and whether repairing their antennas in the hope of news would merely transform them back into helpless pawns. The shuttle had found a station full of anxious technicians and frayed nerves. Jim Dale had physically shaken the shuttle commander as he demanded news about Scott and Gordon Tracy. The shuttle crew, and the many friends and family waiting back on Earth, had been far too relieved that the station personnel were alive to take offence at their brusque questions.

It was certainly a weight off Travis' mind, even if was officially none of his business. Technically his involvement in this whole affair began and ended with the recovery of his missing persons, a recovery that he was still quietly rejoicing in as a genuine miracle. In theory there was nothing stopping him going home. He had a first draft of his report, written raw and unprocessed from memory, complete on the screen in front of him, and Coates had already called to tell him not to come in until he felt ready the following morning. Even so, he felt jittery, restless. The roller-coaster ride of the last few turbulent days just didn't feel like it was over.

Striding to the office door, Travis set out on a search, not so much for coffee as someone to share it with. He stepped into the corridor, blinking to accustom his eyes to the dim night-time light levels. He was turning to his left when a soft grunt of pain drew his eyes back around to the right.

Virgil Tracy was pale in the dim light. One hand supported most of his weight against the wall, the other was pressed to his ribs. He shook his head, his expression determined, and set off again, walking a few stiff steps before forced to stop and wait for the pain to ease.

Travis didn't have to ask where he was going, although he was mildly surprised that the boy had made it this far alone. Evidently Jeff and his other sons had finally drifted off to sleep after the news from the Weather Station came through. Travis could only hope he would get Virgil back to the Tracys' ward before one or more of them woke in a panic to find him gone. There was no chance of that though, until Virgil had done what he came for.

The eleven-year-old looked up with a mixture of plea and defiance in his eyes as Travis approached. The inspector tutted gently.

"You realise that Mina will have my hide for this?" he said, his tone matter of fact as he slipped a hand around the boy's shoulders. "Keep holding onto the railing, Virgil, and lean on me. I'll get you there."

Virgil gave him a shocked look, and then a quick smile that brightened his entire face.

"I don't think Doctor Mina would hurt you," Virgil observed. The boy grunted again, still in pain but moving more easily for the support. "She likes you. Just a little."

Travis almost stopped mid-step, looking down at the boy in astonishment, but Virgil pulled him onwards. "You're seeing things, Virgil."

"I just see what's there," Virgil shrugged. "That's why I draw it."

Travis shook his head, exasperated. There was a moment of silence between them, as they walked the last few metres along the corridor to Scott's room. Travis stopped in the doorway as Virgil took a hesitant step into the room. The nurse noting down readings on his brother's left frowned before giving Virgil a resigned smile and waving the boy in. On the right, his mother was fast asleep, her head resting on one arm, which rested in turn on Scott's pristine white mattress. Scott himself lay in the centre of a vast array of medical equipment, not one but two drips draining into the shunt in the back of his hand.

The boy was still, but the flush that had coloured his cheeks since Travis had first seen him was gone, and, while he was still breathing through an oxygen mask, his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

Virgil took a step forward, looking inquisitively at the nurse.

"How is he?"

The nurse hesitated, glancing at the boys' sleeping mother, before rounding the bed and laying a hand on Virgil's shoulder.

"It's Virgil, isn't it?" she asked softly. "Well, Virgil, we won't really know until he wakes up. Your brother's been very sick. His fever went very high before it broke and that can do nasty things."

Virgil gave her the same vaguely annoyed look that Travis remembered well from their first conversation, that John had given him when he'd tried to reassure the worried boy, and that he'd got even from an exhausted, babbling Gordon during their helijet journey. Travis shook his head. If the Tracy sons were here for any length of time, the hospital staff were going to find out that condescension would not make their lives any easier. Jeff and Lucille Tracy did not produce easily misled sons. For now though, Virgil didn't call the woman on it.

He tilted his head as he looked at his brother. "Can't you wake him and find out?"

Travis sighed, coming forward to rest a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I'm afraid it doesn't work quite like that, Virgil. Scott won't wake up until his body is ready for him to, and the doctors can't just make that happen."

Virgil rolled his eyes at the detective. He moved to stand by the bed, almost brushing against his mother, and fixed his eyes on his eldest brother's face.

"I need you, Scott," he called softly. "Wake up."

Scott was drifting, a warm, comfortable feeling surrounding him. He vaguely remembered a darker, colder place, full of noise and fear and pain. He hadn't much liked it, he recalled. His fragmented memories were full of urgency and chaos and confusion.

Even so, something niggled at him. There were other memories, mixed in with the bad ones that seemed so much more recent and immediate. He could remember feeling warm and comfortable before, familiar arms wrapped around him. He remembered eyes, faces, names and a need to be back there, to find them, so intense that it very nearly shattered the fuzziness.

Not quite. Lethargy dragged him back down, urging him just to rest and not fight the quiet brightness surrounding him. He was floating, sensationless, a long way from anything that could hurt him. That was good. Why give that up?

"I need you, Scott." It was the answer to his question. He'd give up the comfort and ease because this soft voice, and the others that went with it, needed him. He didn't question where it had come from or how it had known what to say. This voice would reach him anywhere, anywhen. It had been far too long since he'd heard it. He strained towards it, wanting, needing to hear more. "Wake up."

The warmth faded, becoming less like a sea of soothing water and more like the familiar comfort of his bed back home. He shifted against the mattress, trying to pull the blankets up around his shoulders, but feeling things pull painfully against his arm and chest. Murmuring a protest, he squirmed, moving his head a little. There was noise. Wrong noises, pinging and buzzing that shouldn't be in his bedroom. Something was pressing against his face, and he flailed a hand upwards towards it. Another hand caught his before he could dislodge the oxygen mask, long fingers gently holding his own.

He stilled at the touch, his eyes drifting open and meeting warm brown eyes intent on his. Memory returned and his hand tightened around Virgil's even as he held his brother's gaze, putting all his concern and relief into his eyes.

"Virgil," he said in a soft wheeze. Virgil looked up to someone else for permission before easing the mask to one side and holding a straw against his lips. Scott sipped eagerly, coughing when he found he was struggling to swallow properly, and sighing in resignation when Virgil carefully repositioned the mask. There was a nurse fussing around Scott, checking his pulse and other readings, and pressing a call button. Hospital then. Not the first time for a trouble-prone Tracy, and almost certainly not the last. Scott sighed again, resigned to being prodded and poked. He was still holding Virgil's hand, as tightly as he could manage, but now Mom was there too, looking down at him with glad eyes a couple of shades paler than his brother's.

"Scott honey!" her voice was choked with tears, her hand very gentle as she stroked his hair. Scott tilted his head, leaning into the comfort of her touch.

"Where's Gordy?" he managed, more clearly this time. Mom was crying still, and Scott turned back to his brother, knowing that he could depend on him. Vague, fever-distorted memories returned to him, of a deep voice and a hand stroking his brow as he tossed and turned. "Dad?" he asked tentatively. "Virge, is everyone all right?"

Virgil smiled at him, leaning against Mom as she pulled him into a delighted hug.

"They are now," he said simply.