~#~ (Chapter 21)
John woke up at just past 5am the next morning. Unable to get back to sleep, he dressed and went out for a run. He disturbed Jeff when he started the shower running an hour and a half later and then handed the bathroom over to his father while he got dressed. He packed a change of clothes into a bag and ran it down to the car before knocking on Jeff's door and finding that he was ready.
The two men went down to breakfast in the hotel and this time, Jeff had no problems getting John to eat. John's run, twinned with the lack of uncertainties from the previous morning, meant that the younger Tracy was more than ready when the food arrived.
~#~
John drove the rented car to the hospital with Jeff taking the passenger seat for a change. While they were travelling Jeff took the time to look over his second-eldest son. John was showing no signs of the frantic, almost-panic of the morning before and seemed, on the surface, to be almost back to his usual laid-back self.
John was well aware that he was being scrutinised but remained silent until he pulled into a parking bay in the hospital car park. After he switched off the ignition he turned to Jeff. "I'm OK, Father, really I am. I…I think the not knowing…the 'what ifs', if you will, I think that was what did me in yesterday. Now that I know Jacob is my son…" John stopped and shook his head, "Wow, it still sounds kind of strange saying that. Now I know that he's mine I can start looking forwards again. The last few days I've been stuck in some…some kind of limbo. I couldn't go forwards, I couldn't go backwards. I guess I just couldn't go anywhere before I knew for sure. If he hadn't been mine, if he'd been…I don't know what I would have done or what I would have thought if it had turned out that he'd been someone else's all along. I don't even know what I would have been allowed to do if he hadn't been mine. It's the main reason I went out this morning, to clear my head so I could think. Lying in bed, in that quiet room, everything just started piling onto me and I couldn't get everything into any sort of order. I…I don't know why running helps but it does!"
Jeff wondered briefly about the discussion about running that he'd had with John just a few days before. If running was a coping mechanism then was that why John felt he had to run around and around Thunderbird 5 every morning? He put a hand on John's shoulder and squeezed. "Looking forwards, remember?" he said gently. "There are no ifs any more because Jacob…" Jeff raised his eyebrows and tilted his head towards John in the same way that he had whenever he'd wanted the boys to finish a sentence for him. "Jacob is…?"
"A Tracy?" John said hesitantly, not quite sure exactly what answer his father was expecting.
Jeff snorted. "'Mine' was what I was looking for but yes, that's just as good. Jacob is definitely a Tracy."
John smiled and then a thoughtful, far away expression appeared on his face. "What if he's not…a Tracy I mean? He might be a Sampson." He stopped and looked puzzled. "That officer, what was his name? Spencer? He said they had his birth certificate. Did he say where? And how do we contact him so we can find out?"
"Whoa, whoa," Jeff held out the hand that wasn't resting on John's shoulder in order to stop the constant flow of questions. Even though his son looked and sounded relatively calm Jeff had a suspicion that it wouldn't take all that much to reduce John to tears again, no matter how hard he was trying to be strong. "Let me deal with that?" he suggested. "I've spoken to Spencer a couple of times over the past few days and I have his badge number as well as the number for the station. I can always take the car and leave you here with Jacob if I need to go out. Would you be OK with that?"
John smiled sadly. "Yeah," he replied. "I…thank you. I kind of wanted to spend the day with him without having to think about everything else that needs to be done. I guess I stopped and thought for too long."
Jeff gave his shoulder another squeeze before replying. "It's inbuilt," he said. "You've been over-thinking things for as long as I can remember. Now you need to stop thinking and listen to me, I'll tell you what we're going to do. We…both of us, you and me, we are going to get out of the car, go into the hospital and find your son. We, again that's both of us, are going to spend some time with him and then I will go out into the great wide world and try to get some answers."
John sighed deeply and then thought back over what Jeff had just said and snorted. "Great wide world?" he repeated. "That's what? A five, maybe ten mile section of world? Twenty at most if you want to include the hotel as well?"
His father nodded vaguely and got out of the car without answering. John's original train of thought had been effectively derailed and Jeff was happy with that.
John climbed out of the car and pushed the door closed behind him. He got half way around the front of the car before stopping, turning back round and opening the rear door. He pulled out the bag of clothes that he'd packed earlier and slung it over one shoulder. He then shut the door again, activated the alarm to lock the car and strolled over to Jeff. "In case you go out," he explained. "If you take the car and the bag then I'm guaranteed to need something out of it."
Jeff nodded and then walked towards the hospital with his son by his side. 'Not completely derailed,' he thought. 'Just a little diverted.'