A/N: Gordon's first line of dialogue has an irony now that it just didn't have when I first wrote it... Also this chapter references a lot of events from season three.
To Guest: Thank you so much :)
Chapter Seventeen – Touching Base.
By the time they'd taken Cathy to get her things and flown to L.A., Thunderbird 2 had managed to acquire landing space at the airport. Scott put Thunderbird 1 down beside her, and they set about refuelling. Anne and Cathy disembarked to wait, and Gordon took the lift down to meet them. He was looking a lot better than the last time Anne had seen him. His neck brace was off, but his arm and leg casts meant that he was still confined to the hoverchair. At least he was no longer in a sling, which meant that he could mostly drive the chair himself.
"You have no idea how stir crazy I was going on that island," he said emphatically when greetings and introductions had been exchanged.
"Oh yes," Anne said with false sympathy, "it's just awful being stuck on a paradise island in a huge, beautiful house."
"Glad you understand," Gordon said, bypassing her sarcasm and shooting her a grin.
"I heard about your accident on the news," Cathy spoke up, sounding glad to discuss someone else's problems. "I'm glad you're on the mend."
"Thanks. I just want to get back to normal. I want to get back out there and do something meaningful, you know?"
"Give it time," Scott said, approaching them and clasping his brother's shoulder. "You're doing really well."
Gordon didn't look convinced.
"Refuelling's done," Virgil said, popping up from Scott's comm. "I'll get our ride and join you."
The airport staff helpfully disconnected the refuelling line, and Thunderbird 2 powered up, rising on struts so that its module door could open. Anne wasn't sure what she was expecting, but she knew she was surprised when a perfectly ordinary – if smart – street car rolled down the ramp with Virgil behind the wheel.
"It's a car," she said dumbly.
"Yup," Scott said, turning to her with a look of amusement. "What were you thinking, we'd travel around L.A. by pod?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe?"
"All the vehicles you've seen," Gordon put in, "and you thought we didn't have a car?"
"Well when you put it like that, it sounds stupid, but…"
Virgil pulled up beside them and got out to be introduced to Cathy. He and Scott helped Gordon out of the hoverchair and into the front seat, then Virgil closed up the ship remotely. Scott, Anne and Cathy squeezed into the back seat, and Anne gave Virgil the route to the best pizza place and her address.
It was a challenge fitting five people comfortably in her apartment's tiny living room, but they managed it. Anne propped Gordon's leg up on the coffee table, his brothers sitting either side of him on the couch. Cathy took the armchair, and Anne perched on the arm of the sofa next to Scott, feeling the need to be near him, even if they couldn't be as close as they wanted with Cathy there.
The chatter was constant, even as they got through all their pizza boxes. Cathy didn't join in much, but she seemed to enjoy listening to it all. Anne kept shooting her concerned glances, but she seemed fine, looking grateful for the diversion. She was interested in all the boys' stories, and they had an inexhaustible supply.
Gordon received a notification as he was setting his empty pizza box on the floor, and he tugged his tablet out of his pocket. "Oh hey, Anne, your little grocery store pick up is on the internet."
She rolled her eyes. "Of course it is."
Gordon tapped a button and the tablet projected what he was looking at into the empty space above the coffee table. Anne saw wobbly footage of herself in the parking lot, hand shielding her eyes as she looked upward. Thunderbird 1 came into frame as the person filming thought to aim up, and they watched Scott's chair emerge.
"You look a lot higher up from this angle," Anne commented, watching herself take a deep breath before beginning her run-up. She jumped, and Scott hauled her up before they both disappeared inside the ship.
"Nice leap," Gordon remarked.
She smiled, looking at Scott. "Nice catch."
He shrugged, but returned her smile. "I always catch you, don't I?"
Her smile softened. "You do."
"What do you mean by that?" Cathy asked.
Anne turned to her, shrugging awkwardly. "Well…you remember I was rescued from the top of the Nevada Observatory?"
"Yes."
"I may not have been…completely truthful about how close a call it was."
Cathy frowned at her in alarm. "How close was it?"
"Uh…"
"We can show you," Gordon put in helpfully.
"Can you?" Anne asked, surprise momentarily sidetracking her.
"Yeah, all our ships have on board cameras. Scott's got all the data from Thunderbird 1 right there."
Scott shot his brother a look, but said nothing. Instead he glanced at Anne, and she read the question in his face.
"Oh, show her," she said with a dismissive hand wave. "She'll only be imagining it worse than it is."
Scott had removed his sash and gloves to be more comfortable, and he wiped his hands on a napkin before tapping a few buttons on his comm. His projection took the place of Gordon's, and she saw dozens of snippets of footage as he searched for the right one.
"There it is."
There was no sound, so Scott, Virgil and Anne filled in with a running commentary.
"That's me helping that panicking woman into her seat," Anne said, seeing her tiny figure through the slice in the observatory's dome. Thunderbird 1's camera picked up the whole room, plus the tower beneath it, and the warp and sway of it was startlingly clear. "Wow, I had no idea it was swaying quite that much."
"You got left behind?" Cathy said, her voice a little higher pitched than usual.
"There weren't enough seats, I wasn't about to just hang off the damn thing," Anne said defensively.
"No, we definitely don't recommend that," Virgil agreed.
The footage blurred confusingly for a moment.
"That's where my cable came loose," Scott recalled. "Sent the ship sideways for a sec."
"And one of mine broke," said Virgil. He glanced at Cathy and explained. "At this point, the seats were lopsided, so I had to get them down to the ground."
When the image stabilised, it was to see the tower buckling alarmingly. The hatch opened, and Scott came into view, his hand reaching out to Anne's motionless figure.
"That was the point when I realised who I'd been working for," she said to Cathy, trying to make light of it.
Cathy didn't take her eyes off the footage, and actually gasped when Anne leapt off the tower. Anne watched as Scott jumped towards her, catching her around the waist. They both spun and plummeted out of sight into the dust cloud.
"Oh my god, Anne!" Cathy exclaimed.
The camera shook slightly as Scott's cable shot into frame and attached itself to the hull. Eventually, they came back into view, rappelling up to the ship.
"It looks a lot more dramatic than it felt," Anne admitted.
"It's cool," Gordon commented. "I haven't seen that before."
"Well I'm glad I didn't know about that," Cathy declared. "You would have given me a heart attack!"
"Which is exactly why I didn't tell you or Mom," Anne said peaceably. "Hand me your boxes, folks, I'll clear some of this debris."
"I'll help you," Scott volunteered at once.
As they gathered up the remains of the pizza and headed out of the room, Virgil spoke up.
"So, Cathy, I hear you're quite the musical talent."
"Something like that. I'm an opera singer."
Anne lifted a surprised brow at the borderline-modest response.
"Cool," Gordon cut in. "You should duet with Virgil sometime. He plays the piano and doesn't completely suck at it."
"Thanks, Gordo."
Anne dropped the boxes on her kitchen sideboard, and indicated for Scott to do the same.
"Are we finally alone?" she asked.
He glanced at the closed door. "Looks like it."
She crossed the floor and stepped into his arms, feeling him rest his cheek against the top of her head. "Thanks for everything you did today."
"You don't have to thank me. I just hope she'll be okay."
"I'll make sure she is. How are things with you?"
Scott moved them backwards so he could lean against the sideboard, and Anne loosened her hold enough to look up at him.
"Well, I had an…interesting day yesterday," he said. "I was going to call you about it, but movie night happened."
"It's okay. Tell me now. Sounds like your brothers are keeping my sister talking."
He smiled faintly. "I took on a rescue at the Shackleton Power Plant with Marion Van Arkel. She's the nuclear expert at the GDF, but we have a short history of running into each other in radioactive places."
"I think I heard Alan mention her once," Anne said, recalling a time at the island when the youngest Tracy had entertained her with stories while Scott had been out on a mission.
"We don't always get along, although she's a good ally to have. But long story short, we got trapped in the plant, and it was partly my fault. Fuse was there, and he managed to trap himself too. I was able to save him, so I did."
"You saved a member of Chaos Crew?" Anne repeated incredulously.
"Yes," he confirmed.
She smiled at him, shaking her head. "Don't ever change, Scott. If you stop being such an unwaveringly good person, you'll break my faith in humanity."
He let out a surprised-sounding chuckle. "I'll try. But…do you think I did the right thing?"
She looked at him, a little bewildered that he would ask. He didn't usually second-guess decisions that had already been made, and by the look on his face, he already knew what his own answer was.
"I do," she said after a moment's thought. "I don't know that I would have been able to do it, but…yes, you have to abide by what you believe in, even if they were responsible for Gordon's accident."
He nodded, sending her a tiny, thoughtful smile.
"Why?" she pressed him.
"Saving Fuse made it impossible for us to get out the same way," he explained. "Marion didn't agree with the choice I'd made. I met her before I met you, and once I thought…I thought maybe she could have been something if the circumstances had been different. But yesterday just proved that even if they had been, we still had fundamentally different viewpoints, and I don't know that I could forgive her for hers. She changed her mind in the end, but even still. It was…disappointing to hear what she said."
Anne took in the information with mild surprise. "Did she feel the same way about you?" she asked.
"I don't know. I've only met her twice, it was barely even a thought. Just a…possibility. Maybe. One that I dismissed a long time ago."
"Well, thanks for being honest about it."
He studied her face, perhaps searching for jealousy. He wouldn't find any. She was confident in his feelings for her to not worry about his past.
"I have nothing to hide," he told her.
"I know," she said, running her hand along his arm in what she hoped was a reassuring way. Smiling a touch impishly, she asked, "So when you first met her, did she yell at you too?"
"No, actually, she attacked me with a giant mech suit."
Anne considered that thoughtfully. "Has anyone ever told you that you have a type?"
"Beautiful, determined, and intelligent?" he said without hesitation.
"Very smooth," she praised with dry sarcasm. "So how did you get out of the plant?"
"That's the interesting part," he told her. "Fuse helped us. And he left the uranium he stole behind."
Anne looked at him with wide eyes. "Do you think he can be pulled away from Chaos Crew?"
"I don't know," Scott admitted. "It could just be that he didn't want to feel indebted to me and now we're back where we started. I guess we'll have to see how he acts from now on."
"But even if he wanted to square the debt, he didn't have to leave the uranium," Anne pointed out.
"That's true. Honestly, I don't know what to make of it, but it's comforting to think there may be a crack in the Hood's defences, even a small one."
"Yeah…"
A peaceful silence fell, broken only by the whirring of the refrigerator.
"Should we get back?" Anne asked reluctantly. "We've been gone for ages."
"No," Scott said, pulling her closer. "I haven't kissed you yet."
She smiled at him. "Well, you should probably fix that."
He bent his head and did just that. Anne stepped up on her toes to make it easier for him, and his arms tightened around her waist, keeping her in place. When they broke apart, she hummed in appreciation.
"I've had daydreams about kissing you in your uniform," she commented.
"Have you, now?" he said with an amused smirk.
"Mm-hmm," Anne confirmed. "It leaves nothing to the imagination, you know."
He slanted an eyebrow. "That so? Well you'd better hope that's not entirely true."
She laughed.
"So did reality live up to your expectations?" Scott asked her.
She slid her arms up to loop around his neck, pressing a gentle, chaste kiss to his lips. "It always does."
With a heavy sigh, she stepped away from him, knowing she had to get back to her house guests. He sent her a look of shared disgruntlement, and she felt bizarrely reassured to see evidence that he hated their partings as much as she did.
Cathy and Virgil were still enthusiastically talking music when they returned to the lounge, and Gordon had resorted to looking at his tablet. All three of them glanced up when Anne and Scott entered the room.
"Sorry," Anne said lightly, "we got caught up talking about Chaos Crew."
Cathy looked mildly sceptical, but Virgil and Gordon's faces showed so much disbelief it was almost comical. And ironic, since she wasn't entirely lying.
Once Anne and Scott re-joined the group, they spent another hour or so chatting before Scott declared that they needed to leave. Thank yous and goodbyes were exchanged, and finally Scott and Virgil were helping their limping brother out the door.
"It was nice to meet you," Cathy said.
"You too," Virgil replied warmly. "It was nice to talk to someone who's not an uncultured swine."
"I know that was directed at me," Gordon said loftily. "I'm ignoring it."
"Be safe, all of you," Anne said, although she couldn't help looking at Scott.
He nodded to her, offering a small, private smile. "I'll be in touch," he promised her vaguely.
She returned the nod. Final goodbyes were given, then they were off down the corridor, and Anne was shutting her door. She sighed, then turned to see Cathy staring at her with folded arms and a shrewd expression. It was something of her old spark, and Anne was relieved to see it, even if it did usually spell trouble.
"What?" she said.
"You're in love with him," Cathy stated.
Anne looked at her with surprise. Not even Maud or Viresh had realised that. "Uh…"
"Does he know?"
"No," she answered truthfully.
"Are you going to tell him?"
She shook her head. "He has enough to deal with right now." That was true too, although she felt sure that given enough time, there may be an appropriate moment to say it.
Cathy let out a sigh. "Oh, Annie. Please don't get your heart broken. After all the shit Ed put me through, that would just…suck."
Anne impulsively reached for her hand. "Cath, don't worry about me. Please. I promise I'm fine. And definitely don't worry about Ed. He can't hurt you anymore."
"I know," Cathy said, nodding. "I'm just mad at myself that I let him hurt me in the first place."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not yet. Soon, though."
"Okay," Anne said, squeezing her hand before letting it go. "Want to find a bad movie to watch?"
Cathy smiled at her. "Sure."
Having her sister as a roommate wasn't as bad as Anne had feared, but it did make talking to Scott difficult. To avoid suspicion, he would send a quick message first to see if she was free to talk, and they would snatch hushed conversations while Anne hid in the bathroom or her room. He told her about rescues he'd been on, and occasionally updated her on whatever progress Brains was making with recreating the ship that had sped Jeff away. Scott had clearly been thinking about it a lot, and had come to some sort of realisation that he hadn't shared with her, as his determination to have the thing built had only grown over the weeks. His impatience was clear to see, and it meant that a lot of what free time he had was spent observing Brains. Anne didn't begrudge him that, but she did miss him. The hotel in Australia felt like a lifetime ago.
Cathy finally opened up about what had happened between Ed and herself, revealing that he had spent months manipulating her, making her believe that he was the only one who really cared about her. She was convinced that only the fact that she'd refused to move in with him had stopped her from fully falling for his tricks. Having the space of her own, even if she hadn't stayed there every night, had given her a break away from his influence, where she could regain some perspective. She'd finally been on the verge of leaving him when he'd snapped, trapping her in the house so he could try and convince her to stay. It was fortunate that she'd managed to call Anne when she did.
The opera house wasn't pleased with her, (although her understudy was), but Cathy was too determined to avoid D.C. to really care, and she started auditioning for productions in L.A.. Anne hoped that that meant she'd look for her own place soon. They were getting along better than they ever had, but she missed her space. And not least because there was nowhere for Scott and herself to go when he did manage to visit. They had to resort to hiding in the back of Thunderbird 1 just to have a private conversation.
She heard from Gordon occasionally as he kept her updated on his recovery, and she was happy for him when he was finally cleared by the physiotherapist and could go back to work. She was happier still when she received a message several hours later, entirely in capitals: 'SHE KISSED ME!'
Anne grinned, making a mental note to call him when she finished work. She needed the full story of what he'd done to make Lady Penelope stop being quite so unflappable.
She and Cathy watched with the rest of the world as International Rescue made their first scheduled public appearance at an air show, and ended up having to mount a rescue in front of all the cameras. It was obvious to her that Scott hated every minute of it, although he put on a convincing pleasant expression. Kayo was markedly absent, but the others seemed to enjoy the experience. It gave Anne something to tease him about when she spoke to him.
Several days after that, Scott seemed unusually tense when he called, and revealed that Brains was working with the Mechanic on the super-speed engines needed for Jeff's rescue. A truce had been called, and an agreement made, but Scott still couldn't bring himself to trust the former enemy. Anne didn't blame him. She still remembered the amount of trouble the Mechanic had caused, even if it hadn't entirely been his fault.
To her dismay, that wasn't even the worst thing Scott had to tell her. Springing the Mechanic from his high-security prison hadn't been easy thanks to the intervention of Chaos Crew. The only way they could have known about it was from a spy in the GDF, which meant that there was a strong possibility that the Hood knew what they were trying to achieve.
Anne's heart sank, and she couldn't imagine what Scott must be feeling. It was precisely what they had been trying to avoid. Now the Hood knew what their plans were, he would be thinking up ways to disrupt them.
"I'm so sorry," she said, the heartfelt words not feeling nearly adequate enough.
Scott sighed heavily, looking exhausted, and her heart ached in sympathy. "I just hope the Mechanic comes through," he said. "They need to get those engines built. We have to launch before the Hood can stop us."
"I know. I doubt it very much, but if there's anything I can do, please let me know. I feel totally useless in times like these."
He managed a feeble smile. "You do plenty. Just…keep telling me it'll be okay. Maybe I'll believe it."
She met his holographic gaze. "It'll be okay."
She only hoped that she could believe it too.
A/N: This chapter was the beginning of the AU elements, although it's only a small thing. I decided to remove Kayo from the public appearance at the air show, because it didn't make sense to me that she'd be there, since she's Covert Ops and all that.
