Chapter 22.

The main downside of Thunderbird Four was that she had an almost silent engine.

Of course, this was a considerable advantage in most normal circumstances. Aside from the occasional sonar beep, the little yellow submarine was as stealthy underwater as Thunderbird Shadow was in the air.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned silence meant that Gordon could dock his craft and enter Tracy Island virtually undetected if he so fancied.

After departing Rio in a rather inebriated state, the aquanaut had somehow managed to engage the autopilot and guide the yellow submersible back to the safety of Tracy Island. Thankfully, vehicle collisions and speed cameras were rare fifty metres beneath the Pacific.

It had taken Gordon significantly longer than usual to tackle the staircase connecting the hangers to the house. If he hadn't know any better, he could have sworn another fifty steps had been added while he'd been gone…

Courtesy of Thunderbird Four's quiet engine and Gordon's soundless ascent up the stairwell, the aquanaut's brothers had little to no warning of his presence inside the house.

Upon staggering into the den with all the grace of a reversing dump truck, Gordon's rather skew-whiff vision had taken stock of the scene before him.

Alan cocooned in a ridiculously fluffy pink and white dressing gown, proudly admiring his nails which looked freshly painted.

John idly leafing through a woman's fashion magazine with several rollers in his hair.

Virgil and Scott both sprawled on the sofa, their faces covered in mud masks and with slabs of cucumber across their eyes.

Under normal circumstances, Gordon would have pulled out his phone and taken several discreet photos before announcing his presence with a wolf whistle, closely followed by uncontrollable hollering.

Unfortunately, the alcohol coursing through his veins meant his eyes were not on speaking terms with his brain. Instead, Gordon dismissed the scene before him with a rather violent hiccup before ungracefully dancing his way over towards the staircase.

It wasn't until the aquanaut slipped on the very last step and fell all the way back down the nine he'd just climbed that his presence was announced to the rest of the house.

The results were quite entertaining. Alan shrieked loudly and fell off the chair he was sat on, his blue eyes shooting around the room in panic. John lobbed the magazine he was reading across the room as if it had burnt him and leapt to his feet, one of his rollers falling out in the process. Scott and Virgil both sat bolt upright and pivoted their heads around like a pair of terrified meerkats, momentary panic setting in when they realised that they couldn't see through the cucumber slices still lodged across their eyes.

"Gordon?" John exclaimed in a tone reminiscent of a cheating wife who'd just been caught by her husband. With a shifty glance towards the still blinded Scott, the redhead swiftly kicked several of the magazines lying around him underneath the chair he was sat on, his turquoise eyes brimming with embarrassment.

"Ah, shit!" Virgil cursed, his brain finally kicking into gear as he plucked the cucumbers away from his eyes, "Kayo, before you get mad, just hear me out…I know it looks like we've stolen a bunch of your stuff, and that is technically true, but look at it from the perspective of us claiming payment after allowing you to live here rent free for the last ten years."

While Alan was preoccupied with discarding Kayo's dressing gown as if it had just fondled him and John was stuffing the last of the magazines underneath the cushions of a neighbouring armchair, Scott's gaze fixed itself onto the door connecting the den to the hanger stairwell.

"Uh, guys…"

Virgil ploughed on, "No rent, Kayo. That's a significant thing. We've not asked for a single dime since the day you moved here. You have your own room, your own Thunderbird and your own shelf in the fridge. Some face mud and a one-off go with your hair straighteners is hardly a high price to pay for all of the home comforts we supply you with."

Scott's sapphire eyes remained glued to the doorway, "Guys…"

But there was no stopping Virgil once he got going, "And of course, there's all of your fancy food too. Soy milk, gluten free bread, low fat yoghurt and flax seed smoothies to name a few. Who do you think pays for all of that ridiculous stuff?"

"Guys!" Scott yelled in a voice significantly higher than usual, "We have a bit of a situation…"

Virgil ceased his rambling to follow his brother's gaze towards the door, his caramel eyes tripling in size as he spied the 'situation'.

John, who was doing a commendable job at externally masking his distress, swallowed thickly as his shining turquoise eyes scanned the female figure stood before him and his brothers.

"That's not Kayo."

Indeed, the woman who was stood cowering in the doorway was not Thunderbird Shadow's pilot. Granted, she was a similar height and build to Kayo and looked to be around the same age, but the similarities stopped there.

"Uh, hey Gordo," Scott called softly, as if afraid he'd startle the newcomer if he spoke too loudly, "Umm...do you want to introduce us to your friend?"

A rather cross-eyed Gordon glanced up from where he'd been clumsily rummaging in the fridge, "Whaddya mean, Schotty? 'Thas K-Kayo 'righ there…"

If the unidentified woman had looked scared before, she looked nothing short of terrified as four pairs of male eyes locked onto her once again, this time in rapt curiosity. Visibly crumbling under the scrutiny, the woman began to frantically gabble something in a foreign language, a few stray tears spilling down her cheeks in the process.

"Uh oh…" Gordon slurred, his rescue training flying clean out the window as he staggered towards his abductee, "W-What did you do to Kayo?"

Their young lady guest blurted out something that made absolutely zero sense to Gordon's befuddled brain, before dissolving into a sobbing fit.

"Whoops…my bad!" Gordon chirped, casting Scott an apologetic look before cupping his hands around his mouth, "I. Am. Sorry. For. The. Confusion. I. Will. Take. You. Home. Now."

John scrunched his eyes shut and ground his teeth together at his brother's lack of volume control, "Gordon, she's Portuguese. Not deaf."

"Although she might be now," Alan muttered, removing his fingers from his ears.

Gordon scowled at his brothers before gesturing towards the hanger door in a feeble attempt to make it look appealing, "I can speak a bit of Portuguese, thank you very much. Uh, señorita? Get'o…in'o…Thunderbird'o…Four'o…"

"It's okay, Gordon," Scott soothed, his own rescue instinct surfacing from beneath the mud mask still on his face, "I think you must have accidentally grabbed the wrong person when you left. I'll give this young lady a ride back home in Thunderbird One as soon as I've wiped this gunk off my face. John, can you translate for us in the meantime?"

"Of course," the redhead replied smoothly, rising to his feet and approaching the trembling woman with his usual confident elegance, "Although it might be wise for her to calm down before she travels."

"Agreed," Scott mumbled into the towel he had his face buried in, "Virg? Could you keep an eye on Gordon please? I just saw him wander off towards the diving board."

While Virgil went and the coaxed the aquanaut down from his newfound perch with the promise of food, John offered the woman a tissue and began to converse with her in flawless Portuguese. After a few minutes of nose blowing and sympathetic head nodding, the redhead guided his charge over to one of the sofas and returned to Scott.

"Okay, her name is Maria and she lives in a downtown neighbourhood in Rio called Lapa. She's twenty three years old and followed Gordon because she was worried about him driving in his inebriated state. She says that Gordon kept referring to her as Kayo, but the language barrier made it difficult for her to understand the context."

"Does she know who we are?" Scott asked, dragging a thumb under his eye to remove a stray smudge, "Did she recognise Thunderbird Four?"

John shook his head, "I've introduced myself, but she's never heard of International Rescue. I could quickly bring her up to speed, if you think it would help?"

Scott shook his head and glanced surreptitiously at Maria, who was gazing around the room in a mixture of awe and fear.

Alan, ever eager to be helpful, rose from his seat and plonked himself down in the armchair next their guest, "Hey there, Maria! My name's Alan, I'm John's younger brother…oh wait, how do you say that in Portugese…" Alan pointed uncertainly at himself, "Uh, mim?", and then towards John, "Irmano?"

Maria frowned before breaking into a smile, "Oh! Vocês são irmãos?"

"She's asking if we're all brothers," John translated when Alan cocked his head in confusion, "Answer with 'sim', which is Portuguese for yes."

Alan scratched the back of his neck nervously, "Uh, sim?"

Maria smiled and clapped her hands at Alan's rusty attempt, her relief evident. After jabbering away for a few minutes, her eyes lit up when she spied the six portraits hanging on the wall of the den.

"Ahh, bonito!" Maria praised as she scurried over to admire Alan's picture, cooing as she paced in front of Gordon's and then John's. She paused when she reached Kayo's portrait and glanced over her shoulder, "Irmã? Namorada?"

"Sister or girlfriend," John broke off from his muted conversation with Scott to clarify, earning him a hiss of frustration from the eldest.

"Uh, neither!" Alan shook his head, desperately wracking his brain for what little Portuguese knowledge he possessed, "She's a…er…friend? Amiga?"

"Ah!" Maria nodded her head and returned her attention to Kayo's portrait, "Ela é bonita, mas vocês são todos bonitos!"

John intervened before Alan's brain even had the chance to engage, "She says Kayo is pretty, but that we are all very handsome."

Scott, who wasn't taking kindly to John's rather distracted manner, paused to throw Maria one of his signature smiles.

"Thank you, Maria. Obrigado!" the eldest exclaimed with a small incline of his head, grinning inwardly when John's eyes widened in shock, "You're not the only multilingual one around here, carrot top."

Maria blushed pink and returned to her seat beside Alan, giggling when Virgil walked into the den with a still drunk Gordon slung over his shoulder.

"Virg! Lemme go!" the aquanaut slurred, letting loose a string of loud hiccups as he fruitlessly tried to wiggle free, "I – hic – need to – hic – use the – hic – bathroom!"

"Well, I'm coming with you," Virgil announced, setting Gordon back on his feet and steadying the blond when he wobbled precariously, "I won't have you swan diving into the toilet bowl."

Gordon snorted and started to weave his way down the hall, pausing occasionally to sway his hips and chant, "Samba, samba, samba! C'mon Virg, samba with me!"

Alan meanwhile, was quite content to make the most of Kayo's absence. He'd managed to locate a translating app on his phone, and was eagerly testing it out with a few basic Portuguese phrases. The encouragement on Maria's face reassured him that it was worth the ten dollars he'd paid for it.

"And the guy with the red hair is called John," Alan informed with a smile, "Although I think he may have already introduced himself."

Maria smiled and nodded eagerly, "Sim, ele é muito fofo e muito inteligente. Eu já gosto muito dele!"

Alan paused to check the translation that had popped up on his screen, "Heh…yeah, I suppose he is kind of cute. And you're right, he's definitely the most intelligent of us all. It's great that you like him, most people do."

Maria flushed pink and glanced shyly at the redhead out of the corner of her eye, "Ele é solteiro?"

The translation that came through made Alan flush pink himself, "Oh! Uh, well…er…yeah, sure he's single. All of us are, at least at the moment. To be honest, that's kind of the reason why you've ended up here…"

A few feet away, Scott gave a badly disguised snort of disbelief.

"But John's a great guy!" Alan admitted, if a little bitterly, "He's fluent in more languages than I can count and is an absolute wizard with numbers. Plus, he can recite Einstein's Theory of General Relativity in zero gravity while doing backflips! He has some weird party tricks…I think he sometimes gets bored stuck in Thunderbird Five all on his own."

Maria leant over to read Alan's translation, however was distracted by the sight of Gordon dropping onto all fours in the hallway. The aquanaut prowled around like an oversized dog for a few seconds before pausing to gaze inquisitively at his reflection in one of the floor to ceiling windows.

"C'mon kiddo," Virgil sighed as he hooked his hands underneath Gordon's armpits and dragged the blond towards their intended destination, "Your throne awaits."

The aquanaut seemed quite happy to let his legs trail out in front of him as Virgil towed him along, however it wasn't until he was safely inside the bathroom with the door locked that some of his earlier elation began to melt away.

"I-I don't feel so good," Gordon whined, laying his cheek against the cool tiles of the floor.

Virgil nodded in sympathy as he steered his suddenly very sweaty brother towards the sink and turned the tap on, "Have a few sips of water. You're incredibly dehydrated."

Gordon obeyed and slurped straight from the tap, his expression waxy and pale, "Virg, please could you not tell Kayo about this? I feel bad enough about forgetting her, but the one upside is that she's not here to see me in this state."

"F.A.B," Virgil replied, his parental instincts kicking in as he sank to the floor next to Gordon and began rubbing the aquanaut's back, "Don't you worry, I won't say a word."

"Good," Gordon groaned, burying his face in his hands, "Because I know where you live."

-x-

Meanwhile, back in the den, Scott and John were seconds from killing each other.

"I really don't understand you sometimes!" Scott snarled, acutely aware that Maria and Alan were watching with intent interest, "It's a perfectly good plan. Why do you always have to put up resistance?"

"Because you're making it more complicated than it needs to be!" John snapped, his nose mere inches from Scott's, "Take Thunderbird One and use EOS to translate. Maria will give you her address and you can jetpack her down right in front of her door. See? Much simpler than your wild scheme."

Scott's teeth ground together with an audible crunch, "But she trusts you. It makes more sense for you to come with us and translate, rather than relying on EOS who is essentially just a machine. Besides, from what I've overheard, she fancies the pants off you."

John's nostrils flared as he drew himself up to his full height, proving to be half an inch taller than Scott.

"That shouldn't influence anything!" the redhead hissed, "I'm not coming, and you can't make me! My plan works. My plan is simple. My plan makes more sense and uses less resources!"

Over on the sofa, Alan reached for a bowl of popcorn he didn't have. Arguments between all of his brothers were fun to watch, however Scott and John together was a real highlight. Granted, arguments between his first and third brother were rare, but when they happened, boy were they spectacular.

Anyone who assumed that John was the pushover of the group was an idiot. Underneath his encyclopaedic knowledge and excellent manners, John was in possession of a true redhead's temper.

In an effort to diffuse the situation before things got physical, Alan cleared his throat and began screwing the lid back on one of Kayo's moisturiser jars.

"Hey guys, why don't we look at the positive in all of this?" the youngest suggested, sniffing experimentally at a mud mask container and nodding in approval at its scent.

Scott and John both paused in their furious exchange to shoot disbelieving stares in Alan's direction.

"And what could that possibly be?" Scott cried, gesturing towards Maria who flushed in embarrassment.

Alan smiled as he picked up a jar of blemish cream that had rolled under the sofa.

"At least we've got time to put all of Kayo's stuff back."