Who was he? The son of a legendary billionaire? The misfit baby of the family? The inconvenience? Or was he Alan?
Every day away from his family made him question it even more. After the attacks of the hood two years ago, life had been great, he had such ambitions and he thought 'finally, finally I'm part of the family! The Thunderbirds!'
But that was a lie.
The badge meant nothing and the promises made were broken. No one cared, not even fermat or tin-tin, that under shirt he was bruised and battered from his day of peril.
He didn't question it, why would he?
He had the pin and his family! But days after it was 'oh how incredible was John for staying calm' 'Fermat was really clever, maybe he should be training with Brains?' never a mention of Alan and the efforts he made.
Alan isn't a vindictive child, all he wants is for people to be happy and safe and for his father and family to be with him.
The last few days at school were depressing, Alan had brought up his grades and improved his attitude but clearly his father didn't care to notice. Every video call was teasing and accusations of him being up to something.
He decided that tonight after listening to the half an hour rant from his family he would go for a run and visit the mechanics on the way.
The track team was very beneficial for dealing with his emotions, and combined with all his other extra-curricular activities, he was coping rather well at the moment.
He still remembers that first time he met his mechanic buddies.
He'd been passing by a far off alley of Massachusetts, when he heard Ruadh laughing like a hyena, on approach he noticed it was from Daniel emptying oil accidentally on his face. Ruadh, obviously being the Scotsman he is, noticed him and offered him a drink to watch the chaos evolve. Sadly it was a wretched glass of whiskey that grew hairs on his chest. The rest is history, except the whiskey, he didn't touch whisky after that.
On his 10 mile run to the shop, he contemplated today's activity. Maybe an exhaust manifold? He knew the engine needed a tuning but maybe the repairs on the interior would need to come first? Speed over comfort is his motto.
He felt a little robbed by Virgil sometimes, he had promised to teach him some engineering and mechanics skills on thunderbird 2 after the hood incident happened. Two years later it still hadn't happened and Virgil was acting none the wiser.
John disappointed him too, he had said that he would help with homework and maybe even bring him up to five. Neither ever happened.
Gordon had seemed to understand that his teasing was approaching the bullying stage and had stopped for a little while. That lasted two weeks.
Scott had been the worst out of his brothers, he hadn't promised anything but had started to treat him as a brother again by going on runs with him and playing video games together. But then as soon as dad pipes up, Scott comes running like a loyal dog no questions asked and automatically takes dad's side.
Should I still be calling dad, dad at this point? Jeff seemed more appropriate with how distant he was being.
I sometimes think all my life came down to my mother dying. I never really met her but everytime her name is mentioned they say 'Alan your mum died for you', never 'your mum died'. How is it fair that I'm blamed for that…
Today's job at the shop was revealed to be worse than he thought. Brakes, pads and disc. They're a pain, literally by the amount of finger pinching involved and with how boring of a job they are.
"So are you excited about your camping holiday with your brother?" Ruadh asked, he had been told about it briefly as Alan wouldn't be coming to the shop for two weeks.
Alan hadn't told them his surname, he went around with the surname Thompson in these parts. Being a posh tot doesn't get you many places around here.
John had been told to go on holiday somewhere and that Jeff only wanted to hear from him again in two weeks time. Last time he went on holiday he called in every two days to make sure that they weren't 'understaffed'.
Jeff had decided that John had been on five for too long and needed to have some earth time. John, after much protest, had decided to go and do a 'around the world' kind of trip to visit a few countries he hadn't seen before (outside of rescues of course).
Noticing that Alan had some leave those two weeks he decided to take him along for the ride. He didn't bother telling Jeff about it as he seemed to be rather angry with Alan the last few weeks and didn't want to raise any trouble.
Ruadh had just been told it was camping, trips abroad are rather high end.
"Kind of? I haven't really spoken to my brother for a little while. I'm really hoping it's not going to be too awkward" Alan said.
He had been reluctant to agree but John was persistent. Maybe John wants to make amends by going on a boys trip.
"You're leaving tomorrow, no? Shouldn't you be packing instead of being here? Not that we don't love you" Daniels said smiling.
Daniel is such a character, always invested in others but has had quite a few problems in his life. He was a widow at the age of 25 and quickly fell into a life of crime. He never got caught but it didn't mean it left him unscaved.
"I wouldn't miss shop day for the world guys, I can just pack late tonight and a little tomorrow morning" Alan really appreciated the time he spent in the shop. Last year he had managed to save up enough money to buy his own project car. He wasn't really sure what he was thinking at the time but he had picked a dusty old orange 1985 911 Porsche Carrera. It was a little rusty and needed a lot of work but it was his baby. "You'll look after her for me won't you" Alan smiled.
The day she finally gets on the track will be magical.
The next morning at 10 a.m John arrived to pick him up. Maybe being up all night packing wasn't a good idea, I'm dead tired this morning.
"Hey kiddo you ready for the trip?" John asked, chipper as usual. I can't even understand how he's so happy in the morning sometimes, maybe because he doesn't have the notion of night and day in space?
"Yeah yeah which airfield we are going to? Actually where are we even going? You just said 'around the world'" I was quite excited really, I haven't been to another country outside the USA in quite a while.
"I was thinking of going to east and central Europe maybe? We've seen quite a bit of america and west Europe"
"Sounds good" I've never been to east europe I don't think, I was kinda hoping to go to a sunny place but this could still be interesting.
After about an hour and a half of an awkward and silent car ride, we arrived at a very empty and desolate airfield.
Take off was a breeze and we were soon on our way. With America far behind us, John started to try and make conversation.
"How's school been? Been up to no good again?" He said jokingly. Makes me wonder if I should even bother replying, he's going to assume anyway.
"Pretty good, lesson quite boring at times but nothing I can do about it" Standard replies are just easier
"Any extracurriculars? I used to do science club in my day, it was awesome, I had quite a lot of mates in there"
"Not really, I do some running every once and a while. Keeps me busy" He's not interested anyway, my running compared to him being an astronaut is nothing.
"I was always terrible at sports, that's much more Scott and Gordons speciality…."
"CRASH"
"What was that noise?" John said, panicked. You could hear the violent wind swirl in the background that hadn't been present before. Loud, unexpected noises are never a good thing on an aeroplane.
The fuel light was on and the fuel gage is now showing empty and there's an engine warning. "The throttle is unresponsive, we're gliding" I was really hoping that's was just a sensor fault.
Looking out the windows on both sides, I could see that we'd experienced a bird strike and lost both engines.
"Tango Romeo Alpha Ciera Yanky 10, mayday mayday" John shouted through the radio, he knew we were in big trouble. "Alan strapped yourself in!"
"Tango Romeo Alpha Ciera Yanky 10, anyone there? We have an emergency onboard and require immediate assistance"
The radio stayed silent. No one else was there.
There was no more time, we had lost too much altitude, we were going to crash. Having landing gear down wasn't going to change much in this terrain.
"Alan when I tell you to brace, brace! O.K! I'm going to try and land us away from the trees but I have very little control"
John prayed, not only for him but for Alan. Most people don't survive a plane crash and he knew that. 'Mom if you can hear us in heaven please spare us from meeting you too soon'.
"BRACE!" With an almighty crash, the ground crumpling the aluminum like tin foil, they landed.
Hi! Been quite a while since I wrote a fic, and I had an inspirational day today. This fic is inspired by a mix of other thunderbirds fanfiction I've read.
I'm not the quickest updater but I'll try to be good. Be sure to review.
Bisous.