Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.

Characters: Virgil, Scott. Rating: K+. Warnings: Background Character Death

Drabble challenge from scribbles97: "What happened to you? What did they say to you?" "Please don't make me tell you." with Scott and Virgil.

There were good days, and there were bad days. Then there were sheer disaster days, and it was one of those that Virgil was really hoping would just end already.

The rescue had gone wrong. No-one's fault, no human error, just one of those days where his best just wasn't enough. Virgil hated them, even though he'd been in the rescue business long enough to know that sometimes they just happened. It was rough, he'd be shutting himself away in his art studio for a few hours with really loud music until Scott decided he'd wallowed long enough and shouldered his way in and coaxed him back out.

There would be hot chocolate. Blankets and a movie none of them watched. Just something to do together, to reassure themselves that even though things had gone wrong, not everything had. Because there were still five brothers, and sometimes things were so bad they had to count that as the positive of the day.

But he wasn't clear of the danger zone yet, packing up the last of the pods and trying not to focus on the rust-red that wasn't rust smeared over one of the panels, and most people weren't used to just sucking up the bad days.

Some people had lost family today, and Virgil knew how that hurt. Some people wanted someone to blame, even though it had been one of those days where there was no-one to blame, and IR blue stood out like a beacon.

It was easier to blame the people who had pulled out a dead body than the mountain that had crushed it in the first place, after all.

"He was my brother!" the man snarled, grief channelled into fury as he stormed up the module ramp. "My brother and you let him die."

The man in question had been dead long before they'd even got there.

"I'm sorry for your loss, sir." Virgil was sorry, but the words no doubt still rang hollow. Expected platitudes.

"You don't get it!" the man snapped. He shoved at Virgil, hard enough to force him to take a half-step back to stay on his feet. "He was my brother."

Blue eyes were bright with pain. Wild with emotions they couldn't contain, and Virgil was uncomfortably reminded of Scott.

Scott would be like this if their situations were reversed. If he'd lost a little brother to a natural disaster with no productive way to channel his grief. If Scott was the only one left.

The thought hurt. The idea of his strong big brother reduced to this.

There was the sudden urge to get home. Drag John down from orbit and be the one running around, gathering all his brothers together so Scott could see them all together and be reassured.

"I'm sorry," he repeated to the man. "There was nothing anyone could have done."

He took the yelling. The tears and the flailing fists as he shepherded the man back out of his 'bird and over to the local services. Passed him over to more people with empty words and no way of bringing his brother back. Still, they could do more for him than he could.

Wild blue eyes stared at him from inside his mind, refusing to let him go so easily. Virgil took a deep breath, and then another. The likeness was uncanny. Unsettling. He needed-

"Virgil?"

A hand landed on his shoulder and he looked up to see Scott, streaked with mud and red, standing in front of him. Blue eyes held a storm, but it wasn't the same. Frustration, not grief.

He needed Scott, and like always, Scott was there.

"What happened to you?" his big brother asked, and Virgil belatedly realised one of the flailing fists had caught his lip, bringing a trickle of blood down his chin. "What did they say to you?"

Those sharp blue eyes were assessing him, but also flicking over to where Virgil had left the man. Virgil didn't answer immediately, continuing the walk back to his Thunderbird. Please don't make me tell you.

He couldn't tell Scott. If he told Scott what the man had said to him, Scott would draw the parallels in his mind without prompting. The panic about how many little brothers he had intact, especially after a day like today, would rise up like an ugly snake, and Virgil didn't want to wrestle with that. Didn't want Scott to wrestle with that.

"Virgil?"

"He lost someone," was all he said.

I would have done Scott's pov for this, except I got this prompt twice with Scott, so I wanted to make sure I went two very different routes with it!

Thanks for reading!
Tsari