Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.

Sicktember Prompt 3: Chicken Pox/Rash, with Kayo (requested by writerpyre) and Scott and Gordon (requested by gumnut)

Gordon lurked in the water, submerged up to his nose, and watched silently. He didn't want to draw attention to himself – the target of his observations had been in a particularly volatile mood recently – but there were questions that needed answering, and John wasn't the only one capable of gathering information unnoticed.

Kayo didn't even glance in his direction as she strode past, back from wherever she'd been on the island and heading for the kitchen. Their security expert not noticing him was just another red flag to add to the list they'd be compiling.

They in this case was all of them except Alan, who with his puppy crush couldn't be trusted to keep his mouth shut, and with Kayo's temper on an unusually short fuse, even for her, the last thing they needed was for him to alert their sister to the scrutiny.

It had started with the waspish temper. That was a hindsight observation – to begin with, they'd simply assumed it was a certain time of the month and responded accordingly. Chocolate offerings were left in places where she could snaffle them unseen and a few heat packs lurked in strategic locations throughout the den. Then it had lasted longer than a week with no signs of improving. If anything, Kayo had become even more irritable.

Then her outfits had changed. Not dramatically – they were still practical before fashionable, but her tops were a little bigger, a little baggier. The sleeves went all the way down to her wrists, leaving her arms entirely covered. All of this was accompanied by a slightly higher neckline, and – most importantly – a slight reduction in her daily activities.

Shorter runs, vanishing instead of appearing in the gym for her usual routines, and an even greater disposition than normal for disappearing in general.

The next conclusion they'd drawn seemed unrealistic on the face of things, but after a hushed discussion they'd reasoned it out and realised it made an awful amount of sense, even if they weren't privy enough to certain details for confirmation.

Which left Gordon where he was – spying on his sister in the hopes of finding something out. John's own surveillance was coming up blank with anything, but that wasn't particularly surprising considering Kayo was the only other person who knew exactly where every single camera and microphone on Tracy Island was. Unless he dared violate her privacy and spy on her in her bedroom, it was near enough impossible to get anything from that angle – and John was not suicidal.

It was true that they could just suck it up and ask. Kayo's temper was fearsome but she wouldn't actually hurt them. The problem lay somewhat less with their inability to face her wrath, and more in the territory of awkwardness.

How did you ask your sister if she was pregnant?

You didn't. At least, not if you were a Tracy. Spying was a much safer and less mortifying option.

None the wiser to the fact that she was being observed, Kayo shuffled around the deserted kitchen, locating what looked like lunch. Or maybe a snack, because there really wasn't much food being added to her plate. Gordon held back a swallow – another mark in the pregnancy column. Kayo might be slender, but she certainly didn't follow starvation rites masquerading as fad diets.

Then she stumbled.

Nothing big or dramatic, but for a young woman always so gracefully poised and greatly resembling a cat in her movements, it was a glaring red flag. One hand plate rubbed at her right chest vigorously, not far below her collarbone, and Gordon was moving before he knew it.

Sure, he was hardly an expert on pregnancy, but that seemed weird.

She didn't even notice him until he was standing right in front of her, and he had to duck to avoid the instinctive lashing out when his presence was registered.

"Don't do that, Gordon!" she snapped, chest heaving as though it had taken a large amount of energy. Subterfuge and spying was out of the question now, but that didn't mean Gordon was going to leave it alone and slink back to his brothers without a solid answer.

"Are you sick?" he demanded, leaning back in and reaching a hand for her forehead. It was caught and pushed away, but even that was enough to tell him her skin was a bit too warm.

"It's nothing, Gordon," she insisted. "Leave it."

That wasn't a no, and Gordon wasn't very good at leaving things be, anyway. Not when it came to family.

"You've got a fever," he accused. She yanked her hand back as though his was the hot one.

"It's under control."

Another answer that wasn't a no. Shifting his weight so that he wasn't about to be flipped the moment he made contact, his hands snapped out to grab her wrists. Even through the fabric, he could feel the heat.

"Under control?" he asked. "Try again. You're burning up."

"Don't exaggerate," Kayo retorted, attempting to reclaim her wrists. She failed.

"I'm really not," Gordon said, keeping a firm hold as she shifted her weight around in a bid for freedom. This close to her, he could see her skin was a touch too pale. "Kayo, you really don't look too good."

Her mouth opened as though she had something else to say, but before any sound came out her eyes rolled up and her legs buckled.

"Kayo!"

His grip on her wrists almost pulled him over, before he yanked backwards sharply and instead changed her momentum to slump against him instead.

Yup, definitely a fever.

The problem was that both the family medics were out; Grandma had another appointment for tea with Lady Penelope, and Virgil was playing chauffer. On the brighter side, Alan was up doing space junk duty and wouldn't be stumbling across this particular kitchen scene.

And there was one brother still around, even if last Gordon had seen him he'd been clucking around the den anxiously as Alan did his job. Still, that left him in earshot of the kitchen.

"Scott!"

He lowered Kayo down to the floor slowly as he waited for a response. There was no way their biggest brother wouldn't respond at all to that call, far too used to differentiating between when Gordon was teasing him and when he needed him.

Sure enough, Kayo wasn't even flat on the floor when thundering footsteps raced across the den above before hurtling down the stairs at a speed anyone else would be scolded for.

"Gordon, what- Kayo!"

Gordon shuffled over as Scott skidded to his knees next to him, sharp blue eyes scrutinising their sister in concern.

"What happened?"

"Not sure," Gordon admitted. "She stumbled so I came to see what was up, realised she's got a fever, and she was trying to tell me she was fine when…" he trailed off with a shrug, before remembering the way she'd rubbed at her chest.

Modesty and privacy were fine when well, but they all lost that privilege once they passed out, especially for an unknown reason. Gordon reached for her neckline and tugged it down until the area she'd been rubbing at was visible.

The sharp intake of breath next to him was a fair reaction, he felt.

Bubbling along her skin were lines of raised red marks, almost welt-like in appearance. Blisters just starting to form held a somewhat grotesque appearance and Gordon grimaced. Next to him, Scott cursed lightly.

"Let's get her to bed," his big brother muttered, and Gordon obligingly moved out of the way as he slid his arms under Kayo's body and pulled himself to his feet. "She's going to be out of action for several days, at least."

The voice of experience was talking, there. Kayo was not the first person in their family to be accosted by shingles and Scott had been utterly miserable the entire time. Unbearable, too, and Gordon sensed some déjà vu approaching in the near future.

Their sister stirred just as Scott lowered her onto her bed and, rather bravely, in Gordon's opinion, started tugging off her shoes. Gordon certainly wouldn't want to be near her feet when she was half asleep, especially when she was in such a volatile mood. Luckily for Scott's face, she seemed too drained to even try and kick him.

"Why didn't you tell us you were ill?" Scott demanded once he'd finished tugging shoes and socks off of her feet, revealing chipped yellow nail polish. Gordon approved of the colour.

"It's not contagious," Kayo rasped in return. "It doesn't pose a threat to you." She wasn't wrong; they'd all already had the dreaded chicken pox – Virgil in particular had the scars, although some of Alan's freckles were a little too pale to actually be freckles and the same held true for John. Even Scott had some lurking, although Gordon only rarely caught sight of them and wasn't entirely sure how many were chicken pox rather than shingles itself, and as for himself – well, there were Other scars criss-crossing over the old sites.

"You pose a threat to yourself," Scott pointed out, straightening his back and crossing his arms. "You're grounded until all signs of the rash are gone."

"Urgh." That… was a little less argumentative than Gordon had been expecting. Kayo must've been feeling really awful if she wasn't trying to dispute it.

Scott reached up and lightly tugged the hairband out of her hair, leaving the dark brown hair to spill over her pillow. "Get changed. I'll fetch the medicine." It was obvious she hadn't been taking any – Virgil would have noticed that in a heartbeat. Their big brother tossed some pyjamas to land on her chest before leaving the room.

Not interested in watching Kayo change, or the protests he'd get for being in the room while she did, Gordon followed, although he stayed right outside the door just in case she tried to make a break for it. That was unlikely – and if she did, she'd use the window, not the door – but it made him feel a little better. Leaving the door ajar, the soundproofing didn't engage and he heard the rustling of fabric. Either Kayo was doing as she was told or she was fashioning some elaborate escape from the smother hen.

Said smother hen didn't take long to reappear, and with a knock elected to walk straight in without stopping. Feeling somewhat superfluous, Gordon followed suit.

There had been no elaborate escape. Instead, Kayo was bundled up in bed, streaks of red just visible above the lower neckline of her pyjamas. She snatched the medicine as Scott held it out and swallowed it down without any hesitation at all, before pointing at the door.

"Out."

Scott hesitated. Gordon elected to follow his brother's lead and stay where he was. Kayo scowled at both of them.

"You do not need to watch me sleep. Get out. Shouldn't you be monitoring Alan? And- Gordon Cooper Tracy, are you trailing water on my carpet?"

Gordon blinked, looked down, and realised that he hadn't bothered to dry off at any stage between leaving the pool and now. Time for a tactical retreat.

"Uhh… Feel better soon!"

With no remorse, he abandoned Scott to his battle to stay in the room and fled all the way back to the pool. Well, it was either the pool or the towel, and he'd not really been in the pool to swim earlier.

Now the Kayo mystery was solved, his services in espionage were no longer required and he was free to swim to his heart's content – and breathe a sigh of relief.

No pregnancy. No nine months of hormonal Kayo followed by a few years of heart-in-mouth terror as they tried their best to child-proof their decidedly not child-safe home. No hunting down a father-to-be and giving him the shovel talk as all brothers were duty-bound to do, regardless that their sister was more dangerous than the rest of them put together.

Just shingles.

How the hell had they mistaken shingles for pregnancy, anyway?

We have an attempt at Kayo&Military Bros here. It's true that I really don't write her very often, and making her the whumped party is even rarer, but I do like a challenge :D Not quite chicken pox, but why go chicken pox when I have other options at my disposal?

I'm dabbling in Sicktember over on tumblr! Only doing prompts that I get a character request for, so feel free to drop by with a request. You can find the list on the sicktember tumblr blog!

Thanks for reading!
Tsari