There was something to be said for magic. Virgil brushed a hand over his heart, where a new magically inked tattoo decorated his pectoral muscle. The Latin-inscribed seal would protect him from mind-control, possession and even simple mind-reading. And with it being a magic tattoo, there was no pain, no after-care necessary and no worry of it fading in time.

It definitely gave him some peace of mind, and he made sure to thank Willow and Dawn, as they had done all the research and actual implementation. (Alan had one too, but it would magically fade after six months, since he didn't see a reason to keep it once they got back to their own world.)

Alan, for the record, seemed to be avoiding Virgil. The elder sighed, tapping the pencil he was holding against the sketchbook one of the girls in the school had given him. He knew why Alan was being evasive, of course, and he couldn't fault the kid for wanting some time to process. He just hoped Alan knew that he was there when he would eventually want to talk.

Death was something they were sadly used to. It came with their jobs. But they'd never turned against another person before with the intent to do permanent harm. (Scott and Gordon couldn't say the same, and Virgil knew secrets that John refused to tell anyone else, but he and Alan had never intentionally harmed another person before). And it was, undoubtedly, Alan who had killed Belegant/Hood. Virgil's own blade had sunk into muscle and lung, and probably would have ended up killing the man, but much more slowly.

Virgil wasn't particularly proud of that; he'd been aiming for heart, honestly, but had been losing consciousness from the strangling grip on his throat. Even now he had some spectacular bruising, as well as cuts from the demon's nails, decorating his throat.

So, Alan was more or less squirreling away and Virgil was letting him. As it was, Virgil was on the hunt for their elusive counterpart family. Gordon and John and young-Virgil were still in what counted as the infirmary at the Council School, but the other two were just as good at hiding as Alan was. And Virgil had a feeling that Scott needed to talk.

He may not be his Scott, but Virgil couldn't help but want to do something about the broken look in his not-brother's eye. He recognized the look; it was so incredibly similar to how his own Scott had looked when he'd come home after the Terrorist Wars.

This Scott wasn't military, but he might as well have been from the way their father had raised him. This Scott didn't have a blacked out military record but his past was just as full of holes. He'd pulled out of the hunting game the first moment he could, but it hadn't let him stay away.

Scott was broken, and Virgil knew he could help. At least a little.

He found Scott in a back bedroom, one of the guest rooms that the school had set up for visitors. He was curled in the single armchair in the room, cradling a sleeping little-Alan. Virgil slipped into the room, shutting the door behind him and settled onto the floor, smiling at Scott, who was watching him warily. "Just looking for a quiet place to draw," he whispered in response.

Scott was silent for a moment, his cheek resting against his littlest brother's blond hair. Little nine-year-old Alan looked just as Virgil remembered him looking back in their world, so many years ago. Even asleep as he was, though, he looked tired and drawn and scared. Virgil remembered that as well, which kind of sucked to be honest.

The Tracy family just couldn't catch a break in any world, could they?

"You like to draw too?" Scott asked softly after a moment, shifting just a little. Virgil hummed in response, absently working on a picture. Jack O'Neil's face was forming on the page in front of him, and he quirked a small smile. "Do you also like music?" Scott asked.

"I do," Virgil commented softly. "Art, music, engineering and medicine," he rattled off, keeping his voice a quiet rumble.

"You said you're not from our future," Scott said, frowning. "Where are you from?"

"A world thousands away from this one," Virgil replied, quickly sketching Daniel's face next to Jack's. "Alan and I got thrown into a crazy adventure and we're just trying to get home."

"And saving other versions of your family on your way there?" Scott sounded just a little incredulous, and Virgil shot him a grin. Seeing Scott so young was unsettling, seeing him so out of sorts was heartbreaking. Virgil wanted nothing more than to let Scott know that he could do anything.

"It's kind of what we do," Virgil replied. "Drop into places and fix things. Granted, there's usually not monsters and vampires and hell dimensions involved."

Scott's brow furrowed and he held Alan just a little tighter. "So you're in the hunting game back in your world too?"

"I did just say that there were no monsters or anything back home, right?" Virgil commented, glancing up again with a frown of his own. "No, back home we run a search and rescue group. International Rescue."

Scott was silent for a long moment. "That sounds so much better than hunting," he whispered.

Virgil shrugged. "I can't say anything about that. I'm not sure about any of this hunting business. I know that my Scott is stressed beyond belief at times over it, though." He quirked another half-grin. "Scooter has issues with looking after himself when things are busy."

"What about your dad?" Scott asked, voice dropping even more.

Virgil shrugged a little, turning the page to start sketching out a triceratops and Alan's expression upon seeing one. He'd flesh out the drawings a little later, but he wanted to get the memories down now. That world had been hell but there had been some wonderous moments too. "Dad started IR, but he died or disappeared or whatever before it could really take off. Scott's in charge of both IR and TI, although the rest of us all play our parts."

"IR must be a pretty big organization," Scott murmured, eyes darkening at the mention of their father being gone. The Jeff Tracy of this world was dead, just as he had been in the last world. Virgil had more or less resigned himself to knowing that his own father was never going to be found alive, so he just shrugged it off. It'd been a long seven years or so.

"Not really," Virgil said, concentrating on his picture. "IR has us five brothers, our adopted sister, Grandma Sally, and our main engineer Hiram Hackenbacker, also known as Brains."

Scott smirked a little, but his blue eyes were still so sad. "I know Brains," he said. "Friend of our Virgil's. They want to build rockets."

"We did," Virgil said, smiling again and glancing up. "Built the faster rockets known to man. My you is the pilot of Thunderbird One, the fastest rocket plane ever built. I'm pilot of Thunderbird Two, our main workhorse. The rest of my family call her a giant bug," he rolled his eyes. "Alan pilots Thunderbird Three, our space rocket. Gordon has Thunderbird Four, our submarine. And Johnny mans our remote communications satellite, Thunderbird Five."

"Alan flies a rocket?" Scott asked, frowning enough to furrow his brow again. "He didn't look much older than Gordy."

"Gordon's sixteen here, right?" Virgil asked. At Scott's nod, Virgil shrugged a little. "He's the same age as your Gordy. But he passed the training and he's the best astronaut and pilot we have for her, so he gets Thunderbird Three."

"Your world sounds amazing," Scott said, absently rocking his little Alan, who snuffled softly in his sleep, a little hand grasping Scott's shirt.

"It has its problems," Virgil said, just as soft. He frowned lightly, a pang of homesickness hitting him hard. He desperately wanted to get home and see his own Scott.

"My dad is dead. Johnny is in a coma because that demon tore his mental walls apart so thoroughly he's having trouble staying in his own head. My Virgil is a werewolf. Gordy is paralyzed from the waist down and Alan is so traumatized he panics if he's away from us for too long." Scott took a deep breath, obviously on the edge of panicking himself. "I don't know what to do."

Virgil was silent for a moment, having turned the page and started working on another sketch. He put more detail into this one, working the most of the expressions of the people he was drawing. "You pick yourself up and keep going," he finally said. "That's what we did." He glanced up, his smile sad this time. "Our dad disappeared. He's probably dead. My Scott just got back from the Terrorist wars and was so broken by his time as a prisoner he could barely think straight. Gordy nearly died in an accident in WASP, which we're pretty sure was created by the person who killed Dad. And my Alan is still as traumatized as he's been for years. We all suffer from various mental and physical problems and we worked together and picked ourselves back up and are working to save as many people as we can."

"I don't think I can save anybody," Scott whispered.

"You're somebody," Virgil pointed out. "Sometimes the only one you're going to be able to save is yourself, and that's just fine."

"I need to save my brothers," Scott replied. "I'm nothing without them."

"Even without them, you'd still be Scott Carpenter Tracy," Virgil said, but he shrugged a bit. "But go ahead and save them. And then teach them how to save themselves."

Scott was silent for a long time, watching Virgil draw. He rocked little Alan, resting his cheek against blond hair, blue eyes troubled and stormy. "How do I keep them safe?" he asked after a while. "The entire world knows where we live, and Dad had a lot of enemies."

Virgil shrugged, ripping the page from his sketchbook. "You have friends here," he commented, waving his pencil to indicate the entirety of the Council House. He glanced up. "Did you dad buy an island, by chance?"

"Yeah, two years ago. There's a baby hellmouth on it that he wanted to keep safe," Scott answered, frowning.

Virgil blinked at him, jaw going a little slack. "Okay," he said, processing that. "Because one portal to hell isn't enough in this world." He shook his head. "We live on the island back in my world. It's pretty safe. I don't know how that would work here, what with the hellmouth and all, but it might be a good place to regroup."

Scott nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, regroup."

Virgil got to his feet, stretching a bit and handed Scott the picture he'd been working on. The portrait of him and Alan, bundled up in the armchair. "We won't be here long," Virgil whispered. "Have some more worlds to go through before we can get home and we're already behind schedule." He gave a comforting smile. "Good luck, Scott. Just remember you're not alone, alright?"

Scott swallowed heavily, giving a single nod as he studied the drawing. "Thank you, Virgil," he whispered.

"Sure thing," Virgil replied, slipping from the room. He had his own little brother to locate now.

Notes: Sorry for the wait. I had some issues with fixing my computer. Turns out I just need a new one, but that's an expense that I just can't cough up right now. So this one will do for now and I'll try to keep up the weekly updates while working around a stubbornly slow computer.