Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.

Characters: John, Gordon, Scott. Rating: T. Warnings: None

Drabble challenge from janetm74: "Seventy two times a minute".

Seventy two. It's a number John knows, not because he needs to but because he's always been a sponge for knowledge and at some point across the years this particular fact crossed his path and found itself absorbed into his ever-growing encyclopaedia of a brain.

It's a number he's counting now. Something he'd never thought would happen, but here he is, counting one to seventy two and then starting again from one again. As far as tracking time goes, it's inefficient. One to sixty would make more sense, if he wanted to count. Otherwise, there's a clock on the wall, a chronometer in his tablet, digital numbers on his wrist. Checking the time is easy.

But sixty seconds to a minute is impersonal. Too impersonal for this moment, where John's the only one in the room who's awake and somehow keeping track of the time is important. Seventy two is much better, much more relevant to the current situation, personal in a way the cold hard flicking of sixty seconds in a minute could never be.

He doesn't know what Gordon's resting heartbeat should be. What it used to be. Athletes have slower resting pulses, he's heard, but somehow Gordon's exact parameters never came his way. Then again, he wasn't there, was he? Away in NASA, clawing his way into space until they told him he was too valuable to keep sending on missions. Busy wasting years of his life on a dream he couldn't have.

Now, it's seventy two beats in a minute, standard and boring in a way that doesn't suit Gordon at all. John may have not always seen eye-to-eye with his second youngest brother, but that doesn't make it hurt any less to see him relegated to this.

Seventy two times a minute, because that's what the machines have decided to dictate. The optimum heartrate, according to medical science and years and years of experience. For a boy - not even an adult, Gordon's still a minor for all that he tried so hard to pretend not to be - who despised following the crowds, being the same as everyone else, prided himself on being the black sheep, it's wrong.

But they can't change it. Not until he wakes up and his heart doesn't need the help to keep beating. Not until the broken, lifeless body beneath the sheets moves, amber eyes blinking open and fighting to get back to his feet.

At least, John hopes he'll fight. They don't know what will happen. It might not even be Gordon who wakes up again, but a stranger in their brother's body. John's read all the medical records, even the ones he wasn't supposed to, and looked up anything he didn't understand until he had the full, grisly picture.

Grisly is an apt descriptor. There is more broken than whole about Gordon right now, from a physical standpoint. The coma is medically induced, experts promising that it was his best chance for a recovery, but John did the research and knows that they can cause their own problems. The chances are high that his little brother won't ever remember what happened. In a way, John hopes he doesn't, can't imagine the trauma that would cause.

Not that not remembering would save him from the trauma. Scott's already made quiet inquiries with his own therapist, looking to make sure someone's available as soon as Gordon's awake enough to need one. And he will.

Speaking of Scott, that's another brother not currently awake in John's presence. He hasn't left the room since they'd been allowed in, snapping at anyone who even dared to suggest he leave. Why the hospital haven't forcibly removed him, John pretends not to know even though it was clear as day.

Scott had only returned to them after Bereznik six months ago. He should still be healing himself, but now Gordon was comatose and Scott had always been protective of them, but this was something different. Something new. In all honesty, John thinks it's more frightening than it is reassuring.

There is no monitor hooked to his sleeping big brother - asleep only because John had promised to stay awake and watch for any sign of change and wake him at the slightest thing - and he doesn't know what his resting heartrate was right now. He hopes it's seventy two to a minute, not because Scott needed to match the masses, but because he wants him to match Gordon.

John can only count the time using one heartbeat, and Gordon's rings out like clockwork, machinery announcing it as stable and correct.

He finishes another count, skipping back from seventy two to one and starting again. It's the two hundred and tenth time. Three hours and thirty minutes since he'd taken over vigil and Scott had slipped into a much-needed sleep.

He doesn't know how many more times he'll repeat the cycle before the nightmare's over.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari