Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.

Characters: Penelope, Gordon. Rating: K+. Warnings: None

Drabble challenge from scribbles97: "Be brave, sweetheart" with Gordon and Penelope.

Creighton-Wards didn't do terrified. To be a Creighton-Ward was to remain in tight control of all your emotions at all times, your face a permanent mask lest the paparazzi get even the slightest scent of what you were truly feeling and blasphemed the family, forever tarnishing the reputation of one of the most respected families in the British aristocracy.

One of her distant cousins had once made that mistake. The disinheritance had been swift and brutal. High society was a cut throat mire of fake smiles and sharks circling, waiting for the barest scent of blood as an excuse to pounce. Her father had had no choice but to act before they could strike, in order to preserve their immaculate status.

Therefore, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward entered the hospital with her head held high, hair perfectly coiffed and nails proudly sporting a fresh manicure. Not a speck on her clothes, not even a stray dog hair from Sherbet was acceptable right now, when the world was watching her. Her association with the Tracy family - positive association, one that could almost be considered a true alliance, and such things were rare in her cut throat world - was public knowledge, as was the fourth brother's current hospitalisation. It was not an exaggeration to say that all eyes were on her; certainly all eyes that would ever matter were on her. Not the barest hint of the emotional turmoil racing through her could possibly be permitted to escape.

Turmoil was the correct word for it. The Hood might have gained minions with the classless label Chaos Crew but the true agent of chaos, or at least, her personal agent of chaos, went by the name of Gordon Cooper Tracy.

Creighton-Wards never showed emotion, had been trained to always, always, be in control of themselves at all times, and she could rub elbows with anyone from monarchs to street urchins without her mask slipping in the slightest, but every moment she spent around him she felt it sliding away a little more. There was just something about him that was so terribly disarming that it made her vulgarly open.

The most terrifying thing at all was that she didn't think she minded. It was almost exciting, in a way, to have someone who persuaded her to break the rules, if only for a moment. A rush of fresh air, crisp with just that little tang of salt because of course it was sea air, interrupting her otherwise stale life. Not that she'd known it was stale, until he'd swanned in without a care in the world and shown her otherwise, but once the knowledge was there, it couldn't be ignored.

However, right now she had to quell it all. The terror, the uncertainty, the realisation that she couldn't keep playing hard to get, because despite his tenacity, he wasn't immortal. Neither of them were. And their lives were dangerous.

This wasn't the first time he'd been so severely hospitalised, but she'd never visited him during the hydrofoil aftermath, hadn't needed to. Hadn't known him, beyond lines of data and records on John's younger brother and Mr Tracy's fourth son. With him ensconced in WASP, they had never had the chance to meet.

How his brothers had been through this once before, she couldn't imagine. She remembered their distress - John even more withdrawn than normal, on the occasions she could get his attention at all, and Scott- Well, Scott had been something else entirely. Looking at the young man, asleep on the bed and more bandages and casts than skin visible around the unflattering hospital gown he still managed to look unfairly handsome in, made something in her chest ache.

Parker, ever-faithful Parker, performed his chaperone duties admirably. There was no-one else in the room, the entire Tracy family unfortunately detained by a rescue, and it was incredibly unseemly for her to enter a young man's room alone. However, Parker stayed by the door, giving the illusion of supervision while still giving her actual privacy.

It could only be a quick visit; Gordon had another surgery scheduled, a broken leg that needed additional help to heal true, but perhaps that was for the best. Even asleep, he could break down her mask with ease and she felt it crumbling every moment she looked at his sleeping face. If she stayed too long, no-one to hold her accountable, then the wrong eyes might catch a glimpse of what was really going through her mind.

Still, in a moment of daring, because sometimes one had to take a risk, and she had almost lost him twice within the last month alone and could not bare the possibility of any more without being quite frankly unacceptably honest with him first, she let her perfectly manicured hands cradle one of his rough, calloused ones and give it the lightest of squeezes.

"Be brave, sweetheart," she murmured, the unfamiliar term of affection slipping out because it felt right. Who she was truly talking to, she wasn't sure - Gordon was asleep, couldn't hear her - but she knew well enough that Gordon hated hospitals, hated surgeries, hated everything about being stuck in whitewashed walls. It was why she was here; why John had contacted her the moment they were all called away and forced to leave him alone.

Why she would stay there, out of the way but present, when they took him in for surgery. Why she would wait until he was back out again. Why she would remain until he woke up and his family were able to return, no matter the potential damage he could do to her image in that time.

There were very few things that terrified Gordon Tracy, and Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward would not let him face his demons alone.

Pen&Ink isn't my usual faire but with this prompt there was nowhere else it was going. Another SOS fic to add to the copious ones out there already!

Thanks for reading!
Tsari