First Steps

Sore but content, Jeff carefully eased himself into the deeply padded and gimbal mounted bed that had been whipped up for him in the specialised rehab centre he was ensconced in to recover and rebuild his muscles and bone density after eight years in low gravity.

Today's physiotherapy session had been brutal, but this afternoon he'd made it up three flights of stairs without the exo-support rig that he wore under his clothes and he felt pretty good about that. He picked up his tablet to check his emails, fumbling a little with the interface- he was still getting used to all the changes in technology- found nothing that needed answering today, turned the tablet off and set it on the nightstand while he made a start on getting ready for bed. He'd just peeled off his shirt and made a start on unclipping the exo-suit from where it was secured around his chest when his phone buzzed and John's image appeared, his second son looking grim as he stared up at him.

"Dad, we have a situation. Get dressed and meet us outside in the carpark." John ordered crisply. "ETA ten."

"What's the situation?" Jeff automatically asked as he started strapping himself back into the exo-suit.

"I'll explain in more detail when we get there, but we need you to rescue Scott."

0o0o0

Jeff was waiting in the near empty carpark when Thunderbird Two swooped in out of the night sky to hover overhead, the VTOL exhaust kicking up some leaves that the groundskeepers had missed. Her belly opened as soon as she was in a hover and the rescue chairs descended. He'd barely secured himself when they retracted, drawing him up into the module.

A worried-looking Alan was waiting for him, dropping his professionalism long enough to sneak a quick hug as he helped Jeff down out of the chairs and shadowed him up the internal stairs to the cockpit. John spun the co-pilot's seat around as soon as Jeff had taken the fourth seat while Alan slid into the monitoring station behind Virgil. The third-born only spared a quick look back to make sure Jeff was seated before shoving the yoke forward and pointing Two's nose back towards home.

"Boys, what's going on?" Jeff looked between his far too silent sons, trying to read every nuance in their grim expressions, the wordless exchanges in the glances between them and the tense muscles in shoulders and faces. "What's happened to Scott?"

"Alan, bring up the feed." John instructed, he'd obviously taken the lead on this situation.

Alan nodded and tapped out a command to bring up a security camera feed on his screen, then turned it to face Jeff. Since it was a screen and not a hologram it was in true colour and the details were far better. Jeff turned his chair, leaned forward and studied it carefully, brows drawn close in a frown that steadily deepened.

He recognised the irregular opening in the rust-coloured basalt almost immediately- it was one of the side caverns off Two's hangar, part of the warren of lava tubes and caves that pockmarked the island. Most of the other caves attached to the hangar had been blocked off or filled in, but they'd kept a few open to use for storage and training. This one was a bedroom-sized cave formed by a bubble in the long-cooled magma.

Most of the space was taken up by what looked like a section of hull from Two, going by the flecks of green paint scattered on the floor. It had been set upside down on several sections of steel I-beam to keep it off the irregular rocky floor. He could clearly see the couch-sized piece of cahelium had been damaged at some point- deformed by a lumpy and irregular dent about a foot deep running the length of it, and Jeff's frown deepened as he considered what could have dented cahelium like that.

Standing before it was Scott, half out of his uniform and his back to the camera, swinging a sledgehammer almost as long as his leg as he tried to pound out the dent with no discernable success.

"Alan, magnify the bottom right corner." Jeff instructed as something else caught his attention, eyes widening as Alan did so and confirmed what he'd suspected. Neatly lined up against the wall was a collection of damaged sledgehammers, their handles broken or heads shattered and deformed. He counted maybe a half dozen of them.

"Report. Now." Jeff ordered as he sat back in his chair and looked at his boys. "What dented Two's hull and what is Scott doing? He has to know he can't fix that dent with a sledgehammer."

The reason why cahelium was so rarely used was that the alloy was an expensive and difficult beast to work with. Die-cast construction was the only option when building with cahelium- when it cooled it would stay in that shape until it was smelted back down again, and the heat required for that was immense.

"To the former, half a mountain top almost six years ago. Landslide in Peru, rain cut visibility to nil. Took Two right on the flank." John reported. "To the latter…" he paused and glanced down to frame his words. "A king asked a peasant boy, 'How long is eternity?'." John began, looking back up at Jeff.

Jeff swallowed the angry retort he wanted to make at John for waxing poetic instead of just answering the question of 'what is going on with my eldest son?!'. But what belayed his frustration was the knowledge that John very rarely delved into the metaphoric, for him to do so meant there was a very good reason behind it.

"The peasant boy," John continued, "answered the king : 'There is a mountain of diamond two and a half miles wide, two and a half miles high and two and a half miles deep. Every one hundred years a little bird comes and sharpens his beak on the mountain. When the mountain has been worn away, then the first second of eternity will have passed.' " John pointed to the image of Scott, who'd paused to gasp for breath and lean on his sledgehammer. "That hull section is Scott's diamond mountain."

"And when he's smoothed out the dent?" Jeff asked, comprehension starting to dawn. This was bad.

"Then he'll forgive himself for everyone he's lost on missions." John glanced down again, clearly deciding what he should say, then looked up to meet Jeff's eyes. "Your name is first on his list." He revealed. "Every time he has a really bad rescue he goes down there and pounds on that slab until his hands are raw and he can't swing the hammer any more. Doctor Hayley knows about it and she's been trying to get him to stop but he just won't, he can't." The second born shook his head, clearly getting agitated. "He's punishing himself, Dad, you have to stop him!"

"He can't forgive himself, and the people he's lost can't forgive him." Virgil jumped in to give John a chance to calm himself down. "We've tried, believe me, we've tried, families of people he lost have told him they forgive him, but it didn't work. We thought he was okay now, this is the first time it's happened since we got you back, but after today's mission…" He glanced back over his shoulder at Jeff. "You're the only one who's come back after he lost you, you can forgive him and maybe, just maybe, that'll be enough."

"But he didn't lose me!" Jeff couldn't help but protest, blindsided by the torment that Scott was putting himself through and suspecting there were other things his family hadn't told him yet. Next chance he got, he was going to need to sit down with someone, most likely several someones, and get the raw data on what his family had been through while he was gone. "He doesn't need any forgiving, for what happened to me or anyone else!" He went on, his eyes going back to the screen where Scott was shifting to a new spot to attack a different section of the dent.

"As far as he's concerned, he did and he does." John was subdued when he replied. "He's convinced he didn't get there fast enough, he was devastated when we lost you."

"No one could have gotten there in time!" Jeff protested, shaking his head in disbelief. "The Zero-X had a ten minute head start on him! I was halfway through the atmosphere before One could take off!"

"We've told him that." Was John's quiet rebuttal. For a moment Jeff could see the mask slip and the utter heartbreak John felt on behalf of his brother and the burden he made himself carry. Then it was gone, the second-born all too aware of the eyes of the youngest on him. "He needs to hear you say it."

"Oh I will." Jeff promised as the double peaks of home appeared through the windscreens. "I will."

0o0o0

There was absolutely no way that Scott could have missed Two's take off and landing, not with how he was positioned just off the old girl's hangar. That was Jeff's conclusion as they took the platform down out of the cockpit and followed the reverberating clanging and crashing of metal against metal to the cave where Scott was trying to beat his demons into submission.

Gordon was waiting for them just around the corner from the entrance, obviously posted there to keep an eye on Scott. Talking was impossible with the noise, so Gordon signed instead. Bad rescue. He advised, looking at Jeff. Family (of) four, mudslide, no survived. D O A. Scott took (it) hard, kids looked (like) John (and) Virgil. He explained, using their name signs of 'sky', 'moon' and 'art'.

Jeff nodded as he processed the information, thankful that Gordon signed slowly for him, used standard grammar and mouthed every word so he could lip read. He only caught about a third of the flurry of signs now being exchanged between the others, he was really out of practice. Going by the number of times Scott's name sign was used, he could guess the topic though. He stomped his foot twice to get their attention, knowing they'd pick up the vibrations through the floor, and when they looked at him he clumsily signed Scott time do what?

Hour John replied.

Need water, bandage. Jeff looked around his boys. Virgil get, boys stay near, need help maybe.

A round of their own sign for F.A.B. answered him as Virgil headed back to Two for the supplies while the rest found places to sit and wait out of sight but close enough to help. Jeff steeled himself and walked the final few metres to the cave. The noise finally died down as he approached, when he entered he could see why- Scott was taking a rest break, dripping with sweat and almost bent double as he gasped for breath, leaning on the sledgehammer. The handle of the hammer had a sheen on it, and when Scott lifted one hand to wipe his brow, Jeff could see the burst blisters on his fingers.

"Scott!" He spoke loudly, he could see that Scott hadn't been wearing ear protection and if the cacophony had been loud outside the cave, he couldn't imagine what it had been like inside the cave. "Scott, that's enough, you can put the hammer down now." He urged, knowing if he could get Scott to surrender the hammer that would be the first step.

"Dad?" Scott blinked at him in surprise, but he didn't let go of the sledgehammer. "What are you doing here?"

"Your brothers called me in, they were worried." Jeff explained, eyes narrowing slightly as he counted the number of sledgehammers that Scott had broken in his fruitless pursuit of penance and weighing it against the effort it took to do that kind of damage to a tool designed to take punishment.

"I'm fine." Scott replied, aiming a glare out the entrance of the cave where he was correctly suspecting the others were lingering. "I've got this Dad, you should be back at the rehab centre, getting better." He tried to divert Jeff, waving him back to the entrance of the cave. "You shouldn't be pushing yourself so hard, the doctors said…"

"You're not getting rid of me that easily, son." Jeff cut in evenly as he stepped closer. "Son, put the hammer down, come over here and talk to me." He coaxed, gesturing to a natural seat formed by a fold in the rock beside the entrance to the cave.

"No." Scott straightened up with an effort, jaw clenched and blue eyes narrowed as he geared himself up for a fight, Tracy-brand stubbornness lending temporary strength to his legs even though Jeff could clearly see the trembling from the exertion of the rescue compounded by his self-imposed punishment. Eight years ago he would have met that fire with fire, but he knew better now.

Instead Jeff chose to shake his head and huff out a laugh. "Scooter, you are so much like me at your age it's got me half convinced your mother had a cloning lab in the garden shed." He told his eldest, a fond smile tugging at his mouth.

Completely disarmed by the unexpected response and the wind taken out of his sails, a bewildered and exhausted Scott let Jeff take him by the free arm and guide him over to the seat. He sat as Jeff directed him, still holding onto the hammer. Jeff sat beside him with a groan and a faint whine of servos, his muscles protesting anew at today's activities.

"What's all this about?" Jeff asked finally, gesturing at the slab of damaged hull. "You know that sledgehammer won't fix it, you've broken enough of 'em to know that." When Scott opened his mouth to speak, Jeff quickly jumped in with "And tell me the real reason son, not what you think I want to hear."

Scott's mouth shut with a click of teeth and he looked down and away, still holding onto the hammer with his left hand.

"Silent routine. Haven't seen this for a while." Jeff mused to himself, recalling a few incidents with a very stubborn five year old Scott who had not liked being told he was wrong. He leaned out just far enough to try to see one of the other four, spotted Gordon, clicked his fingers softly and made Gordon's name sign- fish- to get his attention. When Gordon nodded at him, he signed give bandages, keep out (of) sight.

Gordon ducked out of sight, then an arm- Virgil's- appeared around the cave opening with a small bag of supplies and passed them over. Jeff nodded his thanks and arranged what he needed across his lap before taking Scott's right hand and starting to rinse it with saline. Scott hissed softly in pain as the slightly salty water touched the torn skin, but didn't pull away.

"You should wear work gloves next time." Was Jeff's neutral observation as he used sterile scissors to trim away a couple of flaps of skin from torn blisters so he could get some unidentifiable bits out before they had a chance to fester. "Don't do the work without the right tools, remember?" A topical antiseptic cream followed, gently dabbed over the wounds. Dressings that were effectively oversized plasters came next, smoothed over the upper palm, the heel of the hand and trimmed to fit the thumb and fingers. He could feel the tension radiating off Scott start to lessen as he was gently tended to, the physical demonstration of compassion a soothing balm to the invisible wounds his eldest carried.

Once he was done, he let Scott take his hand back. "Here, give me your other hand." Jeff gestured for Scott's left hand, still locked around the hammer leaning against the seat next to him.

The offer hung in the air for a moment, then Scott, still looking down, finally let the hammer go and offered his hand to Jeff. Knowing it was significant- a surrender of his burden and step in the right direction to finally let go of it- Jeff took Scott's hand carefully and began the cleaning process again.

He'd just started applying the dressings when he spoke again. "Scott, the Zero-X mission." Jeff knew the flinch was coming and kept his hold on Scott's wrist so he could finish dressing the weeping sores. "It wasn't your fault son, it was the Hood's. What happened was out of your control and only barely in mine. You and I did what we could, we tried our best, we tried everything we could, and at the end of the day that's all anyone can do." He continued, still looking down at his work as he pressed the last bandage into place. "You don't need my forgiveness for that day, but you have it anyway." He let go of Scott's hand, put a finger under Scott's chin and guided his head up to meet his eyes. "Scott, I forgive you."

The tumult of raw emotions in Scott's eyes tore at Jeff's heart as he caught a glimpse of the weighty burden that Scott had put on himself, and by extension the pain that it would have caused the rest of the family as they tried to help him but he refused to hear it. "Oh son, don't do this to yourself." He could feel his own emotions twist as he watched his eldest, knowing Scott was now a man in his thirties, but only seeing his little boy with freckles across his nose and a loving heart as big as the sun. "Lucy, love, he's hurting so much!" He couldn't help but cry out to his long-dead wife. "What do I do?"

Wait.

He knew what the answer would be, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Just like when they'd gotten Scott back from Bereznik, riddled with injuries that left him with screaming nightmares, he had to wait out the storm until it was safe to help his high-flying son find his wings back so he could soar again.

Complicating things, habits of years couldn't be broken in a single moment- he knew that from his own journey that he was taking right now. Eight years alone had left their mark on him in more ways than one- the food insecurity that had him hoarding water and ration bars for example, that wasn't something he'd been expecting to be hit with when he'd made it back home and the surprise was almost as bad as the issue itself. What had been a sensible survival mechanism in space was unnecessary here, but he just couldn't shake the fear that he wouldn't have enough for tomorrow.

Seconds stretched out into minutes and still Jeff waited. He'd let go of Scott's chin by now, keeping his body language relaxed and open and nothing but love in his expression.

Finally his patience was rewarded as Scott sagged in total surrender, leaned his head into the crook of Jeff's shoulder and looped his arms around him. Jeff enfolded him in a tight hug, carding his fingers through Scott's hair like he would do when he was little.

They stayed like that for a long time, simply being close with each other as father and son. For his part, Jeff couldn't help but dwell on how this just hammered home how they were just as human as anyone else. They were rescue specialists, pilots, astronauts and incredibly talented people, but under it all still just… people. It was so easy to lose sight of that sometimes, with how the world demanded that they be more than human.

But they were still oh so very human, with human needs and wants, and right now his son needed his dad to pull him back from the brink and to tell him it was okay to sit, to rest and to be human. That it was okay that he wasn't a perfect, faultless superhero and that sometimes all they could do was recover the bodies. Most importantly he needed to be told and reassured that it wasn't his fault when that happened.

What sobered him though was that while he knew Scott had just made some important steps in the right direction, his eldest would probably be down here again in the not too distant future and he'd need to be dragged back from the brink a few more times before the knowledge that he was not only forgiven but also blameless would stick.

Finally, Jeff pulled back just enough to get a good look at Scott, arms still around him, noting the weariness in every line of his face and the pallor of exhaustion. Even seated, Scott was trembling slightly and Jeff could see there was no way Scott would make it up to the house under his own steam. "You okay if the others come in? I can't carry you upstairs right now." Jeff asked gently, promising himself that he would get that physical strength back so he could support his boys. "We'll get some fluids into you, then you're going to get cleaned up and rest and we're both talking to Doctor Hayley as soon as you're up to it, you copy?"

F.A.B Scott signed with a faint smile, clearly not up for words right now. Thank you Dad.

Jeff smiled back, seeing the hope that hadn't been there before. "You're welcome."