What happened that day
With a remarkable amount of patience, Alan waited.
He waited until the giddiness of 'Dad's home!' had worn off, when they were all too happy to want to deal with hard topics.
He waited until Dad had built his strength back up and the exo-support rig was able to gather dust under a drop cloth in a corner of the infirmary.
He waited until John was on the island for one of his bone-density preventative maintenance trips, Scott was on the island (and staying put for the near future) because he snapped his right tibia for the third time and Dad was back on the island after a string of business meetings.
He waited until the sun was going down and his three targets had migrated to the billiards room for a game of pool. Asking EOS to make sure they were only disturbed by an emergency, he made a tray of hot chocolates and went down to join them, nudging the door shut after him.
John, with that seeming prescience that he had, had sensed his arrival, paused mid way through lining up a shot, turned to look at him and quietly asked "What is it, Alan?"
Alan set his tray down on a handy coffee table, squared his shoulders and with a seriousness that belonged to an adult, not a teenager, asked the question he'd been trying to ask and wanting to ask for years.
"What happened on the Zero-X?"