May Portland - Genius - I definitely like the sound of that. As for leaving this story a one-shot - I think I'd have to change my name to come back here!

Queen of the Elven City - I told you I was working on it. As for sleeping in chemistry - I did that when I took chemistry in college, well at least the lecture that was at eight in the morning. Let's just say that was the last eight o'clcock class I took in college!

Sarah - glad you like the story. Hope you keep enjoying it.

AngelMouse5 - thanks for the compliment but I can't take all the credit. I was just enjoying bring up the incident in The Brother I Don't Know. It was Queen of the Elven City who suggested actually writing a story about the incident and I'm glad she did as I'm having fun writing this.

moonlightbear- glad to see you're out there as I like getting you're reviews!

andrewjameswilliams - I'm glad you liked the interaction between John and Jeff. I just think thats an interesting relationship between the two of them and I love exploring it. Thanks for the review.

Iniysa - thanks for the review. Be sure to let me know when you start posting your story and I'll check it out!

naurarwen-fangorn - I think most of us are guilty of sleeping thorugh class at least once. Thanks for reviewing.

star-shimmered-dragon - hey we have something in common - I'm the daughter of a serious Thunderbird fan myself. That's the only reason I even watched the movie in the first place - I was humoring my Dad. Who knew I'd fall in love with the movie. Hope you like this chapter.

Naiomi-Jayne - will John's brothers thorw him in the pool? Read and find out. I promise you don't have to read long for that answer.

Marblez - ah my cheerleader finally arrived. What can I say, the encouragement just makes me want to right. Thanks!

John's POV:

I left the kitchen and headed outside. I saw Gordon in the diving pool and headed down the steps to the level of the patio above the pool.

"Hey Gordon, dinner is ready," I called down to him. I planned to stay far enough from the pool so that Gordon wouldn't have a chance for a repeat performance of when I had come back two months ago. He and Scott had ganged up on me soon after my arrival back on Tracy island and thrown me in the pool.

"Okay," Gordon said as he swam to the edge of the and pulled himself out. Once out of the pool he started walking in my direction. I cautiously took a couple steps back putting more distance between him and me. "A little paranoid aren't we," Gordon said lightly grabbing a towel off of a nearby chair.

"Just not taking any chances," I told him. "Where's Virgil anyways?" I asked him looking around for my other brother.

"Oh, he's here somewhere," Gordon said off handedly as he made his way up the steps, drying himself off with the towel as he walked.

I headed for the steps that led back up to the house trying to stay ahead of Gordon. I really didn't trust him not to try something. All my attention on Gordon, I didn't hear the footsteps behind me.

"Here I am," came Virgil's voice as he put his arms around me, grabbing me from behind. "Gordon come help me!" he called out. Gordon didn't need to be told twice.

As much as I tried to fight against my two brothers, I couldn't break away from them. I found myself slowly getting closer to the pool. At the last possible minute, as Virgil and Gordon started pushing me toward the pool, I reached out and grabbed a hold of Virgil's shirt. If I was going in, then I was taking him with me.

I felt the cold shock of the pool water as we hit it. The shock of it forcing the air from my lungs. I felt my feet get heavy as the socks and canvas shoes I was wearing absorbed the water. Letting go of Virgil I kicked for the surface.

As my head broke the surface, I took a deep breath. I heard Virgil break the surface beside me and Gordon's laughter from the side of the pool. Treading water I looked toward Virgil, who had a smile on his face not at all perturbed by the fact that I had pulled him in along with me.

I swam to the side of the pool, ready to pull myself out of the water.

"Here let me help you," Gordon offered reaching a hand out to me. I saw my opportunity.

I reached out and took Gordon's hand as if I was accepting his offer of help. As soon as I had a good hold of it though, I yanked him into the pool right beside me and then pulled myself up out of the water. Sitting on the edge of the pool I looked back as Gordon came back up.

"That wasn't fair," he protested.

Beside me Virgil started laughing.

"All's fair in love and war," I told him pushing away from the side of the pool so I could take my wet socks and shoes off. Also I didn't want Gordon to get any ideas of pulling me back into the pool.

'At least I wasn't wearing my sneakers', I thought to myself as I wrung water out of one of the socks. Virgil and Gordon clambered out of the pool and grabbed their towels to start drying off. Virgil tossed me a third towel.

Well, that told me one thing. The two of them had planned on teaming up to throw me in the pool. I hoped my brothers didn't decide to make 'throw John in the pool when he comes home' an every time thing. If that was the case I might just have to stay up on the space station all the time, though I doubted Dad would go for that.

Jeff's POV:

I was about to go out and look for all three of my kids when I heard laughter approaching the kitchen. As the three of them walked into the kitchen I looked up.

'Maybe I should've gone and got those two,' I thought to myself when I saw John's appearance.

For starters he was no longer wearing his shoes. The shoes were in one hand, a wet sock stuck in each one. His clothes were soaking wet, and his hair was wet and slicked back away from his face. It looked as if I might have to have a little talk with two of my children here, along with the one that was in space right now.

"We'll be back down as soon as we change into something dryer," John said as the three of them walked through the kitchen toward the hallway. The other two didn't meet my gaze as they followed their brother through the kitchen.

As I watched them disappear out of the kitchen, I realized that Virgil's shirt was wet. Evidently John had gotten a little revenge of his own.

I shook my head. Raising five sons had always been a trial. They had given each other quite a few bumps and bruises along with the occasional bloody nose.

'Boys will be boys', Meg had always told me. She had grown up with two older brothers and a younger brother herself. She had loved having the boys, saying that they kept her on her toes. Deep down though I think she had always wished for a girl.

It wasn't long before John, Virgil and Gordon were all back downstairs and we were all sitting around the table talking and laughing. Things were quiet right now. I cherished these peaceful times because they never seemed to last long. Something always managed to come along and shake things up a little bit.

Alan's POV:

"Alan I thought we we-we-were suppose to be wo-wo-wo doing our homework," Fermat said looking up from the book in front of him. He was actually reading the history assignment we had for tomorrow. I had lost interest in the assignment two paragraphs in and ten minutes ago.

"I needed a break," I said casually flipping the channel of the tv in the common room again. For a change we were the only two in the common room. I wasn't sure where everyone else was but I also really didn't much care. Most of the kids here were spoiled rich brats who spent most of their time with their heads in the books oblivious to everything else around them. If any of them were in the room I would be forced to turn the tv off because they would find it distracting. Luckily the tv didn't bother Fermat.

"You worked for about fi-fi-five minutes."

It was an observation I really didn't need pointed out. I had a stack of homework that was due, some of which was due tomorrow. The looming due date didn't seem to actually motivate me any though.

I switched the channel again without replying. I was looking to see if there was any news coverage about International Rescue on tonight. So far, I hadn't found anything. There were a few follow up stories about last night in San Francisco but nothing else.

Frustrated I turned off the tv and turned back to the table. I propped my head up on my hand and went back to attempting to read my history assignment. When I reached the bottom of the page I realized that I had no idea as to what I had just read. 'Forget it' I mumbled softly to myself as I closed my book and pulled out my English assignment, which I had actually already read. The assignment had been to read two poems by Robert Frost. Now, I just had to write a page of my own thoughts on the poems.

I would never admit it to anyone, especially not Fermat, but I had actually enjoyed the American Lit course this semester. Even the daily papers we had to write weren't too bad. It wasn't like they had to be grammatically correct or show some great insight into what we had read for that night. All Mr. Duran asked of us is to right down our reactions to what we had just read no matter what they were. Though I must admit sometimes a page seemed like a lot to write, but that's when big handwriting came in handy but even I had managed to get a couple of papers past the one page mark this semester.

I picked up my pencil and started writing things down. Soon the paper seemed to be writing itself although I'm not sure how connected it was going to seem to Mr. Duran as it felt like I was kind of jumping around to different things about the poem.

Suddenly I had the sensation that I was being watched. I looked up at Fermat to find him faithfully working his way through our history assignment. I was just going to have to have him summarize it for me later tonight.

I still felt like I was being watched. I looked up to find Mr. Caulfield standing in the doorway looking in my direction. It must have been his night to stay in the dormitories to keep an eye on us.

"What?" I asked feeling a little self-conscious. When teachers paid attention to me it was usually when I was in trouble. As far as I knew I hadn't broken any of the stupid school rules this evening. Of course there was so many of them I could never keep them straight. For all I knew there was a rule that said you couldn't do English homework before History.

"Nothing. It's just not often that I actually get to see you doing school work Mr. Tracy. I wanted to remember the moment," Mr. Caulfield told me.

A smart aleck remark instantly came to mind but before I had the oppurtunity a shout from the hallway interrupted.

"It's snowing," Mark Shawes called out as he came running down the hallway of the first floor dorm east wing. He rushed past Mr. Caulfield on his way toward the dormitory's front entrance. Along the hall doors opened in response to Mark's shout as kids came out, most without coats to see the snow.

Even though it was the second week into December this would be the first snowfall here. From what I heard other's say it was late for this area. Personally, I had been glad for the lack of snow as I didn't particularly care for it. In fact, I hated it.

Snow reminded me of the skiing trips my family use to take which I barely remembered. I usually got left behind with a nanny at the ski lodge while the rest of my family headed for the slopes. Kind of ironic that some of my earliest memories were of getting left behind.

That wasn't the reason that I hated snow though. Even without my family I had fun on those trips as the nanny, for the life of me I can't remember her name, took me outside to play in the snow. We built snowmen and snow-forts. She had even showed me how to lay in the snow and create snow angels. One time we had even created an arsenal of snow balls and when Scott and John had returned from the slopes one day, we had let them have it with the snow balls.

However, that was also the ski trip that the avalanche had taken place. The trip that my mom had died on. Anymore, when I saw snow that was what I associated it with. Not the fun activities I had enjoyed with my nanny but that it was snow that had taken my mother away from me. So, while everybody rushed to windows or outside to see the first snowfall of the year I stayed right where I was.

Across the table from me, Fermat got to his feet and headed for the window. I guess I couldn't really blame him as he had never seen snow before. Before his dad had teamed up with my Dad to start building the Thunderbirds, he and Fermat had lived in Florida, not exactly a place with a lot of snow.

Fermat and I had know each other since both our families moved to Tracy Island. We had grown up together. In a lot of ways, Fermat was like another brother too me (one I actually got along with). Ever since we started school we had gone to the same schools, Dad paying for Fermat's education as a favor to Brains for leaving his life behind and coming to Tracy Island to help create and run International Rescue and up until now, all of those schools had been in warm weather climates.

Sometimes I thought Dad picking this school was a kind of punishment. I had nothing in common with any of the kids here, with the exception of Fermat. Even Fermat and I were more different than alike. Not to mention the weather. Cold and snowy. Yes definitely a punishment.

Trying to forget about what had everyone else excited I grabbed my history book and opened it back up to the beginning of the chapter we had to read. Even history was looking appealing right about now. I was two pages into the chapter when Fermat came back to the table. He sat back down across from me without saying a word. Fermat knew how I felt about snow.

The common room was no longer quiet. Kids were now running down the steps from the second floor and heading outside. Seemed like everyone in the place had caught snow fever. The only upside was that maybe now I wouldn't be the only one not prepared for classes tomorrow.

"It's about time it snowed," a kid who was a grade ahead of me was saying excitedly, as he and two others walked into the common room. All of them headed for a window that wasn't already occupied with guys crowded around to see the falling snow.

"I hope we get enough to build a snowman," one of the kids with the first said.

"Forget the snowman," the first replied. "I want to go sledding."

"I'm just glad that the ski resort will have fresh powder on them this weekend," the third kid said looking out the window. "My parents are picking my brother and me up Friday afternoon for a family ski trip."

I had heard enough. I closed my history book and stuff it and the rest of my stuff in my bag. Fermat looked across the table at me a look of sympathy on his face.

"I'm going upstairs to our room to finish this stuff," I told him, giving him the explanation that he had not yet asked for.

"S-s-sounds like a good i-i-id-id plan," Fermat told me gathering his own stuff. "How about we go over te chemistry experiment for tomorrow's lab," Fermat suggested as we headed out of the common room and down to the room that we shared.

"Yeah sure," I said with a shrug. I really had no interest in doing chemistry but then I had completely lost all interest in my school work. At the same time though, I knew that Fermat was just trying to help. Was trying to get my mind off of the snow falling outside and the memories that had surfaced with the snow.

We reached the door to our room and I reached into my pocket for the key. Fishing it out, I slid the key into the lock and turned it. The room was dark, and as I opened the door the lamp along the sidewalk outside of our window illuminated the falling snow outside. A light dusting had already fallen making everything outside white instead of the brown that had dominated the landscape surrounding the school.

I reached out and flipped the light switch on, the light inside making the scene outside the window disappear.

"What do people see in a white Christmas anyway," I muttered to myself walking into the room. I tossed my backpack onto my bed and sat down next to it.

Despite the early hour of the evening, part of me just wanted to crawl under the covers and hide. Hide from the snow falling outside. Hide from the excitement of all of my classmates. Hide from the few distant memories that were creeping into my head. Hide from the feelings of loneliness I felt inside.

"Fermat, I think I want some time alone," I told him looking up at him. He was still standing near the door. "Do you mind?"

"No Alan, of course not," he said. He grabbed his winter jacket off the back of his desk chair. "I'll be back l-l-later."

With that said, Fermat retreated out of the room, pulling the door shut softly behind him. Alone, I walked over to my own desk and sat down turning my lap top on. Opening the communications program Brains had put on my computer, and Fermat's, so that we could contact Tracy Island or whoever was up on Thunderbird 5, I placed a call home. I hoped someone would answer the call there. I didn't much care who as I just had a sudden urge to talk to someone in my family.

I was just about to give up when the screen change from the solid black background to the familiar scene of my father's office. John's face came into focus in the middle of the screen. I had been hoping either he or Virgil would answer as they were the easiest members of my family to talk to. They at least seemed to take me seriously at times and this was one of those times that I desperately wanted to be taken seriously.

"Hey Alan, what's up?" John asked softly. A concerned expression had already found its way to his face. Sometimes it amazed me at how quickly John could pick up on other people's mood.

"Nothing," I said shrugging my shoulders not really sure how to bring up what I was feeling inside. "Just felt like calling I guess."

"Feeling a little homesick?"

"Yeah, I guess," I replied part of me wishing I was back on the island and not just so I could get away from school.

"Weather forecast says its going to snow up there tonight."

"Actually, it already started."

"And that's the problem isn't it?" John asked guessing how I was feeling perfectly. It scared me sometimes how he was able to do that. I nodded silently. "Want to talk about it?"

Suddenly I did. It wasn't often that I felt like talking about Mom or her death but tonight I did.

"I really miss her John . . ."