The locker room was the demarcation point between the hangars and the villa. Both hangars fed through to it before continuing out through to the house. It was where they washed up, changed out of their uniforms into their civvies and had a chance to decompress a little. The long room was fitted out with a decontamination chamber and ten showers in their own fully enclosed but spacious cubicles- one for each operative plus two for guests- arranged in two rows of five around a central cluster of cabinets and cubby holes holding clothing, towels and other supplies. There were some benches and chairs to allow someone to disrobe comfortably and the 'hopper'- a specialised cupboard looking device where they could hang their dirty equipment and uniforms on various pegs, shut the door and it would be whisked away by automated systems to clean, repair, refill and return their uniforms to the loaders hooked up to the launch tubes.

About a month after going operational, Virgil had gone on a shopping trip to the mainland and came back with a showerhead of all things.

"What's that?" Gordon asked, padding back inside after his evening swim and scrubbing the towel over his hair. At the last moment he remembered his Olympic-grade waist-to-ankle 'sharkskin' swim gear did not like other fabrics and didn't lean against Virgil like he wanted to, opting instead to lean against the breakfast bar next to Virgil, close enough for their shoulders to touch.

Now that the Olympics were only three months away he was going to fly out to join the team next week for the intensive ramp up training under his coach's watchful eye. In response they'd all been getting a bit clingy with each other, which was all perfectly natural according to Doctor Hayley, considering what had happened last time Gordon had left home. Virgil reached out and gave Gordon a careful one-armed hug and turned the box so Gordon could see the label.

"A 'rain' shower head?" Gordon asked quizzically, looking at the wide rectangle of chrome. "What's wrong with yours?"

"Nothing." Virgil answered as he smoothed out the folded sheet of instructions. "I'm going to up the pressure and put this in one of the guest showers down in the locker room for everyone to use."

"Why?"

Virgil offered a half shrug, pulling bits and pieces of plumbing out of the box. "After the mission two days ago I got the sense that some days we might want some help to wash the Thunderbird off us."

Gordon frowned at that, not quite understanding. The mission had been a wind turbine collapse in Argentina. Sure, it had been a close one, but it hadn't been that bad according to Scott and John. He shrugged, chalked it all up to his artistic brother's brain doing it's artist thing and continued on his trek back inside to take the ice bath he was not looking forward to. As far as he was concerned, whoever designed the post exercise muscle recovery regime was a sadist.

Six months later and fully operational as Thunderbird Four, Gordon understood what Virgil had meant.

It...it had been bad. Sub verses seamount. Implosion. No survivors.

Gordon had managed to keep the vomit down until the last of the bodies were collected and handed over to the GDF ship that had turned up to take the sad duty of escorting the dead submariners back home. Once the ship had set sail he'd lunged for the still lowered module ramp and thrown up until there was nothing left and he was spitting bile into the sea. Virgil had been there, rubbing his back and offering a cup of fresh water to rinse his mouth out with. When his stomach had settled, Virgil had escorted him to one of the jump seats at the back of the module, handed him an electrolyte drink, finished securing Four and buttoned up the module for the trip home.

The flight home had been quiet, Gordon curled up in the copilot seat with knees drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped around them. When they'd landed and Two was shut down, Virgil had steered him into the locker room and to the cubicle that Virgil had fixed up with the rain shower head.

As soon as the cubicle door shut behind him, Gordon was suddenly possessed by the urgent need to get out of his uniform. He ripped the baldric and dive watch off like they were burning him, groped for the zip at the back of his neck, opened up the wetsuit and kicked his way out of both it and the dark undersuit he wore. Uncaring of his state of undress, he opened the door and used his feet to shove it all out of the cubicle like it'd been cut from smallpox blankets, slammed the door shut again and went for the shower, standing under the thunderous spray of hot water.

It was like standing under the monsoon rains, a powerful deluge that poured down over him.

Gordon braced his hands against the shower wall, leaning forward and first turning his face up towards the shower head, then ducking his head to breathe as needles of water peppered his head and shoulders and little streams of it coursed down his face, off his nose and chin and washed away the tears before they had a chance to form.

He had no idea how long he stood there, enduring the cleansing, but other biological imperatives like food and sleep eventually clamored loudly enough that he had to give them attention. He shut off the water, dried off with one of the thick, fluffy, oversized bath sheets that some very smart person had decreed were reserved solely for the locker room and wrapped it about himself before he made his way out in search of clothes.

Virgil was sitting there when he came out, waiting for him. Scott was there too, in the act of putting Gordon's ouch-wear and slippers on a bench.

"You okay?" Scott asked him, looking far older and more solemn than he had a right to be.

"Yeah." Gordon responded softly, reaching for the clothes. "I'll be okay." He then looked at Virgil, wondering when his brother had gotten so wise. "Virg? You were right. Some days we'll need that."