A/N: afterwards scene for the episode Buried Treasure
"Scott, I need to talk to you." John's hologram popped up without warning from the projector at Scott's elbow. Halfway through his morning coffee, mid-swallow in fact, a startled Scott accidentally inhaled some of the beverage, tried to not cough the rest of the mouthful over the kitchen and somehow managed to gulp it down the right pipe and start breathing again.
"What…" he paused to cough, clear his throat and wipe his teary eyes "...what's the situation?" Scott rasped, trying to slip into rescue mode, but his lungs complained again and obliged him to spend another couple of minutes on coughing and gasping before he could get the update from Thunderbird Five.
Uncharacteristically, John waited silently without making a quip about the matter or offering to summon Gordon, the only other person who was up at this hour of the morning. Said sibling had just finished his swim and was in his room to wash off the chlorine and get dressed for the day.
His breathing finally settled, Scott looked at John, frowned, then looked more closely at his brother's miniature image. That wasn't the 'we have a rescue' face. That was the 'I am a freaked out older brother' face. "John, what is it?" Scott asked again, a thousand different worries starting to rear their heads.
"We cannot let Gordon go on another trash mine rescue. Ever." Was the reply, delivered with the same certainty that one would declare that fire is hot.
For a moment Scott considered lightening the mood with a joke about Gordon getting too distracted by shiny junk like a magpie, but the expression on John's face warned him off such an approach. John was not in the mood for jokes. In fact, if he was reading him right, John was frightened. "Why? What have you found?" Scott asked, all seriousness.
In response John flicked his hand and a list flashed up onto the projector. "I've been doing some research in case a W.O.R.M malfunction happens again. This is the list of everything that W.O.R.M.s are programmed to seek out in trash mines." John said by way of explanation.
Scott scrolled through the list, wondering what point John was leading to. Gold, silver, copper, aluminium, steel, iron, mercury, titanium, gallium, cobalt, platinum...
Wait.
He flicked back through the list.
Titanium.
Fear and realisation clamped cold fists around his heart and John slowly nodded as he saw Scott register what he'd seen and what it meant.
Gordon's body was full of titanium now- pins, plates, rods and screws holding his bones in place. He'd be a magnet for the next rampaging W.O.R.M.
If they hadn't had that old tech full of rare earth minerals to lure away the W.O.R.M…
The coffee curdled in Scott's stomach at the thought of what could have been. "...yeah, no more trash mine rescues." He said in a hoarse voice, practically feeling the blood drain from his face. "I'll tell Virgil."
"Will you tell Gordon?" John asked intently.
Scott couldn't help the involuntary glance in the general direction of the bedrooms. "...yeah, I'll tell him later. He needs to know."
"Understood."