DISCLAIMER: I do not own the rights to Thunderbirds, nor do I intend to make any profit from this story. It is strictly for entertainment purposes only.

His Father's Son
Late July 2015

"You want to learn to do what?" Jeff Tracy wondered, his eyebrows raised in surprise at his second eldest son. "Did I hear that properly?"

"I want to learn how to fly." John's eyes were twinkling with an excitement that Jeff had not seen in his son in a very long time. "I've been thinking, dad, and in just over a year I'll be old enough to apply for the space program! I could help out in the astrophysics department . . . but to do that, to actually help with the missions, I'd have to join the astronaut program. It would be so much easier if I had a pair of wings under my belt."

Inwardly, Jeff could not contain his grin. The thought of another of his sons pursuing the same career that he himself had taken made him giddy. Yet, he had not expected John of all people to come and talk to him about that very thing.

"Whoa, there, John, that's a pretty big commitment," he replied neutrally, though his voice carried a bit more enthusiasm than he had intended. "Besides, you can't apply right away - you need to finish your degree first. That would mean waiting until your nineteenth birthday." Jeff sighed, then continued. "Son, NASA isn't some come and go operation - you have to be completely devoted to the program, and you have to be willing to make a lot of sacrifices in the process."

He didn't have to say that John was already making those sacrifices in asking Jeff for his pilot's license. Jeff knew how much John hated flying, and for his boy to willingly volunteer to conquer his phobia . . .

"I know, dad," John said softly, "I know what they require. I've been thinking about this for a long time, now." John looked down at his feet. "They, uh, sent me a letter last month, before school finished up. They wanted to know if, with my grades, I would consider joining their astronaut program for Alpha Station when I graduate."

That revelation wasn't quite enough to startle Jeff, though it came awfully close. He had known for a long time how dedicated his son was to his studies, and he had seen the type of work that John had done.

Since Lucy had died, John had almost been single-minded in his devotion to his studies. He had thrown himself right into school, even sacrificing most of his summers in order to take classes ahead of schedule. His high school graduation the previous month had only been a symbolic gesture at best, Jeff understood, as he had already applied for and had begun several college courses on the side.

John was already a quarter of the way through his Bachelor's degree, which consisted of a combined set of classes including physics and astronomy. He could easily have it completed by his nineteenth birthday, in time to apply for the program. Jeff saw that John was ready, more than most people twice his age, for the challenge. But he also understood that a person had to be more than ready to take on a job at NASA.

There was something else needed that John had to have, or he wouldn't make it past the first screening - an actual desire to be in that line of work.

"That's really something," Jeff finally said, his voice warm with pride. "John, you don't know how happy I am for you."

"So you'll let me, then?"

The eagerness in John's voice almost had Jeff replying 'yes'. Almost, but not quite.

"I am happy for you, John, but I want you to think this over." Jeff cringed when his son's eyes closed, and his forehead wrinkled into a furrow.

"Why," John asked, the excitement suddenly gone from his voice. "Why?"

Jeff took John by the arm, and led him over to the couch that was in the corner of the games room. He sat John down, and looked his son in the eye. "You don't have to take a job just because someone offers it to you. I want you to make sure that it's what you want." When John began to speak, Jeff held up a hand to silence him.

"Let me finish. Most other positions I wouldn't care about. But NASA will demand a good two or three years of your life before you can even get in on a mission. Maybe if you're lucky, they'll let you go up to Alpha as a student, but more than likely you'll be stuck on the ground for a few years. That's if you even pass the astronaut testing in the first place."

"I'd be doing something, at least," John put in, his voice calm. "Dad, I want to do this. I want to do something with my life."

"What happened to being a radio-astronomer or something like that?"

"Dad!" John's voice was almost panicked. "Dad, I can't do something like that on my own. I need facilities. I can finish my degree and dream all that I want, but if someone is actually offering me a job . . ." He sighed, and rubbed his face with his hands. "Dad, this kind of thing won't happen to me all the time. It may not ever happen again, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life washing dishes somewhere wishing that I had taken the stupid job! They're offering me the chance to have one of the best celestial observation posts in the world!"

"You won't be washing dishes," Jeff responded quickly, only to have John hold up his hand to silence him.

"Please listen to me now." John looked at his father, then threw himself backward onto the plush cushions. "I don't want to blow this."

"You won't blow it," Jeff sighed, "and I am listening to you. In fact, John, I care about you a lot, which is why I'm bothering you like this. I want you be happy with what you're doing, not convincing yourself every day that you're happy about what you're doing."

"There's no difference," John muttered, though there was a small lack of conviction in his voice. "I'd be happy."

"Would you?" Jeff asked honestly. "Would you, John? I know how much you dislike flying. Why not see if they can put you in another position-"

"No." The words were so final that Jeff found himself without words to respond with. "No, dad. If they need me there, if I can do some work there, then that's where I'll go. I want to do what I'm meant to do, what I'm needed to. If they put me in the other position," he stopped suddenly, he face tensing up. Composing himself, John finally finished, "I don't know what I'd do."

For the first time since John had hunted his father down in the recreation room, the young man's eyes carried a very different expression. There was a pain present in them, almost a hunger, which Jeff could not identify. It was a haunted look, one of a young man who had seen too much for his age, yet who could obviously still imagine something even more grievous and horrifying than that which he had already witnessed.

"John."

"Maybe I believe in destiny," the teen whispered, turning his head to look out past the window and into the deep blue sky that was slowly fading towards the colours of sunset. "If I can do something, in my own way, to make this world better, then I'll do it. I believe in the space program, dad. I believe in NASA. I believe that some day we'll be spanning those stars out there, spreading our civilisation to the furthest edges of the universe. I believe that we'll learn and grow from this challenge, and become better because of that."

He turned once again to look at his father, and there was no end to the hope that lay in his eyes. "And I believe that here and now, where it's all starting, I can do something to make that sequence of events take place. I want to do something with my life, dad. I want to be someone important."

Jeff couldn't find a single place in his heart where he could begin to form an argument against something said so eloquently. He simply stared back at his son, and wondered if he had perhaps inherited his wonderful way with words from his mother. How could Jeff say no to a child - no, he reminded himself, John was not a child anymore - that was willing to give up some piece of himself for the greater good?

If John truly wanted to go off and join the program, then he would not be the person to stop him.

"You changed things, dad," John finished softly, his face placid. "It would be a dream to do what you've done."

That was it, then, Jeff thought. He wanted to be like his father.

"So you want to learn to fly," Jeff said slowly.

The words sent a spark of light back into John's eyes. "That would be great, dad. It really would." A rare and honest smile tugged at John's cheeks, making his face look more boyish than it really was. "I promise that I won't throw up too often. I'll even clean the seats."

Jeff smiled too, and pulled his son close to him into a tight headlock. Ruffling John's hair, the Tracy patriarch couldn't help thanking his son silently for choosing a profession that he could at least understand. "You don't know how happy I am that you want to be an astronaut," he muttered, drawing a curious stare from John.

"Why, aside from the obvious reasons?"

Jeff rolled his eyes, and replied dryly, "Because last week Gordon told me he wanted to be a professional fish."

Trying to hold back a loud snort, John grinned at his father and shrugged. "Yeah, well, that's not unexpected is it?"

"I suppose not," Jeff sighed, "I suppose not."

"So you're roped into this too, huh?" Scott asked, his eyes mischievous.

Virgil replied with a short nod, and folded his arms across his chest, his greasy forearms smearing a line along the front of his work shirt. "Not to clean the floors when he pukes, I'll have you know," he muttered, his tone slightly hurt. "Dad wants you to teach me too."

"Both of you?" Dropping the wrench that he was holding, Scott's face became a mask of amusement. "Why does he want you to learn how to fly?"

"I don't know," Virgil replied in exasperation, turning back to the family jet whose engine was half lying on the floor of the bay, extra gaskets and cylinders strewn all over the place. "Well, I do, but I'm not really happy about it."

"Hmm?" The dark haired Tracy reached down to pick up the wrench. "Why's that?"

Virgil grunted, busy trying to tighten a bolt on the top of the manifold. "Well," he gasped, "dad figures that we're going to need a way home over spring break or summer break if he or one of you guys can't come get us, and he doesn't want someone else ferrying us back here."

"It makes sense," the older boy offered, "if you think about it. He wants us to be self-sufficient."

"I thought he was trying to avoid that by sticking us all here on this lump of land! Don't know why he wouldn't be home to pick us up." Giving the bolt a heave with his entire body, Virgil sighed in relief as he heard the metal snap into place. "I don't know why we can't just have someone drop us off. It's not like we're trying to maintain secrecy of our location or something." He frowned when the bolt snapped back to its original position.

Scott's face clouded for a moment as Virgil's words struck home. "Maybe he wants to avoid too much publicity about the move. After all, he's bumping all of his work files over here and those would be worth quite a bit on the black market."

Giving the engine a dirty glare, Virgil pointed his tool at his brother. "I am not sitting beside John when you teach him how to roll the plane."

"So that's what this is about."

"Don't get me wrong," Virgil replied immediately, "I'm really happy for John, but I don't want to be near him when he woofs up his lunch. And I'm not keen about flying the Pacific on my own, but that's besides the point."

Holding up his hand so as not to laugh too loud, Scott couldn't contain his amusement. "I won't be taking you out at the same time, Virg. I don't think I could handle both of you trying to learn at the same time." He gazed over at the plane for a moment, then frowned as well. "Hey, is this going to be finished by tonight?"

Virgil's eyes narrowed slightly, and he pointed at the single wrench that Scott held. "Listen, if you want to finish cleaning it, that's up to you. But I'm cleaning it right now, and if it takes me until tomorrow to do that, then it'll be ready tomorrow. If you actually did something other than watch me work we could be done by now."

Scott turned a mild shade of red, and muttered something about delegating duties and commanding officers.

Virgil snorted and turned back to the plane. "Whatever, top gun." He stopped, then continued in a more relaxed voice. "Listen, I'll try and have it finished for tonight. Tell John not to eat too much for supper, though, okay? I don't want to have to take apart and disinfect the main dash."

"It better not get to that point," Scott sighed as an afterthought. "Or I'll resign my commission and retire." He snorted, deciding that it would be best to help Virgil finish up with the cleaning. The sooner he finished up with the flying lessons, the better off he and John would be. "Here, let me give you a hand."

A/N: Yay, Santa Claus was really good to me, and I came away from Christmas with an armful of Thunderbirds stuff! My mom even bought me a Game-boy Advance game, but I'm stuck on the first level . . . crashed Thunderbird One into a flock of birds. :S Think I'll stick with the movie, once I get a hold of the wide-screen version. I hope everyone else had a really wonderful Christmas! I know that I ate way too much for my own good. :)

Anyway, reviews! :D

Marblez – blushes Thank you! Sometime I'll get around to actually writing something original. It'll probably will be something to do with real science, because that's where my expertise actually lies.

Opal Girl – I'm really glad to hear that about Gordon. :D I have four red-haired cousins, and they're very feisty. Of course, Gordon's also in his teens, which doesn't help the matter. ;) About John – you can probably start to see signs of stuff happening in this chapter. He's sufferingthrough a pretty rough set of teen years.By the time that he takes over T-5, he'll be a slightly different person. All of the boys eventually will mature, and that grants a person a certain amount of wisdom into their own life. Thanks for the review! :)

zeilfanaat – Oh, there's lots more. ;) I have one chapter ready to post after this, and another dozen or so to go. I think when school starts I'll get back into writing again, but for now it's editing time. :) I need to finish this story, because I've momentarily put aside another story for Forgotten Realms, and it NEEDS to be finished, or my wonderful beta reader will hunt me down. ;)

andrewjameswilliams – I can attest that I've done similar things to my siblings in my youth. ;) Gordon will grow up, though I won't have him loosing his spark any time soon. Glad that the part with the 'move' turned out well – it was the part that was edited the most, and I was worried about it the most!

thunderbirdgirl – Thanks so much! Hope you had a great Christmas too. :)

miz greenleaf – How long to type this? thinks Well, I wrote this chapter sometime end-October/early-November, so it's been rolling around for a while. ;) In terms of typing time, the total text probably took only about an hour and a half max to type, likely less, but it was written over a period of about a week in between physics and math assignments. :) I've managed to rack up over sixty thousand words in just about three months. It's been quite a ride, and it's not finished yet. It might top a hundred thousand, but I could just be hopeful. ;)

Ariel D – I was so glad when you said that you liked it. And I know – with your history with Thunderbirds – that if you like it, it'll be just fine. ;) The boys have to be endearing, whether they're the Tracy boys or not.I couldn't ask for a better beta reader! lol Ready for the next set? ;)

FAB, all! 'Till next time, Thunderbirds are Go!