DISCLAIMER: I do not own the rights to Thunderbirds, nor to I challenge those rights in any manner. This story is for entertainment purposes only, and no profit is to be made. Also, Star Wars is the property of George Lucas and Twenty-First Century Fox; no copyright infringement is intended there either.
Lucy's Thunderbirds
December 2017
"D-d-d-dad!" Fermat was nearly in tears by the time that Jeff, Scott, and James arrived back on the island. The security system had triggered alarms on all corners of the house, sending the entire place into a giant lockdown that only Jeff was able to break with a special access key that he carried with him.
By the time that the trio had actually turned off the system and had made it in the house, Fermat had been waiting for them at the front door. "The house! It went crazy!"
Taking Fermat in his arms, James gave Jeff a concerned look. "T-t-t-this is not good."
"Where are they?" Scott, standing in the lounge beside the couch, picked up a sand-covered beach towel. "It looks like they were in here not that long ago."
"G-g-g-gordon burnt himself," Fermat explained, having calmed down enough to finally speak coherently. "They were looking for burn cream."
Scott immediately looked at his father, his expression grave. "They couldn't have found it."
"They did all right," Jeff replied grimly, beginning the short jaunt up to his office. "They must have. There's no one else here to set off the proximity alarm in the silo."
"But we weren't going to tell them yet!"
"Well, they already know," Jeff snapped, sending Scott back a step. "There's nothing that we can do about it now, except tell them the truth."
"F-f-f-fermat, you'd better come with us." James took his son by the shoulder, and directed him towards the study. "There's something that we need to show you."
"Got a three?"
"Fish."
Gordon rubbed his face, and reached over to take a card. "Dammit Alan, playing Go Fish with you isn't any fun."
"Not my fault that I'm good at it and you're not."
"We should play poker instead."
"Definitely not." John's tone left no room for argument.
Gordon, Alan, Virgil and John were seated in a semi-circle on the floor of the rocket hanger, a deck of cards set messily in between them. The three older boys still had most of the cards in their hand, while Alan had nearly all of his cards already paired up and laid down on the floor.
"Just be thankful that I had these cards," John interrupted cheerfully. "Otherwise we'd be reduced to turning the lights out and telling scary stories around the welding torch."
"Ha ha. Funny." It was a legend in the Tracy family how afraid Gordon had been of the dark when he was younger. "Just what I need. Something else to wet my pants with other than pool-water."
A low boom sounded in the silo, echoing around the steel cylinder until it finally faded into non-existence.
"Looks like they're home."
All four boys looked at each other, then - as one - dropped their cards onto the floor. Wordlessly, John gathered them up, replaced them in the box, and stashed the package back in his pocket.
Attempting to get back at John for his crude jab earlier, Gordon asked innocently, "So what else do you have in there? Food? Chocolate? Photos of your girlfriend?"
"Sticks to beat younger brothers with," John replied casually, an evil grin curving his lips just enough to make his face look sinister. "When they're becoming annoying."
Gordon knew better than to believe John, but just the same he backed away a foot or so from his brother. He had thought the same thing the past year and had ended up on the floor with John's hands wrapped around his neck.
Without warning, the silo door cracked open, and the blue glow of the cylinder was meshed once again with the sharp white glare of the surrounding cavern. Four figures stood in the doorway, a group of black forms set against a background of intense light.
No one spoke for a long moment. It was as though all sound had been taken away along with the action of the doors opening.
"Sorry about hiding the cream," Scott finally ventured, his voice honestly apologetic. "I didn't think anyone would be silly enough to actually burn their back again."
"Hey!" Gordon spat back viciously, obviously already irritated at having to spend a long set of hours stuck in the launch bay.
"Well, you did a good job of hiding it," John replied, placing a hand over Gordon's mouth so that his hot headed younger brother couldn't continue to speak. "I think it took us all of two hours to find it."
Sighing, Jeff rubbed his temples wearily with his fingers, then gazed about at his sons. "I suppose you'd like to know what this is all about then."
"Maybe," Virgil snorted, folding his arms. "Generally people don't keep rocket ships at their beach house."
"And they don't have body crushing corridors of doom built into the walls!" Everyone looked at Alan, who shrugged and muttered, "Never mind."
"Tell us the truth," John suggested evenly, his voice calm. "From the beginning. No lies, no deceptions. Just the truth."
"The truth," echoed Jeff, thinking hard. "The truth. All right boys, but you might want to grab a chair. This could be a long story."
Looking around, and discovering there were only three chairs in the room, John rolled his eyes and prepared for what was certain to be an onslaught of yelling. "Guess I'll sit on the floor."
The moment – him seated in a chair, with his children placed in a circle around him – brought back a flurry of memories to Jeff Tracy. If the situation were not so tense he would have likened it to one of the many times that he had read a bedtime story to the boys. Their eyes, so wide with curiosity, were more suited to the faces of children half their age. He could look into the faces of each one of them, and he did not have to look long to find something different.
Scott, already part of the conspiracy, sat in the corner, his arms folded across his chest, his face as impassive and serious as if he were about to receive a mission briefing.
Virgil, whose mind by the looks of it was already formulating a hundred theories before Jeff even spoke a word, leaned on the workbench and absently fiddled with a spare part.
Alan, his face still reflecting the awe of a child as he half sprawled on the second chair, looked halfway between excitement and worry, as though he did not know what to expect from his father.
John, always calm and contemplative, sat cross-legged in the center of the floor, his face as open-looking as his mind probably was to his father's words.
Gordon, taking the third chair, his face wearing the expression of a child who had been disappointed by his parent, and now wanted to know why.
"Do you mind if I . . ." Jeff's words trailed off as James nodded from where he stood by the ship itself, his son Fermat standing closely by his side.
"N-n-n-no, go right ahead."
Where to begin? How did a person describe a secret that had been kept for seven years? How did he justify it to begin with, to a group of boys who likely thought that they had not been a part of the secret because of their age, or because their father did not trust them?
"When your mother died, I felt responsible for her death. There was no logic behind it, as there was nothing that I could have done. Eventually I realised this, but I couldn't lose the feeling that I needed to do something."
There went John again, his face ever so slightly revealing enough of his thoughts to make an impact on his father. He obviously remembered the moment, almost seven years ago, when he had managed to shake his father from his mourning. The blond tried to hide it, tried to keep his face passive, but Jeff could see it in his eyes.
He was not the only one who still carried scars from that time.
"It was a few years before I managed to solidify in my mind exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to bring your mother back."
Now Virgil shook his head, pain echoing across his face, as he heard and began to understand his father's dilemma.
"But I couldn't. I had learned that already. So I wanted to do something else, something that would have made your mom smile." He hoped that he didn't sound too removed from the experience. It had been so many years, that retelling the story was like telling the story of an entirely different person. "I wanted to do something that would make the situation right in the future."
Then the children at the playground had struck.
"I came up with an idea, one day, completely out of the blue. I thought it'd be great to have an organization that would be on hand to respond to disasters, an organization that would have the equipment needed to save anyone, anywhere in the world. It would use the best technology out there – the fastest aircraft, the most advanced space technology . . . And there'd be no service charge, no fees. There'd be no priority based on race, no calls turned away because of ethnic origin. It'd be the organization that should have existed when your mother was alive."
The idea brought a spark to Alan's eyes. The boy had always been fascinated with cars and airplanes, and even the hint of such a miraculous group obviously had grabbed his interest.
"I didn't know what to do. The idea had such merit, but I had no idea where to even begin. So, completely on a whim, I sent out a memo to my engineers at work, to see if any of them had any ideas. One paper caught my interest."
His eyes locked with James' for a moment, and the two nodded and smiled slightly at the memory. Two conspirators, having coffee on a cold winter day, discussing their families, their dead wives, and the plan that had begun to form between them.
"I hired James Wilson to help me. We shared similar experiences in life, but, more importantly, we shared a similar dream of the future. He designed the equipment, and I supplied the finances to bring the ideas to paper. The further the project went along, the more that we realised that we had to keep it a secret. The ships, especially the ships, contained technology that would be deadly in the wrong hands. And if anyone else found it, it would only delay our work. So we kept it a secret."
There came the Scott Tracy nod of approval, the acknowledgement of a young man who was pleased with his father's decision.
"It's almost finished now. Seven years after your mother died, we finally have something to show for our work."
A load literally fell off his shoulders as he told the boys what he had wanted to tell them for years.
"There are five ships, four of which will be piloted by Scott and myself. One, the one behind you, is a craft that can exceed fifteen thousand miles per hour. It can reach an accident scene anywhere in the world in less than an hour. Scott will be flying it, and he'll be expected to scout out the accident scene when he gets there and report back to headquarters, which is located in my study.
"Two, a large cargo-hauler powered by a nuclear power, will ferry the supplies and equipment to the actual rescue site. It's not as fast as One, but it makes up for its speed with its carrying abilities.
"Three is a full size reusable rocket, and we've used it to put the fifth ship up into orbit. It transports five and requires two to fly, so James and I have done all of the flights together.
"Four is an underwater transport designed for water search and rescue. It fits nicely into Two's cargo hold."
"Five . . ." Jeff stopped for a moment, and tried to think of a short and simple way to describe the final ship. "Is a space satellite, designed to tap into world communications and find those people who are in trouble. It has some of the most advanced spy equipment in the world, and subsequently is the most secretive part of this organization. If the government were to find out about it, we'd be ruined. The computers are powerful enough to hack into a government computer in less than thirty seconds, and the radio arrays are sensitive enough to pick up CB broadcasts from the other side of the planet."
"Then there are a dozen smaller units that do everything from fighting fires to pulling cars from pits. The equipment is all there, most of it completed and ready to be used. We were planning on starting operations in January, just after the end of the holiday season." Jeff took a deep breath. "We were going to tell all of you then, when we could finally hang up our hats and say that we were finished. We wanted it to be ready when we showed you."
James nodded, though the boys could not see him from where he stood.
"But you managed to find it before then," Jeff finished quietly.
His freckled face creased into a frown, Gordon took the entire speech in and said nothing. It was impossible to read what was going through the boy's mind, to know whether he was angry or impressed, upset or delighted.
"What do you call it?" That was John, always practical, always thinking up the logical questions that no one else would remember.
It was as thought he were a child, sharing with a parent a finger painting, and was afraid yet excited to hear their reaction to it. Somewhat tentatively, Jeff opened his mouth and replied, "International Rescue."
The picture had been shown. Now it was time for the critique.
"Do you have any questions?"
"Japanese contractors?" Virgil echoed as his father lead the group of them around the facilities.
After having drilled their father for the more nitpicky details of the operation, the boys had quickly decided that a tour of the cavern would be a better way to explain the operation them. They were currently in front of the hanger doors to the rocket hanger, and were making their way past it once again, onto the rest of the hanger that the younger boys hadn't managed to get to.
Jeff smiled at Virgil's curiosity, inwardly laughing at how much his sons still had to learn about the world. "The best in the business, Virgil. It comes with the culture."
"How so?" John came up beside his father, his face bright and his tone inquisitive.
"They have a privacy policy based upon honour, which is much more than money can ever buy here in the Americas." Reaching out a hand to feel the laser cut walls, Jeff recalled how long it had taken the crew to dig out the primary cavern. "And I did tell them the truth, to a certain extent."
Scott snorted behind Jeff. "Of course, only to a certain extent."
"I simply informed them that the place would be used for research, and that we needed a large area because my engineer was claustrophobic."
That brought a smile to John's face. "I don't know if I can relate to that specifically, but I do understand phobias."
"I-i-it's not actually that bad," James offered, "but it w-w-w-was a good cover for us."
"So they believe that you're spending an exorbitant amount of money to keep your men from going insane?" The idea nearly broke Virgil's face with a grin. "That's brilliant. I never thought of you as the kind of person who'd lie to a bunch of trade workers."
"Well, he didn't tell us about this."
Turning to give Alan a stern look, Scott shook his head in an attempt to ward off a debate that would likely degrade into a fight. "Don't start, squirt."
"So after the contractors," John broke in, "then what?"
Jeff thought for a moment then snapped his fingers as he remembered. "Well, during that time - as I said in the silo - James had worked out most of the initial designs for the craft. So we distributed work orders to many of the groups at Tracy Industries. Small stuff, to start, but specific items that we couldn't just grab off the rack."
"I-i-i-i, uh, tried to use a-a-a-available materials," James added quietly, "to help avoid suspicion. O-o-o-only very special part designs were e-e-e-ever given to the shop. Some of the designs ended up changing, t-t-t-t-though, like the reconnaissance craft. I-i-i-it was originally going to have ramjets, b-b-b-b-but I was able to come up with a much faster and fuel efficient turbo-scram design."
Shaking his head, Virgil gave his father an appreciative look. "So you assembled it as much before time as possible, then carted the parts over here and built the craft yourself."
"That's about it," Jeff sighed, "though it's been a long trip, I'll tell you that one. But thanks to Scott-"
Virgil beat his father to the comment. "You quit, didn't you?" he asked in a subdued manner. "The airforce. To help Dad. You've been home the entire time since Christmas."
"Yeah." Scott's eyes went distant, as if he were seeing somewhere that the others weren't. "It wasn't really to my liking anyway. Besides, we are a family, and Dad needed help. I couldn't leave him out in the cold."
Before Scott could continue, James stepped forward and quietly interrupted, "M-m-m-mister Tracy." He gave Scott an apologetic look, then turned to Jeff. "I have an experiment running in the lab that I need to check on. I, uh, t-t-t-think I'd better go do that."
"Fermat can stay with us if you like," Jeff offered.
"I want to go with Dad." The younger boy seemed unsure about staying in the hanger with a bunch of older boys that he did not really know. "Please?"
Shrugging, Jeff laughed and replied, "I don't mind."
"T-t-t-thank you." Giving his employer a grateful smile, James took Fermat by the shoulder and directed him down in the direction of the underground river.
Though there was no need to be silent, an odd hush fell over the group as the Wilsons left. Jeff had a hunch about what was going on. Their curiosity saturated, the boys were likely now turning to an issue that needed to be dealt with – the fact that they had been kept in the dark about something so important. And now that James and Fermat were gone, they were free to talk to their father in private.
For a time there was only the noise of running water and the power generator. Then, out of nowhere, the second youngest Tracy spoke. His hands clenching at his sides, Gordon met his father's gaze with as unwavering a look as he could muster. "Why didn't you tell us?"
John immediately stepped up beside the redhead, his face creased in a frown as though even the thought of an argument caused him pain. "Gordon, don't start a fight again-"
"No." Jeff held up his hand to silence John from speaking any further. "No, John, he has a right to know. You all do." The elder Tracy stood quietly for a moment, composing his thoughts until he was sure enough to share them with his sons. "God knows that I wanted to give you the chances that any boys in this country have, but I had never planned on dedicating myself to something else at the same time. This operation means a great deal to me, and once the idea planted itself in my mind, I couldn't get rid of it. But I didn't want to disturb your lives any further, Gordon. I tried to do both. That's why I built this entire operation to function with only three people. Never did I want you to feel obligated to do what Scott has done, and," he gave Scott a compassionate look, "I thank him with all of my heart for his sacrifice. But I can't expect the same of the rest of you."
"Dad," Gordon replied shortly, "you should really listen to Scott. He's right, we're a family. And you can trust family." A hint of colour was coming to the boy's cheeks, and his voice rose ever so slightly in pitch as he spoke.
That particular statement struck a sensitive spot in Jeff's heart. He had wanted to keep the secret, for sure, but he had never ever doubted that his sons were capable of keeping it. "It wasn't a matter of trust-"
"Trust us," Gordon continued fiercely. "If you can't trust us, then who can you trust." He shook his head, and a bitterly cold laugh escaped his mouth. "I can't believe you did all of this without telling us!"
The red colour was clearly evident across the boy's face, and the sharp and angry tones that he spoke with cut deeply into Jeff. He had expected Gordon to be angry, had anticipated it with a small dose of regret for many months, but nothing could truly prepare him for the verbal lashing that his son was giving him. The explosion had obviously been building since Gordon had first entered the cavern, and it was now being let loose with destructive force on the man responsible.
He didn't want to let it escalate to the point that he feared it would reach. "Gordon, enough. I've already explained to you why I did what I did, and I-"
"Shut up!"
The words, and the manner in which they were spoken, nearly knocked Jeff over. The part of him that was a parent wanted to yell back at his son for his disrespect. Jeff had put up with Gordon's lack of control for many years, and maybe it was time to teach the boy that he couldn't go around yelling at people simply because he was angry. He had explained his actions well enough, hadn't he? What more did Gordon want?
"Gordon Tracy. I will not have you speak to me in that manner!" Even as he spoke the words, words that were expected given his position as a father and given his son's outburst, they felt very wrong. Even if the delivery was harsh, Gordon had hit the nail on the head – as much as he wanted to deny it, Jeff knew that his son had a right to at least think every word that was coming from his mouth.
Jeff Tracy had lied to his children, and there was no escaping that. Though the other boys had taken the situation very well, he did not doubt that the same that was going through their own minds. He had kept a secret from them that any good father should have shared out of trust.
And yet . . . Jeff could not shake the other feeling from his mind, the one that had told him so many years ago to keep the secret from his sons. Maybe he had done the wrong thing, but what would the right thing have been? Would it really have been any better to tell his children, only to curse them with having to keep a secret that no man should have to keep? He had lied to his children, yes, but it had not been for selfish reasons. That, more than anything, kept Jeff from completely giving in to and accepting the boy's claims.
He could still discipline Gordon, for sure, what would it really solve? It would only make the situation worse. Jeff realised there was no escaping from the course that he had plotted. Gordon was angry, and even if he did reign his son's temper it, it would not change anything in the short term. An argument would only escalate the situation.
"In this manner?" The boy shook his head in disbelief. "In this manner? What the hell do you want me to do, after all that you've already done? What the hell are you expecting, that I grin and pretend that none of this has ever happened?"
Perhaps it would be better to cradle his own pride, and accept his son's words for what they truly were. It wasn't right, but Jeff knew, from hard experience, that Gordon only ever calmed down when he realised in his own mind that he was past the point of being logical.
"I used to be a real pain to this family," the redhead continued, his voice continuing to gain in pitch and volume as his emotions were let loose. "Because I didn't want to believe what you were telling me. I didn't want to be your son, and I didn't want to listen to what you said. But you've ended up being right about a lot of things, and I started to think that maybe I could trust you. I thought that maybe you were right after all. That you weren't out to get us, that you were trying to help us . . . and then you had to go and do this!" The boy's voice was seething with anger, and the red colour of his face revealed just how deep that feeling went. "What you're doing here . . ." he stopped suddenly, breathing hard with the fury of his words, his eyes suddenly confused as if his thoughts had left him.
Jeff waited quietly, trying to hold in his own anger that was building inside, and he steeled himself for what he knew was inevitably coming. He fully expected his son to say he hated him, to declare that he would be leaving home, to say something that would hurt his father as much as could be emotionally possible. He waited for the blow . . .
And it never came.
Finally, the colour still vivid on his cheeks, Gordon shook his head, opened his mouth once, close it, then tried one last time to speak. His voice was hoarse from yelling, and yet forcefully quiet compared to before. "I'd like to be a part of it." The words were little above a whisper. "Please Dad, give me the chance to. I'm your son. You've already screwed this up once, so why don't you do it right his time? Trust me." The last few words were spoken with so much emotion that Jeff didn't even know where to begin.
It was at that moment that Jeff thought he saw what was happening to his ginger haired son. He knew that somehow it was due to the presence of the ships, to the organization that Jeff had so painstakingly created. Whatever Gordon had been expecting to find in the cavern, and whomever he had thought his father to be, was not what he had found. From the look on the boy's face, he was still very angry. And yet, the anger was now undirected, fading in its strength as the boy was unable to find a point or a person to aim it at. Gordon looked so unsure as he spoke, his eyes reflecting a young man who truly did not know what to think.
Jeff the tyrant, the man that had haunted Gordon's adolescent years, perhaps did not exist. He was not the father that Gordon knew from the present, or from his nightmares as a teenager – it was the father that he remembered from a time not very long ago, when everything had been different.
And yet, what had that father done again but put something else ahead of his own family? The project was so very special, so very important to him, and he had expected his children to embrace it with the same blind joy that he had.
But Gordon wanted to join, Jeff thought suddenly. He wanted, as angry as he was, to be a part of the dream that had born in Jeff's mind many years ago at a school playground. Underneath all of the confusion that was inherent in someone his age, Gordon had obviously come to some sort of unconscious decision. He had weighed the facts that were before him, and had somehow found the strength to forgive his father's foolishness, and to even accept that perhaps the idea had some merit.
Jeff could see it in the way that his son looked. The boy's eyes stared at a place not in the cavern, but instead to some other realm, where an emotion other than anger held fast.
"Gordon," Jeff shook his head, trying to maintain his composure. "Listen, I don't want you to throw away your futures-" The words were not harsh, but instead filled with the kind of emotion that Jeff felt deep in his heart. It surprised him, for Jeff had silently become so angry with the boy that he thought an explosion on his end was inevitable. Then again, if Gordon had been able to push aside his anger in order to follow the better, the more empathetic course, then so could he.
Jeff's words were a futile gesture at best, for Gordon simply shook his head and replied, "Do you think I'm stupid? I know you don't." The words wavered ever so slightly as he spoke. "But this is one time when I think you're wrong about us, Dad. Sorry, but maybe I want to be trouble for you one more time." The boy's jaw tightened slightly, and he closed his eyes. "This isn't going away, and if it's going to be here forever, then I want to be part of it too. Are you going to deny me that?"
The words unspoken were powerful indeed, for Jeff only had to think for a moment to find the missing end of the sentence: "After you've denied me so much else?"
His own mind a jumble of thoughts and emotions, Jeff found himself able to settle on a single solitary feeling that grew from his chest.
The time had come to accept a decision that he had in fact made long ago. Yet he had to accept it, and with it, accept the position that he had put his entire family in with his venture. There was no escape from what would soon happen. And – out of selfishness or something else – Jeff could not keep himself from feeling relieved. It would be a family operation, whether he wanted it to be or not. From the very first moment of conception, from the first moment that his children had demonstrated their unwavering love for their family, International Rescue had been blessed and cursed to be so.
It was love that had created it, and it was love that would hold it together and allow it to prosper. After everything that he'd done, after everything that Gordon had done in return, there was no denying the bond that had grown between them as father and son.
Somehow, almost unconsciously, his legs carried him forward, and Jeff grabbed the redhead in his arms, crushing him to his chest in as tight a hold as he could manage. He held the boy close to him, finding hope in the fact that Gordon did not push away, but instead let himself lean against his father's body as he had once done as a child.
"You little rascal," Jeff finally choked out, and a laugh escaped along with the words. "You little rascal. How do you always manage to do that without getting grounded?"
"I dunno," Gordon whispered, in the voice not of a frustrated teenager, but of a child who knew he had erred. "Guess maybe I'm lucky."
A tiny smile once again crossed Jeff's face, and he looked up and into the eyes of the rest of his brood. "I suppose everyone else wants to join now."
"I'm finished school in a few months," Virgil offered quietly, his brown eyes looking hopeful even in the dim light of the cavern. "Why can't James take me on as an apprentice, like I wanted, and I can help him with the ships? I'd rather do that, something worthwhile, then spend the rest of my life designing commercial jets or something like that."
Jeff looked halfway between touched and panicked. "Virgil." He raised his hands, and the boys fell silent. "I appreciate your concern. And," Jeff sighed, defeated with the knowledge that he never would be able to win, "I would be happy to have you on the team, once you finish your schooling."
His eyes growing wide, Virgil grinned and shook his head in shock. "Dad, you don't know what this means to me!"
Raising his left arm in the air, the elder Tracy smiled as another of his sons joined him in the hug. "I can guess," Jeff chuckled, rubbing his son's head and ruffling his hair. "I can guess. And," he added, "I hope you know how much this means to me, Virgil. I really would love to have your help."
"What about me?" Gordon piped up again, slightly irritated that he had been cut out of the conversation. "When can I join?"
"After you finish school, like Dad said," Scott offered coolly, much to Gordon's dismay. "You too, Alan. Don't give me that look. Figure out what you want to do with your life, and then offer that service to this organization."
"If I pass," Gordon muttered softly in response. "You're expecting an awful lot."
Jeff gently placed a hand on Gordon's shoulder. "Gordon, I couldn't be more proud of the fact that you've stuck with your classes this long. Just stay a bit longer, try a bit harder, and you'll be finished. Besides," he glanced in the direction of the river. "I have something that you might be interested in."
Night had fallen, and the Tracy boys found themselves camping out with a campfire on the south beach. Fermat was off helping his father in the silo, which meant that the five older boys had the night to themselves.
Virgil sat beside the wood, tending the flames with a prodder, while Gordon took great pleasure in tossing marshmallows into the inferno. The white blobs bounced along the splinters until they hit the heat, where they burst into large balls of burning sugar.
"You're wasting the food," John declared over the top of his book, from where he was stretched out on a sleeping bag. "Honestly, there's a better use for sugar than that. Why don't you try eating it?"
Gordon gave his brother a superior look. "I learned in chemistry class that burning sugar makes little carbon balls," he paused as a marshmallow exploded, "that look like dog poo. Isn't that cool?"
"Gross, maybe." Sighing, the blond-haired Tracy looked back down at his text. "Now I know why you have a good mark in that class. The stuff is right up your alley. It's rank with immaturity."
Smirking proudly, Gordon chucked a marshmallow at John. "Here, have one, before I burn them all."
The marshmallow disappeared quickly behind the book. "Well then, dispose of them before I change my mind and decide to rescue them."
The word rescue caused an immediate change in the boys. Even Scott and Alan, who were trying to drown each other with a polar bear swim, stopped, turned, and walked back down to the sleeping materials. None of the boys had mentioned the ships or the headquarters since they had gone topside. It was almost as if no one wanted to.
"Who'd have thought," John finally sighed, putting his book down so that he could look over at the other boys. "Of anything that I could possibly imagine-"
"I'd never have expected it," Virgil finished, taking a break from his stoking of the fire. "Not that."
"No." His voice very quiet, Gordon tossed the last marshmallow into the flames. It flared up, then burst into pieces. "I didn't either."
Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Scott walked over and placed himself beside Virgil and Gordon. "Dad wanted to tell you, but I wouldn't let him. He cares so much about all of you that he was scared to screw up your lives even more than they already have been, and I thought that telling you would do just that. I don't know what would have been better, telling you, or lying to you and keeping the secret."
"So it wasn't because we're kids?" Alan asked suddenly from the side.
"Maybe a little bit," Scott admitted. "I guess we made a mistake by not choosing to trust you, but more than anything we didn't want to place that burden on you."
"It's okay," Gordon replied immediately, his voice hoarse from the smoke of the fire. "You were probably right. It would have been a distraction." A lopsided grin crossed his face, and he crumpled up the empty bag and threw it at Scott. "Besides, I can't really be mad at you guys. I wanted to be – man, I wanted to take a strip out of you and Dad!"
"We noticed," the older boy added dryly.
"But I just can't. Who could be mad about something like that? Hell, who'd have thought."
"I was surprised when he first told me," Scott admitted. "Honestly, I thought he was crazy at first, until I saw what him and James had already completed. They had put so much effort in to it, spent so much time designing everything to be just right . . . there was no way that I couldn't help."
"The pool was a nice touch," John interrupted suddenly, his mouth lifting ever so slightly at the corner. "I know that you just had to have the jet launch from under the pool."
"Of course not," Scott argued, though the attempt seemed only half-hearted to the other boys. "We had to work around the existing structure of the house, and the best place for the launch silo just happened to be under the pool."
John's eyes glittered in the firelight. "Then explain to me why the palm trees fold down when the cargo-hauler taxis down the runway."
A grin coming to his own face, Scott shrugged sheepishly. "That was Dad's idea." A crisp laugh escaped his mouth, and it soon turned into a rolling peel of laughter.
The humour was contagious, and soon all of the boys were laughing along at their father's expense. All of the earlier tension faded away until the mood was no different than that of any other campfire party on any other beach in the world.
"Though you could have come up with a better name," Virgil observed in between chuckles. "International Rescue. It lacks an artistic ring to it."
"I like it."
Everyone turned in surprise to see Alan, a determined expression on his face, folding his arms in defiance across his chest.
"I think it sounds important. Besides, that's what it's supposed to do. Rescue people."
Shaking his head in surprise and amusement, Virgil raised his hands in defeat. "Okay, then, I guess it's fine with me."
"We would like a name for the ships," Scott put in, drawing the attention away from Alan once again. "In the air force, our squads had names that we used when referring to the different ships."
"Like in Star Wars," John offered, "they call themselves Red Squadron during the trench run. Red leader, Red two."
Scott nodded. "Yeah. It makes things easier. I'd like to come up with something like that."
Crinkling his nose, Alan looked as though he were constipated with thinking. "How many were there again?"
"There was the turbo-scram," replied Virgil, "the one in the silo that you said you were going to fly. And the cargo ship, the big one in the bay that's beside the river system. Dad's ship."
"Don't forget the submarine."
His voice amused, Scott muttered, "Don't worry, Gordon, we won't."
"There was a big rocket ship," the youngest Tracy suggested, "the one that dad wanted to paint red."
"Do we count the satellite? It doesn't have a person on it." Gordon's voice didn't sound convinced.
"Of course." Smiling, John lay his head back so that he could gaze up at the sky. "Remember what dad said - every ship plays a vital part of the whole. Without the satellite, he wouldn't know if anyone was in trouble."
"Five ships." Scott's voice echoed with the noise of the rippling waves. "What do we call them?"
"Something for Mom," Gordon immediately offered, "something she'd like. Dad's doing this for her, after all. He said so."
"She liked tea."
The redhead shook his head. "Alan, that doesn't count. We can't call them Tea One-"
"I like it."
Gordon snorted, and continued to shake his red locks about. "John, Alan doesn't need to be encouraged."
"What about a Phoenix?" The sound of Virgil's voice halted the argument cold. "Mom liked mythology. Phoenix's are a symbol of death and re-birth."
"No." His voice strained, John shook his head. "No. Mom's dead, and this isn't going to bring her back."
"I wasn't suggesting that-"
"John," Scott interrupted, "just doesn't want a ghost to haunt us. He's right, we shouldn't pick something that's so obvious. But I like the myth idea. Is there anything else that you can think of?"
Virgil, silent, shook his head. "No. Not really."
It was Gordon who spoke next. "In English class, we've been studying Native American Literature."
"Really." Scott sounded impressed that Gordon knew anything about his English class. "This is the class that you're failing, right?"
Gordon continued, ignoring Scott. "There's a creature from their mythology, a bird that flies."
"Birds do that."
"It's almost like a god, but not really. It controls the weather, I think, because it throws bolts of lightning at people that are evil. It protects the innocent. But people think they're gods, because they look so amazing when they show up." He shrugged apologetically. "It's something like that."
Scott didn't have an immediate response. "What's it called?" he finally asked at length.
"A thunderbird." Gordon looked almost embarrassed at his own words. "Sorry, I know it probably sounds stupid."
"Thunderbird." The word echoed from Virgil's mouth, as he tossed the idea about in his head. Turning to look at Scott, he shrugged and smiled. "I don't know, sounds okay to me. It's better than phoenix."
"It does have a ring to it," John responded, "I could get used to it."
"It's Scott's choice," Virgil stressed, looking in his older brother's direction. "And Dad's. They're the ones that built the ships."
Shaking his head, Scott muttered, "No, it's everyone's choice. I have a feeling that it won't just be me and Dad working on this anyway." He turned to face Alan, and gave his brother a warm grin. "Hey, how about it squirt?"
"Maybe if you stop calling me squirt," Alan replied, his eyes narrow.
"Done and done, then." Scott clapped his hands together, then let them fall to his side, as he became more serious. "Thunderbirds. Lucy's Thunderbirds."
The sound of their mother's name caused the boys to immediately become silent. They never spoke of their mother in such a personal way, and they had never even heard Jeff refer to her as anything but 'Your Mother' for a very long time. To hear their mother's name, spoken so casually from Scott's own mouth, was shocking.
"Gordon is right," Scott finally continued, "we're doing this for Mom, and we should always remember that. They're Lucy's Thunderbirds, because she would have been first in line to fly them alongside Dad. She would have loved what he's doing." His voice began to waver slightly as painful memories came to the surface. The next sentence, spoken so quietly that the other boys barely caught it, was raw with emotion. "I'm sorry, Mom. I'll have to do it for you."
Quietly, so as not to disturb that calm that had come with the falling of the sun, the other boys gathered in a group and wrapped their arms about their brother, who was now crying openly on the sand. It had been years since Scott had even so much as whimpered about Lucy, but the combined emotion of excitement of the night and the memory of his mother were too strong.
The image of Scott Tracy - football quarterback, class valedictorian, air force captain – weeping into his hands was so powerful that his brother's did not even consider poking fun. Embarrassment flooded across his cheeks, but he could not quench the tears that poured down his face. The emotions of all of the years that he had spent consoling his family, holding their fears and pain inside of him, flowed freely from his eyes.
The other boys, who keenly felt Scott's pain as much as he did, held their brother tight. For a long moment, all thoughts of age, courage, or masculinity were put aside. There was no room for pride amongst the other emotions and feelings that were so keen and poignant.
"We won't tell anyone else that you cried," Gordon eventually offered, in an attempt to bring his brother out of his gloom. "We'll just say that you fell and broke your leg."
"It won't happen again," Scott replied, his voice determined, though tears still broke down his cheeks. "There won't be anything to cry about again. I won't let anything happen to you guys."
"Of course not." After all of the times that Scott had stood up for him, and all of the times that he had sat with him as a silent support on his worst days, John understood how much Scott held on his shoulders. It was only because of Scott that the family had hung together for as long as it had. "We're in this together."
They were only silent for a moment, until Alan chimed in, "I just thought of something. Fighter pilots always abbreviate stuff." His voice was smug sounding. "Guess what?"
"What?" Gordon played along.
"Guess what the abbreviation of Thunderbird is?"
Gordon thought for a long moment then banged his head hard against the nearest object, which happened to be Virgil's shoulder.
"Ow."
"John," Gordon complained, "Alan's getting his T One after all."
When the thought finally registered in his brain, John couldn't stifle the chuckle that was desperately trying to escape his lips. "I guess so."
Soon all of the boys were laughing, and there were no more thoughts of Lucy Tracy. Their minds had moved ahead to something more tangible - the official launch of International Rescue in one month's time.
A/N: I am very sorry about taking so long with this chapter – midterms have been kicking me in the rear, and I wanted to make sure that the chapter actually worked the way it was supposed to before I posted it. On that topic, I have to give a huge shout of thanksto Ariel D, who beta read it not once but twice for me, and was able to give the most incredible suggestions to me both times. If this chapter sounds coherent and reasonable, it's only because her red pen (of editing +5!) has graced it. Thank you!
And thank you to everyone that dropped a review for the last chapter. Once again, I'm so sorry about leaving you dangling off the cliff for so long!
Assena – No kidding (about Gordon saying whatever he wants)! Yet, I think that he keeps the stuff that's actually important locked up inside of him somewhere. Meh, you'll see. :) lol I'm too much like Scott to not like him. Oh – opens lock to TB1 silo – there you go. ;)
moonlightbear – Thanks! It's great to have you reading. :)
andrewjameswilliams – I guess you know now. ;) When I wrote their reactions, I just had to sit down and figure out how I'd react in the same situation. I think I may have actually been too polite with the language that I used.
Math Girl – Arms getting tired from hanging onto the cliff yet? ;) Hey, good guess about Jeff! I thought that they would have some sort of security system, so Jeff would know as soon as he came home that something was wrong. Besides, I'm not sure how brave Fermat would be in that type of situation. lol
Ariel D – Thank you thank you thank you! I can't say that enough. :D
zeilfanaat – You're right! Just think if we all had Gordon's sense of humour, we'd all be walking around with buckets on our heads. ;) Oh, and Ariel can't flaunt because I haven't sent her the next chapter yet. lol
ladc – Here's hoping that Jeff's reasoning was sound. That said, I'm really expecting people to side with both Gordon and Jeff, because – like in most real life situations – this little issue isn't flat and one-sided. Neither of them is really right or wrong, it's just a huge mess all around. But the Tracys are a resilient bunch. :)
thunderbirdgirl – I keep having to insert more of the younger boys to appease my readers. :) I could write a hundred pages about John and never notice that the others are gone . . . thanks so much for your kind words!
scarlettWALES – Man, you changed your name and it had me thinking at first, 'Who the heck is this? Do I know this person, or is this a new reader?' lol :D The Penelope thing a hint? You bet it is. :) It takes a lady in pink to one-up a man in blue. ;) Gawk, I shouldn't have said that; the uniforms are going to be movie uniforms . . . :S
I hope you all tune in next time for "Rescued", which hopefully needs no introduction. :) Yes, it's the chapter that people have been asking about.
'Til then,
FAB!