Dislcaimer: Thunderbirds is the property of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, as well as Carlton and Universal. No profit is intended to be made from this story; it is for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended, and none should be inferred.
Spirits of the Night
March 2018
It was time to go to bed. Or, John Tracy thought wryly, at least it was down on the planet. Up on Thunderbird Five, drifting about in the cosmic void, there was no night or day, but instead a constant blackness that was dotted with interspersed pricks of light. The sun came around once every twenty-four hours - much like it did on Earth - but the harsh glares did little other than burn his eyes and cause the station to become mildly warmer than it was during the 'night'.
His father had left with Brains an hour earlier, once the three of them had finally managed to eliminate most of the operating flaws in the new computer terminal. The older man had promised to be back within a week with more supplies, though he had been a bit hesitant to leave John alone on the station. It had only been John's calm assurances that had convinced Jeff to finally leave.
John had watched Thunderbird Three drift gracefully away from the station, its particle engines firing it on a course back towards the island.
Back towards . . .
"Home." John sighed and looked around at the barren and sparsely furnished command center. The computer terminal and the data monitors gave the station a bit more of a civilised look, but that didn't hide the fact that it was still just an empty husk floating in the middle of nowhere. There were no sleeping quarters, no kitchen or fridge, and only a small bathroom facility that had been installed for emergency purposes only. Supplies consisted of food rations, a sleeping bag and mattress, a faulty gravity generator, and a water recycler that whirred quietly off in the corner of the room.
Pulling his legs to his chest so that the chair he was sitting on swivelled a bit, John closed his eyes and simply listened. The station sounded very different from any other place he had ever stayed at. Even Thunderbird Three, where he and Jeff and Brains had spent four nights in zero gravity during the modifications of Five, sounded nothing like it.
The dull hum of the particle accelerator or the constant barrage of noise from the chemical boosters dominated Three. Five, on the other hand, buzzed in a subdued manner, as though the entire place were electrified. Fibre optic cable made no noise, as John had noticed immediately upon arriving at the station, but the mechanical parts, such as the air circulation unit, made more than enough to subsidise for that.
The noise was comforting and disconcerting all at once. He had spent enough time as a child playing around with radios to be used to the sound of transmitters and receivers, and every person his age was familiar with the drone of computer hardware. Yet, to be surrounded by it all on such a massive scale was intimidating to say the least.
And outside . . . outside was silent, a silence more profound than anything he had ever experienced in his life. It was not the same as when he had locked himself in his room as he had done when he had been in grade school. There was no other living human being around for thousands of miles, for even the nearest NASA station, Alpha, was circumnavigating the Earth on a completely different ellipse from where Five was.
He was completely and utterly alone, more so than he had ever been in his life.
John took a long moment to try and comprehend the emotions that he was feeling. A part of him was scared, for sure, to be so isolated from anyone else. If something went wrong on the station, help wouldn't arrive fast enough to save him. But a part of him was also intrigued with the possibilities that the isolation offered.
It isn't right, John thought, gazing out at the Earth as the planet slowly faded into night. The lights of North America were visible on his right, while those of Asia and Australia were on his left. In the middle lay a large and bottomless pit, where - somewhere - his father was settling down for the night.
I shouldn't enjoy this.
Yet he did. There was no one around to interrupt his thoughts, no one to bother him with petty and idiotic issues, no one to disturb the quiet that he found so completely soothing. It was just him, the station, and stars. He was removed from human contact and completely lost within the tiny bubble of existence that he had been given.
John vowed then and there to never go more than twenty-four hours without contacting the island. He knew who he was, and what his mind was capable of, and what he feared more than anything was losing the only other family that he still had. As much as he wanted to be left alone, he loved his family too much to go without talking to them for too long.
But he knew what he would do if given the chance. It would be all too easy – one snip of a cable, and he would never have to deal with another living person ever again. The silence was alluring, addicting even.
He also knew what the silence would bring, and what would inevitably happen if he withdrew inside of himself like he sometimes did. It happened so often that he didn't even keep track anymore, didn't want to keep track.
He could sometimes hear her voice on nights that he was watching the stars from outside the house. It was a light, bubbly sound, like a laugh, that drifted on the wind and rustled the leaves in the trees. It had been his mother that had taught him the constellations when he had been very young, and in that way she remained in his thoughts, never quite there, never quite removed.
The moment had to be right, however, and he had to will it to happen. That was addicting in itself. The temptation was always there when he was on his own. He had the imagination to create his own company when he was lonely. He didn't need to have others around. Even as the thought crossed his mind John was already fighting the temptation of starting up an internal dialogue.
Shaking his head, John rubbed his eyes and tried to bring himself to some form of sense. There was something very wrong happening in his headHe was tired, obviously, and he also wondered if he was still suffering from a form of space sickness. But a part of him knew it was not even space sickness but instead something greater and more troubling.
You have to let her go. There is a time to mourn in solitude, and a time to mourn in the presence of others. You can't be with her alone all the time.
But he needed her. While she had lived, she had been there for him all the times when, as a young boy, he had secluded himself in the family acreage and hidden up in a tree to escape reality. She had spent countless hours beside him during his childhood, sitting, saying the things that he needed to hear. He didn't know if his mother had ever truly understood him - but it had never mattered. She had loved him for what he was, and her acceptance had made a world of difference during a time in his youth when nothing seemed to be going right.
Things hadn't changed since then. The world was still the same in the way that it treated him. He was still the same as well. And life hadn't exactly been easy since she had died, either, so the comfort that he still needed couldn't be found in reality. Having spent most of his teenage years looking after his younger brothers, he hadn't had the time to settle and rectify things in his own mind. His mother had loved him deeply, and he couldn't let that feeling go when it did so much to keep him going. At a time when he didn't have the opportunity to find another source of compassion in his life, the recollection of her love was necessary. He still needed to hear her words. It didn't matter whether they were only fractured memories in his mind.
And up in space she was always present. He could look out the window, could see the sprawling nebula of Orion, and see her face etched out in the Hydrogen clouds. She whispered to him, her voice the sound of humming machinery and hissing filters. She was everywhere, because all he had to do was look around and realize that he was alone and without a lifeline, and the child-like self that was inside of him would take over, the part of him that could still feel Lucy Tracy's arms wrapped around his shoulders. The quietness was hypnotic, like having a blanket draped over his shoulder's to protect him from the chill air of the station.
He was alone, and when he was alone she always followed him. He couldn't help it.
"John."
John's head snapped upwards, the sudden echo of his mother's voice shaking him profoundly. He checked the speaker on the radio, wondering if Gordon or someone was playing a joke on him, and realised that it wasn't turned on. No one had called from the island. "Mom," he breathed, the words barely leaving his lips. "Mom?"
"John."
"Mom," John whispered slowly, closing his eyes in a vain attempt to block out the noise, "you're not here."
The voice was not his own doing, at least in any conscious manner that he could discern.
It had happened only the week before, when he had been studying books in his office at the Cape. It had not been intentional that time. Then, however, he had simply left the room, walked to the cafeteria, and drowned his sorrows in a pot of coffee before he had become too frightened to move. He knew that it had been the result of too little sleep, and the coffee had solved that problem until he had finally had time to lie down. Three days working on a report had been enough to sicken him and scare him out of his mind enough that he hadn't done a sleepless stint like that since.
Unfortunately, there was no coffee up on the space station.
"John!"
Or perhaps it was his fault. Perhaps the action to call her had become so entwined in his brain that it was no longer a conscious decision. The . . . hallucination that he had had at the Cape hadn't been so vivid, so real. Yet he had known what it was caused by, and even then it had worried him greatly. Even then, when he had been able to stop it, he had been concerned about his own health.
"You're not here," he said again, even louder, his voice becoming stressed. "There's no one here."
He could handle the voice when it was caused by his own intentions, and even needed it on many occasions in order to keep functioning.
When it wasn't, however, it was more than just disconcerting. It was terrifying. Because he knew what it implied, and he was fearful of the implications. And this time it wasn't just a hallucination that he was having from a lack of sleep. It was very vivid.
And it was very real.
"John!" The voice echoed down the hallway of the hospital, intermixing with the continual beeping of a heart monitor. "John!"
Scott's voice, echoing around the steel walls of the space station, scathed his thoughts like a blowtorch.
"John!"
The doctors were talking, their voices blending into a horrific and unending hum.
"John Tracy!"
"Shut up!"
"Twenty minutes at the most."
"No."
"Likely less."
By the man's tone, something was wrong.
They were right. There was something seriously wrong, but not with her - not with his mother. There was something seriously wrong with him. He was sick. He had spent too long in the ship without the gravity turned on. Nothing was making sense. Part of him latched onto the fact that he was hallucinating, but the part of his mind that would have acted on that information could not form any rational thoughts whatsoever.
It had sidestepped the illusion, had turned aside the factual evidence for it, and was staring at the real and naked cause of it all.
"Likely less."
Grabbing his ears with his hands, John shoved his head between his legs and tried with all of his willpower to shut out the noise. He was past being logical, past convincing his brain that it was just the station making noise and not a real human voice talking.
"Stop it!"
"Their mother is dying! Let them in, good Lord!" That was his father's voice.
He didn't want to see that again. He'd seen it every night for two years afterwards. That had been enough.
"No!" He screamed, as a primordial terror welled inside of him that he had not felt in a very long time. "No!"
"It was better to let her go."
"Would she have woken up? With treatment? What about life support?"
"No. There was too much damage. Nothing would have helped."
He wanted to wake-up. It was like a nightmare, one where he could bite and claw and scream and never awaken from.
"Better to let her go."
"LEAVE ME ALONE!"
The sound of his own voice - so raw and uncontrolled - snapped John out of his hallucination. The station had become incredibly quiet and was once again filled with the dull humming of the machinery and the computer circuits. There were no more sounds, no more whispers of his mother's voice.
It was all gone. Everything was quiet.
Feeling immensely nauseated, John stumbled from the chair and haphazardly made his way to the mattress that was spread out on the floor. His foot caught on the cord of the water plant, and that small change in momentum sent him sprawling forward, his face colliding with the tiling so hard that he could feel the skin on his forehead break.
He lay still, half on, half off the mattress, still recovering from what had struck him senseless. You're exhausted, his mind whispered kindly. It's not your fault. You need to sleep. You're gravely ill.
He didn't even notice the distinct feminine quality of the voice. He didn't care. Nothing mattered.
Sleep sounded all right to John. It was better than opening his eyes and remembering that he was alone, a universe away from the rest of his family. Soon the noise of the station faded away, and all that he saw was blackness. It was a pure blackness, not of space - speckled with stars - but of his mind.
It was in that way - delirious from prolonged weightlessness, exhausted from four sleepless nights in a row, and burdened from nearly seven years of emotional trauma - that John Tracy spent his first night as lone watcher aboard Thunderbird Five. Thankfully, there were no rescue calls.
On first awakening, John had no clue as to where he was. The feel of the mattress underneath him was foreign, and the noises of the place were very odd - not to mention the smell . . .
Bolting upright - and immediately regretting it - John glanced around at his surroundings, and the memories of the previous night came flooding back to him.
He had let it happen again, John realised in horror. There had been other times when he had nearly given into whatever problem it was that plagued him psychologically. Times when he had been very stressed, moments when he had been very lonely – his mother's voice had pervaded all of them. But he had never, ever, fallen so completely for the products of his own mind. He had always intentionally created the effect before, a choice that he obviously had not made up on the space station. When he thought about it, it hadn't just been his mother's voice that he had heard. It had been a full-blown hallucination.
The episode at the Cape had been nothing compared to what he had just experienced.
"I'm a lunatic," he muttered out-loud, reaching up a hand to gingerly finger the bruising welt that had formed on his forehead. "A bloody lunatic." Glancing down at the floor, he suddenly understood both why his stomach was feeling better, and why the room smelled so rank.
"Wonderful." His brows furrowing, John willed away any remaining nausea and pushed himself onto his knees. "A good case of weightlessness could do anyone in. Dad's right. It's as bad as food poisoning!" Looking around, he quickly located a rag that he could use to mop up the floor. It was when he went to reach for the clean water tank that he realised what his little free-fall act had unplugged and knocked over the previous night.
"No," John moaned in exasperation, smacking his face in complete frustration at the sight of the dirty water tank tipped over, its contents long ago spilled onto the floor. "Great. Just great."
Most normal men would have just given up there, John knew. He was living in some God-forsaken reincarnation of Hades, and the place wasn't pulling its end of the bargain. He had no bed, no way to cook food, and now he had no clean water either. Sure, the device could be plugged back in, and liquid could be claimed from the air humidifiers, but still . . .
"You think you've won, huh," John grumbled at the station as he bent down to wipe absently at the vomit stain on the floor, "well don't get so cocky. Go ahead, do it again. Break. Fall apart. Explode if you want. See if I care."
I'll fix it all. Just wait and see.
He had to – he had no other choice. When he stopped and considered the matter, there was no decision involved. His father needed him up on the station, or International Rescue wouldn't be able to operate at maximum efficiency.
Above all else, he needed to be up on the station. He needed to take the job, needed to put himself in a position where he could help his father and his family. Nothing else seemed remotely as important anymore. He wanted the job, wanted it with every fibre of his being. Four days on the station had shown him more feelings of wonderment than he had amassed in a lifetime on the ground.
But, in the seclusion of the space station lay the painful and burning memories of his mother. It was how he had always coped with being alone, and why he wanted to be alone. He needed no other company, because his mother was always there with him, and he wanted nothing else most of the time.
And it had to stop.
His lips tightening, John stopped scrubbing the floor for a moment so that he could think the matter through. He was going to remain on the station – that much was fact. After everything that he had done, he couldn't possibly abandon the post. But something else had to go, either his sanity or . . . his mother. He couldn't rely on childish and unhealthy delusions in order to survive in the secluded environment. It was his method of coping with stress, but it could only go so far before it became dangerous.
All things were good in moderation, but he was far past that point.
He was flirting with insanity. Perhaps he had already crossed the line . . .
"I've been running away," John whispered out loud, dropping the cloth to the ground so that he could wrap his arms about his knees. "God, I am a coward." The words stung like fire against his mind, but he didn't stop. "You're a stupid coward, John. You knew she was gone, and you couldn't let her go!" He bent over so that, in his kneeling position, his forehead tickled the ground. "How could you let it get like this? Coward!" The words exploded mercilessly from his mouth. "Bloody coward!"
Everyone else could let her go, John thought angrily, everyone. When they finally understood, knew she was gone, they let her go. Virgil, Gordon, Alan, Scott, maybe even Dad – they did it on their own. They've been so strong. They faced reality and put it behind them.
Memories came back to him of an early morning when John's father had come home from the graveyard only to be confronted by his second eldest son. He had been so sure then of his thoughts, so devoted to keeping his family together that he had not actually considered whether he believed his own words. He had convinced his father to let go of his wife – yet he had failed to convince himself. Instead, the same thing had eventually afflicted him, growing more and more controlling as the years had passed. He couldn't stand to go a day without hearing her voice, even if he knew it was only in his mind.
"I can't let go," John finally sobbed. A pair of tears trickled down his cheeks to fall onto the steel floor. "Mom, I don't want to leave you."
He waited to hear her voice, the calming voice that always spoke to him when he needed it the most.
He knew that he couldn't. He knew with every ounce of his being that it had to stop.
"Oh Mom, I'm not this strong."
Then, just above the level of a whisper, a quiet voice answered, "Johnny, where are you going? Are you leaving? It's a little late to be stargazing. Why don't you come back inside?"
Clenching his eyes shut, John tried to will the tears to stop. There was only one thing that he could do – he had to continue on his own, without his mother. He had to put her away for good and had to try and find in himself some speck of the courage that his father had spoken of days earlier. The severity of his situation was suddenly painfully obvious to him, a situation that he had blatantly ignored for too many years.
Slowly, for it was not easy, he ignored the pain that throbbed in his head and stomach and willed his eyes to open. Then, ever so slowly, he stood up, walked over to the window, and looked outside into the blackness.
The effect of the stars on him was dramatic. They sent a rush of adrenaline into his veins and began a chain of explosions in his heart that combated and fought with the feelings that he had for his mother.
"You love this," he whispered, "you love this, John." The next words were frank and full of emotion. "You love this as much as you love Mom. If you love mom, you have to do this, and you can't do it with her." He raised a hand to wipe tears from his face, trying hard not to break down into sobs. "You're going to be isolated. You might be lonely. But you're going to do this on your own, with whatever family you have left. It's time that you talked to them instead."
The stars twinkled in response.
"Johnny, do you see that star? That's Sirius, the Dog Star. Isn't it pretty?" The memory gnawed at his mind, trying to find a way through his defences.
"I won't disappoint you, Mom," John offered feebly, knowing that the promise itself was a sign of weakness, but also knowing that it was the best that he could do. It was too searing to let her go without at least saying goodbye. "I'm sorry, Mom. I can't talk to you anymore. If I do, I don't know what will happen. But there are people still alive that I care about. And, if I love them," his voice became hoarse, "I can't keep you. I can't live in a lie. I don't want to lose them too."
He understood, then, what the hallucination the previous night had been trying to tell him. Some part of his mind must have seen the danger, must have recognized it for what it was, and had tried to warn him. It had seen the path that he had been taking, had plotted the course to oblivion, and had decided to make an adjustment in his direction. It had shown him what would happen if he continued going along the same route: where his future would lie, where he would end up if he continued to hold on.
It had shown him insanity.
Better to let her go.
It started now.
"Johnny, I love you." The voice sounded desperate, as if begging John to reconsider.
He didn't. The last words that he spoke, broken so that they were barely audible, finally brought a whimper from his throat. They were the words that he should have spoken eight years ago, when Lucy Tracy had passed away peacefully in her hospital bed. "I love you too, Mom. Good-bye."
Taking a long sip from his morning coffee, Jeff Tracy closed his eyes and tried to will his body to wake up. He had spent a very long, sleepless night staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep for fear that John would call and need help. Though he had a great deal of faith in his son, he couldn't shake the feeling that things could and were happening beyond his control.
"Morning, Scott," he called from the top of the stairs leading to the study. "Sleep well?"
"Sure," Scott called back from the kitchen, his voice cheerful. "I'm putting another pot of coffee on. Do you want some?"
"No, I've probably had enough." Jeff rubbed his brow tiredly and slowly made his way down the stairs. "I think I drank enough for you and me both last night."
"Couldn't sleep?" As Jeff came into the kitchen from the back stairwell, Scott turned around and gave his father a curious look. "You slept in the study?"
Jeff shrugged and plopped himself down on one of the table chairs. "You know me, Scott."
Scott, still dressed in his pyjamas and wearing a bright blue housecoat, chuckled and poured his father another cup of coffee. "Here, for us poorly addicted souls."
Taking the cup with a gracious nod, Jeff set his empty glass down and took a sip of the fresh brew. "Hmm. Tastes better than day-old, at least."
"So," Scott gave his father a concerned look, "what's on you mind? I mean," he sighed, "it's not as if I can't guess, but-"
"You want me to say it," Jeff finished dryly, a lopsided grin coming to his face. "So that you're not implicated in bringing the matter up."
"Something like that."
Both men took a long sip from their drinks, then slammed the cups to the tabletop. It had become a routine of sorts, Scott making the beans and Jeff downing the drink as fast as he could before his son finished the entire pot.
"Have you talked to him yet?"
"No," the older Tracy sighed, stirring his coffee absently - though he never put any cream in - with his finger. "I'm sure that he's fine, though. I'm just prone to worrying."
"Old man's prerogative," Scott replied teasingly, "you know that. It's your right as a father to worry about your children. But if John weren't so horribly odd in some of his ways, I'd probably be worried too."
"Hmm?"
Scott nodded, "Oh, yeah, he'll get completely wrapped up in his work up there. I'm sure you've noticed it before. He always did down here. I'd go into our room, and he'd have books piled from the floor to the roof. Never spoke a word to me the entire week of high school exams, just sat and stared at his notes."
"Of course I noticed. He's a good kid," Jeff replied, his mind half on Earth and half at the station. "We left him in a virtual hell-hole up there."
"He'll be fine," Scott chuckled, "as long as you left him some place to go pee."
Giving his son a rueful look, Jeff shook his head and muttered, "If the water purifier's even working. Hardly anything on that hunk is functioning anymore. We made a hell of a mess."
"Just give him a few days," Scott said firmly, "and you'll see what he does to it. Disorder alone is enough to drive John up the wall. Hell Dad, a whole station of it? He'll have it cleaned up in no time."
"I'm glad you're going to call him."
Jeff looked up at Scott, who was now fully dressed, then back down at his computer terminal. "I'm beginning to get worried. I thought he would call in by now."
A few quick taps and clicks brought up the communications screen to Thunderbird Five. "Welcome! Enter Password:".
"We should really get this gene coded," Jeff muttered absently, keying in the pass-code.
Scott's eyebrow jumped in amusement. "Think someone's going to raid the place?"
"Paranoia," Jeff replied, tapping his fingers impatiently as the two computers connected via radio. "We've put so much time on this, and I don't want to blow it."
"Virgil had a good idea about this room," Scott offered, "he mentioned something about making a mural for the wall, that we could put in front of the door to hide it a bit better."
"Doors," Jeff added as an afterthought, "my feet can't take anymore of the pounding that you give them when we both jump into that hallway at the same time. I'm going to have some lifts installed."
"True."
The computer chimed, and brought up onto the screen the words, "PASSWORD ACCEPTED: Initialising Audio and Visual Link".
Several long and agonising minutes passed before the computer returned any other message at all. During that time, both Jeff and Scott simply stared in silence at the screen. Finally, the monitor flipped on, and John's battered and bruised face came onto the screen.
Jeff's eyes went wide, as did Scott's. "John! What the hell happened?"
"I couldn't sleep," the blond-haired man replied quietly, his eyes dark and puffy with a mixture of what appeared to be exhaustion and bruising. "So I put myself out of my misery."
"What?" Scott cried, his face shocked.
"I'm joking," John sighed, "if you haven't already figured that out."
"Then what happened?" Jeff finally spit out, concern playing across his face.
"I fell."
"On what?"
"The floor!" John grumbled in irritation. "What else? There's nothing else to fall on!"
Scott and Jeff traded glances, each unsure of what to say.
"Do you want me to come up and help?" Jeff finally asked out of curiosity.
"No." There was no room for compromise in John's tone. "No. I have everything under control."
"Uh huh."
His eyes narrowing even further, John glared at his brother. "Have a little faith."
Scott's lip curled up slightly, and he couldn't resist poking fun at John. "Want me to clap?"
"I'm not Tinkerbell," John snorted, "but I think I can work a little pixie dust on this place. Just wait. I installed the toilet this morning -"
"You're sure predictable."
Ignoring his brother's badgering, John continued, "and I'm going to get to work on the cooking stuff that Brains sent up. I really want something decent to eat."
Decidedly satisfied, Jeff nodded and folded his arms across his stomach. "John, I'm really impressed. I was honestly quite worried about you when I left last night."
"Oh, I'm fine," John replied quickly. "I really didn't sleep too badly. Hit the pillow-"
"The floor," corrected Scott politely.
"The floor, and slept like a baby." He glanced off screen for a moment. "By the way, did you re-route the transmissions down to your office?"
Jeff nodded once again. "I thought you deserved a decent rest. We can start up the manual systems once you're adjusted to your new quarters."
"There is a bed in one of these boxes, right?" John was once again looking at a point off screen. "Am I right?"
"Somewhere. Brains said that one of the storage rooms should work just fine for your quarters. The station is large to begin with, because of the array size, and there's plenty of extra space."
"Good." John was silent for a moment, and the mild aggravation that had been present on his face began to fade away. "Dad, I'm sorry," he finally sighed, rubbing his bruise absently with his hand. "I shouldn't have flipped out on you. I've just had," he paused, searching for the right word, "a very long morning."
"I understand," Jeff assured him quietly. "We left you with quite a mess yesterday, which I feel badly about. And it's no surprise that you passed out – don't look at me that way, John, your face gave it away - you were looking awfully ill, even after we activated the gravity well. Even the most trained astronauts get sick sometimes. Your body is still adjusting."
"Aside from that," Scott interrupted, "how is it up there?"
Bobbing his head up and down several times, as if mentally chewing on his lip, John shrugged and turned his head to the side. "Pretty nice. The view is spectacular." A tiny smile crept onto his face. "Think you could send my scopes up in the next batch?"
"Definitely," promised Jeff, pulling out a pad of paper from the desk so that he could make a note. "Anything else?"
"Not for now. I need to get all of this important stuff installed first." He shook his head, the smile becoming more determined. "This lousy son of a bitch tried to beat me last night. Well, it's not going to win."
Scott and Jeff traded another set of worried looks, the older man finally shrugging in confusion. "Do you want to talk about it?" Jeff asked carefully, making sure not to accidentally bring up any topic that happened to be sensitive at the moment. "Based on what you're saying, I think you've had more than a 'long morning'."
John shook his head. "I'm fine." His eyes relaxed ever so slightly, as his face became a mask of emotions. "I can do this, Dad."
"John-"
"Dad," John's voice with firm. "I can do this."
"We know you can," Scott interrupted swiftly, cutting the argument off in the bud. "And Dad and I will do our best to get some stuff together for you when it's time to take up the next batch. What would you like?"
"Chocolate?" John asked hopefully. "Please? Helps with depression . . ."
"Sure thing," laughed Jeff, making another note on the paper. "Anything else?"
Scott snorted. "More food, maybe?"
"A picture." An odd look of guilt crossed John's face as he spoke, and the smile disappeared from his lips.
Jeff took a long look at his son and tried to figure out what had suddenly caused John to become so withdrawn. He knew that it likely had to do with what happened the night before, for the look on John's face was similar to the expression that he had worn when Jeff had first called the station. "A picture," Jeff echoed, and John nodded. "Of what?"
"Of Mom."
Jeff studied John's face, seeing for the first time the subtle traces that crying left on the human complexion. He thought for a long moment, then nodded slowly and made one last note on the notepad. "Will do, John."
"Thanks Dad," the blond replied quietly, trying to casually wipe the mist that was growing in his eyes. "It'd mean a lot to me." He turned his head and gazed in the direction of view port. A smile gnawed at the edge of his eyes, easing Jeff's fears that his son was unhappy where he was.
"Is that all?" Scott asked, drawing the conversation back to its original point.
"Yeah, it should be." The smile crept more openly onto the young man's face. "Thanks, guys. You've both been a huge help." He absently ran a hand through his hair. "I'm going to get back to work up here. Maybe when you come up next, I'll be able to have dinner ready for you."
"All right, John," Jeff laughed, raising his hand to his head in a military style salute. "I'll have the stuff ready for you next week. Try and keep sane until then."
The last comment was enough to force the grin directly onto John's tired and battered face. The young man grinned in resignation and shook his head as if in amusement. "You too, Dad." John reached down and keyed in something into his computer.
"Thunderbird Five out."
So ends Part III, and so begins John's life in space. The story will be moving on now, and I think many of you will be pleased to see the introduction of another character in the next chapter. ;) Thank you to everyone that took the time out to review. (sighs) I hope everyone else is still reading and that they haven't abandoned me for the long delay last chapter. Lol
Review responses:
Ariel D - I made a mistake earlier: there are a couple more 'John' chapters later on. I think they're chapter 23 and 25. :) They're not entirely about John, but the focus is more in that direction.
Ms. Imagine - Thank you so much! This scene was very vivid in my head while I was writing it, and I'm glad to see that it transferred to paper.
Assena - I think the fear of flying originated (sadly enough) from the scene in the movie when they're returning to Earth. Even though he's injured, I thought he looked oddly seasick for someone who is an astronaut! Lol So he ended up with a phobia. It's actually a fear of heights from childhood, and when I get around to posting my other five-part story with Lucy you might see why it transferred to flying. Thanks for your wonderful comments!
Zeilfanaat - I'm still not satisfied with the end product of the story, because some characters receive a lot more 'screen-time' than others do. Brains ended up with a fair amount, actually, which I'm happy about. (whispers) I'm glad that she's beta reading too. ;) Oh, you really should give her a FP for the next chapter since she did double duty on this one and read it twice.
Next chapter, Scott encounters a sweet and mysterious British agent in "Yes M'lady!". Until then, FAB all!