Edits are here! And thanks, as ever, for the comments and viewpoints...

6

Tracy Island, the office-

Being shouted at wasn't a new experience for him; one could hardly be a professional athlete and not expect to come in for a certain amount of screaming. Back in Madrid, his coach used words like blunt instruments, bludgeoning the arrogance, laziness and self-absorption clean out his young swimmers. Gordon didn't much like it, but he knew how to take it, usually.

Standing before the desk in Jeff's office, still dripping chlorinated water, he let most of the raging words wash over him like a sudden rain squall. A few got through, though; the sharper-edged ones…

"…shiftless, bone-lazy dropout… in sixty years, no Tracy has ever failed to complete his education! No son of mine…"

…and so on. As he did in the midst of Coach McMahon's worst tirades, Gordon stood braced, head down, arms folded, and took it.

"…first goddam sign of trouble, you bail out! Well, mark my words, Mister; I'll have no such… Look at me when I talk to you, dammit!"

He was aware of the big old clock ticking, and of a chilly breeze on his bare back from the open balcony doors. Jeff's stance was taut, furious; his neck muscles standing out like they'd been chiseled. Gordon had never seen him so angry. And… perhaps he had reason. Perhaps it had been craven to test out of regular schooling. But, his fath… Joe Tracy… had done the same thing, going on afterward to become a successful firefighter. A brave man and a good one, right to the very end. His mum, too, had stopped with the tenth form.

But Jeff saw things differently, and Gordon should have been man enough to take a little 'constructive criticism'. Mere words weren't supposed to hurt that badly. If he could have transported himself back to Europe, though, Gordon would have done so. Better anything, even a losing season, than this.

Then rescue arrived, from pretty well everywhere at once. Alan's mum rushed in first, pushing her way through the hall doors. Her face was terribly pale, her blue eyes filled with genuine distress.

"Jeff, I can explain! It was my idea, entirely, and…"

Before she could finish, Alan swarmed in from the balcony with Fermat and TinTin, each of them talking at top volume.

"Dad, I'm through hiding the truth! I'm, like, totally gay, and I've decided to come out publicly, at Wharton!"

Next Fermat, leaping up and down for attention.

"M- Mr. Tracy… I've… developed a r- revolutionary… new fuel, S- Sir, but it… s- spilled all over… Thunderbird 1, and ate through th- the tail assembly. Nothing… a- about 25 million d- dollars and… 48 hours sh- shouldn't fix, though."

Now TinTin, trembling at the depth of her risk, said,

"Sir… if you please… I have a mysterious power that allows me to see the thoughts and control the will of others. Can you counsel me upon the advisability of the, er… 'life of crime', Monsieur?"

And then, before the thunderstruck Jeff could assimilate these many bombshells, a little dog scrambled up the balcony stairs and into his office, dead rat clamped in its toothy jaws. Tags jingling, Scout raced across the carpeted floor and bounded onto Jeff's ornately-carved wooden desk. Skidding to a paper-scattering halt just short of the far edge, the dog dropped its ragged, oozing prize atop Jeff's marble desk organizer. Then, with cocked head and furiously wagging tail, the little terrier let forth a shrill, ringing yip.

Jeff's jaw dropped, his mouth working silently. It was at this precise instant that John's portrait comm lit up, displaying the astronaut's current image. He had one arm in a sling, and a great many cuts and bruises on his face and neck. Wasn't so battered that he couldn't lift a calmly sardonic eyebrow, though. John Tracy was like a bucket of ice water dumped on a bad dream; sort of a good thing. His unexpected appearance calmed the flustered assemblage, at any rate.

"John?" The elder Tracy inquired, his slightly strained voice transmitted in real time by entangled photons. From Mars, the astronaut nodded.

"Dad… et alia... I found myself with some down time, so I thought I'd check in early."

Jeff seemed scarcely to notice his second son's words. Gesturing at the bandaged wounds, he demanded,

"What happened? Are you all right?"

Some 46 million miles away, John glanced down at hiscomputerized cast and tightly wrapped sling.

"Yes, Sir. I'm good. A hatch blew out while I was wiring up the vehicle maintenance tunnel. Water damage and electrical shorts, again. We had a minor decompression incident, and I got hit by some of the flying debris. Nothing major. There's, um... some other news, though."

You couldn't tell, from John's bored tone, his utterly detached expression, what sort of news he intended to relate. Might've been anything from baseball statistics to Ebola, but Jeff chose to batten down the hatches and raise the hurricane flags, anyway.

"Out!" He snapped at the kids and dog. "And get rid of the rat, while you're at it."

Never taking his eyes from the screen, Jeff beckoned to Gennine, who'd been quietly headed for the inside doors.

"Go ahead, Son," he commanded, after his near-wife had returned, and the others were out of earshot.

Meanwhile, Alan, TinTin and Fermat followed Gordon down the balcony stairs, teasing and congratulating one another like grade-school athletes.

"Did you see his face? Dude, that was a, like, master-stroke," Alan laughed, shoving Fermat halfway down the steps. "Dissolving Thunderbird 1 would get dad's attention, for sure!"

Fermat recovered his footing and grinned back, squinting near-sightedly.

"And get… m- my dad fired!" He replied. Then, shoving back, "So y- you're… gay, huh?"

TinTin smiled at Alan's sudden, wild color change. She had, of course, eased the memory of her own confession from her young friends' wide-open minds.

"No, I'm not!" the baby-faced teen insisted, "It was all I could think of in a hurry, okay?"

It took them a long moment to realize that Gordon was having very little to say. Other than telling the eager, face-licking dog in his arms to… "Get off!" …the red-head stalked silently along ahead of them, and spoke not at all. His shoulder and back muscles seemed tense to the point of bursting through Gordon's sunburnt hide. He was headed for the shore, of course.

TinTin reacted first, catching up to the young aquanaut in a few hurried steps. Placing a light hand upon his arm, she whispered,

"Gordon?"

He only shrugged, though, looking determinedly away. Gordon hadn't broken down since he was four years old, having realized early on that his own fear and anxiety simply doubled his mum's. She'd needed him to be strong, and so he was. Always.

Alan jogged up at his other side, trailing Fermat like a satellite.

"Listen, man…" his younger brother began, "I'm sure he didn't mean all that stuff. He was just, y'know, mad. But, um… hey! I got just the thing to, like, soothe your troubled mind. How 'bout a quick rescue, Bro?"

Standing out on the upper pool deck, in cool, slanted sunshine, Alan gave them all a mischievous grin. He had their attention, now.

"For real, just us four. We could hot-wire Thunderbird 7 while everyone's looking the other way, and save John's, like, backward-talking evil twin from ultimate carnage and destruction. What d'you say? Deal?"

As if there was any question. (..except for TinTin's, of course, but she always worried. Girls, y'know?)