Sooo…funny story. I have already written the next chapter of this, was about to post it and thank goodness I did because it turns out I had forgotten the entire middle of this fic…
Virgil turned in, planning to not get up before lunch.
If only he had forced Scott to bed.
If only he had argued.
If only he had done something that night.
…
Virgil did indeed get up after lunch. He stretched luxuriously and took his time with his ablutions, taking far longer than usual and revelling in the sheer luxury of time and piping hot water.
By the time he made it to the kitchen it was almost 3pm. The coffee pot was barely warm, which gave him pause, but Scott wasn't at the desk and he assumed that his brother had taken advantage of the peace and quiet to take a longer jog than normal and probably headed down to the gym.
Humming to himself, he made two mugs of coffee and four ham and cheese salad sandwiches, and headed down to Two, meaning to pop half of his load in to Scott on the way.
But Scott wasn't in the gym.
Virgil frowned. It wasn't like Scott had many places he went when he had downtime. The man had no hobbies other than running and working out. He wasn't in the pool. If he was in his room still…maybe he was ill.
That thought spurred Virgil into action. He dumped the food and drink in the gym and virtually ran up to the bedrooms. He paused at the door to Scott's room, settling his chest, and knocked.
Nothing.
He didn't want to disturb John's downtime either, but there was that niggling feeling in the back of his head that something was not right.
His Scooter sense was tingling.
'John?'
'Virgil. Everything ok?'
'Yeah. Um…where is everyone?'
'Kayo took Grandma shopping, Gordon and Alan are out in the boat and Scott is…huh.'
Virgil's worry ramped up as John paused and looked away.
'Scott's out in the jungle, down by the foot of Mount Tracy, by one of his usual trails.'
'John?'
'I'm calling Gordon back. Virgil, you need to hurry. According to his stats something is very wrong.'
Virgil didn't need telling twice, he was already on his way before John had finished talking, grabbing the medkit they had out by the pool area as he ran.
There was no faster way to get to where Scott was than by foot, and fit as Virgil was, running was not his preferred pastime, leaving him breathing heavily as he reached the area.
Scott wasn't on the running trail.
His brother was crumpled off the track, in the jungle.
And looking at the scene as he ran up, it looked like Scott had fallen.
His brother had fallen off the mountain.
Out of all of the brothers, Virgil was the one least likely to curse, apart from Alan of course. Now, reaching an unmoving Scott, feeling for a pulse and realising how cold his brother was, he let fly a string worthy enough for John to raise his eyebrows.
'He's too cold, John! How long has he been out here?'
'I've gone over his comm activity. Seems he must have headed out about an hour after you last saw him.'
'F***. How long has he been lying here?'
'Almost 9 hours.'
'F***.'
Virgil covered Scott with a foil blanket while the Medscanner did its job. He could tell without looking there was at least a broken arm, and if Scott had got off without breaking both his legs it would be a miracle.
It was a miracle. Thank goodness for the jungle.
Both legs were intact, although there was severe bruising and a sprained ankle. Multiple contusions and abrasions down his arms, back and legs from the fall, a lump on his head with a moderate concussion. A broken arm and clavicle.
He began to gently move Scott into a position where he could get better access to his injuries. Virgil began by fixing a neck brace, just in case Scott woke up – not that he held out much hope of that – and started cleaning his brother's wounds.
By the time he was ready to tackle the broken bones Gordon was hovering overhead in Two while Alan was lowering down on the rescue platform with a stretcher. They were practiced at this, and before much time had passed Scott was up in the infirmary and Two was landing.
None of his injuries needed hospital treatment. Yet. Virgil was more concerned with the hypothermia from exposure than anything else. Not that that was difficult to treat. Hell, they had been lucky. If the island wasn't so tropical they could have lost Scott in that timeframe.
Guilt was for later, though. Cleaned, bandaged and casted, all they had to do now was wait for Scott to wake up. He had the obligatory drip. Scott's electrolytes were all over the place, he was severely dehydrated and slightly malnourished, and that was most likely the combination that caused him to black out while running up the side of the volcano.
And didn't Virgil feel even more guilty over that.
While Scott slept John joined them, and as they sat around the infirmary waiting for their fallen brother to wake up, they discussed how they could make Scott's workload a bit more manageable. Kayo and Grandma arrived, and Penny joined in the conversation in holo-form.
It didn't take long to have a workable arrangement. Now they just needed Scott to wake up.
And wake up he did.