For Gumnut who, when given this prompt: 'Person A princess-carrying Person B', suggested this… and with thanks to Sineater for the read-through.
It had been Grandma's suggestion, born of one incident too many. She'd taken Virgil and Brains to one side afterwards and suggested that this would be a good idea.
Virgil had laughed until he cried.
Now, Gran Rocha had been thoroughly put through her paces and there was one more exercise left to complete.
John was at the console, going over the stats for the exercises completed so far. Gordon, Alan and Kayo were chatting in the corner.
Scott and Virgil were also discussing the day's activates. They were walking back across the mat when Virgil just dropped like a stone.
As everyone rushed forward Brains triggered the hidden walls, sealing them each in their corners.
Scott set to work. He didn't have a Medscanner, but he was still a trained first aider. Pulse was strong. Breathing too. He turned his brother into the recovery position and sat back on his heels.
'Scott? Report.'
His Grandmother's voice came over the speakers and Scott looked up. He straightened up, the Commander coming to the fore.
'Pulse and breathing are good. Colour is good. Not sure what happened, if I didn't know better I would think he'd just fainted.'
The walls shifted, leaving Scott with a path to the end of the training area, but it still kept everyone else away from him. He twigged that this was another training session.
'Ok, good, Scott. Now, I want you to bring Virgil over here so he can get treatment. Innovate, Scott.'
The edge of the mat wasn't that far away. He could drag Virgil, but that wouldn't be comfortable on his brother, and since this was a simulation, he would definitely not do this to a rescuee.
Carrying was his only option. The question was, which one? Fireman's carry was the safest. Yeah. Scott rolled his shoulders.
And stopped.
There was a spark of recognition.
The rescue.
Two weeks ago Scott had stumbled on a rescue and badly cut his leg. And had carried on with the rescue, getting the wound all dirty. It had required cleaning and stitching and he'd passed out. Virgil had needed to carry him back to Two, the ground treacherous.
No…not fireman's.
This was payback.
He rolled his shoulders again. Knelt down and rolled Virgil into position.
Arm under knees, arm around shoulder. Roll shoulders once more to get his brother's head leaning onto his shoulder.
Flexed his knees and stood up.
God but his brother was heavy.
Didn't matter though. Scott had been carrying his brothers to bed since he was eight and he wasn't about to stop now.
Standing up tall he lightly jostled Virgil to make both of them comfortable, ignoring the jeers from Gordon, and he strode purposefully towards the end goal.
He didn't miss a step, didn't falter once.
Getting to the end he gently put Virgil down on the floor and back into the recovery position, turned around to face his brothers and sister and took a bow.
They erupted.
Virgil immediately got up and clapped him on the shoulder, Grandma appearing on the other side. Brains put the walls down and everyone came over to hear what Grandma had to say.
'Well done, Scott. Textbook rescue. Virgil, get back into position.'
Virgil returned to the starting place.
'You all need to be able to carry rescuee's without a stretcher if they are not in any danger from being moved but will be if left where they are.'
She looked over her glasses.
'Alan, your turn.'
Alan paled.