The sky was still mostly dark, but the predawn light was spreading along the horizon. Scott's favourite time of day, just him and the island and the sky.
He dressed quickly and set off, intent on completing the longest trail on the island. Stretching out, he revelled in the quiet. Not even the birds were awake yet, and the insects were almost as silent.
Nothing compared to this feeling.
His feet pounded firstly though the sand then through the jungle, up onto the volcano trail. By the time he reached the top of the caldera the sun was just breaking over the ocean. Scott paused there, sipping from a bottle of water he had carried with him.
Scott breathed in deeply. And out. And in, closing his eyes and listening to the birds waking up.
It was almost a year ago that the accident had happened, and at one point during that time he thought, they all thought, he may not be able to run ever again, let alone go onto rescues again. One of the screws that had been holding his hip together had become infected. Protocol meant that the pin stayed in until the bone knitted, making it a very painful – and Scott Tracy absolutely knew the meaning of pain – very painful two months.
It had set his recovery back, those two months. And there was real concern that an injury that should have taken only four to five months was still troubling him almost eight months later. Six months walking with first crutches then a cane. The physio had been brutal. Brutal.
That first time he'd been fit enough to tackle one of his running trails he was not ashamed to admit to himself that he almost cried. A thirty-minute trail that he'd had to walk at a snail's pace and had taken him the best part of two hours.
But it had felt good.
And he had gone out every day until his 'snail's pace' eventually became his normal pace. His running place. When he had completed his usual trail in his usual time Gordon had cheered.
Yesterday, Scott sighed, yesterday he had been finally cleared to return to duty, and his run today was practically a celebration. One last deep breath in and he was off again. Down the other side of the volcano, round the Round House and up by the pool, where he expected Gordon would be finishing off his laps as usual.
Only…Gordon wasn't in the pool.
Scott frowned. This was very unusual, barring rescues, and he knew that there wasn't a call-out. Concern mounting, he grabbed his towel from the patio and headed into the villa. Up via the kitchen, and there was a second alarm bell starting in his head.
There was coffee brewing. Normally Scott was the one who put the coffee on in the morning, but the machine was piping hot, telling him it had been on less than ten minutes. He poured himself an orange and sipped it as he considered what this all could mean.
Only one way to find out.
So Scott climbed the stairs to the living room where he got the third and fourth surprise of the morning. And a fifth.
Virgil was up, awake and dressed, coffee in hand. Surprise number three. Next to him, what was sure to be herbal tea in hand, stood John. In the flesh. Both were standing, leaning against the central table. Surprise number four. Gordon and Alan were seated opposite them on one couch, and Grandma and Kayo on the other.
Fifth surprise was Brains. Brains was standing next to John, arms folded and frowning.
Every eye in the place turned to watch Scott, and for the first time he could remember he paused before entering the living area. No one called him out, no one even smiled. Scott entered the sunken area at a slower pace than he had been walking before.
Virgil passed him a mug of coffee and Scott took a seat, sipping it an watching his two immediate brothers and Brains. No one said anything and he drained his drink.
'Well, this feels ominous. Is this an intervention?'
Everyone looked at everyone else, and internally Scott smirked. No one wanted to start, and he'd bet bagels that Virgil would be the one to actually start with whatever was on his family's mind. He'd hear them out before speaking. Sure enough…
'Scott. This last injury had us all scared for you.'
'And this has been one of the longest and hardest recoveries you've ever had.'
'Who knew a sheep could cause so much damage?'
'Alan!'
'What? I didn't know they could do that!'
'Alan, please. You're not helping.'
'Well, you three standing there are so serious and stern. No wonder Scott paused before joining us. Pretty sure you're not helping either.'
'Shut up, Gordon.'
Scott almost choked on his coffee as both Virgil and Brains deflated slightly, and he pretended he didn't see his Grandma and Kayo smile too. John's stance didn't change, but that wasn't surprising. However, Gordon was right, the three of them standing so formally had made him pause. Maybe he should weigh in before things got heated.
'Guys, why don't you all just tell me what the hell is going on here.'
There was another moment where everyone looked at everyone else, and Scott relaxed back against the chair while waiting. He had to work hard to keep his face straight. This time John would start. Ah…yep.
'What everyone is trying to say, Scott, is that we love you and we're happy that you've recovered and have been cleared to be back on duty.'
There was a smattering of applause that died out as quickly as it started, with Alan flushing bright red. John cleared his throat.
'As I was saying. Virgil is right though. You've had a particularly long and bad run of injuries. Your penchant of running out in front of us has only added to these. You've been through an impressive number of suits and pods.'
Here John looked to Brains and the engineer nodded, and then flushed. He hated confrontation of any sort.
'So we've been talking about how to help keep you safer than you currently are.'
Scott looked around. Grandma and Kayo were smiling gently, but Gordon and Alan were grinning. Grinning too widely for them to be innocent, and he frowned at them. Gordon's grin got wider but Alan gulped and swallowed, wiping the smile of his own face and eyes widening. Scott bit his lip to stop himself from laughing at his youngest brothers' antics.
He wasn't the only one frowning at the terrible two. Everyone was. Virgil cleared his throat. Scott wasn't really surprised to find his two immediate brothers were tag-teaming him.
'So we asked Brains to come up with a suit that would be more…protective for you.'
'Protective? Protective how?'
The frown was back on Scott's face. John and Virgil yielded the floor to Brains. The genius cleared his throat nervously. He was studiously avoiding looking in Scott's direction.
'We-we-well, I, uh, we decided th-that why re-re-redo something I've done before.'
'Brains? What are you talking about?'
'I, er, with your br-brothers help, have designed a new s-s-suit for you. Wa-wa-one that we hope will help with your, um, difficulty staying in one piece.'
Scott laughed. There wasn't much else that could be said.
'So where is this new suit?'
'It's, er, it's ready in your chute.'
'Oh, right. Well, I guess I better go see what you've got for me.'
He clapped Brains on the shoulder as he made his way to his chute. He couldn't keep the grin off his face. A virtually whole year of not being able to fly – it was the longest time he had ever been grounded. Scott didn't care what his new uniform was like, just being able to fly, was enough.
He stepped between the lamps and looked at the huge grins on everyone's faces. And he pulled the lamps down and disappeared from sight.
As soon as Scott had disappeared everyone in the room let out nervous laughter. But it was Alan who said it.
'Scott's going to kill you all.'
They waited. And waited. And waited. Scott should have finished by now and have made his way back up. And still they waited. It was Virgil who eventually moved. Touching his comm he called.
'Scott? Are you alright?'
'Fine.'
'Are you coming back up?'
'I assume you are all in on this?'
'Yeah…'
'I'm coming up.'
'Told you!' Alan sang.
Scott hadn't sounded angry, he'd sounded…actually, Virgil wasn't sure what he sounded like. They waited with baited breaths while Scott climbed his way back to them.
They watched as the familiar uniform of blue and grey appeared. And they said nothing, waiting for Scott to speak first.
Scott stood there before them all, arms folded across his new chest plate. His uniform had been augmented. It was a little loose in places where he still had muscle to put on, but the intent of the unform was obvious. He pinned each and every one of his family with a glare, even his Grandmother didn't escape
'You think that I'm that much in need?'
'We-we-well, you've been through more uniforms than any of y-y-your brothers.'
'And you've spent more time injured than any of us. Only Virgil comes close, and you outstrip him by months.'
'We just want to be safer, Scott.'
'And we know you're not going to stop jumping out in front of us.'
'So this seems to be the next best thing.'
'This? This is Alan's uniform!'
Scott gestured to his uniform. It was his, but he now had Alan's chest plate, along with all his other armour, only in blue.
There was a flash as Gordon took a picture. Scott frowned. Alan was grinning widely, and before Scott could make a move his youngest brother had burst into laughter. It set everyone else off until he was the only one in the room not laughing.
Scott refolded his arms and let them get it out of their systems. It took far longer than it should have. He sourly noted that even his Grandma was laughing, even if it wasn't the full body laughing that his brothers were doing.
Eventually they all managed to get themselves under control and Virgil stepped forward, slinging an arm around his shoulder.
'I'm sorry, Scott. It came up in conversation and we just couldn't resist.'
'Just as long as none of you are serious about this.'
He gestured once more to the chest plate. Now that everyone had had their fun Scott began to remove it and the other pieces.
'N-n-no, Scott. Not the armour. Bu-bu-but we have managed to weave some Kevlar into the f-f-fabric without affecting its' flexibility. G-g-given that you and your brothers are t-t-targets as well as the possibilities of f-f-further injuries, this will give you all an added l-l-layer of protection.'
'Wow, that's great!'
Scott put his uniform through a series of stretches designed to pull the material into all kinds of manoeuvres. It didn't feel any different than before, and he flashed a grin at the two engineers.
'That's it, Scott. Now you're all set for duty.'
Scott grinned at them all. He couldn't wait…
