One

He was lying on something hard, there was an oxygen mask clamped to his face and his body throbbed in that all too familiar way that told him he'd slammed into something. Nothing felt broken though, that was good, but he'd be all the colours of the contusion rainbow by morning.

"Ugh….what hit me?" He asked the world in general, not wanting to open his eyes just yet. His voice sounded croaky to his own ears, he must have been out for a while.

"A bus." His brother's voice floated down to him, amused, as gentle hands took the oxygen mask away now that he didn't need it anymore.

"What?" He frowned, cracked an eye open, then hissed in pain and threw an arm over his face to protect his still sensitive eyes from the dim light. "Seriously? A bus?" He asked when the pain ebbed, trying to catch up with the situation.

"Seriously, you got hit by a bus. Or more like you hit the bus. One of the soldiers cut your line and you fell right onto it." The chuckle was barely suppressed. "C'mon, lemme help you sit up."

He blindly reached out with his free hand, felt it be taken and he was hauled into a sitting position, a strong arm supporting his back. He sat like that for a moment, head down and eyes shut because of a wave of nausea that accompanied the change in position- he had to have taken a crack on the head again, that'd explain how fuzzy he was feeling. Finally he felt well enough to try looking around again. Familiar deck plates greeted him, but it took a moment to register he was just in his dark undersuit. Frowning, he looked at his brother.

"They shot you with some kind of tracking gel stuff, remember? We had to ditch your armour." Was the explanation.

"Damn, I'd just gotten it broken in too." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache building. "What's our ETA to home?" Two of his migraine pills and a very strong coffee sounded like a very good idea right now.

"Fifteen minutes, we're taking the long way in case they're still tracking us somehow."

There was a step at the hatch and his sister appeared. "Good, you're up." She nodded in approval. "Fuse, help Fury get up and strap in, we've got some tricky flying coming up."

"I can stand." Scott pushed himself to his feet before Fuse could offer his help, using the bulkhead for support as he staggered into the cockpit of the Chaos Cruiser. He found his chair and buckled in just as proximity alarms started sounding.

Seconds later the Cruiser suddenly juddered and dropped in mid air as something landed on its back.

"It's Thunderbird Shadow!" Havoc snarled and wrenched at the controls. Their craft rocked crazily through pitch and yaw, and sky and sea traded places more than once as she tried to shake off the sleek black Thunderbird clamped onto the Cruiser. Then a new alarm squealed into life and Havoc slapped a button to silence it. "Fuse, Fury, lock down all systems! They're hacking us!" She snapped the orders out, fear in her voice.

The two men leapt out of their seats to obey, pressing buttons and rerouting systems to try and stay ahead of the hack that was steadily breaking through their layers of security to the ship's core systems. Havoc swore up a blue streak, control panels all over the ship suddenly glitched and reset, the ship's flight path evened out as the autopilot took over, then in front of Havoc a hologram appeared of a man in a blue spacesuit, arms crossed over his chest and looking up at her smugly. "Hello Chaos Crew, your ship is now under my control." He informed them.

Fury felt a strange shock of recognition, staring open-mouthed over Havoc's shoulder at the miniature image of a slim built man in IR blues, his head crowned with a shock of bright ginger hair.

He knew that face.

Years ago the psychologist or whatever she was at the hospital he'd woken up in had called it a trauma response- he'd blotted out everything from before the plane crash that left him stranded in England at the tail end of the 2040 global conflict. He had vague memories of an adult who was with him, but nothing else. Everything but his first name was buried somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind and stubbornly refused to come back because his brain had decided it was just too painful.

In those first few months after the crash he'd initially hoped that someone would come for him, like in the movies where the orphan gets a happy ending, because surely he had a family and his family would come for him, right? But as the days and weeks passed and there was no magical moment of a familiar figure standing at the door and calling his name, hope turned to bitter ashes.

Bitterness had turned to anger- if they couldn't be bothered looking for him, he couldn't be bothered looking for them. Feeling unwanted and grievously wounded by that obscure pain, he'd bounced around different foster homes and orphanages until he'd ended up in the same orphanage as Heather and Clarence about two years before they all aged out.

They were like him- abandoned, hurting and angry at the world, deemed 'unadoptable' by the powers that be as if they were feral dogs in the pound. Sensing their pain, long dormant instincts of protect/care/love had kicked in and he'd claimed them as his. They'd escaped the orphanage in the middle of the night and struck out on their own.

Renaming themselves Fury, Havoc and Fuse, their arrival on the worldwide scene six months ago had made a rather loud noise. The GDF had tried to stop them, but with their tech sponsored by their current employer- the criminal mastermind known as The Hood- they ran rings around the lumbering GDF.

But now it looked like with today's ruckus they'd caused enough of a fuss that International Rescue had deigned to descend from their lofty heights to attempt to deal with them directly, instead of just cleaning up the chaos left in their wake.

All this shot through his mind in a matter of moments, then the ginger began speaking again. "You have two choices." He began. "The GDF are right behind you so you can surrender to them, or try to fight and then surrender to them. We're only interested in one thing."

"What's that?" Havoc sneered, running her fingers over the consoles in a futile attempt to wrest back control of her ship.

The ginger-haired man pointed over her shoulder, looking straight at Fury. "Him."

Their only warning was a blast of wind as the top hatch flew open and a figure in teal dropped in behind them. Then the next thing Fury knew was there was an arm around his neck and a second locking his arm behind his back. Spots were already dancing in his vision as his assailant threw them both backwards through the already open bottom hatch, then they were falling… and he knew no more.

0o0o0

Kayo paced the length of the infirmary. It'd been a risky move, but after everything, after all this time… the risk had been worth it. They couldn't let this chance slip past them.

Rigby had called them during the rescue- the captain of the GDF taskforce set up to catch the Chaos Crew had managed to capture an image of Fury's face at the site of today's rampage- a tritonium processing facility. The Crew leader had never been seen without his tinted helmet on, when his associates had stripped his armour off to ditch the tracking gel that the GDF had shot him with, a camera drone happened to be in the right place at the right time to see his face. He'd sent it to her in the hopes that their network might be able to put a name to him.

John had seen it first; she was a little busy rescuing people from the refinery that the Crew had sabotaged as a distraction. He'd been on comms with her at the time, and she couldn't recall the last time that John had actually stopped mid word. When she'd gotten a moment to check his hologram and make sure his silence wasn't just her radio shorting out she saw that he was staring at the image in open-mouthed shock, white-faced even through the blue tinting of the hologram.

Then he'd breathed a word, reverential and daring to hope. "...Scott…"

Heart in her throat, she'd gotten herself to safety and pulled up the image. Blue eyes, dimples, Jeff's jawline, the Tracy nose, and brown hair cropped short in a buzz cut. Even though their last image of him was of an eleven year old it could only be their long lost brother. She knew it before the facial recognition program that EOS was running could confirm it.

It was him.

"Tell the others." She'd barked to John, jolting him out of his shocked stupor. "We need a plan. Now."

It had been thrown together in short order- she'd follow the Cruiser using Shadow's stealth tech. As soon as Thunderbird One was in position, she'd clamp onto the Cruiser's back and John would link to the Cruiser through her 'bird and hack it, then distract the Chaos Crew while she dropped into their ship, grabbed Fury in a sleeper hold and fell out the bottom hatch with him. Thunderbird One would be positioned underneath them, flying belly up with her main hatch open and inner hull lined with inflatable crash mattresses to catch them.

It'd been desperate and risky, but it'd worked. A careful roll got One back on her normal axis without hurting them in the process, Fury was sedated and secured and John left the Cruiser on autopilot, flying in circles to wait for the GDF to collect them while he remote piloted Shadow back home.

Now they were home and Fury was strapped down to a bed in the infirmary, still sedated. A DNA test had confirmed it- Fury was Scott, their long lost brother.

Upstairs the rest of the family were holding a war conference while she kept watch over Scott- a comms earbud kept her in the loop. She could hear different theories being thrown back and forth over 'why' and 'how?!', hitches in voices as old wounds ripped open and gushed with raw guilt to the cries of 'we should have looked harder!' and 'why did we stop looking for him?'

Finally one voice rose above the rest- Virgil- pouring oil on the troubled waters. "What happened before is a question for later, we can beat ourselves up about it and do more self-flagellation another time. The question we need to answer now is what do we do next? We can't keep him sedated forever."

"Virgil's got a point." That was John. "He recognised me, I can talk to him."

"No, I will." The declaration was firm, their commander wasn't in the mood for contradictions. "Kayo, put Scott in the side room, untie him and wait. I'll be down there shortly. Boys, I want you waiting in the main infirmary, just in case this doesn't go well."

A round of 'F.A.B's, then the connection was cut as Kayo pushed the bed into the side room reserved for when a family member needed some peace and quiet to recover, untied the belts and lingered by the door to wait.

When she was little, she'd imagined what this day might be like, the day they found their long lost brother.

Now that it was here… she didn't know what to expect. Her older self, more cynical, seasoned by life and experience, told her this wouldn't be as easy as her younger self hoped. Seamless and easy happy endings only happened in movies. Life was a lot more complicated than script writers liked to make out.

She could only hope and pray that whatever was going to happen next would be as good as it could be.

0o0o0

He was in a place that smelled like a hospital- that sharply clean smell of disinfectants and ozone. A confused tumble of memories came flooding back to the forefront of his mind and Fury was off the bed and into a half crouch, his confused brain telling him he was back in that overcrowded hospital after the plane crash. Panic was already pulling at the controls for 'fight' and 'flight' response when his surroundings registered- it wasn't that hospital.

It was somewhere else.

Warily, he rose from his crouch and looked around, panic replaced by logic as he scoped out his situation. He was still in his undersuit, but someone had slit open the right sleeve from wrist to elbow and there was a little plaster there- pulling it off he saw the hole for an IV. The room he was in wasn't too small, it's contents a bed that he'd occupied until a few moments ago, a stainless steel rolling trolley that was empty, a locked door, the hookups for oxygen in the wall and some inbuilt cubby holes full of spare bedding and hospital scrubs.

It didn't look like any sort of jail he'd been in, and he'd been in a few, but he'd never stayed for long and he wasn't about to change that pattern.

As he scrutinised a vent close to the ceiling to see if it would be possible to use as an escape route, the door behind him clicked open and a voice uttered one word: "Scott?"

He froze.

Heart pounding in his chest.

Breath catching in his throat.

Denial and disbelief warred in his brain as he replayed that single word, half certain he was imagining it… that this couldn't be real… then long buried memories bubbled to the surface and for the first time in a long time he dared to entertain hope that maybe… maybe… this was real.

He dug his fingernails into his palm, the pain assuring him that no, this wasn't a dream. He half turned towards the door but kept his eyes down at the floor, not ready to be crushed under the weight of disappointment if he raised his eyes any higher and was met by someone who wasn't who he thought and hoped and prayed it was.

"What…" His voice cracked, he swallowed hard and licked dry lips before trying again. "What did you call me?" He rasped out the words in a hoarse whisper, almost feeling strangled by the emotions surging in him.

"Scotty, it's me."

Scott raised his eyes, blinking away the tears that blurred his vision. The face was older, grey streaked the hair, but the eyes were still the same.

"...Mom…?"

Next thing he knew he was sitting on the floor, his breath hissing between clenched teeth, his fists clenching and unclenching on his knees as he tried to ground himself back here, in the present, and not lose himself down the midnight black rabbit hole of emotions swirling through his head right now.

He ignored the tears that freely tracked down his face to drip off his chin and dot the seamlessly smooth floor- if he paid any attention to them he'd never be able to stop them- and he kept his gaze fixed on the grey epoxy floor, trying to focus enough to count the holes in the drain in the middle of the floor as a grounding exercise as he desperately attempted to rein in his emotions, to pull everything back into place behind the persona he'd crafted for himself. If he looked at her, if he thought of her name… he wouldn't be able to do that.

Shadows moved, there were footsteps and a rustle of clothing. The hem of a sage green skirt entered his vision as she knelt near him, but she had the sense to not get too close.

"...why…how…?" he managed to force the questions out, his voice a husk of his normal baritone.

Somehow she understood what he was asking. "We lost you." Was her reply. Deep within his chest, he could feel his heavily armoured and well guarded heart crack at the hitch in her voice that betrayed her own tumultuous emotions.

"You were on a repatriation flight with Grandpa at London airport, the plane was taxiing to the runway when the attack happened…" She began, her voice halting and he could hear the sniffles as she cried too. "...seven other planes and three terminals were involved… hundreds died…we were told you were dead." There was a pause and another sniff as she tried to compose herself. "We were sent a body…there… there wasn't much left, the plane caught fire... but there'd been a mix-up, we were sent someone else's child. By the time we realised it you'd already gone into the system. People had been sent to hospitals all over England, it was chaos…. We searched for you for years, but between the war, the attack…they lost your records and you slipped through the gaps…we…" Her voice cracked again, "Oh Scotty, I'm so sorry… we lost hope…"

He latched onto that statement and his anger flared, a beacon light for him to anchor himself to so he could fight his way out of the tempest. "You mean you gave up." He snapped.

She gasped like he'd slapped her. "Scott…" She tried, but that only made his anger brighter, in spite of the pang of guilt he felt at the pain in her voice- pain that he'd caused.

"Don't. Call. Me. That." He snarled, lifting his head to look at her. "My name is Fury. 'Scott' is long gone."

She rocked back as he pinned her with his glare, lips pressed into a thin line and face pale, but her hazel eyes were resolute as she refused to be cowed by his building rage.

"Now don't you dare try anything like that, young man!" A new person charged into the room and Fury felt that strange shock of recognition for the third time today- there'd been less grey and it'd been a purple blouse and dark slacks the last time he'd seen her, but he knew her- that was his grandmother. "Stand up!" Grandma Tracy barked out the order.

The building anger shocked out of him like he'd been doused with a bucket of icy water, Fury was instantly on his feet as Grandma inserted herself between him and Lucille, an accusing finger pointed in his face as he instinctively backed away from her. He hadn't survived the system without developing a very keen survival instinct and right now it was throwing up all the warning signs of 'Danger! This one's scarier than you are! Do not make angry!'

"Do you have any idea what this family went through?!" Grandma demanded, outrage making her whole body tremble with fervour. "We were sent a body that was little more than a skeleton! The only identification they had to go on was a bracelet we told them you were wearing when you left- braided wire with charms hanging off it, Virgil made it for you."

Fury nodded dumbly, his hand creeping to the barely noticeable lump on his chest beneath his undersuit. He wasn't sure what the name meant to him, but he still had that bracelet. It was the only thing he'd managed to keep with him all these years- eight braided wires with a star, a musical note, a fish, a sun and a cat dangling from them. He'd outgrown it years ago so he'd turned it into a necklace to keep it safe from the other kids and the staff and adults at the various foster homes and orphanages he'd passed through. Though he couldn't remember what each symbol represented- that too had been buried by his mind- he'd known it was precious and had guarded it fiercely.

"They found a melted metal bracelet on a male body about the right height and sent it to us. John, bless that boy," Grandma dropped her hand and shook her head in a moment of fond exasperation, "he insisted on opening the casket and realised that the bracelet wasn't the right one- Virgil used titanium wire, it wouldn't have melted. We found that person's family, returned their son and went looking for you. We searched everywhere- every country, every city, every graveyard we could find records or rumours that people had been sent to." Grandma Tracy's eyes softened as she looked up at him. "We founded International Rescue because of you. This family didn't want anyone else to suffer what we have suffered every single day since we lost you."

"Scott, we thought you were dead." Lucille's voice was stronger, but still soft as she rose. "Your name never came up anywhere we looked for you."

"The doctor said it was a trauma response." He felt numb as he reached into the neck of his undersuit to pull out the chain that held his bracelet, rubbing the well worn charms between his fingers. "I forgot everything… everything but my first name." Fury hooked his thumb behind the bracelet to show it to the two women. "Who are they?"

"They're for your brothers and Tanusha, remember her? You and your brothers pretty much adopted her, though she goes by Kayo now. The star is for John, the note is for Virgil, Gordon is the fish, Alan is the sun." Lucy told him gently. "Kayo is the cat."

The connection of names to the charms were like bells ringing in his mind and somehow the knowledge seemed to shake other things loose. "Grandpa…?" He asked, remembering a gruff voice, green flannel and work-roughened hands that gave powerful hugs.

"He didn't make it." Grandma looked away for a moment, old pain in her voice.

Other memories were bubbling to the surface now, this time of another man with a face so similar to his own but with storm-grey eyes to his bright blue. "...Dad?" he asked next. He was starting to feel lightheaded, but he had to know.

"On Thunderbird Three with Uncle Taylor and Kyrano, they're halfway back from a rescue on Mars." Mom's lips twitched in a rueful smile. "We got the message to him just before you woke up, your father's going to cook the engines on that rocket if he pushes them any harder."

He heard the words, but they didn't really register as he stumbled back to lean on the wall, the room spinning around him and a hollow roaring in his ears as his mind decided that it had had enough for now. The last thing he knew was someone shouting and arms catching him as his legs buckled underneath him and he passed out.