Two
He was in a warm, soft bed when he woke up. While not feeling entirely well and pretty stiff, he did feel so much better. He was famished though, and when he noticed the smell of something sweet and rich with cinnamon, spices and apples, his very empty stomach rumbled in response.
The scent triggered memory and he found images of a farmhouse welling up in his imagination- pale wood floors with woven rugs and runners, a fireplace boxed in with couches scattered with cushions and blankets of various hues, a large kitchen with a square-legged table in the middle, motes of dust dancing in wide beams of sunlight that fell through the four-paned windows. Stairs with a white-painted bannister led up to a row of bedrooms and somewhere behind one of those dark stained doors was a room he shared with that slim ginger who spent hour after hour bent over his telescope that pointed out the east-facing window.
"Hey, you feel up to eating anything? Mom made apple pie."
It was with great reluctance that he left the memory and opened his eyes to see who was speaking to him. He found he was in a different room- bigger, more doors, but still hospital-like. He rolled his head on the pillow to see a man looking at him with concern in his brown eyes. He was powerfully built with black hair, wearing jeans and a red plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
A name floated into his grasp and he seized it with both hands. "Virgil."
Virgil looked relieved, the lines around his eyes easing. "Yeah, that's me." He said as he pushed a rolling trolley and its burden of a well-laden plate within his reach. "How are you feeling…" He hesitated and Fury could see him wanting to use that other name, the one he'd carried before.
"Fury." He instructed, sitting up and reaching out to tug the trolley closer to the bed, flicking a glance at Virgil, but most of his attention was on the generous slice of warm apple pie sitting on a plate, a dollop of cream melting on top of the golden pastry. It was so freshly baked that the filling was still steaming and it smelled heavenly.
"Fury." Virgil was not happy with that, but he was wiser than to comment. "How are you feeling, Fury?" He asked again. "You had a concussion, we think it was from the bus. We treated that, and scanners showed a bunch of contusions and bruising on your back. I'd like to get some cream on that, but other than that you're healthy."
Fury paused and belatedly realised he was still in his undersuit, his necklace a comforting weight around his neck. To be honest he'd half expected to wake up stripped down to his underwear- that'd happened in at least two hospitals and once in jail. The concussion treatment must have been something they could do without undressing him and that they were waiting for his consent, for his permission for something that needed undressing… it was actually rather nice, but with instincts honed by bitter experience he was instantly wary- people weren't nice without a motive. His hand froze in the act of reaching for the fork laid out beside the pie and he flicked a suspicious glance at Virgil.
To his credit, the younger man put two and two together relatively quickly. "...you think I've drugged the food, don't you?" Virgil sounded disappointed in some obscure way- not with him, but with other people. "Here." he reached out, pulled the trolley over and picked up the fork. Using it to take a chunk out of the pie and a generous amount of the cream, he ate it, put the fork back and pushed the trolley back over as he chewed and swallowed. "See? Nothing." He shrugged and stepped back to lean against the wall, increasingly self conscious and uncomfortable under Fury's silent scrutiny. "I'll leave the jar of bruise cream here, there's a bathroom over there and we got some clean clothes together for you, they're in the bathroom."
Fury continued his silence, not reaching for the pie even though his mouth watered. He had to be sure it was safe.
"Are you eating his pie, Virgil?" A new voice cut in, teasing in its tone. The ginger strolled into the room, wearing comfortable civvies- a button down brown check shirt and pale blue jeans- instead of his spacesuit. He came over to lean against the wall beside Virgil, arms crossed and eyes watchful.
"Hi John. He thinks we drugged the pie, he's waiting to see if I collapse or something." Was Virgil's response, carefully neutral.
"Why would we drug the pie?" John frowned, seeming baffled by the concept.
"You're the people who kidnapped me and left my family to get arrested by the GDF." Fury finally decided to retort. "You tell me why you'd do anything." He wanted to get angry about that, to show them why he'd gotten his name, but he was feeling dangerously weak from the lack of food, he couldn't risk exhausting himself completely with rage in case they decided to jump him.
"We didn't…!" Virgil tried to argue, but John cut him off mid-word.
"Actually we did." He pointed out. "Kayo put him in a sleeper hold and we flew off with him against his will. That meets the definition of a kidnapping."
"...Oh." Virgil flushed a little and looked down.
The silence that ensued was almost painful in its awkwardness. Fury was quite content to let it hang and let them squirm- all the better to weigh them up and study them as far as he was concerned.
John eventually decided to break the silence. "So, what's next?" He ventured, looking at Fury. "Where do we go from here?"
Fury considered what to say. While the ginger was more closed he could hurt the brunette so easily, his face was an open book, and he'd learned a long time ago how to make full use of every weapon available to him.
But something stayed the most venomous and barbed retorts before he could voice them- an old, remembered echo of memory and emotions that felt like love and protectiveness stopping him. "To be honest, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop." Was the remark Fury settled on, still sharp edged and harsh, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been. "My family, the only people who've cared about me since 2040, are locked up because of you. I'm not holding my breath about you lot."
"We're your family!" Virgil protested, straightening up and distress written over his face. "We've been looking for you!"
"You're Scott's family." Fury corrected, his ire starting to rise again. How dare he claim that he cared! "Like I told your mom, Scott's been gone a long time."
To his surprise John snorted, amusement curling the corner of his mouth.
"Something funny, spaceman?" Fury demanded, instantly suspicious.
"Yes actually: you're lying." John regarded him, one eyebrow quirked and head tilted to one side. "If your old family doesn't matter to you anymore and Scott is gone, why did you keep the bracelet?"
Their phones chirped before Fury could pull together a reply. "It's EOS, there's a situation." John told Virgil without even looking at his phone. "Let's go." He glanced at Fury. "We'll be back later, get some rest."
Fury waited until the door clicked shut behind them and wolfed down the pie. He knew he'd regret it later- the stomach ache would be hell- but he still hadn't quite shaken the habit of practically inhaling his food lest someone snatch it off his plate.
When the plate was licked clean, Fury picked up the fork and grinned, eyeing the door. These people really were babes in the woods. They'd left him alone in their base with a metal fork, he'd be out of here in no time.
0o0o0
Seated in the conversation pit and flanked by Grandma and Kayo, Lucille watched the security holograms with an intent expression as the door to the infirmary annex popped open and Fury slipped out. He looked both ways down the hallway and turned left. The others were all off on missions- a bridge collapse in Taiwan needed Thunderbirds One and Two- but the women weren't worried about the semi-stranger in their midst, they could take care of themselves.
"He's looking for a way out." Kayo voiced what they were all thinking. "He wants to leave, why?"
"Remember, his family for the past few years have been those other two, we took him from them and locked them up." Grandma pointed out, her expression unreadable. "Scotty has always been fiercely loyal to his family, he's not going to abandon those two just because we snatched him up and swooped away with him."
Lucille stood and paced, her long skirt swishing about her ankles. She felt torn in so many directions. Her firstborn son was home, but he was a stranger and she had to protect her family from him. She desperately wanted to fix him and ached to hold her little boy again, but instinct warned her off daring to touch him while he was awake. But she had sneaked a cuddle when he'd collapsed earlier while Grandma was getting the medical kit and shouting for Virgil. It'd felt so good to hold her oldest son again! In his sleeping face she had seen traces of her little flyboy, but his harsh life had left deep lines that not even unconsciousness could fully smooth away and her heart had broken all over again when she saw those indelible marks.
There were other things though, little things that gave her hope. He'd started off with what Lady Penelope had identified as a 'North London' accent, but now an American accent had started bleeding through. His body language had been changing too- less defensive, more open. He still knew them on some level, that he could trust them, that they were familiar and safe. The problem was convincing him of that.
"Grandma?" She turned to her mother in law, her question in her eyes.
"You have to be patient, dear." Grandma reminded her. "He's wounded, hurting and he's had a very hard life. If we want his trust we have to wait for him to feel safe enough to come to us." She turned to check the hologram hovering over the desk behind them- the current locations of all the Thunderbirds. "Looks like Jeff and Kyrano have dropped off Lee at Alfie, they'll be here soon. Maybe Jeff will be able to get through to him."
"I hope so." Lucille fretted, picking at the quick of her thumbnail in a rare nervous fidget. The projector chimed for attention and EOS' hologram popped up.
"Commander," EOS sounded worried, "Scott is approaching the main hangar. What would you like me to do? Shall I stop him?"
Lucille thought for a moment, this would be a fine tightrope to walk. She didn't want to treat him like a prisoner, but she had to prioritise her family and IR's safety and security while he was such an unknown quantity. Not to mention they had a rescue to run as well. "EOS, wait and see what he does, if he tries to get into anywhere dangerous or Brains' lab lock the doors, but let him roam around for now. If he finds the elevator into the villa, alert me. Grandma, I need you to take dispatch, Virgil needs me beaming in on Mini-MAX to assist with the structural evaluation." She looked to Kayo. "Follow him, make sure he doesn't see you."
Kayo smiled as she lithely rose to her feet. "No one ever does unless I want them to." She remarked and headed for the concealed accessway to the lower levels.
0o0o0
Fury slipped down the passageway like a ghost, eyes and ears everywhere, cataloguing everything he could to try and figure this place out. Wherever he was, it was underground. Rooms and hallways had been bored out of the rock, but they'd also taken advantage of natural spaces- caves and the like- resulting in an absolute warren of rooms and halls. He passed workshops, labs, some sort of locker room and plenty of store rooms for food and materials.
Eventually he found his way onto what looked like a fairly well used path, hoping it would lead to outside or some sort of vehicle storage, when the corridor ended in a large and well secured blast door. That had to be something important and he approached it carefully, looking for a way to get through.
"You don't want to go in there." A female voice, precise and sharp, echoed from somewhere.
"What? Who's there?" Fury looked around, putting his back to the wall and raising his fists. "Don't tell me there's another sister running around."
"If you wish to use human terms you could call me your niece, it's quite a stretch though." Was the remark that answered him, the speaker still unseen. "But let me reiterate- you don't want to go in there."
"Why not?" Thoroughly baffled but doing his best to hide it, Fury continued to edge towards the door. While it had a keypad lock on it, he was pretty sure he could figure out a way past it with the tricks he'd picked up.
"Thunderbird Three will be landing shortly and while the silo does contain most of the heat and fumes it becomes quite unpleasant for humans in there." He could almost hear the nonchalant shrug in her voice as she went on. "But if you truly are determined I suppose you could go in anyway and find out for yourself."
Despite himself, Fury found this unnamed person was growing on him. She was as acerbic as Havoc with a sass he could respect. "Maybe not. Who are you anyway?" He asked, looking around again for the speaker.
A hologram flickered into life beside the door, but it was an icon or symbol of some sort, not a person- a double ring, the inner area between the lines dotted with indicator lights that glowed white as she spoke. "I am EOS. John wrote my original code, but I have developed well beyond that on my own- hence the inaccurate suggestion of 'niece' if you really wanted to designate me with a familial link. Everyone else categorises me as John's companion or friend."
"An AI?" Fury blinked in surprise. If IR had an actual artificial intelligence that explained what had happened the one time Havoc had managed to isolate International Rescue's waveband and tried to hack into their communications. "You're what kept Havoc out of the system!"
"I am." She sounded incredibly smug. "I am also what's keeping you from hurting yourself and what will keep you out of the Thunderbirds, so there's little point going that way."
Noting the comment about Thunderbirds being that way and filing it away for later, he decided to play along for now. Besides, as Havoc always said, if the door's locked, go for the window. "So where can I go?" He asked, humouring her.
"Backtrack, take the second doorway on your left and the first on your right, that will lead you outside. It's a lovely evening tonight, at least that's what Virgil says." EOS informed him. "He is an artist, I suppose he would be able to judge if something is aesthetically pleasing."
Fury grunted his acknowledgement and retraced his steps. 'Outside' had a pretty decent potential for 'escape options' and if the AI was as innocent and naive as the rest seemed to be he could potentially sweet-talk her into something. That she was actually sending him outside seemed to be a good indication of her street-sense, or lack of it.
Besides, he hadn't seen the sky in far too long, he was starting to get twitchy.
The instructions led him to an emergency door. He twisted the handle, put his shoulder to the heavy metal door and pushed. It clanged open and he stepped out onto a shelf of volcanic rock, cool night air swirling about him. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness after the bright artificial light of inside and he swore when he finally could see his surroundings.
In front of him was a short stretch of rock, a pebbled beach and nothing but ocean from horizon to horizon. He stepped out and onto the beach, looking all around to try and get some kind of bearings. A mountain reared up into the sky behind him, a glow partway up betrayed where two large houses or something were, and there was a dark lump with a navigation beacon across the bay- a smaller island, at his guess.
He huffed a wry chuckle to himself, he definitely wasn't on the ball today. Of course the AI had let him go outside, there wasn't anywhere he could go. She was more sly than he'd realised. And while he suspected the Tracys had boats or something, he didn't know enough about one of those to risk navigating one on his own.
A thunderous roar from far above made him look up and he spotted a descending light- it had to be the rocket, Thunderbird Three. It dropped out of the sky on a pillar of fire and slipped through the round building set higher up the mountain.
Letting out a sigh, Fury kicked off his boots and sat down on the beach, feeling the still warm rocks shift as he stretched out his long legs and let the waves lap at his feet. This wasn't going to be as easy as he thought.