Disclaimer: I don't own Thunderbirds.

Sicktember Prompt 8: Contagious, with Alan and Scott (requested by ak47stylegirl)

School. A place of great learning, supposedly. Somewhere to send children for several hours a day to get them out from underneath their guardians' feet and teach them to be functional members of society. Compulsory in some manner or other.

A breeding ground for festering resentment, bullying, and disease.

Five grandsons meant that Sally was very used to one or other of them coming down with something they'd contracted at school, and then passing it around the others until they were all down for the count. It was basically a rite of passage; the same had happened to Jeff, and she had her own memories of plentiful illnesses making the rounds through her classmates.

Each generation hated it just as much as the ones that came before, although Sally thought that out of all of them, Jeff had had it the easiest. A child at the peak of effective vaccinations, most of the most severe childhood diseases had passed him by, kept at bay by the childhood jabs he'd ungratefully suffered through. Medical advancements had, of course, continued since then, but the so-called 'antivax' movement during his young adulthood had dealt a major blow to the ongoing effectiveness of vaccinations, and even thirty-odd years later, the effects were felt far and wide.

No longer tempered by vaccinations, diseases that had been all but defeated had made a major comeback. Even by itself that had been a problem, increasing childhood mortality rates back up to those seen in the previous century, but it hadn't stopped there. Faced with the threat of vaccines ready to pound them into submission, the viruses had engaged their ultimate defence.

Mutation.

Gone was the guaranteed immunity from vaccinations; no matter how much the medical community scrambled to keep up, the viruses continued to evolve and evade them. Long-controlled viruses ran rampant again, striking swathes of children down as they passed it amongst themselves at school, and Sally lived in fear of her grandsons catching some of the particularly nasty ones that should never have been allowed to return.

They were still vaccinated, of course. Lucille had been a very sensible woman, and Sally would have had it no other way. While vaccinations were no longer the cast-iron defence of a generation earlier, they still provided some modicum of protection.

It was that modicum of protection that had saved the eldest two from a particularly horrible case of rubella several years earlier. Mumps had been similarly deflected away from Virgil and Gordon, and now Alan was completing the set with measles.

The five year old was utterly miserable, as would be expected. Feverish, wracked with a deep chesty cough, and more often than not in tears, the only rest he was getting was when he passed out from exhaustion, which was a fitful rest at best and certainly not enough to keep his energy levels from rock bottom.

Ideally, the intention would have been to keep him isolated from his brothers until the contagious period passed, to stop it rushing through the five of them like wildfire, but that was complicated by the fact that he shared a room with his eldest brothers, neither of whom had been interested in leaving Alan to suffer alone. Their attitude was admirable, but predictably it had backfired on both of them, and the entire bedroom was officially in quarantine.

Virgil and Gordon had been told that under no circumstances were they to enter until Sally gave them the all-clear. She just hoped they obeyed her, otherwise she was facing a household pandemic. It was obvious that both were very annoyed at being kept from their brothers, but with any luck common sense would prevail.

In the meantime, she had three grandsons at different levels of suffering. John appeared to be the best off, with barely a temperature at all and only a throaty cough and mild rash to signify he was ill, while Scott had a full fever and highly photosensitive eyes which had resulted in the curtains being permanently closed in the room. Little Alan, their patient zero, was the worst, garnering sympathy from both his infected brothers despite being the reason for their own illnesses.

When checking in on them, and providing food when they could stomach it – not often, and a moment of triumph for all involved when they could – Sally almost always found Alan in the bed of one of his big brothers, wrapped up protectively in their arms. It was usually Scott, unsurprisingly, but John rose to the occasion when the eldest's fever left him barely aware and in no condition to look after a distressed five year old.

Well, they'd all already caught the thing, so they weren't going to make each other any worse. It was also definitely helping Alan, whose tears were silent rather than accompanied by wails when he was in a brother's bed.

Sally decided to leave it be, even if she had to work around the five year old limpet while coaxing a closed-eyed Scott into drinking a little more water – yes, Scott, it's just water – and gently wiping the teenager's crusted eyelids clear of the gathering gunk, or checking John's temperature the old fashioned hand-on-forehead way to see if his mild fever had broken yet.

At least none of them had developed the dangerous complications, so with some medicine – begrudgingly taken by all three boys – and rest, they'd all be right as rain in another week or so.

Then they'd all go back to school and no doubt catch the next thing going around that virus breeding ground, provided Virgil and Gordon didn't beat them to it.

I could not for the life of me think of a single contagious disease today, so I resorted to asking my mother for ideas - therefore the choice of disease inflicted upon the boys today is her fault.

I'm dabbling in Sicktember over on tumblr! Only doing prompts that I get a character request for, so feel free to drop by with a request. You can find the list on the sicktember tumblr blog!

Thanks for reading!
Tsari