Scott had blood on his hands.
It wasn't a new thing. It happened far too often to really be anything out of the ordinary. But it was different when it was his brothers'.
Oh, so different.
Technically, his hands were clean. After all, between his uniform gloves and the first aid gloves, his skin was sanitary.
But it wasn't.
He could feel it.
Virgil woke the moment his 'bird's engines flared up. It was almost predictable. It was actually a good thing. But he hadn't been coherent, stuck in the moment he last remembered. Gordon was his entire concern and it took every reassuring word and action Scott could think of to calm his brother down.
And behind him, Gordon had slipped into unconsciousness.
Fortunately, the trip was ever so short and within minutes they were on the ground again.
Virgil was still fretting. Scott had to strap his head down to prevent him from moving it, but his brother wasn't aware enough to realise why.
His distress broke Scott's heart.
Gordon's silence just scared him.
But now they were both in expert medical hands. The fact Scott knew the doctor on duty was both a reassuring and ridiculous thing.
But now, alone in the waiting room, he only had himself for company and the images and the beating of his overtaxed heart thudding in his ears.
There were a multitude of things he should be doing - checking in with the GDF, following up on the danger zone, checking in with John, Grandma...Alan.
But for one moment, just one, he let himself sit down on one of those blasted plastic waiting room chairs he hated, and dropped his head into his hands.
It was far from the exemplary conduct of the Commander of International Rescue. His uniform grated against his skin, but he needed to clear his head, calm the panic and reset to face it all again.
A gentle hand on his shoulder startled him enough to gasp.
Familiar and kind aquamarine eyes caught his as John crouched down beside him. "Hey."
Scott let out a breath. "Hey." He straightened and sat back in the chair giving himself space. "They're going to be okay."
Voice soft. "I know." John unfolded again and sat in the chair next to him. "How about you?"
"Me? I'm not injured."
"No. But it hurts anyway."
Scott's lips thinned, but he didn't answer that. There was no purpose in answering. It was acknowledged, even if he didn't want to admit it. Instead, he pushed off from the chair and threw himself to his feet.
He had things to do.
That hand caught his arm. "Scott, wait."
He turned to watch John stand up and face him. Quiet and calm. "Stay. Eos is managing the rescue. Aunt Val is managing the GDF component. Grandma is on her way."
Scott looked down at the floor a moment. He needed to be doing something. Virgil's cries were still bouncing back and forth in his head and Gordon's silence was echoing. Blood and metal and mud.
But most of all it was the senselessness. He was willing to give his life to save others. He knew his brothers felt the same.
But this?
No one was saved. It was a random fluke of nature. A mindless tornado that could have taken everything as easily as it took the lives of the people they were trying to help.
And no one had been rescued.
His brothers hadn't even had a chance to start.
It reminded him of an equally mindless avalanche, oh, so long ago.
The blood was sticky on his hands.
"Why don't you get cleaned up?" John's voice was soft as always, calm as always. This was why he was the Thunderbird he was. Why Thunderbird Five worked as well as she did. His brother was his 'bird.
John's hand shifted from Scott's arm to wrap around his shoulders. Hell, the man was still getting taller. Scott wasn't used to looking a brother directly in the eye and god forbid he have to look up.
He was the eldest, after all. It was fit he be the tallest.
"C'mon, I'll keep you company."
And before Scott could protest, John herded him out to Thunderbird Two and her ample bathroom facilities. A shower and his mud and blood-spattered uniform was replaced with a red flannel shirt and a pair of jeans both too big and too short at the same time.
He had Virgil poking him for not restocking his spare clothes since London three days ago.
He idly wondered if the rest of his brothers sported a Virgil voice in the back of their heads.
Scott knew that his, at least, never neglected a smart-assed word at any appropriate moment.
Today he almost welcomed them.
But the shower and the fresh clothes helped clear his head and slow his thudding heart. It didn't clean the blood off his hands and he still had the urge to scratch them raw. He curled his hands into fists.
Returning to the cockpit he was confronted by the missing hover stretchers, but worse was the hologram playing in front of John.
Obviously, Two's external camera, he watched as nothing other than a combine harvester attempted to kill his brothers. John played with the controls, flipping the scene back and forth obviously attempting to ascertain exactly how his brothers were injured.
But Scott's eyes just latched onto that massive airborne machine. A killing machine that tried to take his brothers.
Holographic pixels measured out how close.
Ever so close.
"Shut it off." His voice was sharp and cold.
John jumped as if caught with his hands in the till and the hologram vanished. "Sorry."
Scott bit the inside of his cheek. "I'm going back to the hospital." He didn't bother to wait for an answer. He just lowered himself through the hatch and strode ever so fast back into the building that held his injured brothers.
-o-o-o-
