Hey, everyone.

Okay. Wow. I was absolutely blown away by the response to my last fic! Thank you so much! I promise I'm still trying to respond to the reviews, but I got a bit swamped with online classes this week. Turns out studying A-Levels over the internet is not as straightforward as I would like.

This one is a bit different. It's a bit of a switch up from my usual writing style and for that reason alone I'm a little anxious to post it, but I promised a fic a week and my lockdown extravaganza must go on, so here we are. Warnings (as ever) for strong language. I really hope you like this one... fingers crossed!

I got this idea and it ran away with me, so here's Part One. I'll post Part Two next Friday.

Look. There are guidelines and mountains of essays and other such paraphernalia that NASA and the GDF and even the World Council trot out every month without fail, because with so many people entering the space sector, there have to be rules in place. The qualifications needed to earn your license are still crazily high, far out of reach for the majority of the population. In satellites there is a minimum of three crew members at any one time and in rockets this is raised to four. It's to protect lives. It's also to save companies from a multitude of potential lawsuits.

International Rescue just so happens to slip under the radar. No one's quite sure how this happened, but John's here, on Thunderbird Five, by himself, and the GDF are well aware of this fact, but no official letters have landed on his metaphorical doormat and it's been a good couple of years, so clearly somebody's turning a blind eye to all the rules that are being broken.

Only the rules are there for a reason. They're not just random laws spun out here and there on a whim – not that this would bother John anyway, because he's never seen legislation as anything other than guidelines for him to poke a loophole through – and there is scientific evidence to support them. So. The minimum crew size. That's sprung up for a multitude of reasons. For starters, if something goes wrong – mechanical error, freak accident, a coding mistake made out of exhaustion – there needs to be someone there to lend a hand, check the facts, bring you back from the brink of disaster. The other reason is more scientific. Humans are social creatures. Humans are wired to be touched. It's a necessary, physical requirement in order to maintain peak health and mental wellbeing. Space is cold. Space is unforgiving. Space is all too easy to lose your mind in. If you're going to face the unknown, then you need a friend, a team, a companion. You need that grounding touch. So the legislation sits there, and John refuses to acknowledge it.

He took a psychology course back in college. He'd been bored. It had been an optional unit. He'd agreed and it wasn't as if he couldn't handle the work. He knows the facts. He knows that technically what he's doing up here – miles and miles away from any other living soul – is bound to have a detrimental effect on him at some point.

But then there's EOS. And he's not alone anymore.

It's just a shame that everyone forgot to remind him about the whole human contact side of things.

Okay. Here's the truth: John's never been big on the whole touching thing. When your family includes the human embodiment of a bear and a possibly-part-fish maniac, this is a slight problem. Gordon in particular has always shown affection through touch; an arm there, a pat to a shoulder there, crawling across sofas and depositing his feet in another's lap like it's second nature, which, frankly, it probably is to him. Virgil's never held back either, showering the youngest two in hugs and throwing an arm around Scott's shoulders whenever their eldest brother's within reach. It's good. It's easy. Gordon and Virgil bounce off each other, Scott and Alan are happy to indulge them when one of the two is missing, and John sort of hangs around the outside and watches.

Mom used to hug him.

Actually, Mom is probably who Gordon and Virgil get it from. John's not going to fixate on this train of thought any longer than strictly necessary though.

He used to touch his family more when they all lived at home, pre-IR. Hell, even before college. Alan, in particular. Well, Alan and Scott, funnily enough. There's a whole bucket load of things that John undoubtedly needs therapy for, but the point was that he'd been happy to be included in the puppy piles on the sofa and everything else that followed.

Then college happened. He'd become used to not having anyone around and by the time the semester came to an end and he'd flocked back down to Kansas alongside Virgil – because wow, Virgil had a car and he didn't, why didn't that surprise him in the slightest? – that hand on his shoulder, feet in his lap and a still hilariously short baby brother flinging arms around his neck like some sort of elated spider-monkey; it had been too much. And he'd jolted away from every touch.

Well. His family had noticed. And they'd apparently assumed that this meant he hated touch without discussing it with him so proceeded to back off. John had grown used to it. He wasn't about bring it up over dinner now, was he?

Penelope had bounced into his life in a flurry of colour and amusement and breezy confidence, dragging him from his dorm room and into the world with linked arms. She had no qualms about slipping her hand into his own in public and draping herself across his lap when she decided that he'd spent far too long on his coursework for any one day.

Yes. Alright. He'd liked it. He'd missed the affectionate touches. So what if everyone now thought they were a couple? It kept the creeps away from Penelope, and the two of them knew that what they had was entirely platonic. Besides, having a blond bombshell barge into the library with two cups of coffee and a blinding grin at seven in the morning to coax you away from a computer was surprising… well, touching.

College came to end. Internships came into being. They ended too. He went to space. He came home. They moved to the South Pacific. Grandma joined them. International Rescue ventured into the world for the very first time. At first, John started work on Five for no more than a couple of days at a time. This merged into a week. And then a fortnight.

Then Dad disappeared.

And John didn't come home.

For a year.

Or more.

It was probably more. He wasn't sure. He hadn't been keeping track.

He micromanaged Tracy Industries from afar whilst Scott took control of International Rescue's relations with the world, gaining back the trust of the World Council. Colonel Casey helped a lot there. And then, of course, there had been a far more concerning matter to take care of – Alan was under eighteen. He had quite a few years to go before he turned eighteen.

Hello to the legal system. John had felt a little guilty about leaving Scott down on Planet Earth alone, because apparently gaining legal guardianship of your little brother was a lot harder than just signing a few forms. There were evaluations, assessments, the whole works.

Then the Hood resurfaced and suddenly the entire world knew their identities. John had to block all communications for a couple of hours, turn off the lights and float in the darkness for a while until he could breathe again. All of a sudden, he'd felt unbelievably lonely.

Virgil called. John answered. He was a fantastic actor. Penelope had always told him so.

The paperwork came through. Scott was officially legally responsible for Alan. Gordon had missed out by just over a year. The only issue was that now, with everything else falling into place, their attention turned to John.

Apparently, the realisation that their brother had been in isolation for over a year was cause for some concern. John was fine. No one believed him.

International Rescue was working like clockwork… well, if Scott was monitoring Alan like a paranoid mother-hen, then no one was about to call him out on it – not that Alan was even a part of IR…yet. Then the first major accident happened, and Virgil ended up in a hospital bed. Gordon and Alan were surprisingly okay about it, once they received the green light that their brother was going to be alright. Brains, Kayo and Grandma left the island in the capable hands – claws? – of MAX and joined them at the hospital.

Scott was the one on rescue with Virgil when it happened. He was the one to bring Virgil to the hospital. He was the one to take Thunderbird Three without waiting for an all-clear, strolled through an airlock and immediately collapsed into John's arms.

"Come home?" Scott had asked John after he'd recovered a little bit.

John stared at the planet below his feet. The safe answer was no. He was alone up here, and he liked it that way. He could keep an eye on everyone he cared about, manipulate the probabilities of accidents, search for Dad, float amongst the stars when it all got too much. But then again, Scott had just fallen to pieces right in front of him, and before he'd been International Rescue's head of communications, he'd been a brother.

"Do you need me there?"

Scott gave him a look. Which, yeah, alright, fair enough, because big brother was still in the same uniform, blue turned purple splashed with crimson, and between them, his hands were shaking. He'd only just begun to breathe evenly again.

"Yeah, John, I need you home."

"Okay."

And John went home.

And he'd ignored the part of him that had initially frozen and curled up small and scared when Scott had first collapsed against his chest, because it wasn't important. He talked to people. The touching wasn't important. It wasn't.

(Only maybe it was.)

Alan has grown. John has just enough time to process this thought before his youngest brother crashes into him, all gangly limbs and tearful smiles. Alan sort of mashes his face into the crook between John's neck and collarbone, and then clings on tightly.

"Hey, Alan," John manages to croak, because jeez, little brother is a lot stronger than the last time he was on planet. He loops an arm around Alan's waist and lifts his other hand to the kid's back. Alan's warm, a living, breathing person, so close that John can hear his heartbeat.

Alan murmurs something. "You smell like space," he observes, mumbling into John's shoulder.

John laughs. He can't help himself. It's such an Alan thing to say. "What does space smell like?"

"Metal. Sort of chemically."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Alan tucks his face back into John's neck. "You don't smell like you."

"I have a smell?"

"Uh huh. Everyone does."

"Alan!" A voice calls, followed by distinctive footsteps as Kayo marches into view. She seems to have changed too. She's more… sharp edges. Graceful, in a deadly way. But there's still that same passionate spark in her green eyes and her hair hangs loose around her shoulders, as if betraying her – she's soft when it comes to family, even if she'll never admit it. "C'mon, give him some space. You know John doesn't like hugs."

And…. Hold up. Since when did everyone assume he had this upmost hatred for physical contact? Sure, he was a little uncomfortable when everyone crowded him, but that was simply because he wasn't used to it.

Except Alan is already unwinding his arms and taking a couple of steps back. "Sorry." He ducks his head. "I forgot."

John banishes any hint of disappointment from his face and replaces it with a bright smile. "Don't worry about it, Al." He catches Kayo's eye. "Good to see you in person for once, Kay."

She gives him a nod with a little sashay of her hands for good measure. There's a grin twitching at the corners of her mouth. "You too. We missed you, dork."

"Already with the insults?"

She shrugs. "Gordon's off-island. I can't tease Alan when he's all sad. It's like kicking a puppy. So yep, you're my proverbial punching bag."

John runs a hand through his hair with a sigh. "Home sweet home."

Kayo winks. "Don't you know it."

(John doesn't think about the feeling of Alan's arms around him, doesn't replay the memory over and over in his head for over an hour, he doesn't because he's fine. Plus, Virgil's in hospital, and Scott's sort of twitchy, like he gets when he's one bad incident away from a meltdown, so John has a job to do, and Gordon's stupidly young to be a part of IR really, but here he is, so he needs a big brother. John's good at his job. He's good at comforting people.)

(He really wishes Alan would try to hug him again.)

Virgil recovers quickly. International Rescue takes a bit of a backseat for a while, as they all get used to being around one another again. At first glance, not a lot seems to have changed, but it's the stupid, tiny details that John finds bugging him. Small things, like how Alan comes up to his shoulder now, and refuses to sleep on his bed – well, he's always been a weird kid – and how Gordon won't eat cereal plain, has to have fruit or chocolate or even sprinkles with it. Details like Scott sneaking his head around each door to check on them all in some sort of strange night-time ritual, exactly how he used to just after Mom died.

John's missed out on a lot. He's beginning to realise this.

Grandma has no problem with touching him, it soon transpires. She's always dragging him into hugs, reaching up to ruffle his hair, planting kisses on his forehead even though he has to bend down quite a way – space has given him that extra inch and now he's taller than Scott, which no one is letting him forget. It seems that she's trying to make up for lost time, and John is more than happy to oblige.

"You should tell them."

John blinks. Grandma stares at him over the saucepan of whatever concoction she's cooking up.

"What?"

"You should tell them. You melt into my hugs, kiddo. Just tell your brothers that you want a pat on the shoulder or something. They'll listen."

John hunches his shoulders. It's instinctive – a way to try and hide from the world – and he hasn't done it since middle school. "I'm fine," he murmurs.

Grandma shoots him a shrewd look. "They're worried about you."

"I worry about them."

"One of these days, you boys will learn the fantastic art of communication and all our lives will become much easier."

John drops his chin onto the counter with a groan. "Communication?" he quips, "what's that?"

She shakes a spoon at him. Something gloopy and grey flops off the end and lands in the saucepan with a dull splash. John grimaces. He's probably the best cook in the family and the monstrosity his grandma is developing is frankly an insult to the culinary world.

"I never said I hated being touched," he mumbles into the counter.

Grandma huffs a laugh. "You never denied it. You know how your brothers are. Always jumping to conclusions."

"Virgil's better than that. Alan's probably starting to take after Scott."

"You flinched away from them first. They took that evidence and ran with it."

John gives an outraged gasp. "Grandma, I did not flinch." She leans across and lays a hand on his upper back. Her palm is a warm weight between his shoulders, and he freezes, tensing before relaxing into the touch. Grandma's looking at him with raised eyebrows. He smacks his forehead into the counter. "This means nothing."

"Sure it does." She returns to the stove. "You've spent far too long up on that tin can of yours."

"Five's not a tin can," John defends his baby instinctively. Then he lifts his chin from the counter because Virgil's tackling Gordon into the pool and Kayo's parading around on Scott's shoulders brandishing a pool-noodle like a sword, and Alan's shrieking with laughter from the diving-board. They all look so happy. So at ease with one another. All soft touches and smiles. And he aches somewhere deep inside.

"Johnny," Grandma murmurs, cupping his cheek in one aged hand. "You don't need to hurt. I know you don't like asking for help - you're just as stubborn as your father in that regard – but this is a misunderstanding. You need your family. Just think about it."

Scott finds him the night before he heads back up to Five. John's up at the lookout – Dad's favourite spot on the island – and there's almost zero light pollution. It's a new moon. There is no division between the stars and the sea. It's not cold – it's never cold on Tracy Island, they're too close to the equator for that – but it's brisk enough for him to accept the hoodie that Scott throws at him by way of greeting.

"Hey." Scott settles down on the sparse grass beside him. There's a distinct line of distance between them and John is painfully aware of it. "I figured you'd be here. Alan's in bed, but Virgil and Gordon are setting up a movie if you want to join them."

John stares at the sea and listens to the surf lapping at the shore below. "I'm good. Thanks."

"They get a little bit much sometimes, don't they?" He turns his attention to his brother. Scott tilts his drink with a little smile. "I live with them twenty-four-seven, so I'm used to it, but you've always liked your space." That smile transforms into a smug grin and John tosses his head back with a groan.

"Please god, for all that is good and holy, tell me that wasn't a pun."

Scott sniggers. "I'm sorry, I couldn't help it."

John sighs, but he can hear the fondness in it, which means Scott definitely can. "You've been spending too much time with Gordon."

"Probably."

It's been almost a month since John came down from Five. Scott's noticeably more relaxed, and it's this that has John silently questioning whether he should even go back up at all. He just… holograms aren't the same. And maybe, just maybe, he's scared that if he leaves again, he won't ever return. He can't trust himself not to hide away forever. It's easier. It hurts less up there, where there's no choice about the closeness. It's hard to be hurt when you're so many thousands of miles away. And… well, John doesn't want to see someone he cares about deliberately choose to move away from him.

There's so much to say. As ever, there's not enough time.

But this is an apology that's been sitting on his chest for a while, and it's one that Scott deserves to hear.

"I'm sorry." Scott looks at him questioningly and John raises a hand, as in wait, give me a minute. God. He's the man of a thousand words but never has any for himself. "I'm sorry I left you alone to deal with everything. I know you had Virgil, but… it wasn't fair of me. You shouldn't have had to go through all that by yourself. Especially all the legal crap."

Scott flops onto his back. "You needed time. I get it. And yeah, John, I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty shitty of you to stay up there for over a year, because we're a team. We figured it out after Mom died and I just assumed that you'd be able to help me figure it out again. But you needed to come to terms with it all. And yeah, I'd do it all differently if I had a second chance, but we're here now."

John traces the constellations across the grass. It gives him something to do with his hands. The distance between them seems more of a canyon. "I can't believe it's been a year."

"Yeah." Scott's voice is strained all of a sudden. "Me too."

John rolls over to face him. "What's going on in your head? I can hear you thinking. You know that's dangerous for you."

"Hey!" The handful of sand Scott flings at him is worth it just to hear his brother laugh. Scott used to laugh a lot. John can't help but wonder why the universe keeps throwing one tragedy after another at them. They're not bad people. They're trying to save the world for fuck's sake.

"So?"

Scott turns his attention to the skies above. "You haven't seen Alan in ages, so you're probably the closest to an unbiased opinion that I'm going to get. Do you think he's dong okay? How does he seem?"

John takes a moment to genuinely consider this. Scott needs the truth – if he wanted a line of comforting bullshit, then he'd have gone to Virgil, because Virgil's great but he's never been able to dish out the hard, painful truths like John has. It's why people like Virgil. Because he's nice. Too kind for his own good. Meanwhile John can count on both hands the number of times he's been called an asshole.

Alan's different. He's a few months shy of thirteen and his latest growth spurt suggests that he's going to take after John rather than Gordon. There's something about him now, too, in the way he moves and speaks. Alan's always loved with his whole heart, openly caring. He dishes out affection like it's free candy. But there's a raw, painful hurt deep down. It's the sort of hurt that they all carry – the pain that comes with losing a parent. But Alan's strong. He hasn't closed himself off. He's still the same earnest, optimistic, nerdy, little brother that he's always been, and that's how John knows that Scott's doing a good job.

"Alan's going to be alright, I think. He's going to be great."

"He's a good kid."

John reaches out and rests a hand on Scott's shoulder. He doesn't register the movement until Scott's gaze travels from the point of contact and up his arm to catch John's eye. John wrenches his hand away.

"You're doing a good job," he says to the night and then, softer, "Dad would be proud of you."

Scott's frozen. He drags himself upright and just sort of sits there stiffly.

There's a goddam galaxy of space between them.

(Part of him wants to laugh at that accidental pun. Clearly Scott's not the only one who's spent too much time around Gordon.)

"Don't move," John whispers, because please, out of everyone with the exception of possibly Alan, he thinks maybe Scott jolting away from him would hurt the most. Then he shuffles a little closer until their shoulders brush.

Scott takes a deep breath. "Are you okay with this?"

Jesus. John really can't be bothered to get into all this right now. "Yeah," he says simply. "I'm okay with this."

"You're sure?"

John hesitates, then rests his head on Scott's shoulder in way of reply. He half expects the world to implode.

Scott's… John peers up at his brother out the corner of his eye, because Scott's weirdly still right now. Scott's a guy of action. He's never this motionless.

"If this is too much, you have my permission to hit me, okay?"

"What?" John begins to say, before he suddenly loses the ability to speak because Scott wraps an arm around his upper back and drags him into a fierce hug.

And. Okay. John forgets how to breathe for a second. His brain seems to have short-circuited in the face of his nerve cells screaming touch, actual living person, warm, safe, caring, and a ton of other adjectives that he's forgotten.

(Maybe he has a problem.)

He drags his other arm free and loops it over Scott's other shoulder, taking a moment to simply breathe. Scott's arms are wrapped around his back, but the grip is loose enough for John to wriggle free if he's uncomfortable.

"Is this okay?"

John can't speak. He clears his throat and squeaks, "yes."

Scott isn't the most observant guy out there – sometimes John wants to bash his head against a brick wall because his big brother can be one of the densest people he knows – but then again, there are the times when Scott just gets it without the need for words. This is one such moment.

Scott's grip tightens and John buries his face in his brother's shoulder for a moment. The world stops spinning just enough for it to make sense for a second. Everything hurts, so, so, badly. It hits him that Scott needs this just as much as he does.

"John."

"Don't." He can't breathe. But he also can. He's missed this. "Just… don't say anything."

"Don't go away for so long this time, yeah?" Scott hesitates. "Don't… Alan misses you when you're away. We all do. So don't leave him for so long this time."

Don't leave me for so long.

Long before International Rescue, before Virgil matured from teenage angst and angry eyeliner, it was Scott and John against the world, because they had to be. They were a team, because Dad wasn't there, but someone had to be, for Virgil and Gordon and Alan, and Scott couldn't do it alone.

Damn it all. They'd lost their Dad, Scott was now parenting their youngest brother, and John wanted his damn hug.

"We're not going to talk about this ever again, are we?" Scott asks in a vaguely amused voice.

John grins. "Not a chance."

"You're an emotionally stunted asshole, you know that right?"

"And you're the stubbornest son-of-a-bitch that I know."

Scott snorts. "We make quite a pair."

"Yeah." John slumps against him a little further. "We really do."

So he goes back up to Five. They try to move on. Grandma insists on at least two video calls a day and the others soon latch onto this routine. They have virtual breakfasts together. Alan takes to keeping John at hand on the hologram projector while he studies his schoolwork, because Scott's sticking to that decision to pull Alan out of the boarding system and into the world of home-schooling – which appears to be one of the best choices that Scott's made to date, because Alan's grown in confidence and smiles far more than he ever used to back at Wharton's.

There's birthdays. There's accidents. John visits.

Look. Maybe, just maybe, he admits to himself that he's lonely, despite it all, and the idea of going a year straight with no face-to-face real-life contact seems insane and he has no idea how he ever made it through before. But if he does admit this, then it's in the dark in the middle of the night, surrounded by too many blankets.

No one hear you scream in space.

But no one can hear you cry, either.

His first trip home that lasts longer than an extended weekend is Alan's thirteenth. John gets back in the early hours of Friday morning around the same time as Virgil because a last-minute rescue in Peru took priority, so their plans for a quiet (ha) family dinner are derailed (also ha, because train rescues have been picking up lately).

The Space Elevator (nope, he's still not used to Brains' latest invention) docks roughly ten minutes after Virgil's finished Two's post-flight checks, so by the time John staggers out of his seat, Virgil's waiting for him. Well. Waiting is a kind term. What his brother's actually doing is snoring, slumped against the railings, an untouched coffee sitting at his side.

John prods Virgil's head and waits for the response.

Little brother doesn't disappoint. Virgil catapults back into awareness with a swipe of an arm and a long groan before promptly overbalancing to faceplant onto the walkway.

Well then. John nudges him with one foot.

"Virg? You okay down there?"

Virgil makes a noise that's a cross between a whine and a growl. It's oddly impressive. No wonder Gordon has so much blackmail on him.

John holds out a hand. He's aware that this is entirely pointless because while he's by no means weak, Virgil weighs an absolute ton, especially with all the extra (unnecessary) working out he's been doing, and if he even attempts to take John's hand then they're both going to tumble back to the floor. Still. It's a nice gesture. John can be a nice guy. He tries to be. Most of the time, anyway.

"There's this marvellous invention called a bed," John says, staring down at Virgil, who blinks up at him owlishly and proceeds to yawn with all the grace of a wandering sloth.

Virgil sniggers. "Ha. Marvellous. You're becoming English."

John sighs. Ah, yes. This old joke, yet again. "I spent more time at Harvard than I did Oxford."

"English," Virgil laughs into the floor.

"Just because I have an extensive vocabulary whereas you have the knowledge of a five-year-old after three months at summer camp."

"They send you to summer camp that young?"

John is sorely tempted to leave Virgil here. He tells him as much. Virgil widens his eyes, heaves himself to his feet, and promptly trips over the coffee. John flings out an arm to catch him.

"Thanks," Virgil mumbles through another yawn.

Jeez. John pats him on the back. "Bedtime for you."

"'m not a kid."

"Exactly. You should have more common sense."

Virgil turns a wounded expression on him. "Just wanted to come say hi to you, so you didn't come back to an empty house."

Virgil has this uncanny way of being so goddam nice that John always ends up feeling like the bad guy. So he simply guides Virgil to his room and then heads back to clean up the coffee before Brains can discover it and proceed to yell at everyone. See? John can be a nice person too.

(Virgil pats him on the back as a thank you, and John practically launches back into orbit. The fact that Virgil proceeds to ruin this gesture the next second by apologising is neither here nor there.)

Alan's birthday dawns bright and early. John hides in bed a little while longer because yes, Alan's hit his teens, but he's still very much a little kid in ways, especially when it comes to jumping on people's beds when he's excited. John buries his head back under the pillow and revels in the darkness. He's pretty confident that Alan's going to head straight for Scott's room, because that's what he's done for the past two years. If not Scott, then maybe Virgil. Not Gordon. Gordon always sleeps with a water cannon under his bed, because he's a paranoid weirdo who takes delight in others' misery.

His door crashes open and slams into the opposite wall.

John had not in a million years expected this. He really should have heard this coming though – Alan and he share a wall. Socked feet patter across the carpet and then a heavy weight launches on top of him. The pillow is snatched away in an instant.

"Johnny!" Alan yells at him in delight. "You're here!"

John rolls onto his back and peers up at his brother. "So I am," he notes dryly. "Good morning to you too, Allie."

Alan grins at him. He's still in PJs and his hair is a proper bird's nest. One sock is hanging on by its eyebrows. He flops down on the scrap of mattress by John's side and John shuffles to the left to give him more space because he still recalls that one infamous incident when Alan fell out of bed aged four and somehow managed to sprain his arm in the three inches between the mattress and the carpet.

"I feel like there's something important about today," John announces, trying not to laugh. This is their routine. Even when he wasn't able to make it home for Alan's birthday, they still go through this same ritual over the video-call; he pretends not to remember, and Alan acts outraged.

Alan jabs him in the ribs with one outrageously pointy elbow. "John."

John widens his eyes and tries to look as innocent as possible. "What?"

"You know it's my birthday."

"Do I? Do I really know that?"

Alan slumps across his chest, boundaries forgotten in the face of excitement. John ruffles his brother's hair with a grin as Alan flails a hand at him in protest.

"Happy birthday, kiddo."

Alan pouts at him. "You can't call me that now."

"Ah, yes, I forgot. You're a teenager now." He sighs dramatically. "So grownup. Practically ancient."

"If I'm ancient, what does that make you and Scotty?" Alan shoots back instantly.

John flicks him. "You've got me there."

There's footsteps in the corridor outside. The door's still ajar, and John glimpses Scott hovering, so he beckons him in behind Alan's back. Scott raises a brow at the sight of their youngest brother pinning John to the mattress like a lion with its prey but doesn't ask questions. He probably thinks Alan's the exception to John's supposed no touching rule. This isn't exactly a difficult assumption to make. As the baby of the family, Alan's the exception to most rules.

Alan realises danger is about to strike just as Scott finishes sneaking up on him. John scoots up to watch in amusement as Scott tackles the kid off the bed. Alan's wiry, and flails, landing a kick just in the right place, and they both go down in a heap of limbs and laughter.

"Ah, yes. You're both very mature."

Alan's still trapped beneath his chest, so Scott takes the opportunity to flip John off out of view. John grins at him and sneaks past them both to make a start on the breakfast that he's promised everyone, because no one wants to subject Alan to Grandma's cooking on his birthday.

The kitchen is suspiciously quiet. John knows that they have a variety of visitors on-island at present, including, but not limited to, Penelope. He makes a start on the birthday feast and only looks up when he hears wet feet slapping against the tiles like flippers.

"You're up early," Gordon comments, shaking his hair like a dog. "Ooh, is that food?"

John just knows that this is a bad idea, because if he lets Gordon sneak a bite then Virgil will materialise from somewhere and then so will Scott and Alan and before he knows it, the whole damn family will be sitting on the counter picking at the unfinished food like a pack of famished squirrels. He slides a bowl of raspberries across to Gordon anyway.

Gordon grins and shoots him finger-guns. "Danke."

"Nécessiteux," John replies, smirking to himself because he's well aware that Gordon doesn't speak a word of French beyond the basics. Sure enough, little brother merely sticks his tongue out and returns to the raspberries.

Brains appears, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses and narrowly avoids tripping over MAX, who chirps and ducks behind Gordon's heels in embarrassment. John slides a coffee cup over to his friend – he's known Brains the longest, so he feels he's earnt the right to this title, even though he doesn't spend much time on Planet Earth nowadays – and returns to flipping pancakes. He waits until Gordon's vanished to change out of his swim-trunks before leaving the breakfast under Brains' responsible observation so he can take a shower before the rest of the crowd drag themselves out of bed.

Grandma's in the kitchen when he gets back. John has miniature heart attack before he spots Brains keeping her well away from the actual goods. He ushers them both away when Brains tries to micromanage the eggs, and then proceeds to jump out of his skin when arms wrap around his waist and someone hooks their chin over his shoulder.

"Good morning, stranger," Penelope greets him.

This is familiar. John's well aware that she's on tiptoes right now in order to reach his shoulder, because she's in flats, and he's slouching, so he straightens up and laughs at the startled yelp that follows. Penelope's not one to be deterred easily however, so she removes her arms and leaps. John knows her well enough to turn around and catch her before she can collide with his back and accidentally strangle him.

"Really?" he asks in fond exasperation. "Every single time?"

Penelope tips her head back and laughs. She's got one arm curled around his neck, but other than this, she's relying entirely on John to keep her from crashing to the floor. He's essentially bridal-carrying her.

Gordon, as ever, has perfect timing.

"Nice catch there, Johnny," he quips with an exaggerated wink, sidling closer to steal a piece of fried bread. "You've just got to carry her over the threshold and then you've sealed the deal. Hey, I know a guy in Vegas if you want his number?"

"Why do you know a guy in Vegas?" Scott queries as he's dragged into the room at Alan's heels. He observes the position John's found himself in and grins. "Congrats, you two."

"We're not dating," John whimpers to the ceiling, for what seems to be the thousandth time in his life when it comes to Penelope.

Penelope pats his chest with a cheeky smile. "Everyone knows that, darling."

Alan hops over the back of one of the sofas and slithers down to sit on the floor, criss-cross applesauce style. He sniffs and holds a hand up as though he's still in grade school. "Is something burning?"

"The bacon!" John yelps. "Penny, down!"

Penelope slips from his arms and lands on one of the bar stools with all the delicate grace of a swan. She props her chin in one hand and watches John as he struggles to rescue the bacon, switching his attention to the maple syrup as Scott makes to dip his finger in.

Breakfast is chaos. The good, fun, tasty, brand of chaos. Alan and Gordon end up covered in maple sauce, Scott somehow faceplants into a plate of waffles and Kayo and Penelope team up to become the deadliest duo outside of a comic book. Grandma joins in the food fight of the youngest two until Alan's hair has become a mess of multicoloured sprinkles and Virgil announces that the only proper course of action left to them is to throw the kid in the pool. There's screams and laughter. Alan splashes into the deep end, bobs back to the surface and drags Virgil in after him.

Penelope sidles back to John's side. She slides her hand into his and squeezes. "Thank you for breakfast."

He wraps an arm around her shoulders, and she leans closer. "You're welcome."

"I haven't seen you in far too long, John Tracy. It's disgraceful."

He tries not to laugh. For all her airs and graces, Penelope sometimes sounds an awful lot like a petulant child. He kisses her head and then tosses her into the swimming pool. This is probably a mistake on his part, because Kayo sneaks up behind him to avenge her new partner in crime. Oh well. His shirt was covered in strawberry stains anyway.

There's calls from family friends and aunts and cousins and estranged uncles that no one can ever remember meeting. Even Grandma looks a little confused by a guy with a starfish tattoo and green eyebrows who claims to be a third cousin twice removed. Alan tries to be as polite as possible even as he's shooting Scott a questioning look of who the hell is this off camera.

They skip lunch. Breakfast had been a feast enough.

Cake time surfaces around late afternoon when the sky is beginning to fade to a tender rosen hue. Alan bounces around the patio with Kayo at his heels – because apparently their adopted sister is a little kid at heart – until Grandma gives in and reveals the cake that Penelope brought with her from London. There's a hunt for a knife because they're all still in the dishwasher from breakfast and then Parker terrifies everyone by producing one from his pocket. Kayo simply looks impressed. Scott, quietly face-palming in a corner, begs everyone not to bring weapons to the next birthday party.

The cake is fantastic. Penelope won't settle for anything less than the best, so John's not quite sure why he's surprised. Everything's beginning to get a little bit too colourful and loud, and there's the twinges of a headache threatening to merge into something more aggressive, so he takes himself off to Thunderbirds hangars for a little while.

Brains joins him soon after.

"They're v-very noisy."

John chuckles. "Yeah. You don't say."

"Did it get a little bit m-much?"

"Uh huh. Just needed a breather. I'll go back up in a minute." He runs a hand along Two's hull and turns to face his friend. "Did you come to check on me?"

Brains nudges his glasses higher up his nose and flushes. "N-no."

"You totally did."

He huffs. "Maybe."

John grins. "Thanks, Brains."

Brains leans against Two with a little shrug. "You shouldn't spend s-so much time by yourself. I never intended Five to a be solo post."

"I know."

"The psychological impacts are…"

"I know." John reaches out and gingerly pats Brains' arm. "Seriously, I'm alright with it."

Brains studies him. "If you're sure."

"I am."

John gets less than a second's warning before Brains is suddenly right there, arms around his chest and a chin over his shoulder, close and familiar, and then it's over. Brains is staring at the bolts along Two's 42nd panel with immense interest, evidently terrified that he's overstepped.

"Thank you."

Brains tilts his head. "Anytime." He hesitates, then adds, softly, "I m-mean it, John. Anytime."

The day blends into night with all the grace of a reversing dump truck. Somehow, somewhere, somewhen, someone got hold of fireworks and Scott and Virgil set them off down on the beach while John, Parker and Brains (because apparently they're the only responsible adults here, as Grandma and Kayo are behaving like rebellious teenagers) try to keep everyone in check and safe up on the patio by the pool. Colour streaks and explodes across the sky in a spiral galaxy of glitter. The pool sparkles with reflections. Alan and Gordon sit at the edge with their feet in the water, suddenly very silent.

Alan's a teenager, John suddenly realises. Logically, of course, he already knew this. His brother's turned thirteen. But it only really hits him as he watches Gordon drape an arm around Alan's shoulders, and Alan stares up at the skies with a wondering smile. His family seems happy. They're still grieving (and they probably won't ever really stop) but they're happy.

He reckons Dad would be darned proud of them.

He wonders whether Dad would be proud of him.

Gordon has a candyfloss machine, it soon transpires. Virgil takes control of the barbeque and Kayo organises drinks. Penelope reclines across one of the loungers, wrapped up in a fluffy blanket. Grandma doesn't trust them with the china, so they eat off paper plates and finish off the rest of the cake as dessert.

John pulls Scott aside while everyone is still in food comas.

"When are we doing presents?"

Scott blinks. "You have a present for him?"

John stares at him, partly incredulous and partly outraged. "Scott."

"Right, sorry, I was just trying to figure out how you got one because you've been on Five the whole time and… y'know what? I'm going to stop talking. Presents… presents…" Scott beckons him into the house, away from prying eyes and ears. "Give it half an hour? We'll do it in the Den because otherwise we'll have to clean up wrapping paper from the pool."

"Do you want me to grab Virg?"

"Huh?"

John folds his arms. "So you didn't hide all the presents in that one cupboard that you need a stepladder to get to and about eight extra limbs to carry in one trip?"

Scott rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "Yeah," he admits. "Go get Virg."

Alan is successfully hyped up even further by Gordon and Kayo, and wrapping paper is soon strewn across the floor so that very little carpet remains visible. John picks a path through and folds himself into a chair. Scott's sprawled across the sofa, watching Alan with a warm smile, and as the final gifts are revealed and Alan runs out of the words to say thank you with, the traditional puppy pile begins.

It starts with Alan launching himself onto the sofa and sort of flinging his limbs in all directions so that he's draped across both Scott and Virgil at once. His feet are in Virgil's lap and his chin is digging into Scott's chest because he's still at that phase where he's growing like a weed upwards and can't seem to put on any muscle.

Gordon, straddling a bean bag and dripping in silly string, whoops. "Puppy pile!" he screeches, and belly-flops onto Virgil, who promptly lifts his arm clear of the fray and tips his brothers further onto Scott.

There's a brief plea for mercy but then Scott vanishes beneath the heap of Tracy torture that's landed on top of him. Gordon lets him wriggle far enough so that he can rest his head on the arm of the sofa and actually breathe, but that's it. Virgil has an evil glint in his eyes and John watches with the upmost pity for his eldest brother as Kayo joins the team-up. Alan and Gordon suddenly find themselves crushed too as Virgil tips to the right, heaping on top of them so that Alan's essentially squashed between Scott and Gordon. Gordon twists until he's upside down and hooks an arm over Virgil's leg to prevent himself from falling entirely off the sofa.

"Comfy?" Kayo asks. Scott, from somewhere beneath the pile, whines. She cackles and springs from the carpet to land on Virgil's back, gathering her legs beneath her neatly and sighing, just to emphasise her comfort so as to annoy Scott as much as humanly possible.

"I can't breathe," Alan gasps through laughter. Gordon swats him with a fistful of silly string but misses, and instead it flies through the air and sticks to Scott's face. This, of course, only sets them all off more. Kayo reaches down and plucks the string free just so that she can tangle it in Virgil's hair. He reaches around, loops an arm around her waist, and pulls her into the fray.

Even Penelope, sat at the very edge, perched delicately on the arm of sofa, allows Alan to grab hold of her arm. There's a fond smile on her face. Brains, sat in his own chair, balls a bit of wrapping paper together and tosses it at the heap, chuckling as it smacks Gordon right on the forehead.

Grandma and Parker have vanished to the kitchen, clearly having guessed that this event was about to unfold. They had made the excuse of having leftovers to stow away in the fridge, which, yeah, alright, that was probably true.

Only… John's now officially an outsider.

Look, he knows logically that they don't mean to do this. They think they're respecting his personal preferences and are actually trying to be kind in not drawing him into their pile of craziness. It's just… Well. All John can see is that he's here, in a chair, on the opposite side of the room, and everyone he cares about is over there, smothering each other in affection and smiles. It's hard not to feel lonely when he's faced with a sight like that.

A fluffy cushion flies through the air and lands at his feet. He hooks a foot under it and tosses it up into his lap, hugging it safely against his chest.

(But they must have noticed? Surely? He didn't flinch away from Penny all day… didn't they notice?)

(He's not asking to be a part of it all.)

(Only he sort of is.)

He hugs the pillow closer and fixes a smile on his face.

(He's fine. Really.)

Life goes on. It gets… well, John uses the word tentatively, but it really is the only adjective that is appropriate… it gets better. Tracy Industries grows and succeeds, and Scott attends the meetings that demand one of them to be present in person. There's paperwork and paperwork and on top of all the International Rescue work, it's exhausting, but it's also rewarding, and John's always been an overachiever.

Gordon officially becomes Virgil's co-pilot. They make a good team, which surprises pretty much everyone apart from John, who's seen this coming for years, ever since Gordon hopped up to plate and announced that he wanted in on the IR action. Brains upgrades and upgrades and each time they wonder how they ever managed before. Mobile Control gets scrapped – that's probably the biggest change. It takes a ton off Scott's workload and dumps it onto John's, but the entire flow of missions is so much better, so much smoother, saves so much time, and it also means that Scott can do a load more of the hands-on side of things on rescues, which is what he's always been best at.

Alan turns fifteen and Scott takes him up in Three and teaches him the ropes (which John laughs at because he's been watching Alan ace those simulators since he was twelve), lets him fly the rocket for the first time. Alan's a natural. Which they all expected. Then another year passes, and he hits sixteen, and Scott lets him go up on a rescue for the first time, with Kayo at his side, and he aces that too.

The problem is this: Alan's good. Alan's really good. Alan's probably one of the best pilots that John's ever seen, especially when it comes down to precision space flight, which is one of the trickiest skills to master, hands down. Three doesn't have an official pilot. Alan's been waiting to inherit Three literally for years. He's been wanting this ever since Dad first founded IR.

Only… Scott's paranoid. Well. Perhaps that's a little harsh. The problem is that Alan's brave and stubborn and talented to the point where it's stupid, which is absolutely hilarious to John, because maybe those are inherited traits or maybe they're learned, but the point is that they're the exact same traits that Scott has.

It's weird for Scott. John gets it. No, really, he does. Dad's been gone since Alan was twelve. Scott's raised Alan for almost five years, and now they're hitting this weird point where he's trying to play the roles of both big brother and parent at the same time, and those jobs aren't compatible. So John does some work. Implements a little magic. Sends Scott out on a mission and then brings Alan up in Three so he can get some more flight hours under his belt. John collects the data, monitors Alan like a hawk, and then, at the end of it all, he takes a trip down dirt-side, drags Scott out for a few drinks on the mainland, and presents his case.

Alan gets Three. Scott gets drunk, cries a lot, and then faceplants into a bed in a hotel in Sydney while John breaks the news to their youngest brother. Virgil flies out the next morning because they're both too hungover for their own good, but… well, worth it, John thinks, especially when Scott hugs him somewhere between the bar and the hotel, and then Alan practically tackles him into the couch with glee the next day.

EOS springs into his life in a series of near-death experiences and a baggage load of trauma for everyone, but mostly for Alan, because he had to witness it all first-hand, and John's a professional at the art of repressing emotions. He allows Alan to bundle him into Three and all the way back down to Earth because little brother is still terrified of EOS and knows damn well that the Space Elevator is now under her control.

Scott waits until everyone's in bed. Then he goes batshit crazy. John stands there and takes it, until eventually Virgil steps in and breaks it up.

"We could have fucking lost you. Why don't you get that? You decided to prioritise some string of code over your family. That's not okay."

Virgil freezes at that. Evidently Scott's hit the nail on the head.

John's just done with all of it. It's been a long day. He's the one who nearly died, not Scott, and yes, he knows that's unfair, because he did just nearly force his family to listen to him die over a radio link, but god dammit, he's sick of being alone up there, and EOS is… EOS is special. EOS is the only one who might understand because EOS is his code, and that makes her a part of him.

Scott doesn't get it. Neither does Virgil. John didn't expect them to, not really, but he's hit his limit for the day.

"If you want me to prioritise this family, then maybe make sure I'm still a part of it."

Boom. World. Imploding. Virgil looks like he's about to cry and Scott would probably look happier if John had hit him in the face.

Does John stay and face the consequences of his words?

No.

Absolutely.

Not.

God. He hid away on a satellite for over a year and people still expect him to stick around when he has literally any other choice? No way.

He goes back up to Five after breakfast. Makes sure Alan and Gordon are okay. Checks in with Penelope because she deserves an explanation, even if she does still want to murder him.

(C'mon, Virgil. Scott's always been oblivious, but you're better than this. Figure it out. Understand what I meant.)

Part Two coming on May 8th.

Review?

Stay safe!

Kat x.