Well, not so much action in this one, but some nice brother introspection! Hope you all enjoy and please leave a comment. Feedback is greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Scott sighed for what felt like the thousandth time that day.
"Virgil," he tried again. "You know what over use does to us. You want to risk Gordon going into shock or John going out of his mind?"
"Exactly," Virgil nodded, and Scott sighed once more, finding it hard to follow the logic.
"Virge," he began, but his brother cut him off.
"Think about it. What if we really need something and we can't perform? We lose what we want and we go down for the count too." Virgil shook his head. "That lack of control's not acceptable."
Scott rubbed at his face tiredly. "You're talking about the bridge. Virge, you probably saved their lives by catching them like you did. Don't lose sight of that."
"You're thinking the same thing," Virgil accused him. "You're thinking that if you could have lifted Gordy, you'd have saved me the nose bleed and probably stopped John from a dunk in the mud."
Scott didn't really have an answer to that. Virgil knew him too well.
"Suppose we figure out a training programme?" his brother suggested. "Nothing much at first, just enough to get us used to using them again. You gotta admit, we're a little rusty and it'd certainly come in handy in the future. Then we add to it. Like our bodies and our minds, we have to exercise what we can do to build them up."
Scott held up his hand. "Okay, you've convinced me."
"Great!" Virgil beamed. "I'll leave you to it."
"Hold on!"
Virgil shrugged. "I'm an ideas man, but you? Commander Organisation."
It didn't escape Scott's notice he'd gotten a promotion.
"Virgil, wait," he called as the other man made to leave. "About the bridge."
Virgil screwed his face up. "We have to do this?"
"I think so, yes," Scott agreed.
Virgil slouched against the wall, staring out into the parking lot. Upon reaching town, they'd found another motel, brought two rooms and Virgil had indicated he wanted Scott to step outside for a moment. In part, it was so he could put forward his idea, but mostly it was because he felt Scott needed to take a break from the parent role and touch base with his second-in-command. Virgil had hoped to slip away before Scott cornered him.
Seeing Virgil wasn't going to launch into anything deep and meaningful, Scott decided to give him a nudge.
"You did good, Virge. Things could have been a lot worse. So the boys got an excuse to wash? They weren't hurt from a little river water."
Virgil glanced at him. "There could have been rocks beneath them, Scotty. Anything could have happened."
Scott shook his head. "This isn't like you, normally you're talking me out of playing the 'what if' game. What gives? Really?"
"Really? Aside from the fact our father's MIA, our brother's got a demon on his tail and we're all AWOL, hoping the press and everyone else for that matter doesn't turn up?"
Scott waited the tirade out. It wasn't often Virgil ranted, so he let him do it to the max when he felt the need. "Aside from that, yes," he replied calmly.
Virgil let out a snort of laughter and Scott felt the tension ease.
"I dunno, Scotty," Virgil said softly. "It's all gone so fast, and with Alan ... well, you didn't see him after Gordon took him for a little trip."
Scott tilted his head. Virgil had downplayed the event when he'd reported it earlier, and from the looks of things, he'd handled the situation with predicable calm. That was the trouble with Virgil, he was so good at keeping a cool head that you didn't realise how much things could shake him.
"Tell me," he invited softly.
Virgil shrugged. "It was like he was so scared he'd forgotten how to breathe," he began quietly. "When I got him back, he was almost catatonic, like he'd shut himself down so he wouldn't have to be scared anymore."
Virgil turned suddenly and Scott was caught by the brilliance of his dark gaze.
"He wasn't our Allie," Virgil insisted. "He wasn't with me at all. I ran with him in my arms, Scott, and he wasn't there."
Virgil was getting to the heart of the matter now, and Scott didn't dare speak, afraid if he interrupted, Virgil would stop and bottle it all back up again.
"I could feel his heart beating against my chest, his weight in my hands," Virgil continued, holding them up as if disbelieving they had carried his brother and not a stranger. "But when I got a look at him, it was like he'd turned away, locked inside himself. His eyes were empty, Scott, they were just ... empty."
Virgil shuddered and fell silent.
"Virge?" Scott prompted.
"This scares me. What it's doing to him, what it's forcing him to become. We know nothing about this stuff, and we could be damaging him further with our ignorance."
Scott nodded, taking the concern on board. "I'll get John to talk to him," he promised. "He knows a little more about this than we do, and I know their powers aren't the same, but he can get a good read on the kid, see if there's anything we ought to be worried about."
Virgil nodded his acceptance and changed the subject. "Gordon has a habit of pushing himself to the limit. Keep a tight rein on him," he advised.
Wisdom imparted, Virgil turned back to the motel room he'd share with the red head, leaving Scott with a new set of problems to find a solution to. He knew Virgil was right, it was why Gordon couldn't teleport away from the river earlier. He'd over done it so that even with food and rest he couldn't access his ability. Once more Scott sighed. He was tired, but he knew he wouldn't be heading for his bed anytime soon, so Scott made himself as comfortable as he could on the cold concrete, leaning back against the wall and letting his mind wander.
He couldn't blame Virgil for seeking his room, he most likely felt as rough as he did, without the added benefit of a snooze in the car and it wasn't as if Scott wanted to burden his already troubled brother any further, but a part of him wished he'd stayed. There was something so solid about his presence, so absolute it always reassured Scott. Not that he'd ever admit he needed reassuring every once in a while.
Scott was used to taking on the responsibility of the family's various problems, however, and thought his way through them until he found a satisfactory solution. First things first, Virgil. He couldn't do much without his wing-man to back him up and he needed to get Virgil back to himself before he could begin to tackle any of the others. The Tracy's had a system and it worked. While Scott would take on Gordon, Virgil would watch John. When Scott had to deal with Alan, Virgil would mother Gordon. If John worked himself up into one of his moods, Scott would be there with him through it, safe in the knowledge the other boys were under Virgil's wing. And all the while, the two eldest would look out for each other and the younger three would do their bit for their family too.
It was right, it was how it should be and damnit, it worked. Scott knew that right now, Gordon would be attempting to draw Virgil out of his dark mood in one room, while John and Alan would be talking in the other. It didn't matter that it was about nothing important, but it mattered that they'd be talking.
Scott decided to let Gordon at it. If anyone could bring a smile to the face, it was him. It wouldn't fix the fear in Virgil, but it'd bring him to a place where Scott could reach him. And once he'd worked out how they were going to devise training in their certain abilities - and the thought made Scott's head spin just wondering how he would enforce safety measures - Scott knew that that would go a long way to help Virgil. His worries were well grounded, but Scott could see a light at the end of the tunnel.
His thoughts turned to John. Naturally a quiet soul, the star-gazer was often hard to get a read on. Unlike Virgil, who could hide himself reasonably well, John just got quiet. Of course, he got quiet when he was running through complicated computer programmes in his spare time, and he got quiet when he was plotting a comet's trajectory. He was quiet when he was writing and he was quiet when he was attempting to tune out the endless mumble that he had to put up with in his mind. All in all, it didn't leave Scott a lot to go on. Warning signs were, of course, exhaustion, aversion to bright lights, a soft complaint about a headache and of course, the terrible mood swings, but these were all connected to his psychic gift. When John was upset, he didn't seem to act an awful lot different to when he wasn't.
In these last few days, though, Alan was becoming a good indicator for how the other blond was feeling. The two had always been close, drawn together in their mutual wonder at the world beyond their own planet, but since Alan's empathy talent had grown, Scott had been surreptitiously using him to guide him with John. Alan brought his brother out of himself when they were together, but alone the twenty-two year old was a little too much his own man, and while Scott admired his self-sufficiency, within a team he needed to be in the loop. His mind made up to talk to John, Scott moved on.
Gordon was another story altogether. Scott often found he'd have to hold him back, tone down his natural exuberance and getting him and Alan together in a mind for mischief was just asking for trouble. But the red head had found a new level of maturity recently, in part due to his time in WASP. When trouble arrived, Gordon got serious in a hurry, putting others before himself and Scott appreciated that aspect of his personality as much as he did the comic relief Gordon was so hell bent on providing. However, despite his almost chameleon-like ability to adapt to any given situation, Gordon was the least settled into the new life they'd found themselves living and Scott thought he knew why.
Out of all of them, Gordon had the most to lose, Scott not counting his own career with the Air Force. Since he was sixteen, Gordon had been adamant on joining WASP and last year he'd made it with understandable pride. Scott had asked him to throw that away without so much as a second thought and while he knew Gordon would be only too willing to do what it took to find their Dad, Scott was expecting an explosion. Probably after they found Dad, and in the man's face too and Scott wasn't looking forward to sorting that one out at all, but he'd deal with it when it came. For now, he had to keep Gordon sane and Scott realised yet another talk was on his list. The key to Gordon, however, would be to treat him as an equal and not come across as big-brother-knows-best. Some of the other boy's favourite arguments came from Scott's well meaning intentions and Gordon's struggle to assert himself.
As for Alan ... Scott didn't know where to begin. The explanation of what their Dad had done and what they were doing now had gone a long way in including Alan in their own childhood memories, something they'd been very careful about up to now. Scott could understand that the kid felt a little cheated and left out once these revelations had come to light and Scott was again expecting that to come back to bite him on the ass, but for now, Alan was simply taking everything on board and trying to adjust his thinking accordingly. It was doubly hard for him, having not grown up knowing he could do things others couldn't and trying to adapt to those things now. Several times he'd caught a strong emotion off of one of his brothers and ended up either frightened with the intensity that he felt it, or unable to stop converting that feeling into restlessness. John would get a read on his thoughts when he became incoherent, and either Virgil or Scott would swoop in, their calming influence settling him again. Virgil explained to Alan that that particular gift was like a dial, he just had to find the right setting for it and he'd be okay.
It wasn't all bad, though. Alan had played a very amusing joke on Gordon at breakfast. Focusing on feeling sleepy and aiming it at his brother, Gordon had almost fallen face first into his pancakes. Alan was going to be handy in convincing people to swallow their lies, Scott thought with a little pang of guilt. The prank had been well received, mainly because his brothers had been so worried that Alan was so subdued after everything he'd been through. Scott thought he was handling it remarkably well, but he was still only twelve years old and they couldn't lose sight of that. It was a fine balance between not stealing his childhood away and not keeping him ignorant of the dangers.
Not that Alan was going to forget that, not with ghosts randomly popping up to demand he help them. Alan had taken Scott off to one side and told him about Jeremy's latest visit and Scott was tempted to locate his bones and salt 'n' burn the bastard for scaring his little brother so bad. Still, Alan's talents as a medium could give them the edge when it came to sending restless spirits across the void and, naturally, Scott was planning to take full advantage of his precognition. He was hoping Alan would develop his talent to read the memories imprinted on objects and places and therein lay Scott's biggest problem.
Had it been any other brother, Scott would have been keen for them to show him what they could do. But it was Alan, his youngest brother and the one he'd practically raised from infant-hood and it was hard to let him go, knowing how much it upset the kid. Yes, his abilities were useful, but Scott had spent twelve years looking after him and every instinct screamed at him to put an end to this. Unfortunately, unless Scott could get his gifts suppressed again, there wasn't much he could do but guide him through it as best he could and be there at the other side to pull him back again.
Scott wrenched his thoughts away from his brothers and stood, brushing his jeans off. It looked as though they were going to be at this longer than he'd originally planned and there were things he'd put off too long as it was. Scott had other things besides his brothers to occupy his time and that was fine by him. Waiting for things to happen had never been his style, he much preferred to get to them first.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Scott stuck his head inside Virgil and Gordon's room, pleased to find them both smiling and relaxed. Well, it was rare to see either of them uptight, both having the type of easy-going nature that didn't dwell on annoyances and upsets, but after the tense atmosphere of the car journey, Scott felt he could breathe a bit easier.
"Come across to the other room. I've got jobs for you."
Gordon sprang to his feet, Virgil following with a more easy grace. Sitting idle wasn't a Tracy pastime and Scott was sure they'd have found something to occupy their time with soon enough, but having a job handed to them was appealing also. Scott motioned them into the other room, shutting the door behind him and gesturing that they find a seat. Scott remained standing, all the better to pace.
"Alright," he began. "We've been at this a few days now, and I don't think any of us believe Dad's still here. He obviously was, and it's more than likely he was here by his own design. At this stage, I'm not willing to speculate as to why, but it's clear he's hunting."
"D'ya think he meant us to follow him, Scotty?" John asked.
Scott nodded. "When he left Jericho, he left co-ordinates in his journal with my name. Either he hoped we'd get here before the local authorities swiped his stuff, or he knew we'd nose around their department. Whatever his thinking, he left it and he deliberately left that wall for us to find."
Virgil tilted his head. "You think he wants us to get into hunting?"
"It looks that way." Scott paused. "I can't say what was in his head, but perhaps he knew Alan would break through his barriers, that he figured it'd be safe for him to take off."
"That's insane," Gordon insisted. "Alan had the first vision after taking a tumble and he could have spent forever wandering around Boston looking for John."
"I knew where he was staying," Alan told him indignantly, but his brother wasn't finished.
"How safe do you suppose it is for a twelve year old to board a greyhound bus and spend a few days state hopping?"
Scott held up his hand to stop him. "Alright, Gordy. I get it. The point is, we're here and Dad left unfinished business. I don't know why he started going after Raquel, but we're going to finish it."
"Good," Alan sighed. "Then we can go back to being normal again."
Scott avoided Virgil's eyes, but couldn't help noticing that John and Gordon shared a quick glance. It seemed only Alan believed they'd go back to their happy little world once Raquel was put to rest. He cleared his throat.
"For now, though, we're badly under prepared. We've been hiding our gifts from the world, and from ourselves as well. It's time we accepted who we are and what we can do. We're out of practise, rusty, we've forgotten what we are capable of."
"We get it, we suck," Gordon told him with a grin. "Just what have you got planned?"
"Eventually, we're going to practise our skills," Scott smiled. "But for now, we're going to have to organise ourselves better. I'm going to go next door and conference call Tracy Industries. Virgil, you can organise some cash - I can't use my card anymore and neither can any of you, not unless its on official Tracy business. They're too easily traced. Gordon, I want to know how extensive the fire damage is to the house, what we can salvage and why the blueprints aren't finalised yet."
"What about me, Scotty?" Alan demanded and his brother smiled.
"You're enrolling in the prestigious John Glenn programme. I expect to hear good things, Sprout, so don't waste his time." Scott glanced at John. "I don't expect you to spend your days playing teacher, Johnny, just a few hours a day will do. We've got to give him a chance at an education."
"I understand," John told him. He turned to a disappointed Alan. "It'll be fun, kiddo, promise."
"Once we're done here in the real world, we'll get sorted in the supernatural," Scott continued. "I want us at our best. I want us prepared for anything. I want us to use our abilities both defensively and aggressively, where we need to. Exercising caution around civilians," he added, glancing at Gordon, who did his best to appear innocent.
"What do you have in mind?" Virgil asked him.
"I want you to be able to bar things, set traps and maintain protective force fields. I want you to be able to contain what we need you to and deflect trouble. You need to be able to lift, hold and push back. I want manoeuvrability from you, Virge."
Virgil nodded, mind already plotting how best to go about his task.
"John, you're already adept at blocking out thoughts, but I want you to be able to read on command. It'd be handy if you could send us information, give us an edge by letting us interact without speaking, but I don't want you to hurt yourself. You know your boundaries. Give yourself time to get stronger before you push them back."
Scott turned to the copper haired Tracy. "Same goes for you, kid. There'll be trouble if I have to give you a shot of insulin and we can't afford to repeat yesterday."
Scott said no more, but Gordon knew he was referring to not being able to translocate. Scott broke the silence. "You did really well, Gords, but you need to look after yourself as well as your team."
Gordon nodded, accepting the dressing down as well as the praise, liking being spoken to as an adult, as part of the team. It reminded him with a pang of being with WASP.
Alan scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the thin carpet. "That's not fair," he muttered darkly. "You all get to do really cool things, but I gotta see stupid ghosts."
Scott reached him, and ran his fingers through his brother's soft blond hair. "You get to play a vital role, Sprout," he soothed. "Thanks to you, we're gonna be well prepared, we'll know what's coming. In time, you could probably replace me as field co-ordinator."
Alan brightened. "You really think so, Scotty?"
Scott nodded seriously. "Without a doubt. You're the centre of this whole operation." He brushed stray locks of hair from Alan's forehead. "And don't forget, you've more than one talent."
Alan beamed under his brother's attention, realising just how much he'd missed Scott since he'd joined the Air Force. His brother smiled down at him for a few moments more, before regretfully pulling himself away. It was all too easy to get caught up in Alan, whether it was his emphatic charm or sweet nature, Scott would never know and nor did he care. Telling the kid he wanted him to listen to John and study hard, Scott left to call his father's departmental heads. Virgil followed him out the door.
"What's up?" Scott asked.
"I was about to ask the same thing. 'In time, you could probably replace me'?" Virgil repeated. "Scott, you don't think this'll be over soon, do you?"
Scott shrugged. "Whether we find Dad, I think the Tracy's are back in business."
Virgil let him go then, not wanting to hear any more. Worry settled in his stomach, dark and heavy. 'Whether', Scott had said.
Not 'when'.