Disclaimer: see Part One.
A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews. I've been meaning to get back to you all but I've been so busy. Please R&R if you read this, I'd appreciate any comments you have.
Responsibilities
Part Four
Tin-Tin watched timidly as Alan paced back and forth in the round house. He was gesticulating wildly and huffing and puffing in a manner that would have had Tin-Tin hooting with laughter if the situation had not been so serious. Alan was apparently holding a conversation with himself, because every time Tin-Tin opened her mouth to respond to Alan's ranting, he furiously began to abuse his father even more vehemently than before.
Tin-Tin waited nervously until it appeared that Alan had finished his tirade. She took a deep breath and was about to try and placate him, but it seemed that Alan had only been gathering steam before he came in for another attack.
"I mean, who does he think he is! Forbidding us to get married as if we're children he can just order around. We're adults for goodness sake! You know what, forget him. He can't stop us."
Alan was red in the face by now and breathing hard. He flopped down onto the sofa next to Tin-Tin and breathed deeply, running a hand through his hair. He closed his eyes as he gathered his thoughts. Tin-Tin took her chance.
"Alan," she began softly. "You should not have lost your temper and disrespected your Father like that…"
"Disrespect him?" Alan yelled, bounding back to his feet. "What about how he disrespected you?" Alan yelled even louder than before, this time in Tin-Tin's direction. She flinched and turned her gaze from Alan's storm flecked eyes.
"Oh Tin, I'm sorry," Alan almost whispered as he sat down next to her and took her hand. "I'm not angry with you. I'm just furious that he spoke to you like that."
"He was right to question my actions. Everything he said about my putting others in danger was true." Tears rose to her eyes as she remembered the way she had recklessly charged into danger.
"No it wasn't." Alan reached forward and gently turned Tin-Tin's face to his. "My father was right to question what you did. But the way he shouted at you, accusing you of being stupid! It was way over the top, Tin." Alan paused to brush a kiss across her cheek. "I do wish you hadn't put yourself in danger like that for me, though."
Tin-Tin nodded shakily.
"I know you're worried about Dad's reaction, but I'm sure once he's calmed down and we've explained things to him he be ok with this. We'll go and do it now. I want you to promise me that however hard it gets we'll be ok."
Tin-Tin shivered as she remembered the aftershock. She saw the debris raining down and imagined Alan being trapped beneath it. A cold dread ran through her and she shook the image of Alan's broken and bleeding body from her mind's eye. Alan wrapped his strong arms around her and she buried her face in the crook of his neck as he held her tightly.
As Tin-Tin held on to Alan, she thought on what both Alan and his father had said. How Alan had said on SkyShip One that he couldn't ask anyone to share his dangerous life with him. How Jeff had said that for them to get married was selfish and irresponsible. How she had almost lost her mind with terror at the mere thought that Alan might have been hurt. Then she thought about having to face that every day.
"Promise me, Tin."
Tin-Tin squeezed Alan tighter. She said nothing.
Jeff shook his head. He couldn't blame Scott for that. The boy had been in an impossible situation and if Jeff was honest with himself Scott did the only thing he could have done. There was no way he could have just allowed Tin-Tin to run slap dash into a collapsed building. But when he heard the aftershock warning, knowing that Alan had just gone up into the main structure, and then Scott not answer his request for a status report, Jeff's nerves had caught fire. He was absolutely terrified that not only Alan had been hurt, but Scott, Tin-Tin and maybe even Gordon too.
The entire situation had the elder Tracy's emotions on a knife edge. He was all too aware that despite the amazing machines at their disposal, his sons were having head into the danger zone in person with an ever increasing incidence. This was made clear when his request for Brain's to create a sixth Thunderbird met with much scratching of heads and little result. There was simply no way around the fact that the boys themselves were more useful than any new machine they could conceive of.
Jeff knew that the danger his sons faced every day was entirely at his request. The lives they lived were in no way reflective of the dreams he and their mother had once had of a quiet retirement living the simple life back in Kansas with their sons and many grandchildren around them. Remembering the dreams he and Lucy had once shared sent a stab of pain to his heart. He thought again of the furious face of his youngest son, telling him that he was going to make Tin-Tin his wife.
Tin-Tin's actions in the danger zone and Alan losing his temper completely just because Jeff had raised his voice to Tin-Tin only served to convince Jeff that marriage was entirely out of the question. How could he allow them to get married within International Rescue? If that was the way they reacted now when they had only just admitted they loved each other, how would they be once they were married. Jeff remembered how he had adored Lucy when he had asked her to marry him. But those feelings were nothing compared to the intense love he had felt when Lucy had told him she was pregnant with Scott, the need to protect her at all costs. That love had increased tenfold and he was ready to bow down and worship at her feet by the time she was teaching John to walk and Virgil to play the piano.
If Tin-Tin and Alan could be so ruled by their emotions in the first flush of romance, what would they be like after they were married, when they had children? The situation would be impossible and could threaten to destroy everything that they had built.
Then there was the heartache. He was no fool. He had seen the passion Alan had for Tin-Tin. The way his eyes followed her around the room, how only a smile from her would have him grinning from ear to ear for hours. But he also remembered the feeling of his heart being ripped from his chest the day the doctors told him there was nothing more they could do for his wife, that she had lost too much blood. The day she died. There was no way on God's green earth that he could allow a situation to come about that put one of his precious sons in the position of losing their wife too. And allowing Alan to marry Tin-Tin, another IR operative, was, in his opinion, just asking for trouble.
It was best to end this now before anyone could get hurt.
"I don't believe it." John Tracy said to his brothers.
Scott, Virgil and Gordon had wasted no time in contacting John on the vid-phone the moment Alan and their father had stormed off in different directions. They sat now in the lounge having filled the space monitor in on everything that had happened.
John took in his brothers faces. Scott looked worried. Well, no surprise there. John knew that Scott took everything to do with Alan very seriously. He was protective of all his brothers of course, but where Alan was concerned Scott took everything to heart, as if it were up to him to make things right when Alan was upset. John thought this was probably due to the resentment Alan had held towards Scott when they were younger. Alan and Jeff's turbulent tempers were always clashing, Jeff not knowing how to relate to his youngest son in the aftermath of their mother's death and Alan yearning for the affection that Jeff was simply unable to give. Scott and Jeff's seemingly perfect relationship was something that always served to rouse the green eyed monster within the littlest Tracy, and Scott felt guilty that his relationship with their father caused Alan such obvious pain. As a result he now strived to protect Alan from distress at every opportunity.
Virgil's expression was hard to read, but it was a serious expression nonetheless. The middle Tracy also seemed to have noticed Scott's reaction to the family crisis, and kept glancing at him worriedly. Virgil's near hero-worship of Scott had been a great source amusement to him in times gone by. Scott had always been an athletic and adventurous boy, and Virgil thrived on trailing around after his big brother in the early days, before he had discovered his love of all things artistic. The feelings for Scott had remained even after Virgil had stopped following him around. To Scott's credit he had never lost his patience with Virgil. He had always made room for his little brother in his life and had never tried to avoid spending time with him.
That memory made John wince. Scott's treatment of Virgil in no way reflected how he and Gordon had once treated Alan. It was back when Alan was only five. The family were on a winter holiday, and he and Gordon had taken themselves away to go ice skating on a nearby lake that had frozen over. Despite the fact that John was three years older than his red headed brother, Gordon had always been tall and strong. He was able to keep up with his bigger brothers, while Alan had been quite small and fragile. Alan had begged to come with them but they had ignored him, not wanting the little pest, as they used to call him, to spoil their fun. Of course, Alan being Alan had followed them anyway, and had tried to skate out to join them on an area of the lake that their father had told the older boys was not safe to skate on.
John would never forget how time seemed to stand still as Alan crashed through the ice and the blond head disappeared below the icy water. Luckily for them Scott had also decided to catch them up for a skate and was able to pull the tiny Alan out. Scott had always been a man of action. John had never been so ashamed of himself as he was that day, and had vowed then and there that he would never turn his back on any of his brothers out of annoyance again, a promise that he had kept to this day.
It was Gordon's reaction that had surprised John. The second youngest Tracy seemed to have found the entire episode highly amusing. His eyes were sparkling and a cheeky smirk was plastered across his freckled face.
"What do you find so funny?" John questioned his younger brother.
"You should have seen it Johnny boy," Gordon enthused. "I thought Dad was going to explode! His face! He was so angry he looked like a bulldog sucking a wasp. I swear I could see the smoke coming out of his ears!" Gordon dissolved into fits of laughter.
"Shut up Gordon, it's not funny," reprimanded Scott. "This is really serious!"
"Oh please," Gordon scoffed, cheeks ruddy from laughing. "Those two are always arguing and they always make it up. They're just blowing off steam. Alan's inherited the 'alpha male' gene from Dad. They're just butting heads and they'll be back to normal in no time. Besides you know Alan, he's always pulling stunts like this. He'll have changed his mind by this time next week."
"I think you're spending too much time in the pool Gordon. The water's clearly seeping in your ears and affecting your brain." Scott told Gordon. Virgil watched worriedly as he noticed his eldest brother's seldom seen temper building.
"Alan has grown up a lot in the last couple of years, and he and Dad haven't argued in a very long time. And as for this being one of Alan's 'stunts', you of all people know that the one thing that Alan has always been dead set on is that no one hurts Tin-Tin and gets away with it. Don't you remember how he nearly ripped you a new one when you thought it would be hilarious to hide her tampons? You made her cry and he was livid. I highly doubt that asking her to marry him is a big joke."
John was pleased to see that Gordon looked suitably dressed down. But Scott wasn't finished.
"Open your eyes Gordon, neither Alan or Dad is going to back down this time. So I repeat, in words of few syllables so that you'll be sure to understand. This could be really serious."
John gulped. He remembered what his mother had always said when Virgil and Gordon were playing 'Star Wars' with big sticks or brawling on the top bunk. Somehow that saying seemed to ring in his ears, and he had an awful suspicion that this time things really were going to end in tears.
Jeff was shaken from his musings by a knock at the door. He called his permission to enter. When Alan and Tin-Tin walked hand in had through his study door he was not at all sure whether he was surprised that they had come out of isolation so soon or whether he was expecting Alan to come back for another confrontation. What he definitely was not expecting, however, was an apology.
"I've come to apologise, Father. Tin-Tin has made me realise that I should not have raised my voice to you."
Jeff marvelled at the maturity his son had attained over the past few years. Alan was standing tall and proud, shoulders squared and chin up. He had truly become a man Jeff was proud of. This apology was surely a product of that maturity and Jeff had no doubts that the man Alan had become was in no small part due to the influence of Tin-Tin. It all made what he was about to do so much harder. But the fact remained that he loved his son more than life itself, loved Tin-Tin too for that matter, and he could not allow them to do something that he knew would cause them suffering in the long run. He listened as Alan continued.
"But you were out of order speaking to her the way you did, and I think you owe her an apology. You have to understand though Dad, Tin-Tin and I love each other. We want to get married and there's nothing you can do to stop us. I, we, want your blessing. I couldn't bear it if you were against this Dad, because Tin is the most important thing in my life."
Jeff sighed and got to his feet. Alan had stunned him for the second time in as many minutes, and he honestly did not know what he was going to say. For a moment he faltered. It would be so easy to let Alan have his way. Jeff knew he was about to break his baby boy's heart and didn't know whether he had the strength to do it. Jeff searched the room, trying to decide what to do for the best. His gaze came to rest on a picture of Lucille, and he felt again the aching loneliness that his life had become without her.
No matter how hard it was, no matter how much Alan would hate him, it was for the best. He would fail Alan as his father if he let this continue. What if he lost Tin-Tin on a mission? What if she lost him? That was a far more likely scenario. Then he would have to deal with the loss of a son and caring for a grieving widow. He took a deep breath and steeled himself, very much aware that once said, these were words he would never be able to take back.
"You're right, son. I should never have spoken to Tin-Tin in that fashion." Jeff turned to the young Malaysian girl. "I'm sorry my dear, I was harsh on you. But please understand that I was only scared for you and the boys. You are a part of this family Tin-Tin."
Jeff felt his own heart break as he watched a joyful smile light up Alan's face. His son was beaming down at Tin-Tin as if Jeff's blessing had been granted. Alan looked like all his Christmas's had come at once. It took every ounce of courage Jeff had to say any more.
"But Alan, you must understand. You're still very young, and although I'm very proud of how much you've grown up recently, you're still only 21. You said some wonderful things just now, but the fact remains that you've lived a very sheltered life and you really haven't experienced enough of the world to get married."
Alan's face dropped. Jeff thought that if Alan thought all his Christmas's had come at once a moment ago, now he looked like he had the year that Gordon had accidentally found out about the big guy in red and then told Alan the horrible truth out of spite.
"What are you saying Dad?"
"What I'm saying is that if even if there were no Thunderbirds, if there was no International Rescue to consider, I would still think you were too young to get married. I'm sorry Alan, but I cannot allow it."
"But there is International Rescue to consider, isn't there Father. Be honest at least, you think that us getting married is going to get in the way of your precious organisation!"
"No Alan, please listen to me. It would be irresponsible of you to marry Tin-Tin with your life the way it is. I don't want either of you getting hurt!" Jeff tried to explain but he didn't know how. Everything was going wrong!
"You don't want me getting hurt? Could've fooled me! You say I've matured, but in the next breath say I'm being irresponsible! I can't win with you! I come here to join your organisation, I risk my neck, watch my brothers in danger every day, all for you! And yet you deny me the one thing in this world that would make me happy! Irresponsible? I want to marry her. If I were irresponsible I'd just sleep with her and have done with it!"
"Alan that's enough!" Jeff's own ire was rising now in response to his son's outburst.
"Well it doesn't matter. I told you before we're getting married and there's nothing you can do to stop us."
Alan turned on his heel, ignoring the insistent tug on his shirt from Tin-Tin that had begun sometime during his disagreement with his father. He stalked along the corridor towards the lounge where he saw his brothers. They'd been deep in discussion but stopped talking abruptly when Alan, face like thunder, stormed into the room dragging a protesting Tin-Tin behind him.
"Alan stop!" Tin-Tin, finally yanking her arm free from Alan's vice-like grip.
"What?" Alan snapped, ignoring the bewildered stares of his brothers.
"Let's go and talk in private, please?"
"Why? What is there to say? He's being a jerk! He's completely out of his tree! He can't stop us from getting married!"
"Please listen to me!"
"Stop trying to defend him Tin-Tin. I know you're all about respecting your elders but this is ridiculous. He's totally lost it!"
"But maybe he's right!" As soon as the words left her mouth in the heat of the moment, Tin-Tin regretted it. Alan was still in a rage, there was no way he would understand in this state. She wanted to talk to him, explain her feelings, make him see the sense in his father's words. But he was in full tantrum mode, and he was looking at her as if she'd just sprouted three heads.
"What do you mean? Don't you love me?"
Tears began to fall down Tin-Tin's face as she prepared herself for the hardest thing she had ever had to do. How in the space of a day had she gone from being content, to blissfully joyful, to terrified, to absolutely heartbroken? It was too much. The emotions swirling in the pit of her stomach were making her nauseous, and she was utterly exhausted. She felt her legs shake beneath her.
"Of course I love you Alan, but a lot of what your father said has made me think. Today when I thought you'd been hurt I completely lost my mind! And you were only missing five minutes. What if you'd died? I couldn't bear it, the grief of losing you. It was bad enough watching you in danger when you were my friend. But as my husband? I don't think I'd survive it. No Alan, I'm sorry."
"What are you trying to say Tin?" Even now, Alan couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"I'm sorry Alan. I can't marry you."
TBC