The Tracy Daughters
Disclaimer - Don't own Thunderbirds, don't own When You Say Nothing at All by Allison Krause.
Part Five – Tin-Tin Kyrano Tracy
Kyrano Belegant had lived a fairly basic life. He was the product of his father's second marriage. The elder Belegant had run a small shipping business, marrying the daughter of a local merchant, he had expanded his business and been pleased when his wife gave birth to his firstborn son, Trahn. When the boy was eight, his mother had died and less than a year later, the widower had remarried. Soon, Kyrano was born. Trahn had been resentful of the child he saw as a usurper and had openly despised his stepmother. While he had been the product of a "practical" business marriage, Kyrano had been born of a great love. Trahn was twenty-one and his brother ten when their parents died in an accident. The ferry they were on sunk, killing all sixty-five people on board. It would be years before Kyrano discovered that Trahn had arranged the "accident".
Trahn had full custody of his younger brother and had taken over the family business. Kyrano, who his brother mocked for being weak, was becoming increasingly concerned about the people his brother now openly associated with. He had begun to suspect that the business methods Trahn was using in his rapidly expanding "empire" were immoral at best and more than likely illegal. Kyrano counted the days until he could leave.
When Kyrano was eighteen, Trahn informed him that he had arranged his marriage. Horrified, knowing that his brother only wanted him to marry the girl to secure the dowry, Kyrano left their village in Malaysia. After making his way to Hong Kong, Kyrano found work aboard a cruise ship. All the years of having found a haven with the people his brother employed – for slave wages, was coming back to help Kyrano. He could cook, clean and do maintenance work. His late father's words came back to him – "Work done for honest wages is always honorable work."
Kyrano had two significant meetings while working on the cruise ship. One was with a fellow Malaysian. Onaha was a kind, loving girl who had taken a job as a maid on the ship in order to see more of the world. The couple quickly fell in love and married. The only thing that saddened those days was when Kyrano contracted the mumps from a passenger's child. The doctor informed them that the chances of them ever having a child of their own had been greatly reduced.
The second meeting that would change his life was when astronaut, Jeff Tracy and his wife traveled on the ship. The couple had come on a vacation with their three sons, not knowing that Mrs. Tracy was pregnant with what turned out to be their fourth son. Onaha was borrowed to help watch the boys as Mr. Tracy tried to deal with his wife's increasing morning (and afternoon, and evening) sickness. In between, Kyrano and Jeff often talked. Jeff had been surprised that such a well-read, informed man was working at such a job. It was only after the cruise, when Kyrano received a call from a five-star resort in Auckland that he discovered Jeff had recommended Kyrano for a job. Happily settling down, the Kyranos (as he had long ago switched his first and last names to distance himself from his brother) had been thrilled a few years later when they were told they would soon have a child of their own.
It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word you can light up the dark
Try as I may I could never explain
What I hear when you don't say a thing
Over the years, Jeff and Kyrano remained in touch. The Tracys had yet a fifth child, another son, whom they would name Alan. A few weeks after that joyous event, Onaha gave birth to the Kyranos only child, a precious little girl named Tin-Tin, named for a fairy tale princess in a Malaysian children's story.
Kyrano also knew when Jeff's wife was killed in a tragic accident. A snapshot taken by the paparazzi at the funeral showed Jeff surrounded by his four oldest sons, while clutching desperately to his baby. The little boy, only three, was clinging to his father and crying. As he tucked his own three-year-old daughter into bed, Kyrano thanked the heavens for his own family and prayed that the Tracy family could survive this great tragedy.
Years would pass. Kyrano was now a manager at the resort, responsible for major purchases. It was not uncommon for him to have to frequently travel to the ports in order to take care of resort business. Many times, he would take Tin-Tin with him, often stopping to treat his little girl to an amusement. The child was always her parents "little helper" and loved nothing more than to work in a garden or help in the kitchen.
Later, Kyrano would be grateful when his daughter contracted chicken pox. It was due to the illness that she was not with him that day. The day when he left the ten-year-old with her mother while he went to Australia to finalize some purchases for the resort. As the man they were dealing with did not trust banks, the resort owners trusted Kyrano with picking up fifty thousand dollars from a bank in Sydney to complete the purchase. When neither Kyrano nor the money made it to the meeting, the shockwaves were felt throughout. While Onaha was certain her husband had met with foul play, the resort owners and the police believed the man had simply taken the money and run. For the first time since they had moved there, Onaha and Tin-Tin fell victim to the suspicion of "foreigners" that so many held.
Onaha and Tin-Tin spent the next six months, living in a small, run-down apartment, Onaha working a series of dead-end jobs. But whenever the police or the private investigators hired by the resort would come around, Onaha would find herself looking for another job. Their savings were quickly eaten up by the gaps in employment and Onaha's own attempts at finding Kyrano. The investigators she hired would take her money but produced no leads.
Tin-Tin wasn't doing much better. When they lived at the resort, Onaha had home schooled her daughter, with the aid of a satellite program. But since Onaha had to work and didn't feel safe with leaving her daughter with others, Tin-Tin was attending the local school. In a neighborhood where many of the children had at least one parent who had been or were in prison, the idea of Kyrano having "gotten away" seemed to inspire cruelty in her classmates. When Tin-Tin finally lost her temper and defended herself with something other than her fists, Onaha was desperate. She did not know how to deal with everything and the knowledge that her daughter had inherited her abilities from Kyrano's brother…After Tin-Tin cried herself to sleep again that night, Onaha sat at a table, fingering a business card Kyrano had kept tucked in a address book. It went against her nature to plead for help, but there was no alternative.
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all
Jeff Tracy came within hours. He brought Onaha and Tin-Tin to his Island home. With everything that had happened, Onaha had been unaware that Gordon, the baby Lucy Tracy had been carrying on the cruise ship, had been involved in an accident. The boy, now sixteen, had been serving in WASPs. His injuries had been severe. Onaha helped by taking care of him, while Alan Tracy and Tin-Tin were of an age and studied together. The youngest Tracy had been away at school, along with the son of a Tracy employee who also lived on the island, a Professor Hackenbacker. While that son was still at a boarding school, Alan, for now, was at home.
In a few days, Jeff was able to discover more than Onaha had in months. Several witnesses admitted seeing her husband pulled into a car where a bald Asian man sat. They also said that Kyrano had seemed terrified at the sight of the man. Onaha knew there was only one person who truly terrified her spouse and that was his brother. But before Onaha could confess to Mr. Tracy about the criminal who was her husband's only other family, he was called away.
The Tracys, you see, were also International Rescue. Jeff Tracy and his three oldest sons ran the rescue organization. Word had come to them about the collapse of an illegal diamond mine in Malaysia. Hundreds of workers – perhaps even the mine owner himself – were trapped underground.
Late that day, the Thunderbirds returned. Tired and dirty, they were torn on the success of the mission. All 235 mine workers were alive but the mine owner, in an effort to evade the authorities called to the disaster site had attempted to leave by a secret exit. Unfortunately, when more of the mine collapsed, the man had been trapped. Jeff had wanted to try and get to the man, but Scott had made him see that to do so would place the workers and the rescuers in danger. They had left him behind. But Onaha had eyes only for one thing. As she held her husband, he whispered the truth in her ear. The mine owner had been his estranged brother. The monster had enslaved his own brother.
That night, after their daughter was asleep, the family secure in the knowledge that Kyrano's name was now clear, his brother dead and their future settled as they would now work and live on Tracy Island, the couple vowed to never tell anyone that the criminal behind it all had been Trahn Belegant and Kyrano's brother. For the sake of their daughter, they could not risk it. They felt some guilt at not telling Mr. Tracy, but as they watched their child sleep, the couple comforted themselves with the knowledge that to protect Tin-Tin it was necessary.
All day long I can hear people talking out loud
But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd
Old Mr. Webster could never define
What's being said between your heart and mine
Years passed. Gordon recovered and joined the team. Alan had long since rejoined Fermat Hackenbacker at a boarding school – or two – in the States. The rows between Alan and his father, when the former was home, were legendary. The ones between Alan and Tin-Tin were more subtle but clearly there. Watching the two children, now teenagers, bicker one day, Onaha smiled. Kyrano, having entered the kitchen while his wife was preparing dinner for the Tracys, was puzzled. "Wife, why does the sight of our daughter arguing with the son of the man we owe everything to seem to bring you pleasure. I thought you cared about Alan?"
Onaha chuckled lightly. "My husband, I do care about Alan. I love that boy as if he were our son, as I do young Fermat. Both of those boys need motherly love. What I smile at is that our daughter has met her match. Wait and see, some day those two will realize there are things for a young couple that is better than arguing."
Kyrano frowned. He loved – no adored – his only child. He also cared deeply for Alan. The boy was good-hearted but missed his family desperately when he was away at school. His wanting to stay on the island full time was the basis of most of the arguments the teen had with his father. But Alan was the son of one of the richest men in the world, a man who was an astronaut, decorated military and now secretly ran International Rescue. Tin-Tin was the daughter of that man's employees and, even if Jeff Tracy didn't know it, the niece of a criminal genius. Could anything come of a romance between the couple but heartache for his beloved daughter?
Before Kyrano could deal with that problem, a far bigger one arrived. His brother – now calling himself The Hood – invaded the island. Holding the Thunderbirds responsible for leaving him to die in the collapsed mine, he was seeking revenge. Finding his wayward brother was only a bonus to the man. But by the end of the day, the Hood was defeated, thanks in no small part to Alan, Tin-Tin, and Fermat. The sense of pride Kyrano had for the courage is daughter had shown was met only by the feeling of relief when Mr. Tracy told Kyrano he understood why he had never revealed his connection to the criminal mastermind. No matter how much Kyrano felt guilty about the monster who had nearly killed, at one point or another that day, the entire Tracy Family, Jeff had come to think of the Kyranos as family as well. And to Jeff Tracy, nothing was as important as family.
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all
Another change came about after the result of the Hood's attack on the Tracys. Alan and Tin-Tin ceased to bicker as much. Kyrano had never been so relieved that Alan was often away at school and when he was home, his father had now made both Alan and Tin-Tin members of International Rescue. The teens were often too busy to spend as much time together as they would like.
But no one could stop destiny. The couple married before leaving for college in Boston, Alan to Harvard for dual majors of Engineering and English Literature; Tin-Tin for MIT and a degree in Software Engineering. When they returned for good four years later, Alan was already a published science fiction author and both were listed as employees of Tracy Industries in research and development. Both were also still Thunderbirds but Tin-Tin preferred to work with Professor Hackenbacker on improving the equipment and technology available to the rescuers. That was perhaps for the best as that summer, the couple became parents for the first time. As Kyrano held his baby granddaughter, Samantha, in his arms, he heard everyone remark on how much the child resembled Alan. And while Sammie was the image of her father and paternal grandmother, Kyrano could not help but see his own baby from decades past. Feeling the slight nudge in his mind, one that had disturbed him once from his brother but he knew comfort of in his daughter, Kyrano smiled. Physically, the babe was clearly marked as Alan Tracy's but she had silently acknowledged to her maternal grandfather that she was also of his lineage.
Several months later, the Hood returned. The man would die there at the hands of the eldest Tracy Son's wife, a former FBI agent, after the villain threatened the Tracy Grandchildren. But to Kyrano, his brother had died many years before and he did not mourn what was or could have been. Looking at his daughter and the family she was creating with Alan, Kyrano was at peace. Tin-Tin and the children she would give birth to were the future. As he once more felt the warm comforting touch of his daughter and granddaughter in his mind, Kyrano smiled. He was never a man to say much. And feeling the love of his blood kin as well as the family that had taken them in so long ago, he needed no words. He was surrounded by people who loved him, needed him and believed in him. For that, no words would suffice.
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all
A/N - I loved how Tin-Tin seemed to silently communicate with her parents. An extention of her powers or just a very closer family. oh, and the reference to Tin-Tin's name? I made it up, OK? So now slamming that for me. Well, this ends the daughters' stories. More of Payment in Kind will be up soon. Enjoy and review. - CC