Alan's bedroom shares a wall with John's, and has ever since the family moved out to the island. He'd only been twelve, and he and Gordon had been split up for the first time since childhood. No more bunk beds. No more late night conversations with Gordon, who had more than once dropped off to sleep, hanging halfway off the top bunk, only to fall off the top with an enormous crash that woke Alan in a shouting panic. Once it had necessitated a middle-of -the-night emergency room run to reset a dislocated shoulder, but only once. Gordon's always been fairly durable. When he falls he tends to bounce.
But Alan's own room. That first night, pretending he wasn't expecting nightmares, pretending he was fine with the monstrous roar of the sea all around the island-John had turned up at his door, nineteen, tall and taciturn. He'd been armed with a holographic tablet containing all of Thunderbird Three's schematics, and the earliest of the plans for Five. John had always had a way of seeing right through Alan's bravado, and they'd stayed up until dawn, babbling at each other about rocketry and space stations and things to come.
Just as he was falling asleep, sprawled comfortably across the foot of Alan's bed John had thumbed a control on the tablet, and there had been a slow, hydraulic hum as a shade built into the ceiling had slid open. Alan hadn't even known his room had a skylight until John had drowsily directed Alan's attention to the slow rise of Venus. The morning star. Then he'd just been snoring softly at the foot of the bed, while Alan had stared in awe at the glory of the pre-dawn sky. He hadn't thought about the way the island's sky was pure, uninhibited by the light pollution he'd gotten used to, growing up in a city. From that first night, Alan had been enamoured by his room, all his childish fears chased away by John, and the sense of wonder they shared at the skies above.
In what he thinks is the morning, he's woken by the sound of something shattering against the wall above his head. He throws his hands over his face instinctively, but nothing falls on him-whatever it was impacted on the other side of the wall. John's room.
Alan scrambles out of bed. Sleep had been fitful, fraught with worry about his brother, and challenging on account of the long nap he'd had curled up on the couch. It's early afternoon now, according to the clock on his bedside. Virgil had bullied him out of his uniform and into proper pajamas, and he skids into the hall in his bare feet, tripping over the hems of his slightly-too-long pajama pants as he barrels through John's bedroom door.
"John?"
John's been put to bed too, in far better shape than when Alan had seen him last, conscious and halfway sat up against a heap of pillows. It's at least twenty-four hours later, and Alan's still trying to get himself oriented, but nothing matters beyond the fact that John's okay. He's breathing a little heavily, but he lifts his gaze as Alan catches himself in the doorway. John's sitting up and he's a little pale and there's a tube in his nose, but he's okay, and Alan could just about cry as he bolts across the room and clambers onto the end of the bed. "John!"
He's stumbled into the middle of what might be the worst moment of John's life, and certainly one of the lowest points of Scott's. Alan doesn't notice the way Scotty freezes as he crosses in the room, the way John's face goes blank, the way his hands clench in the blankets.
Scott's the one who speaks first, catches Alan by the back of his shirt and hauls him off the bed, gives him a shove towards the door. "Alan, go see Virgil," he orders brusquely.
Alan's bewildered by this and he squirms free of Scott's grasp, recalcitrant. "What? No, I just-"
"Stay."
And that's John, but his voice is dark and quiet and terrible and like nothing Alan's ever heard before. The way his brother's voice hits him makes him think of the same sharp, sudden impact that cracked John's ribs, collapsed his lung. But that's all fine, though. That's better. John's okay. John's lucky to be alive and he should be glad that he's home.
Scott's got a chair next to John's bed and he shifts in it, avoids John's gaze. Alan steals a glance across the room, sees some broken glass at the foot of the wall. There's a pitcher of water on a tray beside the bed, but nothing to drink it out of. Someone threw something. Scott looks like he wants to throw up. It all clicks, just a little too late, even as Alan's hands catch, twist the hem of his t-shirt anxiously. Scott's just told John about Five.
The eldest clears his throat and shoots Alan a quick, anxious glance. "John, look, we need to-"
"I don't want to talk to you. You weren't there. Alan was. He stays." And John fixes his baby brother with a green-eyed stare that makes Alan feel tiny and small and suddenly sick inside. "Tell me what happened."
Alan's stomach drops as reality hits. Oh god, he doesn't remember. He doesn't remember and Scott's just told him Five's gone.
And John's coldly, blackly furious.
John doesn't get mad. John's the one you can't get to. John might sometimes get annoyed, might sometimes stray into the territory of stern, but he never gets mad. John's cool and calm and eternally unflappable. Their dad had used to say that you couldn't ruffle John's feathers if you hit him with a brick.
Only apparently it'll ruffle John's feather's if you tear his space station to pieces around him and drag him out of the wreckage and back down to earth.
Scott clears his throat and speaks up before Alan can answer. "He did what he was told. Alan, Virgil wants you for debrief. Go. John, listen, I know this is hard, but-"
"You don't know anything," John snaps, in the same moment that Alan says "No one told me what to do."
If Scott had flinched any harder it would've been audible, like glass breaking, but neither John nor Alan care, staring at one another. "What the hell happened to my station?" John demands. "What did you do?"
Something inside Alan is hardening into defiance, remembering the way he'd nearly watched his brother die. Alan saved his big brother's life. This isn't fair. There's smoke roiling in his stomach, curling upward and then catching, flaring into anger. "I took it apart. I had to." Alan feels his jaw tighten, grits his teeth. "I tore it apart. It was killing you. You said, you said; if...if EOS couldn't be stopped, then I would have to take Five apart. So I did."
"Alan, that's enough," Scott cuts in again, standing up and putting both hands on Alan's shoulders to steer him out of the room. Alan's still staring at John, who looks stunned, stricken. Maybe he didn't know. Maybe Scott hadn't gotten that far. Thunderbird Five out of commission was one thing. Thunderbird Five torn to pieces was another.
John falters and the anger in him quells slightly. "You did...you what?"
Alan's running on too much of the wrong kind of sleep and he feels awful. He'd wanted it to be over, wanted to see John, to know his brother was safe and home and going to get better. John has no right to be mad. EOS wasn't more important than his family, Thunderbird Five isn't more important than his family. "I did what you said. I had to."
"It wasn't supposed to be your call-"
"Well, you weren't gonna make it! Someone had to, that thing beat you. It was smarter and you couldn't beat it and I-"
"I had it under control!"
"No, you didn't!" Alan shouts, accidentally, and breaks away from Scott, looming over his brother, still halfway reclining in bed and pale and on oxygen, and if Alan hadn't been so mad he wouldn't ever have shouted at John, not like this. "You were gonna let it kill you, and what if it had? What was I supposed to do then? It was gonna punch a hole through my hull and then what was I gonna do? I didn't have my helmet on, and you would've been dead, and then it would've killed me too. I had to."
John's stopped and he's staring, and Alan realizes abruptly that there's no way his brother knew that. He couldn't have. Not John, not the same brother who's always supposed to know when Alan's scared. Not John who's secretly been Alan's hero since the first time he was trusted with the redhead's telescope, his star charts. Not John who stayed up the whole night to show him the morning star, so many years ago, not fifty feet from where Alan's standing now.
Alan doesn't know what John remembers or doesn't remember or how he thought things were supposed to go. But the moment of silence stretching between them is killing Alan. He takes a deep breath and manages not to shout, though his voice cracks half way through, "I can't keep losing my family! You can't do that again, you can't ever do that again! We're more important!"
Scott's got him by the collar now, and he's being hauled out of the room. He stumbles when they hit the hallway and Scott lets him go. Alan's eyes were already blurring with tears, and he's doubled over, gasping out broken sobs now. Scott's saying something-trying to, at least-and Alan can't tell if he's mad or just going for damage control. Scott didn't know what happened either. When his oldest brother reaches for his shoulder, Alan ducks away and bolts. Still in his bare feet, still in a pair of hand-me-down pajamas, he finds the nearest door outside and runs.