Scott

…

The headache is receding a little, but any kind of motivation I'd worked up to face the day drained away in Dad's office to be replaced by a desire to go curl up under a stone somewhere. I'm twenty-nine years of age and he still has the capacity to make me feel and behave like a five-year-old.

All thoughts of working on Three abandoned for the moment, I head for the gym. If I don't kick-start again I'm in danger of stalling. I'm praying it's empty. If Virj is in there he'll spot my mood in an instant, and right now, I need to blast it, not talk about it.

I'm half out of luck. John. I'm surprised. I thought he'd still be sleeping. I brought him back down from a long stint in Five in the middle of the night. He was tired and irritable. He's desperate to finish his doctoral thesis and he's been up into the early hours every night – or whatever it is that passes for night up there - trying to hit his own self-imposed deadline. But now I guess he's figured I'm going to order a full fitness work-up in a day or two and he had darned well better pass it.

Still, at least it's John, not one of the others. When a guy's not in a mood for small talk John's your man. He grunts a greeting then ignores me and concentrates on what he's doing.

Half an hour later and it's no damn good. I still can't focus and my limbs feel as heavy as lead. I keep replaying the conversation with Dad over and over, working out how I should have handled it. Why didn't I just get a grip?

I give up on the workout and shower for the third time this morning. I take it slow this time, feeling numb as the jets shoot across my body.

When I emerge, one towel round my waist and another in hand, John's waiting, sprawled casually across the benches, a mildly sardonic look on his face.

"What's up bro'?" he asks.

"Nothing."

He snorts.

I ignore him for a moment but he continues to stare.

"What?!" I ask, exasperated.

"Kind of half-hearted in there, weren't you?" He's well-used to the kind of pace I normally pull. He reaches back over his shoulder and fingers some non-existent mark on the wall. "Care to share?"

Jeez, he's turning into Virgil. You going soft on me Johnny-boy?

"Nope."

He shrugs. "Suit yourself." He tugs off his vest slowly. I wait for him to hit the shower so I can dress in peace, but he isn't in any hurry. "Don't mind me," he drawls lazily, knowing damn well that I do.

Johnny and I have grown apart some, and I don't quite know how it happened. We were real close as kids, but somewhere he grew right up and I admit I didn't notice. He doesn't like taking orders. A lot of the time that pretty much amounts to the same thing as not liking me. And that's a damn shame, because I'm real fond of Johnny. He's kinda weird and quirky, but I like him. I know he enjoys spending time on his own – in space, if he can persuade us that something needs tinkering with in the satellite - but I'm happiest when he's back on base. He and I are just a little out of sync right now, that's all. I've been figuring to fix that.

And here he is, making all the moves. I'm an idiot.

"Dad's fixing to bring Grandma to live on the island."

He flips his head sideways. "Been on the cards for a while, BB."

"I guess so," I say sourly. "I just reacted like a jerk when he told me, that's all. Then it all sort of got outta hand and turned into something different."

He just raises his eyebrows. "So nothing new there?"

"I guess not."

He gets lazily to his feet and starts to strip off the rest of his clothes. I look the other way and pretend to dry off my hair some more. I might have helped Mom change his diapers when I was a kid, but I'm not all that comfortable staring at his naked butt now.

"You're all grown-up, these days, Scott. You'll cope."

"I know."

"Besides, she may figure out that the rest of us ain't boy-scouts. Maybe we can spread the heat a little."

"Heaven help you if she ever finds out what you get up to on shore leave."

Despite his record with women she still thinks the light shines out of Johnny.

"Or Gordon, what's worse," he notes.

Too terrible to contemplate. We've spent years covering for his iniquities.

"Or even Alan," he adds sweetly.

The thought puts a smile back on my face. "She won't believe you. Even if she does she'll blame the rest of us for leading him astray." Something else occurs to me and I groan. "You realize we'll have to stop swearing."

He tugs at the band holding back his hair, and shakes it loose, starting to laugh as he does so. "Shit! I don't think I can. But it isn't all bad."

"Isn't it?"

"Let's face it…she still bakes a pretty mean pie."

I smile mirthlessly. She's a dragon in the kitchen. I try to imagine what it's going to be like. Gordon can't so much as reheat meatloaf without poisoning us all – he gets that from Dad - but the rest of us aren't bad. Kyrano takes a day off a week, under protest. Once in a while he visits relatives and he's gone for weeks at a time. We cope. Some of us actually like to turn our hand to the culinary arts when the muse moves us. But we're usually ordered out of the kitchen when she's around. Even Kyrano ducks for cover. But – it's true, she does bake a mean pie.

John recognizes the look on my face and grins. "You are so easy, you know that?"

He picks up a couple of towels and finally heads for the shower, leaving me to dress in peace.

"Welcome back, John," I call after him. He just grunts.

I'm not running on a full battery today, but at least the conversation with Johnny has me part-way charged up. Enough, at least, to muster a degree of civility in my dealings with Hackenbacker.

Hiram and I are halfway through realigning the boosters when the klaxon goes off.

…