Chapter Four
"He's alive!" Scott all but screams, clutching at that weak, struggling pulse point and Thunderbird Three lists suddenly and dangerously in space as Alan's hands jerk completely off the controls. Scott is thrown, slammed heavily against the side of the ship as she rolls and it's all he can do to clutch John's body, Johns living body, to him in a hurried attempt to shield his brother from the impact. Scott's head cracks painfully back against the bulkhead, smashing into solid titanium so hard that his vision whites out. Pain ripples down his neck and through spinal cord and makes him cry out; his voice high and rough under the impact. Slowly, he slumps down the wall, John heavy and limp against him in a tangle of limbs as Scott's head spins and his vision blurs.
"S...Scott? Repeat that? Scott, Scott... I thought you said... I heard..." comes Alan's tremulous voice over the intercom, buzzing overly loud in his ears. Scott groans, shifting John's weight in an attempt to try and find his way onto his knees again. Dazed, he reaches up to wipe blood from his eyes, from where it's running down from a sharp split in the side of his forehead where his head had smashed against Three's solid hull.
"He's alive, Alan!" Scott gasps out; blood smeared and disorientated with the world still spinning around him like Alan has decided to throw them into another barrel roll. "John's alive! He's got a pulse!" Not breathing though, Scott notes dizzily, gently lying his brother down and setting his limbs cautiously straight. He holds the back of his hand a few inches above John's mouth and nose, hoping for any sign of breath. When there is none, he presses two fingers under the astronaut's chin to tilt his head back and check his airways, which seem clear, if a little red and swollen.
"Scotty..." Alan's voice is shaking like he thinks his big brother has gone mad with grief, "he was without oxygen for thirty minutes he can't be..." his hands are shaking again too by the way Three is shuddering around them.
Scott pulls at the openings to John's space suit at his throat and, tugging the thick space-proofed fabric apart, he lays his head against John's thin, cold chest, his cheek meeting the soft, worn fabric of one of his Father's thin old NASA t-shirts. He can hear it; the weak, struggling heartbeat. It's there. It's actually there. He's not hallucinating in his sorrow. He didn't hit his head that hard.
"Affirmative. He's alive, I don't know how he is, but he is." Checking John's airways again, and seeing how the bluish hue of his lips is rapidly deepening, Scott realises John has probably, impossibly, only not been breathing for maybe three, four minutes at most. Scott knows brain damage occurs at five to ten. Certain death at fifteen. No hope at all after half an hour.
"Alan, we need to get him back to Earth now. He needs medical attention." Thunderbird Three steadies beneath them as Alan's hands stabilise themselves under the pressure of needing to save his brother's life. It's no longer a recovery, it's become a rescue, and rescues are what they're good at.
John's airway is clear, but his chest isn't rising and falling at all and so, adrenaline thrumming in his chest, Scott swings one leg over his brother. He leans his shoulders forwards, cautious at first to not to put any of his weight on his brother's fragile ribcage. Carefully, if a little uncertainly, Scott places the heel of his hand in the centre of John's chest, above his sternum, overlapping it with his other hand and interlacing his fingers. With no time for hesitation and a silent apology to his brother, Scott pushes down hard, wincing as he feels John's ribs shifting, grinding under his palms. Definitely broken. Better having broken ribs than being dead though.
Bracing his shoulders Scott tries to find himself a rhythm, pressing down sharply and repeatedly against John's cold chest in an effort to keep the blood and oxygen circulating in the astronaut's body. To keep his heart beating.
"Come on John, come on, breathe." The eldest Tracy boy demands, pushing down as hard as he dares. After thirty, precisely counted compressions, Scott leans forward, tilting John's head back with two fingers under his chin before he reaches out to pinch his brother's nose tightly shut.
He knows he has to breathe manually for John; to give his brother a chance by filling his lungs with oxygen for him. The automated equipment they have on board is only designed to provide the oxygen, not make a person use it.
Which doesn't mean it's not weird as hell to lock his mouth over John's cold, slack one in a tight seal, and blow air forcefully into his lungs. But as John's chest rises and falls, his lungs expanding with air once, then twice, as he does, Scott counts that as a victory. Let the kid be alive to yell at me for it later. He thinks. Please let him be alive to yell at me later.
"Come on kiddo, come on." Scott begs quietly, as, leaning back again, he delivers another thirty compressions with the heel of his palm and his weight behind his hands. Fear has formed a painful, hard knot in Scott's chest, stunting his own breathing. Making his hands shake. He delivers two more rescue breaths, blowing steadily and firmly into John's airways; his chest rises and falls again but John doesn't seem to be responding at all. There's blood in Scott's eyes again, and he swipes it away irritably with the back of his hand to push out another thirty compressions and then another two breaths, hating how he knows the time in racking up. Seven minutes, potential for brain damage, death imminent. His brother's broken body is disturbingly different to the plastic dummies they'd practiced CPR on in his Air Force training, it's soft and cold and the feel of real skin under his fingertips as he delivers the breaths is harrowing. There's blood smeared on John's space t-shirt, crimson against off-white, and if Scott didn't know it was off his own hands he'd think John had taken a dagger to the chest.
The ship vibrates around him and Alan's voice echoes somewhere around the metal walls. The youngest Tracy is talking via the radio link-up, but not to Scott, so he surmises that Alan has called their Father to apprise him of the situation. And to hopefully get medical assistance ready for their landing. Scott can't hear Alan properly to be sure; the sound of the ships engines, the blood rushing in his ears and his own haggard breathing are far too loud. His skull is pounding, the impact it took has made him dizzy.
"Please John, please, breathe, please." But as he checks it, his hands sliding over freezing skin, John's pulse is stuttering out under his fingers and his lips are turning purplish grey. Nine minutes. "No no, no, no..." the litany tumbles from Scott's lips as he gives another thirty compressions, two breaths, then another thirty, each one pushing harder than the last, struggling and straining and he's crying out, screaming John's name, as he tries, desperately to get his brother to just take in some air.
"Come on Johnny, breathe. Just god dam fucking breathe. Come on!" Scott cries, gasping, lightheaded and breathless himself and he brings his palms down with far more force than he'd ever intended, slamming them into Johnny's chest.
There's a loud, painful cracking sound followed by a sharp, choked cry as the ribs give under his hands. John's eyes fly open and suddenly he's coughing, gasping for air, his whole body jerking and shaking, and Scott can only grip his brother's shoulders, and stare as John's mouth opens and closes and he quivers like a fish out of water; lips parted as he tries desperately to suck in as much air as he can. John's eyes squeeze tightly closed again and his face is torn, twisted in a horrible grimace of pain, his whole chest shuddering under the force of his coughing. There's blood on his lips and that's bad, very bad, as Scott, shell shocked and disbelieving, scrambles off his brother.
"Johnny! Johnny!" Scott's hands are under John's head again, supporting it as his brother convulses, the sound of air getting sucked desperately through his throat sounds painful, like he's coughing up broken glass, but he's breathing. He's actually breathing. Colour flood's John's face and the relief in Scott's chest is staggering and exhausting.
First response training kicking in, Scott gently lifts one of John's limp, trembling arms and tucks it up by his head at a ninety degree angle. He then takes the other, the right one, and crosses it over his brother's chest to tuck the cold, thin fingers against his cheek. As he does so, something grinds in John's shoulder and Five's communications monitor gives a long, painful groan, which slides out from between his clenched teeth, choked and hoarse like the sound of creaking hinges or raw meat going through a mincer. His face twists up in pain but his eyes don't open again.
Scott finds himself swearing quietly, his fingers quick and careful as he pushes John's space suit aside so he can palm the shoulder though the thin fabric of his t-shirt, pulling the short sleeve back as much as he can to reveal the blotchy purpled skin beneath. His fingers feel gently around the puffy, extensive bruising, focusing on the top of John's humorous and around his scapula, where his skin is tight and swollen. His shoulder looks oddly squared rather than round and Scott finds a bulge of bone under the skin at the front that's definitely out of place. Palming it gently, he can feel the shape of the top of John's humorous has been forced out of its socket and dislocated.
Wincing in sympathy, Scott scrabbles to pull down the top half of his spacesuit and tugs his own t-shirt, the standard issue soft blue rollneck, off over his head. He doesn't think he can reset the bone himself, for fear he could trap the thin, fine nerves in John's shoulder, so he'll have to make do with the next best thing. Scott finds himself wishing Virgil was here; his brother was so much better at this than he's ever been. Shivering slightly, Scott folds the fabric once, then twice, before tucking the little make-shift pillow of cloth into the gap between John's damaged arm and the side of his chest. Then, taking the long sleeved arms of the t-shirt, he softly wraps them once around John's upper arm, trying not to move the limb too much, then he brings them up, lifting John's head gently, to tie a secure knot above his opposite shoulder; forming a make-shift sling. Taking hold of his brother's limp forearm he gently rotates it into a ninety degree angle and rests it down across John's chest. His trembling fingers linger, surprisingly tenderly, over John's cold, bluish ones.
Shifting back on his heels, Scott can see John is taking little shallow hiccoughs of breath, small, sharp intakes of air, and his brother's face is still very pale as he trembles. Careful of the shoulder, Scott lifts John's right knee, bringing the limb up so that it rests in a bent position and he uses John's slight weight to roll him cautiously onto his side and into the recovery position. Checking his brother's pulse, Scott finds it weak, rapid and thready; racing under John's cool, clammy skin like it's trying to make a circuit round one of Alan's tracks. Scott realises that John's body is probably not pumping around enough oxygenated blood, and that he has likely gone into circulatory shock.
Casting his eyes around, Scott spots the copy of the Hitchhikers Guide that he'd brought aboard with him and, snatching the book up, he uses it to prop the spaceman's feet up, raising and supporting them to try and increase the blood flow towards his heart and head. Pressing a hand to John's pallid, mottled cheek he finds it clammy and cold, and then, taking a moment to reassure himself that John's still breathing, Scott pushes himself to his feet.
He's not expecting the rush of dizziness that sweeps over him, or the sharp, throbbing pain in his head. It feels like someone has tried to split it with an axe. Scott staggers slightly, his hand coming up to his forehead and smearing the blood there as he tries to catch a deep breath and steady himself.
"Scott?" Alan's voice comes over the airwaves, sounding concerned. "Our ETA is twenny, Dad says Virgil is doing his nut setting up the medical stuff down there ready for our landing... how's... how's John?"
"I've got him breathing." Scott reports in and the huge, tearful gasp of relief Alan makes brings a tired smile to his face. "He's in shock and he's pulled his shoulder out of socket and definitely broken several of his ribs, but he's breathing."
"Thank god..." Alan chokes out. "Did you hear that Gordon? He's breathing!" and that's when Scott becomes aware of another voice, distant to his ears, but patched through clearly for Alan, rambling away in the cockpit and he realises that Alan must have a open line with the Island, keeping in contact with base. It's a comforting thought.
He tunes the pair of them out for the moment though, opting instead to stumble towards the ladder that leads down to Three's storage compartments below their feet. As Scott does so, he finds his hand reaching out to the cool metal wall for support. Slowly, he heaves himself down until his legs hang over what feels like an abyss below. He has to squeeze his eyes closed to try and stave off the dizziness, taking deeper, longer breaths in an attempt to stop the world from spinning quite so much around him. Maybe he'd hit his head harder than he thought. Or maybe it's just the exhaustion. Either way, Scott is careful as he takes the short ladder down one rung at a time, checking and re-checking his grip on the metal because to fall now would probably result in him not getting up again anytime soon. Which would spell bad things for John.
His thick space-boots meet the cold diamond-patterned titanium alloy of Three's flooring and Scott is quick, if a little careless, as he rummages through the containment boxes they keep down here. He pulls out a medi-pac, one of the standard issue ones kept aboard every Thunderbird and he checks the use-by date stamped across its front before unzipping it to peer at the contents. Satisfied, and filled with the desire to hurry back to John, Scott also grabs a blanket, one of the spares for Three's bunks, and pushes himself back towards the ladder.
Getting back up to the hold is harder work than Scott had ever imagined it could be. The muscles in his shoulders and calves burn as he pushes his exhausted body upwards and each rung feels like a small mountain he has to conquer. But then Scott has always been good at conquering mountains. As he pulls himself out of the hatch and staggers upright, his mouth curves up in an almost triumphant smile. He takes a couple of wobbly steps, but then, in his victory, his ankles decide to try and go in the direction he really wasn't and Scott nearly falls down again. He has to reach out and bracing himself on against the wall and Scott pushes himself to take a few more wobbly steps in the right direction. Cursing himself for his fatigue, Scott eventually reaches John's side once more and leans back over to check his brother's airways and pulse.
Scott's lips curve down a frown. John is shivering; his eyebrows scrunched in the kind of pain that plagues even the unconscious and his whole body is being wracked by a relentless trembling that jerks his limbs and forces tension into the muscles at his neck until they strain. John's breath is coming is harsh, short, shuddering gasps, uneven and weak and his lips are still holding onto that god-awful blue tinge. Scott, shaking off his own dizziness the best he can, leans back on his heels and unzips the medi-pac, rifling through it and pulling out small silver square of folded Mylar; a type of polyester film coated with a thin veneer of aluminium that, when wrapped around the body allows the material to reflect heat back towards the skin. Athletes use them after races. Gordon has some for after cold ocean swims. And now, Scott decides, John was going to use one for his shock and probable possible hypothermia. Carefully unfolding the Mylar blanket he tucks it gently around his shivering little brother, trapping any heat John had left to lose within its little silver bubble.
Scott presses the back of his hand to John's cheek again, finding it still cold and clammy. He wonders how much of that is shock and how much might be hypothermia. Space was cold, after all. Especially as Five's warmth would have been leeched out with its oxygen. John's suit must have protect him from it to some extent, but Scott can thank it later, as he's busy bundling the other blanket he'd brought up from the hold over their Space Monitor. He takes care to tuck it in softly under John's chin the way their mother had done when they were little before he's rummaging in the Medi-Pac again and bringing up a thermometer.
Not really wanting to disrupt John's airways, Scott decides to tuck the thing under his armpit, careful of the broken limb and to not lift the blankets too much. The reading comes back, flashing on the twin, universal dial as 30°C/86°F; too low for regular body heat and well within the hypothermic range. Scott tucks the blankets even closer around his brother, scowling and wishing he could do more. In fact he is feeling pretty powerless right around now; out of his depth. Virgil is the medic in the family, not him, and standard First Response training can only get him so far. Turning back to the Medi-Pac, Scott fingers a roll of bandage, and wonders if he should have attempted bind his brother's broken ribs or if moving him to do so would have only aggravated the problem.
He's pretty sure he should at least try to get John on some oxygen though; to try and increase his intake in the hopes that it'll bring the probably incredibly low O2 level of his blood back up. Rummaging in the Mec-Pac again, Scott brings out the emergency oxygen mask, and, linking it up to a small, portable tank of pure O2 he presses the thing over John's nose and mouth. He holds it there securely as he tries to slip the elasticised band of the mask over his brother's head; carefully sliding one big, warm hand under John's head and wondering, once more, at how his fingers catch in the soft hairs at his nape. Mask on, Scott checks his pulse and breathing again, ignoring how much of the desire to do so was necessity and how much was paranoia and his own selfish desire just to watch Johnny breathe.
Frowning, Scott thinks he should probably try to get him on a saline IV, to counter any dehydration from the depressurisation. There's a huge trocar needle and bag for it in the Medi-Pac but Scott's not entirely sure how device is supposed to work, aside from needle in vein, bag in the air, so he figures he'll leave that until they're safely back on good old Earth and under Virgil's steadier hands. It shouldn't be too long now, right? John probably needs drugs too, the good stuff, but Scott's not even sure which cocktail would be best, and he doesn't really want to give his brother anything without Virgil's say so, as he vaguely remembers something about morphine causing breathing problems in patients and the last thing John needs is any more of those.
"Scott?" Alan's voice chooses that moment to crackle through his radio's static, cutting into his deliberation. With Five's communications shot to hell up there they seem to be having a bit of trouble with even the close-circuit radios and Scott frowns at the white noise that reverberates over the line and spoils his baby brother's voice. "We're angling down through the atmosphere, burn's gonna start any minute now. You and Johnny good?"
"I've got him." Scott tells his brother, "We'll be ready; you focus on flying, ok Sprout?" His arms are already coming up to roll John back onto his back, gently looping an arm under John's good one and tucking his other firmly across his brother's chest.
"FAB Scotty." Alan's voice crackles out, leaving them alone again, and Scott, realising he has neither the strength or time right now to get them both into Three's proper seating, pushes his back hard up against Three's wall. He pulls John's sagging body up like a ragdoll, tugging him into a semi-seated position between Scott's outstretched legs and he rests the blanket-bundled body back against his own chest. John's head falls back limply onto Scott's shoulder, exposing the pale expanse of his throat and the way condensation blooms in short, sharp puffs against the clear plastic of the oxygen mask with each of the young man's shaky breaths.
Working quickly, Scott decides he doesn't want John's ribs to be shaken around too much after all, as he knows this burn is going to be rough on them because Alan is hitting it fast. He grabs the roll of bandage from where he'd abandoned it in the Medi-Pac and, taking advantage of their now vertical position Scott loops the roll, unravelling it as he goes, and binding it tightly around John's chest, over the top of the blankets he's still tucked into. He trusses up John's arms as he does so, as an extra precaution. The end result looks slightly ridiculously like someone's been trying to give Johnny away as badly-wrapped Christmas present. Scott merits that it should keep his ribs firmly where they should be inside his chest, at least until they get back home, even if it does look daft.
Thunderbird Three's walls have started shaking around them, the vibrations jolting up Scott's spine as he braces himself, legs straining to push his body against Three's hull and John held tightly and firmly within the circle of his arms. The position doesn't cushion the shocks nearly as well as the chairs in TB3's cockpit do, but Scott resigns himself to the thought that at least he's acting as shock-absorber for John, who should only feel the burn minimally as they break through Earth's atmosphere.
The ship's juddering getting worse and worse all around him and it's like Alan's 'bird is trying her best to violently shake them apart. Scott grits his teeth, his neck straining as he feels Three's every bloody jolt and jerk as she throws them out of the stratosphere and breaches the ozone, flames licking around her nosecone as they plummet. It feels like they're trying to punch through a brick wall. Scott's whole body is shaking, his bones feeling like they're splitting, bile rising in his throat and, gods Alan must be gunning it, this is the worst atmospheric entry burn he's had in years, his head pounds painfully, blood throbbing in his ears. There's blood in his eyes again too and he can't even reach up to swipe it away as his eyes squeeze themselves closed and his fingers curl, latched in a death-grip around John's limp body like it's a lifeline. Scott's breathing is hard and painful in his chest and he's terrified because each of his five senses is quickly becoming compromised and he doesn't know how Johnny is anymore. He can't tell. He can't see, can't open his eyes. The roaring in his ears has masked the pitiful rasp of John's breathing. He can't feel anything over the ship's vibrations and he can only pray that... he can only...
They break out of the ozone with a hard punch that throws them deep into the troposphere. Gravity is dragging them down and Scott feels the heady surge of relief as he feels, somewhat mutedly, the fierce rumble of Alan firing the retro thrusters under them. The shaking abates around them, the burn spent, but they're shooting towards Earth, spiralling down and Scott would think Alan has lost all control over Thunderbird Three except he can feel how precisely his little brother's 'bird is descending.
The landing is a brutal one. It feels like Alan has slammed them down onto the Earth's surface like he's trying to squash a bug and it's all Scott can do to push his head back and take deep, ragged breaths as they hit. He's still all curled up tightly around Johnny, with his numb fingers clutching desperately at his brother's body, and he stays like that, panting and trembling, until a small, round face, frightened and pale, is suddenly all up in his blurred vision, shouting his name and shaking his shoulder.
...
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Authors Notes: Hope this chapter is ok, I'm not feeling too confident/motivated about my writing at the moment (and it is three am sooo...) but I wanted to get this up for those of you enjoying this story; you're all wonderful. :) Next chapter's gonna have the full force of the whole Tracy brood - plus more of poor Scotty - oh, and a good bit of John being graciously unconscious. The standard. Update will hopefully appear at some point this week (I need to work up the motivation to edit it and it's good to go); depends how distracted I get by Uni stuff. Thanks guy's, you all sparkle. Free virtual cookies for reviewers? x