Jeff went to the moon and back for the last time.
The five weeks he'd spent with the boys – their boys – had cemented in his mind that he was doing the right thing. He'd grown incredibly attached to them all, but in particular he saw a lot of his younger self in Scott, and he couldn't help but be touched by how much John was interested in space and wanted to talk about everything with him, especially when he appeared to be the quietest and most withdrawn of the boys.
Once on Moon Station Alpha 1, affectionately known as Alphie by his team, Jeff felt like a part of him was missing. He kept turning to share something with John or point something out to Scott. He wanted to share the engineering know-how with Virgil when one of the modules failed and needed an emergency fix. He even wanted to show Alan the stars and Gordon how they lived with so little water.
Lee, also on his last mission, had laughed at him so much. His best friend didn't have kids himself and revelled in Jeff's sudden homesickness. He'd always missed Lucy, but this was much more – and too tempting not to make fun of.
The day they were released from quarantine was the third best day of Jeff's life. Especially when he got home and the youngest two welcomed him back the best way possible – by calling him Dad. It wasn't something that he'd expected or required, and if he wiped a tear away, well, only the boys knew and they wouldn't say anything.
While Jeff finished his last six month stint in space Lucy, Ruth and Kyrano put the boys through a rigorous and intensive education program to find out each boy's level of understanding. They were surprised to find that all five were quick on the uptake, and by the end of the eight week program they were all practically where their peers would be.
Except…each of the eldest three had sparks of connections that could only be described as genius.
Scott excelled at Math, particularly problem-solving and equations. He'd sat down with two university-level textbooks – Complex Numbers & Geometry and Introduction to Probability – one day the second week, had finished them both by the end of that day and astounded them by writing equations and solving them as if he'd been doing it all his life. He explained that it was all about the patterns and that he enjoyed that, but while Lucy was a genius in her own right even she couldn't see what he was talking about.
The other thing Scott excelled at was snap decisions, a skill that had certainly been utilised by Gaat, and one that his chosen career would hone. Once Lucy had realised that Scott was serious about a career in the armed forces he was signed up for Rescue Scouts with a view to progressing to Cadets by the end of the summer.
John, too, turned out to be a whizz with numbers, but his area was code. Give him a computer and John could do anything. It frankly amazed – and slightly worried – Lucy just how fast he learnt. It was clear he was as naturally gifted as Scott was. But it wasn't just Math and coding John excelled at. His grasp of physics and particularly astrophysics blew the adult's minds, and she couldn't wait to see Jeff's face light up with joy as the two talked Space.
Virgil proved to be just as clever as his two older brothers, but in a completely different way again. Where Scott and John excelled at learning – indeed, they devoured it as if they were making up for the years they had been starved of knowledge – Virgil was much more laid back about learning. He still picked thing up fast, had a natural affinity to physics too, but his spark of genius was definitely more along the creative line.
The minute he'd seen the piano and watched Lucy play Virgil had been hooked, and he proved to be a natural, playing complex pieces by ear before learning to read sheet music. He added to the piano guitar and clarinet, and because that creative side wasn't enough he added art to his repertoire. His sketches and paintings were simply incredible for someone who had scratched images on napkins and food wrappers with cast-off chalks.
But Virgil's true love proved to be engineering, a passion Lucy had herself. He could take anything apart and put it back together again without missing anything, could see potential problems in designs when Lucy got him to look over some blueprints and he absolutely loved tinkering with the tractors on the farm. That first day on the farm he'd fallen head over heels for the giant green tractor and had been enamoured of every piece of machinery they had. He followed Lucy around as she fixed whatever needed to be fixed, and she loved it.
The youngest two had far more to catch up on. Neither could read, Scott embarrassed to say he'd tried but Gaat had stopped him every time, but like their brothers Alan soaked up knowledge like a sponge. He too had a natural affinity for Math and Physics, but even at such a young age he looked set to follow Scott in having a unique way of seeing problems and solving them. With as keen an eye on space as John had, Lucy and Ruth were sure he would follow his brother to the stars.
Gordon was unusual among the brothers in that he had no academic bent. While the eldest three thrived on learning, Gordon's interest in anything 'terrestrial' was fleeting. Make that learning in or about water, though, and he proved he was as smart as his brothers. He showed he was smart – the pranks he began to pull as soon as he felt comfortable showed a fiendish cleverness.
Two months into Jeff's stint the eldest three went to school for the first time. Placed together in Virgil's year so that they could find their feet before the education system decided which year they should be in, the progress they had made at home continued to be made. Lucy, Ruth and Kyrano home-schooled Tanusha, Gordon and Alan for that first year of school, getting the boys up to speed and Kayo used to a more academic form of learning.
By the time Jeff had returned to Earth and finished quarantine, and more importantly finished NASA for good, the older three boys had been moved up, Virgil one year and Scott and John two years. It gave both older boys only a year to complete their SAT's, but the grades they were getting showed that they were more than able.
They were right. By the time the next academic year came around Scott and John were university bound – one for Yale and the other for Harvard. Jeff, Lucy, Ruth and Kyrano had been so very proud of the hard work they had put in over the 18 months they had been together. It was the first time they had been separated since Gaat had brought them together, and while it was difficult they all understood how it would help them grow.
Lucy had taught the three oldest to fly that hot summer before school had claimed them, using the old crop-duster the Tracy Farm had had for decades. Scott and Virgil were naturals. John needed a little more practice, but by the time Scott and John were leaving university they were all proficient.
Scott showed he was almost as much as an adrenaline junkie as Jeff was, and he had been delighted by the gift of a motorcycle for his birthday so that he could get around New Haven when he went to Yale later that year. He had made several hundred promises to be safe and careful when riding. The Husqvarna Vitpilen 401 was soon put through its paces on the farm until Scott got used to riding it around. Lucy and Ruth turned a blind eye at his and Jeff's antics on the bike, and not one of them said anything when Jeff came home later that year with a matching bike.
John was far more reserved in the adrenaline side, but they soon discovered that he had his own passion. For John it was speed. If it was fast he wanted it. Rather than a motorbike or a car since he was to live on campus at Harvard and they had excellent transport, John went for a bicycle. Not just any bike, though. No, he had an all-carbon frame racing bike imported from England, brought over by Lord Hugh and his daughter Penny on the occasion of his birthday. He promptly almost destroyed the Cervélo Sapphire Ice seeing how fast he could go, but he was proud to get to 56 mph downhill.
Virgil displayed nothing like the passion for speed or adrenaline his two older brothers showed. The car that he was given for his birthday before moving to Denver for his engineering degrees was a family heirloom that Lucy and he had been fixing up while Jeff speed around the farm with Scott and sometimes John. They had given the old pick-up a coat of new paint in metallic dark green, and the 1939 30's Chevrolet looked brand-spanking new considering Jeff's however-many-great grandfather had bought it new on the first day of production over a century ago.
That year was also the year Gordon had been head-hunted for Swim School. From the first moment he'd been in a pool Gordon had shown such a natural talent that his brothers began to call him Fish or Squid, nicknames he loved. But the time came when he needed more swimming tuition than the local pool could give him, and with much discussion he was excited to leave for a school in nearby Atchison that would cater for his swim needs and help with his academic standing.
Alan, suddenly bereft of all his brothers within two years, struggled at first, but with the full attention of Jeff, Lucy and Ruth he began to thrive in a manner none of his brothers had ever been given the opportunity to. Jeff taught him space, Lucy taught him flying and cars, Ruth taught him medicine and soon they realised that Alan may well be as smart (if not smarter) as the rest of them.
Kyrano had stuck around for that first year together, and the boys and Tanusha, or Kayo as the youngest two called her, formed fast friendships. After Jeff returned from the moon for that last time he and Kyrano began to spend far more time both at Tracy Industries, Jeff's legitimate business, and International Rescue. Handing control of the Asian sector over to Mark, another one of Gaat's henchmen rescued and set free, Kyrano devoted himself full-time to tracking the notorious criminal down. Gaat had gone to ground since the boys had been rescued and that only meant trouble.
Tanusha stayed until Gordon left, moving to England to complete her engineer's degree and apprentice under Lord Hugh with his daughter, Penelope.
University done, Scott moved onto ROTC, and it was while he was in his first week that Jeff approached him with plans to expand International Rescue.
iR was founded to rescue children from slavery and trafficking, but his adopted parents felt they could do so much more. Almost half of children – and others – found themselves in the same or similar situations to Scott and his brothers as a result of disasters of one sort or another. And while they couldn't prevent war, the most common cause, both were sure that they could help on the disaster front.
One of the early rescues in Asia had been a young Indian who didn't know his name but who had been called Brains because he was smart. Smart turned out to be an understatement. The boy – now man – was a genius, and he had been helping Kyrano in the Asian branch of International Rescue.
But on hearing of Jeff and Lucy's plans to do far more he'd come up with something so extraordinary, so fantastical, that it had blown their minds.
The design for five specialist craft was currently blowing Scott's mind too.