The next few days held a sense of peace: warmth and comfort and tentative happiness that had seemed impossible for so long. The walls buzzed with energy; infectious cheer which ran even deeper than the festive excitement of the little kids who Gordon enlisted to make colourful paper chains.
Penelope's birthday remained a family-only affair; the group of them clustered around a tiny round table in the secondary kitchen with Christmas lights twinkling above fogged windows and the scent of cinnamon spice in the air from scented candles which John had found tucked away in a rarely used cupboard. Music drifted from a tiny speaker on the sideboard while the sun drifted lower into the arms of the land and their conversation shifted into tipsy jokes as the clock ticked onwards.
Penelope seemed mildly uncomfortable with all the open affection yet accepted it as greedily as a starving man would leap upon a basket of food. She lathered them with just as many heartfelt words and gentle touches, instinctively steering close to Kayo's side with frequent deviations towards John too.
She was still avoiding Gordon as best she could but he didn't push, understanding her need for space despite the hurt in his eyes whenever she flinched from him. It was painful to watch and Scott had to constantly remind himself that it wasn't his place to intervene.
They ended up moving into Penelope and Kayo's quarters. It was cramped but there seemed little point in sleeping in separate rooms when they always ended up finding their way into a shared space throughout the night.
The same magnetism that drew them together in the early hours – a desperate need to set eyes on each other for fear of the universe tearing them apart again – struck at sporadic points throughout the day too. It became an easy tradition to coexist within one another's space without speaking or interacting or any requirement beyond finding comfort in those moments.
John seemed reluctant to let Penelope out of his sight. In a similar fashion, Kayo kept close to Virgil and Gordon. All of them hung around Scott, suddenly appearing to curl up next to him or to lend a hand or even just to sit in silence and breathe for one minute or thirty.
And then there was Alan.
He was so good at becoming a ghost that nobody noticed his absence initially; not sharp, jarring disappearances but quietly fading into the background until it took conscious thought to check if he was present at all. At the Sanctuary, he had been openly sad – the sort of grief that infected the bones of a house until everyone within those walls became wrapped up in it too – but here he kept the pain to himself until it silenced him entirely.
It was near impossible to call him out on it. Scott couldn't accuse him of avoiding them because when he turned around Alan was there, watching them laugh from a desolate corner of the couch or tucked into a seat at a quiet, forgotten end of the table. It was as if he was making an active decision to let himself fade, so slowly that it wouldn't be noticeable until he actually left.
Scott caught Kayo watching the kid sometimes with the sad eyes of someone who understood. She tried to draw him back down to Earth – brief touches; questions to coax him into conversation; comments on topics he should have loved such as Finch and the stars and stories of fantasy worlds in which the heroes always won – to no avail. Scott knew how she felt. It was like trying to grasp hold of water only to watch it slip through your clenched fingers; no matter how desperately you clung on the outcome was inevitable.
He followed without question when Kayo wordlessly caught his arm after dinner and pulled him into the empty comms room. She yanked the door shut until the latch clicked to ensure that they wouldn't be overheard, then turned to face him with dread stamped across her features.
"What's wrong with him?"
Scott winced.
"What happened?" she amended.
He pulled out the desk chair and swung it around to sit on it backwards, propping his chin on the backrest as he considered where the hell to even begin. A foolish, naïve part of him had hoped that reuniting with Kayo and Penelope might have been enough to set Alan on an upward curve. It had been a nonsensical thing to believe; his own history proved that much.
Kayo nearly cried when he told her everything.
She clenched her jaw so tightly that it looked painful, gritting her teeth as tears still threatened to escape. Not the soul-wrenching, guttural sobs that he had heard from too many people he loved throughout the past year, but the silent, painful kind. She scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes and cleared her throat. She'd started to lean heavily against the door at some point and now she folded her arms across her chest to hold herself together.
"He's not eating much," she whispered. "Keeps claiming he's not hungry. It was the first thing that made me realise he's not okay."
"I know," Scott mumbled, swallowing a wave of nausea. He couldn't tell if Alan genuinely had no appetite or if he thought it was some fucked up form of penance for taking a life.
Where did it end? Scott dreaded learning the answer.
Kayo drew a ragged breath. "It's not supposed to be him. It shouldn't be anyone but it was never supposed to be him."
"The irony is that he hasn't killed an infected. We managed to protect him from that but not from this which is so much worse." He twisted his fingers together until the ache from his knuckles travelled into his wrists. "I don't know what to do. Therapy didn't work. Meds aren't an option."
"Based off what happened when he stole yours, I'd say they wouldn't work for him anyway." Kayo hesitated, then continued softly, "Besides, would you really feel comfortable medicating him?"
"Honestly?" Scott met her gaze. The grey pallor of the room around them seemed oppressive all of a sudden. "No. But I'll-" His voice cracked. He swallowed. "I'll try anything if it'll make him happier. Christ, not even happy as such, just…"
"Yeah. I know what you mean."
"It's not as if he's… He's functional. But he's not-"
"-Not really here."
"Exactly."
Kayo didn't sleep that night; Scott knew that for a fact because he didn't sleep either. She kept her gaze fixed on Alan and then, once she was certain that he was asleep, she curled closer and tentatively placed a hand on his back, reassuring herself with the steady rise and fall of his breathing.
Come morning, she pulled Scott aside again but this time said nothing, just held onto him for a few seconds. When she stepped away, they both pretended not to notice the tears in her eyes.
New year snuck up on them. Time seemed to jump from Penny's birthday to New Year's Eve in a flash. It wasn't a holiday that Scott usually cared for but it meant a lot to a surprising number of survivors. They viewed it as a fresh start; a clean slate; chance to hope in a better, brighter year because surely nothing could be worse than the one they had just suffered through.
Scott knew firsthand that it wouldn't be so easy. It wasn't possible to leave the past behind. Trauma always continued into the new year no matter how badly he wished it wouldn't. If only there were a magic wand which wiped away the past year's sins once the clock struck midnight – it would make many things a lot easier.
Still, he helped to organise an impromptu celebration. There was no harm in having a bit of fun even if he didn't believe this new year would be any easier than the last one.
It was roughly ten minutes 'til midnight when he realised that Alan had vanished again. A quick scout around the party confirmed that the kid was definitely gone. But the manor was full of people; there weren't many quiet places where he could have hidden and Scott suspected he knew which location would be top of Alan's list.
Sure enough, the door to the roof was held slightly ajar by a hardback book. A lonely figure sat in the centre, staring up at the heavens.
"Hey." Scott rapped his knuckles on the door to alert Alan to his presence. "Mind if I join you?"
Alan lifted one shoulder in a loose shrug. "Don't mind."
It wasn't an outright refusal, so Scott stepped over the book and joined him.
It was a clear sky – the stars were out in their millions – and as such it was bitterly cold. Frost was already forming across the lawn below. The hills looked ghostly under their thin blanket of sparse snow. A cold wind was whipping up clouds on the southern horizon. Scott couldn't hold back a shiver, grateful for the winter coat he'd borrowed from Parker's room before heading up to the roof.
"So," he ventured, stealing a glance at Alan. "What are you doing up here? All the fun is happening downstairs. You're missing out on Gordon's terrible attempt at karaoke."
The humour fell flat, instantly frozen as cold as the pond just visible beyond frostbitten flowerbeds. Alan dropped his gaze to his lap, hands curling around his knees so that the skin across his knuckles pulled taut, revealing scars from too many punched mirrors.
Something in Scott's heart twisted at the sight. He studied his kid's profile; from those hunched shoulders to the overly sharp lines of his face; unkept hair and shadowed eyes; the tiny graze on his chin where he'd slipped on ice a couple of days earlier.
"What's going on, Alan?"
It came out as a whisper but Alan still flinched. He drew one knee up to his chest and propped his wrists on top, gnawing absently at his knuckles until Scott tapped his arm in warning. Desolation haunted his eyes when he finally plucked up the courage to look up.
"I don't want to be like this anymore."
The words hung in the air for a moment: a fog of inescapable sadness.
"I thought that finding Penny and Kayo would fix things. And it did for like a day. But then I crashed back down into this again and- I miss who I used to be. I want to be him again because I actually kind of liked that guy but I can't be. I'll never be him again. So, what have I got left? This?"
He slammed the heel of his hand against his chest, directly above his heart.
"I hate this. I hate the way I feel, the way I think, that I keep seeing blood under my nails when I know there's nothing there. I hate that everything tastes like ash now and that I feel sick whenever I think about eating. I hate that I feel like everyone's staring at me as if they know what I've done even though I know that they're not and they don't. And I- I hate the way that I want to just… stop. I could sleep for a hundred years and it still wouldn't be enough. And I shouldn't be telling you this because it's really fucking selfish but it hurts all the time and I can never catch my breath."
He wiped his knuckles across his eyes as cheers echoed up from the manor below. Distantly, the deep chimes of Penelope's Grandfather clock signalled midnight.
"I used to love New Year's Eve, you know? Because you could leave all of your crap behind in the past year. And yeah, maybe the repercussions would carry on but it was still, like, a fresh start, right? You could decide hey, I'm gonna be a better person this year. And that's exactly why everyone is cheering right now. But I don't think this is ever going to get any easier. It's going to follow me. So, acting like everything is going to be okay now it's a new year? That's exhausting and I don't have the energy to pretend which is why I'm up here instead."
"Alan," Scott murmured.
"I don't know, maybe it was easier to kid myself that I was a decent person when I could fly around playing hero."
"You weren't playing at anything."
Alan shook his head with a wet laugh, colder than the ice underfoot.
"I did good things. I've done bad thing since. So has everyone but they're not a total mess, so maybe I'm just- I dunno. A screw up, I guess. Sorry. It's not your fault. You're great. You've been the frickin' best."
The raucous from downstairs had grown louder – a mess of music and cheers and laughter – and for a moment Scott was struck by a stab of pure hatred for them. It seemed impossible for so much happiness to be packed into the manor beneath their feet when Alan was not only falling apart but helping the process along by tearing himself to shreds too.
"Do you know who my hero is?" Scott asked when he felt like he could speak without his voice shattering into thousands of painful pieces.
"Dad," Alan said without hesitation.
"Well, yes. But not only Dad. It's also you."
Alan stared at him with wide, glassy eyes.
"What?" he choked out.
Scott looked at him for a long minute, considering, because he'd been able to piece himself back together – with a little help – and now he was here with people who loved him and a strong grasp on a future in which he could put twice as much goodness into the world for all the pain it had shown him, and so couldn't Alan eventually do the same?
"You're my hero too, kid," he said, meaning every word. The full answer was and so are John and Virgil and Gordon and Kayo, not to mention Grandma but that wasn't important right now.
"I'm sorry," Alan gasped between desperate gulps of air. "I'm sorry, Scotty."
"I know," Scott whispered, pulling him into a hug. "I know you are."
The sky was sullen and silent; heavy clouds had drawn curtains across the stars shortly before dawn and showed no signs of leaving again any time soon. They darkened to steely grey with the languishing threat of rain but no droplets had fallen in the twenty minutes that Scott had been watching the window.
The manor was quiet with the morose exhaustion of hangovers. Most chores had been deferred until tomorrow. Only a few footsteps creaked in the hallway – breakfast must have been a very lacklustre affair, he guessed – so he allowed himself the privilege of doing absolutely nothing.
It wasn't a case of laziness. He just couldn't bring himself to face the day yet – to face the repercussions of the previous night to be precise. Alan's words were still ringing in his ears, a perpetual echo that had haunted him throughout his dreams. He couldn't shake the memory of sobs which had sounded as if they were being physically wrenched from the kid's lungs.
Grim sadness had snuck into his bones at some point throughout the night so that now even lifting his head seemed to take monumental effort. He tipped further onto his side and crooked his arm beneath the pillow to rest his head in the dip of his elbow; the day could wait a little longer.
The manor remained quiet – almost ghostly without the hum of people – but the bedroom was already half-empty. Gordon and Penelope were nowhere to be seen, although it was almost a guarantee that wherever they were spending their mornings, it was not together. Kayo had also disappeared, but the slight dent of the mattress where she had lain was still warm, proof that she hadn't been awake for long.
Virgil was still out for the count – hardly surprising – sprawled on his front with one arm folded awkwardly beneath him so that he could cling onto a pillow. John was also asleep which was more of a shock but was certainly a welcome sight. He'd purposefully chosen a place on the very edge of the bed in the hopes of avoiding any clinging hands but Virgil had somehow managed to curl his fingers in the edge of his brother's sleeve and would probably soon end up hauling him closer.
Scott let these details wash over him, struck by a sharp stab of worry as he recognised that Alan was gone. A quick scout around the other side of the bed confirmed that his youngest brother hadn't taken up residence on the floor again.
"Dammit, Allie," he muttered to himself, stooping to glance at the mirror on Penelope's dressing table to check that he wasn't about to walk into a public setting with bed hair that looked as if he'd been electrocuted.
A navy sweater made of rich wool had been unceremoniously dumped on top of the dresser, which he hauled over his head as he hooked his ankle around the door and pulled it open. He wasn't sure who the sweater belonged to but it wasn't his.
The length of the arms implied that it was John's, an idea which made a lot of sense given John was the only person other than Kayo to have kept clothes here on a regular basis pre-Z-Day. Scott rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, hoping that the bite of chilled morning air would wake him up a bit before he located a certain missing teenager.
He tried to be stealthy, unwilling to wake anyone. But the manor was old and suffered every movement with a weary sigh or squeak. Cold floorboards protested under his bare feet and he spared a second to wish he'd put on socks. The snap of cool air brought tears to his eyes, already bloodshot from lack of sleep. He wasn't sure what time he had finally collapsed facedown onto the mattress but it had been late enough to be considered early.
Process of elimination brought him to the sunroom; Alan was nowhere to be found in any of their other unofficially private quarters and Scott doubted the kid would want to be around strangers. Besides, the sunroom held an undercurrent of tranquillity that was very welcome in the aftermath of nightmares.
One half of the room was deemed the library – although John disputed this definition – while the rest was filled with houseplants of every shape and size. A cream-upholstered loveseat hid between two gigantic monsteras while a set of chairs surrounded a tiny table with a mosaic top. There were no overhead lights. Instead, the room was lit by a collection of unique lamps. The very essence of the place seemed warm.
Both seating areas were occupied. Marisa was reclined across the loveseat, a well-thumbed book in her hands and a blue-purple-pink patchwork blanket around her shoulders. Penelope sat at the table, one leg crossed delicately over the other, blonde hair tied in a loose bun so that strands fell across her scar. Alan had folded himself into the chair opposite. Their voices stilled as Scott entered.
The acrid smell of fresh nail varnish filled the air around the table, so strong that he nearly coughed. Penelope didn't look up as he approached, attention fixed on her task. Alan lifted his feet down from the chair to drum his heels; tension crept up his spine to send a tremor through his wrists. He was evidently uncomfortable with Scott's presence, probably regretting just how truthful he'd been last night.
Penelope reached out and stilled his hand, eyes narrowed slightly in concentration as she applied a final coat of polish, the exact same shade of blue as the armoured plating of his IR suit had been.
"All done." Her voice was soft, in-keeping with the peaceful silence of the room. "It's a quick-drying varnish but try not to touch anything for the next ten minutes just in case. Let me know if it smudges and I'll fix it for you, okay?"
"Okay," Alan mumbled, unable to draw his eyes away from the drying blue. He flexed his hands slightly, flattening them against the tabletop as he pushed out of his chair. "Thanks. For, um… And this."
Penelope released his wrist with a final squeeze. "If you ever need me, I'm here."
"Yeah. I, um… Yeah." He exhaled shakily. "Thank you."
"Alan," Scott said then trailed off, unsure of what to say.
He tucked his hands into the pockets of his sweats as instinct nearly had him reaching for the kid. It didn't take a genius to figure out that touch wouldn't be a good idea when Alan looked as if he wanted to bolt. He stepped aside with a dull ache of resignation spreading outwards from his heart.
"Put a hoodie on or something. It's too cold for short sleeves."
Alan swallowed.
"Okay." His voice came out as a croak. "I'm gonna, um, go. I… yeah. See you later."
He couldn't have left the room any faster without sprinting. The door swung wildly in his wake until the hinges caught and closed slowly on the final inches. Scott stared at it for a few seconds, shaken by the idea of having reached for a handhold and missed; his stomach dropped as if he were actually in freefall.
He sank into Alan's abandoned chair and buried his head in his folded arms on the tabletop.
Penelope's fingers ghosted through the tangles in his hair.
She sounded effortlessly gentle as she murmured, "Remember to breathe."
Scott propped his chin on his wrist, eyeing the bottle of nail varnish. It gleamed under the watchful gaze of a mosaic lamp; soft blue turned paler still by the glow just as Alan's armour had once done under the light of the sun in orbit. Penelope withdrew her hand and waited for him to ask rather than volunteering the information. Her expression toed the line between fondness and sadness.
"Why?"
"He asked me to."
"Penelope."
Her eyes widened slightly at the unmasked desperation in his voice.
"He had a nightmare. I… talked him down. He explained that he keeps imagining blood under his nails. I offered to paint them to see if it would help."
"And did it?"
Penelope twisted the lid of the varnish bottle. "I suppose we'll find out."
"Did he…?"
The words grew sticky. Scott coughed to clear them, unable to shake memories of happier times that now were tainted by grief. He dug his thumb into the underside of his jaw; his pulse hammered with replayed recollections of last night's confessions.
"Did he choose the colour?"
"Yes." Penelope's weak smile was overwhelmed by the sadness in her eyes even as she aimed for a lighter tone. "I didn't think pink would be his shade."
Scott reached for the bottle; held it between his palms for a few moments; studied the way the light played off the varnish within; picked at the tiny globule of dried polish on the label. His emotions were a whirlwind that seemed too big to fit within his chest. He swore he could feel the pressure of all those unnavigable feelings pushing against his ribs from the inside-out.
Finding Penelope and Kayo was never going to be a magical cure for the trauma they had all suffered and yet having that point proven to him was soul-crushing. He breathed in until his lungs ached, unable to meet Penelope's searching gaze.
After a minute, she stood up and moved around to stand behind him. He could sense her uncertainty. Then, finally, she pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek and left without a word.
He remained in his seat, unable to bring himself to move. The weight of everything pressed down on his shoulders, a physical ache that he could feel in every old injury. He buried his head in his arms again and focussed on breathing before he could spiral into an actual panic attack. He longed to travel back in time to ten days earlier – if not to pre-Z-Day – when they'd just arrived and the joy of reuniting with Penelope and Kayo had overridden any trace of grief and anxiety.
"Hey," Marisa called, batting a monstera leaf out of the way. "Get over here."
His senses were staggered again, processing everything half a second too late; mostly collapsing than sitting down on the loveseat; the velvet upholstery under his fingertips; the light pressure of the patchwork blanket alighting on his shoulders, still warm from Marisa's body heat. Her hand landed on his upper back, a grounding weight that anchored him in the moment. He inhaled sharply, humiliated by the telltale burn behind his eyes.
Marisa rubbed her thumb across the coiled tension in his right shoulder. "We missed you last night. Where did you run off to?"
He gestured vaguely. "Rooftop. Alan was… I couldn't leave him alone."
She gave a faint hum of recognition. Scott stole a glance at her. She'd shifted to sit more upright, legs tucked to the side, and her jeans had ridden up slightly to reveal a strip of skin at the ankle. Her book bore John's familiar handwriting in the margins: circled words and highlighted phrases. A lump formed in his throat. He curled his hands into claws around his knees and tried to breathe.
Marisa leant closer, putting a little more pressure into her touch. Once upon a time, he'd have made his excuses and pushed her away, too scared to let anyone see him vulnerable. But he'd learnt throughout the past year that accepting care was just as important as giving it to others; shared compassion was so important that it was crucial to human survival.
It was obvious now – every safe zone where people had only looked out for themselves had failed but when humanity helped each other? Those were the places which thrived.
His gaze was drawn back to the book, to John's notes in print too tiny to be read at a distance.
"What's the book like?"
Marisa lifted it so that he could see the cover: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. The title rang a bell but he couldn't pinpoint where he'd heard it. He'd certainly never read it. Maybe John had enjoyed it so much that he'd spoken about it at some point; Scott couldn't be sure as he tended to switch off when his brother started rambling.
"I read it in college." Marisa's voice took on a wondering, nostalgic quality. "I connected with so many of the phrases back then but I could never fully understand them. I knew there were deeper meanings but I could never get past the surface level."
"And now?"
"Now I think I get it."
A loose strand of her hair tickled his bare forearm where his sleeve was still rolled up. There was a frightening sense of fragility filling his veins and he wanted to hide from the world. But that wasn't an option and it was safe enough for him to close his eyes and simply listen to her voice.
"There's a quote here which I think might mean something to you."
Pages rustled as she carefully flipped through them. His back felt cold where her hand had been.
"Where are you…? Ah, found it. Listen to this." Her voice softened. "Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined."
A jolt of emotion stabbed through him. He couldn't identify the precise feeling – painful yet not dislikeable – but it was so vivid that it split apart the detached, foggy sense that had untethered him from his body. He slammed into full awareness with a tiny, wounded sound as if he'd been struck.
The words didn't just ring a chord within his own life but shifted his perspective of Alan's situation too. Virgil had suggested months ago that offering the kid kindness was only making him feel guiltier. Scott considered last night; how Alan had only started trying to apologise – for nothing and everything all at once – once he had hugged him.
The very idea hurt. He tried to draw a breath but it caught in his throat. He wrapped his arms around his middle and dug his fingers into the spaces between his ribs, trying to make himself smaller as if he were a frightened child all over again.
Marisa dropped the book onto the floor and reached for him.
"Don't do that."
Her knuckles brushed his jaw when she tentatively cupped his face, thumb drawing gentle strokes across his cheeks as he screwed his eyes shut.
"Don't hide from me." She moved her hand to the nape of his neck. "What do you need?"
"I don't- I don't know."
"That's okay." Her grip tightened slightly as he flinched. "Scott? Look at me, honey. It's okay. You don't have to know. Is it okay if I give you a hug?"
He melted into her arms. Marisa guided his head to the crook of her neck, running a hand down his spine whilst threading her fingers through his hair with the other. She pulled the blanket around them both, a safety net against the outside world.
"I just want him to be happy," he gasped out, sinking into her embrace because he was tired and she had already seen all of his broken pieces yet still wanted him. "I'd do anything to give him that."
January brought a week of constant rain. Dark clouds languished on the horizon, obscuring the hills and blotting out even a hint of sunlight. Everything was cast in a sickly grey pallor.
Gutters overflowed. Water gushed down the windows and tree branches bowed under the weight. Buckets were placed under the coat rack in the foyer to collect the drips from shared rain macks; people looked as if they were wrapped in colourful candy wrappers as they darted outside to complete daily tasks.
With the continual downpour, there was very little to do. Scott entertained a vague notion of obligation - the idea that he was supposed to be taking steps towards the future. But he had yet to sit down and discuss anything with Kayo and Penelope let alone the UK GDF, so he wasn't sure what those steps would be.
Besides, it was probably best to wait until the radio link with North America had improved. Keeping that in mind, he made the most of the downtime; coexisting within each another's presence as they remembered how to be a family again.
The sunroom was their preferred place. Penelope found an old rug in various shades of pink which she laid across the floorboards beneath the reaching fronds of a parlor palm for Finch. It immediately launched her into the dog's top five favourite people, helped by her habit of sneaking Finch titbits from her plate. The rest of them arranged themselves across seats, dragging other chairs out of storage so that they could sit down.
It sounded better in theory than it did in practise. Scott was unused to sitting around without any task of immediate urgency to complete; in all his time at the Sanctuary he still hadn't fully shaken the hypervigilance of survival mode and now he didn't even have a project to focus on. He tried to discuss next steps with Finn but the comms link was too degraded for an in-depth conversation.
Without anything to occupy him, his mind wandered: to Mars, to the island, to his poor Thunderbird abandoned beneath Gran Roca Ranch. It threatened to drive him stir crazy. He even tried to help with the chickens only to be chased out of the coop by a particularly aggressive hen. Kayo kept making clucking noises around him and Gordon refused to stop teasing him about it. So, when an opportunity arose to head further afield, he leapt at the chance.
Kayo lived almost exclusively in cargo pants and a long-sleeved thermal beneath a t-shirt. Nearly all of these shirts were black or a very dark green, but occasionally a brighter item from Penny's old closet found its way into the mix. So, when she strolled into the mess hall in her makeshift flight suit – jet black fabric pieced together with zombie-proofing and holsters for more weapons than a military base – it was immediately obvious that the day's non-existent plans had changed.
"We've got a distress call," she reported, bracing herself on the back of Penelope's chair as she reached for a bread roll. "Two survivors. Their safehouse has been flooded and they're trapped on the top floor."
Penelope's eyes narrowed slightly as she considered the logistics. "Where?"
"Not far." Kayo tore off a bite of bread and mumbled, "Shropshire. Some village called Ironbridge."
"So, the Severn," Penelope concluded. She gave an exasperated sigh at Kayo's raised brow. "The river, darling. It floods frequently."
"Good to know," Kayo said dryly. "Anyway, I'm gonna head out. How am I doing on time? Has Isaiah made any progress on the generator upgrades?"
The issue with taking Thunderbird Shadow anywhere was that it potentially put the manor's power in jeopardy.
All electricity had to be produced on site. It wouldn't have been too much of an issue but the solar panels had been damaged and were yet to be repaired, so everything had to be powered by a different source. Generators were great up until the realisation dawned that the majority ran on petrol and gasoline started to expire after six or seven months. So, the mechanic at hand – some guy called Isaiah whom Scott hadn't met so far – had rigged one to run on something a lot less hygienic but a lot more renewable: human waste.
It wasn't terribly efficient though, so Thunderbird Shadow was used to provide additional energy; Brains' design meant that the aircraft could power a lot whilst only receiving a tiny drop in her own fuel levels. Detaching Shadow meant the manor was on borrowed time; the generator could only power the place for so long before the electric fences went down and eventually everything else too.
Consequently, rescue missions could only last up to three-and-a-half hours before Kayo had to bring Shadow back again.
Penelope twisted in her chair, features pinched by a frown. "Not as far as I'm aware. I'd say you have three hours. Sorry. Will that be sufficient?"
"It'll have to be." Kayo relented. "Relax, Pen. I'm only joking. I'll make it two-and-a-half hours just to be safe. It's a simple mission, it won't take long."
"Can I tag along?"
Scott hadn't intended on speaking; his own request took him by surprise. But once he'd voiced it, he was surprised by how badly he wanted to get back out there. Downtime had never suited him.
He sat back in his chair, attempting to hide how desperate he was to feel useful again. As fun as it was to see Jasmin purposefully riling Gordon as he tried to teach her chess or to hang out with Virgil without the threat of imminent death, he longed for a sense of purpose again. Besides, he missed rescues.
"Say yes," Virgil cut in before Kayo had chance to respond. "He's slowly going insane."
Scott shot him a betrayed look. "I am not."
"Yesterday I watched you complete a sudoku then erase all the numbers and solve it again."
"…that's an outlier and shouldn't be counted."
Gordon propped his chin on his hand, observing the chaos with an unholy amount of glee.
"Hate to break it to you bro, but I'm with Virg on this. You're only like two hours away from actually climbing the walls."
John delicately moved a half-full glass of water out of the way before Gordon could knock it flying. His attention had been fixed on his book throughout breakfast but now he glanced up at Kayo and demanded in a long-suffering tone,
"Take him with you. If money still meant anything, I'd actually pay you."
"Thanks guys," Scott deadpanned, earning another snigger from Gordon. "I'm really feeling the love."
Kayo leant against Penny's chair, arms crossed, drumming her hands against her biceps as she pretended to think it over. The radio at her hip coughed static, a reminder that there were people waiting to be rescued.
"I will take you with me on two conditions." She held up two fingers. "One: no backseat piloting. Two: I call the shots. This is my rescue and my ship."
Gordon's chair listed precariously sideways as he turned to laugh into Virgil's shoulder. "Oh my god. She demoted him."
"Tragic," John drawled, returning his focus to his book.
Scott had thrown any semblance of pride out of the window several months ago. He didn't care if Kayo ordered him to frickin' scrub Shadow's hull afterwards so long as it meant he got to attend the rescue. A faint thought stirred at the back of his mind, drawing comparisons between his current excitement and the way Alan had used to beg to go on rescues.
"Deal."
Kayo eyed him dubiously. "I mean it. No backseat piloting."
"I'm not that bad."
He was immediately met by a chorus of protests. Even Penelope chimed in. Kayo levelled him with a pointed look and he lifted his hands in surrender. She whacked him on the back with a loud laugh, squeezing Penelope's shoulder on her way past. Scott kicked his chair away and nearly tripped over his undone laces in his haste to follow her. Gordon's continued chuckles chased him out the door.
Given they were on a time crunch, Scott didn't expect Kayo to make any detours. But rather than heading directly to Thunderbird Shadow, she led the way along a mostly undisturbed corridor and down a narrow flight of stairs to a dark, windowless storeroom. She slapped the light switch and several spotlights blared into existence.
Metallic flashes left Scott momentarily blinded as the sudden surge of light reflected off weapons. He examined the closest row of blades; various shapes and sizes from traditional knives to an honest-to-God longsword. The side of his boot knocked against something round and solid as he sidestepped towards Kayo. A glance down revealed a rusty object which looked suspiciously like an unexploded mine. He jolted away from it with an undignified yelp.
Kayo glanced up sharply from the other side of the room. "What?"
"Is that a bomb?"
"Huh?" Her gaze flickered down to it, lips twitching with a faint smirk. "Oh. Yes. It's our Plan B in case our defences fail; a way to take out as many rotters at one time as we can."
Scott stared at her incredulously. She shot him a grin and returned to the crate she'd been rifling through, removing an armful of black fabric with reinforced metal plates, similar to her own outfit. It was heavier than he'd anticipated when she dropped it into his arms.
"Put that on and pick a weapon," she called over her shoulder as she headed for the stairs. "I'm gonna get Shadow prepped. Meet me there."
The rain had slowed from a deluge to a miserable downpour; too torrential to be classed as drizzle but too weak to be considered a real problem. Scott yanked his hood over his head as he made a wild dash from the manor to Shadow, bashing his knee against the wing as he swung himself into the cockpit with a painful clang that didn't leave a bruise thanks to the metal plate over the joint.
The new suit would take some getting used to; the makeshift armour made it more inflexible than he was accustomed to and the holsters formed a criss-cross over his chest so he had to reach up for a weapon while instinct had him reaching for his hip.
But there were benefits too, such as the inbuilt mask which he could pull up over his mouth and nose should they come across more polluted areas. He doubted that would be an issue today; all the rain had washed away dust for the time-being and ashfall had subsided months back.
The Thunderbird was already purring. Tiny vibrations from her warmed engines ran through the seats. Scott flattened a hand against the glass as the canopy locked into position and let himself smile; there was a sense of life about Thunderbirds that he had yet to find replicated in any other aircraft he'd flown. Even if he wasn't the one at the controls, there was an itch of excitement under his skin that had him sitting upright, craning his neck to glimpse the sky as if he were a kid again.
Kayo thumbed the radio, propping her elbow against the rim of the canopy as she twisted to spy the manor through the driving rain. The weather was steadily closing in again: that brief respite hadn't lasted long.
Scott rubbed a porthole in the condensation, unsettled by the bleakness. The sooner they broke through the clouds the better.
An unfamiliar voice spoke from the comm, "Clearance confirmed, Shadow, you are detached from the grid. Good luck out there."
"Copy that, Isaiah." Kayo shifted power to the VTOLs. "See you in a couple of hours."
It took less than five minutes before Scott made a tiny comment on Kayo's flight technique. This earnt him a scowl and several sharp words of warning including a series of threats that had him equally as terrified as amused.
Kayo returned her focus to the controls with a huff while he sat back in his seat and repressed further remarks when they hit a pocket of clear air turbulence. She was a highly skilled pilot and he had absolute trust in her abilities but he just couldn't help himself - maybe his family had a point about the backseat piloting after all.
Kayo swept her chin-length hair out of her face and secured it with a band. Now that her eyes were no longer hidden, it was easy to tell that she hadn't been sleeping well. Worry had left her pacing in the hallway last night – Scott knew that much for a fact – but dark circles implied that this was a more common event than anyone save for Penny had realised.
She sensed his question before he had chance to vocalise it and swiftly distracted him with information on the rescue.
"Two survivors, Jake and Hallie, ages thirty-eight and thirty-five respectively. They've climbed onto the roof of their safehouse and claim they have two flares which they'll send up when they hear our engines, so they should be easy to spot. The floodwaters are still rising though, so we'll have to make this quick."
"Any injuries?"
"None reported."
"Do we have a rough location or just a village name?"
"Just the village name."
Kayo banked left to avoid an ominously dark cloud.
"But like I said, they have flares. It can't be any harder than some of our mountain searches in the past. And at least we know how many people we're looking for. I picked up an emergency locator beacon back in July – no details other than a GPS signal – and that was a real bitch of a rescue."
"Do you…" Scott cut himself before he could finish his question. "Never mind."
Kayo's curious gaze met his in the reflection on the glass. "You've got to ask now. It'll drive me insane otherwise."
"No, it was stupid."
"As opposed to any other question you've ever asked me?"
He leaned forward to lightly swat her shoulder. "Losing me to the zombie apocalypse for eleven months hasn't made you any nicer."
"I'm very nice to you."
"No, you're very nice to Penelope."
Kayo's grin held a hint of teeth. "I like her more than you."
"You're just proving my point."
She reached back to sock him on the bicep. "So? What was your question?"
"Which question?"
"Scott."
"Kayo."
"Scott Tracy."
"Tanusha Kyrano."
"I swear, I will throw you out of this Thunderbird. What was it that you were going to ask me?"
Scott faltered. It was a simple enough question but it seemed to carry a far greater weight. He rested his head against the window, letting the vibrations of the engine churn his vision into a blur so that the clouds below blended into one ocean of pearl whites and dove greys.
Sometimes he missed One so much that it became a physical ache; a deep-rooted longing as if a string connecting them had been pulled to breaking point. Then again, perhaps he just missed International Rescue… his old life in general. And that was the reason why the question seemed heavy.
He ran his thumb along the rivets of the frame. Kayo's watchful stare haunted him from their shared reflection. Her teasing tone had been replaced by that newly developed softness. It struck him as something close to a miracle that while everyone else had put up walls to closely guard their feelings since Z-Day, Kayo had finally found the courage to knock hers down.
The engines hummed as if in encouragement.
Scott tipped his head back to study the limitless blue above them.
"At the shuttle site, the GDF called for International Rescue. Do you still operate under that or is it just what the GDF have coined you because you fly a Thunderbird?"
Kayo remained quiet for a moment.
"People still called for IR. When they had no hope left, when it was their last attempt at survival… they'd call for us. So, once I started picking up on those transmissions… I had a Thunderbird and I had the power to help. It was never a question. And maybe…"
She dropped her gaze to the nav system, voice lowering to a whisper.
"Maybe a part of me hoped that if I could save enough people, the universe would give you back to me. Good karma, something like that." She raked her fingers through her hair with a self-conscious laugh. "I don't know. It sounds stupid when I say it aloud. Anyway, yes. I've been running International Rescue – or, you know… a really, really skeletal version of it."
"It doesn't sound stupid."
"Don't patronise me."
"I'm not." Scott held up his hands. "Honest."
He returned his gaze to the passing sky, recalling both ill-fated bunkers.
"The world needs more good people, so whatever motivates you to be kind… it's never a stupid reason. Trust me, I've seen enough evil over the past year to know that much."
Kayo pretended to study the compass to hide her smile. "Yeah, yeah. Don't make it sappy. Honestly, I let you tag along and in return you bring emotions into my perfectly good Thunderbird. Disgusting."
"Whatever you say."
"Shut up, Scott."
"Uh huh."
"Bandits fear me for a reason."
"Oh, I know."
Kayo shook her head, still unable to fight her smile. "Let's go rescue some people."
"Sounds like a plan."
The rescue went smoothly. True to their word, Jake and Hallie set off the first flare upon hearing the engines and then sent off the second once they glimpsed Shadow on the horizon.
The floodwaters were already lapping hungrily at the roof's edge; the couple clung to Scott as soon as his boots kissed the tiles. He could hear Kayo's laughter through his earpiece as he attempted to calm the duo which took an embarrassing five minutes.
But it was worth it. Not just because they'd rescued two lives but on a purely selfish note too; saving a life brought more of an adrenaline rush than the actual rescue itself but so did saying the words for the first time in over a year:
This is International Rescue. We're here to help.
The excess energy under his skin finally eased by the time they touched down on Creighton-Ward soil again, although the view from Shadow prevented it from dying entirely: destruction as far as the eye could see; great furrows where planes had plummeted from the sky; scorched husks where fire had torn along roads; empty suburbs splattered with blood and ash; swathes of earth which looked to be alive, writhing with the manged bodies of heavily decomposed infected.
He got a brief glimpse of the London skyline which left him nauseous; cities reduced to rubble were always disconcerting.
But nothing could diminish the fierce power of purpose which had slotted into place on the rescue. He'd entertained a similar feeling when he'd stepped up to the podium on Memorial Day and claimed IR for his own command, but this was stronger.
Save one person, then save the world, he reminded himself, still giddy with adrenaline as he soaked the stench of pungent floodwater from his skin under the overly hot shower spray. The memory of the hope in Jake's and Hallie's eyes replayed as he leant back against the tiles; the rescue had renewed his faded belief that perhaps it was possible to fix the planet or at least to bring the remaining survivors of humanity together.
The manor itself seemed to have taken on a quiet, apprehensive quality whilst he had been gone. It only grew noticeable once his adrenaline rush had subsided sufficiently to let his senses take stock of his surroundings again.
He scrubbed a towel through his damp hair and let it fall to his shoulders as he tugged on a pair of jeans, stepping up to the window to examine the dull skies which seemed to mirror the gloom which had befallen the safe zone. Technically, the tension only applied to his family - the rest of the survivors seemed in good spirits – and that didn't bode well.
"What's going on?" he asked, rifling through the chest of drawers for a long-sleeved thermal. He glanced up to spy Virgil's reflection in the mirror; his brother had been doing a fantastic job of pretending to listen but he knew Virgil well enough to tell when his mind was elsewhere. "Virg?"
The sound of his name broke through Virgil's thoughts. "Sorry, what?"
"Where's your head at?" Scott slid into the thermal with a shiver that struck the ever-present chill even deeper; he swore it was getting worse again. "You've been zoned out for the past ten minutes."
"It's not been that long."
"Not that far off." Scott hunted for a thicker sweater to wear over the top of the black thermal. "And hey, you didn't deny it. So? What happened?"
"Nothing happened."
"Clearly it did."
Virgil didn't claim otherwise for a second time. He sat on the edge of the bed, hands folded into an anxious knot of tension in his lap as he tried to avoid Scott's searching look. A cloud of oppressive emotion hung around him like a thick cloak, too closely tangled to pick out individual feelings. He kept his eyes on the worn fabric on his knees as Scott took a seat beside him.
"I'm just…" He faltered, hooking a stray thread under his thumbnail to pull it taut. "…thinking."
"Care to fill me in?"
"It's… You know. Next steps. Where do we go from here, that sort of thing. We've found Penelope and Kayo and that's the closest to a miracle that I've dared to believe in for ages, but it doesn't end here. We've still got people out there."
"Mars."
"Mars," Virgil agreed heavily. He swallowed, voice growing a little strangled. "And everyone else who's still alive. Kayo's been responding to distress calls in the UK, but what about the rest of the world? And then there's… I have a lot of unanswered questions and I'm not the only one. Has Kayo mentioned the Hood's ring to you yet? Because she spoke to me about it yesterday."
Scott flopped backwards onto the bed. "And?"
"And John was right: she wants to check out those coordinates."
"Except she can't until we've figured out a way to supercharge the generator."
"Exactly." Virgil dropped onto the mattress beside him. "So, the rescue went well?"
"The rescue went very well."
"And?"
"And what?"
Virgil just looked at him.
Scott rolled onto his front and propped his chin on his crossed arms. The duvet still held remnants of heat from where Finch had lounged across it relatively recently and he nearly melted into the warmth. It seemed ridiculous that only a few minutes in the rain could strike such an unnatural chill so deeply under his skin, though not quite as ridiculous as the thought that Virgil had picked up on.
He curled his hands into fists around the duvet and admitted, "I want to bring back One."
"Okay."
"-Because we could respond to more distress calls, check out coordinates further afield – we'd have more flexibility overall really – and we'd be able to… Wait." He registered Virgil's reply. "What?"
Virgil knocked their shoulders together, fondly amused.
"I said okay. I've been waiting for you to mention it. I'm surprised it took you this long. I half-expected you to bring it up at the Sanctuary."
"It's not feasible though, is it?"
Scott slumped fully onto the mattress, burying his face in the duvet so that his voice grew muffled. He stifled a cough as he nearly inhaled a mouthful of dog hair.
"We have no way of getting that far into the radiation zone. The only available aircraft with shielding that could withstand it is Shadow and we can't fly that distance until the generator's upgraded. Besides, we bled One dry, didn't we? We'd have to take fuel with us. It's practically a pipe dream."
"It's a challenge," Virgil corrected softly. His hand landed on Scott's upper back, soothing the tension that had set root there again. "We'll add it to the list of things we need to figure out."
That cloud of oppressive emotion expanded to engulf the entire room, weighed down by every truth that they were both unwilling to admit. Scott shifted a little closer to Virgil's side as the temperature seemed to drop as if every scrap of good feeling had been sucked from the room. He screwed his eyes shut until he saw spots; swirling sparks like static which threatened to form a picture of last night's sorrows; 3am dark secrets shed alongside soundless tears and the weight of worried stares amid the shadows.
"We'll figure it out," he whispered into the fabric bunched between his fists, willing the words to become the truth because they had to be – there was no other option. It had to work out because the alternative was inconceivable. "It's gonna- We just… We'll find a way. Right?"
Virgil didn't call him out on the way his voice wobbled, but wrapped an arm across Scott's shoulders and hauled him closer. Scott didn't lift his head from the duvet, drawing forcibly level breaths through the blended smell of soap powder, a hint of Penelope's perfume engrained into the fibres from pre-Z-Day, and even a trace of damp dog which was almost certainly from Finch but reminded him vividly of Sherbet too. It was a struggle to hold himself together; threads of anxiety slunk out of the pit in his stomach now that he was hitting the top of his adrenaline crash.
"You feel cold," Virgil observed in a low murmur, concern creeping in to replace the exhausted dread that had previously held him captive. He flattened his hand between Scott's shoulders, detecting the shiver that Scott attempted to conceal. "Did you get soaked by the rain?"
Scott made a non-committal noise. "I run cold now. Frickin' zombie bites. Severing the hivemind connection didn't change that fun little side effect."
"I guess." Virgil laid down again, propping his head on Scott's back. He was a bulk of warmth and Scott subconsciously curled closer to him. "I'd like to keep an eye on it though."
Scott repressed a sigh. "Virgil, I'm fine."
"I hate it when you say that."
"It's the truth."
"That's exactly what you said before you collapsed in the hangars."
"One time! One time that happened!"
Virgil's exasperated smile was audible in his voice. "There are definitely more occasions which you've somehow kept secret from me."
"No comment. I plead the fifth."
"You're the leading contributor to my stress levels."
Scott grinned into the duvet. "Glad to be of service."