As those of you who follow my Tumblr (silverstarfics - come say hi) will know, I'd hoped to get this chapter up earlier. Unfortunately the traffic in the UK is evil and is the absolute bane of my existence. Sorry!


In all honesty, Scott couldn't recall most of that first conversation he had with Virgil. He remembered that there were tears and he remembered telling his brother that they were safe at the ranch, but he didn't know what else had been said. He didn't mention his argument with Alan. The majority of details about the past week could only truly be discussed in person. Virgil clearly came to the same conclusion as he announced:

"I'm on my way."

"In Two?"

"Two would take nearly twenty minutes. I'm not waiting that long. I'm taking One. John can fly Two."

"John's with you?"

"Yeah, John's… but Gordon's… look, I'll tell you everything when I see you."

Ten minutes wasn't very long to piece himself back together so Scott threw himself in the shower for an emotional reset and put the temperature as low as it would go. He doubted it would fool either of his brothers, but it was worth a shot. The one thing he couldn't shake was the shivering. He was still trembling, and he wasn't quite sure why. Emotion? The low fever? It could have been any number of things. He took a hoodie from the closet and hid his hands in the pocket.

He was aware that the fact he was almost nervous to see Alan was bad. It was just that the argument was very new and the wounds it had left were very raw and usually he gave the kid some space to process everything and let Alan come to him when he was ready to talk. But right now there wasn't much of a choice about the matter. Scott wasn't in the right headspace but when was he ever?

He knocked on the door and left the radio outside. When he walked past a minute later it was gone, and he could hear Alan's tearful voice through the closed door.


It was an odd feeling – seeing Thunderbird One in the sky without being the one flying her. Scott forced himself to keep from commenting on the descent or the landing itself but then none of those tiny unimportant details mattered anyway. Alan, who'd been waiting a short distance away, reluctant to stand at Scott's side, rocking back and forth on his heels with agitated excitement, rocketed across the silo like a released spring. Virgil barely got chance to step foot out of Thunderbird One before Alan collided with him.

Scott hung back to give them a moment. It was a surreal feeling – not just seeing Virgil again but having Thunderbird One in front of him. Right there. Just… perfect. Still cooling down from her bolt across the world, breaking the sound barrier for the first time in so many months. He could reach out and touch her if he walked just a little closer. But that was… and he wasn't… He inhaled sharply and fixed a smile on his face. At least he didn't have to fake that – he was genuinely over the moon to have Virgil back. He just wished he was able to greet his brother without feeling like he was falling apart at the same time.

Alan was still bouncing. He was notably keeping his distance from Scott – hadn't even acknowledged him since getting here – which was a lapse in judgement on his part because Virgil looked between them and picked up on the tension in an instant.

"Hey, Al, can you run One's post-flight checks for me?"

"Oh, sure." Alan didn't even question it. He bonked his forehead on Virgil's shoulder like an affectionate housecat on his way past, still overexcited and on an elated adrenaline high. Thunderbird One's checks wouldn't occupy him for long, but it would give them around ten minutes if they were lucky and Alan felt guilty enough about earlier to hang back and give them time to talk.

Virgil didn't give Scott the chance to flee or come up with a suitable deflection. He caught him by the wrist and tugged him towards the corridor.

"Upstairs. Now."

Orders got a reaction where soft words would have left him standing, still not quite aware of his body or anything real. He followed his brother not unlike a lost puppy and noted, fondly amused, the way that Virgil repressed a sigh, clearly already assessing him for any and all health issues, of which there were, admittedly, quite a few. It just – it hadn't hit him. Not fully. That this was actually happening. When Virgil let go of his wrist, his heart lurched, because what if- He tripped half a step to fall into place beside Virgil and if they accidentally bumped shoulders and it reassured him that yes, this was real and Virgil was actually here, then well, it was completely accidental, wasn't it?

"A week," Virgil was saying, wisely not mentioning the way that Scott kept double-checking that this wasn't all a mind trick. "It's been a week. After all these months, it took us less than a week to fall apart."

"That's almost impressive," Scott remarked.

Virgil side-eyed him. "No. It's just sad." He trailed off, letting the end of that thought die unspoken. "It's just a week. So why does it feel like I haven't seen you in months?"

"Time is weird."

Virgil kept his gaze dead ahead, asking quietly – and this was just the start of the interrogation, Scott knew – with no small trace of concern, "Are you okay?"

The air in the hallway suddenly seemed very thin. Oxygen was a thing of the past.

Scott took a moment to recover the stability in his voice. "Hey, why don't you… uh… give me a minute and ask me that again?"

"In a room where Alan can't walk in?"

He exhaled in a rush. "Y-yeah. Exactly."

Behind locked doors it wasn't any easier to fall apart. Not when he'd spent the past week – months, years – carefully patching himself together and plastering a smile on top of any forming cracks in the hopes that he could fix himself without needing to get anyone else involved. It helped that Virgil could read him better than an open book. It helped that the locked door was more than just a door. It was a barrier. It was a shield. Like time had become warped throughout the week, reality twisted itself into his own version, so that beyond that door, nothing else existed. In this room, they had all the time in the world.

"Okay," Virgil began, turning away from the door. "I'm going to-"

Scott didn't give him the chance to finish.

"-hug you, apparently," Virgil concluded.

"Can you… just-?"

"-Not say anything yet?"

"-Exactly."

It was strange how hugging certain people could encapsulate the feeling of coming home, of safety, of belonging, of that indescribable feeling of existing within someone's orbit and knowing that was correct, that this was how it was supposed to be, like a rule of the universe. Scott couldn't remember the last time he'd hugged Virgil like this – not so much a hug as it was holding on for dear life. If he let go, he'd drown. If he let go, all of this went away. He couldn't go through it alone again.

"Are you shivering or shaking?"

Scott made a noncommittal sound and buried his face in Virgil's shoulder.

"No, Scott, I'm serious. Which is it? Because that fever is concerning me, especially when it's affecting your balance."

Scott tilted back to examine his brother. "How do you know about that?"

"I'm a mind-reader," Virgil quipped. "Also, I brought a med-scanner with me."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Scott reluctantly released his octopus-grip and proceeded to sink very gracefully – half-collapse – onto the bed. "I don't know," he admitted as Virgil moved to stand in front of him, clearly torn between fond exasperation and genuine concern. "Don't look at me like that. I don't know why…" He lifted a trembling hand. "…this is a thing. I have theories. You won't like any of them."

"Okay." Virgil sat down beside him. "Talk to me."

Scott tipped forwards, bent over his knees with his eyes screwed shut as the room decided to take another tour of a Graviton ride. "That's an open question."

"Start with health."

"You already know. Med-scanner, right?"

"I'd like to hear it from you."

"Uh huh." Scott felt a hand land on his shoulder.

"Please?"

He forced himself to sit upright again because this was more of a show than tell situation and also because while leaning over his knees had helped the nausea it had done the exact opposite for the light-headedness. Really, there was no scenario in which he won right now. Oh, the irony.

Why was it that voicing things made them seem so much realer? More vivid? Gave them the power to actually hurt? Words were complicated too. There were too many tangled explanations, and he was incapable of putting it out in the open in a manner that made sense. He didn't want to. Let him sleep for the next year and ask again and perhaps then he'd have answers. For now – nothing. No words, not even any thoughts, just that blank haze of everything he couldn't pin down. His mind was a minefield and each detonation triggered another.

"Can we not do this?" he said eventually, unnecessarily as Virgil was either reading his mind or had simply anticipated this reaction. "You're here. Let me have that for now. We can figure the rest out later."

Virgil didn't answer, not immediately. Scott couldn't look at him. He tipped backwards and flopped onto his back, closing his eyes against the ceiling and those too-bright lights. A moment later the mattress dipped as Virgil lay down beside him.

"Hey."

Scott draped an arm across his face. "No."

"Don't do this."

"I'm not doing anything."

"Please."

Scott couldn't see his brother's expression, but he didn't need to, not when Virgil's voice had taken on that soft, concerned pitch tainted with a hint of helplessness.

"Please don't shut me out." Virgil caught Scott's wrist where he was fidgeting again. "I want to help you, but you've got to let me."

That locked door had gone from safety to the bars on a jail cell. The mattress was too soft. He was too aware of the cotton fibres under his fingertips all of a sudden. He scrambled off the bed and the world tipped hazardously to the side like a sinking ship before gravity caught him. The ground was solid. The bedside was firm and reassuring and he pressed his back against it. Everything was underwater – that strange, distant version of hearing where he couldn't quite make out the words and it hurt to even try. Focus took too much energy and details slipped out of reach when he tried to pin down any single point. God, just stop.

Virgil was saying something.

Scott tangled his hands in his hair and tugged. Virgil caught his wrists before he could do any damage.

"Breathe," he said, as if it were that easy, as if that were possibly important right now when there was so much else at stake, literal lives on the line.

"I c-can't-" Not happening. Scott tried again. "There's too much-"

"Not right now. There's just this moment. Just us. It's just you and me. That's all there is." Virgil shuffled slightly so he could sit opposite. "Just us," he repeated, and tipped forwards to lean their foreheads together. "Breathe."

It's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing.

Unless, of course, you have someone to catch you.


There were many unaddressed issues at hand. Virgil was doing a perfectly good job of ignoring almost all of them and didn't give Scott the chance to pounce on any of them and use them as an excuse to deflect any and all attention away from himself. This was exactly what Scott had been planning to do, so, well, damn you Virg, but also maybe thank you Virg at the same time.

They migrated to the kitchen table because the room felt too stifling and besides, the kitchen had better lighting, which Virgil, in his medic-mode, had deemed vitally important. There was still no signs of Alan although the faint rumble of Thunderbird Two landing around five minutes earlier answered that mystery. An orange-hinted hue had settled across the house as a sandstorm – or perhaps another dust storm – formed along the horizon. It was vaguely disconcerting as it obscured the camera feed and left them blind as to the creatures' behaviour, but no alerts had gone off yet, so the defences appeared to be holding strong.

A glass of water was deposited in front of him. Scott stared at it for half a second. "What's this?"

"I usually call it water," Virgil replied, mostly teasing but still too caught up in the throes of worry and medical concerns to be able to joke openly. "Why, what do you call it?"

"That's not what I-" Scott cut himself off, repressing a sigh. He held the glass between his palms and let the cold bleed into his skin. "Okay."

"Drink it." Virgil paused, looking up from his collection of medical supplies that were currently neatly laid out across the sideboard. "All of it," he added, in that voice, the one that promised he would not be taking no for an answer and that choosing to argue would not end very well for anyone.

Scott wasn't a complete idiot – he drank the water.

Virgil slid into the chair opposite and proceeded to unload what seemed like the entire contents of One's medical locker onto the table. Scott prodded at an unopened pack of butterfly strips dubiously, taking another sip of water as Virgil shot him a warning look.

"Did you bring everything in the first aid kit or something?"

"Yes," Virgil said without missing a beat. "Because I know you." He broke the seal on the antiseptic bottle and pushed aside the bandages to clear a space. "Alright. Let me check your wrists."

"You know, technically, it was just really bad rope burn. It's already healing."

"Show me."

Scott rolled up his sleeves. "Happy now?"

Virgil visibly winced. "You definitely understated the burn part." He reached for the sterile gauze, waving a hand at the nearby projector to activate the LEDs for better lighting. "How'd you treat this?"

"Uh…" Scott sorted through the mess of memories to that first night back dirtside. "Clean water. Bandages. Painkillers to take the edge off. The capsule came down in the sea, so I was submerged in saltwater before any of that. Salt is cleansing though, so…"

Virgil gave him a pointed look as if to say, are you an actual idiot? "The sea is filthy. You know that. You're damn lucky this isn't infected."

"Oh, I'm sorry, next time I'll try to crash land in the middle of a desert instead."

"That would be helpful, yes."

"I'll make a note of it."

Virgil was having a visible struggle not to laugh. He made short work of the bandages and burn gel, considering the readouts projected by the scanner versus his own observations. "Did you put topical aloe on this?"

"Where would have I gotten any?"

Virgil stared at him. "From the bathroom cabinet?"

"Wait, we have some here?"

"Scott, obviously we have aloe here. John takes one look at the sun and burns."

"I was on the hunt for fever reducer, not aloe."

Wrong choice of words. Virgil seized upon the fever reducer thing like a dog with a bone. Scott inwardly groaned and laid his head on the table. Virgil prodded him.

"So? Back?"

"Just scan me," Scott muttered. "I'm asleep now."

"Don't be difficult."

"I'm never difficult. I'm an absolute delight."

"Scott."

"Oh, for…" He yanked his shirt over his head. "Fine. See for yourself. I've been handling it."

Virgil's sharp intake of breath suggested that Scott's version of handling it differed substantially from his own interpretation. His hand ghosted the edges of the injuries, carefully easing bandages free where blood had dried and glued them to the skin. Scott flinched instinctively and knocked his elbow against the table. The glass of water trembled on the verge of falling. Virgil put a hand on his shoulder, murmuring an apology.

"S'okay," Scott ground out. He rested his chin in his folded arms and watched the patterns thrown by uneven light across the kitchen floor. The med-scanner reflected a red glow over the medical supplies and turned the glass of water to blood.

Virgil didn't say anything for a long moment. There was a faint rustle as he discarded the ruined bandages in the trash can. "I am very, very glad that you've had your tetanus shot," he said at last, only half-joking. There was an unmistakable trace of horror beneath the words.

Scott closed his eyes against the crimson light. "I'm guessing it's not pretty then?"

Virgil gave a low whistle. "It's definitely going to scar."

"Oh well." Scott forced himself to keep still despite the raging sting of antiseptic. "That's nothing new. Just another to add to the collection."

"That's not funny."

Something in Virgil's voice drew Scott out of the daze.

"No," he agreed quietly. "I know it's not."

The window rattled in the face of a particularly strong gust of wind. Virgil jumped. Scott didn't mention it. A cleaning bot meandered across the floor. He eyed the splatter of yellow paint across its casing and nearly choked on the stab of pain in his chest. It was weird how emotional hurt could manifest on a physical level. He uncurled his fingers and laid his hands flat on the table with a steadying breath.

"How did this even happen?" Virgil queried, slightly distracted. He pulled a chair around so that he could sit and work at the same time. "Penelope didn't say anything about this. Just…" He faltered. "Just about everything else."

Scott steeled himself against the sting. "Raided a pharmacy. Group of infected got the drop on us. Hit the floor except it was covered in broken glass. Alan's suit protected him, but I didn't have mine so… Also, an infected tackled me in the street so I'm not sure how much is from the glass or from…" He gestured a clawing motion. Virgil cringed. "Alan got a not-so-fun lesson in removing glass from open injuries though, so that's another thing he can put on his resume."

"Scott."

"Not funny?"

Virgil reached for the med-scanner again with a sigh. "Not really, no."

A faint whirring broke the silence as the scan ran its course. That red light returned for a second time, warning that there was cause for concern.

"Definitely infected," Virgil informed him.

"Really?" Scott deadpanned. "You don't say." He ducked his head with a faint laugh as Virgil made to swat him. "Hey, no bullying the patient!"

Virgil looped an arm around his shoulders. "You're an idiot," he murmured into Scott's hair. "But I missed you and I'm so glad you're safe."

Scott leant back in his chair to glimpse Virgil's face. "I know. I missed you too."


Whether John had been waiting for Virgil to call him upstairs or whether he was simply running damage control with Alan was unclear, but he didn't appear before Scott got the chance to fall asleep on the sofa under Virgil's watchful gaze.

By the time he woke up again it was late afternoon – at least according to the clock because the storm was still raging, and it was dark enough to classify as night-time – and the house was no longer an empty shell but alive and loved. Music entwined with voices drifting from the kitchen. Something was cooking in the oven. Someone had lit the fire and gentle flames coaxed sparks from the crackling wood.

For the first time in days, his head felt clear. Thoughts were not muddied. He flung up an arm to catch the back of the sofa and hauled himself upright. Whatever pain-meds Virgil had given him were strong – the good stuff – because for once his back wasn't on fire. He swung his legs off the cushions and leant forwards, propping his elbows on his knees as he came to his senses, fighting back a yawn.

The voices in the kitchen were clearly Virgil's and Alan's and whatever was cooking smelt great. He rose to his feet, noting with pleasant surprise that the dizziness had finally left him, intending to follow his nose to the kitchen when he heard footsteps in the corridor, approaching. He got halfway through the process of elimination when John walked through the door.

"Oh, hey." Scott lifted a hand. "Fancy seeing you here."

John stopped short in the doorway. For someone who usually kept his feelings under close guard, there were too many emotions flitting over his face to count. Then, as if someone had pressed play on time again, he practically ran across the room.

John didn't do hugs. Not like this. Except here they were. And with the way John had run at him Scott had anticipated being tackled back onto the sofa because balance wasn't his best friend as of late, but John seemed to sense this and kept them upright, for once forcing gravity to play nicely, clinging on for fear of losing him again.

"Are you okay?" Scott sort of croaked because emotion had stolen his control over his voice, and it cracked on the final word because John had buried his face in Scott's shoulder which he hadn't done since they were little kids and Scott had landed himself in hospital with a broken leg.

John tightened his hold. "I thought you were dead," he gasped out, muffled. "And EOS couldn't track you, I couldn't find you anywhere and your suit readouts were blank. I sent you on that satellite without enough intel and then you were gone. With the goddam Hood. Just like… I lost you."

"I'm right here," Scott reminded him quietly.

John released him to take a step back and examine him for injuries. "I lost you," he repeated, voice damp and eyes bright with tears – and Scott could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen John cry. "I don't lose people, Scott. Only one. I lost Dad and I promised I would never let it happen again but then… Fuck. Just… don't you ever do that to me again, alright? Don't you dare."

"I'll try my best." Scott wasn't about to promise because he hadn't intended to be torn apart from his family in the first place but sometimes situations were out of his control. "John," he began, pitching his voice softer unintentionally.

John – ever-so-slightly – flinched. "Don't."

"But-"

"Don't," John repeated. He took a deep breath. "You know. I know. EOS knows. Virgil and Brains have a rough idea, but they don't know the fine details. That's it. No one else needs to… I've got it under control for now."

Scott trusted that line about as much as he trusted the Hood. "Define under control."

John looked faintly amused at that. "Careful Scott, someone might think you don't trust me."

"Not with yourself," Scott shot back instantly, and John gave him that infinitely sad smile.

"That's exactly how I feel about you."

The music in the kitchen dipped slightly. There was the faint thud of someone sliding across the tiles and hitting the cupboards with more force than intended – almost definitely Alan. If Scott closed his eyes, it was as if nothing had changed at all. But here they were – keeping secrets with the power to destroy them and trying to pretend that it wasn't inevitable for everything to fall apart.

John was watching him as if he would vanish at any second. Scott met his gaze. Not a challenge. Just a question.

"Under control," John explained after a moment, "means taking a cocktail of meds that seem to be keeping it at bay. It's not a long-term solution. If I keep going at this rate, I'm going to hit a point where I won't be supporting my immune system anymore, I'll be destroying it. I need to find a way to fix the problem. A way to purge this parasite from my body."

Scott didn't bother pointing out exactly how terrifying that sounded. "Any working theories?" he asked instead.

John shrugged. "One. But it's not really a solution and I can guarantee that you'll shoot it down."

"Do I want to ask?"

"I go back up to Five, stay in isolation, create a quarantine zone, and completely fuck up my body so that this thing can grow strong enough to leave naturally. It tries to find a new host to infect but there's no one else there. EOS contains it. Of course, I don't know exactly how ill I have to be for it to… So clearly that plan isn't ideal."

"Understatement of the century."

John suddenly looked very tired. "Yeah," he agreed quietly. "I know. It's my last resort. But for now I'll keep taking the meds and searching for an alternative solution. Don't look at me like that. It's perfectly safe. Virgil's been monitoring me. He won't let me dose myself. Anyway, right now we have other issues to handle. Alan told us that Gordon was here?"

Scott beckoned John after him with a sigh. "Come on. If we're going to talk about this, we may as well have one big discussion. Saves repeating ourselves later."


Virgil – firmly in mother-hen mode – insisted on having a family dinner first. This sounded good in theory but only drew further attention to the empty seat. Awkward silences stretched out where there ordinarily would have been a joke or teasing comment to break them. Alan wasn't only ignoring Scott but point-blank refused to look at him. John excused himself halfway through and never returned. Virgil carried plates over to the sink in a desperate attempt to flee the tension.

Scott joined him with a towel to dry the dishes. "Is John ever coming back?"

Virgil examined the soap suds coating his hands and said, very quietly so that Alan wouldn't overhear, "The meds make him sick. He'll be back in about twenty minutes when he's no longer about to upchuck everything he's just eaten."

"That's…"

"Tell me about it." Virgil passed him a plate. "Would you believe me if I tell you he's actually better now? When we were first trialling dosages he couldn't keep anything down. I nearly had to force an IV line on him."

He changed the conversation as Alan slid across the kitchen to join them. Or, rather, to join Virgil specifically, deliberately standing as far away from Scott as he could get.

"Anything I can help with?"

Virgil scooped soap suds out of the sink and planted a wet hand on Alan's head. Alan ducked away too late with an outraged squawk.

"Hey!"

"Better run," Virgil teased. "There's more where that came from."

Scott leant against the sideboard and tried not to look as dejected as he felt. It was fine. Alan was dealing with a lot right now. He'd come around. It was absolutely fine. Uh huh. Definitely. Scott busied himself with drying the plates, a task that did not require so much attention but was a safer thing to focus on than the way Alan was content to laugh with Virgil but refused to even glance at him. He moved to stack the dry dishes in their allocated cupboard just as Alan rounded the table, heading for the corridor, and nearly collided with him.

Scott lifted the dishes before Alan could accidentally knock them to the ground and ended up clutching them to his chest like a shield.

"Are you still angry with me?" he asked, more tiredly than he'd intended.

Alan refused to meet his gaze, instead studying his socks. Scott stepped aside and Alan sped past him like a bat outta hell without another word.

Translation: yes, apparently he was still angry.

John slunk back into the kitchen as white as a sheet and still faintly shaky. "What's up with Al?"

"He wanted to go after Gordon," Scott told him, closing the cupboard door a tad more sharply than necessary and immediately regretting it as Virgil eyed him with the utmost suspicion. "I told him no, because Gordon has a car and a forty-nine-hour head-start and we have no idea which direction he went."

"Sensible decision," John noted. He folded himself into a chair and propped an elbow on the table, twisting to observe his brothers as Scott joined Virgil back at the sink. "I'm guessing Alan didn't see it that way?"

"Alan…" Scott chose his words wisely. "Alan is dealing with a lot right now."

"Oh, boy." Virgil discarded the rest of the washing-up. "What did he say to you?"

"Nothing bad."

"It clearly was, or you wouldn't be trying to protect him." Virgil crossed his arms. "Scott. Spill. What did the kid say?"

"And before you think about lying," John interjected, "remember that I can very easily access the records and check." He gestured to the hologram projector in the corner. "Those things are always listening. Always."

"That's creepy," Scott told him.

John offered a sunny smile. "I know. It's great."

"Scott," Virgil prompted, looping an arm around Scott's shoulders in a manner that seemed friendly and supportive but was secretly just a way to prevent Scott from fleeing. "It's not like we're going to shout at him or anything. Why won't you tell us what he said?"

John drummed a hand against the table. "Because it really was that bad, wasn't it?" He stilled his hand with a frown. "Right, I was joking before but now I'm serious about checking those records because whatever he said has clearly hit a nerve and that's not acceptable."

"I know it's not acceptable for him to lash out. I'll talk to him about it at some point."

"Somehow you're hitting the nail on the head and completely missing the point at the same time, but alright." John sat back in his chair. "Here's my guess – Alan went for a really low blow, something personal that he knows would have a big impact. Now you're all up in your head and he's feeling guilty, but he's backed himself into a corner and doesn't know how to properly apologise."

Scott stole the towel from the draining board to occupy his hands. "Are we really focussing on this right now? It's not a big deal."

John levelled him with an unimpressed stare. "Believe me, I would much rather discuss Gordon and Kayo and Penelope, but this is something we need to deal with before it festers and causes further issues. So." He patted the table. "Your move."

Virgil's grip tightened protectively.

"God, enough already." Scott strangled the towel in his hands. "He said a bunch of crap. He didn't mean any of it. There was something about me being scared or… look, I can barely remember the exact phrasing. It's not a big deal."

John began inching towards the hologram projector. "And?"

"There may have been a line about going to that satellite to help people and then refusing to rescue someone when they actually needed saving."

John studied him for a moment. "What else?"

"That was everything."

"Bullshit. I know you. What else did he say?"

"Nothing!"

John made a grab for the projector. Scott snatched it out of his reach, realised Virgil was right there, panicked and threw it so violently against the kitchen tiles that it smashed. Pieces of plastic and metal innards skidded under the fridge. Virgil made a startled sound. John jumped back, eyes wide.

"Well," he remarked slowly. "That just proves my theory that he said something else."

Scott stared at the ruins. A stray spark glinted from the tangled wiring. He poked at it cautiously with one foot and a tiny tendril of smoke rose towards the ceiling. There were tiny shards of plastic all over the floor. It was broken beyond repair. He didn't know if that was a reflection on his own strength or if the projector was just incredibly poorly made. Either way, he hated the way Virgil was watching him like he was a skittish animal and John was just analysing his every move.

"I said," he ground out, each word sticking like treacle, "that it doesn't matter."

"Historically speaking," John pointed out with no small trace of sarcasm, "you're not great at telling when something is important if you're the one who's been hurt."

"Oh, for fuck's sake. I'm not that fragile, I can cope with my kid brother lashing out at me when he's upset and overwhelmed and dealing with so much more than he's equipped to handle or should have to even think about at his age. It's fine. Let it go."

A cleaning bot attempted to remove the shards. The pieces were too sharp and pierced the vacuum bag within. The bot flashed red with a high-pitched note of distress. Virgil reached down and switched it off, wordlessly scooping the fragments into a rough pile.

John didn't move from his place frozen by the fridge.

Scott caught Virgil's shoulder. "Stop it. I'll clear it up in a minute."

"I've got it."

"Virgil, just stop. You'll cut your hands up. It's fine, I'll clear it."

"It's not fine."

"Yes, it is."

"Scott, it's not fucking fine." Virgil straightened up. "None of this is fine. Half of our family living on Mars is not fine. Losing radio contact with EOS is not fine. Gordon running out on us, on me, after he promised he wouldn't, is not fine. Alan is not fine." He jerked a thumb in John's direction. "He's not fine. Hell, I'm not. And you sure as hell are not fucking fine. So… just stop. Please. Stop pretending all the goddam time."

Silence descended. Scott couldn't tear his gaze away from that broken projector. It was still smoking. The tiles were smeared with battery acid. He wanted to run. That faint roaring in his ears had returned. He took a step back until the countertop dug into his lower spine, except then he wanted to be sick because his mind provided a helpful flashback of the last time he'd been backed up against a sideboard with Maya's hands all over him and everything that had followed.

For the first time in his life, John struggled to find the right words.

Virgil held up a hand. "Stop. Please, God, just stop. Sometimes you need to learn not to push. Scott, if you don't want to tell us then alright, I'll stop asking, but only if you look me in the eye and swear that you're not talking because you genuinely haven't internalised any of what Alan said and not just because you're trying to defend him. Words have consequences. He knows that."

John shoved his hands into his pockets, looking rather ruffled. Scott ducked his head and examined the projector. There was a loose wire trailing dangerously close to the pool of battery acid. Not that it was active. Because he'd broken it. Because that was what he did – broke everything whilst trying to fix it. He blinked as Alan's voice suddenly shattered the silence, slipping into the kitchen unnoticed.

John took a step away from the counter, voice icy. "Would you care to repeat that?"

"Um…" Alan twisted his fingers together. He seemed very small. "I… uh… I told Scott he got you killed."

John didn't say anything for an infinitely long moment. "Apologise."

"I-"

"Now."

Alan blinked back tears. "Sorry, Scott."

"It's alright, Al."

"No," John cut in. "It is not alright. Alan, come with me now. We're going to have a little chat. Virgil, stay with Scott and tell him to stop believing lies." He stormed out of the kitchen. Alan hung back, never having been on John's bad side before and clearly unnerved. "Alan," John's furious shout echoed through the door. "I said now."

Alan shot a tearful glance over his shoulder and darted after him.

Instinct had Scott moving to follow. Virgil caught his arm.

"I know what you're going to say."

Virgil raised a doubtful brow. "Do you?"

"That it was an accident, that it was John's decision, that it doesn't matter because he's still here with us even if for a while he was legally… Just. Don't even start. Hey, let's talk about Gordon running out on you because that's the first I've heard about that."

"I wasn't going to say that."

Scott slumped into a chair and hid his face in his hands. "Then what were you going to say?"

A hand landed on his shoulder.

"I was going to say," Virgil told him softly, "that I love you, and if you want to discuss whatever's going on in your head then I'm here and I'll listen but, if you don't feel like talking, then I've been told I'm pretty great at giving hugs."

Scott gave a tired chuckle. "I could go for a hug right now."

"I think I've got that covered." Virgil spread his arms. "Come on." He offered a hand. "Bring it in, brother."