Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply. Please don't sue me.

Authors note: Boy, its been a while since I updated, huh? Thanks to everybody for being so patient – RL's just been really nuts lately, and fanfiction had to take a back seat for a while. If I owe you an email, I should have it sent out to you within the next day or so. Its been so long since I logged on to the 'net that I've got about thirty unanswered emails on my inbox. Sorry!

I have no idea what Grandma Tracy's real name is, so I've christened her Marie-Anne. If anybody knows what her canon name is, just leave me a note and I'll edit asap.

'A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity'

Virgil was a man educated to deal with emergencies.

Since his early teens he, like the rest of the Tracy brothers, had been trained in first-aid. In retrospect, it would seem that Jeff Tracy had always understood the dangers that his sons would someday face...or perhaps he was just a paranoid parent, seeking to protect his children in anyway that he could. Either likelihood was plausible. In any case, his insistence that they be taught to deal with any eventuality had prepared them well. Virgil – now an old man of twenty-eight - knew more about emergency medical procedures than most third-year student physicians. For him, a human body was repairable in the same way that a damaged power-relay or jammed rocket booster was.

He was an engineer – it was his job to fix things.

...But how the hell was he going to fix his brother?

In a dream-like haze, he felt Scott fall away from him. At first he had assumed that it was he himself who had collapsed...that his knees had given way, made useless by shock. It did not take him long to realize, however, that this was not the case – that it was in fact Scott who was falling, and he who remained upright. He stared down in mute horror at his brother sank beneath the water. The water was deep now – almost to his hips – and once Scott was submerged, it was as though his very existence had been erased.

Gone. Forever. No more Scott Tracy.

...I'm all alone...

Through the disbelieving fog that now clouded his brain, Virgil suddenly gave a strangled moan and dropped to his knees, desperately fishing in the water to locate his brother's body. For one, terrible moment, he felt nothing. The water was ice-cold and had a slick, greasy film of petrol on the surface – when Virgil's frantic movements caused some to splash in his face, he could taste oil. Blind and on the precipice of total panic, he made a graceless lunge downwards, his outstretched fingers finally coming into contact with a mass of wet curls.

Scott.

He cried out, torn between triumph and alarm, and gripped tightly, dragging Scott up by the top of his head.

He more than half expected Scott to cough – to choke, spit, curse...anything to show that he was still alive – but nothing happened. Scott's face was as still and cold as a marble effigy, and every bit as lifeless. His eyelids were open, but there was no sight left in them, the familiar blue irises clouded and dull. Virgil stared down into them and found only his own reflection staring back...

...and that was when he knew for certain that his brother was dead.

"Scott?"

Virgil hardly recognized the sound of his own voice. It sounded feverish, almost guttural with need, and there was an ugly tremor to his words as he spoke.

He called again, louder this time. "Scott, please..."

Still no answer.

Scott's voice in his memory – only in his memory now - trembling and afraid: 'I want to go home.'

Virgil's face crumpled.

He cried: no longer the soft, subdued sobs of a man not wanting to inflict his sorrow on others, but real, gut-wrenching wails of still-raw pain. His grip on Scott's shoulder was too strong, causing the dead-flesh to bruise beneath his fingertips. Virgil didn't even notice. His face was streaked with mucus and tears, his entire body seized with agonized howls. Slouching forward, he clutched his brother's cold body close against his own and buried his head in the waterlogged hair.

He cried like a tormented animal, because that was how he felt.

Minutes trickled and slowly – oh so slowly - Virgil's wounded grief grew still. He snuffled quietly to himself; eyes dry, but lifeless too, as though his soul had somehow leaked out alongside his salt-water tears. His senses closed off, one by one, leaving only a hollow numbness at his core. Emotionally and intellectually, his mind had shut down. Perhaps it was better this way. If nothing else, it was certainly easier.

Time passed.

Distantly, as though through a fog, he became aware of a noise outside the confines of the flight deck. It was low and mechanical in tone - quiet for the moment, but growing steadily louder with every second that passed. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't Wagner anymore. Had it ever been? Virgil wasn't sure. As much as he loved the thrill of an orchestra, he'd never had much of an ear for opera.

More time. The water level continued to rise.

A new sound now – not outside, but in. The ruined radio crackled into life, a sudden blare of static deafening against the surrounding silence:

"...ott? Virgil? Are you there? Thunderbird 2, do you copy? Please answe..."

He knew that voice, but it was wrong somehow. He'd never heard his father afraid before...

The long-range receiver had been destroyed during the initial explosion, which meant that the radio had to be picking up the message over a short wave frequency – the kind that was supposed to be used for communicating from deck-to-deck. Jeff must have been extremely close in order to get any kind of message through. Six-hundred meters, maybe? Perhaps even less. Virgil felt nothing at this realization.

"...ust hang on in there, boys. We are at your position and - " A crackle of static, a few lost words. "– lasers to cut our way in. We've got the equipment, but it'll be slow going. Please, if you can hear me, try and respond..."

Virgil didn't move...didn't answer. He had no voice left to speak. Instead, he adjusted Scott's awkward weight more comfortably in his arms, cradling him close to his chest and beginning to rock slowly back and forth. There was a ghost of a song running through his mind, and he quietly began to mumble it out loud.

"Can you imagine us years from today...sharing a park bench quietly...? How terribly strange to be seventy..."

He trailed into silence, not able to remember the rest. Scott had always complimented him on his singing voice.

From somewhere in the darkness behind him, he heard a series of bangs running through the ship's hull. Docking clamps, perhaps? Virgil began to hum the tune absently to himself – repeating the same disjointed line over and over again, like a broken record. The bangs continued for several minutes, noisy and intrusive, and Virgil was unsurprised when the white-hot glow of a laser began to slice slowly through the outer wall.

His father had found him.

Virgil licked at his lips, tasting sweat and long-dried blood. "See the sparks, Scott? Guess father found us after all. Who'd have thought, huh?" He blinked tiredly, absently tidying Scott's hair. "...Too late for the important stuff, of course...but I guess he never was any good at turning up for family events."

Scott was cold now – gray and bloodless. Virgil wished that he could get that damned spike out of his knee. He was so awkward to hold with one leg pinned to the ground...

When his father and the WASP crew finally managed to break in almost an hour later, that was how they found the surviving Tracy: blank-eyed, rocking, and still huddled protectively over his brother's bloodied corpse.

Tonight - as it was most nights – Virgil woke up screaming.

The cry died in his throat as soon as his eyes snapped open, but the echo – the tormented ghost of his own choking voice – continued to throb through the still night air. He lay in bed and listened, body trembling and slick with sweat. Gradually the silence returned, and with it, his memory. Fresh tears began to prickle at the back of his eyelids, hot and insistent, but he didn't have enough energy left to cry. Instead, he propped himself up on his elbows and glanced around the room, mentally taking stock of his surroundings. A chair, a desk, a lamp, a bookcase, a piano. He was in his bedroom back on Tracy Island, a long way away from the bleak waters of the Atlantic.

Safe.

A muffled pattering of slippered feet in the hallway, then the soft click of his bedroom door being opened. Through his half-closed eyelids, Virgil saw his grandmother standing in the doorway. This was another part of the nightly ritual. Marie-Anne Tracy had never let one of her grandson's cries go unanswered.

Her age-softened voice, low and soothing: "Virgil, sweetheart, are you alright?"

Virgil swallowed and forced his expression into neutrality. He hoped that his glittering eyes would not show in the dark.

"I-I'm fine grandma. Go back to sleep."

"Are you sure, baby?"

Baby. She'd always called him that, even though it had been years since he was young enough to warrant the term. All of her grandson's were still babies to her. It didn't matter how old they became, or how much they antagonised her on occasion...Marie always used the endearment when talking to her grandchildren.

She'd called Scott her baby too, once upon a time...

Virgil went cold inside, furious at himself for his still-lingering grief. "I'm sure."

He felt her waver, understood that she didn't want to leave, but was glad when he saw her turn sadly away. Her concern was stifling. He knew that she would have loved nothing more than to hold him tightly – to calm his pain for his dead brother as easily as she had fixed an owie when he was a kid – but that was something that he would not allow to happen. She'd make him talk, cry, grieve openly. Virgil didn't want any of those things. He just wanted to be left alone.

The old woman hesitated, then bowed her head. "Well...alright then, if you're certain." She began to retreat slowly back into the darkened hallway. "Good night my darling. God bless."

Another click of the door and she was gone, leaving only the faint perfume of lavender oil in her wake. Virgil had always liked the smell of lavender - it reminded him of summer and his mother's face lotion. He allowed himself a brief moment of nostalgia. It felt good to indulge in memories that didn't hurt for a change.

It didn't last for long, of course. He lay back onto the bed, listening to the dull thud of his own heartbeat. Scott was with him. Now. Always.

"We were all really proud of you."

Virgil frowned, staring blankly up at the ceiling. When had Scott said that? He mentally sifted through the annals of his life, searching for that one specific recollection amongst countless others. It came to him in pieces, like a jigsaw in his mind.
Ice-cream...tux...tiles beneath his feet. Ah yes, that was it...the night of the recital. He peered into the gloomy bedroom, gaze falling on a black shape set against the far wall. A piano – not a large one, albeit, like the grand instrument in the sitting room, but a piano all the same. It had been a present on his fifteenth birthday, a gift from a proud and guiltily absent father. Virgil had loved that piano. It had been his companion through teenage heartbreak, adult loneliness, and professional frustration...music providing a release for his emotions at times in his life when he had otherwise lacked the words.

Nowadays, however, the piano sat silent. The once gleaming ivory keys were dull with lack of use, music sheets discarded and finely coated with dust.

"We were all really proud of you."

Scott had loved that piano too. He used to stand in the doorway as Virgil played, silently appreciative of his brother's talents. Virgil tried to keep hold of that memory, but the harder he tried, the more blurred and uncertain it became. Scott never stayed young and happy in his mind. Sooner of later, the memories always shifted, and he was back in the flight deck of Thunderbird 2, dully singing to his brother's cold corpse.

The tears again, and no grandma Tracy to hide them from this time. Virgil turned his head into the pillow and let himself cry. He tried not to make too much noise, however.

...Even when heartbroken and grieving, Virgil was still a remarkably considerate young man.

A milk-white moon hung low over the darkened horizon, the air infused with the clear tang of ocean spray. Standing outside on the veranda, Jeff Tracy listened to his son's muffled sobs and took a long drag on his cigar. He briefly considered going into Virgil's room, maybe try to comfort him in some way, but he quickly decided against it. He'd never really been much of a hands-on parent. That had been Lucille's role, and later on, his mother's. Jeff had never felt comfortable with the emotional side of family life.

Scott had been a lot like him, in that respect.

He blinked, inhaling deeply on his cigar. The faint glow lit his features briefly, the tired lines around his eyes standing out in shadowed relief. With only a few hours to go until sunrise, this was the first break that Jeff had allowed himself from the small mountain of paperwork on his desk, and – truth be told - he was already beginning to wish that that he had stayed in his office. There were reports to file, designs to approve, adjustments to be made...work had not stopped with Lucille's death, and he was determined that it would not with Scott's either. He already had Brains working on the design schematics for the new Thunderbird 2 replacement, and Alan was due to start training on Thunderbird 1 within days. The Tracy's might have lost a son and brother, but International Rescue had lost its top field agent.

...Jeff found it easier to think of his loss in terms of his organisation, rather than his family.

Virgil's crying again – quiet, but increasingly difficult to ignore. Not for the first time, Jeff wondered why he chose to stand here night after night. Certainly not for Virgil's benefit. He hardly even spoke to his son anymore, let alone took any action to console him. Both men were nursing a private grief and Jeff, for his part, preferred to keep it that way. Private.

The veranda doors slid softly open. Marie-Anne Tracy stepped out into the cool night air, wrapping her dressing grown a little tighter around her frail body. Jeff didn't turn around to look at her. He could already guess at the look of worn disapproval on her age-lined face...she had always hated him smoking.

"How long is this going to go on for?" he asked softly, eyes narrowing into a mild frown.

Marie shrugged, moving to stand beside her son by the veranda's railings. "As long as it needs to, I suppose. You have to let these things run their course."

"It's been over three weeks. International Rescue might be inactive for the moment, but we can't stay off-line for much longer. Virgil's my best pilot now – I need him back to full operational status."

Marie clicked her tongue with ill-disguised annoyance. Never one hide her opinions, she turned to look her son squarely in the eye, matching his cool dispassion with an equal measure of maternal fury. "You talk as if he were one of those damned machines of yours," she scolded quietly, mindful of Virgil's bedroom window only a few feet away. "He's your son, Jeff. Stop acting like his boss and start being his father!"

Jeff scowled. He already knew where this conversation was going, and he didn't like it.

"I'm just trying to be practical."

Marie snorted. "Trying to be an ass, more like. Don't think that I don't know what you're doing, Jeffery Reginald Tracy. Burying yourself in work so that you won't have to deal with the real issues...you did the exact same thing when Lucy died." Her thin lips pursed, one finger jabbing threateningly in the air. "Well I won't stand by while you alienate those boys of yours. Not again."

"This isn't exactly easy for me you know," Jeff hissed, shoulder's tensing at the mention of his late wife.

"And it's a walk in the park for poor Virgil, I suppose?" Marie challenged defiantly. "He's hurting, Jeff."

"Well he's not the only one."

"Maybe not, but you're his father. You're supposed to help him."

He frowned, breathing a mist of bitter smoke from his nostrils. Scott – toddler Scott, the child that he had been – had always laughed when he did that. That was how Jeff wanted to think of Scott, as the dark-haired smiling baby that Lucille had brought into his life...but, somehow, whenever he tried to think of his son, his mind always brought him back to the same horrifying image: that of Virgil – pale, bloody, and half-mad with grief – cradling his brother's body on Thunderbird 2's flooded flight deck.

How could she expect him to help Virgil after that? Jeff was still struggling to come to terms with it himself.

"You weren't there, mom," he murmured, blinking quickly and turning his head away. "You didn't see what I did." He paused, busying himself with tapping the ash away at the end of his cigar. "I...I just don't know what to do with him anymore."

Marie's expression softened somewhat. She gave a heavy sigh, raising a hand to rub at her aching temples. "Well I hope you figure it out soon, sweetheart. That boy's been through enough without losing his father too." She reached forward and patted him comfortingly on his arm. "Try and get some sleep, hm?"

Jeff nodded, trying to smile and failing miserably. "I will mother."

It was a lie, and they both knew it, but Marie seemed comforted nonetheless. She turned her eyes heavenward, wrapping her arms protectively around her chest. "Lucy's got some company up there, at least," she whispered thoughtfully, "And maybe that's not such a bad thing." She paused, chuckled sadly, then turned her gaze back to her son. "She always did love that baby boy of hers."

Jeff stared deadly down at the cigar in his hand. "I know," he said, faintly surprised by how old his voice sounded. "I loved him too."

His mother watched him in silence for a moment, then turned to move slowly towards the veranda doors. Jeff did not follow her immediately, however. He inhaled one final time, then put the cigar out on the scrolled balcony railing. Like everything else that Jeff Tracy did, even this small action was done firmly and decisively – one quick jab, one anticlockwise grind. He suddenly realised that he could no longer hear Virgil crying.

God...if you have any mercy at all...let me have my baby back...

Even as he turned to walk back into the house, Jeff did not place much weight in his prayer. He already knew that there was no God. He had known it from the moment that Lucille's heart had stopped beating over twenty years previously.

"...Earlier today, International Rescue made the unprecedented move of issuing a press release identifying their fallen agent as 'Scott'. No last name was given, nor details of his nationality, but we were told that he was thirty years old and the pilot of Thunderbird 1..."

Click.

"...Details are beginning to emerge that the international terrorist known as The Hood has claimed responsibility for firing the missiles that disabled Thunderbird 2 over three weeks ago. While his precise motives are unclear, it would seem that The Hood has held a long-standing grudge against International Rescue, and has even gone so far as to issue a statement hailing Scott's death as 'a triumph'..."

Click.

"...Later on today Her Majesty the Queen will lead the country in a tribute to the fallen International Rescue agent. The speech, due to be broadcast live from Buckingham Palace, will be followed by a nationwide minute of silence. Similar services are being conducted across the globe..."

Click.

"...Plans to salvage the remains of Thunderbird 2 from the Atlantic seabed have been postponed indefinitely. The wreck – located by WASP after the IR communications operative was able to negotiate for its whereabouts – has been deemed by experts to be completely beyond retrieval. So far International Rescue have not commented as to whether they plan to rebuild their famous carrier craft..."

Click.

Alan raised his head from his book, fingers tiredly massaging at his forehead. "Gordon, for the love of God, just pick a channel and stay with it."

Gordon was sitting cross-ankled on the living room floor, mechanically prodding at the remote control every couple of seconds. He hadn't bothered to dress since waking that morning, and his thin cotton pyjamas were emblazoned with designs of tropical fish. He looked for all the world like an overgrown eight year old...an impression only strengthened by the look of childish confusion he wore.

"I can't," he grumbled, "they're all playing the same damn thing."

Alan frowned in annoyance and then returned his book. "It's been weeks. You'd think that they'd be getting bored by now."

Gordon gave an embittered laugh. "Are you kidding? Scott's death is the best thing to happen to tv networks since Live Aid. Think of the ratings!"

"Its sick."

"Its profitable."

Alan did not even attempt to argue with Gordon's point. How could he? The media circus that had erupted three weeks previous was of a level that none of the Tracy family had ever anticipated. News-teams across the globe were practically scrambling for details as the story was gradually uncovered. The event in itself was like something out of a Hollywood blockbuster...Thunderbird 2 shot down from the sky by a revenge-bent terrorist, two pilots trapped alive at the bottom of the sea-bed, a daring rescue under impossible circumstances, and then the tragic death of an unknown hero.

...Alan could understand the public interest in his brother's demise, even if he could never bring himself to approve of it.

Of course, the press was not fully aware of what happened three weeks ago. They would never know, for example, of how John had been forced to act as negotiator when The Hood had called Thunderbird 5 with his demands. They would never know about the secrets that Jeff Tracy had exchanged in order to receive his son's whereabouts. They would never know about the favours that Gordon had had to call in to get the WASP sub patrolling the eastern Atlantic to rendezvous with his father. They would never know the human cost of Scott's loss. To them, he was – and would always be – a name without a face.

Just 'Scott'.

After a few more minutes of aimless channel surfing, Gordon eventually found a program about French horticulture and decided to stick with that. He stared blankly at the television screen, slack jawed and pale from lack of sleep. He had no interest whatsoever in horticulture – French or otherwise – but anything was better than watching the details of his brother's death being relayed over and over again.

"Virgil had that dream again last night."

Alan's eyes did not leave the page of his book, but he began to chew distractedly on the inside of his lip. "How do you know?"

Gordon shrugged, squinting in the clear morning sunshine. "The gut-wrenching screams were a pretty big clue, I guess."

"Ah."

"Yeah. 'Ah'."

Alan hesitated, then placed his novel to one side. Still sitting on the low couch, he drew his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around his legs in a protective hug. His ash blonde-eyebrows drew together in a thoughtful frown, lips pursed and shifting sideways.

"...Do you think that things are going to start to get better soon?"

The auburn-haired aquanaut gave a soft sigh. "How can they?" he asked dully, without a trace of humour. "Scott's dead, Virgil's gone nuts and father's workaholicism has reached hitherto unimagined depths. We weren't exactly the Von Trapp family before, but now..." he trailed off into contemplative silence, then shrugged. There wasn't much else that he could say on the subject.

A pause.

"I hate this."

"Me too."

The babies of the Tracy family fell into depressed quiet once more.

Bored of watching the horticultural program, Gordon changed the channel once more. An American chat-show was on, hosted by a large, sickly-sympathetic woman with a bad perm. The topic of the show was 'My shocking sex secret with dead IR agent'. Gordon peered curiously at the row of trashy women lined up on the stage. None of them looked like Scott's type.

Partly out of boredom, partly out of morbid amusement, the two boys sat in silence and watched as the media picked over their brother's bones.