Chapter seven. I am sorry for the numerous water references in this chapter

John pushed the pushed the door open in inches, peering round as a child trying to spy on someone did.

"Alan?"

The whole room was shrouded in darkness, so he flicked the light on. Alan was sat in bed, the covers abandoned as he stared out the doors of the balcony. His eyes blinked, adjusting to the sudden stream of man-made light. The smallest of glows was given by the moon, catching John's steps as he closed the distance and sat beside the younger.

"Are you okay?" Alan nodded, but John didn't believe him. His eyes were squinted tightly shut, his veins like visible lines through his skin, the obvious signs of deep concentration. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to remember."

"Don't force it." "What were you thinking about?" Alan pointed to a drawer. John followed the action, but furrowed his brow at a loss.

"When I was younger, and I told you I could dress myself." John nodded as the situation returned to his mind, painting vivid pictures as though it could have been yesterday. When Alan didn't continue, he started voicing those images.

"Dad took us out to a restaurant that night, and you wore-"

"One blue sock and one black."

"Yeah." It was hardly even a breathed word. It was a small thing to remember in the long run of things forgotten, but John would rather have the small memories to none at all. "Yes you did."

"And dad bought you…"

'Scott.' Mentally he made the corrections to Alan's story, following the younger's thoughts with careful interest.

"A drink. And you…"

'Virgil.'

"Decided on what to do at university." So Alan had a few names wrong, but the scenario was recalled rightly.

"Which was?"

"Um... Something to do with maths or physics." Alan had narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow, tension practically seeping from the pores of his skin. "I… I'm not sure."

"That's okay." He tried to his disappointment at the downward turn, but a spark had already lit itself in Alan, smouldering away, and attaining strength.

"No it's not!"

"Alan, calm down." Something had to be said for Alan's speed as he was once again out of John's reach, like a child, flailing, trapped in the deep. "You're getting there." He insisted, unsure of what else he could do. "You can't expect yourself to remember absolutely everything."

"I should be able to remember these things." The abrupt silence faded in with realisation. John was fixed looking at the dent in the wall, the bruise forming on the younger's hand and the shock that he hardly seemed aware he'd done it. Alan's shoulders started to shake, his breath hitching as he crumbled down to the floor, his forehead falling forward to rest against the cool of the wall. Almost immediately, strong arms wrapped around him, pulling him close until his head was on the elder's shoulder, buried in the security he could offer. Words weren't needed for there was nothing to say: there was nothing that could be said. Tears streamed down cheeks and onto the fabric of John's shirt, which delicate fingers clung to like a baby to its mother. The only source of sound was John's feint whisperings of comfort, of nothing; a mix of soothing sounds desperation and were forcing him to remember. The breaking brother – no, child – he held was as delicate as glass, as delicate as diamonds and as valuable as more than all the riches in the world could by, and he would be damned if he walked away now. A light hand ran up and down the shaking spine of the younger, comfort being absorbed from the small action.

The ripples of teardrops eventually dried away, running down until there was no path for them anymore, and they became meek sobs and hitches of breath. When the restless wave finally stilled, neither brother had moved an inch since the embrace began: both holding onto the cocoon they'd formed themselves, both resolved to stay there. John had stopped his whispering, the light breeze outside having adopted the patterns of them and stolen his voice, murmuring them through the glass. Alan's grip had begun to give, his muscles loosening as his body called him to sleep. He started rocking the baby of the family without knowledge, but didn't relax himself.

When the wind quieted with the rise of the sun and bringing of the day, blue eyes were shut, but awake. Blonde head resting on blonde head, one hand still firmly placed on the younger's back, having been there all night like a life support. The door creaked open, the low sound not waking the younger, but alerting the elder. The eldest was met with this scene, John inclining his head towards the wall before returning it to its resting place above Alan's. The world had faded away from him all night, his peripheral vision becoming little more than a blur, his ears ignoring anything that's source wasn't the bundle he held. It remained that way now. The events of life unknown, the environs unthought-of.

As Alan's eyelashes flicked against his chest, he returned from the murk of thoughts. Scott had gone, where he had wondered unknown and unconsidered for the current passage of time. And still that time ebbed away with no words until the slightest flood of volume was voiced.

"John?" The question wavered, uncertain, unknowing, apprehensive.

"What is it, Alan?" His voice was dry, sounding barely like him as he coughed in endeavours to clear his throat. The answer took an interval to be given and once it was, the unsettling storm seemed to return in plumes of shadows above them.

"I've got pins and needles in my hand."

"Let me see." It was a tentative order, a falter that every effort was taken to conceal as Alan moved from his hold and extended his hand to the elder. The bandaged cut was untouched, his knuckles having turned on odd shade of purple, a foreshadowing of mystery, the appendage also tinted red from the radiating fierce heat. "Can you feel it?"

The slow shake was enough of an answer, one that words would only upset further, so John made no bother of brawling with the obvious. "Okay, come on then, let's go and see Brains." He heaved himself to his feet, his own limbs complaining at the sudden movement before aiding Alan onto his own. Walking through the halls to the sick room was like stepping through an intensive care hospital, a constant walk to near hopeless situations, to life being clung onto and to loss. It was like everything watched them, the walls (though not the one on charges of causing the damage), taunted them, as though all was one in the same.

Alan pulled away from him when they reached the door, his hand slipping from the hold as he shook his head.

"Do you want me to bring Brains out here?" Alan nodded. "You don't have anyone to be afraid of."

"I'm not afraid!" John stepped back, unconsciously shuffling Alan away from the wall at the same time. Despite the venom of his words, Alan's eyes were wide, his hands shaking, making him a perfectly unpredictable paradigm of emotions.

"I know."

"No, you don't." "You don't know what it's like when people look at you like you should know them, like it's an expectation. When they stare at you wondering why you don't. When they look at you like you're failing or you've disappointed or hurt them. When…"

Silence was beginning to become a worry for him. Alan was staring at him now, as though he'd spotted a major problem, as though some life-threatening creature was crawling by him.

"Alan?"

"Like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you pity me."

His temper didn't fry easily – which right now he was glad of – and his answer came back as a firm, but gentle push, nothing like the riots Gordon could begin with a misplaced word. "Alan, I don't."

"You do! You're looking at me exactly like it."

"I didn't mean to." Giving in was the easiest way, apologising and admitting the fault was his. The worked up state the younger had got himself into was doing little to help and John didn't intend on letting the situation worsen. "I'm sorry, I guess I didn't realise I was doing it."

Alan calmed after a moment, his breath settling out and the shaking subsiding. He seemed to change from being a scared child to the grown up he was, leaving John unsure of what he could face next. Alan had always been the least predictable, the most emotional, but this was different. This was uncontrolled, unmarkable and completely scattered. There was little way of telling what Alan was feeling, little way of stopping him shutting what he felt away, and no way to tell what was in his head. John doubted Alan even knew what filled the muddle that part of it had become.

"Wait here, I'll get Brains."

The room fell quiet as he walked in. Tin-Tin had been talking to Virgil, whilst Grandma served them all a variety of treats. Scott was nowhere in sight and Gordon had fallen asleep in his chair. Virgil stopped himself mid-sentence and looked to him expectantly.

"Alan?"

"He's outside." John answered. "I don't think he wanted to come in." It was a slight lie, but now wasn't the time to say the younger had no intention of seeing them. "I need to borrow Brains."

"Is there a problem, son?"

"Maybe. Alan's got pins and needles in his hand." Jeff looked to Brains.

"How did t-that come on?" John could see the other was confused, obviously having ruled out the cut causing Alan any problems.

"He punched a wall."

Virgil would have shot up if he could. "What?"

"Is he alright?"

"I don't know." There was little point in lying. Brains had already pulled himself to his feet and headed for the door, John following behind. "I'll let you know."

Virgil exhaled and leaned back. The heavy air stayed. The middle son said nothing and Tin-Tin daren't start a conversation. She too was sat in shock, Jeff not believing her to have even moved past the first in honesty.

"I should have said I wasn't feeling well." Virgil finally voiced after seeming hours having passed by. "This wouldn't have happened."

"Don't you start blaming yourself, Virgil." Jeff ordered. "We've been through this with Scott. It was simply one of those things. They happen." Virgil was rarely stubborn when it didn't come to rescues. That was Scott's position in the family, his righteous determination which could boarder to stubbornness.

"But it shouldn't have."

It was flames that he remembered first. The crackles of electricity were a secondary feature to the bright tendrils that whipped around them. They were more dangerous. To him, they were an opposite and one he sought to avoid. He'd seen enough of it through his own experience to know what it was like for others. Red trails sought to deceive him, their excess being only because of where their source was, not because something major had been impaled by the impact. Brains had followed him in, the Patriarch behind them. Gordon wished he hadn't chosen to come, but the extra set of hands would be ideal, just not whom they belonged to. He didn't like seeing his brothers in this situation, yet he knew the elder would take it worse.

He moved out the way, reaching the on board fire extinguishers, thus allowing Brains to do the job he was better positioned to carry out. Though not a doctor as such, he was the closest they had and wise enough to be able to cope. Gordon knew basic first aid, they all did, yet he didn't trust himself to be faced with looking after his brothers. He didn't want to be the one to get something wrong through panic, to miss something that should have been noticed, or to prioritise the wrong thing first.

It wasn't what he was cut out for, being a doctor. It wasn't his strength, and that's what they played to with International Rescue: who was better placed for what and why.

This wasn't his, and it never would be.

He woke with a start. His spacial awareness took it's time settling back in and seemed to take even longer to focus. He'd been moved to his room and fire was nowhere in sight. It was nice to be able to tell which world had been real and which had not, except those lines were blurring, and they were doing so at speed. Speed was for Scott and Alan, not him.

"How's your back?"

"Fine." His face had spoken the question for him, as John answered.

"Good. You fell asleep in a chair, that's all."

"Who's with Alan?"

"He's sleeping, so I thought I'd see if you were alright."

"You shouldn't be asking me that." John seemed to pick up instantly to his reference. He was the uninjured brother, he wasn't the concerned parent and he wasn't the affronted relatives and friends. Alan knew who he was, that was more than most could say.

"Even so." It was all John said, all he needed to say, the words acting as a prompt that they shouldn't forget the position the aquanaut had been thrust into. Nor what he'd seen. John knew he'd got off lightly, other than the anxious waiting. Hearing about the scene of an accident was always dulled down compared to being there. They all knew that better than anyone: they saw enough of them after all.

It was, without directly saying it, an opportunity. A chance to pour out the contents of one's mind and heart in a non-judging way. It was by all means, the best chance Gordon would get to do so, and to the best brother for it. He planned to say nothing, but his mind didn't listen deep down and words ended up as the result. Some of them weren't even comprehendible as words, just distant sounds of letters whose order made no logical sense.

But how could they? How could they when what he knew no longer made sense?

Scott had been ordered out of the room. He'd make the mistake of yawning a few times in succession, and then - despite all his attempts to convince his parent he wasn't tired in the slightest - he was faced with the pulling of rank, and final insistence that he needed to sleep. End of. He hadn't even the chance to form a word of argument against it.

He wanted to check on Alan and John, so he stuck his head around the door. John uttered no words of explanation, but the damage to the wall, the damage to Alan, the effect on John, all of them added up to tell him enough. Part of him knew he should tell their father, and part of him nagged against it. After all, he'd missed things. John would be able to tell the full and correct version of the story in a succinct way compared to him - if there was one of course.

Sleep was calling to him, but it felt abnormal. Sleeping, knowing everything wasn't quite right, that things still needed fixing. He had little idea of what he could do to be a part of that.

"Years?"

"Scott, we may just have to be patient."

"But this is years of his life we're talking about, years of ours. He has to be able to remember them."

"He will."

"What if he doesn't, Gordon?"

"I don't want to think about that!"

It hadn't been the practical way to end a conversation, and it weighed upon him. He'd been all over the place since he woke up, hardly recognising himself as Scott at times. It was unlike him to become riled with his siblings, and though he knew it wouldn't help the situation, the brief outbursts seemed to help him at the time.

Maybe he needed to take up boxing until this whole thing was over. Or maybe he needed to fly out and find some annoying reporter to whack. On second thoughts, he considered boxing might go down better. It had been Gordon's suggestion and it was viable, another sport to add to the list. And as he was Scott Tracy, he would try anything once.

"You need something to do."

"Give me something and I'll do it."

"What you need, Scott, is rest. It's what all of you need."

No, what he needed was his family, his routine, International Rescue.

They were the things he needed, and always would be.

There you go.