Thank you to every one who has given me advice and support with this story :) You ladies are absolutely awesome. This story is going to be a multi-chapter and is definitely more serious than the previous ones. I hope you enjoy it.

A/N - I double checked but still don't own them.

Head in the Clouds

Chapter 1

Pain.

That was the first thing that registered when sixteen-year-old Virgil Tracy regained consciousness; pain and an oppressive heat. It was almost hard to breath.

What happened?

Forcing his eyes open a crack, he groaned softly and let them slide shut again. Too bright. Everything was too bright, too hot. Too – he frowned – too quiet? No, not quiet. There was a small noise coming from somewhere behind him and he furrowed his brow, bothered by both the sound and his own confusion as the pungent smell of jet-fuel mixed with the stale odor of vomit was making him nauseas.

What happened?

Keeping his eyes closed, Virgil tried to remember. They were on their way home, his father flying Tracy Two, the second of the Tracy family's large private jets. After a rather eventful couple of days in the Big Apple, they had dropped Scott off in Colorado Springs at the Air Force Academy, leaving John in upstate New York. The soon-to-be-nineteen year old had an extra couple of days off from M.I.T and stayed behind to hook up with a couple of his friends. Gordon was convinced the 'couple of friends' was actually a girl, and once he and Alan had recovered enough from their memorable trip to the aquarium to tease him, the blond haired young man received no mercy. And then –

Virgil's eyes opened. Holy shit! They'd crashed; Tracy Two had actually crashed.

The teen remembered bright blue skies as they flew over the hot New Mexican desert. His father, piloting the jet and sitting next to him, had been smiling and laughing quietly at something Virgil said. Behind them further back in the plane, Gordon played his hand held video game while Alan slept. Both boys were doing much better since their release from the hospital although they still tired easily. Virgil had glanced back to check on them when his father had suddenly cursed, and then everything went to hell.

Birds. A flock of birds, everywhere!

They hit the windows –

The sides of the plane –

The engines.

"Mayday. Mayday! Tracy Two to tower! Tracy Two to tower!"

The plane was going down.

His brothers screamed.

His father yelled –

"Brace for impact! Brace for impact!"

They hit hard.

Oh God, Oh God, they were going to die!

That was the last thing Virgil knew.

Until now…

Gasping loudly, the teen forced his eyes back open. He blinked a couple of times to clear his vision and got his first good look of the damage. The cockpit seemed mostly intact, undoubtedly a testament to his father's skill, although the windows were shattered and little sharp shards of glass stung his skin. Outside the window, the sun burned a hazy mirage across the rose colored desert sand. The jet had hit the sand hard shoving the nose backwards in a macabre parody of crumpling up a tin can. It was both amazing and terrifying when Virgil realized that he was pinned tightly against the instrument panel still in his seat and couldn't move. Another inch or two and he would have been crushed to death.

Intense claustrophobia made the teen wriggle and then groan as pain flared across his left arm, his chest and down through his legs. Nothing screamed 'I've been cut off' or 'you're bleeding to death' so he took that as a good sign; a good sign or shock? It was a bit too early to tell. He just hoped the rest of the plane was in as good shape.

Oh God. Dad. Gordie. Alan…

He needed to check his family.

"D-Dad?" he rasped carefully turning his head to the left where his father was sitting. His father was slumped forward against the restraints; his head hanging limp, a thin line of blood marring the side of his face. Luckier than his son, Jeff wasn't pinned by the panel. He was breathing but very obviously unconscious. "Oh God," Virgil hissed and then bit back a cry when he tried to reach across to his father and searing pain laced up his forearm. Panting through the pain, he didn't need to look to know his arm was broken. Shit, that was going to complicate things. He really wished Scott were here, or even John. But they weren't, and with his father out cold, that put Virgil in charge.

Okay, he could do this. His family was counting on him.

Closing his eyes briefly to try to steady his breath as a trickle of sweat rolled down the side of his face, Virgil heard the sound again. He frowned. What was it?

Sniffling? Crying, maybe?

"Gordon?" he called out hopefully. "Gordo?" Maybe one of his brothers was in better shape than him. As he waited for a response, he cursed the increasing heat in the plane knowing that if they weren't found soon, they'd be in even more trouble. Crashing in the desert had probably saved their lives, but being injured and without air conditioning, things were only going to get worse. Did anyone even hear his father's Mayday call?

When his fourteen-year-old brother didn't answer, Virgil bit his lip. He'd really hoped it was Gordon because if it wasn't then that left Alan, and as much as he loved his littlest brother, a nine-year-old wouldn't be nearly as useful. Hearing another soft sniffle, Virgil called out again, "Alan? Al? Is that you?"

A heartbeat than a very young and scared sounding, "Virgil?" made him smile in relief. Thank God, someone else was conscious.

"Yeah, kiddo, it's me. Are you okay?"

"I dunno," Alan sobbed, "I-I think so."

The shakiness in his little brother's voice twisted at something inside Virgil. He hated being stuck like this and not being able to see how bad things were or make them better. A tendril of fear snaked down his spine and made him even more nauseous but he swallowed it back. His family needed him focused. With only him and Alan conscious there was no time to fall apart. Falling apart would have to wait until later, preferably with older brothers around to fuss over him.

Right now, he had to hope Alan wasn't stuck or seriously hurt because if not, well, if not then Virgil really had no idea what they'd do. First things first though, scared little brother triage. Sure Alan had said he was okay, but given how badly shaken the kid sounded, Virgil wasn't exactly taking that at face value. He needed to be a bit more specific.

"Alan," he tried to keep his voice steady, "what hurts?" There was no way in hell they'd just crashed and the nine-year-old wasn't hurting somewhere. Virgil himself was almost putting his teeth through his bottom lip to keep from crying out.

"Everything!" came a moaned little cry. Virgil waited and his patience was rewarded a few moments later, "But not too bad… Gordie's worse."

And didn't that make everything that much better, the teen thought sarcastically.

"I'm scared, Virgil," Alan admitted, his voice wavering again before the older Tracy could ask him what he meant about Gordon. "I-I kept calling for you and Daddy! But no one answered and I thought you were dead and then Gordie got sick and now he won't wake up and – and what if we blow up? Planes blow up, Virgil, that's-"

"Whoa, easy, kiddo," Virgil rushed to reassure the increasingly upset nine-year-old. It was easy to imagine how scary this must be for Alan. Hell it was scary for him and he was a lot older. "It's okay… Do you hear me, Al? It's going to be okay… and we're not going to blow up. Dad dumped the fuel before we hit."

"But we crashed!" the child wailed. "Where's Daddy, Virgil? I want Daddy."

Virgil glanced over at his father again. He swallowed hard and tried to calm his brother down. Alan panicking wasn't going to help. "He's here, Sprout. But he's hurt. Just like me and Gordon… We need your help, Al. We need you to be brave for us, can you do that? Can you be brave, Alan?"

More loud sniffling made Virgil's eyes burn as he closed them and let his head rest back against the seat, his injured arm jarred each time he spoke but he didn't have enough room to try to stabilize it. Compassionate by nature, Virgil never could stand hearing one of his brothers cry and it was always worse when it was Alan, probably because he was the youngest and it just seemed unnatural that with four older brothers watching out for him that he should be upset about anything.

"I-I think so," Alan stammered. Virgil managed a small smile as he heard the younger boy take in a huge gulping breath, obviously trying to calm himself down. After another moment he sounded much more sure of himself. "I can, Virgil. I can be brave."

"Good. Wanna tell me what's going on back there?" He really wished he could see behind him, having no idea how badly damaged the passenger compartment was.

"Gordie's hurt," Alan immediately started to report. "I think he hurt his head. He was talking real funny and then he got sick and threw up everywhere. I tried to help but he wouldn't listen to me and now he won't wake up."

That explained the vomit smell. Concussion, probably, Virgil surmised before he asked. "Alan, can you move?"

The sound of soft grunting and then things shifting behind him had the sixteen-year-old holding his breath, half afraid of what any slight movements might do. He was pretty sure they were securely resting on the desert floor but with their recent run of luck, he just didn't know. He let out a relieved sigh when his brother finally called out, breathless but pleased sounding. "I was a little stuck but I'm out now. Virgil? Is Scott on his way yet?"

Virgil winced wondering if Alan's hero worship of their oldest brother was going to come out of this intact as he highly doubted the twenty-one-year old was going to be riding in on a white horse any time soon. In fact, they probably wouldn't see either him or John until the hospital, providing they were found at all.

No, he mentally scolded himself, don't even think that! Even if no one had heard his father's emergency call, the teen knew there were trackers on each of the Tracys planes and that it was only a matter of time before help came. The problem was keeping everyone stable under a hot blazing sun until then. Already he was thirsty.

"Virgil?"

"Sorry, Sprout," he swallowed back the dryness in his throat. He decided not to answer Alan yet. "Can you see Gordon?"

Thankfully Alan was easy to distract. There was the sound of something else being moved – what kind of mess was back there? – and then the boy answered him. "Yeah – I can now. He looks funny."

"Funny?" Virgil sat forward as much as he could and then bit back a groan as his hurt body protested the movement. "In what way?"

"I dunno," Alan admitted frustrating his older brother. "In a Gordon way… And he smells real bad-"

"Alan, how does he look funny?! Answer me!" he barked, his worry making him sharper than he intended.

"Don't yell at me!"

Was Alan crying again?

"I'm sorry, okay? Alan, I'm sorry, I just need to know why Gordon looks funny. Please, kiddo, I need you to tell me. I can't – I can't come back there right now." And didn't it kill him to admit that. His every instinct screamed at him to get back there and fix things; his family was hurting and he couldn't do anything for them.

"I dunno!" Alan repeated, "but his face looks funny, like his nose is wrong or something!"

"Okay, okay," Virgil let out the breath he was holding, "It's probably broken, that's okay but he's breathing right, Gordon is breathing?"

"Y-yeah…"

"Alan?" Something in the kid's voice sent another jolt of adrenaline through Virgil's body. Where were their rescuers? "What's wrong?"

"Blood!" the child gasped out, "He's got blood, all over his face."

Shit.

"Blood? Alan, can you see where it's coming from?"

"Well," the boy hedged, "he does have some scratches… but I don't know."

"Damn," Virgil whispered. Alan was the only one of them not trained in basic first aid but once they were back home, the teen was determined to talk to his father about that. "Okay. He's breathing though, right?" he needed to reconfirm. His own head was starting to really throb as the front of the plane began to shift in and out of focus; he swallowed and tried to breathe through the dizziness. No! He struggled hard to remain conscious. Alan's words buzzed around him and he tried to answer, he tried to stay awake. He had to, he couldn't leave his brother alone –

And then soft hands patted at his face and the darkness pulled him under.

------

Nine-year-old Alan Tracy had never been so scared in his life. As he stood between his unconscious father and older brother and stared out the shattered cockpit window, he started to shiver. The afternoon sun might have burned bright and hot but he didn't feel its warmth.

Behind him, the passenger compartment was a mess. Some of the seats had jarred loose on impact and slammed into the wall at the back end of the plane. Alan's seat had been one of them, but he'd been incredibly lucky and had only been pinned under the mess, his smaller size actually protected him when another seat boxed him in, leaving him bruised and hurting, but caged instead of crushed. It had taken some wiggling but the kid had been finally able to get out when Virgil asked. And that was when he'd finally seen Gordon. His red haired brother's seat hadn't come loose but he'd obviously been hit by something, Alan remembered hearing him cry out but he had no idea what he'd been hit by.

The blood on his unresponsive brother scared him, more than the insensible babbling Gordon had done before puking and passing out again earlier had, and it sent him scrambling through the rest of the mess to get to Virgil. He ignored the large gaping hole where one of the wings should have been.

The child was terrified that when his older brother stopped talking to him, he was going to be left alone again. Unlike the rest of his family, Alan hadn't lost consciousness when they'd crashed, and his young mind was too fractured by the fear of being alone to even consider leaving the jet.

Wrapping thin arms tightly around his hurting body, the pale child waited.

Scott will come, he tried to reassure himself, blocking everything else out, focusing on that one thought, I know it, he will come.

TBC