It's been a while, but I've realised that if I wait until I think I've got enough time to write, then I'm never going to do it. Hoping for regular updates, but real life has a habit of getting in the way.

On a cold November afternoon, two figures walked slowly through the Kansas graveyard, coming to a halt at a marble headstone which bore the simple inscription:

Sarah Ann Tracy

Born and died September 17th 2004

Also Grant Tracy

1972 - 2026

Beloved husband and father

The old woman sighed, gently running her hand across the top of the gravestone. The young man beside her placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"I'll be over there, Grandma." He moved away to give her some time alone.

"Thank you, sweetheart," she replied absently, her thoughts skipping back through the years to a time long before her grandson's birth, when she'd been young and wildly in love with her strong, handsome husband.

Virgil made his way slowly to a nearby bench. He sat down with a sigh, wearily stretching his arms above his head before wincing at the pain this caused. Damn ribs, he thought. Another week of sitting around feeling useless. John's lucky he only sprained his ankle; that hasn't stopped him going back up to Five.

He stared moodily into the distance, remembering that ill-fated day in Japan when he and John, guiding trapped earthquake victims to safety, had had the bad luck to come across a concussed and delirious sumo-wrestler who hadn't taken too kindly to their efforts to remove him from the collapsed restaurant. As if the resulting injuries hadn't been bad enough, Gordon's video footage of the frankly one-sided fight had caused great hilarity amongst his brothers. Scott had tried to be tactful, though the big grin on his face every time he looked at them gave him away, but Gordon and Alan had no such consideration for their brothers. The humiliation was worse than the pain as they had to endure every Sumo and sushi joke imaginable. After two weeks the joke still hadn't worn thin – not that Virgil and John had found it funny in the first place. Even their father, once his concern at their injuries had been allayed, had been found watching the footage and trying not to laugh. Tempers had frayed as the two most patient Tracy boys had finally had enough. There had been some sharp words and even the threat of violence. John had begged for a return to Thunderbird Five whilst Virgil had jumped at the chance to get away from the island when his grandmother had asked him to fly her back to Kansas to visit her husband's grave on what would have been their wedding anniversary.

He watched as she placed the bunch of roses in the holder at the foot of the grave. She'd lost a lot of her old vitality over the last year or so, something he and the rest of his family were doing their best to ignore, but there was no getting away from the fact that she looked particularly frail today. One day, he thought, there would be another name on the headstone and he'd be placing roses for three. It was a sobering thought and it banished the gloomy memories of Japan. He got up and walked back towards his grandmother, consoling himself with the thought that in a couple of hours he'd be enjoying a night out in town with his best friend from school whilst Grandma spent some time with an old friend of her own.

The knock on his office door was an unwelcome disturbance. Jeff Tracy, grateful to finally get some peace now that Virgil and John were off the island, had been lost in a perusal of his company accounts, his nose buried in a pile of spreadsheets an inch thick. Although an innovator in all aspects of technology, Jeff was something of a traditionalist when it came to paperwork, not really able to engage with it unless it actually was on paper and he had a pen in his hand.

He knew it was Kyrano - the soft tap was distinctive. His sons rapped loudly and confidently on the door, or, in the case of Alan or Gordon, just barged in, Brains' knock was a staccato double tap which echoed the man's stammer and his mother would always call his name when she knocked. Wondering why the man would be disturbing him when he'd known Jeff was busy - it was too late for coffee and Jeff was well supplied with scotch as always - he fought to keep an edge of irritation out of his voice as he called Kyrano in.

"I am sorry to disturb you, Mr Tracy," Kyrano told him, bowing his head apologetically. "But I have Mrs Elliott on the line. She says it's urgent."

"Mrs- Oh, Barbara." Jeff pushed his paperwork away, fear washing over him. "Has something happened to Mother?" Surely not, he thought. Virgil would have been in touch via his wrist-com. Unless there was bad news about his son...

"She said Mrs Tracy and Mr Virgil are well, Sir," Kyrano said, knowing instinctively what thoughts were running through the other man's head. "But she insists on speaking to you right away."

"You'd better put her through, then."

Kyrano's assurances hadn't done anything to ease Jeff's misgivings and he snatched up the phone as soon as the green light appeared.

"Barbara? What's wrong? I thought Mom was visiting you tonight. Is she alright?"

"She's fine. She's sleeping now - it's nearly midnight here. I thought long and hard about bothering you, Jeff, and I know I could talk to Virgil when he picks her up tomorrow, but I wouldn't have been able to sleep if I hadn't done something right away. She's having dinner with the Rosenbergs tomorrow and you know how Veronica likes to gossip. Ruth might-"

"What's happened?" Jeff wouldn't usually interrupt so rudely, but something was obviously very, very wrong - his godmother wasn't usually one to ramble, or to sound so unsure of herself. Unaware that he was mirroring Virgil's thoughts of a few hours earlier, he allowed himself to admit that for some time now he'd been worried about his mother. He'd been doing his best to ignore his fears, but now it looked as though he might be forced to face them.

"She was fine at first. Completely normal. But we got to talking about baking and how everyone loved her desserts and all of a sudden she just started to cry."

"Ah, the apple pie." Jeff cast his mind back to John's first dinner following a six week stint up on Thunderbird Five. As was traditional, his mother had made one of her famous apple pies in order to welcome her grandson home. John had been full of anticipation - he'd always asserted that the thing he missed most about Earth was his grandmother's cooking - but after taking one bite he'd screwed his face up in disgust. Grandma had used salt instead of sugar and the pie was inedible. She'd been beside herself and although all her grandsons had done their best to get her to laugh it off and John had declared himself more than happy with a bowl of Kyrano's strawberries, she'd refused to be consoled.

"She's become a lot more forgetful lately," Barbara said. "She rang me three times last month to thank me for her birthday present, but for the first time in nearly seventy years she didn't send me anything on mine. I don't think she's even realised she's missed it."

Minor things, really, Jeff thought, but he couldn't stop other unwelcome examples from flooding into his mind. The number of times his mother had called Scott 'Jeff', recently. The time when, whilst taking a walk down to the beach, she'd spotted a boat pulled up on the shore and sent out an emergency alert, fearing that intruders were loose on the island. She'd been mortified when Gordon had taken one look at the boat and pointed out that it belonged to him, although in fairness, he usually kept it in the boathouse on the other side of the island. Worst of all, a few weeks earlier she'd been reading a magazine and had pointed out to Alan a necklace that she'd insisted would make a perfect Christmas present for Tin-Tin. The girl had been dead for nearly two years...

"Jeff?"

Jeff realised that he'd been lost in his thoughts for a good couple of minutes.

"Sorry. I was miles away."

"Her grandfather had Alzheimer's, you know."

"I know." Jeff didn't want to pursue that idea, but thankfully, it seemed that Barbara didn't either.

"There's something else," she said, and the way her voice became even more hesitant worried Jeff. "It's the reason I called you now instead of waiting till the morning. I think... I mean, you need to..."

"Barbara?" Jeff was really worried now.

There was a nervous laugh before Barbara continued. "Jeff, it was after she told me about the apple pie and how upset she was that she'd ruined John's dinner. But then she said - quite seriously and I think without even realising she'd said it - that he missed out on so much when he was stuck up on Thunderbird Five and he deserved a treat when he came home."

Jeff caught his breath. Delusional, he thought. That was the way to go. Laugh it off, even if it did seem to add weight to the Alzheimer's theory. But before he could respond, Barbara was speaking again.

"I'd have put it down to her mind not being what it was, except that she's been forgetting things, not making things up. And the more I thought about it, well, I've always thought there was something not quite right about you and the boys - living the way you do on that isolated island. And I know you, Jefferson. Even as a little boy you'd go out of your way to help people - whether they wanted it or not. Cats stuck up trees, birds with damaged wings, tramps in need of a bath and a meal... you were always turning up with some waif or stray for your mother to look after.

"Thinking about it tonight, I realised Ruth's always stressed when International Rescue are in action, and whenever there's news of an injury to a pilot, one of your boys seems to be in the wars," Barbara continued. "Like Virgil now. Yes, if anyone was going to set out to save the world, it would be you. And that technology! Of course you're the one behind it all."

"I..." Jeff couldn't bring himself to lie to someone he'd known all his life.

"You can trust me, Jeff, you know that. I'll do anything I can to help Ruth, and that includes keeping her secrets. But you need to do something. Find her a doctor. Sooner rather than later. Because if she can let it slip to me, she could do it to someone else."

Jeff sighed. "I guess you're right. Thank you, Barbara."

"Will you tell Virgil or shall I?"

"I'll speak to him in the morning. Let him have some fun tonight. As you say, he's had a hard time of it lately. But perhaps he should bring Mom home tomorrow, just to be safe."

"I think it's for the best. I'm sorry about this, Jeff. Sorry about Ruth and sorry for adding to your worries."

"You did the right thing. Thank you."

"I'm proud of you, Jeff," his godmother told him, before ending the call.

Jeff bundled up his spreadsheets and shoved them into a drawer. Pouring himself a stiff drink, he thought hard for a while before calling John up on Five. He knew his son would still be awake - he always found it hard to settle for the first few days of a rotation in space.

"Hi Dad. Everything okay?"

"Not really." Jeff told him about Barbara's call.

John sighed. "I think we've all been worried about her lately. Maybe we should have faced facts before this."

"Maybe. Well, there's no getting away from it now. I don't suppose she's mentioned IR in any telephone conversations, has she? I know she's in touch with a few other old friends."

"We ignore any transmissions from the island, remember? We agreed that we needed to know any calls we make stay private. Anyway, it's not just phone calls. She goes shopping on the mainland every week and you know how Grandma likes to talk. But if she has said something, nothing's come of it - or else people think she's just some crazy old woman..."

"Okay, John. Listen, I hate to say it, but can you monitor your grandmother's calls from now on?"

John wasn't at all comfortable with the idea - nor did he relish having to listen in on what was likely to be a series of lengthy conversations about knitting and the like - but he appreciated the necessity. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Barbara's right about her needing to see a doctor," Jeff said. "But I've got no idea who to call. She's got to have the very best."

"Brains?" John asked. "He'll know of someone."

"Brains," Jeff agreed. After all, the genius knew far more about medical matters and the practitioners at the top of their game than he did.