Author's note:

This is the second part of Tumble Turn.

Both stories can stand alone in most aspects, but to understand this one fully I would recommend reading the first. If you don't feel so inclined, it would help your enjoyment of this one to know that Gordon has been revealed as not Jeff Tracy's son, and that Jeff did not react as well as he could have when this came to light. So now, although the brothers are still tight as ever, Jeff and Gordon are somewhat emotionally distanced when the story begins. I broke them, I need to fix them – hence this story.

This is yet another post-hydrofoil crash story, but I have dived headfirst into my research and imagining of what the medical options available in the 2050s might be, so this story is, I think, quite different to anything else I've read that has Gordon's crash as a starting point. It is intense hurt/comfort, with suffering, swearing, and sweetness, probably in that order.

This is mostly a two hander featuring that lovely pair, Gordon and Virgil. It is Virgil's POV throughout. Scott and Jeff make appearances, but this one is chiefly for those who love the TB2 boys in all their snarky, silly, affectionate glory.

There may be other, smaller entries in this series, but for now, this is the end of Tumble Turn's main story.

My sincere thanks to my excellent beta, Soleill Lumiere, who dragged me into the TAG fandom in the first place and keeps feeding the flames. She has cheered this one on from the start.

Caught in the Rip: Part One: Ebb Tide

(Part 2 of Tumble Turn series)

Chapter 1. Handover

Scott looked exactly as Virgil expected him to, sitting upright in the hospital cafeteria chair as though by sheer power of thought alone. Virgil knew without being told that Scott had sent every ounce of energy and positivity that he possessed to Gordon, lying in the paralysis unit three storeys above them. Their brother had been there for the last nine weeks since his hydrofoil exploded around him, at full speed. Now that Virgil was closer, Scott seemed so exhausted that Virgil found himself asking how he was before he even mentioned their little brother.

"I'm okay. Will be." Scott sat with a coffee in front of him, slowly letting it get cold. "Your flight good? I'm real glad you're here, Virge."

Virgil dropped his carry-on bag by his feet, put his own coffee on the table.

"Sorry I'm late. Got delayed last minute in KC, waiting on the final doctor's report on Grandma. And I'm sorry I had to go in the first place, when -" he began, but Scott cut him off, firmly.

"Grandma needed you more, and you were here when it mattered, when we didn't know if – " Scott broke off, and Virgil nodded. He didn't need to be reminded of those first grim days, or the first weeks that followed when Gordon was barely able to speak and the only language he knew when he did was pain. "It still matters," Scott continued, with an effort. "Glad you're here."

Scott, like their father, wasn't given to repeating himself often. Virgil noticed when he did.

"So how is he?"

Scott gave a small frown.

"Upbeat. He has his hopes pinned on this new procedure, this Hsiang tech."

"I guess that's good?"

Scott picked up his coffee finally, then looked at it as if he didn't know what it was. He pushed it back on the table, wearily.

"It has a hundred percent success rate for some. Be amazing if Gordon's one of the lucky ones."

"And he's been so lucky so far," Virgil said, trying to hide the bitterness he felt that his little brother had been the victim of such a terrible technical failure on the part of WASP.

"Well, you know, he has? I mean, let's face it, Virge. He should be dead. Should've died when the damn thing blew apart, should've drowned when they couldn't get him out, shouldn't have made it to surgery or through those first few days. God, I've never seen a human being so… You know what I thought when I saw him? That night?"

Virgil shook his head, a strong feeling of unease building in his gut. He knew Scott so well, relied on him even more. He had the sense that Scott was tethered by gossamer thread here, tossed on unseen winds that threatened to tear him from his moorings.

"The image just came into my head. That freaky scarecrow, at the Mertens' farm, the one that was all falling apart and crazy looking. Creeped John out for some reason. Guess it was the way everything was hanging out and kind of wrong, like some crazy person had made it deliberately that way and that bothered John so much. He wanted to fix it, but he was freaked out by it too so he couldn't get near it. Yeah. That's what I was thinking about when I looked at my brother."

If Virgil was ashamed of his own bitterness it was nothing compared to this darkness being revealed in his big brother.

"That was then," he said, carefully. "I spoke to Dad last night. He told me that Gordon's doing well. All the bone replacement has taken as well as they could have hoped. Amazing, right? This new plastic-metal compound. Duro-plastic spine, plastic pelvis, plastic humerus, plastic femurs. Supposed to be stronger and more flexible than titanium, he said, and he said all the swelling's gone down, the scars are healing." Why he was telling Scott how their brother was when Scott had been the guy on the ground for nine weeks now, Virgil wasn't sure. He just knew he needed to tether Scott tighter against that wind.

"Yeah. He's plastic fantastic now." Scott rubbed his hand slowly over his face. "You know, he's going to be twenty five percent lighter? He'll float like a cork."

Virgil gave a dutiful little laugh.

"He always did. Couldn't keep him down. In or out of the water."

There was no response from Scott, and Virgil saw he was drifting as he sat there, so tired he didn't even have the strength to sleep.

He cleared his throat. "So this new technology, huh? Sounds amazing. A whole new spinal cord."

Scott gave the smallest of nods. The penny finally dropped for Virgil.

"You really don't think he should go for this new procedure, do you?"

It was as if the mere asking of the question gave Scott permission to unleash his frustration.

"No! No, I don't. I tried like hell to talk him out of it. He wouldn't listen. He never damn well listens."

Virgil, knowing that 'to me' was the unspoken end of that sentence, wisely said nothing.

Scott's hand fisted on the table top. "They could fit him with the mobishield tomorrow, he'd be walking out of here by this time in three weeks."

"But he won't have it?"

"No. Says he'll take his chances with the Hsiang tech. But there are hundreds of thousands of people out there walking around right now who were once quadriplegics, Virge. The mobishield works. And yes, I get it – he'd have to wear it for the rest of his life, and that's lousy. But it's proven, it's safe, and he'd be able to function independently."

Virgil found himself in the not unusual position of playing devil's advocate with Scott.

"No feeling in his body though. That'd be weird, be like living in a head suspended five feet off the ground. Imagine looking down and seeing a body with arms and legs moving about because your brain thought it but not feeling it belonged to you?"

From nowhere John's idea of willing a family into being came into Virgil's mind. He suspected there was a connection there he didn't want to examine too closely.

"Better than taking a chance on this new thing."

Virgil considered him carefully.

"This doesn't sound like you. We've always taken risks, Scott. Hell, the company would be nothing if Dad hadn't taken a chance on new technologies, every day."

"Let's not talk about risk-taking with new tech when our brother can't move anything below his neck thanks to just that!"

"Okay," Virgil soothed. "Fair enough. So tell me – what is it you don't like about this new procedure? You said it had a 100 percent success rate?"

Scott looked grim. "For the eighteen percent who make it through."

"What?" Virgil was shocked. "It's that dangerous?"

"No, not what I meant." Scott, quickly contrite. "Sorry. No, the patients choose to discontinue the treatment. Only eighteen percent stick it out."

This was not something anyone had mentioned to Virgil before. His stomach gave a slow turn.

"So what stops them?"

Scott shook his head. "I don't know, not for sure. I had to take a call from Colonel Urquhart just as the doctor was getting to all that. But she's coming in this afternoon, Dr Brabazon, final pre-flight check. Make sure you ask then."

"You're back in Air Force mode, aren't you?"

"What?"

"You said pre-flight, not pre-op."

His brother closed his eyes, briefly. "I guess."

"No, no guesswork. You can't wait to get back." Virgil felt a flood of sympathy for his brother, caught on a rack of duty between the two loves of his life, family and flying.

"It's not what you think." Scott turned the coffee cup in his hand, seemingly unwilling even to take its small comfort. "You know I'd say to hell with the Air Force if Gordon asked me to, even with the national re-call. To hell with Bereznik and all their crazy doings. To hell with national security."

"I know it's been hard on everyone. I kept thinking I should be here while I was helping Grandma on the farm, and then I'd feel bad about Grandma coping alone."

"No, come on, Virgil. Dad was – is right. We all have lives we need to keep living, and Grandma needed you. She ran herself into the ground here, worrying about Gords, about all of us. I think Dad was so relieved when she had to go back to the farm after we heard about the fire in the barn, thinking she'd get a break. And then, the way you flew out there when she got sick... I know Dad appreciated it, we all did. And John was here at the hospital, for most of it, Alan too. John would be here right now if Gordon hadn't insisted he go back to Florida for the pre-mission training. Alan had to get back to school. And like I said, you were here when it mattered. I'm just so grateful you're here now."

And he was. Virgil could feel that Scott, that rock of mental strength and discipline, was almost done. Nine weeks of holding six peoples' head above water while slowly drowning yourself would do that, he guessed.

He turned the conversation back to what he would meet when he went upstairs.

"You said he's upbeat?"

Scott gave another of his blink-and-miss-it winces, a tightening of the mouth and eyes that signalled wailing levels of distress in anyone else.

"Yeah. Mister Positivity, that's our Gordon. He's been so strong, Virge, from the start. When I had to tell him the prognosis, C1 fracture, tetraplegia, all of it, he just looked me in the eye and said, 'S'okay, Scotty. I'll deal.' And he has, I know he fights every day to keep that promise but – I don't know. I don't know, Virge."

Virgil frowned. "Wait – the tetraplegia? You said you told him? Where was Dad?"

And straightforward, down the line, stand up Scott did that thing he only ever did when it came to Dad nowadays. His gaze flickered, left and down, as he prepared to vacillate.

"Dad was there. He was there 24/7, first three weeks, you know that."

"And since?"

"He's still here, when he can be. He's over in the hotel, working from there as much as he can. Just left for Washington this morning. But he knows I have it in hand." Defensiveness was never a good look on Scott because it swung so quickly into aggression.

"Still."

"Still nothing. It's not like those two were – look, they both meant well." Scott dared Virgil to argue the point. "They both kept it polite."

Polite.

Virgil dipped his head, took another sip of coffee. He guessed there was a lot more to all this than Scott would willingly tell him, and the realisation of what had gone on here saddened him. He understood, suddenly, that even though there had been no reconciliation between Gordon and Dad in the three months prior to the crash he had invested a fair bit of hope in the thought that there would be a bedside renewal of ties; a post-crash commitment to put aside any issues of paternity and recognise that they loved each as other as father and son, genetics be damned.

"Telling him should never have been your job."

"Yeah, I know. I've probably screwed it all up, too."

Criticism of Scott hadn't entered Virgil's mind. This kind of self-flagellation was the other end of the defensive pendulum swing.

"That's bullshit, Scotty. You said Gordon's upbeat – that means you've done a hell of a job keeping him going."

And now the honest Scott was back, eyes meeting his and not trying to hide the worry.

"I don't know. It's so – it's unnatural. No, that's the wrong word. I should leave the talking to you and John. You and he figure this stuff out better than I do. Or Alan. Alan's been amazing, you know? Right from the start, he's kept us all going, him and Gordon. The Trouble Twins have been tap-dancing like mad to keep the rest of us positive. Ugh." He grimaced. "Tap-dancing. That's a shitty kind of metaphor for Gordon nowadays."

Virgil tried for a grin.

"Yeah, metaphors? Usually not your kind of thing."

"Yeah? Well, here's another one." Scott leant forward. "I keep thinking of ducks on a pond. Scooting along on the surface, quacking happily, looking like everything's easy, and underneath those feet are pedalling like mad. That's Gordon. It's one big show. Christ. It's what he always does. Why isn't he ever real?"

The outburst startled Virgil, but before he could comment, Scott was doing some back-pedalling of his own.

"I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that. Sorry, Virge."

"I'll give it a guess." Virgil reached over the table and held Scott's forearm. The fact that Scott let him spoke volumes. "You're exhausted. You've given everything you've got. You know damned well that decisions and emotions get screwed around when personnel are over-stretched."

Bringing the conversation to a military footing was the right call. Virgil could see the moment when the message got through and Scott pulled back slightly, straightened a little.

"You're right. Yeah, you're right. I just need some down time for a couple of hours."

More than a couple of hours were needed here, but Virgil didn't argue. He guessed the Air Force was experienced enough in the handling of stressed and exhausted people that they would take the appropriate action to care for Scott when he arrived back at the base, all questions of national security emergencies aside. He already knew that Scott was being picked up in the next half hour; he'd like to bet that he slept for most of the trip, whether in car or plane.

"I better go. Get my stuff, get out there." Scott gestured with his head towards the front of the hospital. "I'm not doing anyone any good here." He stood and put his hand out for Virgil to shake.

"Scott, you've done an amazing job." Virgil stood as well, gripping Scott's hand and suddenly aware that he really didn't want him to go. Scott shook his head slightly.

"If I'd done my job well, I would've talked him out of this. But he's so damned stubborn. I don't know where he gets it from."

Dad, Virgil thought, and suspected Scott did too, but didn't say.

"I'll keep you in the loop, let you know how we're getting on."

"Yeah, do that. I'll be back as soon as I can, but I just can't say when that will be, with the Defcon rating what it is. Virgil – " Scott hesitated, then shook his head again. "If you need me, you say. Don't hide anything from me, okay?"

Not like Gordon does. Virgil caught that unspoken message loud and clear, but he wondered if it was a promise he could make in good conscience.

Scott smiled then, sad and tired, and reached for a hug. Virgil gave it to him, trying not to let anything but strength into that tight circle.

With a final, "See you soon," Scott turned away. It was all Virgil could do not to call him back, tell him he didn't want this responsibility, he wasn't old enough or strong enough or brave enough for this. But with one of those moments of insight that came to him sometimes, with deeper and colder truths than he ever really wanted to know, he realised that each of his brothers, and probably his father too, had thought the exact same thing.

Whatever he had to give was all Gordon had to call on, for now. The fact that Scott had turned his back and walked out the door was a sign of immense trust and faith in his middle brother. It was humbling, and more than a little overwhelming, but Virgil knew he would bring every ounce of strength he had to bear. He would not let Scott or Gordon or anyone else down.

With one last gulp of cold coffee, Virgil headed for the elevators and the first sight of his little brother in five long weeks.