This is another one of those stories that I was never sure I would do anything with or about. I'm still not sure if I'll continue it or leave it as a history and the possible ways that being a member of International Rescue can affect the relationships that the boys may have had or still have. Added to which, I love Scott with all my heart. I wanted to look at the more negative aspects of his choice to live his father's dream. After all, not everything about International Rescue is going to be positive for them.

Disclaimer: If they were mine I would have found a way to update the show and aim it at a more adult audience. Evidently, they aren't, but that doesn't mean that I love them any less.

Blood of Innocents.

The church is small, barely large enough to hold eighty people and it is completely full. Scott Tracy stands at the front, wearing his dress uniform, and glances once at his companion. The blonde haired man is also in his dress uniform, brown eyes shining as he watches his bride soar down the aisle towards him. The bride is all in white, and though Scott is aware that the attention of the masses should be on her his is drawn to the woman behind her. The two auburn haired women would be identical to anyone who did not know them, but to Scott and Michael they are as different as night and day. The maid of honour is wearing a violet strapless dress, cut low enough that Scott knows the people behind her can see the tribal wings tattoo between her shoulder blades. Blue eyes sparkle when they meet his, happiness for her twin shining through them and he smiles at her as the happy couple come together. The traditional ceremony follows and he half listens to the words as he thinks about his friend, about meeting the twins, runs through his best man's speech mentally and wonders if Holly will take him up on his offer.

The wedding breakfast is as simple as the ceremony but Scott spends most of it becoming more and more nervous about the two important tasks ahead of him. One is easy, the other not so much. At the moment, however, he's having a hard time trying to work out which one is which. Hollie's speech is simple, a quiet lament about the fact that her mother could not be there and the gentle joy of knowing that her Father had made it to see this joyful joining. There is eloquence to her words, all heartfelt and truthful. Scott sees some tears and knows that his turn is coming.

"I remember the night Michael and I met Amelia and Hollie. It's something of a miracle that I do, that wasn't exactly the point of the evening. I think those two were what the world had in mind when the term 'love at first sight' was coined." His speech is longer than Hollie's interspersed with slightly off colour jokes and stories, but the meaning is clear: he wants them to be happy together and have a long life and many children.

Later, after the happy couple's first dance, he waltzes Holly out of the room and onto a balcony outside the hotel function room. She looks up at him, eyes shining but the emotion he sees in them is bittersweet.

"I wish you didn't have to move to that island," she whispers, reaching up to touch his cheek before caressing his lips softly with her own.

"Come with me," he replies, the words slipping out without thought or pressure and it is surprisingly easy to ask it. "I promise I'll tell you everything once we're there together, just come with me."

"You know I can't," she replies. "Not now, not when the kids at school need me. Maybe in a year or two... Maybe if I sell one of those stories... But not now."

"I know," his response is sad but he does know, has always known, that she would not abandon her career as a teacher for the island. Her job is her driving force, just like his has always been, and she has often told him that she cannot imaging not having her independence. It is something about her that he has always admired.

"Let's go back in, I don't want to talk about this here, I don't want to be the one to start a fight on Amelia's big day."

He overhears her talking to her sister later, knows that she does not realise he is so close and wonders at the wisdom of listening in.

"I told him I wasn't going to the island with him, Ames."

"Why not? Imagine it, a tropical island love nest. Where could be better?" Amelia asks the question, but Scott is aware that she already knows the answer to it. She simply wants Hollie to get the truth out there, wants Hollie to put a voice to the reasons she would not give him.

"Because I wouldn't know what to do with myself, because I'd be alone but for Scott and he'd have his brothers and father that I've only met twice. Because I don't know who I am if I'm not teaching and I don't know what I'd do for money," Hollie's voice is soft and distant, reasons rolling off her tongue like she has muttered them to herself a dozen times or more. "I doubt I could be of any use to Jeff Tracy's company on that island, I'd never want to take money from Scott. I couldn't be that person, relying on my boyfriend for hand outs. It's not who I am."

"I know," there is silence between the women for a long moment. "If it makes you feel any better I'm proud of you. A lot of women would just let him pay for everything. You should tell him, though, all of it, before you settle. I'm sure between you it could be worked out."

"Maybe."

He does not stay to hear anything else but when she weeps in his arms in their hotel room that night he knows that she has made her mind up.

Three years later he is delivering Amelia's baby girl at the bottom of a cliff as the mother slowly bleeds to death. In the car behind them Michael is slumped and staring, unseeing in death. Gordon has to drag him away from the bodies of his dead best friends and all he can do is wonder how he is going to tell Holly about this.

In his arms the baby wails.

Artemis