Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The spot wasn't difficult to locate: the clearing above the mine, Thunderbird 2 parked at a right angle to the entrance and control building, about as obvious as it was possible to get. 

Kayo landed Shadow by the larger ‘bird and jumped out, rushing for the mine elevator, pulse pounding in her ears. Thankfully, Virgil was already above ground, slumped in the dirt and grass by the open door, uniform coated in soot. His helmet was off, tossed aside into the half-frozen mud. 

She knelt down in front of him, moving cautiously so as not to startle him—but he didn't look up, staring down at his gloves, breath coming in shallow pants.

“Hey, Vee,” she murmured, reaching out and cupping the side of his face with one hand, guiding his gaze up. He allowed it; but his stare remained vacant; and she bit her lip. “Let's get you home. Can you stand?”

He could—he let her pull him upright, stumbling slightly, and moved obediently as she shepherded him up the ramp into Two—but resisted as she tried to direct him to the medbay. “‘m okay.”

“You sure you don't want to lie down?” 

He shook his head; so they went to the cockpit instead, and he collapsed bonelessly into the pilot's seat, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. “I'm okay,” he repeated, in a whisper. “Not hurt.”

There was a little more to the definition of ‘okay’ than uninjured, but she let it slide with a squeeze of his shoulder. “Island or ranch?”

“Ranch,” he murmured. “Please.”

Kayo started the pre-flights—closing the pod, running checks, remembering they'd left his helmet outside and going back for it, slaving Shadow to her controls—then, finally, brought Thunderbird Two into the air and set course for Gran Roca. 

“Thunderbird Five, this is Thunderbird Two,” she reported. “On route to mainland base, ETA 15 minutes.”

“FAB,” John replied, holo popping up. His brows were drawn low, lips still in the thin line they'd been in ever since he'd called Kayo and asked her to go collect his big brother. “Thought that would be the case. Dad and Grandma will be there approximately 1700 hours local. They're picking up Scott and Di on the way.”

“No,” Virgil protested weakly, the first time since she'd landed that he’d shown any significant expression at all. “They're on their honeymoon, I don't want to ruin—”

“You need a lawyer, Virgil,” John said flatly. “Now. And Scott would never forgive us if we kept this from him.”

Virgil looked like he wanted to object further; but he closed his mouth and looked down. His hands were shaking. Kayo reached over and squeezed one, and he gripped tightly back.

Gran Roca was largely unoccupied: Alan and Ridley were off in Three helping a stranded freighter, Gordon had taken Seven and Four to go get his sub licence renewed, and almost everyone else was island-based right now. It was just Adam and Karen holding the fort, and Adam who answered Kayo’s hail for landing permission.

“FAB, Two, you and Shadow are clear.” He hesitated. “Everything all right?”

Kayo glanced sideways at Virgil. His eyes were closed. “Could be better. Civvie jet’s coming in at five. Could you please give us some space? In the house, I mean.”

He nodded, the concern in his expression drawing tighter. “We’ll stay in the dorm unless we need to launch. Give us a holler if you need anything.”

“Thanks.” She closed the link and focused on landing. She couldn’t bring Shadow in slaved, not next to Two through the hangar roof, so she parked her cloaked out the front and then landed Two. The giant metal doors closed slowly over their heads. 

“You good to walk inside?” she asked Virgil softly.

He nodded, jerkily, then hoisted himself to his feet. She planted her hand between his shoulder blades, like before, and moved beside him through the tunnel, to the lift, and finally out into the hall and then lounge of the ranch house. Virgil dropped onto the sofa, unfastening his bandolier with fumbling hands; she helped him to pull it over his head; and he sagged back into the cushions, staring unseeing out the front window to the desert beyond. 

“Do you want to get changed?” Not that anyone would mind the soot on the furniture, under the circumstances, but he might be more comfortable out of uniform. 

He shook his head. 

“Something to drink? Tea, water?”

Another shake. 

“Okay.” She sat down next to him, gingerly, watching for his reactions—or lack of them. The poor guy was so tense he was trembling. “How about a hug?”

Nothing, for a few seconds—then he nodded, and she put an arm around him—and he shuddered and turned and buried his face against her neck and shoulder—and she held him as tight as she could, one hand cupping his head and the other stroking his spine.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, when the stiffness didn’t ease. “You don’t have to be strong for me. I can take it.”

He inhaled shakily, once, twice—and then, thankfully, finally, he broke. 

2048

“How the heck did you even get up here? The hatch is locked.”

Tanusha pulled her knees closer to her chest, refusing to look around. The voice was Virgil’s: second-eldest of the Tracy boys, about a year older than her. He seemed nice, at least so far. Not as swoon-worthy as his big brother; but kind: he’d even learned to play her mother’s favourite song for her, just because she’d asked. She’d decided she liked him—liked all the Tracys, at least on the surface. She wasn’t hiding up here because of them. 

He sat down on the roof tile next to her, stretching out one leg; in her peripheral vision, she could see him looking out across the valley before them. The sun was setting over the distant ocean, distant and vivid and warm and cold and sharp and so close they could touch it. 

It wasn’t an unpleasant silence. 

But, finally, he broke it. “You know your mom’s freaking out trying to find you, right?”

“She’s not my mother.” Sharp, quick, like a lash of claws. She’d been scratched by a stray kitten once, in the garden at school, as she’d tried to pick it up to bring it inside. Maybe this was how that little cat had felt: taut and angry and miserable. 

“Sorry. Stepmom.” He leaned back, propping himself with both hands. “You really don’t like her, huh?”

Tanusha drew her lip between her teeth. The problem with hating Nurin was that it was very hard to maintain: she was good-natured, she was clever, she was surprisingly supportive of Tanusha’s weirder hobbies. And she was Tin-Tin’s mum, which was a massive point in her favour. If she’d been anyone else’s stepmother—

But she wasn’t. 

“If your dad,” she said, still not looking at Virgil, “packed you and your brothers off to boarding school on the other side of the world, married someone else, had another kid, left you in school for a couple more years, then dragged you to a new city and expected you to be ready to play happy families—how would you feel?”

“I … see your point.” Virgil shifted, turning towards her. “But he does care about you, ‘Nusha. Sometimes—sometimes dads can be crap at showing it, but that doesn’t mean the love isn’t there.”

She huffed, chewed her lip again. “Four more years, and I can do what I want. Join the GDF, see the world, live under a bridge, whatever. I don’t need him.”

“You trying to convince me or yourself?”

“Who are you, my shrink?”

“Someone’s gotta be.”

She curled her fingers tighter around her legs, digging into her jeans; blinked, rapidly, four or five times. 

“Hey.” Virgil pressed her shoulder, brief and gentle. “It’s okay. Don’t feel like you’ve gotta keep it together for my sake. I can take it.”

They sat, silent, for a couple of seconds—then she twisted impulsively and shoved herself against his shirt. Warm arms wrapped firmly around her, squeezing her close. He’d been painting: she could smell the tang of the acrylics in the fabric.

The tears felt good. Strange: they usually, on the rare occasion she let herself crumble under the covers, hurt. But it was different, better, being held. Actually brought relief .

Like when she’d eventually managed to wrap the hissing kitten in her scarf and take it inside and rub under its chin, and it had finally purred. 

2065

Eventually, Virgil drifted off, head in her lap. Kayo let him sleep, hand resting protectively in sweat-matted hair; until, just after five, she heard the roar of the jet coming in, and nudged him gently back to consciousness. 

“Sorry,” she said as he squeezed his eyes shut again with a small grimace. “Your dad and Scott are here.”

He grunted and shoved himself into a sitting position, then propped his elbows on his knees and rubbed his face with both hands. It did nothing to hide the evidence of his earlier breakdown. But crying, as she'd hoped, seemed to have helped: the glazed look had left his eyes, and his voice, though far from normal, was steady enough. “Thank you.”

She patted his back. “Let's put the kettle on and get some liquids into you.”

He acquiesced, following her into the kitchen, and accepted the glass of water she handed him before slumping into a chair. She started a pot of tea and a pot of coffee; both were still brewing when the hall door slammed and Scott charged into the room. “Virgil—”

Virgil stood, and his big brother enveloped him into a bear hug, and continued to hold on as their father, and grandmother, and Scott’s wife Dianne, trickled in behind him. 

Kayo made eye contact with Jeff first, and winced internally: he didn't look much less shell-shocked than his son. 

After a minute or so, Scott released his brother, and Grandma took over—but only for a few seconds, before shepherding him back to a chair and, despite his quiet protest, conducting a medical examination. 

Dianne joined Kayo by the counter. “What happened?” she whispered. “Jeff’s only given us the headline.” 

Kayo checked the tea, then started pouring into cups. “I don't know the specifics either—John just gave me the bare essentials, and he—” She glanced over her shoulder at Virgil. “—hasn't really been in a state to talk about it.”

“Poor guy.” Di reached for the milk and sugar and began spooning and stirring. “I can't even imagine how he must feel—I know there’ve been fatalities before, but …”

Kayo sighed and reached for the coffee pot. “This is different.”

Di nodded. 

They distributed the cups—coffee for Jeff and Scott, tea for everyone else—and took seats around the kitchen table. Jeff sat next to Virgil, one hand on his son's shoulder; he took a gulp of coffee before addressing Dianne. “So. Now what?”

Di was holding Scott’s hand; she glanced up at him for a split-second before replying. “First of all, I should point out that my legal specialities are decidedly civil and corporate. I haven't touched criminal defence since I passed the bar. If it comes to it, we should seriously consider retaining additional counsel.”

“Surely it won't?” asked Grandma. “Colonel Casey understands that rescues go wrong sometimes—she’s never held us responsible before.”

“It's not Kim’s call,” Jeff explained. “The investigation’s her jurisdiction, but any decision to prosecute would be made by Alaskan law enforcement.”

“Di’s enough,” Virgil said. “I don't want anyone else.”

“We can come back to that.” Dianne tapped at her comm. “Virgil, we should have a recorded copy of your account, as close to the event as possible. Are you up to that right now?”

“I think so.”

She set the recording going, and Kayo watched silently as Virgil answered the questions, filled in the gaps she'd had for the past few hours: copper mine near Anchorage, fire raging through the shafts—five miners trapped in a broken tunneler beneath the flames—and one service engineer, Thomas Blackton, hiding in the sealed emergency ventilation system. 

“I couldn't get down to any of them—the fire was blocking off the whole top of the mine, and the ground was too unstable for a Mole pod.” Virgil inhaled, slowly, shifting unconsciously closer to his father. “But some of the system controls were still online—not much, but—the one remotely useful thing I could do to keep the fire away from the five miners was …” Jeff patted his back. He swallowed and continued. “I could redirect it, into the secondary ventilation system.”

Kayo envied the lack of emotion in Di’s response. “Where Blackton was sheltered?”

He nodded. 

“I'm sorry, Virgil, I need you to respond verbally.”

“Yes.”

“I see. How certain were you of the status of the five miners?”

Virgil tensed. 

“Simms,” Scott protested. 

“I have to ask. Everyone else will.”

Virgil’s fingers curled tight around his cup. “John had been in contact with them previously, they're the ones who called, but—by the time I'd figured out my options, it’d been a couple of minutes since we'd been able to raise them.”

“Life sign scans?”

“Too much heat to know either way. We—Dad and John and I—ran the numbers, tried to guess how much oxygen they'd have, the temperature level, figure out if they were still … It was pretty much fifty-fifty at that moment. Odds decreasing every second. And at that point we couldn't contact Tom, either—we were pretty sure he was still safe, but there was too much interference to talk to him. But we knew it was almost certain survival of one versus coin flip on five.”

“And then?” Di pressed, very gently, when he didn't continue. 

“I made the call,” Virgil blurted, then sucked in a breath. “Neither Dad or John tried to influence me either way. They’re not culpable. It was my decision alone.”

“I understand. Decision to do what?”

“I used the mine vent control system to force the fire away from the tunnelers and into the shaft network where Tom was. And then I went down into the burnt-own zone and found the five others, and—it was too late. They were dead. I murdered Thomas Blackton for nothing.”

Grandma made a faintly strangled noise. Dianne tapped her comm, ending the recording. Jeff moved to put his arm around his son, but Virgil flinched away, bowstring-tense. 

“It wasn’t murder, kiddo,” Jeff said softly. 

“I killed him. Knowingly. On purpose. How is that not murder?”

Kayo could see the muscle in Jeff’s jaw working. “Would it have been easier if I’d ordered you to do it? Instead of giving you the choice?”

“You think I want to foist off the blame?”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“Would you do it again?”

The words, coming out of her own mouth, surprised Kayo as much as anyone else. She swallowed as five sets of eyes turned to her. “If you were to go on another rescue, right now, and be faced with the same dilemma—sacrifice one for the chance of saving many—or let the many die without putting up any kind of fight—no other options—would you do it again?”

Virgil opened his mouth, closed it—hugged his arms around himself—then nodded. 

“Scott?” Kayo asked, without taking her eyes off Virgil. 

Scott took a second to respond. “I’d do it too.”

“Jeff?”

The older man cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

Kayo leaned forward and placed her hand on the table in front of Virgil. “And so would I. A bad outcome doesn’t mean it was a bad decision, Vee.” 

Virgil hesitated; then, slowly, unfolded his arms, took her hand, and squeezed it. 

Chapter Text

Scott was pacing the length of the living room, over and over. “They’d be crazy to charge him, right?”

Dianne, curled on the sofa next to Kayo, shook her head. “They’d be cruel to charge him. But not crazy.”

Jeff and Grandma had taken Virgil upstairs; and none of the remaining three of them had felt much like dinner, so they’d relocated to the lounge. John had called in five minutes earlier to confirm that Three’s mission was complete and he was going to descend and fly to the ranch with Alan. Gordon was on his way over from Marineville, twenty minutes or so out. No one had told the younger two yet—just asked them to come. The thought of watching Alan’s expression when he found out made Kayo’s stomach churn. 

Scott rounded on his wife. “What was he supposed to do, just stand there?”

“Easy. I’m not saying they should charge him. But, by his own admission, he did deliberately cause Blackton’s death, and the appropriate level of action to take in defence of a third party is a very grey area in a lot of jurisdictions—especially if the victim wasn’t the actual threat.” She sighed and hugged her leg. “An ambitious district attorney might decide that a case against International Rescue is just what his career ordered.”

“Can we win?” asked Kayo. “If it goes to court?”

“If it had been in California—maybe. I don’t know about Alaskan precedent. I’ll have a look at the relevant statutes.” She turned on her comm and started searching. 

Kayo turned to Scott. “At least he’s handling it about as well as could be expected.”

“It shouldn’t’ve been him,” Scott mumbled. “Of all people—it’s just not fair.”

Fairness, reflected Kayo, didn’t have a lot to do with their line of work; but she doubted Scott would react well to that being pointed out. “We would’ve all made the same call, in his shoes. Heck, I strongly suspect your dad has already, at least once.”

Scott paused, mid-stride. “You think?”

“You saw his face. 2040 was a mess. I know there’s stuff he and my father still won’t talk about. Even to each other.”

Scott pressed his lips together, inhaled deeply through his nose, then resumed his back-and-forth. “Any luck, Simms?”

“Promising,” Di reported, still scrolling. “Sort of. Alaska has a bar reciprocation agreement with California, so I can practice there without any added qualifications; and necessity is a recognised common law defence there.”

“Meaning?” Scott asked. 

“If we can independently prove everything Virgil’s told us, we can make the case that it was his only option to attempt to prevent a greater harm. It’d take a very sympathetic jury to get him off a manslaughter charge, but it’s possible.”

“I can deal with that,” said Kayo. 

Dianne eyed her suspiciously. “Tanusha. Rigging a jury is a federal crime.”

“Not if you don’t get caught.”

Di glared at her tiredly, shut off her comm, and leaned back against the couch cushions. “Worst case scenario, we could probably swing a plea deal. Involuntary manslaughter only carries a few years before parole.”

Scott ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not standing by while my little brother goes to prison for homicide!”

“Do not—repeat, do not —attempt to assault any arresting officers.” Kayo folded her arms. “Let me do that.”

“Scott …” Di put out her hand, and, after a moment, he stepped forward and took it—then slumped into the floor by the couch and leaned against her leg. 

“I hate feeling so freaking useless,” he mumbled. 

Kayo sighed. “Don’t we all?”

Di stroked Scott’s head. “I hate to say it, but—we need to say as little as possible to the wider team, for their own sake. The less they know the better for them in court, if it comes to that.”

“They’ll find out eventually,” Kayo said. “Someone in the GDF investigative team’ll inevitably leak it to the press, sooner rather than later.”

“Yes. But the less they know now before it’s public, the easier it’ll be to save them from being subpoenaed. They've all got lives outside IR, reputations to protect. We don’t want it to look like they were all in on a conspiracy to cover it up.”

Kayo raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t hiding it from them literally a conspiracy to cover it up?”

“Not if we’re fully cooperating with the GDF. And I'm not saying hide it from them—we can say something’s happened and that we can't explain the details until after the investigation. They’ll understand.” She paused. “Well, some of them will.”

“We can’t not tell Gordon and Alan,” said Scott. 

“Of course, but keep it to family. Penelope should probably be told too, her connections may help; but the non-Tracys ought to stay away from here for now. It’ll be better for them if there are charges, and it might be easier on Virgil.”

Scott sighed. “I don't love it, but I guess it makes sense.”

Kayo chewed her lip involuntarily. “Okay. I’ll let Adam and Karen know and we’ll get packed up, take Two and Seven back when Gordon gets here.”

“Woah there.” Scott twisted around to look up at her. “What are you talking about? Why are you leaving?”

“You just said to keep it to family—”

“Okay, I’m going to cut you off before you say the stupidest sentence in human history.” Scott nudged Di. “Simms, tell her she’s an idiot.”

“You’re an idiot,” Di echoed. “Kayo, you’ve been an honorary Tracy way longer than I have. Of course you should stay.”

“Can’t believe that even needs clarification,” Scott grumbled. 

Kayo’s eyes stung. She swallowed it back. “Well, I’ll need something to do if I’m sticking around. I’ll start working my sources, see if I can get some advance notice on what the GDF’s doing, make sure any leaks go to friendly press.”

“Thank you.” Scott patted her shoe and closed his eyes. “Now I’ve just got to figure out how to tell the Tinies.”

Kayo grimaced, and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Di do the same.

2049

“Seriously, how do you get up here without using the hatch? Can you fly?”

Tanusha couldn’t bring herself to smile, much less reply. But Virgil didn’t seem to require a response, lying down next to her on the tile, looking up at the stars glistening white against darkening sky.

“Dad called,” he said, after a few seconds. “Scott’s okay. Just a minor concussion. They’re keeping him in for observation overnight, but he’ll be fine.”

Tanusha let out the breath she’d been half-holding for the past four hours. Her voice wavered as she spoke. “Is he mad?”

“Dad or Scott?”

“Either. Both.”

“Dad doesn’t exactly sound thrilled. But he understands it was an accident.” Virgil nudged her. “I haven’t spoken to Scooter yet, but I’ll bet you an ice cream sundae he thinks it’s hilarious.”

Tanusha really, really hoped Virgil was right. Nailing one’s crush in the head with your foot wasn’t generally considered a great strategy for getting attention. There was no way she was admitting to said crush, of course—least of all to his brother. Too humiliating for words. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.” Virgil propped himself up on one elbow. “KO-ing Scott with one kick—that’s the stuff of family legend. I’m gonna be using it against him for the next fifty years.”

She giggled despite herself. “It was a good kick.”

“It was a great kick. Straight out of a textbook.” He lay back down, tucking his arms behind his head. “It was all our faults, really. We got carried away.”

“Unfortunately, getting carried away is very on-brand for me.” She mimicked his posture, looking sideways at him. “I got booted off the lacrosse team at Radley for whacking one of the guys in the balls.”

“On purpose?”

“What’s that thing you have about self-incrimination in this country? The Third Amendment?”

“Fifth. I think the Third gives you the right to refuse to quarter troops in your house.” He frowned. “Or maybe that’s the Fourth.”

She tutted hypocritically. “Are you even passing Civics?”

“No idea.” He blew out a long sigh. “Doesn’t matter. I’m dropping all the social sciences next year, anyway. Art, too. I might be able to keep piano. Depends on my schedule.”

“What?” Tanusha sat up. “How come?”

Virgil refused to make eye contact. “I’m gonna major in engineering. Gotta prep for that.”

“Since when? You’ve never been interested in it before.”

“I am now.”

“I don’t believe you. You’ve been obsessed with art since I met you. I think you literally had paint on your nose every day for my first week in the house. Why would you drop it?”

She could see Virgil chewing the inside of his cheek; then, finally, hazel eyes met hers in the dim. “Can you keep a secret?”

You have no idea. 

“To my grave if necessary.”

He sat up again, turned so their shoes were bumping against each other. “From everyone. Don’t tell even Dad or Scott I told you, all right? Dad doesn’t want anyone else to know yet.”

“I promise.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath, the solemnity of his expression melting into a grin. “So, Dad’s been working with this aircraft engineer—”

2065

“Good news,” Dianne said brightly as she entered the hangar. “Wedding’s off!”

Kayo looked up from Shadow’s starboard landing gear. Scott, under the wing across from her, blinked. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to react to that.”

“You can be overjoyed you don’t have to parade in a tux in front of a thousand of my parents’ intimate friends.” Di joined them by the side of the fuselage, the false cheer evaporating. “I’ll admit, though, I did want to wear that dress.”

“What happened?” Kayo asked as Scott pulled Di into a hug. 

“My father thinks,” the other woman mumbled into grease-stained denim, “that public association with the Tracy family is political suicide in the present climate.”

Scott growled under his breath. Kayo sighed and wiped her hands off on her cargo pants. She’d never met Lord Robert Simms, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Actually, yes, she did want to—but just for the satisfaction of giving him a piece of her mind. She was itching to blow off steam. 

The past four days had been a waking nightmare. Despite her and Penelope’s best efforts, some jerk at the GDF had blabbed about the investigation to NTBS—her least favourite newstream—only two days after Tom Blackton’s death. Since then, the press coverage had been split roughly down the middle: there were a fair number of sympathetic outlets, but there were also way too many scandalmongers who cared more about clicks than the people they were covering. One clip in particular, had infuriated her to the point that Jeff had had to outright order her not to get in her ‘bird and go and break into their offices to give them a warning. 

And Scott and Dianne’s ‘official’ wedding hadn’t been the only cancellation. Virgil was supposed to have gone to Manhattan yesterday to join the New York Philharmonic for three months (with a quick hop back to the island for Thanksgiving next week, obviously—Grandma would never stand for anything else). He’d been looking forward to playing with them for the past year. But they’d called off the entire season without so much courtesy as a call: they’d found out when Jeff had gotten the ticket refund email. Not that Virgil would’ve been up to it, really—but it would’ve been nice of them to actually talk to him before pulling the plug. 

She couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t fix it for him, couldn’t make the press lay off, couldn’t do anything but give Shadow maintenance she didn’t need and—

“I’m sorry,” Scott was murmuring into his wife’s hair. 

“It’s okay,” Di replied softly. “It’s just a stupid party. We’ve had our real wedding already—and I’m past caring what he thinks.”

Scott kissed her temple; and Kayo, beginning to feel distinctly third-wheel-ish, silently made her escape into the tunnel to the house. She met Alan halfway, coming the other direction with an armful of parts. “Careful. It might be getting mushy in there.”

Alan made a face and turned on his heel, walking back with her. “Yuck. They’re worse than Gords and Penny.”

Kayo nudged him with her elbow. “Maybe you’ll understand the appeal when you’re older.”

He glared at her and stuck out his tongue, which did nothing to advance the case for his maturity. “I get it. It’s just gross when it’s my brothers.”

“Fair.” She hesitated. “Have you spoken to Virgil this morning? I haven’t seen him yet.”

He shook his head, expression tightening. “He didn’t have breakfast. I think he went up to the roof. John’s with him.”

Kayo sighed. “He barely ate yesterday, either.” Or in the days before that. “We should pick up some pizza or something—the toppings he actually likes, not just pretends to for our sakes.”

Alan brightened. “I’ll ask Gordo if he wants to sneak into town with me. Donna at the diner was a friend of Mom’s—she won’t be weird.”

“Good plan. Let me know if you need backup.”

“FAB.”

She climbed through the dormer window, trainers gripping the tile as she manoeuvred around the shutter. There they were, Virgil and John, sitting side by side over on the ridge, facing the hills. She scrambled up the slope of the roof, announcing her presence so as not to startle anyone in a precarious position. “Hey. Alan told me you were having a party up here.”

Virgil glanced over his shoulder with the tiniest of half-smiles, but didn’t reply. She settled in next to him, on the side opposite John, and tugged her ponytail out so she could feel the breeze. It was cooler, now that the year was drawing to a close, wind whipping over the plain and onto their backs. “Nice day.”

“Speak for yourself,” said John. “It’s freezing up here.”

Kayo raised her eyebrows. “Somebody’s been spoiled by a climate controlled spacesuit.”

“And tropical islands,” added Virgil, quietly, but with a faint hint of laughter in his voice. Good. That was good. Encourage that. 

“Says the man who wears flannel on tropical islands,” John muttered. 

“Brains insists on keeping the aircon insanely low for the sake of the machinery. It’s my only option if I want to actually feel like I’m anywhere near the Equator.” Kayo snorted softly. Virgil bumped her arm with his. “You good?”

“You’re asking me?”

“I would prefer to talk about literally anything but myself right now.”

“In that case.” Kayo looked past him to John and smirked. He'd responded well to her making fun of John—and, fortunately, she'd been keeping some excellent material in her back pocket. Time to bring out the big guns. “I never did tell you what I happened to witness at a certain wedding reception the other week, did I?”

John turned to her, alarmed. “No. You promised. You wouldn’t dare.”

“Never underestimate my capacity to dare, Jonathan.”

Virgil looked at each of them in turn, between his brother’s rapidly reddening face and her growing grin. “Okay, now I’m curious.”

“Well, as you may recall, I went for a walk,” Kayo said airily. “And, ‘round the side of the barn, I found this gentleman and a certain former GDF captain looking very cosy.”

Virgil spluttered. “Seriously? You and Ridley finally— John!”

“We’d had a couple of drinks,” John muttered sulkily. “It was one kiss. Practically on the cheek. And what do you mean, finally?”

Kayo reached over Virgil and smacked him on the knee. “Quit the innocent act. You’ve been blatantly flirting with her for years.”

John was, for once, rendered speechless. Virgil shook his head, laughing—deeply, properly, actually laughing, for the first time in four days, and wasn’t that a beautiful sight?—and clapped him on the back. “Congratulations, little brother. When are you going to make an honest woman of her?”

“I hate you.” John shoved himself to his feet. “Both of you.”

“Aww, look, he’s blushing,” Kayo said to Virgil. “Isn’t that sweet?”

“Adorable,” he returned. “Where’re you going, Johnny? Off to call your girlfriend?”

“Not my girlfriend!” John called back over his shoulder as he climbed down towards the window. 

He vanished to a chorus of ooohs and wolf whistles; and Virgil, still chuckling, lay back against the tiles and closed his eyes. “Oh man. I needed that. Thank you.”

Kayo watched him for a moment, chest tight. “How are you doing? Really?”

He made a so-so gesture. “I’ll … survive. Haven’t heard from the GDF since I gave Colonel Casey my statement.”

That was three days ago. “That might be good?”

He opened his eyes, watching the clouds. “I’m going to ask you a question, but you don’t have to answer it.”

“Okay.”

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

Her lungs stopped working mid-inhale. 

“I’m sorry—I shouldn't've—”

She found her voice, managed to breathe. “No, it’s okay.” She turned to look back out at the desert, because this was something that she couldn’t say to those eyes. “Maybe.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t know.” She pulled one leg up and hugged it with one hand, fiddling with her shoelace with the other. “There have been moments when I’ve had to protect myself, and then didn’t exactly have a chance to stop to check for a pulse afterwards. The GDF’s never found a body I was responsible for. But there’s been more than one occasion where that means nothing—where they either didn’t or couldn’t look for one. So I can’t be sure.”

“But those times would’ve all been in self-defence.”

She looked back at him. “You were defending others, Vee. That’s the same thing.”

“Is it? He wasn’t hurting them. He was just … unlucky. In the way. And I killed him for it.” He breathed out slowly. “It was wrong, Kayo.”

“Maybe it was,” she said quietly. “But it was the lesser of two evils.”

His lips pressed tightly together. “Honestly? I don’t really care if they charge me. I did it. I’m guilty, of murder or manslaughter or whatever they decide to call it, and I’ll take the consequences.”

“We can’t just let you go to prison, Virgil.”

He turned his head to face her. “Please, ‘Nusha— don’t do anything stupid. And don’t let Scott—or  Dad—either. Promise me.”

She swallowed. “I promise. But in return, you’ve got to promise me—if you do get charged, don’t just give in because you think you deserve to be ‘punished’, or whatever. Put in a ‘not guilty’ plea and make your case. Let the jury decide, not your overactive conscience.”

“Kayo—”

“Please.”

“... okay. I promise.”

“Thank you.” Her comm buzzed, and she lifted her wrist. “Yes, EOS?”

“There’s a GDF carrier en route to Gran Roca, five-point-four minutes out,” the AI reported. “The log indicates Aguta Williams is a passenger.”

Kayo tensed. She’d read Williams’ file, among others, three times over the past four days. She’d hoped it was wasted effort.

“Aguta Williams?” Virgil said, in a tone that indicated he already suspected the answer. 

Kayo forced herself to exhale, slowly. “Deputy District Attorney for the Municipality of Anchorage.”

“Shall I stop them?” EOS asked, and, for a half-second, Kayo was tempted. She’d installed very good surface-to-air defences. But Virgil was right there; and she’d promised. 

“No. Let them land. And tell Jeff.”

“I’m informing him as we speak,” EOS replied primly, in a tone that implied Kayo should know better. Which she should. She was just … on edge. 

“Thanks, EOS.” Kayo closed the link. “Okay, here goes nothing. I’ll behave. But I’m not letting them cuff you.”

Virgil half-smiled weakly. “I’d expect nothing less.”

Chapter Text

Kayo’s feelings towards Captain Wayne Rigby had historically been … complicated. 

Right now, they were unequivocally hostile. 

She crossed her arms and levelled him with a glare as he stepped down the ramp of the GDF jet parked in Gran Roca’s front driveway. “I can’t believe you right now.”

“Kayo—”

“Ms Kyrano to you.”

“It’s not like I got to choose whether or not to volunteer for this assignment. I like it as much as you do.”

“I doubt that.” She looked over her shoulder. Jeff was coming out of the house; everyone else was still inside. She hoped it’d stay that way. She wasn’t sure she trusted Scott or Alan’s temper right now. Or Grandma’s, for that matter. “State your business or get off our lawn.”

Rigby cleared his throat, but before he could reply, his passenger joined him on the ramp. Aguta Williams was a tall, dark-haired and darker-eyed man, somewhere in his early forties, crisp-pressed suit coat flapping in the wind. Kayo loathed him instantly. “Friend of yours, Captain?” he said dryly. 

“Nope,” Kayo said, popping the ‘p’. 

“You would be … Tanusha Kyrano, I assume?” 

“You ever heard what happens when you assume, Mr Williams?”

“Kayo.” Jeff’s voice was low with warning as he came to her side, and she subsided sulkily. (Maybe it was her temper she shouldn’t be trusting.) “Jefferson Tracy. Can I be of assistance?”

Williams handed Jeff his ID, and Jeff skimmed it and returned it. “We’re here to see Virgil Tracy.”

“In relation to?”

Williams sighed. “Please don’t be deliberately obtuse, Colonel. This will involve much less discomfort if everyone is willing to cooperate.”

Jeff crossed his arms. “I’d still prefer you to spell it out, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Very well. We have a warrant for his arrest.”

It was exactly what Kayo had expected, but the actual words still felt like a kick to the sternum. She could feel more or less the same emotion radiating off Jeff; but he held it together. “Aren’t we outside your jurisdiction, Mr Williams?”

Rigby spoke up, awkwardly. “Global Defence Force interservice cooperation regulations allow us to facilitate the execution of warrants outside standard jurisdictional boundaries in the case of homicide.”

“Now that we’ve established what we all already know,” Williams said pointedly, “may I go about my business?”

Jeff pressed his lips together, then stepped aside, looking back at the house. A moment later, Di  and Virgil emerged—they’d clearly been waiting—closely followed by Scott. 

“Dianne Tracy,” she said as they came within earshot. “Virgil Tracy’s legal counsel. My client reserves the right not to answer questions without me present.”

“I’m aware of the existence of the Sixth Amendment, ma’am,” Williams said flatly. “We have Mr Tracy’s statement; no further questioning will be necessary. My office will supply you with details of the arraignment. Virgil Benjamin Tracy?”

“That’s me,” Virgil said hollowly, looking uncannily like John in the middle of a particularly bad mission. 

Rigby was undeterred by Kayo’s glare, but he at least had the good grace to look reluctant. “Under the authority of the Global Defence Force and the state of Alaska, I place you under arrest for the murder of Thomas Blackton. You have the right—”

They all waited silently while Rigby recited the Miranda Rights; but, when he produced a pair of handcuffs, Kayo hissed “Don’t you dare.”

Rigby hesitated and looked at Williams, who shook his head slightly. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Captain. Mr Tracy, if you will?”

Virgil didn’t look at any of them—just stepped forward onto the ramp—and Rigby, with a last apologetic glance at Kayo, shepherded him into the jet and out of sight.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Williams said serenely, and Kayo fantasized briefly and vividly about breaking his nose. Judging by the inarticulate noise that came out of Scott’s mouth, he was doing much the same. “I wish you a very pleasant morning.”

They backed off towards the house, out of necessity, as the jet prepared for launch. The rest of the family had come out onto the porch, and, equally silently, waited as the plane lifted into the air and slowly disappeared from view. 

“I just,” Jeff said unsteadily, to no one in particular, “let Lucille’s son get arrested for murder in her own front yard.”

Grandma placed a hand on his back, but didn’t reply. 

2050

The laughter and chatter from the party outside was still audible, even through the closed kitchen window. Kayo curled tighter into the bay seat, just far enough behind the curtains that she was hidden from exterior view. She should get back out there. She’d volunteered to go get more soda a good ten minutes ago; she’d be missed soon. 

Sure enough, a moment later, she could hear footsteps in the hallway. She didn’t need to look around to know who it was. “I know, I know. I’ll come back out in a minute.”

Virgil joined her at the window and nudged her legs out of the way so he could sit down. “No judgement.” He looked out and squeezed his lips together briefly. “I don’t feel much like celebrating either.”

“How much longer before Allie realises Scott moving to base actually means him leaving and starts bawling his guts out?”

“Half an hour? Twenty minutes?” Virgil shook his head laughingly, but his eyes weren’t smiling; and he brushed suddenly at them with the heel of his hand. “Crap. Sorry. Now I’m ready to bawl my guts out. I’m gonna miss him so much.”

“Me too,” Kayo admitted quietly. She kept telling herself it was only two years—two years of duties and study, and then Scott would return from the GDF fully trained and ready to focus on International Rescue. She’d still be around—seventeen, practically an adult—and maybe then he would actually look at her twice. 

Okay, it wasn’t like he wasn’t nice to her. But that was the problem—Scott was nice to everyone, effortlessly charming in any situation—his instinctive charisma made all the more potent by the fact that he was totally unconscious of it. Eventually he’d probably figure out the power of those dimples, and, knowing him, get cocky about it; but right now he was just painfully likeable. And completely blind to the deeply annoying crush she’d been silently nurturing. But hey, she’d lived with it for two years. What was two more? 

Unless he decided he liked the GDF better. 

“Do you think he'll forget about us?” she blurted.

“What? Scott? He's the biggest sap on the planet. There's no way.”

“Okay,” she conceded, “he won't forget about you guys. But—” She tugged her lip through her teeth, worried at it for a moment. “He might forget me.”

“Forget the kid who knocked him out in one shot? I doubt that.”

“But that’s just it—” She shouldn't say this, shouldn't admit it; but it was burning a hole in her chest, and it demanded an outlet. “He thinks of me as a kid. And there’ll be girls. Women. His age. And I won't … he won't …”

She trailed off. But Virgil seemed to understand, his eyes widening minutely. “… oh.”

She rubbed her eyes ruthlessly. “I know. Pathetic.”

“No, it's not—” Virgil looked out the window again, coughed slightly. “I mean, he's my brother, so the idea of anyone liking him that way is kind of hilarious, but—it’s not pathetic.”

“Don't tell him,” she begged. “Don't tell anyone. Please, Vee?”

For a very, very long moment, he didn't reply, eyes fixed on the group in the garden; then he looked back at her and smiled lopsidedly. “To my grave if necessary.”

2065

“There's got to be something you can do!”

“Hush.” Idrak Kyrano glanced around the restaurant, and, guiltily, Kayo did the same; but her outburst didn’t seem to have attracted any significant attention—the only other occupied tables were at the other end of the room. “Yes, I have the connections to break him out. But then he’d be a fugitive—on the run and away from his family for the rest of his life. Is that what he would want?”

Kayo leaned back in her seat, feeling way too much like a sulky teenager. “No. He wouldn’t.”

Her father sighed and bent forward. “I have already promised Jeff I’ll do all I can, but … honestly, that is very little, not without crossing lines the Tracys would not wish to.” He took her hand, and she resisted the urge to flinch away. “I’m sorry, sayang.”

She blew a breath out slowly. She had to get her emotions under control. “I understand. I just thought …”

“I know.” One corner of his mouth quirked up sadly. “I can use my networks to see what I can find out about the mine and its history—the less-public aspects. If perhaps we can prove negligence that caused the fire in the first place—”

“—we might be able to shift responsibility,” Kayo finished for him, nodding. “That would be good. I don’t know how much legal weight it’d officially carry, but it might influence the jury.”

“Exact—” He stopped abruptly, wincing, one hand going to his chest. Kayo half-stood, but he waved her back down. “No need to overreact,” he croaked wryly, after a breathless second. “This is perfectly normal.”

She curled her nails into the palm of her hand and pressed, hard enough to hurt. “What—what’s the latest from Dr Chadha?”

“Testing indicates my uncooperative immune system would likely—” He paused for breath. “—reject a transplant, even an artificial one. But he has an idea for an experimental surgery that—that may prove promising.”

“Okay.” Kayo swallowed, vaguely nauseous. Reminders of her remaining biological parent’s mortality were a fast track to panic if she dwelt on them too much. So she didn't. An elegantly simple solution, though, admittedly, probably not a healthy one. She forced a smile and gestured around the restaurant. “How’s business?”

“Quite good. Not now, of course—but come back in a few hours in the middle of the dinner rush, and there won’t be an empty table.” His breathing was easing; he dropped his hand. “Not that I can take much credit these days. Nurin runs things beautifully. And having Tin-Tin back home has been a great help.”

She knew it wasn’t intended as a rebuke, but it still felt like one. She stirred the ice at the bottom of her glass with her straw, unable to look him in the eye. “She’s a good kid.”

“She is.” He reached forward over the table and tilted her chin up. “I’m very proud of both my girls.”

Kayo smiled; but the tight knot in her chest didn’t shift. 

Kayo turned the collar of her coat up against the chill as she rounded the corner into Cadogan Square. She’d always hated London weather, despite living only a few hours drive away for a good chunk of her childhood: a toss-up between miserable drizzle and concrete hotbox, nothing in between.

She reached her destination in the centre of the brick terrace, tugged off her glove, and placed her hand on the scan plate; a second later, the door buzzed and she entered the old Georgian building and trotted up the stairs. Penelope’s London flat was on the top floor of the liftless building, a fact that she’d heard Parker whinge about more than once. 

She made it to the top and knocked on the door, and, a moment later, it opened. “H’afternoon, Miss Kyrano.”

“Hey, Parker.” She entered and let him help her with her coat—it was easier than the painfully polite fight that would inevitably ensue if she tried to do it herself. “They back yet?”

He nodded. “Mister Gordon—” He always said his name with a vague sort of sniff. “—and Milady are in the drawing room.”

“Thanks.” 

She headed through to the lounge. Penelope was pacing in front of the huge front windows with her phone to her ear: she gave her a brief wave with her free hand. Gordon was slouched on the sofa on the opposite wall. Kayo flopped down next to him, and he smiled tiredly and kicked her foot. “Any luck?” he whispered. 

She shook her head. “He’ll do some digging, but can't promise anything.”

“Ugh.” Gordon leaned back and glared up at the ceiling. “You think anyone would notice if I switched places with him? Parent Trap style?”

“I think it might raise a few eyebrows.”

“Even if I dyed my hair and wore a fat suit?”

Kayo hit him on the arm. Hard.

“Oww!”

Penelope shot them a glare, but continued her phone conversation without missing a beat. Kayo mouthed an apology at her, then turned back to Gordon. “Seriously, Gords. Read the room.”

“Sorry.” He rubbed his forehead. “I have questionable coping mechanisms.”

Welcome to the club, Kayo thought; but she kept her mouth shut and patted his shoulder. 

A minute or so later, Penelope hung up the phone and crossed the room to join them. “That was either the biggest waste of a half hour of my life or an extremely productive thirty minutes, and I have no idea which.”

“Who was it?” Kayo asked. 

“The British ambassador in Washington.” She sat down on the other side of Gordon and smoothed out her perfectly uncreased trouser leg. “Obviously, Virgil has zero claim on official governmental assistance from this side of the pond, but he has agreed to exert what little pressure he can, given our status as an international charity.” Her brow creased further. “However, he did have some rather worrying news. Apparently there have been rumblings in Washington about further attempts to restrict International Rescue’s operations. Some prominent senators and congressmen were of the opinion we deserve additional oversight, now that operations have expanded, even before the incident at the mine. And now, of course, the voices are growing louder.”

“Crud,” said Gordon. 

“My sentiments exactly.”

“It wouldn't be quite as bad as the whole ‘Janus’ thing.” Kayo tucked her legs under herself. “But it'd still be a huge pain in the arse.”

“But they can't tell us what to do outside US airspace, right?” Gordon asked, pulling himself into a proper sitting position. 

“No. But the island is a US territory, and obviously Gran Roca’s in the middle of the continent.”

“So we need US airspace to take off.” Gordon groaned. “I said we should've set up a base over here.”

“Good luck getting planning permission,” Kayo muttered dryly.

“I’ll warn Jeff, of course. But I suspect politics is the least of his worries right now.” Penelope pursed her lips briefly. “When is the arraignment?”

“Tomorrow morning—docket starts 0900 local time,” Kayo said. “You coming?”

“Of course. Would you like me to vet the judge?”

“Already got EOS on it. But it would be handy if you could see if you can find out if the prosecuting DA has any ties to our critics in DC. Might explain why he’s got it in for us.”

“Excellent notion. A little light blackmail material wouldn’t hurt, either, if some could hypothetically be obtained.” 

“You two are scary,” Gordon said. “You know that, right?”

Penelope pecked his cheek. “Thank you, darling.”

Chapter Text

Kayo had been in court plenty of times, but usually because she’d been subpoenaed as a witness. Only once had she been to an arraignment—her uncle’s—and that had been purely to gloat. 

This was a very different vibe. 

All the Tracys, plus her and Penelope, had piled in to the spectator benches and were waiting (some more patiently than others) as Judge Henderson worked her way through the docket. Dianne had gone off to meet Virgil in the courthouse cells before he was called up—privileges of counsel. 

(Interestingly, there was no sign of Blackton’s wife or family. She supposed she could understand that—but if it’d been her, regardless of circumstance, she’d’ve wanted to look the man who killed her husband in the eye.)

She was getting pretty good at studiously ignoring the press at the back of the room. 

“So how’s this work?” Alan asked at her side. 

“The judge reads the charge,” she whispered back, “defence attorney responds with the plea, then they make arrangements for bail—if they’re willing to offer it—and set a trial date.”

“Will they offer bail?”

“I don’t know. If they don’t, Di could put up a good argument that he’s hardly a danger to society. But if they’re feeling petty, it wouldn’t help much.”

 Alan hugged his arms to his chest. “And then he’d have to stay in prison until the trial?”

“Let’s hope,” Grandma said quietly, on Alan’s other side, “that it doesn’t come to that. Now hush.”

A few seconds later, the judge banged the gavel, and the bailiff led the current occupant of the defendant’s stand back towards the door to the courthouse cells. He was promptly replaced by Virgil—Kayo felt Alan stiffen next to her—with Di at his side, thankfully devoid of handcuffs. Much like during the arrest two days earlier, he wouldn't look at any of them: he kept his eyes firmly front, though he did respond to Di when she said something to him as they reached the desk.

Judge Amelia Henderson—according to the report EOS had presented Kayo, she had an impeccable record as a prosecutor prior to her appointment to the bench, two grown children, and one dachshund named Frank—looked down at her tablet, then over her glasses at the prosecution’s desk. “This is the charge the District Attorney’s office intends to bring?”

“Yes, Your Honour,” Williams said blandly. 

She watched him for a second—and man, Kayo envied that poker face—then cleared her throat. “Virgil Benjamin Tracy, on November 18, 2065, you allegedly caused the death of Thomas Henry Blackton at the Rosewell copper mine near Anchorage, Alaska. How do you plead to the charge of murder in the first degree?”

Kayo was pretty sure there wasn't any air in the room right now. There certainly wasn't any entering her lungs. 

And then she saw Di look swiftly sideways at Virgil—and her expression was neutral enough, but Kayo knew her well enough to see the emotion underneath—and she didn't look freaked, or upset. She looked delighted.

And then Kayo was able to breathe.

“My client wishes to enter a plea of ‘not guilty’, Your Honour.”

“Very well.” Henderson peered down at her tablet again. “Given the circumstances of the offence, I don't believe bail would be inappropriate—unless the People object?” 

“No objection, Your Honour,” Williams said, still impassive. “But with the proviso that Mr Tracy remain on United States soil and receive explicit approval from the Global Defence Force prior to the commencement of any, ah, ‘professional duties’.”

Henderson lifted one eyebrow. “So noted. Defence counsel?”

“To clarify, Your Honour—do United States international territories count as US soil in the eyes of this court?”

“If you’re asking if the defendant is allowed to live on his family’s private island,” the judge replied dryly, “then yes.”

“Then my client agrees to the terms of bail, Your Honour.”

Henderson made a hmm noise. “Ten million dollars would be my typical figure for this offence—but given that bail is supposed to be at least somewhat punitive, I’m going to call it twenty in this instance. Though that’s probably still perfectly within means?”

“My client is capable of paying the stated amount, Your Honour,” Di replied evenly. 

“Of course he is,” Henderson muttered. “The defendant, counsel, and prosecution will report to this courthouse for trial commencing Monday January 4.” She hit the gavel. “Bailiff, please make arrangements for bail and bring in the next defendant.”

Jeff, sitting on the end of the row, was up and out of his seat in a flash to meet Virgil and Di at the gate—a few signatures, and they were coming back down the aisle, father’s arm protectively around the son. 

“Keep moving,” Di said under her breath, when it looked rather like grandmother and brothers were ready to swarm. “Disrupt proceedings and the judge’ll flip.”

They all obeyed, hurrying out into the hall; John, last out, had the presence of mind to shut the door firmly in the press’s face, and, fortunately, none of them quite had the nerve to open it again. 

The moment they were sure they were alone, Dianne blew out a long sigh, face relaxing into a smile as she tucked under Scott’s arm. “That went way better than I feared.”

Her husband looked down at her dubiously. “Either I’m missing something or we were in different courtrooms.”

“They're overreaching,” Kayo said, grinning. “Aren't they?”

“Way overreaching,” Di confirmed. “I’d assumed they’d go for manslaughter, maybe murder two—and avoiding jail time would’ve been a seriously uphill battle. But willful murder with malice aforethought? Significantly harder for the prosecution to make that stick. Even the judge looked weirded out.”

“You're sure?” asked Jeff. 

“Juries aren’t totally predictable , but—it puts us in a much better spot than we were twenty minutes ago.”

Virgil was still glued to Jeff’s side, face drained of colour. Grandma reached over and patted his cheek. “Glad to have you back, sweetheart. Now—I hope you didn’t think you were getting out of stuffing the turkey, did you?”

He smiled shakily. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“Good boy. The plan was to spend Thanksgiving with the team on the island, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t stick to it. Time to go home, I think, Jeff?”

“Agreed.” Jeff glanced around at the group. “I’ll take Virgil—otherwise, same planes you all came in. Please don’t make it a race.”

He received a chorus of nods and FABs in response, and they all turned and made their way down the hall towards the elevators. One reporter poked his nose out as they walked away, but Kayo shot him a look, and he retreated back inside. 

“So,” Gordon said to Virgil. “You join any prison gangs?”

Scott smacked him on the back of the head. 

2054

“Absolutely not.”

Kayo leaned forward, took a steadying breath. “Why not?”

“I doubt,” Jeff Tracy said wryly, still not taking his eyes off the paperwork strewn across his desk, “that you’ll accept ‘because I said so’ as a valid response.”

“You’re not wrong.”

Jeff sighed, straightened a pile of papers, and finally made eye contact. “You’re nineteen, Tanusha.”

“So’s John! And he’s been working for a year!”

“Running comms. Not in the field.”

“Virgil flew a mission at nineteen.”

“One mission, never leaving the cockpit, in an emergency.”

“They’re all emergencies.”

Jeff leaned back and folded his arms. “The rule is solo practice in the Thunderbirds at eighteen, missions at twenty. You know that. And you also know that what you’re asking isn’t just ordinary field work. You’re my friend’s daughter. How am I supposed to look your father in the eye if I say yes and something happens to you?”

“Would it be different,” she asked sourly, “if I was your friend’s son?”

“That’s not what I meant,” he replied quietly. “Your family circumstances make you a target, Kayo. You can’t deny that.”

Not for the first time, Kayo felt a surge of loathing for the half-uncle she hadn’t seen in years. “I’m willing to take the risk. You can’t deny that we need extra field security. Someone took a shot at Scott last week, for crying out loud!”

“In their defence, he was trespassing,” said a voice from across the room, and she whirled towards the hallway entrance to see Virgil enter with sheet music in one hand and a mug in the other. “I … get the sense I’m interrupting. I’ll come back—”

“No, wait—” Kayo gestured to Jeff. “Tell your father he’s being an overprotective mother hen.”

“Gordon jumped off a cliff this afternoon. He just watched and laughed. The overprotectiveness is highly situational.” Virgil looked between them and took a sip of his tea. “Lemme guess, you want to fly missions early.”

Jeff rubbed his forehead. “She wants to provide security on missions.”

“And outside of them,” Kayo added. “Dad said last week he’s taught me practically all he knows at this point. I’m capable—and we’re vulnerable. Part-time international agents aren’t enough if you guys and Scott and Dad and Captain Taylor are all focused on missions and someone decides the mysterious International Rescue makes a nice shiny target. Or tries to figure out who you are.”

Virgil tilted his head. “She does have a point, Dad.”

“I know she has a point,” Jeff grumbled. “I just don’t like it. Okay, fine. You can specialise in field security—”

Kayo punched the air triumphantly.

“—when you’re twenty.”

She groaned. Virgil laughed. 

When Kayo finally turned twenty, Jeff Tracy wasn’t around to see it.

2065

As was usual with Tracy Thanksgivings, the house was in a state of pure chaos—and this was their first year with the expanded team on site, which made it even worse. George, Adam, and Karen had gone to spend the holiday with their families, but everyone else had congregated on the island, with predictably cacophonous results. 

Gordon, Penelope, Alan, and Tin-Tin (who’d flown in with Penny for the day) were down on the beach setting up (and arguing over) the decorations; Seymour and Brains were attempting, very patiently, to explain to Grandma why hacking the oven to triple the temperature would not improve the turkey situation; Jeff was silently observing that conversation with poorly concealed amusement; Scott and Di were at the dining table attempting to conquer their reoccurring nemesis (pie crust); and Kayo, John, Chan, and Ridley were working their way through the list of necessary sides. 

Kayo hadn’t seen hide or hair of Virgil since he’d stuffed the turkeys, and that had been right after breakfast. Which he hadn’t touched. 

The door slid open, hot tropical wind gusting in; and the guilty party, scientific name Gordon Cooper, marched in, arms held wide. “Guess who's in the doghouse again!”

Kayo groaned, slicing the tails off a stack of green beans. “What did you do this time?”

“Suggested throwing tea into the bay as an after-dinner activity to celebrate our majestic American freedoms.” He flopped down into the chair next to Di and swiped a fingerful of pastry, then made a disgusted face. “Back to the drawing board on this one, lovebirds.”

“You probably should have seen that reaction coming,” Di told him, moving the pastry board out of his reach. “And yes, we know.”

“Is tea safe to throw in the ocean?” questioned Grandma, momentarily distracted from her argument.

“Loose l-leaf, sure,” said Brains. “Biodegradable.”

“Surely that wasn't enough to get you into trouble with Lady Penelope?” Seymour asked curiously. 

“Well, it might not’ve been that.” Gordon rubbed the back of his neck. “It might have been me saying her plan for the gallery opening in March is boring as heck.”

“Seriously?” John, peeling potatoes, narrowed his eyes at him. “She's been working on that for months. That is really not the sort of thing you joke about—”

“Oh, and you're such an expert on women?”

“Gordon,” Scott and Jeff said from opposite sides of the room, in perfect stereo. 

“Yeah, yeah, fine, I get it, I'm the bad guy here.” Gordon got up and joined Kayo's group at the counter, gesturing to Chan's tablet. “What's this?”

Chan, scrolling through a recipe, shook her head with a swish of bangs. “Certifiable insanity.”

“Excuse me, Kwan,” Ridley said haughtily. “That's my old family sweet potato casserole recipe.”

“The timestamp on the site you sent me says 2062.”

“Details. My point being it's the food of kings.”

John glanced over at the screen and frowned. “Surely that belongs on the dessert list?” 

“Nope,” Ridley replied gleefully. “It’s a side!”

“Then why are there marshmallows on it?” asked Kayo, craning her neck to see the ingredients list.

“Because sugar is yummy.” 

Gordon high-fived Ridley. “I'm here for it, Riddles.”

John sighed tolerantly and returned to his potatoes; but, after a second, his fingers went to his ear as he listened to his comm; and then he moved closer to Kayo and murmured under his breath. “EOS doesn't like the look of Virgil’s biomonitor. You want to check on him, or shall I?”

Kayo deposited the last handful of beans into the bowl and tossed the bag into the trash. “I’ll go.” She checked her own comm; according to the hall camera logs, he was in his room. “I’ll take him some tea. Be back in a few.”

She didn’t keep her word. When she reached the door of Virgil's room and knocked, there was no response. She dithered on the doorstep for a moment, wondering whether to force the issue; and then she heard it: the telltale sounds of retching.

She shoved the door open—thankfully, he hadn't locked it—dumped the mug onto his desk, and made a dash for the en suite bathroom. Sure enough, Virgil was curled over the toilet. Only a second’s observation was enough to tell her that he was at the point where there wasn't actually anything in his stomach to genuinely vomit: he was just miserably dry-heaving, fingers wrapped white-knuckled around the edge of the bowl. 

“Oh, Virgil—” 

She crouched next to him and stroked soft circles along his spine; and he relaxed minutely, enough that he was able to choke out words between gags. “I'm okay. Not—sick, just—stressed.”

Understatement of the year, she thought. “I know. It's all right. Just breathe.”

He closed his eyes and obeyed; the spasms gradually eased; and, after a minute or so, he sat back and hugged his arms around himself. “Sorry.”

“Don't apologise.” She shifted so she could keep rubbing his back. “You're not alone, okay?”

“I don't—how—” His voice wavered, cracked, an alarmingly hysterical note creeping in. “I killed him in cold blood, ‘Nusha—an innocent man’s dead because of me, my whole job is to save people and I—how do I live with that?”

Kayo thought about the maybes. Yes, sometimes they kept her up at night. But she could always tell herself that each and every one of those guys put themselves in that situation—objectively speaking, they had no one to blame but themselves.

But she then thought about the Fireflash, about how she'd been willing to risk a plane full of strangers for the sake of Gordon and Alan. The exact opposite numerical calculation to what Virgil had made, but ultimately the same principle: deciding who, in the moment, she valued the life of most. Until now, she’d never let herself think too hard about the implications of that decision: shoved it out of mind as an irrelevancy, a hypothetical that never came to be—thanks to the man sitting next to her. 

Could she have lived with herself, if she’d ended up going through with her plan to ditch the plane in the desert and some hadn’t walked away from it? 

Or, on the other side of the coin—could she have lived with herself if she’d saved all the passengers at the cost of the occupants of the pods?

And now she felt sick to her stomach.

“Not on your own,” she repeated, once again forcing the thoughts firmly elsewhere, wriggling closer and putting her arm around him. “If it's easier to be by yourself sometimes, that's okay—but you start feeling like this, you call for help, all right? Please don't just sit here alone and tear yourself to bits.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Maybe you should talk to someone. Outside the team, I mean. A professional.”

(Yeah, okay, she was a hypocrite. But that didn’t make it a bad idea.)

He shook his head. “They wouldn't … get it.”

“They might—some therapists specialise in post-combat counselling, or—”

“It's not the same.” His fingers twitched restlessly against his leg. “I—I don't want to take it outside the family. I can't.”

She wanted to say why not, to force him to do the ‘sensible’ thing; but, unfortunately, she understood exactly what he meant. “Have you at least talked to your dad about it?”

“Yeah. He was pretty … frank, about some stuff. Things he did, in the war. Ways he coped. Some things he said helped, but …” He shrugged. “But I still feel like crap.” He leaned over, resting his head on her shoulder. “What helps you?”

“Moving, mostly. Training. Running.” She nudged him. “We need to get you using your hands, get you out of your head. You feel like playing?”

He shook his head. Very firmly.

“Drawing?”

“I tried—hand keeps shaking too much.”

“Something less detail-oriented, then.” She thought for a second. “You have the key to Brains’ supply closet, right? Did he hang on to all that leftover paint from the FAB1 refurb?”

“I think so?”

“Perfect. C’mon, big guy. Get your butt down to the hangar and help me pay back Gordon for that thing with the moth last month.”

A couple of hours later, they headed back up the gangway to the elevator, well-satisfied with their handiwork. Before Kayo could press the button, the doors opened to reveal Brains. The engineer eyed their paint-splattered clothes and hands levelly for a moment. “Thunderbird Four is p-pink now, isn't she?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Kayo said cheerfully.

“She's still fully functional,” added Virgil. “I ran all the diagnostics.”

Brains sighed, resigned. “As long as she's m-mission ready, you c-can paint a unicorn on her if you m-must. Grandma Tracy sent me to tell you dinner is n-nearly ready and to be on the beach in half an hour.”

Kayo nodded. “FAB. We'll get cleaned up and come down.” 

Brains stepped out of the lift and passed them. “I’m g-going to go spray sand-proofer on MAX so he can help carry the food d-down. I expect you to vouch for m-my innocence to Gordon.”

“Of course,” said Virgil. “Thanks, Brains.” Sometime around the third can of paint, he'd started to sound a lot more like himself. But once they were in the lift, he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. “What does it say about me that the only thing that makes me feel better is pranking my little brother?”

“It says you love him.” She echoed his posture and nudged his arm. “And the fact that you feel so awful right now says that you're a good man, Virgil Tracy.” 

He didn't reply; but he did give her hand a tiny squeeze, and that was enough. 

Chapter Text

A quarter of an hour later, post-shower, Kayo swung the door of the laundry room open with one hand, tell-tale pink stained clothes in the other—and nearly walked directly into Dianne. The other woman was already shoving a pair of jeans into a washer, sniffing, utterly failing to blink away tears; as Kayo entered, she stood hastily, wiping her cheeks. “Well. This is awkward.”

Kayo hesitated. She did consider Di a friend—she’d accepted long ago that Scott was hers and she was welcome to him—but unlike with Virgil earlier that afternoon, she wasn't confident enough of their status to go straight to physical comfort unprompted. Tin-Tin probably would, but that was why Tin-Tin was the ‘nice’ daughter. “Do you … want a hug?”

Di accepted the invitation eagerly, ploughing directly into her chest. Kayo dropped her laundry and returned the embrace. Dianne was noticeably shorter than she was, especially barefoot. “My period started,” she explained, with a wobbly laugh. 

Kayo winced sympathetically. “You need painkillers?”

“No, it's not that, it’s not too bad, it's just—” She pulled back and rubbed her eyes self-consciously. “I'm nearly a week late. So I'd thought maybe … y’know.”

Kayo processed that for a second, and her surprise must've showed all too clearly, because Di chuckled ruefully. “I know. We've only been married a month—would’ve been idiotically fast. And we're not officially ‘trying’. But we're also not … not trying?” Kayo made a face. “Too much information?”

“Way too much.”

“Sorry.” Di blew out a sigh. “Look at me. If you'd told me a decade ago I'd be near-frantic wanting to have Scott Tracy's babies, I’d’ve thought you were insane. Wasn't sure I even wanted children at all. But … here I am.” Kayo fished a tissue out of one of her trouser pockets, and Di accepted it gratefully and blew her nose. “I hadn't said anything about it to him yet, so it's not like he'll be disappointed, or anything—and he says he doesn't mind if we can't have kids, but I know he’s secretly desperate for them, and—sorry. Again. I'm rambling. Stupid hormones.”

“It's okay. I can't say I relate, but … I get it.”

Di smiled lopsidedly, wiping off the last of the tears. “Thank you for letting me spill my guts. I just needed to tell someone. Keep it to yourself? Please?”

What was one more secret? “You know me. I’m a vault.”

Dianne gave her arm a grateful squeeze. “Thank you. I’ll get out of your way.”

After she'd left, Kayo picked up her discarded clothes; but she took a long time to move further, cogs rotating uncomfortably in her brain. 

All those years, through her teens and early twenties, crushing obsessively on Scott, she'd never once imagined herself as the mother of his children. 

It took zero imagination to visualise Scott as a father—she'd literally watched him raise Alan, and, to a lesser extent, Gordon—but she'd never thought of herself as a mum. Weird. 

She headed for the sink and began to rinse the paint out, pink swirling across the porcelain. Maybe it was just that she didn't really think about the concept of children very much, in general? Until the past year or so, with the team expansion and the subsequent lighter workload, their lifestyles hadn't been exactly compatible with the idea of reproduction. She supposed she could imagine Gordon as a good parent, if he and Penelope’s on-again-off-again cycle ever settled in the correct position. John? That was an odd thought, but not beyond the realm of possibility: he and Ridley didn't act stereotypically ‘couple-y’, but there was a visible undercurrent of something, even leaving aside what she’d witnessed at the wedding. 

Virgil? Virgil would definitely make a great dad. She'd seen him interacting with kids in the field. But the existence of Virgil's children would require a co-parent, and she'd never seen him show romantic interest in … anybody. Ever. 

He clearly loved people—his family, obviously—the team—heck, she'd watched him hug a random old lady he'd rescued before—but never once had she detected a hint of anything unplatonic in his behaviour to anyone. She wondered, as she chucked her clothes into the washer, if he and Chan would suit—then skittered away from the thought immediately. Absolutely not. (Besides, if Chan’s eyes had lingered on anyone since she'd joined the team, it'd been on Brains. Takes all kinds, she supposed.)

She set the load running and shut the laundry behind her, making her way down the hallway to the beach, putting the question resolutely out of mind. Now was probably the worst possible time to enquire into his preferences, or lack thereof. He needed to be supported, not interrogated even further. 

When she got to the cove, everyone else was already down there—the decor crew had spread out blankets above the high tide mark, platters of food scattered strategically, bonfire at a safe distance just up the sand. Kayo had thought it would be difficult to ‘decorate’ outside, but somehow they’d managed it: there were pumpkins holding down the blanket edges, garlands of fall leaves draped from the overhanging palm trees, and, for some reason, there was an incredibly creepy taxidermied turkey hanging from the cliff. (She wasn’t sure whether to blame Penelope or Gordon for that one.) The sun wasn't down yet, but it was heading in that direction: shadows long and light warm. 

Virgil, seated on a blanket next to Alan and Tin-Tin, glanced up at her with a tiny smile, and she returned it. He had pink paint next to his ear, still; but he wasn't gonna hear it from her. 

2055

There was an old superstition—Kayo couldn't remember where she'd first heard it, but probably from her late grandmother—that bad things always came in threes.

It was nonsense, of course. But the past weeks were enough to make her wonder, for a moment, as she paced the waiting room at Auckland Hospital, if it was true. 

First, just over a month ago, thanks to her uncle, the Zero-X had exploded over the Pacific Ocean. With Jefferson Tracy on board. 

Second, last week, Scott had finally agreed to come up with a public story to acknowledge his death and arrange a memorial service—only to, in a moment of uncontrolled grief, admit on a live news stream that Jeff was the man behind International Rescue and blow their carefully-constructed cover sky-high. 

Third, this morning, Idrak Kyrano had collapsed in the Tracy Island kitchen. 

The sight of her father sprawled on the tile, unresponsive as Virgil administered CPR, was going to stick with her for a while. 

Brains had been the only other one home, so they'd left him guarding the island: John was on Five; Scott had been at the Tracy Aeronautics offices in LA, trying to sort out the post-Jeff command structure; and Grandma, Nurin, and the three youngest had gone with him for, ironically, the kids’ routine doctors’ appointments. The sole advantage of Scott's explosion at Arlington was that now there was nothing stopping her and Virgil from bundling her father into Thunderbird One and bringing him straight to the nearest ER. 

“Scott says they're close,” Virgil said softly as she passed him. He was seated on the floor, back against the wall, a posture that’d gotten him a few Looks but no actual rebukes from passing nurses. “Still trying to get landing clearance.”

She nodded wordlessly, kept moving, the thrum of restless panic pulsing through her veins and trickling along her skin. There was nothing she could do—just had to wait, for the doctors and the battery of tests, for the full extent of the latest Bad Thing to rock her existence to be fully revealed. She could take twenty-seven full strides across the room before having to turn, if she kept her speed steady—she’d counted it out reflexively each time. Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-sev—and spin—

Her foot caught—on what, she didn’t know—the draining tray of a pot plant, maybe—and she went down on her hands and knees, the linoleum cold and hard under her palms, lungs frozen in her chest. 

“Woah—” A scramble of footsteps, then a hand on her shoulder, another hand brushing her hair away from her face. “Kayo—‘Nusha—easy—I need you to breathe for me, okay?”

She half-choked, half-gasped. Nurin and Tin-Tin would be here soon. She'd have to see the look on her baby sister's face. And she knew exactly what look it would be, because she'd seen it on Alan Tracy's face every day for the past month. “C-can't—”

Arms pulled her forward, turned her, cradled her against warm soft flannel. “Shhhh,” Virgil whispered in her ear—she must’ve made a noise, but she had no idea what it had been. “His heart's still beating, okay, ‘Nusha? You're gonna see him again in a little bit. Focus on that. They'll figure out what's wrong and get him all fixed up. You'll see him soon, and he still loves you. Just keep breathing. It's gonna be okay.”

She was being selfish, she thought dimly. Her father was still alive, at least for now—she should be comforting him. But all she could manage was to wrap her fingers around his arm, and croak out—“Please don’t let me go.”

He didn’t. He kept an arm around her, or a hand on her shoulderblade, for the entire rest of the day—as the others arrived and Grandma took charge, as the specialist explained the surgery, as little Tin-Tin curled into her chest—and only removed it when she had to leave with her stepmother and her sister to the transfer hospital in Sydney, and he had to fly home. 

2065

A side effect of International Rescue’s security requirements, which Kayo suspected was probably intentional: both bases were in areas with extremely low light pollution. Jeff, despite everything, still had a thing for the stars. And so did Kayo, in her way. She was less enthused about the idea of physically exploring them herself—one planet was good enough for her—but they were extremely pretty. 

She lay back on the blanket, as the galaxy swirled above and the fire crackled and the waves washed in a few dozen feet away, and listened to Gordon’s mildly bourbon-fueled rant about blobfish. 

“So what are they supposed to look like, then?” Ridley, who had the advantage of not having heard this particular spiel before, asked curiously. 

“Sad little Eeyore fish,” said Penelope. By Kayo’s count, she’d had at least three glasses of Pernod over the course of the evening. 

“But not blobs,” Gordon repeated emphatically. “It’s so freaking unfair. We pull them out of their natural habitat where they are full of grace and beauty, turn them into a shapeless mess, and then we make fun of them.”

Kayo looked over just in time to see Ridley smirk down at John. “Sounds familiar.”

“Hey,” the astronaut objected half-heartedly. He too was stargazing, head pillowed on an empty carry bag, a couple of feet from Ridley’s thigh. “I at least retain my intended shape at sea level.” His comm buzzed, and he shoved himself up and lifted his arm. “Yes, EOS?”

“Sorry, John—I don’t want to interrupt, but there’s a partially-collapsed bridge in Temuco with seven trapped vehicles, and the GDF won’t be able to get a plane there for at least three hours—”

“We’ll take it in Seven,” Seymour said, standing and exchanging a nod with Chan. 

“I-I’ll come too,” said Brains, offering Chan his hand and helping her to her feet. “To cover c-comms. Let’s go, MAX.”

“You sure?” asked Alan, who had also started to get up. 

“Yeah, it’s cool,” Seymour replied. “Not that we don’t love you guys or anything, but we’re the least invested in the whole ‘family Thanksgiving’ thing.” 

“And we’re also,” Chan said wryly, with a look that may or may not have been directed to Penelope specifically, “the most sober.”

“Oi,” said the lady in question, sounding uncomfortably similar to Parker. 

“Thank you,” Jeff said. He was seated at the edge of the blanket closest to the fire, with his back to it, holding up an ambiguously-conscious Virgil against his right shoulder in a position that couldn’t possibly be comfortable. “Keep us posted.”

Chan sketched a salute, and she, Seymour, and Brains departed up the path to the house, MAX whirring in their wake. 

“You okay there, kiddo?” Grandma asked Jeff. 

“My primary purpose in life is as a pillow for my sons. I’ve come to terms with it.”

“It’s ‘cause you’re so insanely good at it,” said Scott, who happened to be similarly nap-trapped by his wife—though, given that he was on his back and her head was on his chest, in a significantly easier-to-maintain posture. “Seriously, how do you keep still that long?”

“Decades of practice.”

“I’m not, for the record,” mumbled Virgil, “actually asleep.” He opened his eyes and sat up on his own, wincing as he stretched. “Sorry, Dad.”

Jeff massaged his son’s shoulder briefly, then his own. “It’s all right, kiddo. You want to go up to bed?”

Virgil made a face and shook his head. “No. I’m okay.”

Kayo thought absently that it would make a good drinking game: take a shot every time Virgil claims he’s fine, despite all obvious evidence to the contrary. She’d probably make Penny look stone-cold sober by comparison. At least he’d eaten dinner—not nearly as much as he usually would on Thanksgiving—but enough that he was no longer running on empty. 

She sat up, poured a fresh cup of cocoa from the thermos, and passed it silently over to Virgil, and he gave her a grateful glance before taking a sip. 

“So, gimmie the trade secrets.” Tin-Tin poked Scott. “How’d you two finally nail the pie crust? It was delicious.”

“We, uh, didn’t.” Scott’s grip on Di’s back tightened slightly. “Screwed the pastry up again. So we cheated. The finished product is prepackaged cinnamon roll dough.”

“Really?” Jeff asked, startled. “It tasted just like your mom's.” Virgil made a noise between a snort and a scoff. “What’s that face for?”

“That would be because,” Virgil replied, “that’s exactly what she used.”

Grandma’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding. She told me she made it from scratch!”

“Yeah. That’s what she told everyone. Turns out she was pre-making the ‘pastry’—” Air-quotes. “—then swapping it out with the packaged stuff in the fridge when no one was looking. I caught her at it once and she made me promise to keep my mouth shut.”

For a moment, the family sat in flabbergasted silence—then Jeff burst out laughing, and everyone else followed suit.

Scott groaned, patting the back of his newly awakened and very confused wife. “No wonder her ‘recipe’ was impossible to follow.”

“Well, it works,” Kayo said, grinning at Tin-Tin. “You should tell Dad. It’ll drive him crazy.”

“Way ahead of you,” replied Tin-Tin, already typing on her phone. 

Jeff finally recovered just enough to clap Virgil on the shoulder. “That woman. Tell me, young man, what’s your justification for breaking your word to your mother, hmm?”

Virgil shrugged ruefully. “Guess I’m sick of secrets.”

Kayo rolled back onto the rug and looked up at the sky again, line of the Milky Way stretching out over their heads.

She could relate to that. 

Chapter Text

January 4, 2066

“I still think we need additional counsel,” Dianne mumbled, straightening the line of her suit. 

“That’s Virgil’s call,” Scott returned. He was pacing again. So was Kayo, and the Gran Roca lounge wasn’t quite big enough for the two of them—they’d nearly collided twice. “And he trusts you. And so do I.”

Di exhaled shakily. “And if I blow it?”

“It won’t be your fault,” said Jeff, from the couch. “We won’t hold it against you.”

“I didn’t mean—he’ll go to prison if I do this wrong, Scott. Maybe even if I do everything right—”

Scott changed course abruptly—forcing Kayo to swerve—and headed for his wife, wrapping his hands around her shoulders. “I trust you, Simms. Got that?”

“He’s your little brother.”

“And I know that you’ll do everything you possibly can for him. I trust you. Okay?”

She gave a wobbly nod. “Okay.”

Kayo made eye contact with Jeff, then flopped down on the couch next to him, arms almost but not quite touching. 

The past five weeks had been … weird. Operations had continued more or less as usual—except for the fact that Virgil flew a fraction of his typical number of missions, only going out when A) the rescue was on US soil and B) there was no other available pilot for Two; and even then, he stayed in the cockpit. Whether that was a deliberate order from his father, or the result of his own nerves, she hadn’t asked, but she agreed regardless. The last thing they needed was a vigilante wannabe going after him in the field. Press coverage was still a mixed bag, and there was enough open hostility towards IR to seriously raise her security-chief hackles. 

Outside of missions, she, John, and Brains had been focused on gathering data for the legal defence. They’d poured over the mine schematics, all of Five and Two’s scans from the fire, in nauseating detail; and, for the longest time, they hadn’t found anything that would make the defence much easier—oh, they’d safely confirmed that Virgil was telling the truth when he said he only had the two options available, and the mission comms log corroborated his account that the decision was solely his, but that was about it. 

Until last night. 

Her comm, buzzing on her wrist at 2 AM, had pulled her out of an uncomfortable half-sleep. She’d shoved herself into a sitting position and stared at it, blearily—then loaded the data her father had sent her into John’s sim program. 

And then she’d watched it loop, over and over, six or seven times before she turned it off—and sent a thank you text—and laid back down in her bed, any hope of rest gone. 

They couldn’t use it. There was no way her father had obtained it legitimately. It wasn’t admissible. 

Yet. 

The sound of a familiar footstep in the hall jolted her back to the present, and, a moment later, Virgil appeared in the doorway, in dress pants and a dark blue button-up. “I’m ready.”

Dianne grimaced, not unkindly. “You should probably wear the suit jacket.”

“Do I have to?” He fiddled with his collar. “I already don’t feel like me.”

“The jury will be able to tell if he’s uncomfortable,” Kayo said to Di. “And anything we can do to not make him look like a spoiled rich kid is probably in our favour.”

“… fair point. Okay, skip the jacket.”

Jeff stood. “The others are in the hangar already, so let’s get moving.” He placed a hand on Virgil’s shoulder, briefly but firmly. “We’re right with you, son.” 

“Thank you.” Virgil visibly steeled himself, taking a slow, measured breath. “Okay. Let’s go.”

2055

The helipad at the Tracy Aeronautics Los Angeles offices wasn't big enough for Thunderbird Two, but neither Virgil nor Kayo considered that a significant impediment. Rappelling onto the roof was quicker than landing, anyway. 

Virgil was down first, sprinting for the doorway that led to the exec floor; Kayo was only a second behind him. They bolted down the stairs (only one flight, faster than the elevator), past the startled admin team, and down the hall—until finally Virgil shoved the door of the CEO’s office open with significantly more speed than dignity. 

“Hey,” said Gordon haughtily. “Knock next time? Sometimes there are important meetings in here.”

Scott, in civilian clothes, was sitting on the floor, back propped against the side of his desk, second-youngest brother crouched at his side. He raised a hand, one dimple deepening. “I’m fine.”

Kayo let out the breath she'd been holding for the past ten minutes. The effect of hearing John say the words Scott collapsed over the comms could only be counteracted by direct physical evidence that he was okay—the subsequent positive update had done nothing for her heartrate. 

“I’ll let the medscanner be the judge of that,” Virgil said firmly, dropping to his knees at Scott’s other side and pulling out the equipment in question. “Gordon, what happened?”

“We were talking, and then out of nowhere he just keeled over.” Gordon was managing a pretty good impersonation of casualness, but there was a lingering look in his eyes that Kayo didn’t like one bit. “Fortunately for his pretty face, I have cat-like reflexes.”

“How long was he out?” Virgil asked, shining a tiny flashlight in each of Scott’s eyes, ignoring the muttered protest. 

“Less than a minute, but he’s still kinda groggy.”

“Has he shown any other symptoms?”

“You going to keep talking about me like I’m not here?” asked Scott, somewhat testily. “I’m fine. I just haven’t had an actual meal in a while, that’s all.”

“Hand,” Virgil ordered, and Scott reluctantly let him prick his finger with the monitor. “How long’s a ‘while’?”

“Umm.” Scott cringed. “Before I answer, can I get a guarantee that this whole thing doesn’t make it back to Grandma?”

“Definitely not,” said Kayo. 

“Worth a shot.”

The scanner beeped, and Virgil examined the readout, jaw slackening. “Scooter. Your blood sugar’s somewhere down in the Mariana Trench. How long is a freaking while?”

Scott mumbled something under his breath. 

“I can’t hear you,” Virgil said through gritted teeth, and Kayo was startled by the level of genuine anger in it. Virgil tended to be more of the I’m not mad, just disappointed persuasion: it was rare, very rare, for real fury to make an appearance. Especially towards his big brother. 

Scott cleared his throat. “Since Tuesday.”

“You stupid—” Virgil pinched the bridge of his nose. “No. You cannot do this. You cannot scare me like this again. Don’t you dare. Do you understand me? I can’t take it—”

His voice cracked, halted. Kayo stood frozen, an all-too-familiar sharp ache striking beneath her ribcage and curling up her throat.

Scott sat equally still for a moment—then he put his hand on Virgil’s arm and squeezed. “I’m sorry, Virg.”

Virgil swallowed, then lowered his hand and gripped Scott’s. “Apologise to Gordon. He’s the one who had to deal with your crap.”

“He already has,” put in Gordon. “Just, you know, for the record.”

“He better have,” Virgil said darkly; then his tone softened. “Headache?”

“Pounding,” Scott admitted. 

“Let’s get you comfy, then. Gordon, take his other side—”

Possibly the most alarming thing about the entire situation was that Scott let his little brothers support him over to the couch, and made zero objection as Virgil guided him into a horizontal position and tucked cushions under his head and feet. “There you go. Okay. We need to find you some food.”

Gordon nodded. “Already on it. The new girl—the one who called in to John—went to get some. We do have these crackers, but they taste like peeling wallpaper.”

“New girl?” repeated Kayo, frowning. The long-standing rule had been that anyone in regular close contact with Jeff—update to Scott, as of a couple of months ago—had to be vetted by her father—update that to her, now—and she hadn’t had a report of any new staff starting on the exec floor. 

“Student intern,” said Scott with a vague wave. “Her name’s Dianne Simms. Nicole’s on sick leave, so she’s picking up the slack.”

“Has she been security cleared?”

Scott rolled his eyes. “Ah, yes, because the tiny British girl’s gonna shank me with a ballpoint pen. Relax, it’s fine.”

Kayo sighed and pulled up the background check system on her comm. “Not your call to make, Scott. Especially since I’m not sure you actually know the meaning of the word ‘fine’.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re just a smidge paranoid?” said Gordon, laughing. 

“In my job, that’s a compli—”

Someone rapped on the door, and Kayo cut herself off, switching off the holo—presumably, this was Dianne Simms bringing the food, and openly researching the intern to her face would be downright stupid if she was a threat (and just plain rude if she wasn't).

Sure enough, a second later, it opened, and a young redheaded woman came through, a takeaway box in one hand and a smoothie in the other. She paused as she noticed Virgil and Kayo, halting mid-stride. “Hello.”

Scott pushed himself up on one elbow, gesturing. “Simms—this is my brother Virgil, smother hen medic—and Tanusha here is our security chief—but call her Kayo, unless you want her to live up to the nickname.”

“Nice to meet you.” She finished her approach and handed the smoothie to Scott, who sipped it cautiously, then passed the box to Virgil. “I got a Reuben and a salad. Hope that’s all right?”

“Perfect,” said Virgil. “Thank you.” 

He turned back to the couch and started to try to help Scott sit up, but Scott shoved him away with a roll of his eyes and swung his legs off the couch. “I’m—”

“Fine,” Virgil finished. “Yeah. I heard you the first time. I’ll believe it when I see you finish this sandwich and not before. Drink your smoothie. But not too fast, or you’ll just puke it all back up again.” 

“FAB,” Scott said dryly, leaning back and taking a distinctly passive-aggressive slurp. “Thanks, Simms.”

“Wasn’t exactly arduous. But you’re welcome.” She watched Scott for a moment, then waved and turned back to the door. “I’ll get out of your hair. Hope you feel better soon.”

Kayo hesitated for a moment—then followed the other woman out the door, halting her with a call of “Excuse me—Dianne?”

She turned. “Yes?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but—” How on earth did her father do this without freaking people out? “I, ah, need a DNA sample.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Kayo cleared her throat. “All staff in regular proximity to the Tracy family need a full background check. Including DNA confirmation.”

Amusement lurked in Dianne’s eyes. “In case I’m secretly a pod person?”

“Something like that.”

“Oooookay. How does this, uh, work? Do you want hair, or … eww, please don’t say fingernails.”

“Hair is fine.”

“That’s a relief.” Dianne checked her shoulder, plucked a few shed hairs off it, and obediently inserted them into the evidence bag Kayo held out. “Anything else you need? Fingerprints, social security number, name of first pet? I think my parents probably still have my kindergarten grades somewhere. Oh—I stole a piece of candy from my preschool teacher’s snack bowl once—do you think that’ll show up on a search?”

Kayo eyed her sternly, torn between annoyance at the mockery and the impulse to admit that yeah, it did feel ridiculous. But, as Alan would say, it’s only paranoia if they’re not out to get you—and her father had told her way more than she was willing to repeat to Scott about the threats that International Rescue was facing. The shorter woman was far from threatening, but that could easily be an illusion. “Just doing my job.”

Dianne sighed. “Fair enough. I’m sorry.” She looked past Kayo’s shoulder for a moment, to the opaque glass door. “I’m glad he has people in his corner. Precious few of them in this building, at the moment.”

Kayo paused, halfway through tucking the bag into a belt compartment. “What do you mean?”

The other woman shrugged awkwardly, lowering her voice further. “I haven’t seen much, to be clear. Just a few meetings, over the past few weeks. But there’s a significant number of senior executives who are not happy with the line of succession, or with the fact that he’s continuing to operate IR.”

“Give me names.”

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble—”

“Give. Me. Names.”

Dianne’s lip quirked. “You’re terrifying. I’ll send you a list. Kayo, right?”

“Yeah. Thank you, Dianne.”

“Not a problem. And call me Di. Most people do.”

2066

“Good morning.” The prosecutor stepped in front of the jury box, hands folded in front of him. “My name is Aguta Williams, and I'm a deputy district attorney for the state of Alaska and municipality of Anchorage.”

Kayo, seated with the Tracy family, pressed her nails into her palm. She'd tried desperately to get dirt on Williams, but with no luck: he was a lifetime Alaska resident, orphan of drug-addicted parents, bounced around the foster system as a child; but as an adult had a clean record, three overachieving kids, and a freakishly high conviction rate. Stupid pillar of the community. Why he had it in for International Rescue was hard to fathom. She assumed he was being bought—blackmail seemed improbable, given that she couldn't find anything, but maybe this was baby's first bribe. 

Or maybe he was absolutely sincere in the belief that Virgil Tracy deserved prison: zero corruption, just a crusader. Somehow, that was worse. 

“You're all familiar with International Rescue, of course,” he continued. “One of the planet’s most notable philanthropic organisations. And that's admirable. But they've gone too far, flown too close to the proverbial sun: a group of wealthy, privileged individuals have now set themselves up as the arbiter of who deserves to live or die.” 

He paused, presumably for theatrical effect. “On the eighteenth of November last year, Virgil Tracy flew to the Rosewell Copper Mine, about 200 miles—” He gestured. “—north of here, to attend a tunnel fire, in response to a distress call from a group of miners, three men and two women, cut off from the surface by the flames. They weren't supposed to be down there, that day—the mine was closed for routine checks and repairs—but they'd missed quota the previous day, and were working an unscheduled shift to catch up.

“Thomas Blackton, an maintenance engineer, was also at Rosewell that day—he’d managed to save himself from the fire by sealing himself into the emergency ventilation system. Had events continued without outside intervention, he could have survived there until the fire burned itself out.”

The jury, Kayo thought dolefully, were eating this up. Dianne had flatly refused to let her anywhere near jury selection, on the grounds that she didn't trust her not to do something questionably legal—and honestly, fair—so all she knew about the group in the box was that they'd passed the major bias check: no former rescuees or relatives of them. A double-edged sword, that one—no one who owed them a debt of gratitude, but also no one who’d lost a loved one and might be holding a grudge. But regardless of their identities or backgrounds, they were all locked in on Williams, with not nearly as much scepticism as Kayo would've liked. 

Alan was sitting next to her again; and she felt him take a shaky breath; so she took his hand and held it, for her own comfort as much as his. 

“But the defendant—” Williams gestured to the opposite table—she couldn't see Virgil's expression, not from behind—“chose to prioritise those who had called him to the scene, disregarding the safety of anyone else present. Despite the fact that he had no evidence that the miners were still alive—and, in fact, had strong reason to believe the contrary—he used the mine’s external system controls to redirect the fire into the ventilation system, in order to free up his access to the lower tunnels—deliberately and knowingly causing the death of Tom Blackton.”

Williams took a step back, glanced at the judge, then back to the jury. “We could argue until the cows come home about trolley problems and ethical priorities—but, ultimately, I trust you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, to see past any smokescreens and ensure that true justice is done. Thank you.”

And he retreated to his seat. 

“That was fast,” Gordon murmured, on the other side of Alan. “Are opening statements usually that quick?”

Kayo shook her head. “Not that I’ve seen.”

“It was bullcrap, is what it was,” said Alan, a little too loudly, and she gripped his hand with a warning look.

Dianne stood, straightened her jacket, touched Virgil’s shoulder briefly, then strode over to the jury box. “Good morning, and thank you for your service here.” Kayo could hear the nerves in her voice, but it was only the faintest wobble—she doubted anyone outside the family would clock it. “My name is Dianne Tracy, and I’m representing Virgil Tracy in this case. And if you’re thinking that the fact that I’m married to his older brother makes me biased—well, you’re right.”

A juror or two chuckled, and a few more cracked smiles. Promising.

“But,” she continued, “I consider myself lucky to be biased—to be able to count Virgil as part of my family. Because he’s that precious rare thing for a lawyer: a client who is also a good man. I don’t think he’s got a selfish bone in his body. 

“No one is denying, least of all my client, that he pressed the button that caused the death of Tom Blackton.” She paused and looked significantly towards the prosecutor's desk. “But the state has decided to call that murder—not just killing, murder, in the first degree—the wilful, premeditated, deliberate destruction of a human life. And what Virgil Tracy did that day was anything but wilful and premeditated—and while it wasn’t an accident, it was a decision made in an attempt to preserve as many lives as possible in a desperate situation. Over the course of this case, we will show you every detail of what happened that day—and, as you look at the evidence, ladies and gentlemen, put yourself in his shoes. What would you have done, given two impossible choices?”

She continued for a few more minutes, pacing slowly in front of the jury box—laid out the broad strokes details of the situation and the groundwork for the defence-of-third-party case—then closed with:

“The law of the state of Alaska recognises that, in certain circumstances, a criminal act—even a homicide—can be considered legally justified if it was essential in the service of preventing greater harm. Situations like this are exactly why that law exists.”

Di stopped pacing, faced the jury head-on. “Tom Blackton didn’t deserve to die. But neither did Emma Miller, or Liam Davis, or Livvy Johnson, or Noah Wells, or Jacob Smith. And Virgil Tracy does not deserve to spend the rest of his life in prison for trying to save as many of those six people as he could. Just because he failed doesn’t mean he was wrong—that it was murder—for him to try.”

A few members of the jury had pretty good poker faces. But most didn't, and Kayo had no trouble seeing which ones were, at least for now, sympathetic—probably about half—and which ones were on the fence. Not the best initial odds she'd ever seen, but could've been much worse. 

Di sat back down, next to Virgil; and he squeezed her shoulder. The judge cleared her throat. “Mr Williams, you may call your first witness.”

Chapter Text

“So ‘ow are we playing this one, Miss Kayo?” Parker reached into the trunk of FAB1 and pulled out his favourite crowbar. “A little good h’old fashioned bacon and eggs?”

Penelope pushed the tip of the crowbar gently downward with a gloved fingertip. “I rather think we ought to do things legally this time, Parker, dear. At least ostensibly so.”

“Very well.” He sighed. “Waste of an old man’s talents. I'll wait h’in the car, then, shall I, mi’lady?”

“So will I.” Penelope looked to Kayo. “Unless you want me to be more than transport?”

Kayo shook her head. “Only if I end up needing a distraction. You’re too recognisable. And you’ve been involved with too many missions—and photographed with Gordon too many times—for anyone to believe us when we say you’re not on IR’s payroll.”

“I’m not on the payroll. But I do see your point.” Penelope half-smiled mirthlessly. “Good luck.”

“Keep the heating running.” Kayo pulled her coat tighter around her—seriously, she'd assumed Alaska in January would be cold, but this was something else—and started off down the curb, round the corner and towards the Rosewell Mining Company’s offices. 

She and Penelope had snuck out of court shortly after the opening statements—the prosecution’s first couple of witnesses were just APD officers confirming details they already knew, anyway—and driven across the Anchorage CBD to Rosewell Mining’s head offices. 

She hadn’t told Penny why. She hadn’t had to. That was one of her favourite things about the Englishwoman: once you were one of her people, you had her unquestioning trust. Ride or die, as Gordon would put it. If Kayo had asked her to do something illegal to help Virgil, she’d’ve done it without hesitation. 

But Penelope was right—this was a situation that demanded total legality, at least in the letter. For her to use the information her father had sent her the night before, they either had to convince the prosecution to hand it over in discovery—fat chance of that—or get Rosewell to hand it over willingly, without outright lying to them in the process. Meaning the majority of Kayo’s usual skillset was, much like Parker’s, firmly off-limits. But it could still be done. It had to be done. 

She trotted up the steps and through the revolving door, into the reception, sighing in relief at warmth—then hurried up to the reception desk, plastering on a smile. “Excuse me?” The woman at the desk stopped typing and looked up. “I’ve just come over from the courthouse—I’m supposed to be picking up some records for the Tracy case?”

“All relevant data has already been supplied to the Anchorage Police Department,” she replied blandly, gaze returning to her monitor. 

“I know, but one of the files was messed up—we need a new copy.”

“Which file?”

“One of the personnel location trackers, I think?” Kayo ‘checked’ her phone. “Yeah. Number 10642.”

The receptionist looked up, eyebrows lifting. “Nice try. I’m not stupid, Miss International Rescue. You do realise we have security cameras on the whole block? Your Barbiemobile isn’t exactly inconspicuous.” Kayo’s stomach dropped, but she wasn’t finished. “So your plan was to waltz in here, ask me to hand over confidential company data without authorisation, go off on your merry way, and then I’d … what? Get fired? Maybe sued? I’m not interested in being collateral damage so your buddy can get away with murder.” She resumed typing with an eyeroll. “I thought you claimed to be the good guys.”

Kayo swallowed, an uncomfortable nugget of guilt twisting in her gut. The woman had a point. She hadn’t thought about the consequences—not for anyone other than Virgil, anyway. “I’m sorry.”

“Would be nice if you meant it.”

“I do mean it.” She leaned forward, aware that she sounded desperate, but not much caring. “He’s my friend. He didn’t want to hurt anybody, much less … if he could have saved Tom, he would. Heck, if he could have switched places with Tom, he would. I have to help him. He doesn’t deserve this.”

“And my kids don’t deserve to starve.” The receptionist hit a final button with a flourish, then sat back and sighed. “Look, for whatever it’s worth, I don’t hate you guys for what happened. Liv Johnson was a friend of mine. I appreciate the attempt to save her. But that doesn’t mean you’re above the law.” She shrugged. “And I can’t give you anything.”

Kayo nodded, reluctantly, and retreated; the icy air biting into her eyes as she stepped back out into the street. 

“That doesn’t look like the expression one wears after a successful mission,” Penelope observed as she climbed back into FAB1 and settled back into the seat. 

Kayo pulled off her gloves and rubbed her frozen face. “They recognised the car. I should’ve known they’d have a broad camera perimeter.”

Penelope sighed. “So should I. I’m so sorry. I’ll have a word with Brains, see what we can do about that in future.”

“He might be able to shrink Shadow’s cloaking tech. Or put a photon scrambler on it for cameras.” Kayo tugged her legs up and held her knees. There was no point in letting Parker off the leash, or in breaking in herself—they already had the data illegally. She’d blown their shot. Stupid. Stupid.

“H’or, mi’lady—’ear me out—” Parker said from the driver’s seat. “The car doesn’t ‘ave to be pink.”

“Parker!” Penelope gasped. “I will pretend I didn’t hear that, on the grounds that this is a stressful situation and you’re clearly not in full possession of your faculties.” She turned back to Kayo. “I truly am sorry. What now?”

Kayo didn’t reply. If she couldn’t get the data from Rosewell the only option was to ask the prosecution directly. Insane, on the face of it. But petitioning the judge for it might work. But that’d also require explaining what she just pulled to Di, and she would not be happy about it.

And neither would Virgil, she thought, chewing her lower lip.  

2058

“I’m only going as security, Penny. This really isn’t necessary.”

“You, of all people, should know that the best security blends in.” Penelope lifted the dress and wiggled it, presumably in what she thought was an enticing manner. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to deprive me of my justification for an afternoon on Rodeo Drive, would you?” 

The guest bedroom of the penthouse apartment at Tracy Aeronautics HQ had been turned into a makeshift party-prep zone: initially, purely for Penelope’s benefit. But then she’d dragged Kayo in and insisted on putting up her hair in a chignon—and now on gifting her a dress. 

It was the first time Kayo had ever been to the big annual shareholders bash—they’d always relied on the company security, and it really wasn’t her scene—but after an ‘incident’ last year, they’d agreed that an extra pair of friendly eyes wouldn’t hurt. But being Scott’s bodyguard for the evening didn’t mean she had to get all dolled up, for crying out loud. 

“You could’ve just shopped for yourself.”

“This was much more fun.”

“How did you even get my measurements?”

“Brains,” she said, as if it was obvious, then elaborated as Kayo continued to glare at her. “From your flightsuit.”

Oh. Duh. “Stalker.”

“Thank you. At least try it on?”

“Fine.” Kayo grabbed the hangar. “Shoo.”

Penelope smirked triumphantly and made her exit with a swirl of her own silver skirts; and Kayo, grumbling under her breath, pulled off her jeans and t-shirt and wriggled into the avocado monstrosity, then marched over to the full-length mirror to glare at her reflection. 

And froze. 

Then twisted, experimentally, checking the angles, watching light shimmer on silk. 

She’d never been a ballgown kind of girl. But Penelope had, somehow, nailed it. The bodice left one shoulder bare, skimmed close-fitted but breathable to her waist, then flared out in a fishtail that almost brushed the ground at the back but left her lower legs free to move in the front. No stupid flappy sleeves or tight skirts to get in the way. She’d be able to run and fight in it, if necessary—

—and it looked fantastic. 

She ought to still refuse, on principle. She was meant to be security, not a guest—but her traitorous brain jumped, unbidden, straight to the fact that Scott would see her in this. All evening. 

There was no saying no after that. 

She emerged, sheepishly, into the apartment’s lounge a few minutes later, also wearing the gold threader earrings and arm cuff that Penelope had strategically left on the bed (but not the heels—wedges or not, she drew the line there—ballet flats were fine, thank you). 

“Woah.” Gordon, sideways on the couch, spun around with his jaw theatrically lowered. Virgil, next to him, glanced up briefly from his sketchpad, then did a double-take. “Kayo owns a dress?!”

“It’s Penelope’s,” she mumbled.

“It’s yours now,” Penelope replied cheerfully, standing and examining Kayo’s hair. She shifted a bobby pin by what felt like millimetres, then nodded. “You look beautiful. We’re going to need security for you.”

Kayo scowled at her. Very half-heartedly. 

“Well, that’s three out of four ready.” Gordon stood and shrugged on his suit jacket, which had been resting on the arm of the sofa. “You sure you don’t want to come down, Vee?”

“Very sure.” Virgil held up his pencil with a grimace. “I’ll stick to designated pilot, thanks. I can keep myself entertained for one evening.”

“You’re so lame.” Gordon raised his voice. “Scooter! Hurry up! We’re already late!”

“It’s our party,” Scott said, emerging from his room, adjusting his cufflinks. “We can’t be late, by definition.” He glanced briefly and incuriously in Kayo and Penelope’s direction. “Everyone ready?”

“Yep,” said Kayo, trying to ignore the lurch of disappointment in the pit of her stomach. 

“Great.” A knock on the door sounded through the apartment, and he headed for it. “Perfect timing. It’s unlocked!”

Dianne, Scott’s executive assistant, entered with a sigh, clad in a navy dress that looked like it had stepped straight out of a century-old Vogue catalogue. “It really shouldn’t be.”

The more sensible half of Kayo’s brain thoroughly agreed with her. The less sensible half was fixated on the way the eldest Tracy brother’s eyes went straight to the redheaded woman. And lingered there. 

Why the heck had she bothered? Far as Scott Tracy was concerned, Tanusha Kyrano might as well be his literal sister. Or a lamppost. 

“Oh, come on,” the man in question was saying—and at least now he looked at her, but with an exasperated eyeroll. “You’re all becoming cynical paranoiacs. Like anyone’s going to throw soup at me two years running.”

“I volunteer to prove him wrong,” said Gordon. “Actually, no, it’d be better to do it to Lady P. She couldn’t kick my ass afterwards.”

Penelope raised an eyebrow at him. “Would you care to make that a wager, Gordon?”

The bickering continued as they all headed out the door, Kayo bringing up the rear; and she was about to pull it shut behind her when Virgil called out “Hey, ‘Nusha?”

She paused. “Yeah?”

He smiled crookedly. “You look great.”

“Thank you,” she replied quietly. “Have a good evening, Virgil.”

“You too.”

2066

When Kayo slipped back into the courtroom, Di was cross-examining a witness—Felix Markham, the Chief Operating Officer of Rosewell Mining—and most of the family had vanished: only Jeff, Grandma, and John were still in the spectator gallery. Kayo slid onto the bench next to John. He gave her a look that clearly translated to Where have you been?, and she shook her head. 

“Later,” she whispered. He grimaced, but didn’t argue. “Where is everyone?”

“Earthquake-tsunami double feature in Antigua. Seymour’s on comms, so Dad and I stayed.”

Kayo wondered how the jury had reacted to the whole team bolting out. Hopefully it was a good look. “Should I go too?”

He shook his head. “There’s already five ‘birds on site. Keep Shadow in reserve.”

“FAB.” She turned her attention back to the front of the room. Di had decided early on in the development of their case that their best bet for a necessity defence was to make the company look as unsympathetic as possible; right now, she seemed to be hitting the COO with the whole there weren’t supposed to be any miners in there in the first place thing. 

“The facility was behind quota for the month,” Markham was saying. “I can hardly fault my late employees for taking initiative.”

“I intend no criticism of their work ethic. But could you fault Rosewell Mining for setting such impossibly high quotas that they couldn’t reasonably meet them within scheduled operational hours?”

“Objection, Your Honour,” said Williams. Did the man ever not sound bored out of his mind? “Mr Markham and Rosewell Mining are not on trial, for negligence or for any other offence.”

“Withdrawn,” Di said, before Judge Henderson could reprimand her. But the bell had been rung, Kayo thought, with a vicious satisfaction: you could order the jury to disregard all you liked, but they couldn’t unhear the accusation. An oldie, as courtroom tricks went, but a goodie. As long as you didn’t overdo it. “To clarify, Mr Markham—the tunneler crew needed to work additional hours to meet quota. If they didn’t meet quota, they didn’t get paid. Correct?”

Markham shifted slightly. “They would receive their base rate salary. They would not receive their performance bonus.”

“Let the record show,” said Di, glancing at the tablet in her hand, “that the base rate salary for a miner at Rosewell facilities is $4.79 per hour. Salaries are structured with the assumption of a performance bonus in order to meet the minimum wage. But let’s leave that aside for a moment. If a crew doesn’t make quota and wishes to work additional hours so that they qualify for the bonus, can they request permission to do so?”

“They can.”

“And did any of the five crew members of the tunneler ask for permission in this instance?”

“They did not.”

“Mr Markham—in the past two years of operations at this particular copper mine, how many requests for additional hours have been granted?”

“I would have to ask my staff.”

“I’ll spare you the trouble. The answer is none. So one can easily understand why the crew didn’t bother to ask permission to ensure they got their paychecks: they knew they wouldn’t receive it.” 

Kayo half-expected Williams to object again. He did not. 

“I’ve received no complaints,” Markham said, practically through gritted teeth. “I pay my staff a fair wage for the job done.”

Kayo couldn’t see Di’s face as the lawyer glanced towards the jury box, but she could imagine the expression easily enough. “So fair, Mr Markham, that five of your employees snuck into a mine closed for maintenance in order to ensure they got paid enough to cover their rent, and ended up losing their lives instead.”

“Objection,” sighed Williams. “Not a question.”

“Your Honour,” said Di. “It speaks to our necessity defence. There would have been no reason to interfere with the fire’s natural spread if the tunneler crew hadn’t been present, and they wouldn’t have been present if Rosewell’s labour practices hadn’t caused them to be.”

“I’ll allow it,” replied Henderson. “But remember the purpose of this trial, Ms Tracy. Don’t try to do the union’s job for them.” She looked up at the clock on the wall. “Do you have any further questions for the witness?”

“No, Your Honour.”

“Then you are dismissed, Mr Markham. Thank you for your time. Let’s call it an afternoon and reconvene at 9 AM tomorrow morning.”

Di rejoined Virgil, and they came back towards the viewing area. Kayo and the rest of the Tracys stood and moved forward to join them; but, before they came through the gate, Aguta Williams stepped over to them. “Ms Tracy, a moment?”

Kayo stepped forward reflexively, and stopped herself immediately—there was obviously no physical threat. What was wrong with her today? She could not afford to be this off her game, not now—

“Counsellor?” Di replied coolly. 

“It’s been brought to my attention that a representative of International Rescue has made a request directly to Rosewell Mining for additional documentation.”

Crap.  

Dianne’s eyes flew swiftly to Kayo; but her neutral expression, thankfully, didn’t crack. “We have the right to conduct an independent investigation, Mr Williams.”

“But not to circumvent the discovery process. I would very much appreciate it if, for the sake of the integrity of the case, any future requests could be made through my office.”

“Of course,” Di said smoothly. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Not right this moment, no. Good evening.” 

Williams nodded to both Di and Virgil, then strode past them and out of the courtroom. Kayo braced herself as Di came down the aisle—and, sure enough, as she came within earshot, she hissed “You have got to tell me this stuff!”

“Sorry,” Kayo muttered back, cringing slightly under Jeff's raised eyebrow. “Was working under the ‘forgiveness rather than permission’ principle. I promise, it was all legal. Just not, you know, successful.”

Di sighed. “I believe you. But we have to communicate, all of us, or we're going to end up tripping over each other. Please don't go behind my back.”

Kayo nodded reluctantly—she wasn’t over-fond of making promises she had no intention of keeping—then turned to Virgil. “You okay?”

“I have no idea. I spent the entire day working on a sonata in my head.”

“That's healthy,” mumbled Grandma. 

“Don't underestimate the power of disassociation,” John said wryly. “Amazing what you can get done.”

“How are things in Antigua?” Di asked. 

Jeff checked his comm. “Everyone's fine. But they'll be at it for a while.” He slung his arm over Virgil's shoulders. “May as well wait for them at home.”

“FAB.”

Chapter Text

Imogen Brooks-Kyrano had first taught her daughter to make tea when she was two years old. She’d sat her on the counter and talked her quietly through the process: leaves, water temperature, steeping time, strainer technique. Tanusha had probably, in hindsight, understood very little of it. But it was still her first memory—placing a tiny hand alongside her mother’s on the handle and believing she was helping to pour. 

Twenty-eight years later, the process still seemed to hold a certain magic. 

She placed the pot on a trivet, picked up the cup, and took a sip. The sun was gone, now, replaced by a curtain of stars; but the only occupants of Gran Roca base were the same group that had left the courtroom together a few hours earlier. Based on what Seymour had said, it looked like the quake cleanup in the Caribbean was going to be an all-nighter. John had headed to the hangar lab; and Virgil, Grandma, and Di had just gone up to bed (though, she suspected, not to sleep). Only Kayo and Jeff were downstairs still: the latter had gone out on the porch as the others had disappeared upstairs. 

Carrying the mug carefully—she’d managed to overfill it, typical—she walked through the hall and joined him, opening the screen door and stepping out into darkness. 

Jeff was on the swing chair, elbows on his knees, half-empty coffee cup held loosely in both hands. He didn’t acknowledge her as she first sat down next to him; but, after a minute or so, he said, abruptly: “I had the most awful thought in court this morning.”

Kayo remained silent. 

“I—” He massaged his forehead with one hand. “I actually found myself thinking, just for a second, that I was glad Lucille’s dead—so she didn’t have to live through this.” He chuckled shakily, mirthlessly, then drained his mug. 

“It’s just a thought.” Kayo sipped her own drink. “It doesn’t mean you mean it.”

“No. I guess not.” He reached down and put the mug on the floor, then leaned back into the chair and crossed his arms. “She wouldn’t’ve blamed him. She didn’t blame me.” He breathed out slowly. “I was a terrible husband, Tanusha.”

“I don’t believe you. The boys wouldn’t love you so much if that were true.”

His face was mostly in shadow, but she could see one side of his mouth shift up. “Oh, I had my moments. Sure, I was an affectionate father, and an attentive husband—when I was home. I was just never home.” He swallowed. “I spent so long sitting on a giant ice cube billions of miles away and all I could think about was how much time I’d wasted. How much I wanted to step back through the years, play with my babies, hold my wife—”

His voice shook, halted, then regathered strength. “She was so, so unbelievably forgiving. Not just of the neglect, of—of what I did. During the Conflict. I’ve never been able to forgive myself, but—she could.”

Kayo looked down at her cup. “I—” She bit her lip, considering. “I don’t know if I’ve ever killed anyone. I’ve never intended to, and I don’t have any proof I have. But I don’t have any proof I haven’t, either; and sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder about the maybes. And what happens if I ever have to consciously cross that line.”

“It’s … not a good feeling. I’d hoped—I’d promised myself that my family would never have to understand it.” 

“That’s not really something you get to control.”

“Apparently not.” He sighed. “When they were small, we used to joke that Virgil got all the Lucille, and Scott got all the me. But lately—past few years, sometimes I wonder if it’s the other way ‘round.”

“I wish I’d gotten to meet her.”

“She would’ve loved you. She always wanted a girl. Honestly? If she’d lived, we probably would’ve made at least one more attempt at one. Sheer bloody-minded optimism.” A quiet chuckle. “Well. I say ‘attempt’. Probably would've been another whoops. Virgil was the only one of the five that was actually planned.”

Kayo snorted. “Wow.”

“Yeah. We weren’t great at, uh, connecting actions with consequences.”

“No kidding.”

“They were adorable little accidents, though. Didn’t really help with the motivation to avoid them.”

She took another gulp of her tea. “Was there ever … anyone else? Before or after?”

He shook his head. “No. No, I—before Mars, I dated, of course, but never got serious. Thought it’d be a distraction. And then I got back, and I met Luce, and that was it. I could never even see anyone else ever again. Fell hard, fast, and forever.”

She looked out at empty desert and full sky and wondered what that would feel like. To love someone so completely, so unwaveringly, that death itself was irrelevant. 

“That’s not, to be clear,” he added, hastily, “a criticism of your father. We’re very different men.”

She didn’t reply.

The door creaked behind them, interrupting the silence, and John stepped out. “So, good news and bad news.”

Jeff sighed. “Spit it out.”

“Casualties are lower than initial estimates. Scott and Gordon found a dozen sheltered under an overpass that were presumed dead.”

“Nice,” said Kayo. 

Jeff nodded, expression not relaxing. “And the bad part?”

“There are looters all over the city. GDF’s on it, but that means they’re not helping with the rescue efforts. It’ll be hours yet.”

Kayo sat back in the chair with a groan. “Why. Why on earth would you decide to take advantage of a situation like that?”

“Don’t ask me,” said Jeff. “I’ve given up on trying to understand the pointlessly destructive.”

Kayo swallowed the rest of her cooling tea. They might not be able to understand the thought processes, get inside the heads of those who would choose chaos. 

But she knew exactly who could.

2060

“So I was talking to Brains.” 

Virgil didn't look up from the canvas. He had it on the ground—on the floor by the windows, atop a dust sheet—instead of on an easel: he sat on his knees leaning over it, propped with one hand, brush in the other carefully tracing a line. “Mmm?”

“He says Two’s going to need a full fuselage refurb and reinforcement. There's micro-fractures everywhere. Turns out you're not supposed to land entire passenger liners with the magnet clamps.”

“He mentioned that, yeah.”

Kayo sat down next to him, in amongst the general detritus of art supplies, and watched the quiet focus in his expression as brush crossed canvas. “Thank you.”

“You've mentioned that too.” He glanced up briefly, smirking, then looked back down. “Don't get a big head over it. There were hundreds of people on that plane. You're not that special.”

She huffed a silent laugh and tried to get a look at what he was painting. Hard to see for sure, with his body shielding so much of it, but it looked like an aerial view of the island, green and gold-grey against vivid blue. “What's this for?”

“Does it need to be for anything?”

“I suppose not.” 

She'd ended up half on a sketchbook when she sat down, and the ring-binding was digging uncomfortably into her leg. She tugged it out and flipped through it idly. It was like all Virgil's other sketchbooks, a haphazard mixture of mediums and subjects—charcoal, landscapes, pencils, pastels, the Thunderbirds, people—in varying stages of completion. Occasionally, there were the tell-tale traces of scrap paper still clinging to the rings where he'd torn out a page. 

There weren't any of her. She'd noticed that a while ago, in his previous books. Oh, occasionally, if he did a sketch of a group, she'd be in it. But there were messy little studies all through his books of everyone else: his brothers, Grandma, his father—one she assumed was of his mother, but it was difficult to tell since it was half-scribbled out—Brains, MAX, even Lady Penelope and Parker. None of her. Never of her. 

She'd shoved it out of mind at the time. Didn't need another insecurity to dwell on. But now, her uncle’s voice fresh in her mind and the unbearable weight of the secret pressing on her chest, she couldn't swallow it back. 

“Why don't you draw me?”

He paused mid-brushstroke, just for a moment, then resumed. “I draw you.”

“Not nearly as much as anyone else.”

“Your eyes are really hard to get right.” He pushed himself up and dropped the brush into the jar of water, then turned his attention to his palette. “I'm too lazy.”

“I suppose I could take that as a compliment.”

“Probably safest for my hide if you do.” He put down the palette and straightened, looking her directly in the face for the first time in the conversation, eyebrows lowered. “You okay?”

“You think I'm not?”

He shrugged. “You've been acting … weird. Past few weeks. Months.”

She almost cleared her throat, and stopped herself just in time. She'd been feeling weird. They were supposed to be free of this. The Hood had vanished for years after the Zero-X. But then, a few months back, Parker had pushed a big red button—because what was the worst that could happen?—and she'd had to call her father and explain why half the Pacific had erupted in earthquakes, and she'd had to listen to him say I see, in that voice—and then she'd had to sit there as he hung up without another word. 

She shared blood with that man. Great Conflict profiteer, international terrorist, murderer of Jeff Tracy, back in their lives. And she couldn't talk to anyone about it, couldn't tell anyone—because she'd promised her dad that she wouldn't. Of course she felt weird. 

But she'd thought she'd been keeping a good lid on it. 

“Weird how?”

He shrugged again. “Restless. Cagier than usual. Unhappy.”

She bit her lip unconsciously. “Guess I'm on edge. There's just been a … lot, lately. But I'm okay.”

“You sure?” One corner of his mouth shifted. “You don't have to hold it together for me, remember?”

“I'm sure. But thank you.”

“‘S what friends are for.” He gestured to the canvas. “Think it needs more green?”

2066

“You’re sure you want to do this, Kayo?”

She nodded. “I’m sure.”

Colonel Casey stepped out of the monocar, and Kayo followed and fell into step beside her. The GDF had decided, in light of events, that space prisons weren’t all they were cracked up to be and had gone with underground instead. There was one tunnel into this base, with one monorail track—one way in and out—with a full network of seismic sensors embedded in the rock in a three mile radius to detect tunnelling. No prisoner was getting out of this.

“For the record,” the colonel said, as they passed the sentries and began to make their way down the empty concrete corridor, “I made it very clear that I was against bringing any criminal charges. The DA’s office made the call.”

“We know that. It’s not your fault.”

“Thank you.” Casey glanced at her sideways. “I haven’t had a subpoena. Do you want me to testify?”

Kayo shook her head. “We talked about it—but you’ve got to maintain impartiality. If you look too friendly to us, you endanger your position, and the last thing we need is you getting the sack. You couldn’t speak to any facts of the case that can’t be established by other means, anyway.”

“Character witness?”

“We’re not exactly hurting for those. It’s not worth the potential damage to your rep.”

“If you say so. But if you need me, give me a call.” She sighed, looking around at the flickering fluorescents. “At least if it comes to the worst, he’ll be in a normal prison.”

Kayo winced.

They reached the cellblock at the far end and Casey stopped in front of a steel door. “At the risk of sounding like a broken record—are you sure you want to be alone with him?”

Kayo silently patted the taser strapped to her belt.

“Okay. Your call.” Casey placed her hand on the scanner, and something clicked deep within the lock. “I’ll be right outside.”

“Thanks.”

The older woman opened the door, and she stepped through—and her first, very incongruous thought, was that this was actually a really nice cell. The lighting was engineered to mimic natural sunlight, the furniture was plushy-looking, there were plenty of books—and clearly a sound system, because there was classical music playing quietly in the background. 

She supposed it made a certain amount of sense: less incentive to escape. Personally, though, she’d’ve preferred chains and a dungeon. 

The man lounging on the sofa didn’t even have the courtesy to look surprised. “My dear niece. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Uncle.” The door clonked shut behind her, and she managed to avoid flinching. “I have a question.”

He sighed wearily. “Surely you and your friends have interrogated me quite enough by now.”

“It’s not about you.”

“Then what possible incentive do I have to answer it?”

“Because you love showing off.”

He leaned forward, steepling his fingers. “I beg your pardon—is Tanusha Kyrano coming to me for help?”

“I am.”

He laughed—and oh, how she hated that sound. “That does sound fun. Very well, you have my attention.”

She stepped forward onto the rug and activated her comm’s holoprojector, bringing up the company data. “Rosewell Mining. Do you know it?”

“That’s your question? Hardly as fascinating as I anticipated.”

She glared at him. 

“Oh, very well. Yes, I’m familiar. Part of my supply network, back in the day, but I dropped them some time ago.” He leaned back again and folded his hands on his chest. “Earthside mining isn’t what it used to be. Too few resources, too many environmental regulations.”

“Do you have any leverage on them?”

His eyebrows went up, then down. “You’re not asking a question. You’re asking a favour.”

Kayo pressed her lips together briefly. “I suppose I am.”

“I stand corrected. That is fascinating.” He chuckled, and she did not like the sound. “I’ve been a little out of the loop, as you may have noticed, but I have an extraordinarily retentive memory. I distinctly recall rumours they were hemorrhaging cash. And some of the things their administration was willing to do to stem the tide. But surely you don’t expect me to entrust you with my precious secrets out of the goodness of my heart?”

“Have you ever done anything out of the goodness of your heart?”

“You’d be surprised, my dear girl. But in this case—no, altruism is insufficient motivation.”

“What is?”

He hesitated—and, if she didn’t know better, she’d’ve thought he looked nervous. “Idrak won’t see me. I want you to make him.”

That was not what she’d expected to hear. 

“You overestimate my influence.”

“I doubt that.” He shifted in his seat. “He’s dying. Isn’t he?”

Kayo forced herself to take a breath—slow, controlled. “What makes you say that?”

“An educated guess, my girl. Which your expression just confirmed.” His lips twisted ruefully. “Certain cardiac conditions are hereditary, especially in the male line. I was fortunate enough to avoid the gene.”

“So you want to, what? Donate your heart? I’d be happy to help you with that, assuming you actually have one.”

He sighed wearily. “No need to lash out. He’s my brother. I merely want to talk.”

“I see.” She folded her arms. “I’ll ask him. But that’s all I can promise.”

“I suppose that’s the most I can expect.” He steepled his fingers. “Rosewell. About five years ago, I noticed their site up near Red Dog was strangely active for an allegedly spent zinc mine, and I made discreet enquiries.”

“Tax dodging by digging off books?”

“Close. Regulation dodging. They’d found uranium.”

Kayo flinched reflexively. “And were selling it on the black market, I assume?”

“Quite reasonably priced. I should have snapped up more of it.”

She grimaced. “So they’re not just crooks, they’re incompetent crooks. How are they still broke if they’ve been offloading uranium for at least half a decade?”

The Hood tutted. “Tanusha. Riches have softened your head.”

“I’m not rich.”

“But you have access to practically unlimited resources, which amounts to the same thing. Wealth is a much stronger motivation to those without it than you give it credit for, niece. Never assume incompetence when malice will do.”

She rubbed her face. “Embezzlement. Of course.” Combine that with the smuggling of restricted atomic material, and the responsible executives would be looking at hefty prison sentences. Now that she knew what to look for, EOS could make short work of tracking down some concrete evidence. Something she could hold over someone with enough power to force the handover of the tracking data they needed. 

“Thank you, Uncle,” she said. “Your devious little brain has been surprisingly helpful.”

“Always glad to be of service to International Rescue.” She could’ve cut the sarcasm with a knife. 

“Don’t try to pretend you didn’t enjoy it.” She turned and headed for the door, but paused as he spoke again. 

“So which one of them is it?”

She turned. “Which one of what?”

“Which one of your precious Tracy boys is in trouble?” He raised a single, smug eyebrow. “You wouldn’t come to me for anything less.”

There was absolutely no way she was giving him the satisfaction. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. This is my investigation alone.”

One of the most disconcerting resemblances between Belah Gaat and Idrak Kyrano was the face they made when they didn’t believe something in the slightest. “Of course. Thank you for the visit, Tanusha. It’s been a pleasure.”

Chapter Text

When Kayo made it back to the ranch, sometime around dawn, and emerged from the tunnel door into the hallway, there were already signs of life in the kitchen—a clash of a pan, a hasty exclamation, a frustrated mutter. Kayo suppressed a smile and headed down the hall, pausing and leaning on the doorway at the entrance. Virgil was on his hands and knees cleaning up a large splash of semi-scrambled eggs. 

“Did you sleep?” she asked, without greeting. 

Virgil glanced up briefly. “About as much as I suspect you did. Where’ve you been?”

“Long story. But it was at least a productive night.” She grabbed a handful of paper towel and joined him, wiping the slop from the tile. “I’ve got something. Some evidence Dad found that’s practically guaranteed to swing the whole jury to your side.”

He eyed her sideways, face impassive. “Is it admissible?”

“No, not unless it comes through discovery. But I’ve also got intel that’ll force them to consider handing it over officially and willingly the lesser of two evils, so it’s just a matter of—what?” 

His eyebrows had drawn together, frown lines forming. “You’re not blackmailing Rosewell. Or anyone else.”

“Vee, you need—”

“No, I don’t. Not at that cost. That’s not who we—we’re better than that, Kayo. You’re better than that.”

She wasn’t at all certain that was true. But the words checked her anyway, her conscience belatedly asserting itself—as usual, with Virgil’s voice. 

But she could save him. Surely that was worth a little compromise?

She pushed herself to her feet and tossed the soiled paper into the trash. “I’m not kidding, Virgil. This is a smoking gun. If we can’t use it in court, you might go to prison.”

He stood, shrugging. “Then I go to prison.”

“Aren’t you even the least bit curious as to what the evidence is?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Virgil—” She forced herself to take a breath, temper dangerously frayed. Stupid principled idiot— “Rosewell’s run by a bunch of crooks—and I’m almost certain Tom Blackton was in on their schemes. He wasn’t an innocent victim.”

Virgil eyed her levelly, fist curled tightly around egg-soaked cloth. “So, you’re saying, what? That I was justified in executing him?”

Kayo opened her mouth to protest—then shut it again, because maybe that was what she’d been thinking. Not in those words, of course, but—

His voice was quiet, cold, but it cut the space between them as painfully as if he’d screamed. “It doesn’t matter what he did. I still did what I did. And I might be a murderer, but I’m not going to toss aside what shreds of integrity I’ve got left to try to get out of the consequences. Do you understand me?”

She bit her lip, hard. Nodded. 

Virgil closed his eyes for a second—then stalked wordlessly into the hall; and, a moment later, the front door slammed. 

She should have known, Kayo thought grimly. 

She should have understood Virgil Tracy well enough to know that a revelation of the victim’s guilt would do nothing to alleviate his. 

“Is everything all right, dear?”

She turned; Grandma was standing in the doorway, watching her with ill-concealed alarm. She laughed shakily, possibly hysterically. “Yeah. Yeah, everything’s great.”

Sally sighed, slowly. “I suppose that was a silly question.” She looked around at the mess of half-prepped breakfast, pulled off her glasses, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I made up some sandwiches last night. Help me carry them down to the jet, sweetheart?”

Kayo silently helped her load up two cooler bags—there was a cafeteria at the courthouse that made far more palatable food than anything Grandma might’ve thrown together, but there was no point in telling her that—then picked up the heavier of the two and followed the older woman to the hall elevator and down to the hangar access tunnel. 

“So,” Grandma said, once they were alone. “That trip you took after midnight just a casual flight for recreational purposes, or … ?”

Kayo couldn’t quite hide the wince. “Let’s just say I took a brainstorming shortcut.”

“As long as you were safe, Kayo.”

“As safe as could reasonably be expected under the circumstances.”

“That’s not exactly reassuring,” Grandma muttered. “Sometimes you are terrifyingly like my son.”

“Thank you.”

They kept walking in silence for a few seconds, then Grandma inhaled sharply. “Man alive, this is a mess.”

Kayo twisted her fingers tighter around the handle of the carry bag. “Sudah jatuh ditimpa tangga.” Grandma made an interrogative noise, and she shrugged. “After you fall, the ladder falls on you.”

Grandma chuckled, hoarsely. “And here I thought it’d be inspirational.”

“Sorry. Not got a ton of that in supply right now.”

“That poor, poor boy,” she murmured, after a moment. “I just—I don’t even know what to start to say to him. It was the same with Jeff, when his father got sick, and then in ‘40—he’d just lock himself up tight, when he was hurting, and no one could reach him but Lu—and then when she died, there was nothing I could …”

She trailed off—then, after a couple more steps, stopped—and Kayo did too, a few steps ahead, glancing back—then she dropped the bag and caught the other woman’s shoulders—and eased her to the ground. “Grandma—”

She was breathing, but it was clearly an effort, eyes screwed shut in pain, one hand going to her chest as Kayo supported her against her shoulder—but she found the strength to swat Kayo’s hand when she tried to activate her comm. “N-no, hon—I’m okay, I’m—I just—I need a—a minute. It’ll pass. Hap-happens sometimes.”

A slow, viscous wave of deja vu threatened to engulf her—but Kayo forced down the panic, the dread, choked it back and asked “What can I do? Do you have medication?”

She nodded, the faintest wheeze audible as she exhaled. “Left pocket.”

Kayo unzipped it, slipped in a finger, and pulled out an inhaler. Oh. Her first aid training piped up at the back of her mind, and she remembered to shake it before popping the cap. Sally accepted the help in bringing it to her mouth, puffed twice, then leaned on Kayo with something far too like a whimper. “It’s all right, dear,” she whispered. “I’m fine.”

Well. At least Kayo knew now where the boys all got it from. 

She hugged the small woman tighter, finding a pulse on her wrist with her fingertips. Too, too fast. “You’re not a very good liar, Grandma.” 

Sally patted her hand. “I promise, Kayo. I had asthma as a kid, grew out of it—and now back into it, I guess. Nothing serious; I’m just old.”

“How often is ‘sometimes’?”

“Once a week or so. More, lately. Usually I can manage to go lie down before it gets bad.”

“Who knows?”

“No one. And don’t you dare tell the boys. I don’t want them fussing.”

The instinctive acquiescence sat on the tip of her tongue—but she pulled it back with a quick inhale. “No. No. No no no no. They need to know, Sally. This is not a secret you can ask me to keep.”

“Kayo—”

“You have to tell them. Or I will.”

“Not now. After the trial. I don’t want to give Virgil another reason to worry.”

Kayo doubted waiting would make anyone worry less, least of all Virgil; but, given what had just occurred in the kitchen, she was willing to concede the point. “Okay. After the trial. But if they don’t all know within a week of the verdict, I’m telling Jeff myself. Got it?”

Grandma laughed weakly. “You always were bossy.”

Kayo pressed her lips to the top of her head and closed her eyes. 

2060

“So what am I looking for?”

Kayo, sitting cross-legged on the sofa, made a so-so gesture with the hand that wasn't holding her half-empty coffee cup. “In this case, you're not so much looking for something as looking for nothing. The absence of evidence can be just as compelling. Selling a legitimate company would require a ton of logistical paperwork—transfer of assets, new contracts with staff, all that kind of stuff. But if all there is is the sales agreement—”

“It was never a real company in the first place,” finished EOS eagerly. “I see! Like this?” Thousands—tens of thousands of records—flashed across the holoscreen over the console—replaced abruptly by a neatly-formatted list. “I found three hundred and twenty-six!”

Kayo cleared her throat, blinking. “Woah. Uh. Well done!”

“Thank you!” the AI cooed happily. 

Honestly, it was like dealing with a seven year old Tin-Tin. The difference being that Tin-Tin did not, at least as far as her older sister was aware, have the ability to hack a financial database and analyse millions of records within seconds. It was unnerving. But she could definitely see why John thought this was cool. 

“What're you up to?”

She looked over her shoulder to the archway, where Scott and Virgil were both entering, plates of belated dinner in hand. “Teaching EOS to find shell companies.”

“We're fighting crime,” EOS added brightly. 

Virgil chuckled, coming down into the pit and parking himself on the opposite sofa. Scott, on the other hand, headed for the desk, eyebrows lowering. “I'm not so sure that's a good idea.”

“Of course you're not,” Kayo sighed under her breath. 

“What was that?”

She pulled her legs out from underneath her and sat up straight. “Thanks, EOS—we’ll pick this up later, okay?”

She had no idea how a hologram of a ring of white LEDs managed to pout—but it did. “But I'm bored. This is way more fun than maintenance manuals!”

“Go play chess with John or something.”

“He's sleeping.” The tone indicated that she believed this to be an absurdly unnecessary human activity designed specifically to annoy her. 

“Alan's playing Nebula Nights in his room,” Virgil put in. “And if you ask me, he's too good at it. He might appreciate an added challenge.”

The idea of hacking Alan's game to screw with him plainly delighted EOS, because she closed the comms link with a squeal.

“I can't decide,” said Virgil, “if she's impossibly cute or incredibly annoying.”

“It's neither,” snapped Scott. “It's dangerous. Are we all just glossing over the whole it tried to kill John thing now?”

“We haven't forgotten.” Kayo gestured to the empty space where the holo had been. “But it'd be crazy to ignore the potential, Scott. Her data processing skills are insane. Few days of effort, and we could hand the GDF the entire digital footprint of the three biggest crime syndicates on a silver platter.”

“That's not what we do, Kayo.”

“But it could be.”

Scott rested his elbows on the desk and rubbed his temples. “We're not in the bad guy catching business. Our job is saving people.”

“This is saving people! Preventative action helps way more than just always reacting to disasters.” She leaned forward, hands wrapped around the edge of the sofa. “EOS is the best secret weapon we've had access to in—”

“Are you hearing yourself? We don't need weapons. That isn't who we are.” He stood up and started pacing, running a hand through his hair; and she was jolted, not for the first time in recent weeks, with the realisation of how exhausted he looked. “That’s not what Dad wanted International Rescue to be.”

“Maybe Jeff Tracy wasn’t right about everything.”

Scott looked at her like she’d suggested jumping out of One without a jetpack. “If we started acting like law enforcement, we’d raise the hackles of every government on the planet. And EOS’s legal status is dubious at best—showing the GDF or the US government what it can do would just be poking a bear. We can't risk the autonomy, or secrecy, of our operations any further—it’s bad enough that we’ve already blown our cover.”

“I’m sorry, we blew our cover? I don't remember there being any we about it.”

He visibly flinched and turned to the window. For a second, Kayo wavered between continued anger and the realisation she'd gone way too far; but then she looked at Virgil, and the expression on his face tipped the balance. 

“Scott. I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” he mumbled reflexively. “I just—bad day.”

More like a bad year, she thought. Ever since the Hood’s return, things had been manic: they were always busy, but there had been a significant uptick in major disasters—and they were still covering all the cat-up-tree level stuff—and Scott was still actively running Tracy Aeronautics, which, with Di leaving the company for law school and his subsequent succession of questionably-competent executive assistants, was a even more stressful job than usual. 

“You need to eat,” said Virgil, quietly. 

“... yeah.” Scott exhaled and returned to the desk, slumping into his father’s chair and poking unenthusiastically at his plate. “Kayo—I get what you’re trying to say. But there’s only so many chances we can take before we risk losing International Rescue entirely.”

She stood up. “Can we at least let EOS investigate the Hood’s network?”

He smirked, mirthlessly. “Yeah. That, you can do.”

“Thank you.” She glanced at Virgil. “I’m going to go make some tea.”

“I’ll come help.” Virgil put his (untouched) plate aside and stood, looking over his shoulder at Scott. “Be right back.”

Scott nodded, already opening his emails. 

Down in the kitchen, Kayo spooned chamomile into the pot as Virgil filled the kettle; but her finger slipped, and dried leaves sprayed across the countertop. “Shoot.”

“I got it.” Virgil stepped over and started brushing the mess into a pile. “You good?”

“Yeah. Just—” She sighed, lowering her voice. “I’m starting to worry about him.”

“I’m way past starting.” Virgil glanced in the direction of the hallway, frown deepening. “He’s gotten crazy reckless, and he's this close to snapping. But he won’t slow down.”

“Taking a more proactive approach would help . Instead of putting out all the tiny fires, we need to prevent the sparks.”

“I get it. And you’re probably not wrong.” Virgil dumped the handful of tea into the trash. “But he’s not wrong either—we’re not law enforcement. Dad would’ve hated the idea of us going full vigilante. Dealing with an immediate threat during a rescue is one thing, trying to one-up the GDF is another.” He leaned against the counter, running a finger thoughtfully along the edge. “I do think we could do a lot more with EOS, though. If we trusted her to remote the Thunderbirds home after a mission so we can rest, or run comms sometimes—that sort of thing would really help.”

“Then why didn’t you say that, earlier?” He didn’t reply. “You know you’re more than his shadow, right? You’re allowed your own opinions.”

“I really can’t fight with him right now.”

“Maybe you need to.” She tugged frustratedly at her ponytail. “Maybe you’ve got to have it out with him, because he won’t listen to anyone else, and he’s—”

Killing himself, she didn’t finish. 

“Yeah,” Virgil said, very softly, after a moment. “You’re right. But I’m picking my moment.”

“Good.” The kettle boiled, and she crossed the kitchen to grab it. “Tea, then rest.”

“Not arguing with that.”

2066

Kayo stood outside the grounds of Felix Markham’s mansion in Anchorage, just outside the range of the security cameras, leaning against a wall in the shadows with Alaskan wind buffeting against her thermal jacket and stinging her face. 

She’d gotten there hours ago—probably close to five, now—with every intention of hopping the fence. But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. 

Her wrist vibrated—incoming call—and she tapped her earpiece reflexively. “Kayo here.”

“I knew you’d still be up, you goose.” The voice was her little sister’s, exasperated but affectionate. “What is it, 3 AM there?”

“0212. I’m still in Alaska.”

“... do I want to know why?”

She sighed, eyes skimming her target for the thousandth time. “Probably not.”

“Ooooookay. I know that tone, ‘Nusha.” She heard a rustle, and imagined Tin-Tin sitting on the sofa, crossing her legs under herself, ready for a therapy session-slash-interrogation. “You’re contemplating something you know is stupid, aren’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Argument for?”

“Virgil doesn’t go to prison.”

“And argument against?”

“He hates me for it.”

“Yeesh.” Tin-Tin blew out a long sigh. “Like, actually hates you for it? As opposed to looking mildly displeased for three seconds before returning to Virgil-default?”

Kayo shivered. He hadn’t spoken to her all day—not when he’d come back to the house, a narrow six minutes before they’d had to take off—not in the courthouse hallway as she’d desperately tried to catch his eye—not as they’d all dispersed to various planes and she’d elected to stay behind. She couldn’t remember when Virgil had ever been genuinely angry with her before; and the feeling, the memory of his expression, clawed silently at her chest. 

“Interpreting silence as confirmation of the former option—again, yeesh.”

“Is it selfish?” Kayo blurted. “To value his good opinion of me over his freedom?”

“Outside my area of expertise, I’m afraid.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a psych major?”

“Yeah, exactly. Psychology, not philosophy or theology.” 

Kayo rubbed her forehead, gloves icy against her skin; then took one last look at the absurdly opulent Markham residence. 

And then she walked away. 

She couldn’t do it. Because even if it worked, even if she could keep it quiet, Virgil would know. And, whether it was selfish or not, she couldn’t bear to disappoint him. 

“I’m hearing evidence of a decision,” Tin-Tin said. 

“You’re hearing evidence of me being a chicken,” Kayo mumbled. But she didn’t regret the choice. And she was cold; and so, so tired. “I’m going to call Shadow to the edge of town and sleep.”

“Probably a good idea. You sound like crap.”

“You’re going to make a terrible therapist.”

“But you love me anyway.” She could hear Tin-Tin standing up—and then, a moment later, the rumble of an electric kettle. “Other than this particular moral quandary, how’s the trial going?”

“I … don’t know. Without—” She paused. She wasn’t sure if her father would have told the rest of the family anything about the evidence he’d found, but the odds he hadn’t were high enough that it was probably better not to reference it. “We’ve got a decent necessity defence, but the precedent for that in Alaska is apparently pretty fuzzy. And we’re asking a jury to excuse homicide. It’s a tall order, even if we do everything exactly right.”

“Poor Virgil,” Tin-Tin mumbled. “He must be so miserable.”

“... yeah.”

“I’ve been trying not to talk about it with anyone, but enough of my classmates know I’ve got family in IR that I haven’t been able to dodge the issue completely. It’s kind of crazy, you know? If you’d asked me a year ago which of the Tracy brothers was most likely to end up in court, I’d’ve said John.”

Kayo snorted mirthlessly. “There’s still time.”

“Isn’t it weird that they went for murder? Manslaughter, sure, but it’s not like he planned to kill the guy.”

“We thought that too,” admitted Kayo, thinking of Williams’ impassive expression as the judge had questioned the charges. “It is kind of an obvious overreach—”

And then she stopped in her tracks. 

According to his file, Aguta Williams was a ruthless prosecutor, perceptive and uncompromising. But she’d been watching him all day (well, when she hadn’t been staring at the back of Virgil’s head): she’d seen him question over a dozen witnesses now, seen him objecting—or not objecting—through a dozen of Di’s cross-examinations. 

And he hadn’t sounded at all like the guy from the profile. If anything, he’d seemed downright lethargic. 

“‘Nusha? You good?”

“—Yeah. Just—had an idea.”

“Another stupid one?”

“Quite possibly.” But far more likely to be Virgil-approved. “Got to go, Tiny. Talk to you later?” 

“Of course. Give Vee a hug for me when you see him, okay?”

“FAB.” 

If he lets me.  

Then she hung up, summoned a self-driving cab with her comm, and headed for the other side of town in the darkness, to a two-storied chalet in southern Chugiak. 

A few hours later, when Aguta Williams opened the door to his home office, halfway through pulling on his robe, she was sitting in his chair, groggy but technically awake, flight boots propped on the edge of his desk. 

Williams froze mid-motion—then cleared his throat. “Good morning, Ms Kyrano.”

“Hello,” Kayo replied, pulling her feet off his furniture and leaning back. “Relax. I’m unarmed, and the windows are all intact.”

“Thank you,” he said dryly, finishing tying his robe and shutting the door behind him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m proposing a collaboration.”

He moved to the couch beside the desk and sat down, back ramrod-straight. “A rather counterproductive arrangement for the prosecution and the defence, don’t you think?”

“Not if they have the same goal. And we do, don’t we?” She leaned forward, propped an elbow on the desk. “You don’t want a conviction. You want Rosewell Mining exposed for the bastards they are.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. You could’ve gotten us in trouble with the judge for doing an end run around discovery rules, but you kept your mouth shut. You phoned it in while Di walked all over Markham on cross—and you’re the one who planted the idea of Rosewell being on trial in the jury’s heads. Heck, you put him on the stand in the first place: could’ve easily been a lower-level rep from Rosewell, but no, you wanted him. And, of course, you massively overreached on the charges.”

For a moment, she worried she was wrong—but then Williams’ lips slowly shifted into a half-smile. “Once again,” he said, “I have no idea what you're talking about. But if I did, I'd probably point out that my boss is running for re-election, and Rosewell is one of his most significant campaign contributors.”

“So you can't confront them directly without getting fired.” Kayo sighed. “Got it. But when everything went down at the copper mine, you realised what they were up to and saw a chance to outsource. Big showy murder trial, drag all their dirty laundry out into the public eye without you ever having to risk openly ticking off the DA.” He inclined his head in silent agreement, and she felt a tiny sting of triumph. “I’d be impressed if I wasn't so incredibly pissed at you. Do you realise what you're putting Virgil Tracy through right now?”

“I concede that the trial is likely causing your colleague significant discomfort—”

“You think?”

“—but, in the long run, a trial and an acquittal is significantly better for him than the mere avoidance of charges in the first place would have been.”

“And why's that?”

“I expect you have your sources in Washington, same as I have mine. What would it have looked like on the floor of the House of Representatives if International Rescue could be accused of getting away with murder?”

Kayo checked the instinctive protest that rose to her lips—because he had a point. The media coverage of the trial was still all over the map, but it was very gradually swinging positive, especially after Markham's testimony. There was still a chance they'd come out of this with higher public approval than when they'd started, if Virgil was formally cleared and he ended up looking like the innocent victim. But if he had never even been arrested—yeah, she could imagine more than one hostile outlet making some serious hay with that. And that would not have helped their political dilemma. 

“Do you actually care about our rep, though?” she asked, somewhat rhetorically. 

To her surprise, he answered. “I care a great deal.”

“Why?” 

He shifted, examined his nails briefly. “My biological mother was … not capable of raising me. I spent most of my childhood in foster homes. There was one couple—” His expression softened, very slightly. “—who expressed interest in making the arrangement permanent. But, while the adoption papers were still being processed, they went on a whale watching trip up in the Beaufort Sea, and the vessel was stranded without power. It took thirteen hours for the diplomats to agree whose national waters they were in and organise a recovery vessel.”

Kayo bit the inside of her cheek. Six hours without heating and proper polar equipment at that latitude would be enough to kill, let alone twice that. “Oh.”

“If International Rescue had existed in 2034,” he continued unemotionally, “things may have turned out very differently.” He checked his watch. “Don’t take this personally, but I do have to get ready for court, and at some point my wife and children are going to notice I have an uninvited guest in my office. What is it you actually want from me? In the practical sense.”

“We need the unredacted data from Tom Blackton’s tracker. In the hours before the fire started.”

The faint half-smile was back. “If you know to ask for that, you’ve already seen it.”

“You’re not wrong. But we need it to be admissible.”

“So that’s what you asked for at the Rosewell offices.” He rolled his eyes briefly. “No need to feel bad about that particular failure. They’d never have given it to you, no matter how good your bluff. Only the highest level of internal clearance at Rosewell has even seen it, and they were very insistent I exclude it from discovery. On the grounds of ‘irrelevance’, if you can believe it.”

“So you can’t give it to me?”

“I didn’t say that.” He stood and gestured to his desk. “Would you kindly allow me to access my own property?” 

Kayo stood obligingly and gave him access to his computer, watching as he flipped through the file directories. “I acquiesced to their request initially to avoid arousing suspicion in the DA’s office,” he continued matter-of-factly. “But the state of Alaska’s my client, not Rosewell Mining. I have the authority to disclose any evidence I deem necessary; and at this point I think I can plausibly argue that it’s not reasonable to withhold it.” He pulled a data stick out of the terminal and handed it to her. “Ms Kyrano—I have a family to protect. I can’t help you, not openly: this is the most I can do. I can’t be seen to throw the case.”

She nodded. “I understand. Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” He stood and offered her a hand, and she shook it. “Good luck.”

“Would it be pushing it to ask for a coffee?”

“Yes.”

“Worth a try.” 

Chapter Text

Kayo reached the front of the courthouse at roughly the same time the Tracys did: she could see their backs as they climbed the front steps and headed in the front door—Jeff, Grandma, Scott, Gordon, John, Di, Alan—and Brains, which made sense, they were getting towards the end of the prosecution's list, so there was a good chance they’d need to have their first couple of defence witnesses to hand later in the day—and Virgil, of course, silent at his father’s side. 

She sprinted up behind them, stumbling on the top step, and pushed through the door, catching up with them in the hall. Gordon saw her first and pointed an accusing finger. “Where’ve you been?”

“That’s a story for somewhere slightly more private,” she said breathlessly, unbuttoning her coat. She could feel Virgil’s eyes on her, but it took a second for her to force herself to look, to risk witnessing his disapproval. 

As she’d feared, he was frowning, lips tight. “Kayo, go back to Seven.”

She winced. “Virgil—I’m sorry—I promise I didn’t—”

His expression softened. “I’m not angry with you,” he said in an undertone, hand briefly brushing her arm. “But you look dead on your feet. Go sleep, okay?”

He was probably right, she admitted to herself reluctantly—her vision was starting to swim slightly at the edges. “Okay.” She glanced at the others, who were hiding their curiosity with varying degrees of success. “See you all later.”

Three and a half hours later, she was very glad she’d taken his advice. She’d passed out pretty much as soon as she collapsed into Seven’s medbay cot; and when the alarm she’d set jolted her awake again, it took her a solid ten seconds to process what planet she was on. But a splash of water on her face and a quickly-chugged energy drink brought her back to alertness, and she was confident she looked reasonably human when she slipped through the courtroom door and slid into the seat next to Jeff. 

(She did notice, on her way up the aisle, one small mercy: apparently Henderson had followed through on her threat the previous afternoon to kick the press out of the courtroom, after one or two of them had made too-free use of the flash. So they now had relative privacy, if nothing else.)

Di was cross-examining one of the Rosewell staff—she recognised his face from her earlier investigations, but his name escaped her. “Where are we on the list?” she murmured. 

“Last one,” Jeff responded, equally quietly. “I expect prosecution’ll probably rest and break for lunch after this.”

Which would mean it was nearly time for them to make their case, and Kayo was not ready for that. She still had to go through the data Williams had given her that morning, fill Di and John in—and get Virgil’s permission to use it. Would the lunch break be enough time? Maybe she shouldn’t’ve taken that nap. 

But perhaps they could stall, get Di to shuffle the lineup while she and Brains and John worked on the tracking data. There were expert and character witnesses other than John and Brains: Kip Harris, especially, would be useful, since he could give a genuinely-informed opinion on dealing with similar emergencies. 

(Weirdly enough, Langstrom Fischler, of all people, had called them up and offered to testify. Jeff's “that won't be necessary, thank you” had been much politer than Kayo's would've been.)

Problem was, none of them were here yet. But if she called Penny, they could—

“No further questions, Your Honour,” Di said to the judge, who nodded and looked to Williams expectantly as the witness got up. 

“Your Honour,” Williams said, standing. “Might I beg the court’s indulgence and call an additional witness?”

Phew. Maybe that’d buy them more time. 

Di likewise got up, side-eyeing the prosecution’s bench. “Your Honour, the defence hasn’t had the opportunity to prepare for witnesses outside the provided—”

“That shouldn't be an issue, Your Honour,” Williams interrupted. “I can guarantee defence counsel will be familiar with the content of the witness’ testimony.”

… huh?

Henderson raised an eyebrow at Di, who shrugged and sat back down. “Very well. But I’d like my objection to be noted in the record if that proves not to be the case.”

“So noted. If you can produce them in a timely manner, then, Mr Williams, the court will allow it.”

“Thank you, Your Honour. That won't be a problem.” Williams looked down at his notes, then back up again. “The prosecution calls Hiram Hackenbacker to the stand.”

Kayo’s stomach flipped. Virgil's shoulders visibly stiffened.

“What?” burst out Scott and Alan, more or less simultaneously and way too loudly, earning their section of the gallery a glare from the judge, and a sharp over-the-shoulder glance from Di before she, again, jumped to her feet. 

“Your Honour, Doctor Hackenbacker is listed as a witness for the defence.”

“You'll have the right to call him again when the time comes, Ms Tracy,” the judge said, unmoved. “And I would like to remind the defence’s guests to respect the protocol of the courtroom.”

Brains, seated on the other side of Jeff from Kayo, looked up at his boss with an expression of flat panic. “M-mr Tracy, I p-promise I—”

“I know, Brains.” Jeff placed a hand on his shoulder briefly. “It's all right. Head on up.”

Brains swallowed, then stood, straightened his glasses, and made his way to the stand.

“Raise your right hand,” the bailiff said to him. “Do you solemnly affirm that the statements you are about to make are true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief?”

“Y-yes.”

“You may sit.”

“Doctor Hackenbacker,” Williams said, buttoning his suit jacket as he came forward towards the stand. “You are employed by International Rescue as an engineer and scientific consultant, correct?”

Had Kayo been wrong? Had Williams played her this morning? 

“T-technically, I am an employee of Tracy A-aeronautics,” answered Brains, hands twisting in his lap. “But yes, the m-majority of my day-to-day w-work is focused on International Rescue.”

“Are you a specialist in fire dynamics?”

“I c-consider myself an om-omnidisciplinary scientist. But yes, that is one of m-my fields of study. I have p-published a paper on flashbacks in in-industrial settings.”

“Would you say that anyone else at International Rescue has comparable knowledge of the subject?”

“M-most of the operatives have a good deal of practical experience. And Doctor J-Jonathan Tracy is an expert in digital simulation and prediction of firefighting scenarios.”

“But would you say that they're as knowledgeable as yourself?”

Brains hesitated, unwilling to give offence even under threat of perjury. “No. N-not in the scientific theory behind it.”

“So I would assume that International Rescue frequently consults you during ‘rescues’ that involve a significant conflagration?”

“Very often, yes.”

“Were you consulted during the course of the mission at the Rosewell copper mine on November 18th of last year?”

Kayo exchanged a look with Jeff that could be adequately summarised as oh crap.

“No.” Brains cleared his throat. “I w-wasn't.”

Williams had the nerve to sound surprised. “Why not?”

“I was at the TA manufacturing plant in Dallas at the time, supervising r-ruh-refurbishment of the Fireflash production line.”

“And at what point did you become aware of the event?”

“I knew that evening t-that there had been fatalities during a r-rescue, but I didn't learn the specifics until later.”

“How much later?” Brains looked helplessly over towards Di and Virgil. “Doctor Hackenbacker?”

“It would have been ah-around November 20th,” Brains replied weakly. “Mr T-tracy explained the details to me after the GDF report was leaked to the press.”

“Jeff Tracy?”

“Yes.”

“So you're saying, Dr Hackenbacker, that Jeff Tracy, and International Rescue as a whole, did not even have a conversation with you, their foremost expert on fire dynamics, for a full two days after possibly their most serious fire-related mission in IR’s operational history? What were they trying to hide from you?”

“Objection, Your Honour,” snapped Di, far too shakily. “Calls for speculation.”

“Withdrawn,” said Williams cooly. “No further questions.”

Okay. Okay. This was fine, right? They could fix it on cross. 

Henderson looked at Di. “Do you have any questions for the witness now, Ms Tracy, or would you prefer to call him again for the defence at a later time?”

“The latter, Your Honour.”

Crap.

Williams returned to his desk, and, for a split-second, he made eye contact with Kayo. It wasn’t a comfortable experience. “The prosecution rests.”

Kayo was starting to doubt her ability to read people. 

She did not, however, doubt her ability to slide between elevator doors at the last second. 

She ducked through the gap, slapped the close-door button, and caught herself against the mirrored wall, fixing the other occupant with a glare. “What the heck was that?”

Williams returned the stare, lips in a thin line, but he did not speak until the doors were sealed and the elevator was in motion. “I told you. I cannot be seen to throw the case.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t need to—”

“Shortly after you left my house this morning,” he interrupted, with the most emotion she’d seen the man show yet, “someone put a note under my front door. Threatening me, my wife, my family. My nine year old daughter was the one who found it and opened it.” His fingers twisted tighter around the handle of his briefcase. “I don’t know what Markham and his cohorts know, but it doesn’t matter. The facts remain the same: I can’t help you.”

Kayo stood silent, squeezing her nails into her palm. 

“Besides.” His voice returned to its normal placidity as he straightened his tie with his free hand. “Nothing I said to—Brains, isn’t that what you call him?—will materially hurt your case, not if your defence counsel has more than three neurons.” The elevator doors slid open, and he stepped past her. “Enjoy your lunch, Ms Kyrano.”

So she could read people just fine, after all, she thought numbly, as the doors closed again. 

Didn’t mean she could actually do anything with that information. 

2061

The chair rose up into the darkened living room, and Kayo blinked as her eyes adjusted from the launch tunnel. It was late enough—no, early enough—that the island’s systems had kicked into night mode, even the pool lights dimmed outside. 

At first, she thought she was alone; but then someone snored, and she looked over to the couch beside her to see the two eldest Tracys sprawled across it—Scott half sitting up, slumped in a position that made her neck hurt just looking at him; and Virgil stretched out with his legs in his big brother’s lap.

She was tempted to leave them to it—they’d all had a crappy week, and they needed the rest. Kayo herself had managed a couple of solid nights of sleep, although one of them had been on Penelope’s couch; but, based on the snatches of contact she’d had with the boys, she suspected this was the most shut-eye either of them had had in days. 

But Scott would be unbearably crabby in the morning if he spent the rest of the night like that, so she stepped silently over to them and squeezed Virgil’s shoulder. 

His eyelids fluttered and he groaned incoherently; she switched to shaking him (gently). “Vee. Wake up.”

“Nuh.” He grimaced, then opened his eyes blearily. “‘Nusha?”

“Hi. C’mon, get up. You guys have actual beds and you should use them.”

Virgil lifted his head, processed his surroundings, and then—slowly—swung his legs off Scott, rubbed his face, and stood. “Man. That was s’posed to be a quick nap. Remind me what year it is?”

She rolled her eyes. “Have you eaten?”

He shook his head. “Not good idea, not this time of night. It’d totally throw off my circadian rhythm. What’s left of it.” 

He looked down at Scott, and she could see the wheels turning in his head, predict the thought process: if they woke him up, he might refuse to go to bed; but he was a difficult man to carry comfortably even when Virgil wasn’t wiped out by a week of back-to-back call-outs. After a few seconds, as she’d expected, he made his decision and, supporting Scott’s head carefully, manoeuvred him around so he could lie horizontally; and Kayo lifted his legs onto the cushions. 

“‘irg?” Scott mumbled, without opening his eyes, as they settled him into place.

“Yeah. Shh. Go back to sleep.”

Thankfully, he complied, features relaxing again; and Virgil and Kayo made eye contact before silently retreating down to the kitchen. 

“You guys okay?” she asked, as he sagged onto one of the barstools. “John said earlier that it was a rough one.”

Virgil gave a full body sigh. “Trashed MAX, busted a pod, fought with Scott. Not in that order.”

She felt her eyebrows shoot up. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“MAX will be fine. The pod can be replaced. Jury’s out on Scott.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder. “You finally call him out?” 

“Yeah. As kindly as I could, but—there were moments on the mission where I got a little steamed. I think I got through to him. Maybe.” He reached up and placed his hand over hers, still staring numbly at the counter. “I didn’t want this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Any of it. I never—no, that sounds awful, that’s not what I mean—I love IR now, I’d never give it up, but I never asked for it—and sometimes it’s just so hard and I—” He shuddered. “What are we even doing? Is this really the deal we're making—our lives for everyone else's? I had to watch the freaking mission kill my dad—and now it's tearing my big brother to shreds—and what’s it going to do to John and Gordon and Alan and you?—and I don’t know how much longer I can—”

He shoved his face into his hands, trembling, and she ran her palm back and forth along his shoulders, biting her lip so hard she tasted blood.

She had never hated her uncle so much in her life.

But, strangely, for a horrible, horrible split-second, she hated Jeff Tracy too.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked. “I’m so tired. Everything hurts. I don’t know what I’m saying. Kayo, I’m so tired.”

“Hey, hey, hey—it’s okay,” she soothed, as his voice cracked further. “Never trust your brain at three AM. Let’s get you to your bed. Come on.” 

She put her arm around his shoulders, and he stumbled off the stool and allowed her to steer him out of the kitchen and up to the doorway of his bedroom. 

“Turn off your alarm,” she ordered softly, mentally resolving to call Colonel Casey and tell her that International Rescue was officially grounded for at least the next twelve hours. “Sleep as long as you need. Worry about everything else in the morning.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, then, finally, made eye contact. “Don’t tell Scott I … I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant.” He didn’t look particularly reassured, so she added, “But I promise. To the grave, et cetera.”

“Thank you.”

She smiled, faintly. “What are friends for?”

He blinked, slowly, bloodshot eyes barely focused. “Friends. Right. Yeah. We’re friends.”

“Obviously. Go to bed, you dork.”

“FAB.”

2066

They went to the park. 

Outside for a picnic, by the pond down the street from the courthouse, in the freezing January air. It felt ridiculous, but they did it, because Grandma told them to. 

The older woman was probably disappointed in their lack of unity, though, because they quickly scattered after little more than a cursory glance at the sandwiches. Gordon and Alan stayed obediently with the matriarch; but Jeff went back to Seven with Brains to calm him down; and the rest of them wandered off down the lakeshore in a silence that was almost worse than speech would’ve been. 

At some point, John vanished—Kayo turned her back for five seconds, and then he was gone. Typical. 

Equally characteristically, it was Scott who finally broke the quiet, addressing his wife without looking at her, breath visible on the breeze. “I thought you said that not telling the team what happened would help in court.”

“I also said I’m not a bloody criminal defence lawyer.” Di hugged her arms tightly around herself. “I was trying to protect them—”

“At Virgil’s expense?” Scott snapped.

“No! I do civil law, and in a civil case, you limit exposure—I didn’t think they’d make it sound like—Virgil, I’m sorry—”

Virgil shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine—” Scott rubbed his temples, still pacing forward. “Simms, couldn’t you have stopped it?”

“I tried! But it’s the judge’s call, and you managed to piss her off!”

Kayo really didn’t want to pile on Di; but she couldn’t resist asking: “But continuing with cross examination wouldn’t’ve forfeited our right to call Brains again later, would it? Surely we didn’t have to leave it there?”

“I—I know. I panicked, okay? I’m so sorry—” The other woman took a wobbly breath, clearly trying not to cry. “I said this would happen—but you promised me you trusted—this isn’t my day job, Scott! What if my best simply isn't good enough?”

“We can’t just roll over and give up—we need to—”

“Scott, shut up.” Virgil cut him off both verbally and physically, stepping into his path. “It’s not Di’s fault. It’s mine. So lay the heck off her, okay?” Scott opened his mouth, but his younger brother wasn’t finished, volume rapidly rising. “It doesn’t matter how things go in court, nothing’s gonna change the fact that I did it, Scott! I’m the one who has to live with the nightmares, with—with knowing that there’s a kid out there who doesn't have a dad any more because I killed him! And you can talk about protecting me and enjoy the view from your freaking high horse all you want, but you have no idea what that feels like!”

“Yes, I do!” Scott yelled. 

Kayo had stepped forward, intending to intervene—but she stopped mid-stride. 

For long seconds, the brothers stood stock-still, faces devoid of colour, barely breathing. 

“I do,” Scott repeated in a hoarse whisper. “I get it. I know, objectively, that—that Mom’s death wasn’t my fault,” Virgil flinched. “Dad’s certainly reminded me often enough. But for so, so long, I believed it. And sometimes, on the bad days, I still do. So yes. I get it. I know what it feels like.”

Kayo, instinctively, glanced over at Di. She was properly crying now, albeit near-silently, hand clamped over her mouth; but she didn’t look surprised. 

When she returned her attention to Virgil, he still hadn’t moved, staring at his big brother in blank shock. Scott put out a hand and tugged him forward; and he nearly collapsed against Scott’s shoulder, burying his face against his neck, a single sob shaking him head to toe. 

Kayo wrapped her arms tightly around herself and squeezed hard. 

For nearly two decades, she'd witnessed the Tracy family's grief—mirrored it, in her own way, with her own loss. She'd thought she understood it. And yet somehow she'd missed an angle, crucial facets just out of view.

After half a minute, Scott pulled back, hands on Virgil’s shoulders. “I know exactly how much you hate yourself right now. But we love you, no matter what. You’ve still got us. And we can’t lose you—I can’t lose—” He cleared his throat. “Don’t you dare give up on us. That’s an order.”

Virgil nodded, swallowing, a faint, tremulous smile at the corners of his mouth. “FAB.” He smacked Scott’s arm. “Now apologise to your wife, jerk.”

Scott winced, the realisation that his temper had run away with him yet again visibly dawning. He let Virgil go and turned to Dianne. “Simms—I’m so sor—”

He didn’t even get the word out before she ploughed into his chest, arms wrapping firmly around his waist. “Forgiven,” she mumbled. (Far too quickly, in Kayo’s opinion. In Di’s shoes, she’d’ve demanded a healthy dose of grovelling first.) “And I took your bloody last name—stop calling me Simms.”

“I can’t call you Tracy. It’s too confusing.”

Kayo stepped over to Virgil and bumped her shoulder against his. “Hey. Pretty sure a key part of keeping your promise to let the jury decide is not being deliberately fatalistic or self-sabotaging?”

“Yeah, yeah, all right.” He half-hugged her, exhaling, brushing at his eyes with his free hand. “Gang up on me, why don’t you?”

She returned the embrace appreciatively—he was like a furnace in the cold—then checked her watch. Ten minutes until they had to be back in court. No time to handle this delicately. She pulled the datastick from her pocket and looked him in the eye. “Virgil. The evidence I mentioned? I got it legitimately. From Williams, with his knowing consent—zero leverage employed.” He stiffened again. “It’s not about saying Blackton ‘deserved’ anything, Vee. It’s not even about you. It’s about making sure that Rosewell Mining can never endanger anyone else again—and about justice for the other five people who died that day.”

“Will you actually listen if I say no?”

She bit her tongue before replying. “Yes. If that’s really what you want. It’s your choice.”

He took a deep breath, shutting his eyes briefly. “… okay. Let’s get those bastards.”

“Thank you—” Impulsively, she kissed his cheek, then swiftly turned to Di and Scott. “Right. We have nine minutes. Guys, find John. Di, here’s the situation …”

Chapter Text

Locating John proved to be easier said than done. 

The astronaut had, unfortunately, put the experience of a lifetime of avoiding annoying siblings to excellent effect. He hadn’t returned to the picnic spot, and he wasn’t back at Seven. He’d apparently switched off his earpiece. He’d even found a way to disable his biotracker, much to EOS’s vocal annoyance. It wasn’t until they made it back to the courthouse, with less than two minutes to spare, that Kayo and Di finally found him, sitting on a bench down the hall from the courtroom, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and his eyes shut.

“Jonathan Glenn—” Kayo started, then checked her volume as he looked up with raised eyebrows. “Where the heck have you been?”

“Psyching myself up,” he said. “Or possibly out. Is there a problem?”

Kayo groaned and rubbed both hands over her face. There were too many people around to risk explaining it to him now; it was too late to sneak off to do it in private; and he couldn’t wear his earpiece on the stand. She looked at Di. “Can you improv your way through this?”

“We’ll have to.” Di accepted the data stick from Kayo as John stood up. “Long story short—” She glanced around and lowered her voice. “Kayo got some more data to add to the sim—Blackton’s tracker, start of the timeline. EOS has already updated the holo. We know what it means, but I can’t spell it out when you’re on the stand, and I can’t ask leading questions. Can you—”

“Yes. I’ll figure it out on the fly,” said John; and, strangely, despite the curveball, he looked more confident than he had thirty seconds earlier. 

“Are you sure? I could risk asking for a longer recess to fill you in, but the judge might decline, and it won’t look good to—”

“I can do it,” he confirmed. “Solving a puzzle is a heck of a lot easier than giving a prepared speech.”

“Weird, but if it works for you—” Kayo caught his sleeve—she could hear the bailiff calling for people to take their seats through the open door down the hall—and towed him towards the courtroom. “Showtime, spaceman.”

“Doctor Tracy—” John had had a PhD for half a dozen years, but he used the title so infrequently that Kayo was briefly startled by it as it came out of Di’s mouth. “Could you please explain the role you play in International Rescue’s operations?”

John shifted uncomfortably in his seat, but when he replied, his voice was its usual neutral. “I’m the primary operator of Thunderbird Five—our space station—and head of communications and mission analysis. In practical terms, that means that I’m responsible for triaging calls and, when we’re engaged in an active rescue, managing comms between the IR team, rescuees, and any allies on site. I also provide digital support to the team—scanner analysis, simulations, et cetera.”

Di, standing in the well facing the witness stand, glanced towards the jury before returning her attention to John. “Were you on duty on November eighteenth of last year during the operation at the Rosewell mine?”

“I was.”

“Could you please talk us through the events of that day, from your perspective?”

“Sure.” John folded his hands in his lap. He was obviously nervous to Kayo’s eyes, but she doubted the jury would be able to see past his mission-face. As long as said mission-face didn’t make him seem too unemotional. “Our triage program received a call from Noah Wells at 1332, AKST. He reported that he and four other miners were in a tunneler in the lower levels of the mine, and that their instruments indicated that there was a fire above them and they had no route out. Thunderbird Two, with Virgil Tracy piloting, was relatively close—over Ontario, on the way back to base from another mission—so I redirected him to the mine.”

“Did you contact the staff at Rosewell informing them International Rescue would be attending?”

“I did. Their offices informed me that no one was on site that day except a maintenance engineer—Thomas Blackton—and told me the call had to be a hoax.”

“When you say their ‘offices’—”

“I believe I spoke to Mr Markham’s assistant.”

“Thank you. Did you continue to communicate with them throughout the rescue?”

“No.” He hesitated minutely. “It seemed a waste of time to keep them in the loop once they'd blown me off. I didn’t contact them again until after—until after the outcome was clear, at which point I reported the six deaths.”

Di nodded. “What happened once Thunderbird Two arrived on site?”

“Virgil was able to get into the mine’s control centre—it was unattended, it’s usually remote-operated—and, using their instruments, confirm the size of the fire and the presence of the tunneller— and of Tom Blackton.”

“Why was it necessary to use the command centre for that?”

“It’s a mine.” He stopped, as if that was self-explanatory, but Di gestured for him to elaborate. “The Thunderbirds are all equipped with powerful thermal scanners, but they’re not built to penetrate that much rock. Nothing is. The scanners throughout the mine send data back up to the command centre through a wired connection—or did, before most of them ultimately melted.”

“What sort of data?”

“Temperature, atmospheric quality, seismic readings—and they relay the tracker signals from any vehicles or staff deployed.”

“So any and all data used during the rescue or in simulations afterwards comes directly from Rosewell’s own servers, not International Rescue’s equipment?”

“Yes. And the sims use Rosewell’s own schematics. Doctor Hackenbacker has all the files to verify that.”

Di nodded. “Were you able to make contact with Blackton?”

“I spoke to him once, before the interference from the fire became too strong to get an audio signal through.”

“Was that call recorded?”

“Yes. All our mission communications are, as a matter of course.”

“Your Honour—” Di stepped back towards her desk. “The defence enters Exhibit A, the recording of the conversation between Thomas Blackton and International Rescue staff.”

She pressed play on the desk projector, and John’s voice came over the speakers—which was weirdly uncanny. Kayo was accustomed to hearing him digitally, but not while he was sitting right there. 

“This is International Rescue to Engineer Tom Blackton—do you read me? ”

“Blackton receiving—loud and clear. Nice surprise—but don't worry, I'm okay. These tunnels are shielded. Gave me a nasty fright, but I can wait it out.”

“Good to confirm, Tom. We'll focus on the others first and come for you after.”

“Wait— others?”

Kayo could hear it now, in a way that she hadn't the first time—and she wondered how she'd ever missed it. Panic was such a common emotion to hear from rescuees that she'd just written it off until she’d seen the tracker data. 

“Yes, the tunneler team. Don't worry, we're on it.”

“Sh—” An audible gasp as he cut off. “There wasn't supposed—there’s not meant to be anyone else here, it's a maintenance day—are they okay?”

“They’re safe for now. We're working on coming up with a plan.”

“Get them out, quick—you have to work fast, those hulls aren't built to withstand—”

“I know—we've got a guy on it in the control room now.”

“Tell him to get them out first—don’t worry about me, I'll be fine, just—save them—please.”

“We’ll do our best, Tom. Just hang in there and let me know if your status changes, all right?”

“Will do, International Rescue. Please … hurry.”

“FAB.”

The recording ended. Di glanced at the jury again, then reapproached John. “What was your impression of that call, Doctor Tracy? Did anything seem unusual about it?”

Here we go. The first major step off script. 

John frowned faintly; Kayo could readily imagine the thought processes flying. She glanced sideways at Scott, next to her. She hadn’t had a chance to fill him or Virgil in, they’d been looking for John; but he knew enough to be nervous, and his fingers were drumming anxiously against his leg. 

She wished, so much, that she wasn’t looking at Virgil’s back. 

“He seemed worried about his co-workers, but that's obviously normal,” John said, after a few second’s hesitation. “But—in hindsight, it was odd how unconcerned he was for his own safety—before I told him about the tunneller. He seemed awfully confident he'd be okay. Usually a guy in the middle of a fire that size sounds pretty freaked out, reliable shielding or no.”

Atta boy, Kayo thought gleefully. 

Di moved back to her desk, tapping the projector, and a familiar holo of the mine popped up over the well, before the jury desk. “Your Honour—is it permissible for the witness to leave the stand for a demonstration of defence exhibit B?”

Henderson nodded, so John got up and headed for the holo, forehead faintly creased and lips tight in familiar focus. Kayo dug her fingernails into her palm. If anyone could figure it out on the spot, John could. 

He zoomed in with a quick gesture. “This, obviously, is the copper mine—entrance here, main shaft here—ventilation system here through here—tunneller active in the side shaft down here—” He paused, taking in the new timestamp in the corner and the blinking dot at the top of the main shaft. “—and this is Tom Blackton’s tracker at 1141 AKST, about an hour before the fire started.”

He started the simulation; and Kayo split her attention between his face and those of the jury. One or two of them—an older woman, a middle-aged man—were frowning, but the rest looked fairly impassive.

“Blackton started here, at the top of the shaft—” John was explaining, “—and proceeded down it—pausing here—”

Eyebrows down, just slightly. C’mon, Johnny.   

“—and here—”

Down further. 

“—and … here—”

And then yes, there it was—John’s eyebrows shot back up, his eyes widening, just for a second—then his face shuttered back into neutrality. But it was clear that he’d seen it, he’d worked it out—

Kayo grabbed Scott’s arm in a quick, triumphant squeeze, exhaling—audibly enough that Jeff, in the row in front of them, glanced back curiously.

“Wait for it,” she mouthed.

Jeff raised his eyebrows, but faced the front again without comment. 

The dot representing Blackton halted for the last time about halfway down the main shaft, then started working its way back up again—without hesitation, this time. John resumed his narration. “He stopped descending at 1219, then headed back up towards the surface—and here, you can see him enter the ventilation system at 1247.” The first flames flickered into view near the top of the main shaft, and John paused the holo with a quick gesture, his expression settling into a look that, in Kayo’s experience, more usually accompanied the words I told you so. “Two minutes before the fire started.”

Scott stiffened abruptly—he’d figured it out too, clearly—and down the row, Kayo could just make out Gordon’s hushed “Oh, duh.”

Kayo stared at Virgil’s back. His shoulders were rigid. 

“So he wasn’t running from the fire when he entered the vents?” Di asked, the picture of innocence. 

“Not according to the timeline indicated by the sensor data.”

“Was maintenance on the ventilation system scheduled?”

“Not on the schedules Rosewell provided us, no. He was meant to be inspecting the elevators in the main shaft.”

“What other reason could he have had for going in there, then?”

John inhaled—then took the plunge. “The only plausible reason I can think of is that he, at minimum, expected the fire. Quite possibly lit it.”

A ripple of murmurs trickled through the spectator gallery; even the jury wasn’t entirely silent. Kayo probably should’ve been looking at them, gauging reactions to dissect with Di later—but it was impossible, because all she could fully register was the way Virgil had flinched. 

“What the hell?” Scott whispered. She ignored him. 

“Objection, Your Honour—” Williams actually stood for once. “Your Honour, that’s an absurd accusation. The victim could have no motive to set his own mine on fire.”

“Doctor Tracy isn’t speaking to motives, just to the implications of the evidence,” Di said to the judge. 

“Objection overruled,” Henderson said. She was looking very intently at the diagram herself. “But if you are going to make accusations, Doctor Tracy, you better be sure you back them up.”

“Of course, Your Honour.” John restarted the sim, and the ‘flames’ began to spread. “This simulation of the fire’s path was built by Dr Hackenbacker and myself based on the data from the internal mine sensors and, where that data was unavailable, extrapolations based on standard fire dynamics. Mr Harris can testify to its plausibility. At several points along the main shaft, the flames seem to have abruptly intensified—” He gestured to the shaft as the fire surged, punctuating the statement. “—in a way wildly inconsistent with my and Doctor Hackenbacker’s experience with mine fires. Usually, they’ll seek oxygen—they’ll go up, not down. Until we cross-referenced the fire sims with Blackton’s tracker data recently—” No need to mention how recently, Kayo thought wryly. “—there was no obvious explanation. But the surge points directly correlate with the points where Blackton stopped on his initial progress down the shaft—probably planting explosives or other incendiary devices.”

“What happened after Blackton entered the vents?” asked Di, as the sim continued to run. 

John waved a hand, and the sim began to fast-forward. “The prosecution’s already made it pretty clear. Fire gets worse, tunneller calls us, Thunderbird Two arrives—and as you can see, by then it'd artificially spread to the point there was no getting to the lower areas of the mine where the tunneller was. Not without redirecting the flames.” He stopped there, thankfully—no need to lessen the effect of the bomb he’d just dropped. 

“Thank you, Doctor Tracy.” Di looked back up to the judge. “No further questions, Your Honour.”

Williams stood, buttoning his jacket, suavely polite as ever. “Your Honour, in light of the defence’s creative interpretation of the data provided in discovery, might I have some additional time to prepare for cross-examination of the witness?”

“If you must,” Henderson said dryly.  “You have until tomorrow morning, Mr Williams.”

“Thank you, Your Honour.”

There was no point in John heading back up to the witness stand only to immediately leave it again, so he made for the defence desk instead—and Kayo watched as Virgil stood, as John put a hand on his arm, as the younger brother looked down at his older brother and mouthed sorry.

Virgil gripped his hand, briefly but firmly; and then he looked over to the spectator gallery, to his family, to her; and his lips moved in a silent thank you. 

2061

“This doesn't make any sense!”

“... actually, it does.”

Pacific sunsets were the best. 

Kayo watched from her perch on the roof as the orange glow swelled slowly but surely over the ocean, colour deepening with every second. Sometimes she wished she had Virgil's skill with a paintbrush, just so she could find a way to replicate this. Photographs were never right. 

Further down the slope, the access hatch clicked, and she tensed—then relaxed as Virgil's head and shoulders emerged. 

She’d slipped off after the GDF plane had departed with its prisoners, after Scott had reminded her sternly of their unfinished conversation, as they'd all headed inside. It had been hard enough when she'd been confessing her secret willingly. Now that they knew, now that she had to watch Scott's face as she explained why she hadn't ‘fessed up earlier …

But Virgil alone, she could manage. 

She half-expected him to make the usual cracks about her and sitting on roofs; but instead he just climbed carefully up and settled in beside her, shoulder to shoulder, looking out at the sky and the waves.

He remained completely silent.

Weird that that was so comforting.

“I’m sorry,” she said, eventually, because as much as she wanted to ignore everything she couldn’t just let it hang there. 

He tugged absently at a thread on the side seam of his jeans. “I just … I’m not saying you had an obligation to tell us. I’m not angry you didn’t. But it does hurt, kinda—that you didn’t feel safe enough to.”

“It wasn’t that.” Not completely. “Dad asked Jeff to keep it quiet. Years ago, back when IR was starting up and he first became a threat. And then, after your dad—you know—he told me to keep up the lie.”

“Why?”

She looked down at her hands, picked a hangnail. “I think he was ashamed.” 

I think I was too.

“It’s no reflection on him.”

“Easy for you to say.” She elbowed him gently. “Your relatives are all beautifully unproblematic.”

“Tell that to the dent Alan put in the side of Module Six last week after I specifically told him not to mess about with his hoverboard in the hangar.”

She chuckled weakly. “Seriously, though. Can you imagine Scott taking it well? If, right after the Zero-X, my father had turned around and announced that he shares DNA with Jeff’s murderer? That he’d known about a potential danger and hadn’t brought it up?” 

Virgil hesitated, then shook his head. “No. He’d’ve lost it.”

Kayo rubbed her forehead. “He still might. Hasn’t had a proper chance to go ballistic on me yet.”

“He won’t. Not at you.”

“But at my dad?” Virgil grimaced. “I can’t risk that, Vee. He can’t take it.”

Virgil pressed his lips tightly together; then sighed, slowly. “Then throw my dad under the bus. Say it was his decision. I’ll back you up. Scott’ll buy it.”

“You sure?”

He nodded. “He wouldn’t’ve minded.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He looked out over the ocean and stretched both legs out. “At least I know, now. Why you’ve been so miserable recently.”

“That’s a strong word.”

“Is it?”

She shrugged. 

Virgil put an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned over and relaxed against him. She should go downstairs and face the music; but she was reluctant to leave the peace, the comfort, of this moment.

“‘Nusha,” he said softly. 

“Mmm?”

Their comms both buzzed, startling her eyes open again. Virgil made a faint, annoyed sound in the back of his throat, then lifted his free wrist. A holo of Scott popped out. “Yeah, yeah, fine, we're coming down.”

“No rush,” said Scott. He didn't look mad. Maybe she hadn't given him enough credit. “Just checking everything's all right.”

“Yeah,” Kayo said, sitting up straight, shooting Virgil a grateful glance. “I’m okay now. On our way.” 

Now that she’d seen firsthand how willing they were to protect her—how much she was cared for—yeah, she was okay.

2066

That night, Kayo actually slept. 

She'd intended to talk to Virgil, to explain further, in Seven on the way back to the ranch; but her eyes fell shut within a minute of liftoff; and when she next opened them, it was to her bedroom ceiling, dawn light glinting around the curtains, a blanket tucked up around her chin. 

She contemplated asking EOS who had dared to carry her to bed and tuck her in like a little kid instead of waking her; but decided against it. 

She finally got a proper chance to fill everyone in at breakfast, about how she'd got the tracker data and about Williams’ divided loyalties. Virgil still looked unhappy—but he made it clear, in so many words, that he wasn't unhappy with her—and she went into court the next day feeling better than she had all week. And it was awesome. John was nervous about the cross-examination: but Williams went easy on him, so easy she almost wanted to warn him to dial it up again. 

The one sticking point that he kept coming back to, and John kept dodging, was the question of motive. And he had a point. There was obvious motive for the higher-ups to sabotage an unprofitable mine—the insurance payout—but no clear indication of why Tom had cooperated in the scheme. John, and Di in her repeated objections, made it clear that it was beyond his purview; but Williams made significant eye contact with Kayo in the spectators’ gallery as he dismissed John, and she nodded back. 

Message received. Find witnesses who can establish motive, for the company and for Blackton. And fast. 

Brains had the chance to redeem himself, corroborating John and establishing the integrity of the data, and, while he was visibly freaking out the entire time, he still nailed the actual content. Kip Harris was next, as an expert witness—and he was very helpful in confirming that Virgil had no other options, and backing up their assessment that the fire was unnatural, although he may have undercut his appearance of neutrality slightly by giving Virgil a clap on the shoulder afterwards. 

All in all, good day. But they were still nowhere near the finish line. 

“I'm pulling in a forensic accountant tomorrow to back up the insurance fraud theory,” Di said, as the Tracy gaggle headed down the footpath to the field where they'd parked Two. “Plus that DA from Juneau to verify the ‘necessity’ precedents as originally planned. But we need something stronger on Tom’s motive.”

“Blackmail?” asked Gordon. 

Kayo shook her head. “Unlikely. EOS and I couldn't find anything on him. Clean as a whistle.”

“Could they have been … threatening his family?” Scott asked, with an apologetic glance at Virgil. “There's a wife and kid, right?”

“Maybe. They threatened Williams, they're certainly capable of it. But—no, that gives him as much motive to whistleblow as to cooperate—I don’t think—”

Her uncle’s voice echoed at the back of her mind. Riches have softened your head. 

Tom Blackton wouldn’t’ve been in literal poverty—according to Di’s early research, the maintenance engineers were one of the few categories of employee at Rosewell that were consistently paid minimum wage—but he was hardly loaded. The temptation of a substantial bribe, the chance to change his life, his family's life …

The family that had never once shown their face in the courtroom.

She stopped. Looked at Virgil. “I have an idea. It’s not shady; but you might not like it.”

He nodded. “It’s okay. I trust you.”

(That, spoken without hesitation, after the mess of the past couple of days, was possibly the best sentence she'd heard in months.)

“What is it?” Jeff asked. 

“The fewer people who know, the better it’s likely to work. Di, don’t look at me like that, I promise I’ll keep you in the loop when I can. Go on home, all of you.” 

There were a handful of protests, but she ignored them, turning and marching back up the pavement the way she came, activating her comm. “Hey, Ridley—how soon can you get here?”

A holo of O’Bannon popped up, unfazed by the abrupt greeting. “Eighty minutes? Thirty-five if I dare touch One.”

“Do it. I’ll handle Scott if necessary. Stay in civvies; I need an inconspicuous wingwoman.”

“I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted.”

“Try for a happy medium. I’ll send you a meeting place.”

“FAB.”

Just over half-an-hour later, Kayo’s self-driving taxi pulled into an abandoned parking lot on the outskirts of Anchorage—and, a minute after that, Thunderbird One roared above, spun once, and lowered gently onto the tarmac. 

She waited until the jets were fully powered down before getting out of the car and met Ridley by the hatch. The former GDF captain was grinning breathlessly. “That was nothing like the sims!”

Kayo mirrored the smile. “But fun, right?”

“So fun. No wonder Scott hogs her.” She jumped down, and the cockpit retracted and locked. “What’s the situation?”

Kayo glanced around. It was hard to tell, in the darkness, whether they were genuinely alone or not. Stupid early high latitude sunsets. “Just—watch my six for me? I’ll explain later.”

For a moment, she wondered if Ridley would argue; but a professional lifetime of taking orders without question overrode the other woman’s natural curiosity; and she followed Kayo to the cab without further comment. 

Once they were settled, Kayo nodded, subtly, sideways, to the security camera at the front of the cab; and Ridley returned the nod in silent understanding. Kayo wasn’t certain just how far Rosewell’s resources extended; but even if they weren’t spying on her, the DA’s office might be. EOS hacking the camera would be too suspicious in itself: the cab company would notice an outage or a footage discrepancy immediately. They couldn’t risk discussing anything sensitive in the car. 

Which raised the question: what would two ordinary young women up to nothing suspicious whatsoever talk about in a cab together at night? 

She sighed inwardly as the most plausible answer presented itself. Men. Obviously. 

“So.” She crossed her legs. “You and John. What’s the deal?”

Ridley gave her a Look, but her cheeks flushed, just a little. “There’s no deal.”

“I saw you kiss him. Remember?”

“That was the first and last time. We haven’t discussed it.”

“Seriously? So, are you charging the elephant in the room rent, or … ?”

Ridley crossed her arms defensively—then sighed, flopping back against the seat, apparently deciding she wasn’t getting out of this. “Look. It was a party, we were having fun, maybe kinda tipsy—and so I thought maybe I’d plant one on him and see what happens. Worked for Di, right? And he seemed cool with it. But then you came around the corner, and … yeah.”

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault. He’s master of the mixed message. He’s been flirting with me basically since we met—or at least what I interpret as flirting—and he seems to like it when I flirt back. But he’s never escalated—and half the time, it’s like he forgets I exist. He’ll disappear into a project and completely ignore me for a week straight, then resurface and expect to be friends like nothing happened.”

“That’s just his way. I wouldn’t take it personally.”

“I try not to, but—” Ridley gave a vague, helpless gesture. “He doesn’t act like he wants to involve me in his life, not where it matters. I offered to come up and be there when he testified, because I know public speaking freaks him out, but he refused.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to risk you seeing him fail.”

“He wouldn’t’ve failed. It’s John.” She sighed. “I like him. I like him a lot. He’s gorgeous, funny—and that brain … But I’ve been giving him opportunities to move beyond friendship for years and he’s never snatched up one, and I can’t shake the feeling that—if he wanted to, he would have by now. Get what I mean?”

Kayo pressed her lips together. “Yeah.” She’d intended just to tease Ridley a bit, but, since they were going in the therapy session direction, might as well lean into it. She thought of a pair of blue eyes, and dimples—and, surprisingly, didn’t feel a single pang of regret. “Look. Never underestimate the ability of the Tracy men to be totally oblivious, okay? Maybe you should just spell it out. Tell him, outright, verbally, that you’re interested in him—specify romantically, just in case. Leave zero room for ambiguity or misinterpretation. And then he has no choice but to respond equally clearly, and then at least you’ll know. Even if the answer’s a rejection, it’s better than wondering forever.”

Ridley grimaced, chuckling self-consciously. “... is it though?” 

“It is. Because then you get to move on.”

“You’re … probably right. But it’s going to be the world’s awkwardest conversation.” She winced. “I’ll hold off until after the acquittal. I wouldn’t want to think about my love life if my brother were on trial.”

Kayo nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

“If it blows up in my face, I’m blaming you.”

“Reasonable.”

Ridley hadn’t, Kayo noticed, acknowledged the possibility that Virgil might get convicted. But the idea of that outcome was so viscerally horrifying that she too shied away from it. No, no point in planning for it. Because she wasn’t going to let it happen. 

Chapter Text

They slipped out of the taxi and dismissed it, two blocks away from their actual destination, and started walking. Kayo pulled her coat tight around her chin. It was Brains’ best self-regulating thermal, similar to the flight suits; but it did nothing for exposed skin. 

“So,” said Ridley, glancing around. “What are we actually doing?”

“Courting a potential witness. That Rosewell Mining almost certainly does not want us to meet, so we've got to keep it on the DL until we can get her on the stand. For her protection as much as ours.”

“Got it. You want me on guard, or …?”

Kayo nodded. “While I talk to her, and then we can take turns after. Assuming she goes for it.”

“You think it's likely she'll turn you down?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

Their destination was a low-rise apartment block, three sides wrapped around the parking lot in a concrete U. Kayo skimmed her eyes over the sides and gutters. “Two cameras. EOS, have we been seen by either yet?”

“No, you're fine,” the AI reported in her ear. “Would you prefer I doctor the footage, or knock them out entirely?”

“First option. Thanks.” 

Ridley took up position near the mouth of the parking lot, with a good view of all access points, and Kayo headed inside, moving silently down the corridor until she located apartment 217.

She hesitated for long moments—then rapped on the door, three times. 

“One second!” came a female yell—then footsteps—and the door opened to reveal Atlanta Blackton, in sweats and a messy chestnut bun. 

She looked younger in person, more vulnerable, eyes a telltale pink and puffy, and it threw Kayo for a couple of moments—long enough that the other woman cleared her throat. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so.” Kayo steeled herself, kept her voice quiet. “Atlanta Blackton?”

“Yes. Lani. And you're … ?”

“My name’s Tanusha Kyrano. Kayo. I'm with International Rescue. And I won't blame you if you slam the door in my face.”

Lani's eyes widened, and her fingers curled tighter around the handle. But she didn't close the door. “Are you alone?”

“I’ve got a friend watching the parking lot. If it's Rosewell you're worried about.”

Lani nodded—then, after a second’s indecision, ushered her inside. 

The apartment was small—open-plan kitchen and living, with what looked like two bedrooms and a bathroom off the far wall—but homey, with worn but good-quality furniture, potted plants scattered across half the surfaces, and the fragrant remains of a pasta dish on the stove. 

There was a small boy on the couch. Kayo knew that he was seven, but without that context, she’d’ve assumed younger. He glanced up guardedly, then returned his attention to his toys; and her eyes shot automatically to the foot-long plushie of a familiar green plane wedged next to his hip.

She was very relieved she always wore Brains’ photon-scrambler in the field. 

“Harry,” his mother said encouragingly, “we have a guest. Say hi!”

“Hi,” he replied shyly.

“Hello.” Kayo was never quite sure what to do with children. Tin-Tin and Alan had been an insufficient sample size to train from. She waved, awkwardly, with one hand, and he waved back. 

“Me and my friend here are going to have a boring grown-up chat, okay? Go tuck yourself in, and I'll come in soon.”

“And finish the story?”

“And finish the story,” Lani confirmed, smiling. 

“If I fall asleep before you’re done, you have to wake me up.”

“You bet I will. Go on now. Make sure you’ve got your inhaler by your bed. And put your pants in the laundry basket.”

“Okay, Mom.” He climbed off the couch, scooping up the fuzzy Thunderbird Two but leaving the other toys, and headed into his room. 

The door clicked shut behind him. Lani retreated into the kitchen, and filled the kettle, seemingly automatically, her gaze miles away. 

“He doesn't know,” she blurted. “I mean—he knows Tom’s gone. But he doesn't know how it happened.” She leaned both hands on the counter, ducking her head with a swallow. “He's been obsessed with International Rescue since before he could walk. Virgil Tracy is his hero. I couldn't—I couldn't bring myself to—I keep him away from the news. Haven't sent him back to school yet. I—”

She shuddered, clamped one hand over her mouth. Kayo stood, frozen, helpless. It wasn't like she was unfamiliar with the concept of grief. But, much like with children, she'd never been sure what to do with it. Her own or anyone else's.

“Sorry.” Lani took a deep, shaky breath, then straightened, brushing off her cheeks. “You didn't come here to listen to me blubber. I can't make them drop the case, if that's what you want. I already tried.”

That was a promising start. Kayo shook her head. “Thank you. But I know we're already well past that.” Lani gestured to a seat at the kitchen table, and she took it. “How, uh, closely are you following events in court right now?”

“I prefer to pretend it's not happening at all.”

So she didn't know what they'd just accused her husband of. Guilt roiled uncomfortably in Kayo's gut. “Okay. We'll come back to that in a sec. First of all—I have never seen Virgil more miserable than after that day at the mine, and I watched him grieve both his parents. If he were here, the first thing he'd say is that he's so sorry, and that if he’d been able to come up with any other way to try to minimise the losses, he'd have done it in a heartbeat.”

Lani nodded in mute acknowledgement. 

Kayo took a deep breath and carried on. “Next priority, are you provided for? Financially, I mean.” Lani's eyes narrowed, and she continued hastily. “I'm not intending to bribe you to do anything. I just know that Virgil would want to make sure you're not left destitute.”

Lani patted her hair, adjusted the falling bun. “We'll … survive. Tom didn't have life insurance, and he hadn't served long enough to qualify for the company pension, but I'm a nurse practitioner—I’ll have an income once Harry goes back to school. Maybe I’ll go to California, to my dad—I don’t know. But I don't want charity.”

So Tom had died doing Rosewell’s dirty work, and his widow hadn't seen a penny. Real classy, Markham.

“It wouldn't be charity,” Kayo said gently. “But if you don't want to take any money for yourself—what about Harry? We'd be happy to cover his education, any school you like. Right through college, if he wants to go. Zero strings attached.”

Pride and desperation warred in the other woman's expression. The kettle finished boiling, clicked off, and she moved to collect it. “Do you like herbal tea? I have chamomile or peppermint.”

“Chamomile would be great. Thank you.”

Lani dropped bags into two mugs, poured in the water, then joined Kayo at the table in the seat opposite. She took a long, steadying breath, hands wrapped around her mug. “Okay. For Harry. We don't need a fancy private school, but—college would be good. He’s a smart kid, he deserves a good start. Thank you.”

Kayo tapped her comm. “EOS, could you please arrange legal paperwork for a blank-cheque college fund for Henry Blackton and send it through to Atlanta?”

“FAB,” EOS replied. Lani's phone pinged at her elbow, and she picked it up and skimmed for a second.

“That was fast,” she said. “You have the authority to do that?”

“Technically I haven't asked permission. But I know Jeff already wanted to do it, for you and the dependents of the tunneler crew. Only reason he didn't was the TA lawyers told him to hold off until after the trial. I'm just pre-empting him.”

“Do you always pay off the families of … casualties?”

“I wouldn't say ‘pay off’. It's never a bribe. Just a helping hand.” Kayo took an experimental sip of her tea. It burned her tongue. “They like taking care of people. It's their whole thing.”

Lani's head tilted. “They.”

“Pardon?”

“Before, you said we. Now it's they.”

Kayo looked down at her cup, fiddled with the teabag. Repaid honesty with honesty. “I can't put myself in the same category as the Tracys when it comes to altruism. I haven't earned that.”

“You're here and they're not.” 

“Virgil would be if he could be.” The court injunction that forbade IR from contacting the victim's family was very specifically worded—it only targeted anyone with the last name Tracy. Kayo wondered now if Williams had left that loophole intentionally. 

Lani put her phone down and leaned forward. “Okay. You said we'd come back to what's happening in court. Why are you actually here?”

If Kayo was right, none of this would be a surprise to her. But if she was wrong, she was about to make this girl's life even worse. 

Break it gently. Like Vee would.

“Lani,” she said, very carefully. “How much did Tom tell you about his work?”

Brown eyes stared back at her for a long, silent minute; then Lani spoke, barely above a whisper. “He set the fire, didn’t he?”

“Yes. How much do you know?”

She gave a shaky sigh. “A few weeks before—end of October, I think?—Tom told me the bosses had come to him with an offer. Sabotage the mine, enough to put it permanently out of commission and force an insurance payout, and they'd give him a ‘generous’ severance package.” She shivered briefly. “He didn't want to, but—you know how men are with money. I begged him not to do it, and he promised me he wouldn't. We never discussed it again. But the moment they told me what happened, I—I knew.”

It was her word against Rosewell's, thought Kayo. But they didn't need enough to convict anyone, not right now. Just enough to acquit Virgil. 

“I'm so sorry,” she said. She wasn't sure quite for what—her loss, Rosewell Mining’s treatment of her family, for asking about it—all of the above, probably.

Lani shrugged, a mirthless, rueful smile on her lips. “I loved Tom. So much. But I have to admit he wasn't always wise.” Her expression sobered. “I promise you, though, he can't have known the others were in there beforehand. He'd never put anyone in danger on purpose.”

“He didn't know. He freaked out when John told him.”

“They spoke?”

“Got through once. Before the fire got too bad.”

“Do you—” She swallowed. “Do you have a recording?”

“... are you sure you want to hear it?”

“It's the last words my husband said to another human being. I'm sure.”

Kayo turned it on— very quietly: the last thing they needed was for Harry to hear it—and watched Lani’s face as she listened. 

It was excruciating.

When it was over, Lani pressed both hands to her face, a tiny, ragged noise slipping out. And there was nothing Kayo could do but stand up, move around the table, and put her arms around the widow—and Lani leaned into her, gasping silently. 

“Mommy?”

Kayo turned her head. Harry was standing in his bedroom doorway, still clutching his Thunderbird. He took in the sight of his mother crying—then bolted forward; and Kayo released Lani just in time for her to catch her son and pull him into her lap.

Kayo backed up against the kitchen counter and looked away, through the crack in the curtains. 

Eventually, the sobs tapered off, and she turned around again. Lani was looking up at her from her seat, Harry's black curls tucked under her chin. 

“Tom messed up,” she said levelly. “And hurt people in the process. But if I can help fix at least some of the fallout, I will. What do you need me to do?”

“Testify in court. Tomorrow morning. Don't let Rosewell make him a scapegoat. He can't tell his side, but you can.” Kayo stepped over and squeezed her shoulder. “We'll protect you and Harry. You have my word.”

Lani nodded firmly. “And you have mine.”

2062

“What’s the problem? I already gave authorisation.”

Scott was pacing by the piano, civilian phone pressed to his ear. Twenty seconds into the conversation, and he was already at Frustration Level 59. Kayo, sitting on the sofa furthest from him, made eye contact with Virgil across the conversation pit. He shook his head minutely, then went back to sketching. Intervening will just make it worse, his expression said. And he was probably right. 

“If a request comes from Simms, it’s coming from me,” Scott snapped, in response to whatever excuse he’d just been given. “—Yes, I know it’s a heck of a lot of money, that’s why I—oh, for crying out loud. Do the letters ‘CEO’ mean nothing? … That was a rhetorical question, Leonard. Look, R&D needs more cash. Right now. Do whatever you need to do to make that happen, and I’ll answer to the board. Got it? … Awesome. Thank you ever so much.”

Then he threw the phone back onto the desk and stalked off into the hall, presumably to go yell at the Mechanic again. 

“So he's handling this great!” Virgil said after a moment, faux-brightly. 

Kayo sighed and pulled her legs up onto the couch. “You'd think he'd be happier.”

“He's thinking the same thing I'm thinking.” Virgil looked back down at his sketchpad, fingers tensing around the pencil. “Eight years is a long, long time.”

She chewed the inside of her lip. He was right. Jeff Tracy was alive when the signal was sent, but that could easily no longer be the case. Even if he was still breathing, his sanity was probably in question. The mission to rescue him was as likely—more likely—to be tragic than triumphant. 

She got up and joined Virgil on his sofa, running a soothing hand over his back as she sat down, and propped her head on his shoulder; and he leaned on her in return. 

The page in his lap was filled with half-finished rough sketches. All of Jeff. 

“I can't remember his face right,” he said, suddenly, shakily. “Alan told me he was starting to forget, months ago, before—before we knew. And it seemed crazy—I thought I never could. But now I keep trying to draw him, and it's wrong, every time.”

“They look pretty good to me.”

His shoulder shifted slightly beneath her cheek as he exhaled. “I realised something awful, last night. This morning. We're going to have to do this twice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even in the best case scenario, we find him alive and well—and he’s sixty. If we're lucky, he'll get a few more decades. And then we have to lose him all over again.”

His hand was trembling around the pencil. Kayo removed it from his grasp and wrapped her hand around his, stilling it; and they sat in silence.

2066

After her conversation with Lani, Kayo went back outside to fill Ridley in; and they took shifts guarding the building all night, the other on the Blacktons’ couch. There wasn’t any indication that Rosewell knew they were there, but, after the threat to Williams’ family, Kayo wasn’t taking any risks. 

The next morning, Harry seemed remarkably unmoved by the fact that his mother had acquired two new friends out of the blue—although he did look very carefully at Ridley’s face over the breakfast table. Fortunately, the newer additions to the team hadn’t achieved quite the same level of fame that the Tracy brothers had yet; if he did recognise her, he said nothing; and he was quite happy to accept the suggestion that Ridley accompany him to the park while Kayo and Mommy ‘went shopping’. 

They timed their arrival at the courthouse to be right before the opening session, slipping inconspicuously in through a side door—then, with the help of EOS, cornered Di in the ladies’ bathroom without anyone else of significance noticing their arrival. 

Dianne paused mid-motion, taking in the pair of them, then huffed and lowered her comb. “What was that about keeping me in the loop, Tanusha?”

“This is me keeping you in the loop,” Kayo said. “Dianne Tracy—Atlanta Blackton. Di, Lani’s willing to testify that Rosewell Mining offered a bribe to her husband to sabotage the mine.”

Di watched Lani for a second in silent evaluation; then said, “Thank you. Can I give you a hug?”

Lani laughed shakily. “I’d like that.”

They stayed in the hall as Dianne went in, as the court session began; and waited until Kayo, connected to the courtroom audio through her earpiece, heard Di say “The defence calls Atlanta Blackton to the stand.”

She opened the door just in time to hear the rumble of surprise, and ushered Lani through. As the other woman made her way up the aisle, Kayo made eye contact with Aguta Williams; his lip twitched briefly upwards before he turned his attention back to the judge. 

And then she made eye contact with Virgil, looking over his shoulder. And ouch: because angry had been better. Anything would have been better than witnessing his unconcealed, burning guilt.

Maybe she should have warned him. But she hadn’t been willing to chance it, to let the plan leak beyond her and Ridley’s brains, not if she didn’t have to—

He turned back around, and Kayo snapped out of it and took her seat; and realised for the first time that most of the family was absent: it was just Jeff and Grandma. She gave Jeff an interrogative glance, and he whispered “Wildfire near Harare.” Kayo nodded. “How’d you pull this off?”

“I asked nicely.”

Jeff squeezed her shoulder gratefully. 

Lani finished taking the oath and sat down. Dianne cleared her throat. “Mrs Blackton—thank you for coming here today. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” Lani was white as a sheet, but she seemed calm enough. 

“I won’t keep you long. Are you aware of any discussion between your husband and Rosewell Mining officials about arranging the permanent closure of the site?”

The phrasing was borderline at best; Williams could easily have objected that Di was leading the witness. But he didn’t. 

Lani curled her fingers around the stand’s handrail. “Yes. Late last October—I think on the twenty-eighth or thereabouts, but I can’t be sure of that, I’m sorry—Tom told me that Felix Markham had met with him after hours, as he was leaving work, and … made him an offer.”

“What kind of offer?” Di pressed gently. 

“Tom said he asked him to set fire to the mine. Destroy all the equipment, so completely that the insurance company would have to pay out for the lot. He said all the machinery was perfectly operational—he knew, he maintained it—so he figured it was probably an insurance scam.”

“Objection,” Williams said, but not harshly. “Hearsay.”

“Given that a secondhand account of the victim’s opinions is the closest we’re going to get under the circumstances, I’ll allow it,” said Henderson. “But please confine yourself to known fact as much as you can, Mrs Blackton.”

Lani cleared her throat. “Yes ma’am—I mean, Your Honour.”

Di’s tone softened further. “Lani, you said Tom said Mr Markham made him an ‘offer’. Are you implying there was consideration?”

“He said Markham promised him three million. If the job was done right.”

“Did Tom accept?”

“He told me he said he’d think about it.” Lani glanced nervously at the judge, then jury. “I asked him not to do it. I begged him not to. Whatever they were trying to pull, I didn’t want him to get involved. So he promised me he’d tell Markham no.”

“Did you discuss it again?”

Lani shook her head. “No. No, we never—I thought it was done with. I trusted his word.” Her voice cracked on the last phrase. 

“Thank you, Lani. No further questions, Your Honour.”

Di sat back down, and Williams stood up. He didn’t approach the stand, though: he kept a respectful distance, behind his desk. “Mrs Blackton, do you have any evidence this conversation took place?”

“No,” Lani replied, an edge in her voice. “I’m not in the habit of recording private conversations with my family for the sake of posterity.”

“So all we have is your word for it.”

“Objection,” said Di. “Argumentative.”

“Withdrawn.” Williams nodded to the judge. “No further questions.”

“Thank you, Mrs Blackton,” Henderson said. “You are free to go.”

Lani got up hurriedly and crossed the well towards the gallery gate; but, as she passed the defence’s desk, Virgil stood up. She paused and looked at him. Kayo was too far away, at the wrong angle, to make out his words—but she saw, everyone saw, Lani step forward and hug him, and him embrace her tightly back. 

On the other side of Jeff, Grandma gave a tiny, choked sob. 

Technically, the defendant hugging witnesses was against court protocol, but nobody objected: just waited until they both let go and Lani returned to the gallery. 

Henderson called for a brief in-situ pause before the next witness—Kayo suspected strongly that it had something to do with the way her eyes were watering suspiciously behind her glasses—and Kayo gestured for Lani to join them on the front bench. 

“Thank you,” Jeff said quietly, voice rougher than usual. 

“You’re welcome,” Lani whispered. “But I don’t think I helped very much.”

“Are you kidding?” said Kayo. “That hug was perfect. The jury loved it.”

“I didn’t do it for the jury.”

“I know. So do they. That’s why it worked.” Kayo turned back to Jeff, intending to ask about the next set of witnesses—but the question died on her lips as she looked past him to Sally. “Grandma, you okay?”

Sally nodded mutely, blinking rapidly, gripping the bench at her sides with both hands—but her breathing was all wrong, too short, too shallow. Jeff, coming to the same belated realisation, placed a hand on her back. “Easy, Mom—it’s all right—deep breaths—”

“She can’t,” snapped Kayo, panic curling. “Grandma, where’s your inhaler?”

Sally shook her head. “For—forgot—”

“Here.” 

Lani shoved something into Kayo’s hand, and she looked down and saw it was a kid’s inhaler, covered in cartoon sharks. Harry’s, presumably. She prepped it swiftly, stepped around Jeff, and held it up for Sally; but she was shaking so much it was an effort to get it to her mouth. 

Behind her, she heard a clatter of footsteps—and then suddenly Virgil was there at her side, his hand going to his grandmother’s shoulder. He had to have just jumped the bar: wildly against courtroom etiquette, but if anyone objected, Kayo would cheerfully kick them in the solar plexus and see how they liked not being able to breathe. “Grandma—Dad, what’s wrong?”

“Asthma attack,” Kayo said, through gritted teeth, before Jeff could respond. “Lani, this isn’t working.”

“It’s a dosage intended for a forty-pound kid,” the nurse replied from Kayo’s other side. “And it's practically empty. It’ll hopefully help a little, but not enough to open her airway completely. May I?”

Kayo stepped back and Lani took her place, kneeling in front of Sally, between her son and grandson. “Hi, Dr Tracy. I’m Lani. You’re doing great.” She took her hand carefully and placed her fingers on her wrist for a few seconds. “Okay, you’re more tachycardic than I’d like, so Tanusha’s going to call an ambulance for you, all right? They’ll have salbutamol.”

“EOS?” Kayo said, pressing her earpiece. 

“Emergency services are on their way already,” reported the AI; and Kayo felt a rush of gratitude that John had so successfully raised her in his paranoid image. “Three minutes out.”

“Thanks. Grandma, just a few more minutes, okay?” Somebody tapped her shoulder, and she jumped reflexively—but it was just Di. A quick glance around confirmed the chambers were already clearing. She’d been completely oblivious to anything else in the courtroom since the attack had started. 

Sloppy, Tanusha, said her father’s voice at the back of her mind.

“Judge extended the recess,” Di whispered. “I’m going to call Scott and the other boys.”

“I wouldn’t, not yet. Apparently this is ‘normal’.”

“What?”

“I know. I know. She doesn’t want people to worry.”

“Well, that worked a treat, didn’t it?” Di rubbed her forehead. “What can I do?”

Kayo shrugged helplessly. She didn’t know what she could do. 

The ambulance crew arrived twenty seconds ahead of schedule—and not a moment too soon, because Sally looked close to passing out, and the two men holding her up didn’t look much better. Lani gave way with a quick, professional handover, and one of the EMTs fitted a nebuliser mask to Sally’s face. Thankfully, it seemed to help almost immediately, Sally slumping against Jeff in relief; but they still, after a few more checks, insisted on assisting her onto a stretcher and taking her out to the ambulance. Jeff followed her in, his own face alarmingly pale, leaving the rest of them standing impotently on the pavement as the siren activated and the vehicle moved away.

“I’m calling Scott,” Dianne said, after a moment. Nobody posed any objection, so she moved away down the sidewalk, hand to her ear. Lani likewise excused herself. The thought that Kayo should follow her, make sure she was safe, occurred dimly—but no, she couldn’t leave Virgil—she’d be heading for Henry and Ridley anyway, and EOS would keep an eye on her—

So Kayo stayed put, waiting silently as Virgil watched the ambulance disappear. 

“You knew,” he said, once it was around the corner. “You knew she was having attacks, and you didn’t tell me.”

“I only found out a couple of days ago.” Kayo swallowed. “I told her she needed to tell you guys. But she made me promise to keep it secret until after the trial.”

“And you agreed?!”

Kayo bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”

He rubbed his forehead with a wobbly exhale. “... Come on. Let’s get a cab.”

Chapter Text

Kayo decided she had spent far too much of her life in hospital waiting rooms. 

Virgil was sitting one chair down from her, arms crossed, head tilted back, staring unseeing at the ceiling. She ached to close the gap, to slide over next to him and give him a hug—but the possibility of a rebuff kept her frozen in place, curled up in her own seat with her legs tucked underneath her. 

“I’m sorry I went off at you,” he said, abruptly, softly. “That wasn’t fair.”

“It’s okay. I get it. I’d’ve been mad too.”

He shifted and bent forward, massaging his temples—then paused and tapped his earpiece. “EOS, you have to have known. What gives?”

The response came sheepishly through Kayo’s comm as well. “I’m sorry, Virgil. Conflicting priorities. Your general request to inform you of any medical incidents contradicted Doctor Tracy’s specific orders not to tell anyone she was unwell. But I kept up close surveillance—I would have called you immediately if she was in serious danger, I promise.”

“I believe you. It’s okay, EOS.” He lowered his hand and sighed slowly. “If one more member of my family has a preventable medical emergency because they’re too proud to say something’s wrong, I’m going to wrap the lot of them in cotton wool and lock them in Module Two.”

Kayo shuffled over and placed a hand on the base of his neck. “She’s okay.”

“I know. But that … won’t be true forever.”

She ran her hand up and down his spine silently, and he shuddered and buried his face in his hands. 

They sat like that for several minutes, until footsteps sounded in the hall—and Jeff emerged from the archway, still faintly shell-shocked but with colour in his cheeks again. “She’s much better,” he said, as Virgil looked up. “Arguing with the doctors and being an absolutely terrible patient. But they want to keep her in overnight for observation—they agree she’s probably right and that it’s just asthma, but they want to independently verify that, just in case.”

Virgil nodded. “That’s … probably a good idea.”

“The other four are on their way in Six,” Kayo said. “Di’s going to meet them at the airfield with a car.”

“Good. She’ll flip a lid that they abandoned a rescue for her, but maybe that’ll teach her a lesson.” Jeff scrubbed a hand over his face. “I doubt they’re going to let anyone but me in there until they finish the tests, but that should be around the time Six gets here anyway. I’m going to grab some coffee and head back.” He pressed Virgil’s shoulder briefly, then crossed the room to the opposite arch. “See you in a minute.”

“Did you need a drink?” Kayo asked Virgil, once his footsteps were no longer audible.

“No. No, I—” He stood abruptly. “I need to get off my ass and do something. I need a rescue. Is the rest of the team still on the ground in Zimbabwe?”

Kayo checked her comm. “Yeah, looks like they’ve still got Two and Seven there.”

“Good.” He marched rapidly towards the exit doors, and it was all she could do to keep up. “Shadow’s within call, right?”

Technically, yes. Cloaked on the roof of Rosewell Mining HQ, because she was petty like that. “Yeah, but—Vee, you’re on bail, you’re not allowed outside the US—”

“What are they going to do? Arrest me?” 

Further argument was on the tip of her tongue—contempt of court penalties, IR’s reputation—but she saw the look on his face as he paused at the doorway, and she couldn’t argue with that. 

“Okay,” she said. “But we can do faster than Shadow. Thunderbird One is on the edge of town.”

“Even better. Let’s go.”

2063

For a moment, as she rolled over and blinked up at an unfamiliar ceiling, Kayo had absolutely no memory of where this couch was or why she was waking up on it. 

And then it all came rushing back. John's call. Wildly exceeding the recommended limits of Shadow's engines on the way to the Philippines. Collapsed buildings and dust in the air. 

Scott, in a hospital bed with a hole in his chest. 

A footstep, across the room. She shoved herself up into a sitting position just in time to see Jeff Tracy freeze guiltily by the hotel room’s doorway. 

“You're not stopping me, Tanusha,” he informed her, faintly defensively. 

“Did I say I was stopping you?” She swung her legs off the sofa and fumbled for her discarded boots. “But you shouldn't go alone.”

He conceded the wisdom in that with a silent nod, and waited as she pulled on her shoes and retied her hair. 

About ten minutes after she and the boys had arrived at the hospital in Baguio last night, Jeff had stood up to go ask one of the doctors a question and almost gone over sideways. Virgil grabbed him in the nick of time, manoeuvring him back into the chair at Scott's bedside.

“Easy, Dad. Let's get you a bed—you need to lie down.”

“No,” Jeff had croaked, brushing away his mother's attempt to take his pulse. “‘M okay. I can stay. I promised him I’d stay.”

Kayo, watching, had unceremoniously pushed past Alan, on the other side of Scott’s bed, and firmly tapped the patient's cheek. Blue eyes opened with an effort and blinked up at her, hazy with painkillers. “‘ayo?”

“Hi, Scooter. Tell your dad he needs to go rest, or he's going to end up in hospital too.”

Honourable? No. Effective? Very. 

After Jeff’s capitulation, she'd had EOS book them a suite in a hotel down the road, and they'd all piled in and collapsed into bed—except Virgil, who’d insisted on being the one to remain with Scott overnight—but there weren't quite enough rooms, so she'd called dibs on the couch, and Alan had hopped in with Gordon. 

Shame he hadn't chosen to bunk with his father instead. Then maybe he could have intercepted Jeff's escape attempt. 

They slipped out of the hotel room and made it down to the street without a word. Thankfully, Jeff seemed steady on his feet, striding down the sidewalk without hesitation. 

The city was just coming to life in the early morning: stores opening their rollers, delivery drivers on electric bikes whizzing past. A couple of women setting up a coffee stand did a double-take at Jeff. Great. Just great. 

“Do we, uh, have a plan?” she said in an undertone. “For handling the fallout of the whole ‘telling the world you're alive’ thing?”

“Nope.”

“Awesome,” she muttered. Because why make your head of security’s life easy?

A few doors down from the hospital entrance, they passed a pharmacy, and a thought occurred. “Hey, Jeff—” She paused in her stride, and he did too. “John said Virgil did literal tons worth of lifting yesterday?” He nodded. “He’s got to be feeling like absolute crap. I can grab him some painkillers and heat packs while you head up and do the changing of the guard?”

“That’s a good idea—he’ll appreciate that. Thanks. I’ll send him down.”

Kayo nodded. “Great. See you soon.”

(She still waited until Jeff entered the hospital before she went into the shop, watching his back until he’d gone through the double doors. Just in case.)

Five minutes later, she emerged, bag in hand, and nearly collided directly with Virgil. 

“Woah—” She caught herself on his arm. “Hey. That was quick.”

“Sorry.” He half-hugged her. He looked wiped, dark rings circling ominously under his eyes. “You my escort home?”

“Something like that.” They started down the path back to the hotel. “How’s Scott doing?”

“Very out of it, but he’s okay. Y’know, relatively speaking.” He glanced back over his shoulder, towards—no, past the hospital. “Dianne Simms came to say hi.”

Kayo raised an eyebrow. “All the way from LA?”

“Yes. And before you ask, Dad definitely clocked it.”

He didn’t have to say what it was. Kayo resisted the temptation to chew her lip. The two of them had never outright discussed Di’s crush on Scott, not in so many words, though mutually aware of the other’s knowledge: Virgil was too kind to poke a wound like that. She appreciated the discretion—it didn’t genuinely bother her any more, not the way it used to, back when she still thought she might be in with a chance—but it was still discomforting enough that she didn’t really want to gossip casually about it. 

A few seconds later, when she hadn’t replied, Virgil asked quietly, “You okay?”

“—Yeah. Yeah, I think so. You?”

He shrugged, then winced and massaged his right shoulder with a rueful chuckle. “I just want to pass out already. I’m so achy I could cry.”

“I figured.” She held up the bag. “I got you some anti-inflammatories, and heating pads—the kind that’s safe to lie on, so you can use them in bed.”

He groaned. “Oh, yes please. That sounds so good. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

They reached the doors to the hotel lobby, the glossy glass panels sliding automatically open in front of them. Kayo stepped forward to enter; then stopped, because Virgil hadn’t. 

“Vee?” she said hesitantly. His eyes were alarmingly distant. 

“I thought I’d lost him,” he whispered. “I thought—I was so scared—”

Kayo dropped the shopping bag at their feet and wrapped her arms around his ribs, and he clung to her in return; and they stood there for long minutes as the city swirled around them. 

2066

They found Thunderbird Two in south Harare, parked in the middle of the street out the front of a hospital, loading in evacuees. A row of trucks beside them were doing the same. The fire was still a few miles away from the city: they could see the glow and the smoke on the horizon; but, judging by the comms chatter they’d heard on the way in, there was no guarantee of containment yet. 

Kayo landed One next to her big sister and jumped out, Virgil close at her heels. They were still in civilian clothes—One didn’t have spare uniforms on board for anyone but Scott, there simply wasn’t the cargo space—so it took more effort than usual to push through the throngs and make it to the module ramp. 

George, halfway through pushing a gurney up the ramp, paused and took in the sight of her and Virgil. “Are you supposed to be here?” He turned to Karen. “He’s definitely not supposed to be here.”

“Well, he is here, so—” Karen had a crying toddler on one arm and a bag of medical supplies in the other; she shoved the kid at Virgil, who propped him on his hip and started rubbing his back. “Most of this area’s already moved north, but we’re clearing the wards here. Adam and Chan are in Seven, helping local services with containment; but there’s no guarantee they’ll succeed, so Scott told us before he left to get everyone clear just in case. How’s Doc Sally?”

“She’ll be okay,” said Kayo. “What can we do?”

“Make sure the building’s empty. Two's thermal scanners are on the fritz, so we can’t trust life sign readings.”

Virgil sighed, giving the toddler a look of exasperation. The little boy, tears drying, blinked bemusedly back. “They took my girl into the fire, didn’t they, bud?”

“In my defence,” George said, starting to push his patient again, “it worked great. Got the CO2 charges right in there.”

“You’re cleaning the ash stains off. With a toothbrush.” Virgil started up the ramp, and Kayo followed him. The miserable tension had already fallen off his shoulders, his stride quick and purposeful. “Give us a minute to get suited up and we’ll be right with you.”

It was a fairly standard protocol C evacuation. Without the scanners, they had to do physical sweeps of every ward, but they’d had enough incidents with tech over the years to teach them the importance of drilling manual procedures, and they had the building cleared within the next quarter-hour. Once that was done, they took Two up to the other medical facility north of the city and deposited the entire module, along with Karen and George, in the parking lot; then headed south again, sans module, to help Seven out. 

Kayo had done her fair share of co-piloting Two over the years, so they fell quickly into the usual rhythm—Virgil on thrust and steering, her on the fire suppressant controls. It took hours, until it was well past dusk; but eventually the licking flames were corralled sufficiently that Seymour, covering comms from the island, called to let them know the fire chief reported his team could take it from here. 

Virgil acknowledged with a terse nod. “We’ll collect the module and return to base.”

“FAB,” said Adam’s holo, floating over the console. “I can pick up Kar and Georgie, if you need to take Thunderbird Two back to the ranch?”

“Good plan,” Kayo said, when Virgil hesitated. “Can someone grab One?”

“I live for the day,” came the solemn response from Chan, at Adam’s side. 

“I’ll flip you for it,” put in Karen. “Give the old lady our love, okay?”

“Will do. Thunderbird Two out.” She glanced across at Virgil. Now that the action was over, he was stiffening up again. “We should probably check in with Di. Given that you’re blatantly violating bail and all.”

He nodded, reluctantly, so she put the call through—and it redirected to the cockpit of Thunderbird Six, meaning they were promptly greeted not just by Dianne’s hologram, but Scott’s, John’s, and Alan’s as well. 

“Hey,” Kayo said. “Where are you guys off to?”

“Home,” said Scott, who was apparently flying. “Dad and Gordon are staying with Grandma overnight.”

“How is she?” asked Virgil. 

“She’s okay. Pissed as heck at us for ditching a rescue for a—” He raised a hand from the yoke to make quick air quotes. “—‘very minor issue’.”

“She grabbed Scott by the ear.” Alan grinned broadly. “It was awesome.”

Scott glared over his shoulder at him, but refrained from taking the bait. “They’re doing some more checks overnight, but at the moment it just sounds like she needs a better asthma management plan. And to, you know, stop trying to hide the attacks. How’d everything go down your way?”

“Fire’s not out, but it’s under control,” Virgil replied. “It didn’t get too close to the city, but the evac was still worth it just for the smoke. Air pollution’s insane.”

“Glad it wasn’t wasted effort.”

Kayo remembered, belatedly, that there had been one more person with them in Anchorage that morning. “Where’s Ridley? Is she still with Lani and Harry?”

John nodded. “Lady Penelope and Parker are on their way in tonight, ready for court tomorrow, so between the three of them, they’re going to keep the Blacktons and the Williamses under watch. Just in case.”

“Speaking of court,” Dianne spoke up for the first time, looking faintly exasperated. “You do realise you’re in violation of your bail terms, Virgil?”

“They can’t prove a thing,” said Kayo hastily. “I put one of Brains’ anti-camera doohickeys on his uniform before we deployed. Only way anyone’s going to know he was here was if eyewitnesses say anything, and that can easily be dismissed as them mistaking someone else on the team for him.”

Di sighed, but nodded. “I hope you’re right. I spoke to the judge again before I picked the boys up, and I told her you were at the hospital with Sally—and I wasn’t lying, at the time, I thought you were—and since we didn’t know how serious it was or how long she would be hospitalised, she granted an absentia order so we could keep things moving. We got through the rest of the defence witnesses after lunch. Tomorrow’s just closing statements and jury deliberation.”

Virgil’s fingers tightened around the yoke. “Well, I guess I should be grateful I didn’t have to sit through it.”

“That’s certainly one way of looking at it.” Di’s expression softened into sympathy. “Today went well, Virgil. We’ve got a solid necessity defence, and strong evidence that the disaster was caused by Rosewell in the first place. The jury would have to be insane to return a guilty verdict under the circumstances.”

“I hope you’re right,” he echoed quietly, after a second. “Thank you, Di. I’m sorry I bailed.”

“We get it,” Alan said. 

“Yeah.” Scott half-smiled. “See you back at the ranch?”

“FAB.” 

Kayo closed the connection. They were coming up on where they’d left the module, now empty of its passengers; and she manned the clamps to pick it up, then set up the nav program for autopilot. Virgil didn’t seem inclined to use it, though: he kept her in manual mode as he accelerated and banked northwest. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked, after twenty minutes, as they passed the Atlantic coastline. 

He sighed, through his nose, lips pressed together. “It’s good to fly,” he admitted, eventually. “And to know that there are at least some fires I’m capable of managing without getting anyone killed.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Virgil. I know you don’t believe me; but it’s true.” 

“That’s … not really our call, though, is it?”

She wrapped her fingers around opposite arms and looked out at the expanse before them, at black sea and bright moonlight. 

“Tanusha,” Virgil said, after a minute of quiet. 

She turned back to him; his eyes were still fixed on the viewscreen. “Yes?”

“I'm in love with you.”

She’d had about two dozen thought processes running; and every single one of them slammed to a complete, numb, halt. 

“I don't expect anything,” he continued, after a second. “And you don't have to say anything. But I can't face tomorrow without—” He inhaled sharply. “I just needed you to know.”

She stared at him, pulse pounding in her ears, utterly mute. 

Only one coherent thought managed to penetrate the haze: the supreme irony of the fact that, yesterday, she'd told Ridley to do exactly what Virgil had just done, on the assumption that it would force John to respond equally unambiguously—but here she was, on the other side of the equation, with absolutely no idea what to say, or think, or feel—

He reached up and flipped a row of switches, preparing his ‘bird for maximum speed, perhaps for the last time; and she sat back in the co-pilot’s chair and stared blankly at the stars. 

The cockpit was completely silent the whole way home. 

Chapter Text

Sleep was a forlorn hope. 

Around 4 AM, she put clothes on and crept down to the porch, curling up in the swing chair. It was a clear, cool night. Peaceful.

It didn't help. 

The words kept echoing through her head, over and over and over and over, impossible to process. Tanusha, I'm in love with you. Not a platonic I love you, not a casual I have a crush on you, not even I'm falling in love with you—but I am in love. Fully, totally. Like it was already a done deal, his heart committed no matter what. 

She wrapped her arms around herself in the chill and thought of snuggling against warm flannel, a steady arm at her back. 

Why? Why on the green Earth would Virgil Tracy be in love with her? How could she ever possibly begin to deserve that?

Yellow tendrils of dawn began to glow over the horizon; and, a few minutes later, she heard the quiet thump of footsteps on the stairs and in the hall; and the door clicked open. 

She looked up. Scott. In his running gear. 

He started as he saw her, clearly not expecting anyone to be out here; but then he smiled, tightly, briefly, and nodded out to the red plains in silent question. 

She nodded back and got up, the chair swinging slightly behind her, and they set off at a jog, the same way they had a thousand times since they were kids. 

But the gentle pace quickly turned into a flat out run—then a sprint—her thoughts drumming in time with her footsteps. I'm in love with you. I'm in love with you. I'm in love with—

They were near the caves at the boundary and the sun was fully up when she staggered to a stop—and rested her hands on her knees—and gasped for breath—and thought disconnectively of Grandma, and little Henry Blackton, and what it would be like to feel like this when she hadn’t just run several miles. 

Scott had stopped too, leaning his back against the rocks, panting hard. He pulled his water bottle from his belt and took a few gulps, then offered it to her. She shook her head and sat down, leaning back, taking in the gold skyline and endless blue, until she had enough air in her lungs to speak. 

“Virgil’s in love with me,” she said. 

“I know.”

She turned and looked at him, and he shrugged. 

“For how long?”

“I think he told me … about a month after your family moved in with us? Two at most.”

Kayo wiped the sweat off her forehead, the oddest urge to laugh bubbling up in her chest. 

Of course Scott had never been interested. She’d been sibling-zoned from the start. Because Virgil, brave, principled, kind, appallingly self-sacrificing Virgil, was in love with her, had always been in love with her; and those two would never willingly hurt each other. 

All this time, she’d assumed she figured merely as the losing side of a romantic triangle. But no, actually, she’d been a corner of a square: everyone involved so desperate to avoid causing pain to each other, or themselves, that they’d remained in paralysed indecision for a decade. 

“You didn’t think that—that maybe this was information I should know?”

He shrugged, again. “It wasn’t my secret to tell.”

And now she did laugh, borderline hysterically, tipping her head forward between her knees, whirling thoughts finally coalescing into two distinct epiphanies. 

One: she and Scott Tracy were far, far too similar for anything between them to ever have worked. 

Two: she completely, unwaveringly, adored his perfect little brother. 

“I’m—” She choked through the giggles, looking back up at Scott. “I’m in love with him too.”

He grinned. “I know.”

“No.” She pointed an accusing finger at him. “Stop it. You, of all people, do not get to be smug about this!”

“Hypocrisy’s my specialty.” He flopped down in the red dirt next to her, chuckling; but, after a few moments, the smile faded. “Have you told him yet?”

She shook her head. 

“What did you tell him?”

“... nothing?”

He covered his eyes with one hand, groaning. “Kayo.”

“I know, I know—” She scrambled to her feet, grabbed his hand to pull him to his. “We’ve got to get back—” 

She was cut off by a distant roar. Scott cocked his head, listening. “Six.”

“Crap—” Surely they hadn't already left? Di wouldn't go without Scott, right? “Come on!”

Twenty minutes later, they barrelled up the front steps and into the hallway, nearly running down Dianne in the process. “There you are,” she said, reaching up to kiss Scott on the cheek, heedless of the sweat. “We’ll need to take the civilian jet: Virgil wanted to see Grandma before court, so he, John, and Alan left in Six already. But you’ve still got a few minutes to shower before—”

“Nope!” Kayo announced, heading without pause to the door to the hangar tunnel. “No time for hygiene! Get your butts in the plane!”

“Huh?” said Di behind her.

“I’ll explain later,” replied Scott; and he was laughing at her, the absolute arse.

2064

“I might be a terrible person.”

Virgil did not, initially, react. Which was probably sensible, since he was lying on his back on a piece of scaffolding fifteen meters off the ground, the front half of his torso inside one of Thunderbird Three’s maintenance panels.

After about ten seconds, she heard something click into place—then he wriggled back out and sat up, looking her in the eye. “Why do you say that?”

Kayo grimaced, kicking one leg out into the expanse of the hangar, and chickened out. “Well, for starters, I’m sitting here watching you do all the work.”

Virgil gave her a Look. 

She sighed and picked at a fingernail. “I knew Dianne was in love with Scott.”

“We all knew.”

“No, I mean—she told me. Well, I asked, and she confirmed it. Years ago, back when she was in law school.” She tugged her ponytail through her hands. “And I deliberately tried to chase her off.”

“… what do you mean, ‘chase her off’?”

She huffed shakily. “Not outright, I guess, but—I told her he doesn’t do relationships. That she should stay away from him, that she’d just be setting herself up for heartbreak. And I convinced myself that I wasn’t lying, that he hasn’t ever properly dated—that I was just being a good friend, sparing her pain, giving her the advice I kept trying to give myself, but—deep down, I knew what I was doing: I was being jealous and territorial and selfish—but now they’re together—and maybe if I kept my big mouth shut, they wouldn’t’ve had to wait this long, maybe I robbed him of years of …”

She trailed off; and Virgil shifted around and swung his legs off the edge of the scaffold so they were shoulder to shoulder. 

“I agree that it was wrong,” he said, finally. “But I kind of doubt it affected the timeline much. And … it would be really hard to watch the person you’re in love with end up with someone else. So I get it—the instinct to protect yourself. I don’t think a single selfish mistake makes you a terrible person.”

She hugged herself, sighing. “I’m not sure I’ve ever actually been in love with him. I mean, I love him, but—not like that. Not truly. I liked the idea, as a kid—and then I kind of just got into the habit of crushing on him. But … when it comes down to it, we fight all the time. And I could never deal with his overprotectiveness. We’d drive each other up the freaking wall.” He chuckled, and she was emboldened enough to add: “And, let’s face it, there’s only so many times I can watch a man eat pizza like that without getting the ick.”

Virgil laughed harder. “I’ll give you that. It’s pretty gross.”

“It’s revolting. Kudos to Di for being able to stand it, I suppose.”

He sobered, gradually, fiddling with his monkey wrench. “So—are you okay? Now that they're a couple?”

“I guess so.” She pursed her lips, thinking, looking back out across the hangar. “Yeah. I’m not quite sure when it happened, but—I guess I'm officially over him. Believe it or not, I even nearly said yes to Riggs when he asked me out last month.”

“… Wayne Rigby? You mean, on a date?”

“Yeah. Sweet of him. Not gonna lie, the attention’s flattering, and I was tempted for half a minute. But I let him down gently. He’s a nice guy, fun to hang out with and all, but … let’s face it, he’s kind of an idiot.”

It took Virgil a second to respond. “Maybe I should send him a condolence card or something.”

“Do they do Hallmark cards for that? ‘Sorry my sister shot you down’?”

“We’re not siblings.”

“I was aiming for brevity over accuracy. ‘Best friend who’s lived in my house for sixteen years’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.”

He looked at her sideways, lip quirking. “Best friend?”

“Well, duh. You see me stalking anyone else up in the maintenance scaffolds to whine about my feelings?”

Virgil grinned and slung an arm over her shoulder. “Yeah, okay. That’s a title I can live with.”

2066

When they arrived at the courthouse, the rest of the family was already there, gathered around one of the benches in the hall—even Grandma was there, looking, thankfully, reasonably hale and hearty—and Brains, and Penelope, and Parker—but there was no sign of the person she needed to see the most. 

“What are you two wearing?” Sally said disapprovingly, eyeing Kayo’s sweats and Scott’s very-inappropriate-for-Alaska-in-January shorts.

“Good to see you up and about, Grandma.” Scott bent to kiss his grandmother's cheek, then took pity on Kayo. “Where's Virg?”

Jeff nodded towards a side corridor, somewhat grimly. “He needed to take care of something.”

Kayo had no idea what that meant, and she wasn't about to wait around and ask. She dashed off around the corner, dodging a gaggle of immaculately groomed lawyers—

And then she saw him, and she understood what Jeff had meant, and she stopped. She couldn't interrupt this. 

Down at the very end of the hall, Virgil was kneeling by the window; and, in front of him, both arms wrapped tightly around a green plushie, was Henry Blackton. 

She was too far to tell what they were saying to each other, but that was as it should be. It was far too personal a moment to be shared by anyone but them. 

Even Lani Blackton apparently felt the same—she was waiting at a distance too, only ten feet or so in front of Kayo. She glanced over her shoulder, gave Kayo a single nod, then looked back at her son. Her eyes were glassy, but she seemed composed. 

After a few minutes, Virgil began to stand—then sank back on to one knee as Harry dropped the plushie and grabbed him instead, tiny arms flinging around his ribs. Virgil, without hesitation, folded his arms around the little boy, burying his face against the kid's hair. 

Kayo’s eyes burned and blurred. She made no attempt to wipe them.

The hug lasted at least a minute, probably several; then Virgil loosened his grip, letting go with one hand to pick up the soft little Two and return it to its owner's hold. Harry grinned at him tearfully, gave Virgil one last squeeze, then came trotting back up the hall to his mother. 

Lani put a hand on her son's shoulder and pulled him close to her side, then looked at Kayo again, clearing her throat. “How long do we have?”

Kayo started back to herself and checked her comm. Yikes. “Four minutes.”

“Then we better find seats. Come on, Harry.”

“Wait—” Kayo bent to Harry's eye level. “Thank you.”

The child nodded mutely—then mother and son departed—and Kayo turned to Virgil.

His eyes were wet and bloodshot; but he looked calmer than he had in weeks.

“Okay?” she asked, softly.

“Yes.” He rubbed his face with a shaky chuckle. “Well, no. But I think maybe now I can be.”

This wasn’t the moment. She couldn’t taint their first mutual confession, tie it in their memories to pain, to suspense. And there wasn’t time, now, not to talk properly. It would have to wait.

“Good.” She gestured back up the corridor as the Blacktons disappeared around the corner. “You ready?”

“Don’t think that matters very much, does it? It’s going to happen, either way.”

I’ll take that as a no, she thought, and pressed his shoulder briefly; and they started back up the hall.

They rejoined the group—and Virgil embraced each of them silently, tightly—his father, his grandmother, his brothers, Brains, Penelope, even Parker got a quick side-hug—everyone but her. Then he wiped his eyes with the handkerchief Grandma shoved at him, and they went inside, and Di and Virgil went up to the defence bench, and she was staring at his back once more.

The prosecution’s side of the gallery was almost empty, as it had been for the majority of the trial. Notable, however, was Felix Markham, sitting a few rows from the back, swiping away at his phone, surrounded on all sides by his security entourage. Kayo resisted the urge to glare at him. 

Lani had chosen to sit with them again, Harry in her lap, and she gave Grandma a smile as she settled in next to her. “Hello, Doctor Tracy. Feeling better?”

“Call me Sally, dear. Much better. Thank you—for your help yesterday, and for not patronising me in the process.” She grinned at Harry. “Hello, sweetheart. You must be Henry?”

“Hi,” he whispered, without parental prompting.

“Well done, Harry. You’re being so brave.” Lani kissed his hair, then looked past Sally at Kayo. “I … told him everything. Last night. Talking to Virgil was his idea.”

“That is really brave,” Kayo told him, and he gave her a tiny little smile. 

Alan’s voice in the row behind her. “But it always happens in movies?”

“For the same reason it’s not supposed to happen in reality.” Penelope. “It’s both dramatic and foolish.”

Kayo looked over her shoulder, and Alan made a frustrated face at her. “But Virg should get a chance to say his piece. Right, Kayo?”

“Penny’s correct,” John said, before she could respond. “Di puts him on the stand, he waives his Fifth Amendment rights, and then he’s subject to cross-examination.”

“But Williams is—”

Gordon reached past Penelope and slapped a hand over Alan’s mouth, halting the all-too-voluble potential exposure. “He’d ask tough questions, Squirt. He’d have to, if we were dumb enough to force the issue.”

“Stop making sense,” Alan grumbled, freeing himself from his older brother’s grip. “And don’t call me Squirt.”

“Shh,” hissed Jeff. Kayo turned around. Judge Henderson was settling into her seat. 

The court came to order quickly, Henderson clearing her throat and peering over her glasses at the tables in the well. “As the defence rested yesterday afternoon during the absentia hearing, we’ll proceed to closing statements immediately. Mr Williams, you may begin.”

Williams stood, buttoning his suit jacket. “Thank you, Your Honour. But the prosecution waives its right to give a closing statement.”

“… I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t believe there is anything I can usefully say that hasn’t already been presented.”

Kayo wished she could see his face from this angle, because what the heck? What happened to not visibly throwing the case?

“Very well,” said Henderson, coolly, after a further hard look at Williams. “But I don’t want this used as an excuse for a mistrial.”

“Willing to have it noted in the record, Your Honour.”

“Thank you.” She turned her attention to Di, and Williams sat down. “Ms Tracy, if you will?”

Dianne stood up, hand lingering briefly on Virgil’s arm—then she looked over her shoulder at the group at the spectator gallery, at Scott, and Kayo instinctively turned to him.

His dimple deepened as his lips moved silently. No matter what.

Di smiled back—took a deep breath—and crossed the well to the jury stand. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your service this week.” She was holding a set of notecards in one hand, and she consulted them quickly. “This case is, in many ways, incredibly complicated. There’s the question of how the fire started—and why—and why the tunneler crew were in the mine without authorisation—and whether International Rescue had other viable options available. But, at its core, this whole mess boils down to one question: whether what Virgil Tracy did on November 18th, 2065, counts as murder.”

She hesitated again, once again glancing at the notecards—then, abruptly, shoved them into her blazer pocket and took a deep breath. “I have this whole spiel prepared about the timeline, about necessity precedent—but you know what? You know all that already. As my counterpart—” A nod towards Williams. “—acknowledged, there’s no point in rehashing what’s already been said. So let’s talk about what hasn’t been said. About why Virgil Tracy was standing in that control room with his finger on the button in the first place.

“I first started working for Tracy Aeronautics as an intern in 2055—barely a month before Jeff Tracy, ah, didn’t die. A matter of weeks before the world learned who was behind International Rescue. I stood in hallways and meeting rooms and bars and listened to people talk about it, over and over—and I could not for the life of me understand why so many people—not just shareholders, not even just TA staff, but others with no skin in the game— disapproved.

“Yes, of course, International Rescue have their devoted fans, but they’ve got more than their fair share of detractors. I’ve heard people refer to IR as a waste of money, as a vanity project, as the privileged trying to play god—but none of the objections articulated ever fully made sense. They weren’t the real reason, and for so long, I struggled to understand what was. But then one day, I got it.” 

She started pacing, gesturing unconsciously. “We, as a society, expect rich people to be selfish. Most of them are. No one would have blinked an eyelash if Jeff and his sons had merely spent their lives enjoying the fruits of Grant Tracy’s labour. We might’ve rolled our eyes, tut-tutted, thought with satisfaction about how much less frivolous we’d be if we were blessed with the same resources—but we wouldn’t have minded. Not really. Because it’s what we expect. 

“But the Tracys aren’t selfish. They’ve dedicated their lives to the service of others in the most painful, literal sense. Every day, they put themselves at risk, willing to give their lives—worse, risk losing each other—to save other families from having to experience loss. They don’t always succeed. But they try, so very hard, with everything in them, to save just one more—”

Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “We expect rich people to be selfish. We expect everyone to be selfish. And when they aren’t, we have no idea what to do with that. It makes us look at ourselves, and sometimes we don’t like what we see—and oh no, uncomfortable introspection, can’t have that, can we? So we find ways to make ourselves feel better: we tear the unselfish down. Judge, critique, condemn. Armchair umpires. ‘They should obviously have done that differently.’ ‘That was never going to work, it was stupid to try in the first place.’ ‘They should be focusing on institutional issues instead.’ ‘It’s not worth the risks.’ ‘They’re taking on more than they can handle.’ And maybe some of the criticisms are right—sometimes they mess up, sometimes they can’t do it all. But at least they’re trying. They’re doing everything they can to make the world a happier place, one life, one family, at a time. 

“Last November, Virgil Tracy was faced with an impossible choice. Let five people, people with families, friends, plans, dreams—people crying out for help—die without a fight. Or sacrifice one life—a life that too meant so much, the life of a husband, a father—and, perhaps, save the others. He did not take that lightly. He still doesn’t. I know him well enough to know that moment’ll be part of him for the rest of his life. 

“He failed. But he tried. If there was more he could’ve done, he’d have done it. If it could have been his own life instead of Tom’s, he’d’ve offered it freely. But he couldn’t, and so he made the call that had the biggest chance of helping the most. Is that murder, in the eyes of the law?” She shrugged. “That’s your call, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, not mine. Virgil Tracy’s life is in your hands. Does he spend it in a jail cell, or does he spend it in the plane he loves, doing the job he loves, giving himself to anyone who needs a helping hand?”

Kayo couldn’t see Di’s face, not clearly—but she could readily imagine the determination, the faint smile that accompanied the warmth. “I said at the start of this week that Virgil Tracy doesn’t have a selfish bone in his body. I stand by that. And yes, I’m very biased, because he’s my baby brother, but that doesn’t make me wrong.” A quick inhale. “You’ve got a rare and precious opportunity, this morning. To reward altruism, not punish it. To make this world brighter by keeping Virgil Tracy in it. To rescue him.”

Kayo realised, dimly, that she was crying again. It was impossibly undignified, and she didn’t care. All she could focus on was the back of Virgil’s head and his ridiculous, adorable hair—all she wanted was for him to turn around and look at her so she could tell him she—

And then Di was back at the desk, and the judge was dismissing the jury for deliberations—and the bailiff was escorting Virgil out a side door. 

She sprung up as Dianne stepped through the gate in the bar, but Grandma preempted the frantic question. “Why are they taking him away?”

“Rule change.” Dianne’s hands and voice were trembling. “Apparently there was an incident last year when a woman tried to run during deliberations, so this jurisdiction’s stopped allowing bail between closing and verdict.”

“This is why we can’t have nice things,” Gordon mumbled. 

Scott, who’d been halfway down the row, made it to the aisle and pulled his wife close, arms saying what words couldn’t; and she buried her face in his shirt. 

“How long will it take, do you think?” Penelope asked no one in particular, and no one replied. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Alan said firmly, after a moment. “Right, Dad?”

Jeff leaned over and squeezed his youngest son’s hand, smiling tightly. “Of course.”

Chapter Text

The jury deliberation took three hours; and every minute was agony.

Kayo spent a large chunk of it shivering on a bench in the courthouse grounds. The stinging cold wind was a great cover for the puffy-eyes situation; and the discomfort felt good. Or at least kept her out of her head.

At one point, Scott came out and sat down next to her. He’d managed to acquire a coat and actual pants, somehow. “Aren’t you freezing?”

She shrugged a single shoulder. “Turning g-gradually to ice.” He reached for the zip of his jacket, but she forestalled him with a gesture, teeth chattering. “Which is my p-preferred method of dealing with this situation.”

“You’re no help to him with hypothermia.”

“I’m no help to him whatever my b-body temperature. It’s out of my hands.” 

“Have you …”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t. Not like this. Once we know.”

He nodded, reluctantly; and they were both silent for a minute; then he spoke, voice strained: “Dianne says we’ve got a very good chance. And I know objectively she’s right. But I can tell she’s still nervous, and I know it’s not helpful, but my mind keeps going straight to—I  keep wondering—what on earth am I going to do without him?”

“It’s not g-going to come to that,” she said reflexively, swiftly, the manage Scott’s emotions at all costs protocols she and Virgil had carefully honed over a decade automatically activating. “They’ll acquit him.”

“Then what are you so worried about?”

She turned back to him, startled—and saw the dimple lurking. “Oh, you manipulative bastard—”

Scott barked out a laugh. “Easy.” He tucked an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into the warmth. “We’ve done all we can. You’ve done all you can. There’s a very, very strong chance Dianne is right and he’ll get off. And if he doesn’t, then we’ll appeal—to the frickin’ Supreme Court, if we have to. It’s going to be okay, because we’ll make it be okay. Now come inside before you turn into a popsicle.”

The confidence was contagious—or would have been, if she hadn’t seen him give Alan a similar pep talk right before getting in the Zero-XL. But he was right that it was bloody cold; so she went back in, and let Grandma scold her and wrap her up in a blanket and force-feed her cocoa, and she sank onto a sofa between Alan and Penelope, and listened to John and Brains and Gordon argue pointlessly about surface tension equations, until the PA system announced that they should return to the courtroom.

Later, she had no actual memory of getting back to the spectator benches, of finding a seat between Gordon and John. She was just suddenly there, fingers wrapped around her upper arms, watching as the jury filed back in, and Williams and Dianne took their places. 

A handful of the spectators had left, but Lani and Harry had stuck around; and, unfortunately, so had Markham. And the press were back, though apparently segregated to the rear benches. (Markham didn't look at all happy about their presence, which endeared them to her very, very slightly.)

They brought Virgil out last, once Henderson had taken her seat; and once again, he sat down at the desk with Di without a backward glance. Would he look at them, at her, if the verdict were ‘guilty’? Or would he just let them take him away without—

“Has the jury reached a verdict?”

The judge's voice rang out across the silent courtroom, and, after a second, the jury foreman—a older, bearded man in a cheap suit—stood and cleared his throat. “We have, Your Honour.”

“Very well. The defendant will stand.” Virgil got up, and Di stood as well—and, so, surprisingly, did Williams. “You may read the verdict.”

Kayo was going to be sick. 

“In the case of the People versus Virgil Tracy, on the charge of first degree murder, we find the defendant—”

2065

Dianne looked gorgeous in white, Kayo thought, without a trace of jealousy, as she watched the newlyweds on the dance ‘floor’. And she seemed so very happy. Scott, somehow, looked even happier, clinging to his bride like he couldn’t quite believe she was real: he’d barely removed his arm from Di’s waist since the moment they’d stood on the front steps and said the words I do. 

At Virgil’s suggestion, the couple had decided to pre-empt the big fancy ‘official’ wedding being planned by Di’s parents in England and turned Gran Roca’s front yard into a makeshift wedding venue: a U of tables, surrounding an open dirt area in front of the house, which technically qualified as a dance floor. Penelope and Tin-Tin had covered the porch and every available surface with as many blue flowers as they’d been able to get their hands on at short notice; Seymour had whipped up an excellent apple upside-down cake; and the GDF were under strict instructions not to call them for anything short of imminent global catastrophe. 

“Honestly, they’re like teenagers,” Virgil muttered from the seat at her side, reaching for his beer, as the bride and groom started kissing again. “I give them ten minutes before they sneak off to the hayloft.”

“See, I knew it. Deep down, you're all still country boys.”

“You can take the man out of the ranch …” He took a sip, then leaned back in his chair. “You good?”

“Yep.”

“Sure?”

“Certain. This is a pining-free zone.”

“I'm glad.” He smiled at her sideways, then put down his glass and stood up. “Want to dance?”

“You saw the performance I gave with Gordon earlier. Are you sure you want to?”

“You both looked like you were having fun. And I'm wearing pretty sturdy boots.”

“Well, in that case—” Kayo placed her hand in his and allowed him to pull her to her feet, wincing as her weight shifted in the brand-new shoes. “Remind me why I allowed Penny to talk me into heels?”

“Ditch them if they’re so uncomfortable.”

“See previous statement about your ‘sturdy boots’. I value my toenails.”

“Okay, that’s outright slanderous.” Virgil grabbed her arm and towed her onto the dance floor, dodging an enthusiastic mid-spin Karen and Adam. “I promise. I won’t step on you. Because, unlike my little brother, I actually can waltz.”

She put her right hand in his left as he placed his right on her shoulderblade. “Can you now?”

“Uh-huh. Fancy private school wasn’t completely wasted.” He paused, counting silently—then stepped forward, guiding her to the beat in a simple box step. He was a good lead: confident but gentle. As with practically everything he did. “Wait. You do know how to do this.”

Kayo smirked. “I went to a fancy private school too, remember?”

“Then what the heck were you doing with Gordo earlier?”

“Matching his energy, mostly.”

Virgil laughed and shook his head, then lifted an arm and twirled her. “Think we can get John on the floor? We need more footage for the annual sibling blackmail material compilation. His section of my 2065 album is tragically lacking.”

“It’ll take some arm twisting, but I’m sure it can be done. Where is he, anyway?” 

“No idea. We’ll have to track him down in a minute.” He glanced around—then his gaze caught on Scott and Di again. 

Was it her imagination, or did he look … envious? Surely not. There was no way that Virgil Tracy, of all people, could be crushing on his big brother’s girl. 

“You okay?” she asked, when he didn’t say anything further. 

“Yeah.” He snapped back to himself, half-smiling ruefully. “Just … thinking.”

“I’d give you a penny for those thoughts, but I’m worried that’s a lowball offer.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “It’s not a big deal. It’s just … I remember Alan, when they first started dating. He thought it was the end of his entire world. And I thought he was being ridiculous. But now—” He pressed his lips together. “It does change things. Scott being a husband, first and foremost, not a brother. Which is as it should be—and I’m so, so happy for him—but it kind of feels like the end of an era, and that’s … weird. You know?”

She had the oddest feeling that that wasn’t the reason for that look—not that he was lying, but that he wasn’t telling the whole truth. But she didn’t want to prod too hard for secrets he wasn’t willing to share. 

“Yeah, I get it.” She patted his shoulder. “But he’s never going to stop being your annoying big brother.”

He laughed. “No, not in a million years.” 

The track drifted to a close, and he span her again, half-bowing. She attempted a curtsey in response, but was betrayed by the heels, and he caught her elbow before she stumbled. “Oooookay. Time to lose the shoes, Bambi.”

“Ugh. Willingly.” She tugged them off, sandy dirt rough against her bare feet, and looked over to the ‘DJ station’ (somebody’s comm hooked up to a pair of speakers). Alan and Tin-Tin were bending over it, arguing about something—but then they seemed to finally come to an agreement, and a much more club-esque dance anthem started blaring out. “Okay, that’s definitely our cue to find John. You check the house, I’ll take the perimeter?”

Virgil saluted with a quick grin. “FAB.”

2066

“We find the defendant not guilty.”

Kayo sucked in a breath, almost doubling forward—and the first, strange thought that came to her mind was that there had better not be any vocal celebration, because he'd hate that—

Thankfully, there wasn't. A handful of spectators behind them applauded; but the only sounds from the area occupied by International Rescue were gasps of relief and a whispered, fervent thank you from Jeff. 

Virgil himself grabbed the edge of the desk with one hand—and Di, one hand already on his shoulder, put her arm around him fully. 

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the state of Alaska thanks you for your service.” Judge Henderson turned back to Virgil, the faintest of smiles playing on the corner of her mouth. “Mr Tracy, you are free to go.”

She let the others hug him first—watched the way he clung to his father and to Scott, the protective curl around his grandmother and younger brothers, the shaky chuckle as Penelope kissed his cheek, the firm handshakes with Brains and Parker.

And then their eyes met, and Kayo froze, just for a second—then flung her arms around his neck and held on for dear life—and he crushed her against him, warm and strong and just right—

Maybe it was still too soon, still not quite the right moment—but she could no longer hold it in. 

So she pressed her lips against his ear, where the sound was just theirs, and whispered “I'm in love with you too.”

His grip tightened convulsively, a shuddering little gasp slipping out. But he didn't reply, not at first—not until they, reluctantly, let go, when he mouthed a smiling “Talk later?”

She nodded, in all probability grinning like an idiot. 

“Pardon me—” Williams, of all people, inserting himself into their group—which, actually, wasn't all that unreasonable, given that they were blocking the aisle. “Congratulations, Mr Tracy.”

Virgil shook his offered hand. “I'm just glad it's over.”

“I apologise for the distress caused, but it was necessary.” He turned to Dianne. “Ms Tracy, if you'll permit me to offer a word of advice? You haven't the stomach for criminal defence. Please don't quit your day job.”

Di laughed, unoffended. “Not planning on it.”

Kayo eyed Williams curiously. “What was with the phoning-it-in earlier? Aren't you worried about Rosewell? And your boss?”

“No,” he said calmly. “No, I'm not. Pleasant journey home, everyone.”

And he pushed politely but firmly through the crowd, headed for the door. Kayo was about to turn back to Virgil—when she noticed an absolutely livid Felix Markham moving to intercept him. “Oh crap—guys—”

But intervention was unnecessary, because, at that precise moment, the courtroom doors swung open, and a familiar pair of figures stepped through. 

“Excuse me, Your Honour—” Colonel Casey's voice rang out, silencing the general din. “Global Defence Force, Colonel Kimberley Casey. I apologise for interrupting court, but I have business to conduct.”

The judge waved a hand. “Proceedings are concluded for the day, Colonel. You may do as you please.”

“Thank you very much.” She gave the crowd a cursory glance—then she, and the blue-clad captain at her side, stepped forward. “Felix Markham, chief of operations for Rosewell Mining?”

Everyone standing anywhere near Markham, including his staff, promptly took half a dozen steps back. 

Markham looked around, then said, with a few remaining dregs of bluster, “I answer to that name.”

“Excellent.” Casey's smirk deepened. “Captain Rigby?”

Rigby stepped forward, brandishing a pair of handcuffs—and this time, Kayo had absolutely no objection. “Felix Markham, you're under arrest for violation of the 2044 Radioactive Materials Security Act.”

Oh. Oh.

There were several What's? from the crowd, and from Markham himself—and one outright laugh, which, though it was unfamiliar and came from behind her, Kayo strongly suspected belonged to Lani. 

Impulsively, she hurried forward, reaching the trio as Rigby slapped on the cuffs, raising her voice over Markham's voluble protests. “Fancy seeing you here, Colonel.”

“Kayo, just the woman I was looking for—and Virgil,” she greeted, nodding over her shoulder. “I take it the case concluded satisfactorily?”

Kayo felt Virgil's arm bump gently against hers. “As well as it could have.”

“You were looking for me? ” Kayo asked, briefly distracted. “Why?”

“Special delivery. From a mutual—well, I wouldn't go quite so far as to say friend.” She tugged a neatly-folded sheet of paper from her jacket pocket and handed it to Kayo. “An anonymous acquaintance who provided a very useful tip about Felix here.”

“I want a lawyer!” Markham demanded.

“Don't look at me,” Williams said, looking entirely too pleased. “Colonel Casey has already offered me a position on the prosecution team for your case.”

Kayo unfolded the paper. It was nearly blank: just one line, in neat cursive. 

Tak mengapa, Tanusha.  

She was never going to understand that man. 

“What does that mean?” Virgil asked. 

“I'll explain later.” 

She shoved the note in her pocket as Jeff—the only other person present at all likely to recognise that handwriting—approached. “Hey, Kim. Anything we can help with?”

“Afternoon, Jeff.” She reached out and shook his hand. “Not right this minute, but it would be very helpful if your legal team could send me anything you've got on this charming guy. I'd love to tack on a few more charges before the arraignment.”

Kayo grinned. “What about the less legal team?”

Casey sighed. “Kayo, we're in a courthouse.”

“She’s trying to be funny,” said Virgil, swiftly squeezing and releasing her hand. But his tone held only fondness, and Kayo felt her chest warm. 

The colonel glanced at Jeff and rolled her eyes. “I’ll bear that in mind. Captain?”

She turned on her heel and headed for the door; but Rigby hesitated, looking at Kayo—then at Virgil—and, Kayo realised, he'd definitely noticed how close together they were standing. “Congratulations, Tracy. You're a lucky man.”

“I know,” Virgil answered quietly. “Thank you.”

Rigby nodded, then shoved his indignant captive forward and departed. 

“Well, son.” Jeff clapped a hand on Virgil's shoulder. “What do you say we get out of here?”

“Dibs on pilot's chair.”

“You'll have to fight your brothers for that one. Come on. Let's go home.”

Chapter Text

The ranch was still unoccupied when they all got back. Adam had messaged Kayo, shortly after the verdict, asking how a full team reunion would go over with Virgil, and she, uncertain and unwilling to ask him for fear of receiving a dishonest answer, had hesitated to respond. 

Svenson, Adam: taking delay as ‘sorry but please don’t’

Kyrano, Tanusha: Yeah, I think he probably needs space. Thanks for understanding.

Svenson, Adam: no problem. i would too. give the fam our love and tell virgil that kar made george promise to give 2 full valet treatment when he gets back

Kyrano, Tanusha: FAB :)

It was strange, how it both was and wasn’t a celebration. There was a definite air of relieved camaraderie from most of the group, as far too many people started getting ready for dinner; but Virgil himself was still entirely too tense, smiles forced and posture stiff. He’d wasted no time in ditching the button-down for his favourite flannel; but he was moving like he’d never left the courtroom. 

So she caught his eye and gestured up with one finger in silent question; and he nodded—smile genuine, this time—and five minutes later they met, as always, on the roof—and settled in shoulder against shoulder, facing the sunset. 

He’d brought a folder with him, she noted curiously—it looked like one of his old art portfolios. But he didn’t open it: just watched the sky.

“So. Who's first?” he asked, after a few minutes of comfortable silence. 

“Let's get the unpleasant bit out of the way.” She tugged the note Casey had given her out of her pocket. “Tak mengapa. Literal translation is ‘why not’—but it’s typically used more like ‘you’re welcome’.”

“... I'm sensing passive-aggression?”

“Possibly. Or maybe he is genuinely just trying to be funny.” She sighed, refolding the paper. “It's my uncle's handwriting. He was the one that tipped off Casey to Rosewell’s illegal uranium operation.”

“That's what you knew,” Virgil said quietly. “What you wanted to use as blackmail. And how you knew. Isn't it?”

“Yes. But I didn't use it.”

“I know.” She risked a glance at him. He was looking off at the plains, the golden-hour glow softening the faint little line across his forehead. 

“I'm sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologise for. You didn't do anything.” 

“I'm sorry I thought about it.”

He turned to her, and she recognised the frown for what it was: not anger, but worry. “You really put yourself through that? Talking to him? For me?”

“I'd do anything for you.”

It slipped out before she could stop it, and it was possibly the cheesiest thing she had ever said—but it was true. 

Virgil's breath caught, halted; then he chuckled shakily. “Well, that's scary as heck.”

“Oh, I'm aware. Can we move onto the fun items on the agenda now?”

“Yes please.” He exhaled and picked up the folder again—then, after a second's hesitation, placed it in her lap.

“What's this?”

“Open it.”

She flipped the lid up: it was full of sheets of thick sketch-paper. The top one was a drawing of her: rough, swift pencil strokes, capturing her slouching across the couch, gesturing wildly as she addressed someone out of frame. 

She studied it for long moments; then lifted it. Another sketch of her, this time in her flightsuit, climbing into Shadow’s cockpit—and another, of her making tea in the island kitchen—and another, and another, and another—dozens—at least a hundred. Some just in pencil, some with splashes of watercolours, the odd dab of pastel or charcoal. Most of them had been torn out of sketchbooks or pads, telltale jagged edge on one side; and many were years old: there was that green dress that Penelope had forced her into for a TA gala one time—and a couple of her as a teen, one with toddler Tin-Tin in her lap. Towards the bottom of the pile, there was a single page that was just her eyes, over and over, in various different expressions and at different angles, and she laughed outright. 

“Hey,” Virgil said, chuckling self-consciously. “I needed the practice. They’re really hard, okay?”

She realigned the drawings carefully, reverently; then closed the portfolio and put it down, swallowing. 

There were no words that could adequately express to him how she felt in this moment. 

So she kissed him instead. And he smelt like tea, and hair gel, and engine grease, and home. 

“A-hem.”

They jerked apart, heads whipping around to the access hatch. Jeff was halfway out, head and shoulders through the gap, arms folded on the tile, watching them with growing amusement. “I’d give you the ‘if you ever dare hurt them’ speech, but I’m honestly not sure which of you to direct it to.”

“You could at least bother to look surprised,” Kayo told him.

“Now why on Earth would I do that?”

Virgil sighed, smiling. “I suppose I should just consider myself lucky we didn't get any of your ‘subtle nudges’.”

“Scott needed them. You didn’t. So, am I adding you to the list of people I harass for grandchildren, or … ?”

Kids. That was a swift jump. But the idea was not as disconcerting as it once was. She thought of Virgil’s arms around Harry Blackton that morning—and then of him taking that toddler from Karen yesterday and effortlessly soothing him, looking at the little boy with easy fondness, and—woah there, Tanusha!

Talk about very unexpected hormones. Was this what Dianne had meant, back on Thanksgiving? It seemed like a lifetime ago. 

“Maybe let us go on an actual date first, Dad,” said Virgil. 

“Fine. I’ll be patient.” Jeff hoisted himself carefully up and out of the hatch, settling in with his legs dangling through it. “I’ll leave you in peace in a minute, but I did actually want to talk to you, Virgil.”

“I can go,” Kayo said. 

Jeff made a face at her and waved a hand, brushing that off. “It’s about Mom.”

Kayo and Virgil were still sitting close enough that their shoulders were touching; and so she could feel him inhale. “She said she’s okay. Did she—”

“It’s all right—she didn’t lie, it is just asthma. But she’s certainly not getting any younger, and it’s not fair to expect her to be the primary medic for two accident-prone bases. I know you and George both have EMT qualifications, but at-the-scene emergency medicine and acting as the team’s primary practitioner are two very different things.”

Virgil nodded. “Agreed. I guess I could do extra training, if—”

Jeff cut him off with a shake of his head. “I appreciate the offer, but you’re more useful in the field—unless it’s what you want?” Virgil hesitated, shoulders raising slightly, and Jeff correctly interpreted that as a no. “We need to hire another actual medical professional. I’m not saying I’m going to forcibly retire Mom—she’d have my guts for garters if I tried—but she could use some help. An apprentice to train. And I was thinking we could … well. Fulfill a couple of responsibilities simultaneously.”

“Lani,” Kayo realised aloud. “Atlanta Blackton’s an NP. That’s barely a step below a doctor, right?”

“Pretty close for our purposes,” confirmed Virgil, looking at his father, a complicated series of emotions playing across his face. “Is that what you were thinking?”

Jeff nodded. “She doesn’t seem the type to willingly accept charity—”

“She’s already refused anything but a college fund,” Kayo put in. 

“I figured as much. But she will need a job, and one understanding about childcare. And Mom likes her.” He looked at Virgil. “But if it makes you even slightly uncomfortable—if having them around is going to be too much of a reminder—I’ll look for someone else.” He put up a hand as Virgil started to speak. “Woah there. I don’t want your knee-jerk ‘of course, Dad, go for it’: I want you to think about it carefully, for a couple of days at least, and then give me an honest answer. If it’s going to cause you pain, I won’t do it.”

“Okay,” Virgil said after a few seconds, quietly, gratefully. “I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you. She might not accept, anyway, in which case it’ll be moot, but I want to make sure you’re happy first before we do anything.”

Kayo looked between the father and son, and held back a smile. Virgil would say yes, she already knew that—and it wouldn’t be a lie, he’d genuinely prefer having a reminder of the worst day of his life in his face if it meant helping the Blacktons—because he was Virgil. Lani, she was less confident about; but her gut said she’d accept. And Kayo’s gut was generally pretty good at reading people. 

Okay, most of the time. 

Jeff kept his promise to leave them alone for a while, after that. And it was perfect: to sit in silence, warm and cosy in her boyfriend’s arms, and watch the sun slip below the horizon and the stars begin to glow. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked softly, eventually. “Truly?”

“I don’t know.” He sighed, deeply, at her back. “It’s … kind of a mess up in here.”

She squeezed his arm, a silent request to elaborate. 

“I’m relieved I’m not in prison.” His lips brushed her cheek. “I’m so, so happy that I finally get to do this now.”

“But?”

“But.” His grip around her tightened. “I don’t know how long it’s going to be before I can close my eyes at night and not see a burned body. And I’m scared that it’ll … never stop.”

“I wish I could fix it,” she whispered. 

He shrugged. “I don’t, actually. Yes, I know that sounds crazy—” he forestalled her, “—but it’s who I am. I feel guilty because I did something I hate. If I didn’t, I’d be a psychopath.”

“Well, I’m very happy you’re not a psychopath.”

He chuckled, roughly, against her ear. “Thank you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” she asked, after a moment. “About your feelings for me?”

“Well, you were in love with my big brother, for starters.”

“I wasn’t,” she insisted. “Not really. You were the one I always turned to.”

“I guess I could’ve seen that. If I’d looked. But I was so convinced you had me permanently sibling-zoned, whatever happened with Scott, and I didn’t want to make things weird.” He ran a thumb over the back of her hand. “But I wasn’t always perfect at keeping it close to my chest. You genuinely never noticed?”

“I probably should’ve. In hindsight, my total absence from your sketchbooks was a dead giveaway.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I could’ve been subtler with that. Left a few in, especially once I knew you’d noticed. But I was terrified it was so obvious in every sketch—that everyone would take one look and see right down into my heart.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. I personally quite like being able to see your heart.” 

He gave a shuddering sigh, voice cracking. “You’ve gotta stop saying things like that. Or I’m going to cry, and that’ll just be embarrassing for the both of us.”

“I don’t mind. I can take it. And you probably need it.” She certainly did.

He dropped his forehead to her shoulder, trembling, and for a second, she thought he might actually be able to let go—

—but then both their comms buzzed, which thoroughly ruined the moment. 

John’s peremptory demand that everyone report to the kitchen before dinner got cold was dutifully obeyed. Almost no one outside Jeff appeared to notice that both Kayo and Virgil had been gone for a while, or at least not that they’d been together—or if they did, they were good at hiding it. The only person who did visibly react was, of course, Scott, whose interrogative look they deliberately and mutually ignored. He could stand to be left in suspense for a bit. Especially since Virgil was clearly very amused by his big brother’s obvious frustration. 

Once they’d all filed through the kitchen and loaded their plates with spaghetti, they migrated to the lounge (the kitchen table not being quite big enough to seat all twelve of them); and Kayo and Virgil wound up in the window seat with Alan. 

“So,” Dianne said to Scott. They were seated on the rug next to the couch, by Jeff and Sally’s legs. “I got a message from Mummy. Apparently the wedding of the century’s back on?”

“Oh.” Scott watched her for a second. “Is that … good?”

Di’s smile was pained, slightly lopsided; and argh, yep, Kayo knew that feeling. “Not really.”

“Then we don’t have to do it.”

“You sure? Daddy’ll pitch a fit.”

“I’m sure. Redirect any drama straight to me.”

“Or me,” Jeff said, patting Di’s shoulder. “At least I guess that means we’re out of the political doghouse?”

“To an extent.” Penelope was sitting primly in an armchair, successfully conducting the impossible task of eating bolognese sauce from a plate in her lap without splashing it all over her white silk shirt. “Some rumours are more promising than others.”

“We can worry about that later,” Grandma said firmly. “Let’s just have a normal family dinner, all right?”

Gordon laughed. “When have we ever been normal, Grandma?”

“Definitely not in my living memory,” John said dryly. 

“Humour an old woman and pretend to be conventionally domestic for ten minutes, will you? Anyone have any nice news to share?”

Kayo nudged Virgil, and he nudged her back; and she absolutely did not imagine the swift glance between Scott and Di. But none of them spoke; and, after a few moments of silence in which everyone else racked their brains for something even remotely average they’d accomplished in the past week, Parker finally offered: “I figured out ‘ow to remove the back panel from Milady’s new jewellery safe?”

Penelope sighed. “Parker, do you know how much that cost?”

“Clearly not h’enough, madam.”

“Ac-ccording to Ridley, there’s an i-issue with the plumbing in the roundhouse,” said Brains. “That’s n-normal, right?”

“Sorry, Mom,” Jeff said, chuckling. “I think this might be a lost cause.”

Scott looked down at his wife again; and she smiled and nodded. “Maybe not completely, Dad. Dianne?”

Di cleared her throat; then twisted and and looked up at Sally with a grin. “Congratulations, Great-Grandma.”

It took a split-second for everyone to compute the implications—and then the room exploded. Jeff dragged Scott to his feet and pulled him into a bear hug; and Di took his place on the couch to embrace Sally; and then they switched places; and then they were peppered with questions from the assembled aunties and uncles. 

“All right?” Kayo heard Virgil murmur, putting an arm around Alan’s shoulders, and she looked over. The kid was obviously startled, but it was difficult to gauge if it was good-surprise or bad. 

Alan side-eyed him. “I’m a grown man, Virg.”

“Not actually an answer to the question asked,” Kayo said dryly. 

Alan rolled his eyes and smiled reluctantly, voice lowered. “Yeah. I’m good. He’s already given me the ‘there is room in my heart for an unlimited number of Tracys’ speech, like, three times in as many months. I’ll admit I didn’t expect it this quickly, but I’m not freaking out or anything.”

Virgil grinned and mussed up his carefully-gelled hair. “Don’t worry, you’ll always be the baby of the family, Squirt.”

Alan ducked with a disgusted expression, and they laughed and got up to join the congratulations. Virgil shoved aside Gordon, who was doing his level best to make Scott blush with apparently-naïve-but-not-quite-subtle-enough questioning as to how this had happened, and embraced his big brother tightly. “That is one lucky kid.”

“She’s going to be spoiled rotten with all this,” Di said, laughing, as Kayo hugged her. 

“What makes you so sure it’s a girl?” Scott asked, finally releasing Virgil. 

“Mother’s intuition.”

Scott looked at Kayo. “… is that actually a thing? Like, scientifically?”

“Don’t ask me, I’ve no idea.” She squeezed him swiftly, and made eye contact with Virgil over his shoulder. Yes, she’d wanted Vee to herself for a while, first; but they’d had their time now; and she was quite happy to share him, and their happiness, with the people they both loved. “Congratulations, big brother.”

The implications of that took a second to dawn on him—then he caught her sleeve as she pulled away, whispering. “You mean—you finally—”

“Uh-huh.” 

Virgil, who had just let Di go, smirked at his older brother. Very smugly. 

“Virg—” Scott grabbed him again. “Does anyone else … ?”

“Dad does. Otherwise, no, not yet.”

Scott looked at Di, then back at Virgil and Kayo, and hissed, “Okay, no. No more secrets.”

“What’s secret?” Alan asked curiously. They ignored him. 

“I don’t want to steal your moment,” Virgil said. 

“Dude, I’m already stealing your moment, you’re entitled to take it back.” 

“You do realise,” John muttered, “that we’ve all figured out exactly what’s going on, right?”

“I haven’t,” Alan protested. 

“Let me spell it out for you,” Gordon said, slinging an arm over his shoulder. “Virgil and Kayo, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-” He cut off abruptly as Jeff glared at him. “Having a mutually uplifting conversation?”

“See, I knew it.” Grandma reached up and pecked Kayo on the cheek. “You are all capable of being a normal family.”

“It’s not that I object. It just feels a bit … archaic?”

Virgil shrugged, jostling Kayo’s shoulder. They were walking arm in arm down the Soho footpath, London drizzle soaking their coats. “If it bothers you, I won’t do it. I just want your father to … like me.”

“I think we can be pretty confident he already likes you.”

“I once rewired the alarm network he spent two weeks installing into an in-home concert speaker system.”

“When you were fifteen. And when you were twenty, you quite literally saved his life.” She nudged him with her elbow. “He likes you, Vee. You don’t have to worry about that. But—if it means something to you—yes, I’m okay with you asking for his ‘approval’, or whatever.”

“The ‘or whatever’ really sells the sincerity there.”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Seriously. It’s fine if you ask. Just be warned that if he withholds his consent, I’m ignoring him and dating you anyway.”

“You better.”

They’d been sternly informed, by a smug and frankly dictatorial Jeff, that the pair of them were officially off duty for the weekend; and Virgil, keen to spread his wings after weeks of just hopping between bases, had suggested a visit to her family. She’d had … mixed feelings. Her outward display of confidence to Virgil aside, she actually had no idea how her dad was going to react. Oh, she knew he liked Virgil, that wasn’t a problem; but there was a nagging fear at the back of her mind that she didn’t deserve him; and her insecurities usually took her father’s voice. 

But she couldn’t deny Virgil such a simple request, not when he was giving her so much. And especially not when she could still see the lines of guilty tension around his eyes, around his mouth.

So to Soho they went. 

It was Tin-Tin, thankfully, who answered the door; and she was, as ever, all hugs and smiles, so that kind of eased Kayo into it. Nurin, too, was welcoming, with a kiss on the cheek for both of them; and when she ushered them into the living room, her father, ensconced in an armchair, insisted, despite Virgil’s protests, on standing to greet them. 

“I’m so glad everything worked out, Virgil,” Nurin said, as she served them tea. “It was absolutely horrible, what they tried to do to you.”

His discomfort was obvious. Kayo looked to Tin-Tin helplessly, and her baby sister rose to the occasion. “Virgil’s spent the whole week talking about it, Mummy. I doubt he wants to dredge it all up again now that it’s over.”

“I wouldn’t, in his shoes,” her father said. Virgil gave him a grateful look. “I’m flattered that you decided to come visit us so quickly. I’d’ve thought you’d be wanting to get back in the field.”

“Oh, I’d love to. But Dad’s a tyrant.” Idrak chuckled in response. “And we actually wanted to talk to you, anyway.”

“... we?” Tin-Tin murmured, crossing her legs and eyeing Kayo with an all-too-knowing look. Shoot. Freakishly perceptive, that one. 

“Before we jump into that,” she said hastily. “Dad—you don’t have to do anything about this, but I promised I’d pass the message on.” His eyebrows raised, but he remained silent. “The data you got for us during the case—thank you so much for that, by the way, it helped a ton—was only useful if we could make it admissible. So I was kind of figuring out ways to do that—how to get leverage, maybe—and, well—”

“You went to Belah,” he said flatly. 

Her heart sank; but Virgil, on the sofa next to her, folded his hand around hers; and she squeezed it tightly. “Yes. I probably shouldn’t’ve done it—but I’m not sorry, because it turned out for the best, in the end. But that’s not why I’m bringing it up. He wants to talk to you.”

“He’ll have to learn to live with disappointment.”

“Dad—” 

Wait, why the heck was she defending that man? 

But Virgil, as ever, understood what she couldn’t herself. “He helped, sir,” he said quietly. “He’s the reason the people behind the Rosewell fire are being brought to justice; and he had nothing to gain from it.”

“You think he’s reformed?”

“No, of course not. But I think he’s a human being who still, deep down, wants his family to love him. I’m not saying you should see him. But I don’t believe it’s a scheme, or anything, not this time. I think he’s alone in a jail cell, and he wants his big brother.”

Kayo wrapped her free hand around the outside of Virgil’s. 

“... I’ll think about it,” Idrak said, gruffly, after a moment. “I am not making any promises.”

“That’s okay,” Kayo said. “I only told him I’d ask.”

They sat in silence for half-a-minute; then Tin-Tin said brightly: “Okay, now you have to spill. What’s with all the hand-holding?”

Virgil and Kayo made eye contact, and burst out laughing. 

“I knew it!” Tin-Tin crowed. “You’ve always been cuddlebugs!”

“We show totally normal levels of physical affection—” 

“Yeah, for a couple in lurve!”

Kayo grabbed a cushion and hurled it at her. 

“Girls!” Nurin pleaded, snatching the teapot off the side table and holding it away from the line of fire. 

“Sir—” Virgil addressed Idrak, desperately struggling for composure. “I wanted to ask you for—”

“I am the Relationship Whisperer!” Tin-Tin announced, gleeful. “I called Scott and Di too!”

“We all called Scott and Di!” protested Kayo. 

“You have my blessing, young man,” Idrak informed Virgil solemnly. “If you’re not absolutely terrified by this particular feminine display.”

“And Gordon and Lady Penelope!”

“Again, we all knew that was coming!”

“You didn’t! You bet me ten quid that he’d never have the guts to—”

Virgil yanked a second cushion out of Kayo’s hand, preventing it from following the first, then tucked his arm around her; and she subsided sulkily. “I enjoy it. Provided any breakable objects are removed from the area.”

“Well then,” said Idrak; and the tone was gruff, but with emotion, not judgement. “My best wishes to you both.”

Perhaps, Kayo reflected—as she gave a grateful glance to her father (before returning to glaring at her sister, and receiving a stuck-out tongue in response)—her family cared about her more than she gave them credit for. 

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time she’d underestimated just how much she was loved. 

They didn’t over-prolong the visit: her father started to look weary after half-an-hour, and Nurin started to hover worriedly, so they made their excuses and departed, promising Tin-Tin an invite to the island as soon as possible. 

When they made it out onto the street again, the drizzle had intensified to actual rain; but Virgil had thought far enough ahead to bring an umbrella. 

“You’re such a Scout,” she said fondly, nestling closer to him under the shelter. 

“I try. What do you want to do?”

Just … be with you. “I don’t mi—”

Her comm buzzed, once, quick and short: incoming priority email. She checked it reflexively—and nearly punched the air. “Yes. Victory!”

“What?” He peered over her shoulder. “—Is that the New York Philharmonic logo? Why are they emailing you?”

“Weeeeeell … I may have sent them a message last night calling them out on cancelling your season.”

“Kayo …”

“It wasn’t threatening! Even though you could definitely sue—but all I did was point out how unfair it was to bail on the contract based on nothing but accusations—and suggest that maybe now you’ve been cleared of any wrongdoing—” She held up her wrist triumphantly. “And they’ve seen the error of their ways. You doing anything this summer?”

His expression should’ve looked happy. But it didn’t. And then suddenly, she understood why. 

“Have you played since—”

He shook his head. “I don’t—I tried, and I just—I couldn’t—”

Well. That answered one question, at least: what he needed in order to relax. 

“That’s okay,” she forestalled him, taking his hand, running through her memories of the neighbourhood. “... Come on. I’ve got an idea.”

The piano store was tucked away between an equally-fancy decorator and an even fancier hair salon. Virgil let her usher him in without comment, folding the umbrella and dropping it into a holder as they entered; and Kayo looked around. She didn’t know nearly enough about pianos to tell if they were good—but they were very pretty, and, judging by the store’s interior design, very expensive, so hopefully that meant they were up to scratch. 

“Can I help—” A young woman in a skirt and blazer approached, tone one of cool professionalism—then cut off abruptly mid-sentence as her eyes landed on Virgil. “Oh my word, you’re—”

“Looking at pianos,” Kayo interrupted, giving her a pleading look; and, thankfully, she seemed to get it. 

“—Of course. Do you have a preference?”

“Steinway,” Virgil said, after a second’s hesitation. “Usually, anyway.”

“Excellent choice. We have a beautiful new grand available, if you’d like to try it?” 

She gestured to a gorgeous glossy white piano in the far corner, and Kayo nodded and nudged Virgil forward. He approached it like it was a wild animal, sitting down hesitantly and placing careful fingers noiselessly on the keys—then looked up at Kayo, hazel eyes far too wide. 

Kayo turned to the saleswoman. “Is it okay if we have a little privacy?”

She nodded sympathetically. Kayo was definitely going to tip her very well, even if they didn’t buy a thing. “I’ll be in the back if you need me.”

Once she’d retreated—and locked the front door and lowered the shades as well, bless her—Kayo joined Virgil by the piano and placed her hands on his shoulders, massaging gently. He was terrifyingly tense, rigid as a rock.

“I can’t,” he whispered, after a few seconds. “It was the same when Dad—it took months before I—my hands just freeze—”

She kissed the top of his head. “It’s all right. It’s only me. And you don’t have to do anything. Just close your eyes and breathe, okay?”

She couldn’t see his face; but she could feel him exhale, slowly—then inhale—then exhale—

And then he played a soft, slow chord. And then, as it gradually died off, another—and another—four, five—and then the same progression again—

And then his right hand moved up the keyboard, in a soft, rippling melody—and she recognised it. She couldn’t remember the title—something Italian?—but she knew what it meant to him—and her heart stuttered and her breath froze in her chest. 

She’d heard him play for hundreds, thousands, of hours over the past eighteen years. She’d heard this piece dozens upon dozens of times. 

But never like this. 

The music built, swelled, his fingers flying, racing—and then they stumbled to a stop—and the sob shook his whole torso. 

Kayo stepped quickly around the seat and caught his shoulders as he doubled forward, and sat down next to him; and her arms went around him and his arms went around her and they held each other together as they both fell apart. 

2048

Concerto No. 3 in D minor Op. 30 was going to be the death of him.

Virgil groaned as he fumbled the key change again, fingers coming to a keyboard-smash stop. Rachmaninoff was the worst. Why the heck was his piano teacher so obsessed with him? Yeah, okay, it was a good demonstration of his ‘technical skills’, but he didn’t much care: music was supposed to sound nice, to make you feel—not serve as a monument to the pianist’s ego. 

A faint giggle. He whipped his head around to face the hall door, and saw a flash as the eavesdropper ducked out of view. Just a little too late, though—he could still make out the long black hair.

“Tanusha?”

The Tracy family had moved across LA three weeks earlier—Dad had finally admitted that they couldn’t reasonably fit five growing boys in Grandma’s house—and the Kyrano family had moved in with them, in the annex, doing triple-duty as chefs, housekeepers, and security. The younger of the two girls, Tin-Tin, was barely bigger than Alan; but the older was thirteen—John’s age, about a year younger than him. So far the only real impression he’d gotten of her was that she did not want to be here—but he suspected that had more to do with her family than it did with his: she’d been friendly enough to him and his brothers, if somewhat reserved.

Her head poked fully around the doorway. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to distract you.”

“It’s okay. C’mon in. You can help me practice, if you want.”

She came fully into the room. “Help how?”

“I’m so sick of Romantic era composers. I want to try something fresh, something I’ve never seen before. Could you pick me out a song?”

She nodded, eagerly, and he shifted over on the piano stool and patted the cushion. Once settled, she took his tablet and started swiping through the sheet music database. “Any ground rules?”

“It has to be an actual for-piano arrangement. I’m not really up to adapting on the fly. Otherwise, sky’s the limit.”

“Awesome.” She kept searching, for half-a-minute; then paused, looking down at the screen. “This one?”

He accepted the tablet back and skimmed the music. “Speed of Sound”, by an old band called Coldplay. He wasn’t familiar (which wasn’t surprising, given that the copyright notice dated to when his father was a toddler), but it looked easy enough. “Okay, let’s give it a shot.”

The melody was simple, repetitive; but actually pleasant, unlike the ego trip he’d been working on earlier. Like flowing wa—no, actually, birds in flight, definitely. He experimented with upping the tempo, once he was confident: and while he stumbled a few times, it was the most fun he’d had at a piano in a while. Maybe he should talk to Dad about getting a new teacher. 

“That’s really pretty,” he said, as he came to a close. “How do you know it?” He turned to Tanusha, and realised with a jolt that the younger girl was visibly fighting to hold back tears. “Hey, hey, easy—what’s the matter?”

She shook herself and rubbed her eyes with a grimace. “It was … it was Mum’s favourite. She played Nana’s vinyls a ton when I was little.”

“Oh.” 

He couldn’t think of anything to say. Because there wasn’t anything he could say, not anything that would make it better—he knew that all too well.

But he was pretty good with music, if not words.

“Do you … want to hear my mom’s favourite?”

She looked up at him, curiously, then nodded; and he placed his fingers back on the piano and began to play.

He didn’t need sheet music for this one. Every note, every movement of keys and pedals that made up “Nuvole Bianche” was branded indelibly into his cells.

Eventually his hands slowed, stilled; and, as always after he played Einaudi, he was completely incapable of speech.

“I wish I could do that,” Tanusha said softly.

He swallowed, pulled himself back to reality with an effort. “We could get you lessons if you want?”

“No, not piano, I mean—” A wobbly inhale. “I mean how you can take so much sad and … make it beautiful.”

He turned and looked at her, and her eyes met his, and they were tear-filled and slightly bloodshot and so vivid—

He’d always thought he liked brown eyes best. Like Mom’s. But, actually, green might just be his new favourite colour. 

“Tanusha!”

The distant call—Nurin Kyrano—echoed through the hall into the lounge; and Tanusha sighed and hopped off the piano stool. “Gotta go find out what stepmonster wants. Thanks for playing for me.”

“No problem,” he managed.

And then Virgil Tracy watched Tanusha Kyrano as she jogged out of the room, shiny ponytail bouncing at her back; and he fell hard, fast, and forever.

2066

Four months later

Kayo strode down the backstage hallway, checking her watch. Six minutes to curtain. The noise of the orchestra tuning and warming up was already filtering down from the stage. 

She shoved the dressing room door open with a cursory knock—and was greeted with the sight of one more Tracy brother than anticipated. Virgil was standing by the mirror, all but pouting with frustration; and his older brother was, very carefully, eyebrows lowered in concentration, tying his bowtie for him. 

“Shouldn’t you be in your seat?” Kayo said to Scott, suppressing her instinctive laughter. 

“I was, before the sartorial distress call.” Scott pulled the knot taut. “There you go.”

“Are you sure it’s meant to be this tight?” grumbled Virgil. 

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“I hate formalwear.” He looked over to Kayo, and one side of his mouth slid up. “Except when it’s on you. Have I mentioned how much I love that dress?”

Her cheeks warmed: she was still adjusting to the whole physical-compliments-from-Virgil thing, and they made her blush like a teenager every time. Her green dress from the one TA gala she’d ever dressed up for, ages back, was the only thing she owned formal enough for the Lincoln Center; and she’d contemplated asking Penny to take her shopping, figuring it was probably out of style or something; but Virgil, when she’d mentioned it, had all but begged her to wear it, eight years out of fashion or not. “About twelve times today alone.”

“Only twelve? I’m behind schedule.”

“Flattery is gonna have to wait. Stage manager wants you in the wings ‘at your earliest convenience’.”

“FAB.” He rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath. “Aaaaaand … starting to freak out.”

“You’ve got this, Virg.” Scott gave him a quick, tight hug; and when he let his younger sibling go, he was blinking hard. “Yikes. I’m officially a sap. Look at my baby brother, all grown up and playing with the frickin’ New York Philharmonic.”

Kayo wasn’t exactly feeling devoid of emotion herself, but she mocked Scott anyway, out of sisterly duty. “He pulled fifty-seven people out of a collapsing skyscraper three days ago, and this is what you choose to get all proud and weepy about?”

“I’m a parent now. I’m allowed to be randomly sentimental.”

“Just don’t embarrass me in front of the first violin.” Virgil took a quick gulp from the glass of water on the vanity, then stepped forward and took Kayo’s hand. “Okay. Ready.”

“Great.” She checked her watch as the three of them exited and headed for the stage. “Scott, you won’t make it back to your seat before he starts if you go now, and they won’t seat stragglers until the first break, so you might as well wait in the wings with me until then.”

“Works for me,” said Scott. “You’re doing the bit with the horns first, right, Virg?”

“That's the idea.” Virgil rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “I still can't quite believe that I'm not dreaming. This is actually happening, right?”

“No,” said Kayo. “You're sound asleep and Gordon's going to dump a bucket of ice water on you any second.”

“You're so mean.”

“I try.” They turned a corner, and suddenly the stage was visible, a sea of instruments spread from end to end—and, in front of them, a grand piano. “Seriously, though—” She halted, and he did too, and she took his face in her hands and pressed her forehead to his. “Don't worry about the audience. Just have fun—and go play us something beautiful, okay?”

He laughed shakily. “I really, really love you, ‘Nusha.”

“Right back at you, Vee.” She kissed him lightly. “Break a leg.”

And then she released him, because the stage manager was hovering impatiently; and she and Scott dropped back and let them usher him forward—

—and onto the stage as the house lights dropped. 

The applause was deafening even back here. Virgil didn't look over to the audience, though: he headed straight for the piano and sat down. 

Then, abruptly, got back up and went over to the conductor, and said something quietly in his ear. 

The other man gave him a puzzled look, but he shrugged his acquiescence, and, as Virgil returned to his own instrument, gestured to the orchestra to lower theirs.

“What's he doing?” the stage manager said to them.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Scott told her. 

Kayo watched as Virgil placed his hands on the keys and took a long, slow breath. And then the first notes sounded, swift and rhythmic—and very familiar—and definitely off-program. 

A sob-laugh rose in her throat, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. 

Playing a piano concerto with one of the world's top orchestras would be a highlight of any musician’s career: this should, unequivocally, be his big moment. Anyone else would be playing their own music, or at least music that meant something to them. But no—he was opening, instead, with her mother’s favourite song. 

“Is that … Coldplay?” the stage manner muttered. “What the heck?”

Kayo made eye contact with Scott—and yep, okay, now she was giggling. 

“You okay?” he mouthed. 

She nodded, smile broadening, blinking back tears, and just managed to get out a reasonably coherent whisper. “I really, really love Virgil Tracy.”

Scott looked as confused as before; but he still grinned and slung an arm around her shoulders. “Yeah. He’s the best.”

fin