FRAGILE by FREEFLOW RATED FRPT

It takes a single instant to break a man, a single choice to end all that he is. But not all instants are frozen, not all choices set in stone.

We are fragile, yet we choose.

Break, or live?

I wouldn’t know what to say. I...

What could I possibly say to them? To any of them?

If I could see them one last time - just, just to give one final, meaningful look - one word, one smile...

I don’t think I could.

Sum up everything that I would want to... would want them to know... that I hope they already know...

They know. I, I think, they know.

But I wouldn’t want them to, not about this. About now...

If I had to, I think I’d rather write it.

You can’t feel cold on paper, can you?

My last message, telling my last thoughts. God, am I only allowed one? For all my brothers, my father, Grandma and Brains, Kyrano, even Lady Penelope? Surely, if I’m going to choose to write it, I should be able to write as many, as many as it takes. As many as...

But there isn’t enough time. Not ever enough time.

Every rescue, every mission, always against the clock, lives versus seconds, each tick pushing us further into desperation, further in to recklessness, further in to, to –

God, Scott! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you’re going to find me, and all I’m leaving is a message scratched on the back of a piece of metal. Don’t think of it like this, when you think of us. Please, just, think of something true, something vital to us, sometime when we weren’t here, lost, separated by metres of stone and dirt.

I was never here Scott. I know you were never the imaginative one - God knows how little time you had for fantasy and stories - but please, for me, for yourself, try. I am not down here, not shivering, and my face is not wet. My hands were never twisted, never broken or shaking. They are playing, at home, striding over ivory keys, or, or posturing with paintbrush, poised to slash colours on to white; reds, blues and greens, not brown, no more brown Scott, there was never any brown on my pallet or on my sash, none on the brush or in my hair, none on the canvas or covering my cheeks.

You were on the beach, with bright yellow sand and cerulean waters, crystalline reflections and ocean to the end of the earth, and you found this. A message, my message, bobbing happily. Message in a bottle, big brother, the childhood fable we never forgot. Words from beyond, fated for us. For you, this time.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Scott could feel the slow heartbeat beneath his hands, forcing life through the freezing body.

He’s alive, I know it.

The rhythmic pulse threading through his fingertips echoed his desperation, searching for assistance, for an answer, for a reason to keep striving. Scooping up the bedraggled form, Scott cupped the soaking bundle close to his chest and with his free hand, carefully swathed the standard IR self-heating blanket around it.

Just keep breathing, keep living. I’ll make you better, we’ll help. That’s what this is all about, what we’re meant to...

A stutter of oxygen and Scott’s internal mantra ran out of steam. He was cold, wet and exhausted. And he couldn’t hold it back any longer.

‘Virgil!’

The ball of fur came awake with a flurry of miniature spikes, and Scott’s sash took the brunt of a mindless attack. Jerking his hands closer to himself and whispering stilted epithets to his smallest hurricane victim to date, Scott crouched down, lowering the chance of harm should his charge succeed in its escape attempts.

His own sobbing cry still rang in his ears and he shook his head in an attempt to dislodge its reverberations. Thank God Alan didn’t hear that. Or Gordon. What would they think of big brother Scott then, huh? You’d never hear the last of that one, Scotty boy! Shrieking like a girl while clutching a kitten to your heart...

Hitched laughter seemed to claw its way out of his lungs, and realising the manic sounds were coming from him, the eldest Tracy brother swayed to his feet once more, clamping his mouth tightly shut.

At first sight, the pilot of Thunderbird One always made an immediate impression, from the outset of any meeting. Sharply dressed in his organisation’s uniform, proudly displaying his own individual blue sash complete with IR insignia, standing tall and commanding attention without saying a word, Scott Tracy was the epitome of control and steadfastness. The idol of his brothers and often the main representative of International Rescue amongst the public, he knew that his ability to don a mask of absolute determination and certainty was vital to maintain any sort of order - both on the job and off. It kept people calm; held their faith in the Thunderbirds and became the basis for all hopes to cling to. And for his family, it was their touchstone; the solidity which allowed his younger brothers to grow and experience life safe in the knowledge that he would always be there to fall back on, should they need him.

And steadfast was what Scott needed right now, what he tried to scramble his way back to. They need you to be there Scott. Virgil needs... And if not, if, if he... they’ll need you anyway. Just like this little one...

His hands had taken up an unconscious motion, one supporting the tiny kitten, the other stroking from head to tail, through the blanket, trying to warm the creature up. Its eyes had closed once more, but even through the thick folds Scott could feel the vibrations of tiny purrs, hitching now and again with quick sneezes and shakes of the golden head.

Amazing, to find it, half buried, almost drowned. So small, so...

And for just one moment, one terrible second, he felt like squeezing. It was so fragile, so, so breakable.

How dare it survive?

How could this tiny thing live, and have the audacity to be content when so many have died? How can I justify saving this life to my father, when I return home without his son? How can I live, God how can I even breathe when he is lost, buried, drowned?! It isn’t right, it shouldn’t be!

Suddenly furious beyond words, Scott let go.

Twisting and bending in midair, the lithe bundle righted itself only to land heavily in a shallow pool of muddy water. Brown spattered up the side of Scott’s once blue boots, and the IR symbol, embroidered on each of the blankets, sank in to the sludge.

Skittering out from the folds of slowly saturating material, the kitten scrambled under some fallen timber and turning its back on its former rescuer, curled up in the shadows.

Lifting one hand to his mouth and swallowing the urge to scream once more, Scott Tracy tipped his head back to stare at the now calm sky, and gritted his teeth as tears ran from his faded blue eyes.

‘We have a heat signature, Scott. Forty metres due west, two metres straight down. It might be... I mean, it could be anything; a heater left on, a lamp, there might even be a fire burning itself out under there. Just, just be careful Scott. Okay? Scott? You listening?’

A shift and I can feel again. Not cold, not broken. Air, I think.

Can you feel air? And, and a... a hand? What...

God, oh God oh God it’s him and I can feel him and you won’t get my message in the bottle Scotty I’m burying it right now but don’t stop touching me I’ll go cold again and I can’t, can’t take that now not when I can see blue and sky and sash and God your eyes and your tears but we’ll never mention it not even when you get drunk and we fall asleep on the beach and I’ll try to say thanks one more time with a bottle of scotch and an evening’s worth of just sitting on damp sand and silence and...

Where are you? Scott? Scott! Where...

Oh, there, your hand again. It’s dirty you know, big brother. I know you’re speaking, but I don’t care what it is you’re saying. Not making much sense, and that could be me or you or a mixture of both, but it doesn’t matter.

Are we going home yet?

He cannot stop stroking his brother’s hair. It’s strange, and he realises that the looks Gordon is shooting his way stem from his unlikely behaviour, but he needs to get all of the brown out.

Crazy, Tracy, his hair is brown, so unless you shave it off...

But it isn’t that, not brown itself, just the bits, the filth that shouldn’t be there. Not on his brother, the brown that is not Virgil’s, it should disappear. He knows his thoughts are erratic, that his hands should be doing something useful – like flying your own damn ‘Bird, Tracy! – but Alan would do in a pinch, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t flown One before.

‘I’m sorry Virg.’

The whisper sneaked out of him before it materialised in his head, and Gordon once more looked at him with the nervous expression of a man confronted with his older sibling’s apparent breakdown. Scott would have laughed, if he could have regained control of his faculties for a moment. Unfortunately for him, he was yo-yoing between being ridiculously authoritative and determined one second, only to crumble and flounder the next, latching on to his injured brother as though even in unconsciousness Virgil could solve his problems.

Obviously, Gordon and Alan were placing their hopes on that same belief, pushing Scott to stay at their patient’s bedside if only to keep him in one place, and out of the cockpit of Thunderbird Two. They didn’t have to try that hard as Scott, once situated, could not take his eyes from his brother’s filthy appearance; sweeping over the bloodied face, the newly-bandaged and splinted hands, the torn uniform, the, the... the closed eyes. Please Virg, just wake up. I need to talk, to tell you what I did. I’m sorry Virg, I know you’ll be disappointed but I... I don’t know what I was thinking. And I need you to tell me.

Sighing heavily, Scott pulled the light blanket further up, covering his brother’s damaged hands, blocking them from view.

Strong hands, fingers that supported and cared for others, that would never cast away a creature in need. Broken and strapped. Lifeless. But they’ll get better Virg, everything’ll get better now. If I could just get you cleaned up...

Wiping dirt and debris from his brother’s relaxed face, Scott winced in renewed guilt.

The blanket moved slightly, and the feeling intensified as a small golden face appeared at the base of the bed. A tiny squeak in place of the endless beeping of the heart monitor reminded Scott that they had saved two lives that afternoon, and not counting himself. Because what would I have done Virg? The oldest Tracy brother scoffed as he lifted the kitten, lowering it to the floor far more gently than he had last time. I’d have been lost beneath the debris in an Australian backwater, and no amount of time could have eroded the rubble keeping me from the surface.

Directing the kitten away with a gentle nudge of his foot, he turned back to his brother. Cleaner and as stable as he could be without Brains’ diagnosis and care, there was nothing else to do but wait. A small impact had him glancing down once more, as the wobbly animal again attempted to scale his once shiny boot. Although the blue was masked by layers of mud and dust, the slippery surface kept the kitten firmly on the ground.

Bending slowly, stiff with exhaustion and still hesitant to touch the creature that had revealed his darker impulses, he scooped the animal back in to his palms. The purring began immediately, and Scott marvelled at the forgiving nature of this tiny kitten after all he had done.

‘You’re a persistent one, I’ll give you that. Just keep on coming back for more punishment, don’t you?’

Scott looked from the closed eyes of the animal back to those of his brother, and almost dropped the animal as he saw a sliver of brown appear from beneath dusty lashes.

‘Now that’s one brown I can appreciate.’

A small smile from his closest sibling had Scott collapsing back in to his chair, still clutching his new pet. Might as well admit it. I’m not getting rid of this furry boomerang any more than I’m getting out of this business. No matter how many times I try, how many times I sit at a bedside or tell myself it’s the last – I’m just like you, little guy. I keep going back to my safety net, my security, my warmth.

Voice soft and hands shaking, he offered up his find for his brother to inspect.

‘Hey Virg. I... I got you a souvenir.’