GOING HOME by GILLYLEE RATED FRT

A glimpse into the future of the Tracy family and IR.

Scott's an old man now and long retired, but there's one more flight he has to make for International Rescue.

With all my thanks to SamW for her help.

Cairns, Australia.

The old woman lay in her hospital bed, slowly fading away. The pain, caused by the cancer ravaging her now frail body, was finally under control. Most of the time she just dozed, waking only occasionally to stare lovingly at her husband.

The nurse smiled. She, all her colleagues, everybody who worked on the ward had more or less fallen in love with the old man. Soon after the woman was admitted, the nursing staff had forced the hospital's administrator to block the second bed in the double room, so old Mr Tracy could use it. They had asked for meals to be served to him on the ward. And now he spent almost all hours of the day and night next to his wife, only leaving her for his daily walk in the hospital gardens and at night, roaming the ward and charming all the nurses. Unnoticed by him, his hearing aid often emitting an ear-splitting and maddening whistling sound. The approaching wail was the nurses' cue to pour a coffee and cut of a piece of pie. The coffee machine worked overtime and many nurses had already tried their hand at baking apple pie as soon as the ward's kitchen assistant had found out the man was fond of that. The man would then sit in the nurses' office, a still imposing figure with his white hair and piercing blue eyes. 'Must have been a military man,' the nurse thought.

Many visitors came to see Mrs Tracy, in small groups, three at the most. And although they never stayed long it was obvious that they all loved her very much.

Now the nurse stood in the room and watched Mr. Tracy patiently spoon-feeding his wife a bowl of soup.

"Tomato soup, remember that?" he said, putting the bowl down for a moment and wiping her mouth. "Tomato soup and a limp ham sandwich, the first meal we had together, remember?"

"I love you so much, Scott," she whispered weaving her fingers through her husband's.

"What's that?" he asked, fumbling with his hearing aid. "Can't hear you, you know!"

The nurse turned around from checking the IV drips. Bending over the old man she articulated in his ear, "She says that she loves you so much!"

"I know that!" he said, sounding indignant, and looking back at his wife, he repeated it. "I know that!"

"Sixty years, nurse," whispered the old woman. "We've been married for over sixty years and he almost never, ever, said..."

"...the 'L' word?" asked the nurse. "But it's obvious he does. You only have to see his face when he looks at you to know that."

"Must be something in their genetic make-up, huh, nurse, that men can't say that they love us," said the old woman, not looking away from her husband's face.

Oblivious of his oscillating hearing aid, the old man covered the limp hand lying on the sheet with his own hands.

"Can't understand why you women always want to hear us say that, Serina!" Scott muttered annoyed. "I do, you know that. I always have, I always will."

"Yes," she answered. "I know...Ace!"

He began feeding her again.

The nurse picked up the stack of old newspapers and the tray on which the old man had stacked the used glasses and coffee-cups and left the room not knowing if she wanted to laugh or to cry. 'Not on my shift, Mrs Tracy,' she thought. 'Please, don't die on my shift. I don't think I can handle your husband's grief.'

Stopping by the secretary's desk she said, "That poor old dear keeps that room so tidy."

"Must be an old Navy man," said Simon and rescued the papers before the nurse dropped them on his desk. "My grandfather was Navy, a place and a time for everything."

"She called him 'Ace'."

Simon shrugged, "Air Force, then."

Dozing, Scott sat next to the bed holding Serina's hands in his, until suddenly he looked up and saw her looking at him.

"I'm sorry I could not be the husband you wanted me to be, Nini," said Scott.

"But you were, you were, Scott," she whispered.

The light of life disappeared from her eyes. Reaching out his right hand, he gently shut them and let his hand rest on her forehead. He closed his own eyes, a single tear rolling down over his face from each of them. For a few minutes he remained sitting, not moving at all. Then, pressing her left hand against his cheek, he bent down and kissed her lips. He then kissed her hand, and stood up.

A last look, a shaky sigh and Scott left the room with, for the first time in all his 98 years, slumping shoulders.

A nurse came out of a room and saw the look on his face. "Is..?"

"She's gone," said Scott, "my wife's gone."

"I'm so sorry," she said. "So sorry. Erm, I'll call the doctor. Are you...are you going back to the room, to your wife?"

He shook his head. "She's not there any more," he said. "I'm going to the garden, I have to call my daughter!"

"But you're welcome to use the phone in our office," she said; but she spoke to his back as he was already walking away.

New York City.

In the top floor corner office of the Tracy Corp. tower Margaret Tracy Jackson sat at the conference table across Mr Yamamoto and his interpreter. 'Darn those Japanese,' she thought. 'How can you become head of such a large company without speaking a word of English?' Making sure her face was as unmoving as his was and ignoring the younger man, she spoke direct to him.

"I don't care who told you you hold most of our company's shares, and I don't care what you paid for them, but they are falsifications. This is a family business, only family members have shares and I assure you that no one, absolutely no one would sell them to an outsider." She fell silent while the interpreter started to translate. 'Far too direct, Maggie,' she thought, 'far too direct, must not make him lose face. Grandpa and dad would never have done that; I sure hope what's his name… Hyata polishes my words.'

And then her cell phone rang.

"I'm sorry," she said. "My mother is ill and that's why I didn't turn it off." Not waiting for an answer she got up and walked over to the window. Already knowing what the message would be.

"Yes?"

"Maggie? It's me," said her father.

Her throat contracted. "Is Mom..?"

"Yes, ten minutes ago."

"Oh." Such an inadequate word. "Were you with her?"

"Yes." A long silence. "She...she went...went p-peacefully." He stumbled over the words.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there."

"It's how Seri...your mother wanted it."

"Yes."

Another long silence followed eventually broken by her "Do you want me to come out to you?" and her father's, "I'll stay here for another day or two. There's someone I have to see. So, no, you don't have to come here."

"Are you going to the island afterwards?" asked Maggie.

"Yes."

"Then I'll go to the island too."

"I w-would like that," said her father.

"Then I see you there. Dad? You want me to call Lucy?" Her cousin Lucy, uncle Virgil's daughter, was now head of International Rescue.

"Yes, please," said her father. "I have to go now. Bye."

"OK, Dad, bye."

Maggie broke the connection and turned back to Mr Yamamoto. "I'm sorry," she said again. "My mother just passed away."

Hyata had already begun talking when Yamamoto raised his hand, silencing the younger man. He stood up. "We will continue this discussion at a later time," he said in fluent and accentless English. "We will leave you to your mourning." He bowed deeply and left the office.

'Darn those Japanese,' she thought and dialled her husband's phone number. "Mark? Mom is dead." And then she began to cry.

Cairns, Australia.

Scott sat down on a bench in the hospital garden. He'd called his daughter, he'd called the undertaker, and he'd called the doctor grandson of an old friend. Serina's doctor had come and gone. The nurses finally had stopped bothering him. Did he want to see his wife? No. What was lying in the bed in that room was not her any more. Should they pack her belongings? No. She would not need them and there was nothing that he or Maggie would want to keep. Did he want to see the chaplain? No. What could he possibly say to make him feel better?

Scott still sat surrounded by all the ghosts of the past. He saw before him the faces of all he'd loved and lost. His mother gone so long ago, he hardly could remember what she had looked like. His granddaughter, who had joined the Air Force like her mother, her grandparents and her great-grandfather, killed in a training accident above the Atlantic.

Ashley, Virgil's wife, in what should have been her last mission as an International Rescue field operative, swept away when that dam in Idaho broke. Virgil himself, there one minute, gone the next. A massive heart attack in his sleep.

Alan, his baby brother, murdered. Murdered by the Hood. They'd finally got that son of a bitch but that had cost them the lives of Dad and of Gordon's eldest.

Two years after Alan's death, Tin-Tin had married Brains. And 30 years later they had lost their lives while on an archaeological expedition in Italy. An earthquake striking the island of Sicily had ruptured the magma chamber of the Stromboli and the inrushing seawater had caused an enormous explosion.

Grandma, old age. Kyrano had suffered a stroke when he was 80.

John, wading into a cloud of live steam to turn off a valve. If he hadn't, the whole power plant would have exploded. He was still alive when Scott and Gordon reached him but died while they carried him out.

Chris, Gordon's wife, from a virus she contracted at that medical facility.

Dear old Penny, not even FAB1 could withstand a head-on collision with a freight train.

Parker. The official cause of death was a fall, but Scott had always suspected Parker had returned to burglary and the fall would have been out of a window.

And John's middle child had died when a meteorite had struck TB3 on a simple personnel exchange run.

During every funeral the team had performed the missing man flyby. It had never felt good that they had to use the Tracy jets for this but it would have attracted unwelcome curiosity when every time a member of the Tracy family was buried IR appeared on the scene. But he had used Thunderbird One for his granddaughter's flyby and Virgil Thunderbird Two for Ashley. Virg had never flown her after that; in fact she had never flown again at all until Scott had piloted her during Virgil's funeral. 'And now,' he thought, 'come hell or high water I'll fly TB1 again.'

She still stood in her hangar under the pool on Tracy Island. Meticulously looked after by Tin-Tin and Brains' grandchildren. Scott smiled. She could still fly. He could still fly.

Scott sighed. Of the original group only Gordon was still alive and John's widow Vi. And now he had lost Serina. It was enough. He had had enough. The living were adults, the family business, both businesses, in good hands. His daughter Maggie ran Tracy Corp. now, Virgil's Lucy was head of International Rescue and her son, young Virgil, was field commander.

A shadow fell on his face and he looked up. Before him stood the two nurses Serina had liked best, young Matthew, holding his travel bag and not so young any more Sandra who handed him Serina's wedding ring.

"I want to bury her in her uniform," Scott said. "But I don't know if it still fits."

"Oh, I'm sure that will not be a problem," she said.

"You're out of uniform," he said, surprised.

"I know," she said. "They don't teach those children the things I was taught in nursing school any more. But this kid was so smart enough to call me when they ran into a problem."

Matthew blushed. "We couldn't remove your wife's ring. Not without hurting her, I mean... We didn't want to..."

"So, you came in on your free time..."

"...to teach these youngsters a trick of the trade." She nodded. "Matthew, take that bag and hail a cab for Mr. Tracy."

The young nurse slung the travel bag over his shoulder and jogged away.

"You came in on your free time," repeated Scott.

Sandra smiled. "I was 5 years old when I was rescued by International Rescue, and even though that's now 50 years ago, I've never forgotten the face of the man who carried me out."

Scott's eyes narrowed. "And you told everybody here about that man?"

"What man?" she asked innocently. "Come, I'll walk you to the cab, Mr Tracy."

When Sandra and Matthew watched the cab drive off he suddenly asked, "How do you know that Mrs Tracy's uniform will fit?"

"Oh, they will cut it open from behind and sort of wrap it around her. They do that all the time, you know."

Tracy Island

Lucy got up from her desk when Margaret, her eyelids a little puffy, entered the lounge. The cousins briefly embraced each other. "I'm sorry," said Lucy.

"Thanks." Margaret sighed and smiled ruefully. "You can't exactly say that she was, like, smothered in the cradle." Lucy snorted, stifling a laugh. "But still..."

"I know. Had a good flight?"

"Yeah. Oh, I did tell you dad's coming out a little later, didn't I?" Her stomach rumbled.

"Yes, you did. Come with me to the kitchen, maybe there's some lunch left."

"Of course there's nothing left of what I served at lunch," said Horrie, Lucy's husband, "after all the name 'Tracy' is a corruption of the Chinese words 'Tla Chi'!" He fell silent while stirring brown sugar and a dash of Worcestershire sauce through the coffee.

Lucy and Maggie exchanged glances. "OK, we bite," said Lucy. "What does 'Tla Chi' mean?"

"Hollow legs," said Horrie. "And now, ladies, I have to finish this marinade, so Lucy, shoo! And Maggie --- go to your room and rest and I will bring you something on a tray. You look like a failed souffle."

"What's for dinner?" asked Maggie.

"Sirloin steak with Midwest marinade, peas, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob," answered Horrie. "And for those who think they need to watch their figures, chicken fillet and apple salad."

"Mmm," mused Maggie, walking to the door, "I think I'll have the steak, and then the chicken to watch my figure." In the doorway she turned back to Lucy and said, "You know Dad will want a part in the missing man flyby."

Lucy shook her head. "He's 98, Mags. I can't let him do that."

Maggie whistled and left, calling over her shoulder, "Boy, am I glad I only have to run the company."

Lucy leaned against the counter and watched her husband whirling through the kitchen. He'd gained some weight and lost some hair but apart from that he was still the man she'd met almost 40 years ago now. She smiled when she thought about that small, friendly restaurant where she'd had dinner often while in her last year at college. And how she once jokingly had answered the serving staff member's question 'if all had been all right?' with 'no need to wrap the cook, I'll take him home with me as he is.' When she was about to drive away a rapping on the car window made her look up. And there he'd stood, smiling broadly, in one hand a plastic bag containing the few clothes he'd owned, in the other the box with his cooking knives. She had taken Horrie Delanty home 'as he was' and they had never looked back.

He looked up from his work. "Don't you have to figure out how to forbid Uncle Scott to fly?" he asked.

"Yes, but I can do that here as well as in the lounge."

The door opened and their son stuck his head around. "Dad, have you seen...oh, there you are, Mom." Young Virgil came in and put a handful of folders on the counter. "Pilot roster for the funeral and the flyby," he said. "Latest maintenance figures, training results, the info you wanted about that new tunnel and..."

"Out!" roared Horrie. "Both of you, out! It's like trying to cook in Grand Central Terminal!"

Scott rested his hands on the desk, once his father's desk, once his, now Lucy's. "I'll fly lead in the flyby."

"No," said Lucy. "Granddad would not have okayed this and neither will I."

Smiling winningly he said, "Amazing how much you look like your father."

"Uncle Scott, flattery will get you nowhere. I'm sorry, but you're way too old."

"Lucy, surely you can understand that what I did for your father I also want to do for my wife!"

Lucy wavered and he pushed on. "As you said, I'm old...so if I were to crash would that be so bad?"

"It would if you crashed on Independence."

"Then I'll crash on the prairie," he grinned.

"And start a prairie fire?"

"It's been a wet summer. Please, Lucy, let me do this." It was the closest he'd ever come to begging.

She sighed and held out her hand. "A clean bill of health, Uncle Scott. In my hands before lunch or it is a no go." 'There, he will never get that before lunch,' she thought.

Scott slapped a memory stick on the desk. "Computers here still have USB ports nowadays? As you will see, I'm fit as a fiddle."

"Yeah, but you were never a musician!" she growled. "Oh, OK, you fly the lead jet but you will wear a g-suit."

"I've never worn a g-suit," said Scott. "Not since I quit the USAF."

"Well, Uncle Scott, I guess that 98 is young enough for a first experience!"

"Amazing how much you sound like your mother," he answered. "All right, I'll wear one, but I fly TB1."

"Oh, no. Not in my lifetime you don't," she shouted.

But in the end she had to give in. Uncle Scott had never been a man to stray from the path he'd chosen.

Independence, Kansas

Vi rose and peered into the distance when she heard the planes approach. 'It's too hazy,' she thought, 'we won't be able to see it.'

Suddenly the four planes appeared from the clouds, flying in a perfect 'finger-four' combat formation, three of the Tracy jets and in the second-element leader's position the sleek, silvery Thunderbird One. Seemingly slow, the formation neared the burial site and when it was directly above, Thunderbird One abruptly pulled up in the time honoured salute to their fallen comrade, while the other planes continued in level flight till they were out of sight.

Vi blinked away the tears that filled her eyes. She had lived in a military family long enough to understand and appreciate the missing man flyby and it never ceased to move her when she saw it performed. And now, seeing Thunderbird One in the sky, after so many years, bitter-sweet memories of her active years as an International Rescue member overwhelmed her. She looked away and her eyes came to rest on the grave of her husband, her John.

Beside Vi, Gordon struggled to his feet. "Goodbye, Scott," he whispered. Vi tore her eyes away from John's headstone and saw Gordon standing stiffly to attention, holding his salute. Margaret clutched his left hand with both her hands and stared upwards. Smiling through her tears she spoke, "It's OK, daddy, I understand. Farewell."

Lucy followed his eyes, seeing immediately what he was looking at. Thunderbird One was still climbing, almost vertically now, showing no signs of levelling off. Alarmed, she raised her wristcom to her lips – but knew even as she did so that there was nothing anyone could do.

In Thunderbird One Scott fought the g-forces and the bucking plane, every alarm flashing and shrieking. "Sorry, old girl," he gritted through his clenched teeth, "just stay with me for a little longer. Up, up, up into the air!"

His wristcom began beeping urgently for attention, but he ignored it. Higher and higher the old rocket plane struggled. Buckling metal screeched. Scott saw black spots begin to swirl before his eyes. "Serina, wait for me." He gripped the controls more firmly and looked up at the sky. "You will be there, Virgil,"he yelled over the pandemonium of noises. "At this ending and beginning you will be there, I know you will!"

The plane couldn't take more. For a split second he saw a bright flash...

Molecules shattered and mixed.

In Kansas, at the cemetery, next to the open grave, Vi sat back slowly in her chair. Looking down at her hands in her lap, she imagined she heard the rumbling of an explosion.