She'd known the entire time that he was there, but she'd ignored him. When he'd spoken, only his brother or father or Kyrano acknowledged his words. When he'd wanted to help her move about in her world of darkness, his brother or father or Kyrano would put a hand up to ward him off. He knew it was about keeping her from getting upset, but it felt each time like a monumental slap in the face.

His father understood; he'd seen it in his gray eyes. His brother understood; more than once he'd offered Alan a hand on his shoulder or a sympathetic look. Kyrano understood; every inch of his face seemed to be apologizing over and over for his daughter's behavior.

Yet there was nothing to be done. On Tracy One, he sat as far away from Tin-Tin as physically possible, but never stopped watching her. Disembarking inside Thunderbird Two's hangar, he'd taken the elevator up to the villa alone, to avoid being in the small, confined space with her. When Grandma and Penelope had taken Tin-Tin to her room, to get her used to how the furniture had been rearranged for her ease of movement, Alan had hovered in the first floor hallway outside her door, immovable. And when the time came for dinner, Alan had chosen not to sit at the table with the rest of his family but instead, to have his plate of food in the Lounge.

Not that he'd eaten more than three bites of it.

The evening passed to night, and after the long hours of darkness came the early morning light. Light which Alan knew Tin-Tin couldn't see.

He hadn't slept that first night of her return. Nor did he sleep very much over the next week...two weeks...three weeks. Exhaustion threatened his health, his emotional well-being...his very sanity. Gordon had tried nearly every day to bring him out of it by taking him to do something he usually enjoyed. It'd been Alan's new fleet of race cars for the first week, but even those beauties hadn't been able to pull him out of his funk. There'd been repeated attempts by his father, by Kyrano, by Grandma...by each and every one of his brothers, but all to no avail.

The more time that passed, the more depressed and distant Alan became.

Eventually Lady Penelope and Parker had to return to England for her responsibilities there. Eventually the new satellite being built to replace Thunderbird Five was well underway in one of their huge hangars on the nearby island of Moyla. Alan did his duty; he worked side-by-side with Brains and his brothers to play his part in the creation of the next chapter in International Rescue's existence. But his mind, and his heart, were with her always.

Nearly three months after her homecoming, Alan had finally succumbed to so many sleepless nights, to the entire range of emotions he'd been through in rapid rotation that had sucked the very life from his spirit. There he lay, faceplanted on his bed in rumpled shirt and jeans, one shoe hanging from his left foot with the other forgotten on the floor. Even the test of IR's klaxon didn't wake him from this sleep of the dead.

And so it was that he didn't hear the distinct sound of the override command being used on the door to his bedroom suite. He didn't hear the door swish open and then, several seconds later, closed again. Didn't hear the soft padding of bare feet over his hardwood floors and area rugs. Didn't feel the dip in the bed as someone sat down next to him.

When a delicate hand lit on his head and began to gently stroke through its mussed blond hair, it stirred within his dreams a memory from a time that seemed an eternity ago, when life was normal, when everyone in his life was the way they'd always been.

And the sleep without dreams suddenly blossomed into full technicolor as the memory rose and rose until it filled his mind, surrounding him with its sounds and smells. Surrounding him with her.

There had been a terrible rescue call in which they'd lost more souls than they'd saved. He'd suffered multiple bruises and a sprained ankle. Each of them had returned from that one worse for the wear in some way or other. But the hardest part of the aftermath of such failure had been how it'd made him feel, moreso than the aches and pains of his body.

She had sought him out, then, found him sprawled on the couch in his bedroom suite's sitting room. Quietly she'd sat at one end of it and pulled his head into her lap, fingers carding through his hair, fingernails gently scraping his scalp. In those minutes of silence where only that light scraping and the sound of their breathing could be heard, he found a place he could crawl inside to feel safe...to feel loved...to feel utterly at peace with himself, the world, and everything in it.

His heart had overflowed from the overwhelming realization of true love, and without a single word spoken, she had let him take her to his bed that night...for the very first time.

The sounds of her pleasure, the feel of their sweat-slick bodies, came back to him one hundred-fold. He moaned softly, peeling his eyelids apart with great effort as he lifted his head. Bleary-eyed, vision not yet cleared, it took him some time to realize that his hair was still being stroked even though he was awake instead of dreaming...and that he was not alone here in his room.

He smelled the myriad of scents that told him who was seated next to him. Knew her before he even saw her as he rolled onto his back. Her hand pulled away from his head and slid down along his cheek to his chest, where it rested palm-flat over his heart.

Her sightless eyes spoke volumes to him here in a room lit only by the half-moon outside his sliding glass door. Large tears that rolled down her face and dripped to the bed whispered an apology she couldn't yet give voice. Her trembling hand begged his forgiveness for shutting him out in the aftermath of her tragedy.

But then...then, when she leaned down and placed her lips softly against his, he knew something was different. Something had changed. He pulled her down to cover his body, licking his way into her mouth and reveling in the warmth of her flesh, the softness of her flowing nightshirt, the smoothness of her skin.

When at last she pulled away, mere inches from his face, he knew without a doubt that she was looking into his eyes. Her smile confirmed that, if not yet fully restored, her sight was definitely returning to her.

And she was returning to him.

After all that had happened...after tragedy, pain, loss and the very real sense that his life would never be the same again, he knew his Tin-Tin, at last, had finally come home.