First, hearing what had happened to Thunderbird Five while Tin-Tin had been aboard her.

Second, having to wait to find out if she’d lived through Five’s destruction.

Third, still not knowing for so many days after they’d gotten her to a hospital, if she was really and truly going to be okay.

Fourth, finding out she was blind.

He stood there at the foot of her bed with the quiet sounds of the Life Monitor on the wall behind her head softly saying all was well with the patient. It was the only sound in the room right now, save Tin-Tin’s light breathing. The bandages had come off her eyes, and the strangest thing was that they still looked the same beautiful green when she opened them as they always had; and yet she could not see.

Damage to her visual cortex, located at the back of her brain, when she was slammed into the bulkhead by the force of the rogue satellite’s impact. Damage the doctors said “might heal,” but “only time would tell.”

Only time would tell.

Time.

Something Al had a lot of on his hands these days.

He had gone through all the emotions from disbelief to anger, from frustration to helplessness. And right now that’s where he was stuck: helplessness.

His dad had finally convinced Kyrano to retire to the local Hilton last night where Jeff had rented two huge suites. International Rescue was non-operational thanks to the loss of Thunderbird Five, but Alan didn’t even care. He cared about nothing but the woman lying in the bed.

That Tin-Tin was angry herself was no surprise. She lashed out at everyone but Grandma, Jeff and Kyrano. She didn’t even want Alan seeing her, which was why he’d started sneaking in while she was asleep. Grandma had tried to reassure him, to tell him he had to be patient with her, because losing such a fundamental sense as eyesight was liable to set anyone off as they tried to deal with it.

But to Al, that didn’t make any sense at all. He wanted to help Tin-Tin; he wanted to reassure her that he was there, that they all were, and that they all would be. To make sure she knew she wasn’t alone even encased in darkness. But every time she heard his voice she tensed up, turned her face away from him and closed her eyes. He’d taken to coming in unannounced while others were there with her, only for her to say one day, “I can smell you, Alan, go away!”

Which meant, the doctor who’d been in there at the time had explained later, that Tin-Tin’s other senses were compensating for the loss of sight.

But Alan didn’t want Tin-Tin’s other senses compensating, he wanted her back to the way she used to be! The way she was supposed to be! He wanted to snap his fingers and make it better, restore her vision. Wanted to turn back Time and see to it that Tin-Tin didn’t get left on Five during the space rescue. He wanted to take her pain away.

But he couldn’t. It seemed his presence only added to it, and after hitting a few walls – literally, with the marks on his knuckles to prove it until Scott had forcefully put an end to that – all Al had left now was despair. It didn’t look like Tin-Tin would ever see again, nearly a month after the incident on Five. And it didn’t look like she was a single step closer to letting Alan through the barrier she’d erected around herself in the aftermath.

She was going home tomorrow; that’s why Alan, Gordon and their dad were there to begin with. They, along with Kyrano, were taking Tin-Tin back to Tracy Island on Tracy One, Jeff’s personal (and favorite) of their private jets. Grandma was back on the island presiding over getting the whole villa ready for Tin-Tin’s return, from making sure nothing was in the way that she could run into or stumble over, to baking up a storm of Tin-Tin’s favorite dishes from Malaysia, China, France, Hong Kong and even Maine lobster, which Tin-Tin had fallen in love with once many years ago.

John and Scott were busy working with Brains to develop a new satellite for International Rescue, but one that would no longer need to be manned in space. Instead, they planned on having it controlled from Tracy Island. The last Alan knew, he and all his brothers would be rotating in the new control room, wherever they wound up putting it, in shifts.

But that was neither here nor there now as Tin-Tin’s eyelids fluttered and her head moved slightly on her pillow. It was nearly four in the morning Sydney time, and Dr. Blake would be in to go over Tin-Tin’s records and vitals one more time in a couple of hours before releasing her. Until then, Alan was going to stay right where he was: watching over the woman he’d come to realize – hopefully not too late to have a chance to do something about it – that he loved.

Gordon stood there at the threshold of Tin-Tin’s room watching.

He had told Alan once when he’d come into Tin-Tin’s room to find his brother standing there like he was now, with his arms folded over his chest just staring at Tin-Tin’s sleeping form, that he looked like some sort of sentinel standing guard over her.

“I am,” Alan had replied. “I just wish she’d let me do more.”

Gordon had nudged Alan’s arm with his own, but said nothing as they stood there shoulder-to-shoulder watching over this member of their team – their family – who’d been felled in the line of duty.

They loved her; God knew every one of them did.

But Alan loved her more. Differently. Gordon knew it. He also knew he was seeing a change in his little brother that he’d begun to wonder if he’d ever see. He’d heard about Al’s ploy to steer Tin-Tin away from himself and into Brains’s arms (of all people, Gordon still couldn’t believe that one). And he’d wondered what the in the hell his brother had been thinking. But whatever it’d been, whatever stupid, childish thing Alan had been up to with that, it was gone now.

Now there stood not a boy, not an immature twenty-something…but a man. A man who maybe had only just figured out what all of this meant, what the sometimes painful things ping-ponging around inside his chest were. All Gordon could do now was hope that Tin-Tin got her eyesight back eventually. And that whether she did or not, she’d let Alan in once and for all.

He wasn’t sure his little brother would be able to take it, if she never did. But, he reasoned, if anyone could get through to a stubborn as hell Tin-Tin Kyrano, it was equally stubborn Alan Tracy.

Stay Tuned for the sequel to this story, “Coming Home.”