It was the night before Christmas, but it was the last thing he cared about right now.

Twenty-four hours ago, he'd cared. Twenty-four hours ago, he'd been happy, surrounded by warmth and love and laughter as he and his brothers helped their grandmother and Tin-Tin decorate the villa lounge. One brief day ago, he'd been stringing lights, hanging tinsel, teasing the others merrily as they ploughed through the boxes of their family's Christmas memories. Just like he'd done every year of his life.

But now, on the night before Christmas, Virgil Tracy sat silent and alone in this place so very far from home and tried to face the fear that none of his Christmases would ever be the same again.

He stared unseeingly at the straggly, foot-high artificial Christmas tree on the table in the corner of the room; the slow-blinking string of pastel-colored lights that rimmed the picture window, framing a view of iron-gray clouds. He'd been here before, of course. Well, not here, exactly…not specifically in this hospital, in this city. At least he didn't think so…right at that moment he couldn't even remember what hospital, what city, they were in, although he'd taken the coordinates from Alan himself and flown here just a short few hours ago. But it looked just like all the other waiting rooms in all the other hospitals he'd been in, with the same blandly-cheerful paint on the walls, the same worn but functional furniture, the same stacks of dog-eared magazines. The people gathered here in random clumps weren't the same ones, of course, but they clung to each other for support in a familiar way; struggling with anger and fear and helplessness and the knowledge that their lives were in the hands of the men and women beyond those swing doors.

Just like him.

He'd sat here for so long in one position that his body felt frozen, locked into place. He couldn't be sure how long it had been. He couldn't be sure of anything, really. Time seemed to have stretched, become some strange, suddenly unreliable measuring tool. The Styrofoam cup of coffee on the low Formica table in front of him had been there for a while...long enough for the creamer to congeal as it cooled, leaving a faint ring of grease around the inside of the cup. Thinking about it now, Virgil found he vaguely recalled somebody giving him that coffee when he had first arrived, pressing it into his hand as if it were a substitute for what he really wanted – the answers they didn't yet have. He'd forgotten about it immediately.

The doors banged again, down the hall. He felt the electric wave of response sweep the room; looked up toward the source of the sound. He heard footsteps pounding, terse words here and there, gurney wheels squeaking on the linoleum floors. Then the doors slapped shut again, and the quiet of the waiting room surged softly back in, its inhabitants shrinking back into their chairs as the color bled out of the evening sky.

The room had been full to overflowing when he'd first come in. Some of them he'd probably seen just recently, although they didn't know him in his civilian garb. It was strange how they forgot faces so quickly, without the uniform to remind them of the pivotal part he'd played in many of their lives just a short few hours ago. The earthquake had had no shortage of victims, and they'd flown many of the worst injuries here, along with…

Along with.

Before he could stop it, his mind began to replay the memory of his arrival at this place. He remembered how surreal it had felt; like some kind of bizarre out-of-body experience. Meeting the ER crew in the parking lot amid the chaos of unloading wounded, stumbling through the explanation, frustrated almost beyond bearing by being forced to leave out the most important information of all – who his precious charge was, why he must not be lost, at any cost, in this sea of other victims. Then, abandoning the rest of his brothers, leaving them and the hospital staff to deal with the balance of the rescuees while he raced after that gurney… the one that mattered, God forgive him but the only one that mattered. Listening with everything he had, straining to catch the back and forth rapping of bitten-off phrases, desperate to discern what the medical personnel thought, what the prognosis was, anything that might feed hope inside him.

And then, those swinging doors stopping him in his tracks, repelling him – a civilian now, just like all the others in this room. Standing there, suddenly so very alone, faced with nothing but that blank, scratched-paint surface – the fear rising so hard and fast that it threatened to choke off his breath.

It had taken several seconds for his vision to clear and his stomach to settle back into its accustomed place. He remembered someone helping him, then…remembered stumbling on reluctant feet toward a chair he was resolved he'd only occupy for a few minutes at best. And yet, here he was. Still.

They'd promised they'd let him know. As soon as they knew themselves.

The doors again. This time there were no running feet, no voices…just the measured tread of one set of rubber soles, compelling Virgil's head to turn toward them with an equal mixture of anticipation and dread. He let out his breath as the weary figure in the stained green scrubs passed by him, pausing instead in front of a middle-aged couple near the window. The man rose to his feet, the woman stayed seated. The doctor spoke in low tones, and then the woman clapped a hand to her mouth and started crying. But Virgil quickly realized they were tears of joy, not of grief. She stood up, her lined face radiant now, and hugged the doctor, her happiness visibly lifting his features. She reached out her hand to her husband, and they exchanged glances of unbearable relief as they trailed out after the doctor. Virgil flinched at the hollow-eyed envy on the faces of those who were still waiting. There had not been many moments like the one he had just witnessed.

The fear rose in him again, making his body shake. He had to witness one more. Just one more. He had to.

He thought he heard the swing doors again, and glanced up, but it wasn't one of the doctors. It was just an old man with thick white hair, moving with a slow but deliberate gait into the waiting room. He was dressed in a severely cut black suit and long, thin tie, and his lined face and sharply hooked nose looked familiar somehow, as if Virgil had seen him before somewhere. At the rescue site? Probably, although he couldn't be sure. His mind was full to overflowing with jumbled images and impressions, none of them coherent enough that he could remember a single face with any clarity.

The old man crossed in front of the window. The last light outside had faded when Virgil hadn't been looking; the wide expanse of glass was now a dark and inhospitable hole in the wall. He shivered, wishing there were curtains to cover it. Looking out at all that gaping blackness made the room so much colder, somehow.

The old man didn't look at the window as passed it. He didn't look at anyone else, either, and nobody seemed to acknowledge him. He folded his tall frame into an empty chair opposite where Virgil sat, resting large hands on his knees. Virgil wondered who he was waiting for; how he was connected to the life that waited in the balance beyond those doors, just like –

But he still couldn't think about that.

The doctor who came into the room then was a different one, a woman. Dark blonde hair escaping a small bun on the top of her head, surgical mask pushed down to drape around her neck. Although she looked exhausted, he saw her make an effort to straighten her shoulders as she approached a young couple sitting on the same wall as Virgil. There was a child of about three sleeping in the husband's arms, grasping a handful of his father's teeshirt tightly in one hand. Virgil saw the woman look up, her eyes fearful; saw the doctor form the words, "I'm sorry," and this time the mother's cry was not a happy one. The child woke, startled, and his wail immediately joined his mother's. The husband, his expression stricken, put his free arm around his wife.

The old man across the room looked briefly at the grieving family, then away once again. Virgil was once again struck by how familiar he seemed, but he still couldn't put his finger on why.

He could sense the others in the room shrinking away from the child's crying, as if trying to escape the omens it might contain for them. He could hardly bear it himself – this bitter helplessness was a difficult thing to stand for a man so accustomed to the role of rescuing, relieving others' pain. Unable to just sit there, he got to his feet and went down the corridor to the nurse's desk.

One very tired-looking woman in a colorful blue-flowered tunic sat behind it, scrolling through pages of what looked like forms on her computer screen. Another nurse sat on the end of the desk, sipping from a white ceramic mug. They both looked up at his approach, and he saw in their faces that what he was about to ask had been asked many times that evening.

I'm sorry, Mr. Tracy, there's no news yet. The minute we know…

Virgil nodded numbly and turned to shuffle back the way he had come, staring at the floor, eyes fixed on the worn, speckled tiles. He felt like a windup toy car in an endless loop of motion, as if he could move back and forth between here and that chair in the waiting room for all eternity, with nothing ever changing.

He took his cell phone out of his pocket, stared at the display. He wondered how soon the rest of his family would arrive. He wondered if it would be in time.

Dear Lord, please don't let it be me who has to tell them…

He clamped hard on the thought, cut it off. Starved it of oxygen so it would die inside his brain before it fulfilled itself. That couldn't happen. No matter what, he couldn't let that happen.

When he got back to the waiting room, the old man was missing. Then, after a couple of minutes, he reappeared, settling back deliberately into his chair, hands on his knees, looking at no one. That tingle was there again at the back of Virgil's mind, that he knew the old man from somewhere, although he still couldn't fix that recognition to a particular time or place.

Then he forgot about that as the first doctor, the man, came through the doors again and gave another family the news they never wanted to hear.

Virgil hunched back into his seat, wondering how long he could stand this. The cries of grief sawed brutally at nerves already stretched beyond bearing. He didn't know what to do. Scott would have known what to do, but Scott…

He closed his eyes against the sudden burning. When he opened them again, the old man's chair was empty.

The phone buzzed in Virgil's pocket. He took it out, thumbed the slider, saw his father's number on the display. His stomach lurched painfully, but there was no choice but to answer.

His voice sounded dead in his own ears. Talking required almost more energy than he could raise, like slogging uphill through snow. No, there was no news. Bad or good. No, he didn't know what the situation was…that's what "no news" meant. Yes, he'd asked, repeatedly. No, he couldn't discuss what had happened; not here, in this room full of people waiting to find out if their loved ones were going to live or die. They'd have to talk about it later.

After what seemed like an eternity, his father mercifully ended the call. Virgil let out a shaky breath, relieved that he had once again postponed the inevitability of telling his father that it was his fault that his oldest brother was lying in a hospital bed just a few yards away, critically injured and maybe even close to death.

Virgil put the phone back in his pocket with trembling hands just as the old man once again returned to the room and took his seat. Virgil barely noticed him this time, consumed instead with a mental image he couldn't keep from returning…an image he wondered if he would ever stop seeing. The one brick factory wall that had been left standing, held steady now in the Domo's grip. His own hands on the controls. The fires to his left from the ruptured gas lines. John clearing rubble to his right in the Firefly. Hearing Scott's shout that there was somebody still there, on the factory floor, someone with life signs. He was going in.

Hold it steady, Virg, I just need you to…

A burst of static, a few garbled words. Virgil frowned. "Say again, Scott."

More incomprehensible fragments of speech. Virgil clenched his jaw in frustration. "Scott, I can't hear you. What do you need from me? Please repeat."

He could hear the interrogative tone of Scott's rejoinder, but still couldn't understand any of the words. Virgil hated earthquakes, hated the way solid ground could feel like it had turned to liquid under his feet, and the stress made his words come out sharp and impatient. "Scott, you have to tell me what you want me to do."

More electronic confetti. He swore. "Stand by, Scott." He switched channels. "Alan, did you get any of that?"

Alan's voice from Thunderbird Five was clear and crisp. "Negative, Virgil. I can see him, though. And he can hear us. Must be a mic malfunction. He's taking off his helmet."

He's taking off his helmet…

And right after that, the aftershock, and the sight that Virgil knew would haunt him to his grave: the twenty-foot wall cracking all the way along its length, three courses below the Domo's grip. The terrible thunder of falling brick, and the sound of his own voice, yelling his brother's name…

He jolted back to himself, sweating and shaking, the memory of his desperate shout still ringing in his ears. The waiting room seemed stark and unfamiliar for a moment, as if reality had shifted in some strange way. But nobody was looking at him, or seemed to have heard him say anything. Slowly, he forced his tense and jumping muscles to relax.

The arrival of a third doctor, an older man with gray at his temples, gave him something in the here and now to focus on. Virgil's eyes followed him as he crossed to a young woman who had been sitting alone, huddled with her feet up on the seat of her chair. She had on pink quilted slippers with little bows on the front, Virgil noticed suddenly. Something he could imagine Penny wearing, when she had been younger.

The doctor sat down in the empty seat beside the young woman and leaned forward, taking her hand.

Virgil shrank away from the look on her face as her world dropped out from beneath her.

"Mr. Tracy?"

He jumped. He hadn't noticed that another doctor had appeared in front of him.

His pulse hammered in his ears. So long sitting in this chair waiting for news, any news, and now the moment was here and he didn't want to leave the safety and security of this piece of molded plastic. Didn't want to move from this moment of uncertainty into the next, where he might hear words that couldn't then be unheard.

But he stood up anyway. It was what good soldiers did.

The doctor explained in a weary monotone that Scott's condition was still critical. They had been hoping to stabilize him further before taking any more action, but now they had to operate without delay. They needed his consent.

His consent. His consent. The one person who had the least right to make that call. If he hadn't been so impatient. If Scott hadn't taken off his helmet because of him...

But there was nobody else, of course. Virgil bowed to the inevitable, holding out his hands for the electronic clipboard and stylus.

The signature collected, the doctor nodded, turned and left the room.

And then Virgil realized that for the first time, the old man was looking straight at him. His eyes were fathomless wells of darkness that shook Virgil right to the core. He couldn't look move or look away, as if locked there by an invisible tractor beam.

Until the old man got up and began to leave the room.

And suddenly, Virgil knew. It was as if that wall of bricks had fallen on him instead of Scott, the shock of impact tearing away the veil and showing the memories to him, stark and clear. He knew without the slightest doubt who this man was, and what he was doing here. He remembered him, now…from the waiting room of that hospital in Florida all those many years ago, when he'd been a child and their family had first been broken apart. And then again from the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, when it had been Gordon's turn to lie in a hospital bed with respirators keeping him alive. And other places...rescue sites, especially the bad ones, with many casualties. Waiting rooms, like this one. He had sometimes been dressed differently, over the years, depending on the surroundings. But his face had always been the same, and the slow, deliberate gait. The shock of white hair. And the eyes…

Virgil exploded from his chair and raced after him.

Several yards ahead, the doctor who had spoken to him disappeared through the swing doors. Virgil caught up with the old man quickly, pushing himself into his path. "No," he said, knowing how desperate he sounded but not caring who heard him. "Please. No."

The old man regarded him steadily, those bottomless eyes feeling like they were swallowing him whole. He said nothing. Just kept moving forward, slowly and deliberately, forcing Virgil to back up.

"Tell me what to do. I'll do anything. Anything."

The old man searched Virgil's face, as if proving to himself the veracity of what he was hearing. Then he gave a slight shake of his head. He kept walking.

Virgil's back bumped against the swing doors. End of the line. He stopped, spreading out his arms, as if those twin slabs of painted metal were the gateway to eternity itself and he had to block them at any cost.

"Please." He heard his voice crack. "Please don't take him. We need him. I need him." He stared beseechingly at the old man's face, as if he could somehow stop this from happening with a sheer act of will. "I can't do this, without him. I don't think any of us can. It'll all be over if we lose him. Dad won't... Dad can't..."

There was a moment of utter blackness and the rush of an unspeakably cold wind, and suddenly the old man was on the other side of Virgil, and he'd pushed open the doors.

This was the fight of his life, and Virgil was losing.

No. He could not lose. He would not lose. It was all up to him, now.

He swung around, pursuing the old man through the swing doors, staring at his back. "It's not right," he said, finding the words somehow, everything he had vibrating out through his voice. "You know it's not. All the lives he's saved. All the sacrifices he's made. Everything he's given up, so that other people won't be taken from their families. It's not right, that he won't be home with us for Christmas. It's not right!"

One more stride. Two.

"Take me. Take me instead."

That unnatural wind again, so cold that it felt like he'd been plunged up to his waist in snow. He ignored it, pushed on, refusing to heed the distant part of his mind that was screaming at him to stop. To take it back. "Please."

And then the old man paused.

Turned, slow and deliberate. Regarded Virgil's face again.

Time stretched, impossibly. Virgil held his breath, hearing his own heart pound in his ears. Deep inside him, that tiny spark of hope flared back into life.

And then, slowly, Death nodded. Moved back toward Virgil, who backed hastily out of his way and let him push back through the swing doors into the main corridor.

He followed at a safe distance. Death paused again, gave him a final glance. Something that might have been approval stirred down there in the depths of those bottomless black eyes.

Then he turned and walked away down the corridor, back toward the waiting room. Back to his appointed rounds, Scott Tracy crossed off his list.

Virgil's relief was utter and total. His legs gave way underneath him and he slid down the wall next to the doors, all his strength spent. He felt the dampness of tears on his cheeks; realized he'd been crying. Didn't care.

Scott wasn't going to die today. And maybe he wouldn't be home for this Christmas, but he'd have many more now, to spend with his family. Virgil had paid his debt and he'd gotten his brother back.

What he had done should have terrified him. Maybe it would, later. But right now a smile spread inside him, turned into a chuckle, became laughter. He couldn't get up, his legs wouldn't work, but he felt light as helium, as though he could float up to the ceiling like a balloon. And then two familiar figures turned the corner of the corridor a few yards away, walking in his direction. His father and his brother, John. He saw their expressions change to confusion and then concern as they recognized him and broke into a run toward him.

"Merry Christmas!" Virgil called out to them, still laughing.