Thunderbirds Are Go One-Shots

To Heal

May 17, 2052

"John!  You need to stop shutting yourself in your room!  There is a whole world you're missing out on!"

"No!  I'm not missing out on anything.  Everything I care about isn't in your world, it's in the world Mom showed me." John turned away, anger and sadness coursing through him. 

Jeff gave a sigh, as he often did when talking to his second son. "John, there's more to life than just the stars..."

John turned back to his father. "No, life is the stars!  If Mom were here, she would agree with me.  But she's not.  Thanks to him." John glared at his youngest brother, the five-year old Alan.

Alan just stood there, looking away from John.  He had since lost the wish to interact with the red-head.

"John, seriously, it's time for you to grow up!  Quit taking it out on Alan; it's not his fault!"

"Yes, it is!  He killed her!" John exclaimed, tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

"John, really?!" Jeff exclaimed, but his son had already turned and was dashing away up the steps.

Jeff and his sons watched him leave, running away to his room.

When the thundering of the fourteen-year-old's footsteps died, Alan burst into tears, clutching Gordon's leg.  The eleven-year-old looked for help while he stroked his brother's bleach-blond hair.

Scott looked in the direction of John's room.  He didn't know how he could break through to him, but he had to find a way.

Footsteps coming from the stairwell that led down to the kitchen broke everyone from their thoughts.  They all watched as Grandma Tracy entered the room.

"Jeff, the GDF wish to speak to you," she told him.

Jeff sighed.  "Alright, everyone out," he said as he made his way to his desk.

His sons all filed out of the room, heading in different directions.  He watched them leave, before pulling up the hologram that awaited him.

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John sat in his room, feeling dead inside.  It wasn't a sensation he wasn't used to.  For the last almost six years he felt like that.  Like nothing mattered.  Like all was lost.  He felt lost.

The only time his life seemed to take on some meaning, some little bit of happiness, was when the stars were out.  Oh, how he wished he could get lost in the stars forever.  Alone.  Surrounded entirely by the mystery of space.

××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

"I'm bored!"

"Alan, just watch the movie."

"But this one is soooo boring!  And I've seen it a bazillion times!"

"We haven't watched Episode I in forever!" Gordon exclaimed.

"It's just about that race thing!  Nothing else happens..."

"Plenty else happens!  How could you-"

Jeff cut off his son, "Gordon, just drop it.  Alan, you can go to bed."

"Yay!" Alan jumped off the leather couch and ran out of the theatre room.

Of course, it wasn't bed time yet.  He ran downstairs to the area where his Dad worked, before walking out onto the concrete deck that over-looked the pool.