FabFiveFeb 2021 - Virgil week (3)
prompts: a question, “I don’t understand”
Part 1 | Part 2
oooooookokokokokkkkk i know a looot of time had passed and probably everyone forgot about this, but with the hiatus and co i couldn’t post earlier, soooo, yeah, there you go. i highly recommend you reread part 1 and 2 again so you get the idea of what i wrote here. that said, enjoy this finale!
tagging: the host of the amazing challenge, @gumnut-logic (high-key sorry i’m so late hope you don’t squish me too much), and whoever showed interest in the last 2 parts, such as @nourelle-tracy @louthestarspeaker @weirdburketeer @janetm74 @lenna-z @cg29 @psychoticalienjackie @godsliltippy @melmac78 @plushiecuddler @dragonoffantasyandreality @brinalm @vegetacide @katblu42 @rachfielden-xo (yes i’m tagging everyone who liked the precedent parts what about it, fighT ME)
Scott sat for the umpteenth time in the umpteenth hospital chair, heartbroken. His mind was full of thoughts and if he even thought he had to express them out loud he would almost certainly scream.
Virgil was just standing there, sleeping like nothing happened, except for his bandaged right shoulder and some superficial bruising from the climb, which he shouldn’t have done, by the way.
His father was very angry with Virgil, but he had hidden it behind a quite thick veil of concern, which hit him too when the surgeon who removed the bullet embedded in his shoulder announced that the patient had also entered into fibrillation. Also, as if getting shot wasn’t enough. Now he was in a forced coma, to allow his body to heal without complications; he did not risk his life, however, so even if life support was taken away there was no high risk.
Jeff had gone down to the cafeteria to get some coffee, Alan along with him, probably to binge eat as usual; Scott had never understood why Alan could eat so much in situations like these, as if his stomach didn’t care that his older brother was in the hospital.
Scott, on the other hand, remained there, by his side, brooding as usual, starving as usual, worrying as usual.
Although their father had finally returned and immediately took over the reins of the International Rescue, it was still difficult for Scott to let himself go altogether, and return to the role of operator within IR. He often thought about it, how could he abandon a role he had become accustomed to and had made his own for 8 years? The commanding role, which had fallen on his head the day after his father disappeared, along with the various responsibilities that followed.
He thought about it, yeah, and he kept thinking about it, and there was always an answer in his mind, even if it wasn’t the right one. I can’t. His brain always told him that, like a mantra. You can’t.
Jeff somehow understood that, from the day he was rescued, the moment Scott girded his hips with his arm to get him back on the road home. Scott also noticed it, because every time Jeff spoke to him, he looked at him. He looked at him with a gentle, but also a bit authoritarian look. Don’t worry anymore, my son, you don’t need to take on responsibilities that aren’t yours anymore. And he told him without the need to open his mouth, so powerful was a look.
Scott at that moment opened his eyes, and in front of him was Virgil, who was asleep. He was asleep, but it was wrong. He couldn’t sleep now.
"Hey Virg." He tried whispering, like it was a crime to talk to a coma patient out loud. He didn’t get an answer.
"You know? I understand why you disobeyed orders. I don’t think it’s my own reason; it’s just that you care about everyone, unconditionally. You’ve always been the most empathetic of us, like...." he took a little breath. "... mom."
A slight sigh. Jeff would be back any minute. "Who knows how Mom is, eh, Virg? I don’t even want to think that you might be with her right now, because if you are, it means that everything is not good for you. And I...I need you. You must have noticed this, as empathetic as you are." He smiled involuntarily.
He heard a faint noise of footsteps coming from the hallway. "Now I must leave you, Virg. If I don’t get a coffee, I might pass out for a few weeks." He hated leaving his brother alone, but he really needed coffee or a good night’s sleep. The couple of times he left his younger brother alone was to go to a short shower. Of course, International Rescue was off-duty, and it would stay like that until Thunderbird 2 was back on line. None of the brothers worked well when one of them wasn’t there. And Jeff understood that. He understood them.
Scott slowly rose from the uncomfortable chair on which he had also spent many nights, putting a hand on his forehead in the process. He took one last look at Virgil, then left the room, John taking over.
The redhead put his left hand on his brother's shoulder, the other arm leaning against the wall, not yet fully accustomed to Earth’s gravity, and Scott smiled feebly back, then went to the cafeteria. Now it was John’s turn to observe his brother.
~
Virgil glanced at the snow, occasionally touching it with a finger or moving it with the tip of his shoe. They were both back out, and the air, although it was cold from the snow, did not seem to freeze him at all. "Mom...I have a feeling there’s something I desperately need to know."
Lucille looked at him, smiling. Her skin was very white, like snow. "How is that saying? If you don’t remember it, it means it wasn’t important."
"It is! It’s a person..." Virgil placed his hand on his forehead, closing his eyes and trying to remember.
She looked at him, her hands clenched on her chin and her elbows on her thighs. She had always liked to watch her son think. He had this habit of ruffling his eyebrows and bending a corner of his mouth down as he thought. All of them were different when they were thinking. Scott narrowed his eyes and pulled out his deadly dimples, unwittingly bending an angle of the mouth upwards, John always kept a neutral face, while Gordon had the habit of covering his mouth with the fist of his hand. And Alan...she never had time to find it out.
Usually Lucille could not possibly interfere with the natural course of things, but now it was essential for Virgil to return to his family. Get back to life. This would have been just...a shortcut to get to the final path. A path to which Virgil would have to come on his own, and fight for himself.
"Do you miss your father?" By now she had thrown the stone. Now it was up to Virgil to take it, retrieve the last piece of the puzzle to make it complete, and to ensure himself a way out. And of life.
"Yes..." Virgil replied, with a sad but strong voice. "Sometimes I feel like he’s back...I feel like I hear him..." The piece was slowly getting stuck. "I feel..." The last memory fell on him, like an avalanche. An avalanche that he could feel.
Lucille smiled at him, aware of what his son was about to reveal to her.
"He’s alive! He’s back..." Virgil began to stutter, the memory of his father, sitting at his desk, with gray hair and wrinkles marked by the age, but he did not remember the emotion felt in taking him back, in bringing him home from space.
His heart started beating too fast. So fast that even the Virgil who fought on the hospital bed had the heart that galloped too hard for the tastes of the multiparametric monitor, which began to beep hastily, alarming his doctors, who entered the room en masse.
Virgil took a few short breaths, calming down, but this was not enough because, as he had heard, he was in 'critical conditions’ caused by a 'seizure'. Or at least that’s what he heard.
"Virgil," his mother’s voice took him away from his thoughts, a voice as sweet as the face looking at him.
"I have to go back, Mom." He was quick to answer.
She nodded and smiled. "Don’t you want to be here with me anymore?"
He smiled too. "Now not anymore, I understood what I wanted and I solved what I had to solve." He took a short breath, while she nodded. "Thank you, Mom, for taking care of me one last time..." He was ready to say goodbye.
Almost as if she had intercepted his thoughts, she was immediately ready to answer. "Always remember...that I will never leave, child. I will always be here when you want to talk to me." She put her hand on his chest, right where his heart was beating. "I will always listen to you, even if I cannot answer you."
His big hand covered her hand, holding it tightly. "Thank you." He looked at her. "How do I get back?"
Her face immediately became serious, and her hand moved away from her heart. "You must fight...your fear."
"What...?" That’s when he realized he could feel something. Almost afraid, he turned slowly towards the avalanche behind him...that moved quickly towards his direction.
He suddenly felt nauseous, and he quickly turned to his mother, expecting a smiling face and maybe hearing her say that all this was a joke, because she had the habit of always joking, the same habit that Gordon too had. At that moment, however, he did not know what was scarier, whether the avalanche that threatened to overwhelm him at any moment or his mother’s frightened face.
"There is no other way...?" His voice was very weak.
"No, I’m sorry...and you don’t have much time left..."
"So you expect me to run into an avalanche?"
"I expect you to overcome your fear, to save yourself."
Words so simple, but at the same time incredibly powerful, that they had the effect of a slap in the face. He had tried to save his mother, but all this time he had been under the avalanche. Overwhelmed by fear.
He looked seriously at his mother, who understood, kissing him quickly on the cheek, then he got up and took a running start, charging it with all the fear that, he was certain, will never go away completely. Then he ran, ran to fight his monster, screaming with all his voice in his body, his battle cry.
He entered the avalanche.
Then...
All white.
~
“Thank you, I was really hungry.” Virgil replied, looking happily at the pizza that Gordon had smuggled to him.
“Heh, don’t get caught.” His copilot winked back at him.
“By the doctors?”
“That too, but by Scott! God know we’ll both get a good piece of talk if he finds out!”
“His favorite man needs carbohydrates.”
“‘His favorite man’ my ass!” Scott entered the room, showing his killer dimples and his pearly white smile. “Did you think you’d eat pizza without me?” The eldest took a slice of pizza, handed it to Virgil, then took another one for himself.
“That was the intent.” Gordon replied, earning a smack in the back of his neck from Scott.
“Have a nice meal too, guys.” Virgil responded with a laugh.
He was about to bite into his beloved pizza, when a black and white butterfly came in through the open window, resting on Virgil’s fingers.
Mom…
-END-