Chapter Text
Jeff Tracy felt lucky.
Well of course he did.
After 8 years in deep space, alone, wondering if or when he would be rescued, Jeff felt lucky to be alive. To be home. To be looking at his stars again. To have his boys close.
Jeff stared at the sky from his sun lounger, recommitting his stars to memory. The stars that called to him in the first place and kept calling until he got into all this mess.
He was just mentally tracing Cassiopeia when he heard a scuffle from the kitchen and the sound of footsteps coming towards him.
Turning towards the patio doors, Jeff sat up a little straighter as his eldest two sauntered in his direction.
Scott, who Jeff always felt would have made an excellent marksman if he hadn't been so obsessed with flying, zeroed in on his Dad instantly. Virgil blanched at Jeff sitting there without a med-scanner on or laying prone. Jeff braced himself for a reverse parenting situation.
Scott smiled softly, Jeff noticing a bottle of amber liquid in his hands, and turned his head back to the patio doors,
"John! We need a 4th glass before you come out!"
"Scott…" said Virgil, with a tone not dissimilar to his Grandmother
"Virg, one drink isn't going to kill him. He's still standing after 8 years. I think he's earned a couple fingers of Glen Kinchie."
That peaked Jeff's interest while tugging at his heartstrings. When he'd boarded the Zero-X to stop The Hood, only Scottie was old enough, but barely, to drink in his home state. Now four of his five boys could legally visit his favourite Kansas bar and put the world to rights, with the last not far off joining them. Hell, Alan could join them at Jeff's favourite London pub now. He'd missed so much time.
"Fine. But then I'm putting him to bed myself because Grandma's attempt clearly didn't work" stated his second son.
John appeared on the patio holding the four glasses, smirking as an acknowledgement of Jeff's presence and his bickering brothers.
"If you two are done playing nanny, do you want a lounger or those comfy egg chairs Kayo made us get?"
Jeff's eldest three sons scattered, reappearing with their chosen seating arrangements, plus two additional bean bags, an extra egg chair and an outdoor chaise. Jeff raised an eyebrow.
John answered his unspoken query first, "Alan was just finishing some tinkering with Brains on Thunderbird 3 and will absolutely see the lights on out here. He still doesn't like to be left out. Baby brother syndrome. Hence, bean bag one."
Virgil continued, "Bean bag two and the chaise are for Gordo and Penny when they've finished being sickening." He faked a shudder while smiling brightly, "It took them long enough to become this gross, we're tolerating it. Then Kayo is just finishing up a call with her Dad. He's flying out tomorrow."
Jeff breathed deeply and looked down. He'd established in the few hours he'd been back that Bhasker had blamed himself for Jeff's incident and hidden away all these years. Kayo had sprinted off after she knew he and the boys had landed safely to tell her Dad that Jeff was back.
"So Dad," Scott started, "How did you do it? Y'know, beyond the sentiment of "thinking about you boys" - a cheesy line Dad, you have to admit." The eldest Tracy son smirked at his Dad with a twinkle in his eye, reminding Jeff that his little troublemaker was still alive and well.
Jeff stretched and lay back on his lounger, "I thought maybe you'd tell me about your 8 years boys, I'm sure it's more interesting than sitting around, basically meditating and counting ration biscuits for all that time."
A new voice asked, "Where should we start then?"
Jeff looked over, "Hey Tin-Tin, nice of you to join us."
Kayo's face scrunched up and she made a sound very much like an ill goat, "Oof, no one's called me Tin-Tin in a long time."
A snicker from his eldest, "That's not what I heard…"
Thump
Virgil shoved Scott and Scott's lounger wobbled dangerously. Had Scott been sat at the other end, he'd have fallen into the pool. Johnny just laughed from his lounger, safely out of arm's reach.
Kayo perched in the free egg chair next to Virgil's beanbag, brushing a hand across his shoulder and resting it in his hand for a brief moment.
Huh. Jeff had missed so much.
"How about you start from the beginning?"
"Oh jeez, no!" Gordon and Penelope had appeared, Gordon spinning Penny onto the chaise that had been brought over for her and plonking himself in one of the spare beanbags, "There's a lot of boring crap in the early years, and not enough me because someone," He side eyed Scott and John, "wouldn't let me and Alan join in missions."
Virgil looked like he'd been struck by lightning, "That's where we start! If we're gonna do this, let's start from when we started on the route to this moment! Alan's first real mission and The Hood's first appearance since…" Virgil waved his hand nonchalantly in Jeff's direction.
"Yes!" shouted Alan as he sprinted across the decking to his family, "I've never had to deal with John's TV signal since then."
Jeff sighed and settled into his lounger again. His five boys and the girls who were practically family (and probably future actual family if the looks on his boys' faces were to be believed) gently bickered on how to start.
"We saved a Dad falling at terminal velocity out of a hot air balloon…"
"Kayo made a very hurtful comment about babysitting me…"
"I never actually finished that sentence! Thought it, didn't say it…"
"Gordon wandered off from an undersea rescue because of his 'squid sense'." There were several eye rolls following that comment.
"But we saved that crew still, and I helped solve what happened next!"
"Thunderbird 5 would have located the seismic disruptor eventually, there was too neat a pattern to the quakes! You needed to get that crew before the research centre filled with water!"
"No harm, no foul." Gordon shrugged
"And then it all went to shit" stated Scott, matter-of-factly.
"The Hood?" Jeff questioned. Nods from them all.
"He took over global frequencies, said something about a ransom and triggering the Ring of Fire, might as well have cackled like a witch from a fairy tale, and he was gone. The image was blurred to start with but John and Penny scrambled it and there he was."
"So he set off more of these seismic disruptors?" Jeff could feel himself wanting to ask more and more questions, and to learn about his family's life as International Rescue. He didn't want it to end. He worried that Virgil would still send him to bed after this tale was done.
"He set them all off. Probably 100 of them I'd guess?" Virgil looked to John for confirmation, who nodded, "The Ring of Fire was active in a way it hadn't been since probably ever. Tsunamis, quakes, it was a mess."
"That's a lot of rescues needed."
"You can say that again. We've gotten used to asking local support to deal with things, and just tackling what only we can tackle. So Brains prioritised for us very quickly, and 1 and 2 flew off to Taipei."
"They have a solar collector in the bay, don't they?"
"Got it in one Dad. Bloody things are heavy. Scott nearly became a baked potato. But Taipei didn't become barbecue kindling, just slightly crispy at the edges."
"Presumably the disruptors didn't just switch off after one round of quakes? That's not Hood's style. How did you stop them?"
"Brains figured out the frequency they were operating on, and I flew up to The Hood's satellite to add our own instructions to that frequency."
"And almost choked," John said under his breath. The youngest Tracy looked hurt.
"I did not! It was all for…dramatic effect!"
Scott gave his youngest brother a light pat on the back. Jeff wasn't sure if Alan would see that as patronising or not but let the moment go when Alan carried on,
"Anyway, carrot top over there was then able to figure out where The Hood was, so I dropped Kayo off for a family reunion. Not that we knew it was that at that time."
Kayo tucked a stray hair behind her ear sheepishly. Virgil nudged her shoulder lightly,
"Hey, it all worked out in the end. You can't choose family. Do you think I'd have chosen these idiots?" Kayo smiled lightly at that. Jeff had known her and Bhasker's secret for a long time, and knew the Tracy's and Kyrano's were as good as family anyway. You could choose a family. Just a shame about the ones you couldn’t choose and wanted to be rid of. "And that mission had a happy ending for you too, you got Shadow finally!"
Jeff had briefly seen the newest Thunderbird (relatively) in the hangar after they had landed. He'd be asking Brain for the design and he'd have Kayo explain her 'bird when they'd all slept.
"He brought a building down on himself, Kayo and the GDF, and got away, but whatever. It's taken 3 years but hopefully, we've seen the last of him for now" Scott declared.
"I like the optimism Scott, but we still haven't located who that mole is in the GDF" said Penny, ever the detail oriented young woman. Jeff remembered a distant memory of tiny Penelope investigating her father's gardener after the death of a rose garden on the estate.
Scott let out a distressed noise.
"We are getting off track! Dad wanted the stories, and we have to do them in order! We'll get to the mole by like, lunch time tomorrow?" Alan was bouncing in his beanbag, excited to share their adventures with Jeff, the good, the bad and the ugly. And boy, would it get ugly.
"What came next then boys?"