Everyone gathers around to support Virgil on a hard anniversary.
Warning: Discussion of a fatal car accident.
Anniversaries were hard when you were never quite certain of the date, what with the inconsistent hours of their job dividing time into cycles of sleep and rescue instead of night and day. Virgil had once criss-crossed through thirty-eight timezones in a three day period and it wasn’t unusual to find birthdays had been forlornly overlooked in the haze of adrenaline and sleep. But they all had dates that they would always remember. They all had dates they’d rather forget. They made an effort to stop on the big ones. They each had their own rituals, their own traditions and coping mechanisms. But stop they did. Virgil wasn’t worried about his brothers on those days. He kept an eye out for the small ones instead, the ones that didn’t require a shutdown of International Rescue, just an outstretched hand to his brothers.
Alan refused to go into space on the anniversary of EOS’s arrival. John had jokingly suggested they throw her a birthday party and gone so far as to program a holographic cake for her. EOS had deemed the situation highly illogical, but had adored the book of paradoxes Gordon had given her. She snuck up behind Scott and recited a dozen in quick succession while he panicked, trying to work out if the event would cause Thunderbird Five to fall out of orbit. Virgil chuckled at the sight of John and Gordon laughing loudly at their brother but his heart twinged as Alan turned and walked away from the makeshift celebration on Tracy Island.
The date of Gordon’s accident meant more to the rest of them than it did Gordon. He chafed under the extra attention, preferring to avoid the reminder of the pain and brokenness he’d been lucky to survive. Virgil watched instead for the date Gordon had woken up, restrained in the hospital bed and unable to move. His eyes had widened as panic gripped at his throat, the fear of being paralysed and trapped forever taking over. Gordon moved more, talked more, touched more on that day than any other, every action a reminder that he was whole and free and alive.
He didn’t know what made Kayo grow so skittish a week after her birthday. She would escape to the other side of the island every year, silent and isolated. She had done so for as long as Virgil had known her. There were no sharp words, no sly comments made offhand with a wicked grin. Instead something cold and sad would grow and envelop her humour and she would be gone, Virgil watching helplessly from the sidelines.
Virgil had been the only one home when their Dad’s automated voice announced the unexpected arrival of the space elevator. John rushed through the lounge without a second glance and Virgil cautiously followed him to the slammed door of his disused bedroom. The fact that he was here and not there told Virgil that the mission was long over, that his brothers were on clean up duty or making their way home already. It told Virgil that the mission was not a success, that there was nothing more that John or anyone could do. It was another date he’d have to keep an eye out for.
Scott didn’t ever mention it and Virgil knows he feels silly even being affected by the date. Their brothers don’t bat an eye, too young or too busy not being born to realise the day even meant anything. The date Dad was meant to be in space but was grounded when he broke his leg ice skating with Scott. The date that marked the first fatalities in space since 2024. The difference was imperceptible, Scott hovering more over his brothers, reigning in his temper a little better and telling them he loved them. Virgil knew he had modelled his response after their Dad and lets him fuss without protest when he returns from a rescue with grazes covering his palms.
Virgil had a calendar of tragedy memorised and a determined will to create time for his family out of nothing. He knew he couldn’t solve their problems but he could follow them, be with them, wait for them. All he needed to do was to spend time with them and make sure they know that he always has time to spare for their dates.
***
Virgil woke up with a weight sitting heavy on his chest, a weight that made it hard to move through his morning routine and that forced him to focus on calisthenics over strength training during his workout. He saw the glances his brothers made over breakfast, the surreptitious way Gordon checked the calendar, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care what they thought. He allowed himself to be dragged up to the lounge room and shoved onto a couch without a protest.
“Time to talk, little brother,” said Scott softly. “What do you need?”
“It’s the twelfth,” he heard himself reply. The hollow words sunk like lead in the room, their weight felt by everyone present.
“Sure is, Virg,” said Gordon, unhappily. He rested his head against Virgil’s shoulder and snaked his arms around his waist.
The light in the corner of his eye shifted to a bright blue, but he didn’t acknowledge John’s appearance. He didn’t want solutions rattled off as John tried to fix him in the only way he knew how, he wanted and needed to feel the broken memory, the pain and the sorrow.
“Virgil?” Alan’s voice was high and uncertain and the first thing to cut through the fog of the morning. He held a slim black book in his hands, retrieved from the back of Virgil’s closet.
Virgil knows exactly what it is, knows what Alan is asking, and thanks him for it.
He opens the book and inhaled sharply, wondering if he would ever see the old two dimensional holo without the blur of tears obscuring his view.
The holo showed him as a teenager, him and a boy with sandy coloured hair, a dusting of freckles and a wicked grin. They were sitting on top of an old broken down car, the engine coated in oil splatters and dust from the previous century.
“Avery,” he said with a sad smile. “Let me tell you about Avery.”
They all knew Avery. They all knew the best friend Virgil had ever known. They knew how they were inseparable, how they’d met in Virgil’s sophomore year and had taken apart a holoprojector together in class to see how it worked. The ensuing detention had done nothing to dispel the growing bond between them. They knew the 1996 Toyota Corolla that the two had saved up for and split the cost on, determined to rebuild her as good as new, better even. They knew all of this, but still they stayed and they listened.
Virgil turned the page as he spoke, showing them the photos and holos and project notes he’d saved over the years.
“We were meant to go to the same college,” he said quietly as he flipped to a page showing a copy of his acceptance letter and a holo of the joint dinner party their families had thrown them.
His hand reached out and expanded the image so they could all see themselves clearly in the holo.
“It was a good night,” said Scott. “Dad tried to replace Grandma’s spaghetti before the Coopers arrived and spilt the sauce all over his shirt.”
Alan giggled. “Gordon and I started playing with it on the floor.
“You were so embarrassing,” said Virgil with a wet snuffle. “I didn’t speak to you for a week.”
There was a beat of silence as everyone tensed waiting for the next part of the story. He stared blankly ahead, a grey wash over his vision. Virgil knew he had hesitated too long when John’s gentle voice broke through.
“Turn the page, Virgil,” he said, his voice soft and kind. Virgil hated the pity he could hear under his words.
The page flipped and the dinner party was replaced by a funeral notice.
The information always felt too curt to Virgil’s eyes, an abrupt notice of the date and time of Avery’s passing that captured none of his vitality in life and leeched the trauma out of his death.
“You can stop,” whispered Gordon from beside him, but Virgil shook his head. His eyes shone as he stared, fixated, on the date hovering in mid-air.
“On the twelfth, we were driving home after a party at a friend’s place,” he began with a faltering breath. “I was driving. We hit a pothole and the car flipped. And then we rolled and when I woke up, he was dead.”
The silence in the room mirrored the silence in the hospital room that day when he’d come around, asking for his friend. The family hadn’t known how to respond. Years of practice speaking with grieving families and they still all struggled for words that felt powerless against the surge of emotion.
“It’s not fair,” said Alan, a tear rolling down his cheek. “They wouldn’t even let you go.”
The Coopers were lost in their grief and Alan was right. Virgil hadn’t been able to go to the funeral, blamed for his part in Avery’s death. It had been the final straw. They’d moved to the island but Virgil had never moved on. A part of him still lay at rest in a small country cemetery in Kansas.
He cleared his throat and shut the book, giving it back to Alan.
“Anyone need our help, John?” he asked, noticing the way his brother’s eyes darted downwards.
“Not today,” said John. “Just you.”
He held up a hand and the protest on Virgil’s lips died.
“Trust me,” he said, firmly. “They’re being heard. They’re being looked after. Let us do this for you.”
Virgil nodded in relief. He would always make time for his brothers on the days that are hard and he’s knew it wasn’t luck that made his brothers do the same for him. It was love.