"I can't believe you agreed to come back with me. Not after yesterday," Virgil said with a generous measure of amusement.

Scott glanced around him at what was becoming familiar terrain. The two brothers stood in almost the same spot where they had started less than twenty-four hours before. Yesterday's forage around the Louvre in Paris, Scott decided, had been nothing short of an education in anger management.

Scott was dressed smartly yet casually in jeans and a fitted jacket but felt underdressed without his wrist comm, left in the hotel's vault to avoid detection by the gallery's security system, and felt more than a little undone by yesterday's debacle.

Not going to happen again. No siree.

"A promise is a promise. Even two days is hardly enough time to see this place. I know that. Dad didn't need us so..."

Virgil chuckled. "At least try not to sound disappointed. Please."

"I gave you my word, Virg."

"Even if it kills you, huh?"

Scott grinned. "I've put yesterday's effort down to reconnaissance. I now have a pretty good idea of the layout of this place. It's all up here." He tapped his temple. "No way there should be a problem. Not today."

Virgil pulled his mouth at exaggerated angles and Scott could tell his brother was trying to keep his composure. "Sorry, Scott, I didn't realize you were quite so lost."

Scott's hand landed firmly on Virgil's shoulder. "Let's get this straight. You did the losing. I did the finding. Remember?"

Virgil did laugh this time. "Oh, sure. I remember." He shuffled pages in his museum guide. "At least this morning we're better prepared."

Scott held up his own guide. "Check." He swung to point to a circular stairway. "Nineteenth century naturalist paintings that way. Check." He pointed toward one of the gallery corridors. "Emergency Assembly Point. Restaurant. That way. Check."

"Um, actually a little more that way." Virgil pointed to a wing to the left of where Scott pointed.

About to protest, Scott looked where Virgil indicated then did a double take.

It can't be. Not him again.

A security guard stood at the junction of the two halls, hands clasped behind his back and his feet spread, his gaze intently surveying the crowds as they filed past him. Scott recognized him as the one he had run into yesterday with a rather creative take on a certain landscape painting. Scott put his arm around Virgil's shoulder and steered him in the opposite direction.

"Lead on, little brother. We're wasting time standing here."

Virgil resisted Scott's push forward and looked up at the ceiling, drawing in a deep, thoughtful breath as he did.

Scott groaned. "Spare me, Virg. Do not tell me that the lighting behind these recessed honeycomb fixtures throws an effusive, shadowless glow, or something. I'd hoped you'd be more original than that."

"No Scott. I was going to say that today I felt like a change of pace. Today I thought I might follow one of the thematic trails. I'm thinking Delacroix."

Delacroix!Scott hid his wince behind the cover of his guide. Not Delacroix.

"Colour! Energy! Passion!" Virgil enthused. "His work is upstairs."

Virgil strode on and Scott hurried to catch him.

"Hey, wait a minute. Passion? Did you say passion?"

"Ye-up."

Scott grinned. "Good night, last night was it? You were back very late but you were actually cheerful at breakfast."

"Mmm. Very nice." Virgil tapped him on the front of his jacket with the guide. "Your wise crack about little lost boy in big scary Paris backfired, buddy boy. The sweet jeune femme was compassionate enough not to let that happen. You gave me a foot in the door."

Scott's eyes narrowed. "Sounds like you were able to get more than your foot in the door."

"Wouldn't you like to know."

Scott held up both hands. "Actually. No. What you do in your own time is not my business." He glanced around him worriedly. "So, it is just the two of us? Or is Ms Naturalist joining us?"

Virgil stopped. "Unfortunately, ma bonne amie had to work. You expect me to believe you're not curious? Come on! After your reaction yesterday, I'm beginning to think you're jealous."

Scott scoffed at that idea and said neutrally. "I'm happy for you. Really. Anyone who can appreciate the things the way you do must be very special indeed."

Virgil cocked his head at an angle as if he wasn't sure how to take that crack but it was apparent nothing was going to upset his younger brother, today. Virgil continued to grin to himself.

"Please! Virg!" Scott sighed. "I'm beginning to chafe. Can we get this show on the road?"

While they had been sparring, Scott noticed they had come in range of that security guard again. He ducked his head and brought his guide closer to his face. As Virgil consulted his own guide, he stepped toward the wall to separate from the flow of people. "Now, we need to locate the correct stair..."

Scott peered over Virgil's shoulder toward the guard and flinched when he saw the guy look straight at him.

"Bonjour monsieur," the guard greeted him brusquely. "Find –er- oies?Dés point d´ atterrissage?" He held out both his hands, palms down and made a swooshingnoise.

Virgil's attention came up from his page. "Landing gear? Geese with landing gear? You described that masterpiece like a piece of machinery?"

Scott shoved Virgil forward and smiled back to the guard, waving his hand down in a slight bow. "I did, monsieur.Merci beaucoup. Je vous remercie de tout mon corps."

Virgil looked at him quizzically. "Scott, you just thanked the man with all your body."

"No I didn't. I said ‘heart'. Cœur. Listen." He repeated it. "I thanked him with all my heart."

"The inflection on your vowel ‘o' was too long. I know it's tricky but it came out corps. I heard it. If you meant ‘heart' the accent needed to be more on the ‘e'."

"Earth to Virg. You're not even on this planet, this morning."

Virgil grinned crookedly. "Maybe not but enough to know what I heard. You just insulted the guy."

Scott glanced back to check the guard's reaction. In all aspects of their lives they walked a razor edge between anonymity and notoriety for simply being who they were. They couldn't afford to bring attention to themselves in any shape or form. He checked to see that no passer-by had overheard him or that anyone had noticed him commit an apparent faux pas. He saw the guard had his arms folded and eyed him severely.

He pushed Virgil on and they went upstairs. Scott slipped on his sunglasses, trying to keep the feeling everyone was looking at him at bay. Virgil hummed a lively tune as he surged forward into the crowds already building for a busy day.

As Scott went up the stairs slightly behind his brother he knew what he was in for. This was the part he dreaded. People standing motionless for long periods in great cavernous halls as if in a trance or a daze. Sometimes there was the hush of awed worshippers, sometimes the gabble of the irreverent, but all at a pace that was agonizingly like slow motion.

Virgil would be no different. He would wander, stand at a distance from the hanging, alter the angle of his head, move in closer, make little noises, smile and move on to do almost the same thing at the next masterpiece. This process was torture to his own quick-moving, quick-thinking processes.

Savor. That was the word. Virgil wanted him to savor when he wasn't even hungry. This did not tell him how to get from A to B fast enough to prevent loss of life. This did not explain why there was a vibration in Brain's prototype rescue module. Nor did this help solve a myriad of problems he grappled with in his mind even in his leisure hours.

And the works of Delacroix would present their own challenge.

"You'll draw more attention to yourself with those shades," Virgil said without looking at him as they reached the exhibit Virgil was looking for. "No one in their right mind would wear dark glasses in here. Not unless they had a problem." The comment only made Scott glance furtively behind him. Just to check...no-one was noticing. Virgil apparently hadn't forgotten the guard's description. "I can't believe you described a masterwork that way. I know you have the capacity to appreciate this. This is hardly new to you."

"It's not a question of capacity," Scott muttered. "It's a question of priority. Come on, Virg! Enjoy. Hurry up."

Virgil laughed and shook his head. "You should hear yourself! What you need to learn, big brother, is to hang a bit. Just hang out, you know. Let go. Let this grandeur wash over you. Inspire you. Affectyou."

"Uh-huh." Scott tensed as he glimpsed a guard wander through the crowd then disappear down the stairs they had come up. He relaxed. It wasn't the same guy. He turned back to find Virgil had moved on and he hurried to catch up.

With naturalist work, he could look at a painting and say that's a cow or a flower or a landscape, much like he might recognize a fork or any other household item. Delacroix's work would be different. There would be no avoiding this stuff. He definitely needed those sunglasses.

Virgil had his guide open and gave commentary apparently for his benefit. "Eugène Delacroix. Nineteenth century French history painter and master of the romantic style. Will you look at that exploitation of color! Nothing prepares you. Hits you right in the..." His voice trailed as he stared.

Scott did look and he found his head tilting back to take in the sheer size of it all. The long wall was crammed with massive gilded-framed masterpieces, so large the scenes seemed to spill off the wall to engulf them. There was nothing orderly like a grouping of trees or a sedate pastoral scene. Delacroix painted figures in various states of extremities. There were scenes of war and other cataclysmic events of history, people killing and being killed, animals attacking other animals, people attacking animals and vice versa. Chaos, bloodshed and...

"It's... it's magnificent!" Virgil breathed beside him.

Scott looked at his brother. His brown eyes were wide, his cheeks flushed, his jaw loose. He talked on about the depth of the contrasts and the brilliance of the color that slashed across the canvas and the translucent skin tones and the...

Scott looked at those around him. They seemed to be having a similar reaction.

"Doesn't it make your mouth water?" Virgil made a fist and Scott could see his brother was enraptured by what was in front of him. "Don't you just want to drool over the way the paint is applied with such vigor?"

It had the complete opposite effect on him. His mouth went dry.

"Come on! Don't tell me this doesn't move you? Huh. Come on. Big brother, tell me what you see!"

Scott squinted as he looked back at the wall. "Well, um, it's messy."

Virgil was appalled. "You can do better than that. It's vivacious!"

"Actually it's violent."

"It's sensuous!"

"Virg, it's savage."

"It's the style. It's a device. Those exaggerated postures are meant to convey emotion. It makes me tremble just to look at it. This is better than I imagined. So heroic in scale and depth."

"I think you mean horrendous."

"It represents pessimism. The acceptance of nature as a powerful and amoral force in the life of man."

"I experience enough of the amoral force..."

Virgil wasn't listening. He wandered off and Scott, determined his younger brother wasn't going to get lost again, scampered after him. He let Virgil wallow and he amused himself by flipping through his guide. Maybe there was something to be said for quiet, easy-going nineteenth century naturalists, after all.

As he was looking down at his guide, his focus shifted to a pair of boots just within his line of vision. His gaze traveled up the leg of the uniform, up past the baton slung from the equipment belt, up over the torso of the athletic gentleman to the face under the guard's hat.

No! Not him again!

The guard from yesterday, from this morning, was standing not ten feet from him. Scott was relieved the guy wasn't looking his way, this time. He slowly backed up and turned so he was facing away. He checked he still had a visual on Virgil and strolled along the paintings, pretending to look up into them when, in fact, he studied the detail on the frame.

He was pleased with his nonchalance until one particular painting actually caught his eye.

It made him stop. And look.

It was smaller than the others, almost overwhelmed by the audacity of action and color surrounding it. And compared to the others, not a lot was happening in it. But it was enough. It was dark in tone and the scene depicted a forlorn figure in chains down in what appeared to be a medieval dungeon. Another figure of deathly pallor was in the fetal position at the other end of the visual field. The solitary highlight of color rested on the prisoner's hand. It was outstretched in unspeakable anguish toward an unseen source.

Scott leaned in to read the plate. The Prisoner of Chillon.

Scott looked at the painting, looked away then looked back. He didn't want to stop. He needed to keep an eye on wayward Virgil. He needed to keep ahead of the guard who was gaining on him. He needed to keep what he was seeing in front of him at a distance.

On the job, he was the master of the phrase ‘no pictures', which kept his physical appearance from the media, but he also applied that command to other aspects of his life. He, who could recall the schematic of the structure of Thunderbird One's wing, could also bring to mind in graphic detail what he had done for International Rescue the previous day, the previous week, the previous month. He had enough trouble sleeping. He didn't need to see what he dealt with every day recast on the walls of a museum, no matter how glorious the setting.

Even so, he stared. He took off his sunglasses.

He clawed at his guide for some clue as to why this particular painting was holding him. The commentary explained that this scene depicted a political prisoner, Bonivard, pleading in vain for the life of his own brother.

Everything in him, around him seemed to stop.

"Virgil?" he said aloud.

The joyful pictures he had recalled yesterday of ten-year-old Virgil being found at their Aunt May's house were cast aside by ones that were more recent and much more lucid. He recalled hauling Virgil out of the wrecked and up-turned elevator car after the rescue of the doomed Fireflash. He remembered watching Virgil stand on the back of the Crablogger as it careered to its destruction. He could still see Virgil's burnt and battered body after the World Navy had shot down Thunderbird Two. Memories that never failed to put his internal mechanics out of sync.

But what he recalled most of all was his feeling of overwhelming helplessness. So helpless to do anything to prevent his brother from being hurt. And here was that feeling right in front of him.

He unconsciously tore at the pages of the guide in his hand.

He didn't know how long he stood and stared at the scene but when he became aware of his surroundings again, he didn't recognize any of the people around him. They had moved on. He was aware someone stood next to him, though. And it wasn't Virgil.

"O-kay,monsieur?" the guard asked him.

"Ah. Yes. Oui." Scott pointed dumbly at the painting.

The guard's eyebrow flickered.

"I have a brother, you see. Actually, four of them. All younger. I look after them."

"Monsieur?"

Scott looked at the guard. "In our business we can't afford to cultivate an imagination, can we? It's a damn liability. I mean...look at all these people around us. It's your job, monsieur, to stop some lunatic from damaging these priceless treasures. Am I right?"

The guard's expression was deadpan. Scott wasn't sure if the guard understood what he was saying but, now that he was speaking, he couldn't stop. He wrung his museum guide in his hands, the pages cracking and creasing under his fingers.

"I mean...any one of these hundreds and thousands of people...any one could suddenly do something unpredictable...Out of the blue..." He made an abrupt gesture toward the wall of paintings.

The guard tensed and his hand traveled near the baton. "Arrèbez-vous!"

Scott held up his hands in surrender. "S'okay. Oui. I was just making a point. How would you be if you imagined every person who walked through that door as a potential threat? How would you sleep at night?" Scott pointed back at the painting. "See, Virg thinks I don't know anything about art. But I do. It's just that I don't want to know. This guy, Delacroix. I know something about him. According to the experts, his work made him sick, made him imagine everything was wrong with him. Hypersensitive is the polite word. But we can't afford to do that, can we? Be sensitive? With what I – I mean – we have to look at, have to deal with every day. We just can't do it. I have to admire him, you know. Virg. I don't know how he can do this. He works in –er- bad places then sleeps like an ox then comes and looks at this stuff for recreation. Virg..."

Scott made a sweep around the hall with his hand. He stopped. He couldn't see Virgil. Anywhere. His heart rate faltered again.

"Shit! Virg!" He glanced back at the guard. "Sorry. My brother gets lost easily."

The guard pointed in one direction. "Là bas."

"He went that way? Really? Thank you. Er – merci beaucoup."

The guard took a step back and made a painful face.

"Yeah, right. Better not try that again, huh. Thanks. Merci."

Scott strode off, girding his quickly-becoming-angry loins. This was the last straw. Virgil was lost again. Here he was being told to hang out. To let the sights around him affect him. Well, it had affected him all right. He felt something deep and painful and now what was he supposed to do with it. He was hanging out. Hanging inside out. His innards were spasmed into some unrecognizable shape and felt like they were smeared across his jacket. And Virgil wasn't even in sight. Here he was finding his cultural voice and Virgil wasn't even withinfricken spitting distance to hear.

Scott slapped his left wrist by habit. But he only groaned when he felt the Timex instead of the wrist comm.

Damn...

He hurried on, searching in every face, in every alcove, in every nook for a sign of his brother. He fumed, his muttered, he cursed then realized it wasn't getting him anywhere. When he did see Virgil off in the distance he nearly went to his knees, not with anger but with thankfulness.

Scott stood still for a moment to let his pulses settle. One thing he learned from yesterday was that showing his reaction only put him on the defensive, only gave Virgil useful ammunition.

Not this time. No way. Let's retain some dignity.

Scott calmly walked up to his brother and waited.

"Not lost again, I hope," Virgil quipped.

"Found. I think the word you're looking for is found."

Scott saw Virgil glance at the battered guide in his hand and he slid it behind his back.

"Uh-huh. Right. Keep forgetting," Virgil said with a sly grin.

He went back to admiring a painting but Scott wasn't even game to look at it. He'd had his fill of cultural appreciation for one day. A group of people crowded in and threatened to take Virgil away from him. Scott made sure he stuck with him.

Virgil stopped and looked back under his arm. "Scott? Are you hanging onto my coat-tails?"

"Hmm. Maybe."

Virgil looked at him quizzically and for a moment their gazes locked. Blue eyes met brown.

"I don't want to lose you, Virgil. Not ever...again."