<snip>

After finishing her first drink, Josie excused herself to the bathroom, “To wash my face and make myself look like I haven’t spent most of the past hour sobbing myself to dehydration,” as she put it, leaving Thomas and Conor alone once again.

“You know, the way she greeted you is probably the calmest reaction you’re going to get from your siblings, right?” his father asked.

Thomas blinked, because he felt Josie’s “greeting” had actually bordered on assault and battery. “What?” he asked. The idea of Anthony doing something like that was ludicrous, though he supposed he could see Garrett getting physical beyond a handshake and half-hug.

Conor smirked. “Oh, I think even Tony is likely as not to hit you at this point, for up and basically vanishing into the ether for three years,” he said. “Garrett, well, he’s done quite a bit of growing up since you last saw him. He’s taken up kickboxing, that’s where he met his boyfriend. I hope you’ve kept up your martial arts skills better than you have your boxing, or else your face might change colors for reasons other than embarrassment.”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “Funny. Which one of us currently has a black eye and a bruised jaw?” he asked. “Because I think that demonstrates that my boxing skills are still just fine, and you’ll have to take me for my word that my martial arts skills are as good or better. Most likely better, because they’re considerably easier to practice on my own. Punching a heavy bag or a speed bag is all well and good, but it’s not the same as matching up against a thinking opponent.”

“Well, you know, if you ever left the ship for shore leave, it wouldn’t be hard to track down a fight club and get a few matches in,” Conor said. “Every port has them, some reputable, some… less than. As long as you left the uniform behind, you wouldn’t have any difficulty getting in, either.”

Thomas scoffed. “Sure, and then get to have fun later that night explaining exactly why I need an in-depth session with the vascular and osteo regenerators to the Sickbay staff. Hard pass on that,” he said.

“Hard pass on what? Getting the stuffing knocked out of you like you deserve?” Josie asked, re-entering the room with a smirk on her face that Thomas was instantly suspicious of.

“If I just want that, I could ask my CO or XO,” Thomas said. “One’s a Marine, the other I strongly suspect of involvement in Black Ops. Either could ‘knock the stuffing’ out of me, though I’d like to think I’d give either and or both a good fight first. Now what have you done?”

“Me? I just freshened up my look, dear brother,” Josie said with an innocent expression that neither Thomas nor Conor bought. “Daddy, can you start dinner? I didn’t get to finish eating in Tokyo, and I’m still hungry.”

“Sure, honey,” Conor said. “Your favorites?” he asked, and Josie nodded her head exactly three times.

Thomas frowned, the deliberate way she’d nodded was highly suspicious, combined with the length of time she’d been out of the room. She was up to something, he just knew it, and he highly doubted he was going to like the result.

COS

Fifteen minutes later, as he was finishing setting the table for the three of them, he got his answer as the doorbell rang again.

“I’ll get it!” Josie shouted, by the sounds of it she was already in the hall, almost as if she’d been expecting a visitor. His eyes narrowed, and almost by instinct he headed back to the cupboard to get more dishes.

“Oh, Tony, Felicity, Garrett, Chris, so good to see you!” Josie’s voice, almost purposely pitched to be heard loud and clear by him, rang out. Garrett rolled his eyes, grabbing four more plates from the cupboard. She was lucky the table would seat eight people without issue. The sounds of almost half a dozen people trouping through the hall towards the dining room was quite audible, leading Thomas to wonder fleetingly about the condition of the floorboards, before the rest of his remaining family (and two prospective additions) entered his line of sight, just as he finished setting the table.

Anthony McGregor’s expression was grim upon seeing his elder brother, his fiancee Felicity looked slightly confused, Garrett McGregor looked pleased to see his eldest brother and his boyfriend Chris looked… hungry?

“Damn, Garrett, your brother’s hot,” Thomas heard the younger man, barely more than a boy, really, not-really-whisper into his baby brother’s ear, earning him an elbow to the ribs.

“Tom,” Tony said, extending his hand. Thomas grabbed it for a shake. “Welcome home. I’d like to introduce my fiancee, Felicity Wheeler,” he gestured with his free hand to the (5‘6”, shoulder-length brown hair, hazel eyed) woman standing beside him. Thomas smiled at her, releasing his brother’s hand and taking one of hers, raising it for a kiss.

“Pleased to meet you, Miss,” he said, noting the faint blush that appeared on her face at the gesture. He released her hand just in time to be jumped on by Garrett.

“Hiya, big bro!” the youngest McGregor almost shouted in Thomas’ ear. “Don’t mind Chris, he doesn’t have much of a filter.” Thomas nodded at the younger man, and was rewarded by an even stronger blush than he’d gotten from Felicity. That was interesting.

“Do I need to worry about him leaving you for me?” Thomas asked his younger brother with a quizzical look.

“Nah, he’s just gone to a happy place imagining what I’m going to look like in a few years,” Garrett said, still clinging to Thomas’ side like a limpet. “Of course, I’ll be even better looking than you by then, since I won’t have gone soft sitting in an office in a starship all day.” That earned Garrett an elbow to the ribs, prompting him to finally release Thomas and rub his chest.

“Oh, good, you’re all here,” Conor’s voice sounded from the doorway to the kitchen. “I hope you’re all hungry, I’ve given our poor replicator quite a workout.”

COS

The dinner went on for two hours, as Thomas was caught up - in great detail - with the lives of his siblings over the past three years. Well, with the exception of Josie’s love life, which was glossed over as quickly as she could.

Tony told his big brother about his civil engineering studies, meeting Felicity and their courtship, which involved visits not to museums and art galleries, but various and sundry famous buildings and even more famous ruins. How they were now set to get married the next summer, though they had yet to decide on a venue and were leaning towards simply designing and building one of their own for the occasion.

Garrett talked about how he’d gotten into martial arts as a way to work out his teenage frustrations: not just with losing Mom, but with Thomas’ subsequent buggering off and out of the family’s lives. How, in a visit to check out a potential new training gym for kickboxing, he’d met Chris and hit it off immediately. How their friendship had deepened during a skiing trip that had turned into a cross-country sprint to avoid an angry bear, resulting in them spending a night in a small cave.

In turn, Thomas told him about his posting on the Genesis, explaining just how he’d blown up his first ship, and what he did on its replacement. What he could of their exploration mission so far, with the first contact they’d made and the interplanetary squabble they’d mediated already. Tony had questioned him about the architecture of the species they’d met, Josie needled him about meeting hot alien women and doing exactly nothing with them, and Garrett had asked him if he’d gotten into a fight with any of them, leading Thomas to roll his eyes at his youngest brother.

By the time the food was all gone, and the family (and plus-ones) were reduced to sipping coffee and making small talk, Thomas was feeling something he hadn’t in quite a while: longing.

“You know,” he said quietly to Conor, as he headed for the kitchen to get a fresh cup of coffee, “I’ve actually missed this.”

His father simply smirked at him, the bastard.

COS