Author's Note: Feathered Filly, you jerk (again, with love) I'm late for class because this wouldn't leave me alone. Theoretical one shot, because every time I say that, it's a blatant lie. But this is specifically for Feathered Filly and her 1000PaperUnicorns who wanted something darker in the 100 fandom that had to do with Cage and Mount Weather doing more damage to Bellamy after he was caught in season 2.
The scars were the worst. Not because they were more noticeable. Quite the opposite. Thin, professional lines of scar tissue made by a professional hand like spider webs across his tawny skin. Had he been as fair skinned as his sister, one wouldn't see them at all.
The worst part was knowing that the kid who fell from the sky with a hundred other prisoners, the one that carved a community out of wilderness and nothing, the one that tried to kill the Chancellor all for the love of his baby sister that wasn't supposed to exist – was gone.
Bellamy Blake always had a way of walking into a room like he owned the place. Like nothing could touch him – not that he was in charge, but you should probably listen to him anyway, because otherwise…things could go very, very badly for you. No combat training and a life spent in space, and Bellamy became a general of a child army.
They couldn't even be called children – these kids, these delinquents, under Bellamy and Clarke's guidance became warriors. The adults looked to them now, not the other way around.
Kane took the blame for what Bellamy had become. He should've never allowed him to go to Mount Weather by himself. Yes, Lincoln the Grounder had gone with him, but obviously it hadn't been enough.
Where once a warrior stood, defiant against the very world itself, existed a wraith. A shadowy existence of the young man who went to war and came back less.
When the kids from the Ark had returned, months after Bellamy left, perhaps a little bruised and definitely scared, the survivors of the Ark had rejoiced. Their children were home. They were alive and they would be families like they weren't allowed to be onboard the Ark.
Octavia was the first to notice.
Bellamy wasn't the one leading them, and it struck Kane as being so horribly out of place that he was positive the kid was dead. There was no other reason for Jasper and Monty to be the ones leading the rescued children home.
When asked, Monty and Jasper looked at one another, sharing a silent look of dread, Octavia had become frantic. Despite her adaptation to the Grounders way of life, she was still seventeen and needed her older brother. He was all she had left.
All Jasper had gotten out was "Miller has him-" and Octavia was off, sprinting for the back of the crowd and shoving her way through them in her rush, sending several stumbling and sprawling.
Kane had to know – "is he dead?" he'd asked quietly.
Monty shook his head mutely, and there was a sudden green tinge to his pale skin as he picked up his pace.
"He would've been better off," Jasper said, and without another word, turned and walked away from him and after his friend.
Monty threw up into the sand until his body shook with violent dry heaves, and Jasper offered nothing more than a supportive hand on his shoulder, rifle still cradled in his other arm.
Warriors. Children. They never balanced well.
Kane fought the urge to run after Octavia. He should tell Abby. He should worry about all of them.
But they all had others to worry about them. Bellamy and Octavia had no one.
He didn't run after Octavia – but he didn't walk either.
She'd stopped at the edge of the tree line – just at the shadowy edge of the path the kids had come home on.
Kane's heart thudded heavily in his chest, and he could feel his throat start to close even as he mentally berated himself. Bellamy Blake was not his son. Octavia was not his daughter. He didn't even know what happened. But Kane was not a stupid man, and he knew that for Octavia not to run into her brother's arms, for her to stop so suddenly this far away, there had to be something wrong.
Very wrong.
As he stopped next to her, he put one hand on her shoulder as a comfort. The fact that she didn't shrug him off was more telling than anything.
That was when he saw them.
Miller was almost carrying Bellamy, walking slow as Bellamy could hardly walk beside him. One arm was over Miller's shoulder, and the younger boy had his arm around Bellamy's waist, almost hugging him to his side for support. His clothes hung off of him, like someone had just given him whatever was available because they were sizes too big. He'd dropped noticeable weight – the once rounded features of his face now prominently angled in sharp contrast.
Something was wrong.
"Bell!" Octavia cried, and the shock that froze her in her steps released as she bolted for him.
"Octavia, wait!" Miller warned, an edge of panic to his voice that Kane would've never expected from the kid. He abruptly stopped her forward motion with Bellamy, making a turn that wasn't quite quick enough to put him between Bellamy and Octavia.
Too late, Kane realized that Bellamy hadn't even looked up, hadn't said a word, and Jasper's cryptic warning echoed in his memory, and his fingers just missed the back of Octavia's shirt.
Just like she'd done a thousand times before, whenever she'd needed her older brother, Octavia threw up her arms, about to encircle his neck in a grateful hug and suddenly Bellamy was aware that something was coming towards him and threw himself away from Miller.
He snatched his arm back faster than Kane would've thought possible, stumbling away from Octavia like she was trying to kill him, his right leg dragging against the ground – not useless, but not far off.
He caught his damaged leg on a root, and he fell backwards, and even as he hit the ground, he was already scrambling backwards, shoving himself with his good leg and arm, but kept his face turned away, one hand outstretched like a shield until he ran into a tree and stopped.
"Bellamy!" Miller cried out, immediately dropping to his knees in front of his friend. "Bellamy, it's okay! It's okay, it's okay, it's just O. It's your sister, Bell, your sister…"
Was Miller crying?
Octavia was, even if she didn't seem to notice, her tears silent as they traced through the dirt smudged on her cheeks. She caught on much faster than Kane – she had her hands up, both of them clasped over her mouth. Whether to keep herself from reaching out for her brother or to stifle her sobs, Kane wasn't sure.
As his brain caught up to him, Kane suddenly realized that he could only hear Miller, and he could barely hear Octavia's racking sobs even as she tried to smother them, but he hadn't heard a thing from Bellamy. Not a whisper, not a cry, not a shout, not a sound.
He was silent.
"Bellamy?"
He hadn't really meant to say it. He hadn't meant to say anything at all, but it just slipped out – his name like a question, because sure he had to be wrong. That couldn't be Bellamy.
But his voice seemed to register on some level that Octavia and Miller's could not, because Bellamy's head tilted, listening. He didn't turn towards him, and he didn't drop his hand, but Kane could tell he was listening.
Miller heaved a sigh of relief, swiping frantically at his cheeks that looked suspiciously clean – like he'd been scrubbing at them many times before. "That's Kane, Bell. It's just Kane and your sister. I swear to you, it's not Cage. It's not Cage."
Cage? Was that a person or a place?
Bellamy remained silent and mostly stilled – though Kane could hear rapid and shallow breathing like a startled rabbit, even if his mouth remained resolutely shut.
Miller waved at Kane, gesturing for him to crouch beside him, just out of arm's reach of Bellamy.
"Bellamy," Miller said quietly, steadying his voice. He did it with practiced ease, and Kane didn't want to think about how many times he'd had to do this for him to recover so quickly. "This is Kane. He's not going to hurt you."
He carefully took Kane's hand, and held it out to Bellamy's. Not touching, but close enough that he could if he wanted to. Miller gently reached two fingers out, pressing Bellamy's outstretched hand down to touch the back of Kane's.
Bellamy almost immediately jerked his hand back, as if Kane's hand burned his, but Miller caught it gently but firmly, lowering back to Kane's and holding it there.
"Kane," Miller repeated, and moved Bellamy's hand for him. Bellamy's long, tapered fingers traced feather light across Kane's skin, so soft it actually sort of tickled but Kane refused to move. "Remember him?"
Kane's first thought was trauma related amnesia. That Bellamy didn't remember him. But if that was the case, why was Miller trying to convince Bellamy of who he was through touch?
And that was when he noticed the first scar.
A thin, half-moon shaped pale line that went from the corner of his eyebrow, across his temple and down almost to his cheek.
For a moment, Kane thought he'd caught it on a branch or something, perhaps gotten it in a fight, but then he realized what he was looking it. That wasn't a wound – it was an incision. Purposely, professionally cut across tanned skin with a steady hand by someone who knew what they were doing.
Abby would be jealous of that incision.
Suddenly Kane understood, in a moment of horrible, terrifying clarity what Jasper meant. Why Monty threw up when asked about Bellamy.
Bellamy wasn't looking at him because there was nothing for him to see – his visible dark eye roving aimlessly over the landscape
"He's blind," Kane whispered in horrified realization. Worse than that, someone had done it on purpose- sliced through the skin to the optic nerve with surgical precision.
"Not completely," Miller said firmly. "Bellamy, just look at us. Please?"
It was the please more than anything that seemed to catch Bellamy's attention, and in a quick, rabbit like jerk, he'd turned to face them.
That was why he'd turned away from them – he was protecting his one good eye from an unknown threat, and for a brief moment, Kane wished he hadn't turned.
The look of stark terror had no business being on Bellamy Blake's face.
"See?" Miller said. "Kane and Octavia. We're home. Just like I promised. Just like we promised."
Bellamy's one functioning eye flitted between Miller and Kane and up to Octavia, who hadn't moved or said another word, and back to Miller. He never said a word, but Kane could hear the question plain as day.
Real?
Hoping he wasn't about to make it worse, Kane gripped Bellamy's forearm in a firm, supportive grasp – like ones warriors exchanged when showing respect. "It's real," he said, making sure that Bellamy could see and hear his conviction.
And with that, Bellamy crumbled. He squeezed his eyes shut, drawing his damaged leg up to almost his chin as he folded in on himself, his other hand coming up to cover his face. His shoulders started to shake, and it took a moment for Kane to realize Bellamy wasn't just crying he was sobbing.
Without a sound.
Great, heaving gasps shook his thinned frame, but other than the actual sound on inhaling, Bellamy was silent as the grave – but his grip on Kane's arm didn't loosen, it instead pulled tight with bruising force with a strength Kane wouldn't have thought him capable of.
"Jesus, kid…" Kane swore quietly. What did they do to you? "Come here," he said, and pulled Bellamy to him.
The reaction was instinctive, visceral. Bellamy latched on to Kane's jacket like was a life line, thin and scarred hands clenched so tight the knuckles whitened against the dark fabric and Kane could feel tears seeping through his shirt. Bellamy's entire frame shook from the force of emotion, but he was still unnervingly quiet.
Without saying a word, glanced over his shoulder at Octavia, and with a quick nod of his head, she was next to him, first cautiously and then like she was afraid to ever let go, grabbed and held on to her older brother.
Miller stood back, not saying a thing.
"What happened, Miller?" he asked, almost whispering so not to disturb the siblings.
Miller's look was haunted, and he shook his head. For a moment, he thought he wouldn't answer. But he did.
"You shouldn't have sent him," he said. "He shouldn't have come. Because once they had him…they didn't need the rest of us."
Written without looking up a whole lot of specifics, ages are made up and I made it purposely vague about some things. Love it? Hate it? Let me know, drop a line!