Title: "A Scene of Consequence"

Rating: T

Genre: Drama, Angst

Character(s): Douglas and Donald mainly, but the Davenport kids are in here, too

Pairing(s): mentions of Donald/Tasha

Summary: 'He will deprive them of this knowledge, even if this is the last thing he does.' Second story in series.

Notes: This is the continuation to The Nature of Grief! This line of story is heading towards the AU route now, just so you guys know. If I can follow through, there will be five 'one-shots' in this series. :) This can still be read as a standalone, but it will be much clearer if you guys read 'The Nature of Grief' first. A brief warning, just in case: this involves the kidnapping of a minor and its effects on the child's family, so if this will trigger anything for you as the reader—please don't read.

Also, a special thanks to 88keys for being a great beta and an awesome person altogether. The same goes to the people who shared their thoughts with me on the first story. I'll be personally thanking all of you soon. :)

I hope you guys enjoy this.

He peers into the dimly lit room where the boy exists and does not exist, where he slips from death and sleeps in death, where he dreams in vain and dreams none at all. He stands in silence there for a full minute, observing, keenly concerning himself with how this creature concealed under layers of blankets is fulfilling his purpose. Then, he walks away, heading towards the heart of the living quarters with the full intention of seizing the moment that could not have been as good as any.

He will admit that the situation has not always been ideal. There were variables, both favorable and unfavorable, that he had to factor into this unveiling sequence to arrive at this foolproof equation. It resulted into a struggle, but he did not surrender easy.

The boy had been very uncooperative when they arrived. With the fiercest determination, the child had let him know that whatever attempt he would put into trying to lure his loved ones into another trap—a notion which he finds extremely laughable—will never succeed. He will not allow him to have any hold on him. He will ever refuse to be a pawn in his game.

He graced him with the only appropriate response he could give at the time: a one-sided smile that conveyed his amusement of the boy's stalwart will and hopeful imagination that he actually had any influence in the things that are to come.

The boy tried to escape several times, and of course he expected this. But what caught him off-guard was how close the boy came to succeeding. The security around the quarters is programmed to be airtight, yet he had managed in all those instances to hack into the system and bypass and unlock several encryptions that hold them where they are.

It was his fault, he knew, to underestimate yet again. Instead of stumbling over this setback, although, he uses this newfound knowledge to fuel him more. He sees so much potential, so many missed opportunities in those little acts of rebellion, and there he has it all in his hands.

Still, after numerous failed attempts days later, the boy showed signs of exhaustion in all three aspects. His plans of breakout began to lack the creativity that almost led him to the brink of accomplishment.
He didn't seem to want to try as hard as he did, and from this he could tell that he was starting to lean heavily on the hope that his family—his stepfather and his stepsiblings, more specifically—would get to him soon.

As he had done with his own, he killed this bud of dependence in the child before it could bloom into a delusion that would only seek to disappoint. He spoke to him six words, the first ones since the first day of his captivity, sufficient enough to disable him emotionally. They will never come for you.

He knew he had struck him right at the heart. For a shadow of a second, his eyes gave way to the truth that he had been thinking similar thoughts but had been trying hard to block it out of his mind. However, as is his character, he retaliated with effective words to defend himself. You're wrong.

Then, he did something unconsciously to prove that he actually held an important card in his hands—he coughed.

In the following days, the boy is consumed alive by a worrisome fever and discomforted by endless bouts of coughing. Yet, he continually refused everything pushed towards him that would make him feel better. Though his health was wasting away, his resolution to deprive his captor of the right of being right remained unshakable.

Slowly, the boy committed himself into the art of dying just so his family would not be forced into a kind of conformity that he did not want them under.

Personally, he admired and continues to admire his courage and dedication, but it does not have any place in his plans. The boy is an important constant in an already calculated code, and to watch him gain that much power by taking himself out just cannot be. So he implements the solution. Since the child has not cut himself off yet from drinking water, under the notion that it will be enough to sustain his thinking abilities until the end, he mixed in enough medicine to get him started on the way to recovery. He has also managed to add small doses of an effective drug that would eventually build up his appetite to the point that he would have no choice but to eat.

It has been working well so far, and for a few days now they have settled into a calmer routine. The boy has not an inkling of an idea that he is being taken care of. He is too busy unknowingly getting better that he doesn't even attempt anything to flee the place—not that he can. The compounds in his system aren't harmful, but they are potent enough to keep him asleep nearly all day.

He, on the other hand, occupies himself for the most part with checking on the boy to make sure he is getting the rest he needs. He even goes so far as listening to the mumbled words that his subconscious fails to contain. He stops by periodically and watches him closely while he dreams of freedom within the confines of his four-walled capsule.

As the irony of it all strikes him, he cannot help but feel resentment. He is once again reminded of what he has lost, that he will never gain him back no matter how much he manipulates the circumstances.

It is not beyond him to take some of the blame for himself. In this respect, at least, he prides himself of being better than his brother. He understands that he is doing his best to protect someone else's child and to give him what he needs when not too long ago, the child that he sorrows over now desperately craved for just an inkling of that.

It's unfair, he knows. That is why he's doing this. He wants to start over, with the only viable option he can, to let his disquieting thoughts of the lost child know that he truly regrets not being what he wished for him to be.

And it all begins with the boy in the room.

But before he goes on, he resolves to seal the only window remaining open. He faces the main computer in the dark room and presses the button that will lead him right to the ones searching for them. The tired scene of the lab comes into view, revealing to him the only four people he wishes to speak to. It doesn't take long for them to notice him. In a matter of seconds, they are all looking directly at him.

It's time.

He revels in seeing the first reward of his impulsive action. With their faces clear in view, he notices the terrible anxiety etched cell by cell upon their features. The dimness in their eyes suggests a worse form of hopelessness than what he had briefly seen overcome the boy. Unresolved frustration has wrought their countenances that they appear to have aged much.

Still, he doesn't smile. None of them deserves that.

His brother steps closer to the screen, his obvious exhaustion gradually morphing into bridled rage. "Where is he?" he asks.

He expends himself in a whim of mutely demanding for specificity.

"Where is Leo?" he asks again.

Where Marcus would have been.

His brother loses some of his control because of misconstruing his response, but before it results to words, he takes a deep breath, acknowledging that he cannot show weakness in front of the children standing with him in this critical moment. "Just—just give him back," he says instead. "You can take whatever you want. If you want the company back, you can have it."

I can?

His brother gives a nod so minute that he almost fails to see it.

And you don't care whatever form he's in when I return him to you?

The question strikes several reactions immediately. His brother's hardened face drains more of its already faded colors. The middle one who stands in the back, her appearance already worn and lifeless, similarly grows faint. The older one locks his jaws but tries to restrain himself from getting lost in the sea of emotions hitting him. The youngest one appears thoughtful, perhaps in a futile attempt to ease himself into arriving at a conclusion that's easier to accept.

Has it been hard? Asking for help from the cops without tipping them off about the kids? About the lab?

His brother glares at him with a familiar expression.

He looks on in their misery. I don't want the company.

"Us, then," the youngest one offers. "We'll come with you, and we won't ever try to escape—as long as you give him back."

He beholds his sincerity. When he glances at the other two, they nod, although slightly hesitant, showing that they are as willing as he.

Like the man that they accept to be their father, the absence of the boy in the house renders the youngest one lacking of sleep. He understands this. It has been difficult for him, perhaps most especially on the day they realized that something was amiss. He is used to successfully dealing with matters like this that to come to nothing now is unforgivable. There will be important missions that you will fail, and this is one of them. But you shouldn't be hard on yourself. You can never do anything about this unless I let you anyways.

"I should've done everything I could to keep you out of our lives," the older one mumbles softly but sternly. He regards his inventor with a wrathful glower, an expression so foreign to see carved upon his normally friendly features. It almost seem like a different man is standing in his place.

Stop that, he says. It's unbecoming for a good person like you.

The middle one desperately steps closer. "What can we do, then?" she asks. "What can we do to get our little brother back?"

He turns his attention to her. Little brother. For some reason unexplained, those words cause one of his nerves to snap. It inevitably releases in his memory the words mumbled by the boy in his sleep, and this, in turn, produces an acid accusation. Why so interested now? Are you starting to feel guilty? Wondering what would have happened if you had just let him come with you that day to the mall instead of leaving him on his own when I was waiting for him?

The middle one fights the inclination to willfully accept the blame, but it is evident with the subtle quiver of her lips and widening of her brown eyes that she has long lost against her inner doubts.

He cried for you to come. Why didn't you help him?

"No," his brother steps protectively between him and her. "No. You are not going to do this to her. You are not going to do this to any of these kids."

He regards his brother callously. Then, he takes a long look at his inventions, one by one, before he decides to let them go forever. I don't want any of you, he tells them.

"You know that this is between me and you, Douglas," his brother says defensively. "Adam has nothing to do with this. Bree has nothing to do with this. Chase has nothing to do with this, and Leo should've never been in the middle of this."

He thinks about it. He's right.

"Then what do you want? What do I have to do so you'd stop all of this?"

He takes a moment to ponder over all the words he has been planning to say. He poises, as if to strike, to tell him what all of what he cannot let go. Yet, he does not. Instead, he articulates the things he truly wants.

I want you to break your wife's heart. I want you to be the one to shatter it. I want you to watch as tears fall out of her eyes, as she breaks down in front of you because all she can think about is how she's said her last words to her son that morning; how it was the last time she would hear his voice. I want you to listen to her every sob while she thinks about having to bury him soon. And while you watch her, while you listen to her, I want you to remember that this is what I want, because those things are what I will never get to do for mine.

He looks at his brother dismissively, just as he has done towards the three he now considers as refuse, before promising, But don't worry; I'll raise your stepson well. I will make sure that he becomes the person he needs to be in this world. I will train him so he reaches his full potential. I will do what I can in the many years he will be with me. And he will grow up, the same way Marcus had and would have grown up—without you.

He does not linger. He shuts the window after taking one last glance at them, permanently terminating the last connection that he and the boy will have from the rest of the world.

He sits in solitude afterwards, mostly engulfed by the darkness of the room. In the distance echoes the mechanical grumbling of the machines, his eternal companions. For a moment, he wonders if this is worth his troubles. What has been done can never be undone. If he forgives them and lets the other boy go, at least he can earn the smallest bit of favor from their eyes.

Yet, he cannot find it within his broken sense of reasonableness to beg for compassion that will never come.

Before he detaches himself from the comfort of obscurity, a violent fit of coughing that seizes him. He covers his mouth, as he has done many times before. When he looks down at his palms, the oblivion of all of his recent actions finds clarity. Blood, scarlet drops of his existence dripping like tears upon his paling skin. He stares at the assaultive color reminding him of the time he has let past and the time he has left.

He, too, holds a card of physical weakness, and it's the only one that will not work for his gain. It does not matter. It will serve them no purpose as long as it continues undisclosed. He will deprive them of this knowledge, even if this is the last thing he does.

It will be a riddle that will be buried with him and the boy thousands by thousands of feet underneath the coldest place on the earth.

Reviews will be appreciated.