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English
Series:
Part 3 of Be better than those that hurt you
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Published:
2022-06-07
Completed:
2022-06-08
Words:
1,308
Chapters:
2/2
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14
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Look after your brothers and sisters

Summary:

One returns to the very lab he just escaped to make sure the children he left behind will be okay.

(Sequel to 'Like my father before me')

Chapter 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

This, One thought emphatically, is a bad idea.

He had never intended to return to the lab he spent most of his life imprisoned in, not even with Papa dead at his own hands.

(Most of the doctors were dead, the only one he knew had survived was Owens, and that was because the man hadn’t been there at the time of his and his…charge’s escape. He’d not dared to wait once he had Soteria removed from his body.)

But it had been his charge who had worried for the others, his other not-children.

If he was being honest (wasn’t it so rare that he was though?) he knew he couldn’t just… leave them. That they would awake in pain, confused, with none of the adults that had been raising them their entire lives present. They had no idea he was 001, that he ever had powers, until he’d turned it on everyone in the facility.

Owens would return, and what would he do? One knew he wasn’t as callous or cruel as Papa, he never had been, but he’d allowed (and partaken in to a degree) the experiments to make all the others using his DNA. And now he’d be the only one left in charge of them all.

He didn’t trust the man either. Jane, (as she had begun to call herself recently, as another memory of her birth mother returned…and he was fine with it, he was - ) hadn’t either. She couldn’t stop wondering about what would happen to them. He caught glimpses of her mind, some involuntary, some willing on both ends, (neither had ever communicated so fully and openly to another like them until now), and it had very often wandered to them.

Even the bitterness he felt at Two (and Three, Four, and Five) couldn’t destroy the concern.

(It’d been reckless, short sighted, to kill all of the staff and take his not-daughter and go. He knew it, he had already chastised himself. But he would never have let those doctors or soldiers live. Not after all the pain they’d inflicted on all of them, himself included. He had not forgotten his recent “punishment” for what he told E - Jane. It was far from the first time. Even if it had become much less frequent after he’d been weakened. He was often almost forgotten about. But there were times Papa felt the need to remind him of his place.)

So he was here, to see what had happened to them. To see if he needed to…interfere, further.

Beyond that he didn’t know what he would do. He couldn’t take them all with them, he couldn’t take care of them all. He could kill for them, he had and would, but he couldn’t… be what they needed.

(He’d saved the girl connected to him, that was like him, but he wasn’t going to pretend being raised in that lab meant he could raise 14 others like them. He believed in her (he needed her)…less so in himself.)

He was already stretching his mind into the building sensing all of theirs, projecting safe, not a threat, protective.

Now he senses Owens mind and he pushes against it warningly, not shattering it, not yet.

The other man would be wise to remember he could.

The scientist's mind seems… scattered, as if he’s thinking about a lot at once. It seems conflicted.

(He catches glimpses of thoughts, of the children as children and not test subjects. He senses confusion, Owens doesn’t know what to do either.)

When he finally reaches the room the children are all seated in (it is one of the infirmaries, not the Rainbow Room, which something in him is relieved by), he’s not expecting one of them to run up and cling to him.

It’s 010.

Notes:

Listen... I have a plan it's just not a great one okay. But Ten is small and precious and I wanted to bring him into it.

Chapter 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

One hadn’t even realized what he’d done when he wiped out the monsters that had kept them all in this lab.

Hadn’t realized when he looked into the heads of the children they had been able to see into his, some more clearly than others.

Ten was not powerful like Jane or Two, he never had been. But he had always been… sensitive.

That’s what his father called him once. Sensitive.

This child had seen more, felt more. He knew… he knows who One is. He knows who One was.

He had felt his anger and pain and desire to protect.

He’d felt it up until the moment that door went flying into Papa.

One had never meant for the boy to be injured like that. But when Brenner had been crushed under the metal door it’d clipped Ten, had resulted in a cut running down his forehead, one that may scar.

He'd never intended that.

He hadn't done enough to prevent it.

(One couldn’t bring himself to weaken Ten as he had done with the other children. He’d been so angry, so viciously satisfied at having his powers back and getting to tear the staff apart that he’d barely registered that Ten had been injured. But he had realized, and wasn’t willing to risk causing serious harm by draining him at the time.)

Which is why he didn't understand why this child had clung to him, was still clinging to him.

(Yes he’d seen but he’d hurt him. He’d seen the good and the bad. What he’d done to Alice (his mother and father had brought it on themselves but had his little sister? Had she really?) wasn’t he scared? Wasn’t he angry?)

Henry had never stopped being angry, even when he’d stopped being Henry.

But no, when some of the children had cringed away from him, when others had simply refused to look at him, and even when some seemed…empty and lost, almost unaware of his presence, Ten had held onto him desperately, and had only let go when he’d offered to take his hand.

(There is an intense feeling emanating from the child of being absolutely adrift. One thinks he is latching onto the only remaining adult that had been a constant in his life. Owens had never bonded with them, not been there day to day. One had had no choice, he couldn’t leave. Even if he never allowed himself to get close to anyone besides Jane, he’d been there, and Ten truly was a sensitive child… He supposed he could try to understand even if - had he been in Ten’s position - he would’ve chosen to be alone.)

When he found Owens he nudged the boy behind him, releasing his hand, and felt him grab onto the back of his shirt.

Owens looked and felt terrified.

One was fine with that.

By the time all was said and done Owens insisted he was going to get the children out, get them help, and try to place them with families.

He had not hesitated to tear into the other man’s mind to make sure he was being entirely truthful. It hadn’t broken him, but it had hurt. One was fine with that too.

He also hadn’t hesitated to wrap his hand around the man’s throat and let him know he would not be able to hide from him if he didn’t keep his word, if these children were hurt under his care, or with the people he sent them to he would find him.

He had given him a second chance, to do better by the others than the man had by him. He wouldn’t get a third.

When he turned to leave he didn’t try to get Ten to stay, it wouldn’t work and he’d already hurt him enough, he wouldn’t make him let go by force.

(He didn’t know if he could be what Ten needed either. He did know he had to try.)

They walked out hand in hand.

They would never return to this place.

Notes:

Yes One’s thoughts about Ten seeing his past is meant to parallel his own reactions to his parents' pasts, I hope I made that clear? But I wanted to acknowledge it.
I felt if I was going to bring Ten in then I had to acknowledge the other less great aspects of what One did. I’m all for killing the scientists and soldiers, but he hurt the other children and left them in a dangerous position. Part of that was him acting on emotions and simply not thinking ahead, part of it is that I write him as having an attachment disorder, he’s never had a truly “proper” bond with another person until Jane. There’s always been a wall between him and everyone else. (Obviously being raised by Brenner and kept in a lab for two decades didn’t help.)

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