#chcrribcmb

he hoped she’d escaped on that fateful night so fucking many years ago,  but he had never heard one way or another.

he gave everything to protect her,  to protect their  daughter.  grayson vulfe,  then an infant,  would be nearly an  adult  by now – and cameron had missed out on most of her life.  he doubted he would  ever  see either of them again.

but if they were safe,  if they’d avoided the purge of metahumans from graywater city and society,  then it was okay.  that made it worth it.  a lifetime of interactions with his wife and daughter in exchange for their safety and wellbeing.

he drags himself from the old cot and almost as if on autopilot his weak,  atrophied legs carry him from the wall to the thick iron bars of his cell.   through them he can  see the other guardian captives – miles,  jackson,  elliot – likewise rousing themselves to see what the commotion is about,  each of them fatigued,  weakened,  malnourished in their own ways.

a long while ago they were more talkative,  more chatty.  scheming,  plotting,  trying to figure out  any way  to get out of here and get themselves back home.  that was all they wanted,  really.  they just wanted to go  home.

but the chatter had long since stopped.  there was nothing left to talk about.  hope had run thin and any chance of escape went out the door with it.  now there was only the occasional mindless drone of speech just to give them  something  to do,  maybe to sometimes reminisce on life before this,  but cameron rarely participated.

between the suppressors,  the rationed food,  the cruel tests valentine  randomly selected  him for,  the beatings from the guards that seemed  so much worse  for him than for other guardians, the fact that his  daughter  was a grown human now who he had hardly even known as a toddler -- cameron’s spirit had been broken,  perhaps irrevocably. 

now all that was left was to stare back at each other with sunken,  hollow eyes,  the only real sign of the passage of time being the graying hairs and the lines of grief and age etching their way onto the faces of his friends.

and then they drag her in.

she’s older,  of course,  but it’s still her.  the fiery way she moves,  even with her limbs restrained and likely bound by a current suppressing her abilities.  the lion-like roar of her voice as she fights and struggles so characteristically  her.  

life floods into cameron’s veins the moment he sees and hears her.  carter.  his wife.  the mother of his  child. 

they had her.  but if she was here -- ?

‘ carter!! ’  he calls, and the two lock eyes.

‘ cameron! ’  she shrieks back,  her struggle picking up in intensity -- and the guards only restraining her further.

he reaches outstretched fingers through the bars of his cell,  praying just to even  touch her,  verify she was really here,  was really  alive,  that this wasn’t a hallucination.  filled all at once with a complex array of emotions;  love,  relief,  fury.  concern.  if she’s here,  where’s grayson?

where’s grayson?

as the guards drag carter past, cameron shouts for her again.  ‘ where is she? ’  he yells.  ‘ carter,  where is she?  where is she?  where is she?? ’

carter doesn’t answer the question and deep down cameron knows why.  to do so would be to put their daughter at risk.  carter’s silence though reassures him of one thing -- grayson is alive,  somewhere.

‘ i’ll get you out of here! ’  carter yells back at him.  ‘ i love you!  i love you! ’

‘ carter -- it’s him -- don’t do anything he says -- carter i love -- ’

one of the passing guards shouts something and turns to cameron with a rifle,  lashing through the bars at him.  the buttstock of the rifle meets the side of his head with a  crack  and he crumples to the floor.

by the time he comes to,  carter is long gone.