Chapter 6: Nightmare
Will you be alright, sweetheart?" her mother asked, not sounding overly worried, but more pointedly than she'd usually care to. Gwen smiled and rolled her eyes, slinging her backpack over her shoulder.
"I'll be fine mom." She declared firmly. She was confident in this; she'd been getting better this past week, and so had Ben. She'd be fine. They'd be fine. "It's just school. I can handle it in my sleep." Her mother's answering snort was somehow graceful.
"I suppose that mean's you'll be bringing back straight A's again?" She arched an eyebrow, but the warmth in her eyes belied her strict tone. That was another improvement over the past week: her mother had been kinder in general. Ben's parents had changed their tune a little too, being more present in their little boy's life where before they'd mostly left him to his own devices. He complained that it was stifling over the phone, but Gwen knew him better than that. He liked it too.
Gwen grinned. "You know it, though they'll probably go easy on us for the first day."
"Glad to hear that you're motivated." Her father remarked as he passed her by on his way to the kitchen, ruffling her hair.
"Dad! Now I gotta fix it again..." Quickly turning to the small hallway mirror to fix the clips again, her father chuckled in the background.
"No need to fuss; you'd look beautiful in a hefty bag, sweet potato." He remarked, which caused Gwen to roll her eyes to the ceiling. She'd been doing that a lot around her folks lately.
"Way to lower the bar, dad." This earned a chuckle from both her parents, even if Natalie still lightly swatted Frank's shoulder when he came up beside her with two mugs of coffee. Then she turned to Gwen, expression severe again.
"And remember Gwen, try-"
"-not to reach out for Ben during school hours, I gotta learn to stand on my own two feet." She echoed her mother's words from last Friday. Both children had promised to try, knowing that they couldn't rely on each other 24/7, not for just getting through the day at least. At the time she hadn't been too keen on it, but she thought she could handle it today. She hoped Ben could, too. Her father smiled at her.
"Have fun at school, honey. And remember," At this her father's expression turned deadly serious. "if any boy gets a little too familiar, you have permission to use karate. Is that understood?"
Gwen groaned, head dropping in her hands. Scratch doing homework. After school plans: maim Ben. Extensively.
"I gotta go!" She declared, cutting the conversation short, before quickly giving her folks a peck and sprinting out the door. She grabbed her bike and started paddling, ready to start a new year of kicking butt; this time on paper. She took a deep breath, feeling the wind rustle her hair and the leaves in the trees.
Today was going to rock, she'd make darn sure of it.
Today was crap, Ben had no other way to put it.
He'd woken up groggy from a broken night, fully expecting his first day at school to be just like any other day in that hellhole: pretend not to sleep through classes, sleep through the breaks, avoid the bullies, rinse and repeat the next day. Maybe he'd make small talk with some of his classmates about their summer break, but really, what was there to tell when all the cool parts of his holidays were a secret and all of theirs was lame in comparison?
And that didn't even begin to cover the parts that made him want to curl into a ball and scream. No, between that and his lack of sleep, Ben expected to have a quiet day of catching some z's.
Which was why he was so surprised that when he glanced up from the watch for what felt like the millionth time that day (still green, not ticking. He was fine. He was fine) he found Anna and a few of her friends looming over where he was seated against the wall of the school building. This was new; people generally left him well alone and Anna & co were part of the popular crowd, which meant they thankfully avoided him like the plague.And just when you least want them around...
"Hey, Ben," Anna started, flicking her long blonde hair and leaning on the wall right next to him. "anything interesting happen this summer?" She asked, inspecting her nails innocently.
Ben chewed is sandwich, considering his reply. He had no idea why she and her friends were here, or why she wanted to talk to him about his summer, and his first instinct was to tell her to buzz off, buuut Gwen would tell him that was just his rotten mood talking. It would be more trouble than it was worth. "Had a roadtrip with my grandpa and cousin. Pretty neat." He spoke through a full mouth, taking secret enjoyment from watching her nose wrinkle in distaste. Not nearly as cute as when Gwen did it though.
"…anything else?" The girl pressed, expression shifting into an impish smile, big blue eyes dancing with mirth. She had something up her sleeve. Too bad he didn't have the energy to spar with her.
"I went to space to save the universe from getting blown up." He deadpanned, his short night finally getting the better of him, before fixing Anna with a disgruntled look. "Why do you want to know?"
Before Anna could respond, a brunette, Lizzie, bounced forward excitedly. "We wanna hear about your girlfriend!" She chirped, squealing. Anna sighed.
"I was leading into that, Liz." She muttered.
But Ben didn't hear her, only staring at Lizzie with a flabbergasted expression. "My... what?"
"Cash told us!" Lizzie continued, oblivious to his shifting demeanor. "He said she was super cute! Is she? When did you meet her? Did you hold hands? Cuddle? kiss? No not like that, just you know, a peck or something-"
"Lizzie!" Ben cut her off, flushing beet red and waving his hands frantically. "It's not like that at all!"
Lizzie pouted at him, chestnut eyes huge. It was much harder to dislike her than Anna; Lizzie didn't have an evil bone in her body. "Aaaw, so you didn't do any of that?"
"I-We-It's not-" Ben was about to inform her that he did not do those things with his cousin when the words died on his tongue and he realized he had done allthose things with Gwen, down to the letter. He felt his flush deepen and spread.
Lizzie noticed and eyed him slyly, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. "Oooh I see Bennie takes good care of his girlfriend." She sing-songed. Ben was about to splutter with indignation, again, when the words sank in.
"You better hope your cousin knows how to fly!" Gwen's face smirked at him as she took a step back on the wall.
His jaw slammed shut, cutting off any words he may have uttered, and felt his heartbeat quicken, shaking his small frame to the core.
"Going somewhere without your old pal Kevin?" The monster grinned before grasping Gwen's hand with his own flaming paw, Ben's heard plummeting when he heard her scream.
He shook harder, eyes fixed ahead but unseeing, breath quickening, mout struggling to formulate words.
"Save the wild dog routine will ya?" She scolded as she stood and dusted herself off. "It's not like I want to be here, but" she turned to him, smile as cocky as ever, eyes innocent. "I figured you could use some back-up."
In his mind's eye he saw that carefree gaze morph into a horrified one as the jaws of the Wildvine closed around her, into the teary eyes that he saw when she woke from her night terrors and begged him not to leave her alone. Not again.
Ben grabbed his bag and ran, only stopping when he had reached the back of the school where it was quiet, before emptying his stomach onto the pavement.
On Tuesday, Gwen's strength held until she was past the threshold off her house. She must've looked quite a sight, hair askew, quivering and holding back tears. Her mother took one look at her and all but commanded her to call Ben, immediately.
"You've more than earned it." Her mother had told her, eyes hard and sad at the same time. Gwen didn't linger to figure out that expression. She raced up the stairs, pulled the phone out of her backpack and selected Ben's number.
The second ring had barely started before his voice came to her, and she instantly felt the tension in her shoulders ease. "Gwen? You okay?" And what she wouldn't give to record that worried question, go back in time and play it to herself and Ben from a few months ago. They'd never believe it.
Sitting down on her bed, Gwen let out a watery laugh. "I've seen better days, but I managed. You?" Ben's response was interrupted by a loud squeal from his end of the line.
"'Ben' and 'Gwen'? That is so cute!" She heard a girl yell, distantly.
"Will you can it Lizzie?!" Ben snarked, and despite her day, she instantly felt better. Even if she felt a little guilty for forgetting that Ben's school went on for longer than hers on Tuesday.
"Having some girl trouble, doofus?" She teased, heart lifting. This was familiar. This was safe.
"You're the only girl that gives me trouble." She didn't know how, but she could hear him blushing. "Cash and J.T. blabbed, and now some people won't stop asking about my 'girlfriend.'" Gwen smirked, wiping the last of the moisture from her eyes.
Before she could tease him he was again interrupted, this time by an angry, adult voice. Ben's next words were sheepish and apologetic. "Hey, dweeb, I'm really sorry, but I think I gotta go. Mrs. Robinson looks like she's going to hit me with her music-stick-thingy. Call you when I get out... or do you want me to stay on?"
Leave it to Ben to make it sound like he was waiting to be released from jail, and leave it to her lovable idiot to say exactly the right thing to make her feel better. "It's called a 'baton', lame brain. And thanks, Ben, I appreciate it, but I can wait."
"Oh, of course they use batons in this prison..." Ben muttered. "Okay, but call me if something happens, I'll help-" He cut himself off, and she wondered for a second if he'd lost connection, before he finished with a quiet, "bye, Gwen." The line went dead but Gwen smiled in spite of it and the strangeness of his last words. It wasn't nearly as good as feeling him hug her, or the tickling of his breath on her neck when she woke up, or even the sound of his heartbeat in her ears. But she'd heard his voice. It was enough of a reminder that he was alive for the next hour or so.
Standing up, she wiped her eyes one more time, walked over to her desk and pulled her homework from her backpack. She had paper butts to kick after all.
"No doofus, I don't think the pompadour worked on you. It was cute, but its just not your speed." Gwen spoke into the receiver, huddled up with her phone under the covers late Wednesday night.
Ben's voice over the phone was cocky. "Everything's my speed, I'm the fastest thing on the planet!"
Gwen snorted. "Thus spoke the biggest slacker on the planet." A smirk graced her features. "Maybe you could try a mohawk though. You seemed to love putting mine up."
"Eh- you hair's better for that." Was that discomfort she heard?
"How so?" She purred and she could hear him shift in his own bed, the sheets rustling.
"Its thick." He deadpanned and Gwen shot up in her bed. Definitely not discomfort and that was definitely not a compliment.
"Are you calling my hair fat?!" She cried in mock outrage.
"Yup, you could totally be in the heavyweight class of a Sumo Slammers roster; you and your hair. Gotta lay off on the cupcakes carrothead, or you'll end up a pumpkinhead." He guffawed.
Gwen groaned and fell back on her bed, staring at the ceiling. "That was terrible, freakazoid." Ben scoffed.
"Everyone's a critic."
Silence reigned after his assertion, and Gwen felt herself become twitchy. They'd been having weird silences for the past few days and it was driving her up the wall. It used to be that their quiet was companionable, all the more so if they could huddle up in the RV with a book and video game.
But now it filled her with disquiet, as did next to every word that came out of Ben's mouth recently. Both were filled with an emotion that she couldn't pinpoint, but she knew it wasn't a good one. It worried her. It didn't sound like Ben at all.
"Hey, loser." She started, mind going back to that day where they played around with their hair and gave grandpa a concert. "Sing me a lullaby before I go?"
He didn't reply, and she thought he was going to accept without a fight for all of half a second but then he did the Ben thing to do: he shot her down remorselessly.
"Not even if Vilgax had me by the throat." He jested and she scowled with a pout, even if he couldn't see it over the phone.
"Calls my hair fat, won't sing me a lullaby; you're a terrible boyfriend, you know that right?" She groused.
"If that means you're dumping me, please do. Might get Lizzie and Anna off my back..." He retorted, snickering, sounding a little more like himself. A good start...
She forced her whinging past her smile. It was tough going, keeping it out of her voice. "Why do I have to be the one to dump you in this non-existent relationship? Can't you just dump me and tell them I snored or something?"
"You do snore, and I'm saving that dump for a special occasion. Wanna maximize that heartbreak."
She facepalmed. "That sentence, right there, it does not mean what you think it does."
"Whatever, still not singing you a song." He waved her off, tone smug.
"...pleeeeeeease?"
"...Gwen, stop it! I can see the stupid puppy eyes! Stop it!" A sound of frustration caused some static over the line. "Fine! Just stop the eye thing already!"
Gwen fist pumped. "Score!" She settled in to listen, hearing him sigh on the other end of the line.
"That shouldn't even work over the phone, so not fair..." Ben whined.
Gwen shrugged, uncaring that he couldn't see it. "Chalk it up to my feminine charm. Song please."
Ben snorted. "Maybe in that stupid yellow dress..." He muttered, so quietly that Gwen doubted he'd actually said it, before he soldiered on. "Anyway, pay attention, cuz I'm only going to do this once..." She heard him inhale on the other side of the line and she tensed in anticipation… though nothing could've prepared her for the sound of Stinkfly's voice blaring from the phone.
"Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me!"
Gwen burst out laughing at the absolutely ridiculous vocals while Ben kept singing in the background.
"I ain't the sharpest tool in the sheeeed!"
"Okay, okay you've made your point, please stop!" Gwen wheezed, holding her belly. Taking a second to catch her breath, she grinned into her phone. It took her all of a minute to get herself under control. "Fine, I won't dump you."
Ben sighed again, dramatically. It was a lie, she could feel him grin, surely as she could feel her own. He finally sounded normal again, if briefly. "Guess I won't dump you either. Your snores are kinda cute anyway."
The sight that greeted Natalie upon opening her little girl's bedroom door had been to see Gwen huddled into a ball on her bed, shaking and crying into her knees. Natalie ached to see it. She'd been doing so well…
As common an occurrence as Gwen's tears had become these last few weeks, seeing her daughter (her strong, smart, beautiful daughter) so sad and afraid made the woman's heart wrench. It was enough to make her want to throw all those years of tiger-momming Gwen out the window. She'd burn all the trophies and good grades herself if it meant she knew how to make her little girl smile again.
Tentatively walking over, she sat down beside the child and embraced her. She could feel Gwen's heartbeat, fluttering like a small bird, and Natalie wondered how she could have gone so long without hugging her only child.
"You're safe, sweety. Nothing's going to harm you here." Natalie told Gwen, running her fingers through the little girl's red hair. When Gwen looked up, Natalie was taken aback; in the best of ways.
Gwen was smiling. Teary eyed, for sure, but smiling broadly and her laughter was barely contained, causing her body to shake. "I-" Gwen started breathlessly, before a giggle cut her off. "I- I slept through the night!" She confessed before breathless laughter robbed her off words.
It took half a second for Natalie to register what her daughter had said, but when she felt like bursting out laughing herself. Gwen had slept; no nightmares, no lying awake crying, for the first time since she got back. "That's amazing, honey."
Gwen grinned and nodded enthusiastically before gasping. "I gotta tell Ben!" She declared and her mother chuckled ruefully. One track mind, that girl.
"You do that, little carrot." Gwen glared at her for the old nickname. "After you're done, come downstairs. Were having pancakes." The girl cheered and embraced her mother.
"Thanks mom! You're the best!"
"Don't let your father hear that; he'll pout." Gwen giggled and dove for her phone on the nightstand, and Natalie took it as her cue to go. Making her way out of the room and down the stairs, she only caught the first bit of the conversation.
"Ha! Guess what doofus? Solid eight hours! Maybe you should sing me a lullaby more often."
Shaking her head in amusement, she descended the stairs with a satisfied smile. She still doubted Max's approach to this situation occasionally, still worried that they were only fighting symptoms instead of the taking on the root of the problem. She still fretted over how close Ben and Gwen had become in their effort to heal. But Ben's role in her daughter's steady recovery was obvious. Whatever else she'd thought of the boy, he could be relied upon to be there for Gwen. He was in for one hell of a birthday present as far as she was concerned.
It was scary, all of it. It could blow up in their faces in so many ways. But it was working. She could deal with weird later if it meant Gwen could smile like that again.
Ben woke from the dream, gasping for breath and falling from his bed in cold sweat, half tangled with his sheets. He frantically looked around for Gwen, only to find himself in his own room without her, morning light barely illuminating it. Heart pounding in his ears he spotted his phone on the nightstand. Reaching for it, the omnitrix entered his field of vision.
It flashed orange and red.
Ben screamed, flaying and trying to scamper away from it and falling flat on his back, tugging at the watch in an effort to remove, before stilling, breath coming out in desperate pants with his eyed screwed shut, tears welling up. No I don't want the pulses again they hurt I don't want to explode-
Calm. Down.
Funny, how the helpful voice in his head always sounded like the Gwen. He took steadying breaths, counting the seconds for each inhale and exhale like aunt Natalie had taught him. He lost count twice before he finally managed to find the presence of mind to open his eyes and glance at the watch miserably. Through watery eyes he could faintly tell that the dial was still green and he let out a shuddering breath.
The knowledge did little to banish the images behind his eyes. It was a familiar dream at this point. Ghostfreak putting Gwen on ledge; Kevin holding her hostage for the omnitrix; the Wildvines dragging her under. In his dream, she would jump. In his dream, Kevin would grab her head in a flaming hand and squeeze. In his dream, the Wildvines ate.
In his dream, it was always him in the body of whatever monster came for her, looking out through the eyes of her murderer.
He let his head fall back and stared up at the ceiling, spread eagle, feeling moisture trail down the side of his face in sluggish rivers, shivering. He felt drained before the day had even started. Ben raised the omnitrix above him. It flashed orange in his mind's eye. He grit his teeth, breath shaky.
"Please," he begged of it, softly, voice cracking. "Please," the tears came anew and a sob broke through his clenched teeth. "p-please, let me go."
The omnitrix had no answers for him. He dropped his arm and cried until his tears were spent. Afterwards he got up and started to prepare for another day with his worst fear attached to his wrist. Some hero he was turning out to be.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone