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Chapter Text

COURTING DISASTER

By Shadows59 and Eric “Erico” Lawson

Prologue: The Kids Stay Together

By Eric “Erico” Lawson

Gwen’s House

Bellwood, California

June 20th, 1992 C.E.

1:42 P.M.

Sandra and Natalie Tennyson didn’t always see eye to eye about things, especially when it came to worrying about their children. They had been fortunate enough to fall in love with the Tennyson brothers, and unfortunate enough to get to know and form a bond with their future mother-in-law before Verdona died in the fire that burned down her house. For a time, grief and the mutual panic about their pregnancies and the loathing both women had for their own families had kept them united. And Ben and Gwen had been such wonderful babies, and being able to rely on each other early on had been a godsend.

But then Frank had started earning more money, and the two families had bought houses on opposite sides of town. What had once been constant visits slowly dwindled, because it just got harder and harder to listen to Lili as the kids got older. It was like she’d forgotten all the promises they made to each other. That she’d forgotten everything she hated about her mother, who reminded Sandra too much of her own mother, and started emulating them.

Really, if it wasn’t for Ben and Gwen…

But here she was, sitting in Lili’s kitchen and drinking coffee while her darling Ben was upstairs playing with his cousin. Who had chicken pox. Admittedly, it was a solid idea that she agreed with; getting chicken pox now before school started was preferable. And the kids loved playing together. Always had. Although...they were noticing now. They’d both stopped at the bottom of the stairs, holding hands, and had stared at them, at their mothers, waiting for her and Lili to start fighting and cut the visit short.

That had been thirty minutes ago and she still couldn’t shake the look she’d seen on her son’s face. Gwen had worn one just like it. Sandra figured even Lili had seen it...she’d been quieter than usual. Or maybe she was reading too much into it, and Lili just figured that silence was better than speaking, which inevitably led to an argument.

And the kids knew it.

“School will be starting soon.” Lili mused softly, refilling her cup. She held up the pot expectantly, and Sandra nudged her cup and saucer over for her to refill it also. “We’ll be enrolling Gwendolyn into kindergarten this year. Have you thought about sending Ben to kindergarten also?”

“I’m still not convinced it’s a good idea to have them in a year early.” Sandra confessed. She wrapped her hands around the coffee cup and let the heat leech into her palms. “They’re only four and a half. Other kids going into kindergarten are six. Maybe five.”

“They’re smart, Sandy.” Lili insisted. “You should see them with the flash cards and the games. I knew Gwen could handle them, and Ben keeps up with her every step of the way.”

“But, DeMornay’s book says…” Sandra started, and froze when she saw Lili start to scowl. She shook her head. “No, forget that.” And Lili calmed down, just a hair. “I want Ben to succeed, Lili. I want that as much as you do. But I want him to be happy doing it.”

“And you think…” Lili started again with a growl, but stopped herself. She closed her eyes and counted silently. Sandra did the same.

Maybe in another time, another place, she wouldn’t have seen anything that would make her worry. Maybe if she’d been less observant, Sandra would have completely missed how the kids just stood there and waited for the fight to happen.

But this was not that time or place, and she had seen them waiting to be pulled apart. So she took in a breath, worked up her courage…

Do it for them.

“Why are we always fighting, Lili?” Sandra asked sadly. She opened her eyes and looked over to that woman , expecting indignation.

She saw surprise instead. Sandra didn’t wait for it to disappear. “Did you see how Ben and Gwen looked at us before you told them to go upstairs and play?”

Lili might have tried to say something, but she settled for a rough nod, and looked down at the table.

“They were expecting us to start fighting. Not more than a minute after we’d gotten here, and…” Sandra’s voice broke. “The last time at our house? You remember what happened?”

“The lights went crazy, didn’t they?”

“No...well, yes. I guess it would be the time before that. You and I got into another argument, and you went upstairs to take Gwen home?”

Lili flinched a bit. “They were in his closet.”

“Covering each other’s ears.” Sandra remembered sadly.

They both took a long sip of coffee after that, drinking little but making it last.

“I wonder what Verdona would think of us.” Lili said, after their cups came back down again. Sandra had to laugh at the notion.

“She’d probably smack us both and then sit us down until we made up.” She confessed.

Lili chuckled and ran a fingertip around the rim of her coffee cup. “She would. But we’d get cookies out of it.”

“...She made the best sugar cookies.” Sandra sighed. “Always said the secret ingredient was love.” She met Lili’s eyes again. “She would have loved Gwen and Ben.”

“She would have spoiled them rotten.” Lili complained, and the two laughed a little at that before sobering up. For Sandra, the pain was still too fresh. They’d visited her grave only two weeks ago with Max. And her father-in-law still…

He still couldn’t…

“Okay. Let’s table it for now.” Lili conceded. “We won’t talk any more about school today.” Sandra nodded, and realized just how much tension that let out of the kitchen. “So what do you want to talk about?”

Sandra thought about it for a while. “Want to go check on the kids?”

“We could, I suppose...but they might not react well.”

“If we went up by ourselves, like usual?” Sandra suggested, and tried not to wince at how the usual sounded. Still, it gave her an idea. “But what about if we brought them something?”

“Like another game to play?”

“Something better.” Sandra set her cup back down and scooted away from the table, offering her sister-in-law a tentative, shy smile. “Do you have the fixings to make sugar cookies?”

They hadn’t done any baking together in years, not since Verdona had passed away. Sandra considered it a wild, mad hope, she figured Lili would refuse, or say that it would ruin the kid’s dinner. Or that she would refuse out of hand.

But things had bent enough for the unusual to not be so unpalatable. Lili smiled back, stood up, and smoothed out her skirt.

“I think I do, actually.”

An hour later, the kitchen was full of the smell of fresh cookies made with love. Both mothers made their way upstairs with a plate of cookies between them, and changed the paradigm. Ben and Gwen had two cookies each, but insisted on splitting each one, which made Lili laugh and wonder when Gwen had gotten so good at sharing.

It wasn’t until the end of the visit, when Sandra was in the car with Ben and half a mile out that she realized that she and Lili had averted the usual arguments. And that Lili had hugged her when they’d said their goodbyes. She hugged almost as well as Gwen hugged Ben.

“Did you have fun, sweetie?” Sandra asked Ben, who still grinned like a maniac in his car seat in the back. Gwen always made him smile.

“Uh huh! Can we have cookies when she comes over?”

“If you’re a good boy, Ben, we’ll see.”

“I am good! Gwen says so!” He chirped back.

“Oh, well, if Gwen says so.” Sandra laughed.

***

Ben’s House

June 29th, 1992 C.E.

10:14 A.M.

Sandra walked into Ben’s room with a sippy cup of cold fruit punch; mixed herself, with a little less powder than the recipe called for. “Ben, honey? Are you okay?” She asked carefully.

Her precious little boy grumbled and curled into his blankets even tighter. “It’s so itchy.” He groaned, though he wasn’t able to go after them. Not with piano gloves on his hands, and taped up so he couldn’t take them off. She’d put enough bandages on his arms yesterday.

“I know, honey. It’s no fun at all.” Sandra comforted him, rubbing his back a little bit. “Are you thirsty? I’ve got some fruit punch here.” He grunted once and came up for air with a sour look on his face, but he took the cup and drank as much as he could. “Go slowly.” She coached him. “There’s more if you want it.”

“Want Gwen.” Ben said, handing the mostly empty cup back to her. “She knows what to do.”

Sandra sighed again. That was his solution for almost everything. ‘Want Gwen.’ And if he thought she was supposed to be around, he’d say ‘Where’s Gwen?’ She brushed his hair back and smiled when he squirmed away from her hand. “I know you do, sweetie, but…”

And she hesitated. Really, it wasn’t like Gwen could get the chicken pox again . But…

But.

So Sandra smiled. “I can’t make any promises. But I’ll call your Aunt Lili and see if she’d let Gwen come over. Okay?”

Regardless of how miserable Ben was feeling with his face, arms, and chest covered in tiny red spots, that not-quite-a-promise made him brighten up and smile like he hadn’t in days. “Kay.” He said, and burrowed back into bed.

“And you won’t try picking at them?” She asked.

“No.”

“Promise?”

“Pwomise.” Ben grunted, with only a little bit of a face. Sandra left the cup beside his bed for him and went downstairs to make a phone call. She only hesitated for about twenty seconds before she punched the second number on the speed dial.

To her surprise, Gwen answered the phone, and after sounding very phone-mature for her age, brightened up after she realized who was calling. She must have stayed close after Lili took the phone from her, because as soon as Sandra asked if Gwen could come over to help Ben feel better, the little girl squealed excitedly and immediately started rattling off please-please-pleases like she was a typewriter. Lili sounded incredibly frustrated, but with Sandra listening in and biting her cheek to keep from laughing, she eventually agreed to a visit in the afternoon if Gwen was a good girl the rest of the morning and helped her with chores.

Sandra almost went back up to tell Ben the good news, but stopped halfway up the steps. He needed sleep right now, and if she told him Gwen was coming, there would be no chance of that happening.

He still asked when she woke him up for lunch, though. And when she told him that Gwen probably was coming by in the afternoon, he grinned again, then turned serious.

“She gets cookies.” He said, less a request and more an order. “You pwomised.”

Sandra blinked at that, tried to recall the conversation, and laughed when she did. “Yes. Yes, I did. Okay. But you have to stay up here still, okay? Until she gets here, and then maybe if you’re feeling better, you can come down and play with her for a while. Otherwise, she can visit you here in your room.”

“Kay.” He nodded his head exactly once, as if considering the matter settled.

“So. Sugar cookies? Or chocolate chip? Or oatmeal raisin?”

“Choc’wit chip!” Ben insisted. She laughed again and headed downstairs to get started.

She’d just gotten the pan into the oven when the doorbell rang, and when she went to answer it, a sudden thud from upstairs made her pause. Then the steady thumping of Ben’s tiny feet along the hallway made her chuckle, and she went to the door to answer it.

“Don’t run down the steps, Ben! I don’t want you falling!” She called up towards him, then opened the door and beamed at Lili and Gwen, waiting on the other side.

“Hi, Sandra.” Lili said, smirking just a little. She arched her eyes over Sandra’s shoulder. “Up and around, I take it?”

Sandra had to chuckle. “Soon as the doorbell went off. I think he…”

“Gwen!” Ben rasped, his face covered in red spots. And then Gwen’s eyes went shock wide.

“You too?!” She almost yelled, and squirmed out of her mother’s hand, making a beeline straight for him.

And Lili just raised an eyebrow, for once not bothering to correct Gwen to not yell, or to not run, or to not do any of the half dozen things she’d done and was still doing in the last five seconds. Sandra shrugged, but her smile felt a little more genuine.

“I just put some cookies in. Coffee or tea?”

“I wouldn’t mind some tea.” Lili conceded, and they made their way back to the kitchen as their children started squawking at each other, with Gwen fussing over Ben every step of the way. “Honestly, it’s like she’s a different girl the moment she sees him.”

Sandra paused with her hand around a box of black tea bags, and felt the question form in her mind. And what’s wrong with that?

But she held her tongue, another rare concession. “I have decaf and regular black tea.”

“Oh, either is fine.” Lili reassured her. The red-haired woman sat down at the table and angled her chair so she could look out into the living room, where the kids were now sitting down on the carpet, while Ben pulled his sleeves back so Gwen could make faces at all the spots on his arms, and the marks of anti-itch lotion Sandra had tried to cover them with. “How’s he been doing?”

“Same as Gwen, I think. Kept trying to scratch at them all, and he gets tired easily. Not much of a fever, though. Thank goodness.”

Lili hummed and nodded. “I’ll be glad when they’re both over it. Gwen’s lost the spots, but she’s still on the mend herself.” Sandra set a teakettle on the stove to boil and then checked the oven again, then set a timer for the cookies inside. “Still, it’s better that they’re dealing with it now, and not this fall when they’re in school.”

Sandra got out a couple of coffee mugs from the glass cabinet and put a teabag in each of them, and waited for Lili’s next question.

“Have you been thinking about what school to send him to?” Lili asked.

“The one in our district is Drake Elementary.” Sandra said calmly, sitting down on the other side of the kitchen table. “It would be good, keeping him close to home. And you’re sending Gwen to that private school, right?”

“Angelwood.” Lili said with a nod. “It’s not exactly around the corner from our house, but it’s a good school. She’ll have a lot of opportunities there.” The woman drummed her fingers on the table. “You could send Ben there too, you know.”

“We could.” Sandra tried to keep a civil tongue in her head. “But he’s smart enough that he could succeed anywhere. And Drake’s got a good reputation as well. Besides, I’m not sure he’d be happy at Angelwood. I read that brochure you left, and...uniforms? Really?” She shivered, and thought of the parochial schools that her parents had insisted on sending her and her brothers and sisters to. She thought of her brother Eric, who’d been forced to go through conversion therapy, and… “I can’t stand the thought that they’d try to make my Ben into someone he isn’t. That they’ll do it to Gwen.” She added in a weak voice, and shivered again.

She half-expected Lili to fly off the handle again, like she always did. But the other woman didn’t. She looked like she wanted to, when Sandra looked up at her, but she held off and shook her head.

“Private doesn’t mean parochial.” Lili reminded her gently. “I was going to take Gwen there next week, to give her a chance to see the place. You could come along.”

“I don’t know.” Sandra wavered.

“If it’s a matter of money…” Lili hesitatingly started, but cut herself off when Sandra glared at her.

“My son is not a charity case.” Sandra growled.

“I...I didn’t mean that to sound the way it did.” Lili backpedaled.

The teakettle whistled, and Sandra bit off her next retort, going to kill the heat and pour them each a cup. She brought the mugs back over and set them down, leaving her tea to steep.

Lili used a spoon to stir her bag through the steaming water. Sandra used the silence to breathe in and out, then froze.

She couldn’t hear the kids out in the living room. She stood back up and went to go and check on them, but…

They came into the kitchen, hand in hand. Looking sad.

“Mommy, we hafta go now?” Gwen asked, looking down at the floor and squeezing Ben’s hand all the harder.

“No, sweetie.” Sandra said, instantly denying the possibility before Lili could get a word in. Seeing Gwen look that miserable was just wrong.

“You were yelling.” Ben mumbled.

“We were talking, Benjamin.” Lili said carefully. “Not yelling.”

“Not happy talking.” He replied. And Lili flinched.

“We were talking about schools.” Sandra explained.

“Gwen’s going to kindergarten this fall.” Lili went on, maybe, hopefully, just as eager as Sandra was to keep the kids from being sad, again. “A school called Angelwood.”

“And your daddy and I thought, Ben, that you could go to kindergarten also.” Sandra added. “There’s a school close by to here. Drake. You’ve seen it a couple of times when we go driving around. What do you think?”

Sandra almost flinched as soon as she said it, because one of the parenting books she read was insistent that you never ask your child what they want. You tell them what they’re going to get. Of course, there was that other book which said to give them a choice , so they feel like they have ownership in their lives, but you’re retaining control.

Lili waited while Ben scrunched up his face in his rarely used ‘thinking look’ and then turned his head to look at Gwen. The little red-haired girl looked back at him, and Sandra could see her squeeze his gloved hand even tighter.

“Kindergarden.” Ben finally said. “Okay. I go with Gwen.” And Gwen grinned at him, and Ben grinned back.

Sandra wondered who’d pulled the rug out from under her. “Uh, Ben, that’s...you see, she’s going to a different school than…”

“Nuh uh!” Ben hollered, instantly angry. Gwen mirrored his rage, stepping ahead of him.

“Together!” She snapped. “Want Ben!”

Panicking and wondering where her exhausted son found the energy to get so mad, Sandra looked over to Lili for moral support, and found the other woman looking just as surprised as she felt.

Laughing together after that was the easiest thing to do. The kids relaxed a little when they did, but they still didn’t walk off, and stayed in the doorway, holding each others’ hand. Because this was important.

Sandra walked over to them and knelt down so she could meet their eyes. “Ben, are you sure?” She asked. “You haven’t seen her school. If you went there, you’d have an outfit you’d have to wear every day. You couldn’t wear your favorite shirt all the time.”

That did make him squint up a bit, but only for a second. And then he was back to looking stubborn and deadset.

“Gwen’s there.” He insisted. “I go to her school.”

Sandra’s lip quivered as she looked at her boy, and for an instant, saw a glimpse of the man he might grow up to be. Then she wiped at her eyes, and it was gone.

“Okay, Ben. Okay.” She surrendered. “You can go to Gwen’s school.” And the both of them cheered at that, scampering back off with Gwen chattering about how good it was going to be.

Sandra sat back down at the table, and Lili shook her head. “I honestly didn’t see that coming.” The red-haired woman said.

“Neither did I.” Sandra admitted. And then the worries set in. She’d given her word that her son could go to Gwen’s school. But how would they be able to get him in? The few times she’d bothered to pay attention to Lili nattering away, she’d mentioned tests to even be admitted, and there was the tuition, and her worries about the uniform, and…

Lili reached across the table and grasped her hand. “He’ll get in.” She promised Sandra, her eyes glimmering. “All those flashcards he insisted on doing with Gwen? He’ll pass with flying colors.” And then she squeezed her hand, like Gwen had squeezed Ben’s only seconds before. “We’ll do whatever we can to help, if you want help. But there are also scholarships. We’ll make it work, Sandra.”

“I hope I’m doing the right thing.” Sandra whispered.

“Look at it this way.” Lili said, pulling her hand back and chuckling. “It’ll be a brand new school for the both of them. School is always scary when it’s new. At least they’ll have each other as something familiar.”

“I suppose they will.” Sandra said. And then the oven timer finally went off, and when the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies wafted through the house, Ben and Gwen came barreling back in, eager for a snack. They got cookies and fruit juice while Lili and Sandra had cookies and tea, and it ended up being one of the most civil afternoons they’d spent together in years. She was still nervous about a lot of things, and wondered how Carl would take the news that they would have to start setting money aside for private tuition, but there was one thing Sandra felt sure about. She wasn’t worried about Ben being lonely anymore.

The kids would be staying together.

***

Author’s Notes

Everyone knows that Ben and Gwen could barely stand each other by the time they went on their big summer trip when they were ten, but what no one knows is that they were nearly inseparable for their first four and a half years.

In the Little Moments universe proper, something happened that set their next six years, but in this world there is a glance taken, a look seen and a word reconsidered and that makes all the difference.

This story started as an au while Erico and I were dealing with other worlds. It was just an idea of how cute it would be to see them growing up together, from their first day of kindergarten on. This is just the beginning of the cute.

This story will only be updated when we have a need for something cute and light hearted, but this Ben and Gwen have their own story to tell. We hope that you enjoy it.

-Shadows59

Chapter Text

Chapter One: The Kids Start School

By Shadows59

Angelwood Elementary

Bellwood, California

August 26th, 1992 C.E.

7:55A.M.

Some people loved Christmas, but the first day of school was always Anna's favorite day of the year.

" - pick a seat, Ms. Hunter, we'll be starting soon!" She said as she grinned down at the little girl with long blond haired that was held in a ponytail by a bright pink bow. The splash of color brought up the same little bit of resentment that she always had for the uniforms that the school insisted on - a plain black skirt and a blue sweater for the girls was so dull and the blue polo shirts and black knee pants for the boys was even worse when her kids should be splashes of color - but it was probably for the best when the little girl looked so cute as she danced on her toes and looked into the classroom with huge blue eyes.

Cute and then adorable when she pulled on the straps of the tiny Kitty Cat backpack that she had over her shoulders and squeaked out, 'Kay! Mz. Hughes!" Her little Mary Janes were so shined up that they all but glittered as the little angel raced in. Yes, the uniform was for the best. Anna was sure she never would have been able to take it if she saw the little girl in the bright dresses she must wear at home.

It was a cuteness that the woman standing next to her didn't even seem to see anymore as she just sighed, "Marci..."

Anna gave the woman a little look and then pretended not to notice as Mrs. Hunter's frown vanished the second the little girl came racing back and hugged the woman's knees for almost a whole second before she called out, "Bye mommy!" Then she went racing back to the only table that was still unclaimed and so she could pull the right chair out and clamber up into it. There was another excited squeal when she saw the crayons that were waiting for her and whoever picked the seat next to her.

"My Marci's not usually like this," Mrs. Hunter sighed as she ran her hand through her own long blond hair, like Ana needed any more proof that the two were mother and daughter.

"It's the first day of Kindergarten, Mrs. Hunter," Anna grinned at the woman because she could hold back her giggle, but not that. She took in the sight of the eight other kids that were piled up inside. Some were drawing like Marci, others were over by the toy box like they'd never seen them before and they all looked like they were having the time of their lives."Most of the kids are like this when they get here."

The rest usually burst out crying, and Anna hated that, but at least she didn't cry with them anymore. The last few years broke her of that.

But she still kept some candy in her desk, just in case. She'd only needed to hand out a few pieces this year, which had to be a good sign, and the two girls and the little brown haired boy who'd all had meltdowns before were all smiles now. All nine of her kids were. Everyone else could have Christmas, this was better.

For her, anyway.

She half listened to Mrs. Hunter as she said something else, something that sounded like the same lists of things that her little girl could and couldn't do that they'd gone over during Open House and if any of it was the least bit life threatening then Anna would have given it her whole attention, but it wasn't so she did her best and held back from blurting out that she wasn't going to sanitize everything before the girl touched it. Kids and dirt belonged together.

So did kids and fits, and from the sounds of it her friend had to deal with a barn-burner a couple of minutes ago. Even after the last five years she was still amazed that anyone could yell that loud, much less a kindergartner. She'd had a little girl who was almost as loud last year and Emma came charging over the second it started, but the woman had a good decade of teaching on her and that meant so much.

It meant enough that Anna chewed at the inside of her cheek as she oh so casually looked around the woman in front of her to the door across the hall from hers and tried to see inside. She saw a few kids in there, but none of them had the grins that hers did. They weren't storming out either, though. Not like the other mom did a few seconds after the screaming started, her face red and wet under her mess of dirty blond hair like her world was ending, too.

If Mrs. Hunter and Marci hadn't walked up at the same time…

Anna wished that she could have given the woman a hug and a tissue. If Mrs. Hunter wasn't staring at her, she still might have gone for the one she had hidden in the sleeve of her sweater just from the memory. As it was, all she could do was smile away the tears. "It's a good thing that Marci's excited, Mrs. Hunter."

"I suppose," the other woman sighed and said a few more things before she turned and started down the same hall that the other blond had fled not five minutes ago. Anna's eyes followed her as she looked for the other mom or her last student. She knew that she wouldn't have stood a chance if she was in the other hall, but this one was for kindergarten to fourth grade and even her five foot and three inch frame towered over most of the kids here, not that she was looking for kids, but it made finding the parents all the easier.

First time moms were always the easiest, too. They all had the same look that Anna saw in the mirror when she was nibbling on her nails and the red haired woman she saw making her way through the kids and towards her was no exception.

Almost. If anything, this woman looked even more worried than most as she kept glancing down at her right side until her left hand actually did brush her lips. First timers always needed kid gloves and this one looked like she needed it even more than most. Anna didn't need a class or her mentors to tell her that, but they all did. Especially when they were as young as the woman in front of her. Honestly, they could have gone to school together, except Anna never looked as put together as the woman in front of her did in her simple green sundress that had no right looking as good as it did. Not now, and she was sure not by the end of the day. And she'd never had hair that looked as good. Angelwood frowned on hair dye and that was the hardest part about taking the job, but she was sure that if she could find a bottle that matched that shade of red, even Mrs. Clemonte would look the other way.

That was before the kids in the hall finally remembered that they had places to be and they finally thinned out enough that she saw the tiny girl that was walking next to the woman and oh so purposely not holding her hand, but there wasn't any hiding the awe in her green eyes as she looked everywhere or the copper fire of her hair that put even her mother's to shame, much less the inky nothing of Anna's. That should have been enough, but the tiny thing looked adorable her uniform skirt and sweater, too.

"Hi, Sweetie!" Anna cooed as the girl and somehow fought down the urge to just give her a hug because if she did that she would have never been able to let her go, much less tell the mother, "I think you made a wrong turn, Ma'am. Preschool is back - "

"I'm not in Pwe-school!" The girl said, the words whistled through the spot where two teeth were just starting to come in and if she'd been just a few months older it would have… Well, it still would have been adorable when she stomped her foot and glared up.

"That's - " Anna started before she bit her tongue as she looked up and the mom showed just where the little girl learned her glare from.

But the mom had more self control. Her voice didn't have any of the indignation of the little girl, but there was still an edge as she sighed. "Mrs. Hughes? I'm Natalie Tennyson, we met at the open house last week?"

"I remember, Mrs. Tennyson," Anna said as she made her smile come back because she didn't. Not really. It was all a bit of a blur even though she did her best, but lists were always easier than faces for her and the name clicked. At least until she looked down. She kept the smile on her face, but she could hear the disbelief in her voice as she asked, "Then this is Gwendolyn?"

The woman - Mrs. Tennyson smiled down at her daughter as she reached down and brushed her hand through that fiery red hair. "All better from her cold."

"But - " Anna said as she tried to swallow her disbelief. The office knew what it was doing when it placed the girl here, she was sure - and she tried to ignore how her mentors would have laughed at that. Tried and failed as she knelt down, careful to keep her skirt in place and who expected teachers to get this dressed up for Kindergarten? If the money and the prestige wasn't so good… Prestige that meant that she shouldn't ask what she was about to, but the kids came first. "How old are you, Sweetie?"

The girl's emerald eyes lost all their fire as she grinned and showed off the gap in her teeth again. "4 and three-quarters!"

"Gwen…"

"A'most," Gw - no. No keep it at the girl. Don't get attached. Not if this really was a mistake and especially not when the girl was adorable as she blushed at the admission.

"How- ?" Anna almost finished that question before she bit off the almost. She made her smile stay in place even as she looked up. She didn't change her tone, not that it fooled the little girl. "Ma'am. I think that there's been some kind of mistake. Children aren't allowed to start kindergarten until - "

No, there wasn't any doubt where the little girl learned her glare from. "Unless they pass the tests for early placement, Mrs. Hughes. Which my Gwendolyn did with flying colors and so did - " Mrs. Tennyson started and stopped as she shot up and down the hall before she let out a sigh. "Of course they're late."

"They are?" Anna asked as she looked over all the kids that were finally starting for their classrooms even as they kept babbling happily to each other, but… Then she shook her head as she looked at the little girl in front of her. The one who was precious and looked a good five months younger and three inches shorter than everyone else. "It's - it's not just a question of intelligence, Ma'am, but…" she tried to say before she melted under the matching glares.

If the office thought it was okay….

"Go pick out a seat, Honey," Anna heard the words leave her mouth even as her stomach turned into a knot as she watched the tiny thing grin again.

The knot only got bigger as the girl hugged her mom's knee before she went dashing in as she called out, "Ben! Ben!"

"She's so small," Anna whispered.

She thought she whispered it to herself until she heard Mrs. Tennyson clear her throat, but at least she had the grace to look nervous as she kept looking up the hall. It was more than most of the mom's in this school would do. "My daughter can - "

There weren't words for how tight the knot in Anna's stomach got as the girl came charging back out. "Mommy! Ben's not here! You gotta - " she started as her breath came in little gasps.

Anna shot a look to her aide who didn't even waste the time it would take to nod before she dashed for the desk and the candy that was waiting because they could both feel the meltdown coming as the little girl stomped her tiny foot, but that wasn't what made Anna frown. That was her running through the list of her students in her head. "I don't have a Ben - "

That was as far as she got before Mrs. Tennyson sighed and knelt. Marie could have sworn that she heard the woman murmur, "We were supposed to do this together," under her breath. Not that the words or the hurt behind them made any sense. The next ones did as she hugged the little girl to her. "There were too many kids this year and Ben's mommy and daddy signed him up too late, Silly Bean, so he was put in the other kindergarten. Your daddy and I didn't want to tell you because I was sure that we could fix it. Ben's mommy and daddy didn't tell him either and we've been trying ever since we found out last week, but…"

Anna wanted to cry as the little girl pulled away from her mom and stared at her with wet eyes that just made the green brighter. "But - but - "

"You'll still see your friend at recess and lunch, Honey!" Anna burst in as she clutched her hands over her chest because she had to say something.

The little girl spun her head around so fast that her long, bright red hair trailed after her like a comet's tail, "but…" she tried as tears ran down her face.

"Gwendolyn Rose!" Mrs. Tennyson said even as she dug a tissue out of her purse and wiped away them away. "What did I tell you?"

"Ladies don't cwy," the girl said, and she sounded miserable as she said it.

"That's right," Mrs. Tennyson said as she pressed a kiss into her daughter's forehead and then wiped that away, too. "You heard Mrs. Hughes. You'll see Ben plenty, and you'll make lots more friends, too. Now - " she started just as the bell rang and it was loud enough that it almost hid the way that the woman sniffed, too. "Now, go with Mrs. Hughes and have fun."

"Okay, Mommy," little Gwen whispered and sniffled as she looked down at her feet. The girl didn't fight it at all as Anna reached over and took her hand and led her in.

She didn't even seem to notice as the tissue went to her mother's eyes, but Anna did. "Your mommy is right," Anna said to both of them as she gave the woman a smile and closed the door with the other hand. "I have a treat in my desk for brave little girls, and I think that someone saved a seat for you."

Gwendolyn sniffed and kept looking around, curious despite everything. Curious and worried. She saw the little lips move, but she couldn't hear a sound. "What was that, Honey?"

"What if they don't like me?" Gwen whispered, her lip quivering. "There was a mean girl at the park, and a boy at the libwawy who pushed Ben and… and I have to…"

All the HR rules in the world wouldn't have kept Anna from hugging the little girl then, or from squeezing her hand when she took it again and lead her to the desk up front and the little blond girl who was scribbling like mad. "Marci? This is Gwen and I was wondering…"

"You're hair is so pretty!" Marci burst out with glee the second she saw Gwen. Then the lithe blonde was off her chair and running over before Anna even finished. She might have felt the little red head squeeze her hand as and if she did, she didn't blame the girl one bit. Then the two girls were hugging - well, Marci was hugging while Gwen just stood there wide-eyed, but the girl didn't cry or yell even as she was pulled to the desk. The little blond babbled the whole time. "You're so tiny! Tiny like my dolly! We'll be best fwiends forever just like me and Buttercup! Come on! We have crayons and I'll share!"

There was something like a smile on Gwen's face as she pulled herself up into her chair and Marci pulled hers over so they could sit close, but Anna watched those green eyes keep looking around and her bottom lip quivered the whole time class went on.

- o - o - o - o - o -

"Dey have a jungle gym!" Anna heard a little boy shout the second the other door opened and she only jumped a little even as it made her kids yell, too.

"Mr. Flint, what did I just say?" A British voice called out and Anna hid her smile behind her hand as she glanced away from her kids as they chased each other around the yard. Especially the flashes of red and blond hair as they dodged this way and that through the playground in a game that might have been hide and seek if the giggles didn't keep giving them away.

"Marci! Gwen!" Anna called out for the third time as a brunette woman with messy hair led her kids out in a line that was just barely holding together even before she sighed, "All right, you can go play." They both watched their classes scatter as the other woman all but staggered over to the bench that Anna had already claimed.

"Bad day?" Anna asked as she held up the bag of apple slices that she'd been snacking on.

"Horrible," the other woman said with a tired smile as she sank down on the bench, too - only she made it look graceful. If Anna didn't love the older woman so much… "Apple slices, really?"

Anna just shrugged because this was all part of the game. "My kids get hungry, and I can't make them eat the stuff that you call food," Anna said and she bit down just so the apple crunched like none of the woman's homemade dishes ever did.

"That's because none of you Yanks know the slightest bit about culture or cuisine," Emma said as pushed her bushy brown hair out of her face and took a slice. Her eyes kept moving just like Anna's did, or they were until she heard what the woman muttered next. "And we know how to let kids be kids."

"You went to a boarding school!" Anna said, suddenly defensive as she looked for and saw Gwen again.

Their mad dash must have been over because she was sitting by the sandbox with Marci and Blair, but only the blond and the little Chinese girl were smiling as they sat there on either side of the little girl and tried to pass her back and forth as they pretended to feed her as the pinched look on Gwen's face got deeper and deeper until she finally pushed away and shouted, " - not a baby!"

Anna sighed and called out, "Play a game you'll all enjoy, girls!" They did after that. Kind of. The little Chinese girl was just staring at Gwen's red hair or looking at Marci like whatever the girl was saying was the most important thing in the world while Gwen kept looking around as her pout got bigger and bigger. Big enough that Anna started to get up when the woman next to her let out a snort.

"When I was eight," Emma said like Anna hadn't just yelled across the playground. She kept her voice low, but there wasn't any hiding the annoyance in her words. "Not four!"

"This isn't - !" Anna tried even as her stomach clenched. She didn't even bother to wonder how the woman knew already. It was Emma. The woman was just magic. "And Gwen's very bright for her age!" Which was such an understatement. Most of her kids knew some of the alphabet and their numbers, but Gwen knew them all. And how to read a clock, but still… "I can see why her mom - !"

"Her?" Emma asked as she turned and blinked. "Who's Gwen? I was talking about…" the woman sighed and dug the toes of her black shoes into the grass. "The boy in my class is bright, too, but… My God, Anna! Ben's not even five! He should be at home playing!" She shook her head. "You people are always in such a rush. I don't care what the office says, if his mother hadn't left when he started… I was so ready to give her a piece of my mind!"

"That poor woman," Anna said and it should have been a joke. It might have been if she wasn't so sure that her friend was talking about the lady with dirty blond hair who rushed away in tears. The same worry that almost made her chase the woman made her look around at all the boys that had come charging out, but none of them looked all that upset. "Which one is he? It looks like he's - "

"He's not out yet. He's why we're late," Emma muttered as she crossed her legs and kicked her foot. Then she sighed and took another apple slice before she sighed. "He's been sullen all day since that tantrum this morning, or he was until I said we were coming out here to have recess with your class and then he just charged for the door. I had to leave him inside with Cathy because he just wouldn't wait and get in line. I swear that that the only reason I'm not still in there is because I told him he'd spend all of recess inside if he didn't sit still." The words were so firm, but it didn't hide the way she sighed. "I can't even be mad at him. He's four. He should he playing at home with his friend, not…"

"His friend?" Anna asked as she looked at her little red haired girl again.

There was another little sigh and smaller nod. "A girl named Gwen. He's been going on about how they were supposed to be in class together all day. It would be sweet if he wasn't so..."

Gwen?!

"What did you say - ?" she started as Emma's door flew open again and a brown haired ball of energy came bursting out into the yard. He was a tiny stick of a boy who made even Gwen look tall and she could just see the other boys sizing him up already.

What was his mom thinking?

Not that the boy cared about that any more than he seemed to about keeping his messy brown hair neat. "You couldn't…" Anna asked as she patted her own hair as she tried to think. Neatness was a rule - especially in Angelwood - and an even better way to stall.

"He threw an absolute fit when I tried," Emma sighed again as she patted her purse. Then she shook her head and let out a little chuckle. "He has the will of someone twice his age, I'll give his mum that."

The lungs of one, too, Anna thought, as the boy looked all around and bellowed, "Gwen! Gwen! Marco!"

"Polo!" That was the only warning before a red blur shot by. That and the giggle as Gwen all but tackled the tiny boy and they both went to the grass.

"Gwendolyn!" Anna sucked in a breath and Emma gasped as they both shot to their feet, but the two just giggled as they hugged each other instead of crying or screaming.

At least until Gwen pulled away and scrambled back up to her feet and looked the boy over. Then she covered her mouth with both her of pudgy little hands as she burst out in more giggles. "You look silly!"

"Do not!" The boy shouted right back at her as he jumped up to his feet, his face going red with indignation as he shoved his hands over his shirt and knee length pants. "I look like daddy when he's being important!" Then he let out a bark of a laugh as he pointed right back. "And you're wearing a dwess!"

"Am not!" Gwen said as she stomped her tiny foot. "I'm wearing a skirt!"

"Silly!"

"Shut up!"

"Benjamin Tennyson!" Emma shouted as she hurried over even as the two stood toe to toe as Anna followed just a little slower because she could see them both grinning like this was the best day of their lives and they were kids at recess. They could shout a little. It wasn't like they were the only ones doing it.

Besides, it was all she could do not to join in. She might have if she didn't almost choke on the bit of apple that she'd been chewing on. "Tennyson?" She asked as soon as she could say anything. "Did you just say Tennyson?"

"If I say yes will you chew this time?" Emma said as she gave Anna worried look. "Why?"

A look that Anna barely saw as she stared at the two, who were still arguing and grinning all at the same time. "I wonder if they're…" she started to say brother and sister before she remembered that she'd seen both of their moms. Maybe it was just a coincidence?

She almost believed that until Marci came running up, her eyes wide with worry as she skidded to a stop next to Gwen and glared at Ben and they both spun to her. Maybe, just maybe the fact that they had the same chin could be explained away, but those emerald green eyes? They had to be related somehow. Then it didn't matter, not after the blond girl who looked so small to Anna even though she towered over the other two grabbed Gwen by the hand and tried to pull her away. "Gwen?! Gwen?! Are you okay? Who is dis - dis doofus!"

"AM NOT!" Ben shouted at her even as his face flushed red and he somehow pulled Gwen out of the other girl's grip.

But he wasn't the one who pushed Marci down. "My Ben is not a doofus!" Gwen shouted down, her face fierce enough that Marci just stared for a second before her hands went to her eyes and the tears started.

"Gwendolyn Tennyson!" Anna didn't shout the name, but her raised voice made every last one of the twenty kids in the playground stop dead and made a couple of them start sniffling even as the other woman sucked in a breath at the name and gave her a look. She tried her best to ignore all of that just like she did how pale the girl got as she spun around and stared up, or how Ben slipped in front of her, his face as red as Gwen's was white. If he were any taller… But he wasn't and Anna glared right over his head as she marched over. "We do not shove on this playground, Young Lady!"

"I - I - " Gwen started as she stared up and she worried at her tiny hands.

Ben took a step forward and his glare was precious. "Gwen didn't!"

"We don't lie, either, Benjamin!" Emma said, her voice clipped and so British that the boy actually took a step back.

But he didn't back down. "Not! She started it!" Ben said as he glared down at the blond girl who was still crying like this was the end of the world, but it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to see that her face was mostly dry under her hands.

"We don't name call either, Ms. Hunter," Anna said, her voice just a little softer but it still brought the thunder just so she wouldn't tear up, too.

Or yell at her friend, because the little girl was hurt, but Emma looked like she was fighting a grin as she knelt down. "Or pretend we're crying." The loud crying died down as Anna gasped and one surprised blue eye peaked out from between fingers. Then Emma leaned in and whispered, "Not that you're bad, but I'm British, young lady, and I could teach you a thing or two about acting."

"I was just…" Marci sniffed after a second and this time it sounded real. Real enough that there were a few tears on her cheeks when she dropped her hands. She sounded so small as she looked up at the tiny boy and girl in front of her and whispered, "I thought he was being mean."

"We still don't name call," Anna said, and she finally let her voice drop just a little as Emma helped the girl to her feet and brushed the wood chips off of her, "but this is why we're here. To learn how to do stuff like tie your shoes and read a book and say you're sorry."

Anna watched the three of them - four since Blair was standing just off to the side and glaring at Gwen - and tried not to think of the year she spent as an aide in middle school before she got this job. The kids there would have been at each other's throats for months after this, not hanging their heads. Not thinking. All except for Ben, who just kept glaring.

Right up until Gwen reached out and took his hand. "That's what Gwandpa says, too," the little girl said in a low voice that wasn't a whisper and the boy finally let the scowl melt away as the little girl looked at the other. "I'm sorry I pushed you."

Marci blinked and stared down at her feet as she shuffled them. "Sorry I called your boyfriend names." The words were said so soft, not that they mattered.

"I'm not her boyfriend!" Ben said, suddenly hot again as Marci, Blair and Gwen all started to giggle. "I'm her Ben!"

"Dat's right!" Gwen declared as her giggles melted away and she just looked fierce as she squeezed the boy's hand again and it was all Anna could do not to laugh, and that only lasted until she heard the little sputtered giggle come from next to her.

"Good. I'm glad that's settled. We only have ten minutes left, so go and play!" Anna said as she gave her friend a look as the kids disappeared.

"Oh, shut up," Emma whispered right back as they went back to their bench. "That was adorable." Then the woman let out a sigh that sounded much more like the noises that Anna heard on Masterpiece theater than the giggle did. "No wonder he was so upset when he found out..."

Anna just nodded as he watched the two start arguing again in the middle of the field, with Ben pointing at the teeter-totter and Gwen at her two new friends until the redhead's eyes got big again and there was more giggling as she pulled the two girls over. For some reason, Anna wasn't surprised at all as she watched Ben and Gwen jump on one side and the girls on the other. "She's completely different around him," Anna agreed with a sigh. She couldn't help staring at the little girl's wide grin as they shot up into the sky. It was so different from what she saw for the first few hours.

And from what she saw when the bell finally went off again. "Wanna stay with Gwen!" Ben shouted the second Emma got him off of the swings, and the little girl just nodded and glared and squeezed his hand again as she jumped off of hers.

"You'll see her again at lunch, Benjamin," Emma said as she tried to pull the two apart.

Tried and tried, but she didn't manage until Anna came to help pry their fingers apart. "School is stupid!" Gwen shouted, as mad as Anna had ever heard a kindergartner as she glared up.

"It is what it is," Anna said as she all but pulled the little girl back to their door and tried to ignore the eyes she felt burning into the back of her head and the commotion that Ben was making, a noise that only stopped when the door closed behind them. "It is what it is," she told the girl again because it was.

And that was that.

- o - o - o - o - o -

August 27th, 1992 C.E.

10:47 A.M.

That wasn't that, but she didn't figure that out until two days later and five minutes after recess as she pointed at the big and stylized T that she'd just finished drawing on the board. "Who can tell me something that they saw outside that started with this letter?"

The question should have been a boring one with all the trees that surrounded the school, but they always thought of something that surprised her. It usually wasn't right, but it was still so much fun, and today didn't disappoint. "My twain!" A little boy called out.

And everyone giggled, but especially Gwen, which was unusual. Gwen was so quiet when she was in class.

Anna scowled at that as she turned and said, "That's right, Julio!" As brightly as he could just to make the boy feel better as the girls' giggles kept coming. She didn't know why, but it wasn't like the kids needed an excuse. "Who else?"

"Gwen!" A boy whose voice she knew all too well burst out.

So did the two "Shhhhhh!"s A second too late.

"Ben?!" Anna gasped as she spun around and saw the brown haired boy sharing Gwen's seat as he sat there between the red head and Marci at their table. He grinned up at her so wide that it showed off the two gaps where teeth were just coming in. "What are you - ?!"

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't get a chance before the door to the playground was yanked open and a white faced Emma came spilling in. "Anna! Have you seen - ?" The terror in her eyes didn't go away, but the panic was washed away be a relieved fury as she stomped over to the desk. "There you are, young man! Do you have any idea how worried I was?!" The woman shouted for the first time ever as she stomped across the classroom for the boy who looked as ready to fight as run.

Then Gwen jumped between him and his teacher. "No!" She shouted so loud that her voice echoed as she stomped her foot and something flashed in those green eyes. "Mommy said we'd go to school together!"

"Gwendolyn!" Anna growled at the girl as she hurried over, too. "Do you want me to call your parents?!"

The little girl went so pale at that. Her and the boy behind her, but neither of them moved as Ben just shouted, "Mommy said!"

It didn't help. Neither did the way that they both started screaming as Emma grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the room.

- o - o - o - o - o -

August 28th, 1992 C.E.

8:08 A.M.

"-son?" Anna called out one last time, just in case, before her eyes settled on the empty seat next to Marci, who just looked miserable as she sat there and looked at the spot that her best friend should have been. "Gwen must be sick today," she said with the softest sigh because…

Because she shouldn't feel relieved that one of her babies were sick, but she was. After the last week, after all the fights and all the spots that she'd found the little boy in - and she still didn't know how he'd hidden under Gwen's table! There wasn't an under! Somehow he pressed himself up against the side and just blended. She didn't even know how many times Emma came storming in after that first day, she just knew…

It wasn't the kids fault. It was the Office's. Anna tried to remember that, she really did, but today, she was relieved and she felt sick because of it. Almost as sick as Marci looked as she sat there and just stared at her little hands. "How are you feeling, Marci? Do you need to see the nurse?" Anna asked, worry making her voice even softer.

It should have been soothing, not make the girl look even more miserable as she shook her head and stared down at her feet. Miserable enough that Anna made her way over and sat down on the edge of her desk, ready to reach over just in case the girl did have a fever or spring back if it was an upset stomach. "Then what's wrong, honey? Gwen will be back tomorrow."

"I - " Marci started and sniffed as she clutched at her hands.

"Don't tell!" Blair shouted out from the next desk over.

Anna felt her smile vanish as she looked up at the other girl and felt her stomach twist again. "Tell what, Blair?"

"Gwen's here," Marci sniffed and once those two words slipped out the rest rushed out after. "I saw her! But she said that you said that Ben couldn't come in here no more, so she…" Then those little blue eyes went wide as her hands went to her mouth, but it didn't stop the words or the wailed, "Don't tell her I told!"

Anna knew that she should have reassured the girl - the girls - but she didn't. She just rushed for her door and then the next one down the hall. She pulled it open as she felt her own explosion of words building, including one or two she swore she'd never say in front of her kids, but they almost slipped out anyway when she saw the little red haired girl sharing a chair with the brown haired boy again.

Especially when her friend gave her a helpless look and a shrug as she made her way over even as she said, "That's right, Gwen! Aardvark does start with an A!"

"What are you - ?!" Anna hissed as the two kids turned and went pale as they grabbed for each others hands again like they had every day this week when they thought that they were going to get separated, but it was the look on their faces…

She loved it when her kids smiled and hated it when they cried, but these two were the only ones she'd ever seen scowl like that. Like they were daring the world to pull them apart, and for the first time ever she saw the other teacher flinch. "I know!" Emma said, her words in a rush, "I know, but we've been fighting with them all week and - "

"Fine!" Anna said as she threw her hands up. "Just for today, you two! Do you hear me?" They did. The way that they cheered as they rushed over and hugged her proved that. It was the idea of a quiet day that made her smile at them, that was all, and she didn't feel even a little jealous as they rushed back to their shared seat.

Not even a smidge.

- o - o - o - o - o -

"Why couldn't that boy have just gone to Drake?" Emma sighed as she pulled herself into teachers lounge and all but collapsed into her chair now that both of their classes were over.

Anna looked up from her water and tried not to wish that there was something stronger in it. "He was that bad?"

Emma just grinned at that as she pulled her water bottle out of the fridge and let herself collapse into the table. "Hardly. Today was the best Ben has been all week. He's a completely different child when Gwen's with him. Happy, attentive, and the way he shares his snacks with her... I swear, it should be illegal to be that cute."

"Lucky," Anna said as some of her jealousy came out. For getting to see that and because she wished she had someone who would share his snacks with her. "And Gwen?"

"She glowed the whole time, even when they're arguing, the little trollop," Emma said with a tired laugh. "And she knows everything already. They both do. It must be a joy to have her in your class."

"If I got that Gwen," Anna sighed. A glowing one instead one that glowered and looked ready to climb the walls? She wished… "Today is going to make the rest of the week all the harder when we have to separate them again."

"I know," Emma groaned as she buried her face into her arms. "I might just quit. One week was enough. I'm not sure if I have it in me to keep fighting those two."

"This is all the Office's fault," Anna grumbled as Emma just nodded and pushed herself up just enough to take a drink. "We should make them come down and - " And that was as far as she got before Emma spat the water across the table. "Hey!" She shouted as she sprang up, half soaked and glaring even though water wasn't the worst thing that she'd had spat on her. It wasn't even in the top ten. "What's the - !"

Emma coughed up the rest of the water. "That's simply brilliant, Anna!" The woman said and tried to explain at the same time and she mostly managed.

She did well enough that Anna forgot all about how cross she was as she dug into her pocket. "Let's flip for it!" She said and the coin was in the air before she even finished the sentence.

- o - o - o - o - o -

September 1st, 1992

7:59 am

Anna had to look and look that morning, but for some reason she wasn't the least bit surprised when she found the two huddled together back by the bookcases that she'd seen Gwen flee to during every quiet time.

"Dey going to make you go away again," Gwen groaned as she sat there with the little boy pressed up against her, misery making her sound even younger as she forgot all about being a little lady.

Ben's own growl mushed his words together even as he grabbed her hand and declared, "I liketa see them twy!"

"Ben?" Anna called out and the boy jumped, but he didn't look any less fierce. "Gwen? Ben? Can I talk to you for a second?"

"Why?" Gwen asked as she squinted up in a way no four year old ever should.

Anna shouldn't have laughed, she knew that she shouldn't. This whole thing was probably a bad idea, but she sat down anyway and smoothed out her dress as she did. "Because I talked to the Office over the weekend and they said that they made a mistake. Two people got put in the wrong classes and we're going to fix that today!" Anna grinned and waited, but as smart as they were, the two just blinked at that and Anna knew it was all her fault. She spent too long talking to the adults in the Office over the weekend. "If you want, Ben, you can stay - "

That was as far as she got before the happy squeals and hugs started. Anna just about joined them before they pulled apart and grabbed her up in their hug, too, and then Gwen took the boy by the hand and all but dragged him to her desk across the room. "Marci! Marci! Guess what! Ms. Anna said that Ben could - !"

"Ms. Hunter?" Emma called out from the door and the room went quiet. The British woman gave Anna a jealous look as she looked at the two cousins and then she smiled at their little blond friend. "I've been checking my books and I think you're in the wrong class. It turns out that mine could use a little actress in it, so If you'll come with me…"

"What?!" Marci gasped out, her blue eyes watering as she looked at Emma and then Anna. "Why?"

"The office switched you and Ben," Anna tried to explain, and when the little girl let out a sob she tried to take the blame. "It was all my - "

"You!" Marci howled as she jumped out of her seat and shoved Gwen to the carpet. "Why! We were friends!" She spat the words out as she cried and cried. "Why's he so special?"

"I - I - " Gwen tried and tried to explain. "He's my Ben," she finally settled on because it was true and not enough. "But we are fwiends! And we can still play at recess and - "

"Shut up! Shut up! I hate you!" Marci screamed and kept screaming even as Emma scooped the girl up and carried her from the room. Anna's stomach twisted one more time as everyone stared because she knew that none of the tears that were racking the blond's little body were the least bit fake this time.

"It's my fault, you two," Anna said finally as Ben helped Gwen up and the girl sagged into him. "I was the one who picked…"

"I'm her Ben," Ben said into Gwen's hair like it explained everything, but even he sounded a little sad at that. "Mommy said we'd go to school together."

"I know, Honey. Take your seat. I'm just going to take this to Marci." And maybe beg for forgiveness, but she really did think that Marci would do better in Emma's class. As much as she hated to admit it, the girl needed a teacher that could see through the fake tears. Emma could teach her how to be a lady far better than Anna could.

Gwen sniffed and looked at the papers and crayons that Anna was scooping up and slipping into the backpack that Marci had left behind. "Can I make her something? To say sowwy?"

"Together?" Ben said with a nod.

"Of course you can," Anna said as she watched the two open their tiny backpacks and grab their crayons. Crayons that they passed back and forth without a word as they worked on the same piece of paper. "And when we get back we'll learn about dinosaurs! Doesn't that sound like fun?"

"We can tell Marci at recess!" Ben said, his eyes glowing like little boys eyes always did when dinosaurs came up.

"Maybe give her a bit of time first," Anna said and Gwen just nodded. But honestly, it was kindergarten, how long could Marci stay mad?

Nowhere near as long as these two would have stayed miserable if they'd been kept apart. Anna knew that just from the way she watched the two work together from the door as she hugged the tiny backpack tight against her chest. "Inside the lines!" Gwen shouted at him as they scribbled on the page, a mixture of wild sweeping crayon brushes and slow, determined strokes that was just starting to look like a dinosaur. One that was… "And dinosaurs aren't blue!"

"Are too! And that's no fun!" Ben shouted right back even as he leaned in closer to her. It was a little startling to see, because in the week that Anna had gotten to know Gwen, she'd discovered that the little girl hated being touched and hugged and jostled by Marci and Blair, because she'd always gone rigid and her face went squinty. But here was Ben, her cousin, pressed up alongside her, who'd constantly held her hand and snuggled and even gotten tackled by her out on the playground, and she looked as relaxed as Anna always wished she was. And for all the arguing, Ben lost the scowl that she saw marring his face so often and just grinned like being with her was the best thing ever. Even better than Christmas.

So maybe they did belong together after all.

Chapter Text

COURTING DISASTER

By Shadows59 and Eric ‘Erico’ Lawson

Chapter 2: The Kids Run Away

By Eric ‘Erico’ Lawson

Angelwood Elementary

Bellwood, California

March 15th, 1993 C.E.

3:45 P.M.

It was a Monday, and Sandra Tennyson was already on edge when she got the call from Lili asking her if she could pick up both of the kids from school because of an appointment that got rescheduled. Nothing good ever happened on a Monday. 

Still, she agreed, and then Lili had called the school to let them know that Sandra would be getting both of the children. She loved her niece to pieces, and she and Ben were inseparable. Thinking about those first weeks at school still put a smile on her face. They’d refused to be split apart, and in the end, their teachers had decided it would just be easier to let them stay in the same class than having them constantly trying to sneak into the other’s room. 

Going through the pick-up lane was a chore, but the waiting was worth it when the kids came running out with their tiny backpacks, grinning up a storm. Ben was a bundle of energy that dashed like a rocket, and he kept Gwen’s hand in his own, pulling her behind him while the two laughed, paying no attention to the traffic monitor in the orange reflective vest that yelled at them to slow down. Sandra just sighed and rolled her eyes as they hit the side of her minivan, then got out and walked around to hug them both and open up the door for them.

“You don’t have to run, Ben, I wasn’t going anywhere.” She pointed out, helping them climb in and buckle up in the second row of seats. “How was school today, you two?”

“Great, Aunt Sandy!” Gwen chirped up, her green eyes bright. “Can I stay over tonight?”

“Yeah! Can she, mom?” Ben quickly added, and the two worked up their eager pleading faces.

“Not on a school night.” She said to them firmly, intent on not giving into them. They kept the stares up and she sighed as she finished helping Gwen get buckled in. “But, I think we could probably let you stay for dinner. I’m sure that your mother wouldn’t mind that.” She conceded, and the two cheered.

Sandy rolled her eyes as she shut the side door and walked back around to the driver’s side door. She was a soft touch with the two of them, and they knew it. Besides, she was making tuna fish casserole with potato chip topping tonight, there was bound to be extra. Lili might appreciate being able to have a meal with Frank alone for once.

“...and then we can play superheroes, and…” Ben was still talking when she opened her door and climbed in.

“I get to wear the cape!” Gwen insisted.

“Nuh uh, s’mine!” Ben countered with a pout.

“Pleaaaaase?” Gwen asked, turning her pout on him. Ben crossed his arms and tried to frown at her, but he cracked in seconds and shook his head.

“Okay, okay.” He surrendered.

Sandra looked at the two of them, now five years old, in her rearview mirror and grinned. Ben’s cousin had him wrapped around her finger, all right. She almost felt sorry for him.

“Hey, mom, can we have juice and animal crackers when we get home?” Ben asked her suddenly.

Sandra sighed and shook her head as she drove out of the pickup lane and turned onto the street. 

She almost felt sorry for him.

***

Ben’s House

4:40 P.M.

The casserole had another 30 minutes to go in the oven and Sandra was working on the salad when the doorbell went off. She looked up the stairs as she passed by, listening to Ben and Gwen playing and occasionally letting out a high-pitched laugh or shout, then smiled and went to the front door. 

It was Lili, naturally, and Sandra gave her a smile and stepped to the side. The red-haired woman looked particularly exhausted, and was already wearing a scowl. Wonderful. Still, she made the attempt. “Hi, Lili. How are things?”

“They’ve been better.” Lili growled out, walking inside. “The tree pruners who were supposed to come out canceled, but they waited until an hour after their appointment to let me know about it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Sandra consoled her as she closed the front door. “The kids are upstairs playing.” She chuckled a bit, wanting to change the subject to get Lili to relax. “They wanted to have a sleepover.”

“On a school night?” Lili scoffed, marching to the bottom of the stairs. “Gwendolyn! Honey, it’s time to go!”

The noises of the kids playing stopped, and Sandra joined Lili at the stairs. “That’s what I said.” She laughed. “But they did talk me into letting Gwen stay for dinner.”

“There you go again.” Lili muttered under her breath as she pressed a hand to her forehead. She pulled it down and looked at Sandra crisply. “Thank you, but no. I’ve inconvenienced you enough today, I think.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble.” Sandra insisted. “Dinner’s already in and cooking, and it seems like you’ve had a horrible day. Why don’t you and Frank go out for dinner, or stay in and relax? Gwen can have dinner with us and then you can pick her up afterwards.”

Lili bristled at the idea and turned to face her. “I’m a capable mother, you know. I don’t need you looking after my little girl for me.”

Sandra recoiled at the blow, and the last bit of her tolerance wore itself out. She snapped back at the woman with everything that a Monday could give her. “Hey, I was just trying to be nice for once, Lili. And if you didn’t need me looking after your little girl then why did you bother asking me to pick her up at all?”

“Because I…!” Lili started, but froze, and so did Sandra as they looked up the stairs and saw Ben and Gwen standing at the top of the steps, glaring at them. Gwen was even crying a little, it looked like, and Ben’s tiny hands were balled up into fists and shaking. 

Sandra exhaled. “Ben, honey? Can you take Gwen to your room for a while? Your Aunt Lili and I need to have a talk out in the garage.”

“Stop it.” Ben hissed at them. “Just stop it.”

“Ben!” Aunt Lili snapped up at him. “Don’t you talk back to us that way, young man!” And that just set Sandra off all over again. Fuming, she grabbed the Other Woman by the wrist and stormed back into the kitchen, forcing Lili to stumble and keep up with her or get her arm pulled out of her socket.

She opened the door to the garage and let go of Lili’s arm, half-expecting Lili to storm away from her. But Lili was apparently in the mood to fight after all; she slammed the door shut and took up position opposite of her beside the chest freezer.

“The hell do you think you’re doing, yelling at my son?” Sandra snarled at her. “You don’t have the right to do that.”

“Oh, and you have the right to just decide that Gwen can stay over for dinner without checking with me first?” Lili snapped back. 

“I was trying to do something nice for a change!” Sandra threw her arms up in the air. “Apparently that’s a big goddamned deal with you!”

“It is when you’re just trying to prove that you’re a better mother than I am!” The dark red-haired woman hissed. “I’m so sorry that I inconvenienced you with asking you to pick up Gwendolyn. Trust me, that’s one mistake I’ll never make again!”

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Sandra shrieked. “Do you end up lashing out at everyone who tries to do something nice for you? Are you that damaged? Of course you’d have to be, with parents as stiff and stuck up as yours are!”

Lili sucked in a breath of air like she’d been punched in the gut, and her eyes went wide. Her hands twitched at her sides, like she wanted to hit Sandra, and she almost expected Lili to take a swing at her.

“If I wasn’t a Lady…” She growled out. “I would make you eat those words, Sandra.”

“No, you’re not the kind to hit people.” Sandra simmered, shaking her head. “You just use your words, all of the time, putting others down, putting yourself above them. Because you’re perfect , and it’s never your fault, and the world would just be so much better if we all did exactly what you wanted us to do. I only hope your daughter takes more after Frank than she does you, because if she’s really your daughter, she’s going to end up just like you are. A miserable wreck of a woman wondering why the world hates her!”

Lili sucked in a sharp breath at that, then spun around. “We’re leaving. And from now on, you stay the hell away from my daughter. I won’t have her growing up to be a wild hellion like your son.” She jerked the door to the kitchen open and started in, and Sandra, seeing red, followed her.

“My son is not a hellion!” 

“You have no idea how to be a proper mother, you parent from books.” Lili shouted over her shoulder. “You think I’m a terrible mother?! At least I still talk to mine! ”

Lili reached the steps going upstairs and stormed up, and Sandra just stood there at the bottom, watching with burning eyes and listening with sharp ears for Ben to so much as cry out once. Lili would drag Gwen away and didn’t usually bother with Ben, but they were both so mad, if That Woman did something to hurt her son…

Silence. “Gwendolyn! Stop hiding and come out this instant!” Lili’s resonant voice carried through the house, and Sandra blinked. Gwen was hiding? But hadn’t the kids been up in Ben’s room, playing?

Lili appeared at the top of the steps, frowning, but without the wild fury of before. She started down, still calling out loudly. “Gwendolyn Rose Tennyson, this is no time for games! We are leaving , and you…” She was halfway down the stairs when her voice choked off and her hazelnut-flecked green eyes widened. Sandra stared at her for a moment, wondering what had surprised her so, and turned to follow the woman’s gaze.

Her heart stopped when she turned and saw the front door, wide open.

But...no, she had shut that door. Why would…

No. “No.” Sandra whispered. “Ben? Honey? Gwen? Kids? Where are you?” She didn’t dare walk to the front door, she couldn’t...she didn’t want to…

“I’ll...They…” Lili stammered, all of her thunder and fury evaporated for quiet fear. 

“Check the rest of the house.” Sandra got out, already moving for the kitchen. She didn’t wait to see if Lili complied, she just got back and saw…

A chair shoved up to the counter that she’d walked by before and hadn’t seen. An open cupboard.

She didn’t remember what happened after that. The next thing she remembered was running outside, Lili beside her, and the two of them screaming for their children who had disappeared.

***

Rest-Full RV Campground

5:52 P.M.

Max Tennyson had found some measure of peace in his retirement. He still bounced around from place to place, but his pace was unhurried now. Now he had all the time in his life that he wanted, but he didn’t have his Verdona to share it with. He did have his sons though, and their wives (His daughters). And he had two wonderful grandchildren that he hadn’t seen enough of. But maybe he could change that, Max thought, as he stared at a map of northern California laid out over the dining table of his old RV. He still talked with his boys regularly, and he’d been warming them up to the idea of another camping trip this summer, something for about three days maybe. 

May was around the corner, and maybe they could all go up to Verdona’s pond. He usually just went by himself. It would be good if he wasn’t alone for once. And he’d been meaning to teach Gwen how to fish. If he could get Carl and Sandy to sign off on it, they could make a full day of it.

His stomach growled at him, and Max sighed and got up off of the bench. A look at his watch confirmed that it really was getting late. He didn’t feel like running out for a bite to eat, but he could probably rustle up something decent in the icebox with what he had left. A grilled salmon and cheese, maybe…

Then his mind stopped running through dinner choices when he heard a soft knock on the side of the RV. One of the neighbors? A couple of days ago, Mrs. Jenkins had introduced herself and asked for some lighter fluid, then invited him over to dinner with her and her husband. It was hard to turn down free hamburgers. Of course, they were gone now, but there was always some other traveling retiree passing through that needed something, and they were full of stories and news. It was almost as good as going there himself.

Max went over to the side door and opened it with a smile, wondering what new neighbor was going to introduce themselves tonight…

His smile froze on his face when he looked down and saw his grandchildren standing there, Ben was sniffling and trying to be strong, and Gwen’s lower lip was quivering under red eyes. She was still wearing her school uniform, Ben had changed into one of his shirts, and his jacket was flung over her shoulders. He had his bookbag hanging off of one of his arms, and the other gripped her hand tightly. 

“Ben? Gwen?” Max whispered, and stumbled outside to kneel down and pull them in close for a powerful hug. Gwen broke apart as soon as his arms went around them, and his shoulder got soaked with her tears. “Honey, what’s wrong? What happened? Where’d you two come from?”

“We ran away.” Ben mumbled into his other shoulder. “Can we stay with you, Grandpa?”

“Of course you can.” Max shushed them, and he picked them both up with just the barest creak of complaint from his knees. It was the work of seconds to bring them inside the Rustbucket, and he set them down on the floor. “I didn’t know you were coming.” He said carefully, moving to fold up his map and gesturing for them to sit down in the dining nook. They never let go of the other’s hand, he realized, as they made their way over after him and climbed up onto the bench seat opposite of his. “Why are you running away?”

“...Are you gonna be mad at us?” Ben asked, and Gwen whimpered a little and tried to hide her face in her cousin’s chest. Max’s breathing hitched a little at the sight of his granddaughter crying and his grandson looking two seconds from it himself.

“No. Never.” He quickly got out, and reached a hand across the table, palm up. “I just want to know what happened. I promise you two, I’m not mad at you. I just wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“Our moms were fighting.” Gwen mumbled, lifting her head away from Ben just enough to be heard clearly.

“Again.” Ben muttered, and the scowl that Max’s grandson wore was one that he had no business wearing. “They always fighting.”

“Always?” Max raised an eyebrow, questioning. Ben’s glare deepened. He believed in what he was saying. Max swallowed down the burst of fear that caused. “Well. How’d you get here? Did you two walk all the way from your house, Ben?”

“Yeah.” The boy sniffled, and set his bag down on the table. Max reached for it and zipped it open, and found two empty juice boxes and the wrapper from a small package of peanut butter crackers. “I was smart. We took food.”

“Yes, you did.” Max agreed, changing his voice from concerned to serious. Ben wanted to be serious right now, and Max could match that. “I don’t think you packed enough, though.” 

He looked down at the table and shrugged, then pulled Gwen closer against him. “Had to go.” Ben said softly. “Too much yelling.”

“Why can they fight?” Gwen asked, wiping her nose on the sleeve of Ben’s jacket before finally turning the same dark green eyes of her grandmother on Max. They were red, and still full of tears, but he still froze for an instant as the reminder of his wife hung there in front of him. “Mom says yelling and fighting’s bad. How come they can do it and we can’t?”

“Adults forget the rules sometimes.” Max breathed out, putting his own pain aside. Right now, his grandkids needed him. He was damned if he’d ever fail Gwen and Ben. “It’s wrong when they do. And they need to be reminded about that sometimes, just like kids do.”

“Do they fight because of me?” Ben asked, miserable. Max blinked rapidly, and he could see the same question in Gwen’s eyes as well.

“It is not your fault.” Max declared, and he got up from his seat and moved to kneel beside the table, setting his hands on their shoulders. “Okay? Your moms love you, both of you, they love you more than anything. If they get mad at each other, it’s not because of you. It is not your fault, Ben, and it isn’t yours either, pumpkin.”

“Really?” Gwen sniffed.

“Really.” Max said, and leaned up and over enough to hug them both again. “Now. I was just thinking about getting dinner started. Are you two as hungry as I am?”

The two kids fidgeted a little and looked at each other, and Ben finally looked up to his grandpa and nodded once, definitively. 

“I don’t have a whole lot in the fridge. How do you two feel about pizza? You want some pizza?” Max asked with a smile. He was relieved that they both started smiling again after that, with Gwen nodding eagerly. 

“Haw’iiin!” She declared, and Ben made a face. Max laughed. “Okay, pumpkin. Hawaiian, huh? And you, sport?”

“I ‘unno. No pi’apple.” Ben grumbled. Max winked.

“No pineapple. How about sausage and olives?”

“Bwack olives?”

“Sure.”

“Okay.” Ben nodded. Max grinned and looked over to his small TV hooked up with massive rabbit ears over by the folded up bunks. 

“Hey, how about I pull a bunk down so you two can get comfy and watch a little TV while I get the pizzas ordered? And I think you two deserve some hot chocolate. Walking as far as you did? That’s something.” 

They cheered at that, and Max laughed, relieved at how quickly they could bounce back from almost falling apart crying. They were strong, his grandkids. They felt safe, they felt loved, and they were with their grandpa. He set the microwave to warm up some water while he was getting the bunk ready, and once they were watching cartoons, he set two mugs of hot cocoa (lukewarm) in their hands with three jumbo marshmallows floating on top of each of them.

It warmed his heart when he saw Ben take one of his marshmallows and put it in Gwen’s mug, setting it on top of the others. “You take it, Gwen.” He insisted, and she looked at him for a bit before popping it in her mouth. When she got done chewing it and swallowed it down, she giggled and leaned into his side, and Max felt calm enough to leave them be. He left them a towel over their legs while they were drinking their hot cocoa and a blanket behind them if they got cold, then grabbed his bag cellular phone and walked out of the Rustbucket, taking a lawn chair with him and locking the doors as he went. 

They were safe. He breathed in slowly and breathed out even slower, then called up the local pizza delivery store and put in an order. A small hawaiian for Gwen, and a medium sausage and black olive for him and Ben. On afterthought, he included a bottle of decaf soda as well. He checked his wallet to make sure he had enough money for the tip after, then made the phone call he knew he had to make, but was dreading.

“Hello?! Dad?” 

“Hi, Carl.” Max greeted his youngest son, hearing the panic in his son’s voice. It was a panic he could take away in seconds. “The kids are here with me.”

“Oh, thank God.” Carl gasped, and Max could hear him buckling under the weight of relief. “Thank God. When Sandy called me half out of her mind, I...We thought…”

“They’re okay.” Max said, forcing himself to stay calm. He needed to be the strong one now. “They’re a little tired, apparently they walked all the way here from your house. Are Frank and Lili over there?”

“They’re out driving around the neighborhood right now with Sandy. We were just about ready to call the police. I…” There was the noise of Carl slumping down. Into a chair or on the floor, Max wasn’t sure. Carl’s breath shuddered. “Why did they do this, dad?”

Max knew why. The thing he hadn’t known when he punched in the number to call Carl’s house was how he was going to say it. 

Now, in the moment, he finally did.

“They got tired of Lili and Sandra fighting.” Max forced the words out in deadly calm. “And they thought that their moms were fighting because of something they did. That it was their fault.”

“What?” Carl sounded poleaxed by the news. Good. Max wanted him poleaxed by it.

He wanted this whole business done with.  

If his Verdona were still...She would have known what to say to them. She would have been able to make his daughters friends again.

“I...I’ll talk to Sandy about it. And call Frank. He’s got one of those car phones now, I can have him stop by and pick up the kids.”

“No.” Max dismissed the idea. “No, I think the kids are better off staying with me tonight.”

“What? But dad, it’s a school night!”

“Right now, my grandchildren are hurting and tired. They were crying when they got to my door, Carl. Crying. ” Max growled out. “I don’t know what’s going on with Lili and Sandra, and I don’t know if you and Frank are a part of the problem as well. They’re in kindergarten, they can stand to miss a day of school. What they need right now is some time to put themselves back together. And that’s also what you all need as well, I think. Some time to talk to each other about what’s going on.”

“...Okay, dad. Okay.” Carl wasn’t happy about the idea, but he wasn’t really arguing against it. He must have been exhausted by the ordeal. “You’ll keep them safe?”

“Of course I will.” Max promised his youngest son. They were his grandkids. Nothing was going to hurt them while he was around. “But if you could, Carl, I wouldn’t mind having some extra clothes for them. You could swing by and bring a bag. But just you, or Frank. I don’t think it’s a good idea for their moms to come by tonight.”

“I think I can get some stuff put together for Ben. I know Frank could get some things for Gwen as well. Thanks, dad. I’m sorry this all got dumped on you.”

“We’re Tennysons, Carl.” Max said. “We don’t bother with the easy problems. I just want my family to all get along, and for my grandkids to feel safe enough that they never try to do this again.” He shivered a little. So much could have gone horribly wrong. That they got to him in one piece…

They were all just way too lucky.

“So what are you going to do with them tomorrow if they’re not going to school?” Carl asked. Max smiled and eased back into his lawn chair.

“Well, I thought I might take them fishing.” They spoke for another minute before Carl excused himself to get a hold of Frank and Lili, and then Max waited in the waning daylight for the pizza deliveryman to show up. 

Twenty minutes later, when he stepped inside, he found the kids slumped on the bunk and curled up on the blanket against each other, still watching cartoons with dozy, lidded eyes. The promise of a decent (unhealthy) meal perked them up, and they dug in cheerfully. By the time they all finished up, Carl came by with two bags of clothes. The kids both froze up when he came in, but Carl just smiled at them, told them that they could stay with Grandpa tonight and that it was okay and he’d see them tomorrow night. That simple reassurance was as relaxing for Max as much as it was the kids, and Max and Carl shook hands before he left. With some fiddling, Ben and Gwen were soon dressed in their PJ’s and ready for bed. Max started to get the top bunk set up, but Gwen cut him off.

“Wanna stay with Ben.” She pouted, and there was such earnestness in her face that Max allowed it. 

An hour after Max tucked them in, he walked back from the front of the RV where he’d been listening to a classic rock station on his radio on low volume and found the two curled up under the covers, side by side and cute as anything. He regretted not having a camera, and he smiled as he watched them for a few minutes before going to set up his own bed.

It was strange, feeling that he wasn’t alone when he finally dozed off.

He slept easier than usual.

***

11:10 P.M.

Carl Tennyson usually didn’t have any trouble sleeping at all. His wife had complained that he could, and had, slept through thunderstorms before. To be certain, the night hadn’t gone anything like he’d thought it would when he left work and came home. He found the house empty, his wife’s minivan gone, and a note in the kitchen.

That the kids were gone. That Ben and Gwen were missing, and that she and Lili were out looking for them. He called Frank right after, then drove out and found Lili and Sandra and dragged them back home. Somebody had to stay by the phone, so when Frank got there, the girls went with him, and it had been Carl’s responsibility to wait there in the empty house. Wait in a kitchen which smelled of overcooked tuna casserole, the dinner now sitting in the refrigerator to eat later. None of them were hungry, not with their stomach twisted into knots.

The call from his dad was unexpected, and it delivered relief and panic in equal measure. The kids had run away, and somehow found their way to the only safe place left to them in their grandfather’s RV. It was a relief because they weren’t hurt, they were safe and being taken care of.

It hurt because they didn’t feel safe in his home. It hurt because Ben and Gwen didn’t feel safe around their parents.

When he called Frank and told them all to grab some clothes for Gwen and to come home, he’d expected resistance to the idea. They were their kids, they belonged back at home, safe. Sure enough, both Sandra and Lili argued against the idea of leaving them with their grandfather. Once they started in on each other, though…

Frank all but shoved the bag with Gwen’s things into Carl’s arms and stared at Sandra and Lili as he said that maybe the kids needed a break after all. Frank never did raise his voice too often. He always knew just what to say to be heard, though. And their wives had heard it clearly enough, based on how they both looked at each other, faces full of pain…

And they all finally saw why the kids had run away from home. Why Max was so mad.

He didn’t usually have trouble sleeping, but tonight he snapped awake and wondered why everything felt wrong. Then he realized that the bed was half empty, and that his Sandy Bear, who usually slept snuggled up next to him, was gone.

The house was dark, and he didn’t hear any movement from the kitchen or the living room. But he did see a light coming from Ben’s room, and when he walked to the doorway and found it open, he saw his wife sitting on the floor in the glow of Ben’s Kangaroo Kommando nightlight with her knees drawn up to her chest. She didn’t look back at him as he came close, and instead just stared at the empty bed where their son should have been sleeping.

She was wearing her usual T-Shirt and short shorts, and usually she glowed with life, even at night. But watching her as she sat there, rocking gently, Carl realized that she was paler than usual. Faded, somehow. 

“Sandy?” Carl finally said, and even his whisper was so loud in the dark bedroom.

“He’s not here.” Sandy answered, a tremor in her voice. “My son isn’t here. He should be here, safe, sleeping in his own bed, and…”

Carl landed down beside her, held her gently. “He’s with dad. They both are. They’re fine .”

Sandy’s eyes finally teared up. “I did this. They ran away because of me.”

“I think you and Lili can both take some credit, hun.” Carl reminded her, stroking her back. Sandra hiccuped a little, not disagreeing with him. “What were you even fighting about?”

“It’s stupid.”

“Probably, but I still want to know.”

“It...she asked me to pick up Gwen, because there was a tree trimmer coming by and she couldn’t leave the house. And when she didn’t come by, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have Gwen stay for dinner. The kids wanted to...to have a sleepover, but it was a school night. I thought she’d agree to it. But instead, she showed up angry, and she just blew up on me, and…” Sandra’s breathing hitched a little. “And then I was yelling at her, and she was yelling at me, and the kids , they were up at the top of the stairs, just watching us...And Ben tried to make us stop fighting.” She laughed, and it came up full of sadness instead of joy. “God. Last summer, we...we almost had this same fight. I saw that look in his eyes then, in Gwen’s, and I stopped. And Lili stopped.” She pulled away from Carl’s arms and rubbed a hand at her eyes. “We didn’t stop today, Carl. We didn’t stop fighting, and...and they ran away from us.”  

She cried then, and Carl held her tight, hurting as much as she was. 

It was the same argument, the same fight. It was one that even he and Frank were guilty of, Carl realized with increasing bitterness. Who were the better parents. Who knew the best way to raise their child.

“She was right.” Sandra sobbed. “Lili was right. I don’t know how to be a good mom. How can I be a good mom if my baby decides he’s better off running away from me?”

They were five years old, Ben and Gwen. Only five years old. Carl and Sandy were only twenty-five years old. Sandy’s pain, her fears, Carl knew them way too well. What did he know about being a good dad? It wasn’t like Max had ever shown him how to be one. Max taught him how to take care of himself. His long absences taught Carl how to be independent. There was nothing that he’d gotten from Max about how to raise a son. Only how not to.

It was all such a mess, and the one person who could have given him the answers he needed, his mom, was dead and gone, dead before the kids were even born. 

For once, for once in his life, Max had been there when they needed him to be. He’d been there to grab Ben and Gwen and hold them tight when this all happened. He’d given them a safe place, if a little more cramped and crowded than a regular house, to stay at. 

But he still hadn’t given Carl the answers he needed. Just loose instructions. To work it out. To end the fighting. How?

He wondered if Frank and Lili were having the same conversation. He wondered if his brother and his sister-in-law had the same worries and fears that he and Sandy did. 

Somehow, he got Sandra up on her feet and out of Ben’s room, walked her into theirs. He sat her down on the side of the bed, looked into his wife’s drawn, pale face, and came to a decision.

Carl Tennyson picked up the phone and dialed his brother. It was late. 

Frank picked up midway through the second ring. “Hello?” His older brother’s voice said, rough and coarse. 

Rough and coarse from crying, Carl realized.

“Frank?” Carl said, pausing. “Could...could Sandy and I come over tomorrow morning? To talk?”

“Carl? I...Yeah. Yeah, that’d be...that’d be good, I think. We need to talk.” His older brother paused. “You couldn’t sleep either, huh?”

“Sandy can’t.” Carl admitted.

“Lili’s hurting too.” Frank added. “I just...How did it get this bad, Carl?”

“I don’t know, brother.” Carl sighed. “I just want to fix it.”

“Dad’s lessons. Stand by your work, and clean up your own messes.” Frank chuckled once. “I think we’ve got some muffin mix we could whip up if you want to come for breakfast. Could you…”

“Mom’s sausage, egg and cheese casserole?” Carl cut in with a smile. Verdona Tennyson was gone, but she’d taught her boys how to cook a few things so they wouldn’t be hopeless, and Carl had figured out breakfast years ago. Maybe one of her favorite dishes would bring her spirit back long enough to solve their problems. “I can manage. I’ll make it how you like it too, with parmesan sprinkled in.”

“See you at nine then.” Frank said, and hung up. Carl went back to Sandra’s side, hugged her again. 

“It’ll be okay, Sandra.” Carl promised her. “We’re going over to their house tomorrow morning. We’re going to talk this out. We’re going to fix this.” Because that was what he did, Carl knew. He fixed things. He just hoped that there was enough of his mom in him to help him fix people and not just things.

Sandra folded into him, and the two slumped back against the bed with Sandy tracing a finger on his arm.

“I’m sorry.” She apologized, shaken and sad and so very tired. 

“It’ll be okay.” Carl said again, and kissed her forehead. “It’ll be okay.”

***

March 16th, 1993

9:14 A.M.

Somewhere around this pond, Max Tennyson knew, he’d find a familiar tree if he looked hard enough. Of course, he wasn’t about to go wandering off and leave the kids on their own. Hell, he wasn’t about to leave them in the Rustbucket alone if he could help it. And there was the matter of being busy with fishing.

The pond was big enough and deep enough that you could take a small rowboat out to the middle of it. For this trip, like he usually did when he was by himself, lawn chairs at a flat bit of shoreline on the west side of the pond worked well enough. He sat in one, and Ben and Gwen were huddled up side by side on the other. He only had regular fishing poles, so he held one and let Ben and Gwen take turns holding a second one. He’d been tempted to give them each a fishing line of their own, but as small as they were, it would have overwhelmed them. They managed well enough sharing one, thankfully, and weren’t fighting over it as much as he had thought they might. Sharing was often a hard lesson for kids.

“You wanna hold it for a bit, Gwen?” Ben asked.

“No, it’s okay. You hold it some more.” Gwen said, leaning back in the adult-sized lawn chair and yawning. 

Max chuckled. No, sharing wasn’t the problem with them. He spooled out a little more line and let his bobber drift with the wind-influenced ripples along the surface. The only thing that had gone as expected so far with the fishing trip was that Gwen got a little grossed out when he set the worm on the hook. Ben, naturally, had wanted to do it himself, but even Max had limits where safety was concerned. 

“You doing all right over there, you two?”

“When do we get to fish?” Ben asked impatiently.

“We are fishing, Ben.”

“Nuh uh!” The boy pouted a little. “We just sittin’ here, watching!”

“Ah. Yes, I see what you mean. But it’s still fishing, Ben.”

“It is?” Ben blinked at that. “How?” That got Gwen’s attention as well, and the two looked at him with the same green eyes as their grandmother, earnestly seeking an answer.

Max took a bit to answer. “Adults...they have a lot to do.” He explained. “I know that you two like to run around and play a lot, and when you do that, don’t you lose track of time?”

Gwen nodded hesitantly.

“Well, adults work and they have chores and errands. Things they have to do. And a lot of adults, when they get that busy, they forget to slow down. They forget to think about what’s really important.” 

“Did you forget, Grandpa?” Gwen asked, and Max felt a sharp sting of hurt. Because he absolutely had.

“I did. For a while.” He admitted quietly. “So when I come out here to fish, I try to slow down. Sometimes I’ll just sit here and let my mind wander. I just enjoy being out here in the wilderness.”

“Wildermess?” Gwen said. “What’s that?”

“Wilder-ness , pumpkin.” Max waved his free hand around them. “It means the outside. With lots of trees, and not so many people. It gives me a chance to...relax. To remember. To think.”

“About what?” Ben asked, shifting in the seat a little so he could scoot up to its edge and get a better hold on the fishing pole, which he lowered until the base of it was on the ground, letting him hold it by the spindly rod. 

He could have lied and said something else. Max had always been good at lying. He hesitated for once. Really thought about it.

“About your grandma. My Verdona.” He confessed, and his grandchildren both looked at him with wide eyes.

“Gramma?” Gwen said. “Mommy and daddy don’t talk about her.”

“Because we miss her. We all do.” Max said. “Sometimes, it hurts talking about people we miss.” It hurt him most of all. Some days, being in the graveyard and visiting her...he preferred to go at night. When nobody else was around to judge him for talking to her, for watching the starlight reflect off of her smooth black headstone. Still...He looked into their eyes and realized how wrong it was. How wrong they all were.

He smiled, looking at their faces. “You both have her eyes.” He started, reaching over and touching Ben’s nose with a finger before setting his hand on Gwen’s head. “And you have her hair, Gwen. Hair like fire. And when you smile and laugh...It’s like she’s back with us again.” Gwen flinched a little at that, and her lip quivered. Max and Ben both saw it coming, but Ben was faster than his granddad.

“I like you smiling, Gwen.” Ben blurted out. “Don’t cry. Please?”

“Okay.” The little girl said softly, sniffing once and hugging Ben. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay to be sad.” Max told them. “I’m sad a lot, too. I miss her.” And they both knew it, too. The whole family had gone to the cemetery on the 5th anniversary of Verdona’s passing, and he remembered seeing the kids, before…

And then Max didn’t remember much of anything, until his boys finally pulled him away from Verdona and walked him back to the van. He only saw the kids after. How sad they both looked as they watched him.

It wasn’t too surprising when Gwen slid out of the lawn chair she and Ben were sharing and skipped over to climb up into his lap. The hug wasn’t a surprise, either, but he loved it anyways.

“Don’t be sad, Grandpa.” Gwen said, her face buried in his shoulder. Max closed his eyes and held his granddaughter with both arms, his own fishing pole dropped and forgotten. “Please?”

Max let out a soft laugh. “I’m working on it.”

The tender moment was interrupted when Ben let out a wild shout, and the sound of the fishing line playing out made Gwen pull away from the hug and look over to her cousin.

“Grandpa! Grandpa!” Ben exclaimed, his eyes wide in panic. “Whaddo I do? Whaddo I do?”

“You’ve got a fish on the line, Ben! You have to reel it in!” Max said, setting Gwen down and walking over to him, grabbing the rod and holding it steady. “Put your hands on the handle, one on the reel! You want me to help, or…?”

“No, lemme do it!” Ben yelped, moving his hands down. Once Max was sure he had a grip on it, he let go, and there was a second of heart-stopping terror when the force of the fish on the line made Ben stumble forward a few steps before he planted his feet right and jerked back on the line, grunting from the strain.

“Come on, Ben!” Gwen hollered as she stood beside Max, caught up in the moment and bouncing on her heels. The boy was small, he’d always been a small, screaming fighter of a thing like all Tennyson boys were. He had a heart bigger than his body, and that was clearly on display now. He was struggling with the fishing rod, losing out to it. He could hang on to the pole, but he didn’t have enough strength to reel it in. And he still wanted to do it himself. No, he didn’t want grandpa helping him, but…

“Ben, why don’t you let Gwen help you catch that fish? You can catch it together, wouldn’t that be better?”

Ben was still grunting, but Max could see his mind spinning behind those fierce green eyes. “Yeah!” He finally blurted out. “Gwen! Help me!”

Like a shot, Gwen raced to his side. With Ben holding onto the fishing rod with everything he had in him, Gwen grabbed the reel, one hand on the spinner and the other on the mount, and started cranking in hard. Separately, they would have lost the fish on the line, but working together?

Max was so proud of them. It took them two minutes, but at last, the fish splashed up out of the water and back down, then splashed on the shore, and then was dangling on the end of the line.

“Great job, you two!” Max cheered, and got out a disposable camera he’d been hanging onto that still had a few exposures left. It was a greengill sunfish, about half a pound, and the kids crowded around it with wide eyes as they exulted in their victory. He took a photo of them while they weren’t paying attention, then got them to pose for the next shot. “That’s a keeper, all right. Your parents are going to love these photos.” He chuckled. 

Gwen poked at the dangling fish with one finger. “Can we keep it?” She asked him eagerly.

“Yeah! Can we?” Ben exclaimed. 

“Well, it is kind of small. You know, for eating.” Max explained. “A fish this small, it’s better to throw it back.”

“No! Wanna keep it!” Gwen insisted. “My fish!” Ben let out a squawk, and she looked at him apologetically before adding, “ Our fish!”

“What would you do with it?” Max asked, taking the fish off of the now de-wormed hook. He set their fishing rod to the side and bent down, holding the sunfish in his palms as it flopped wildly. “Are you going to eat it?”

“Ew! No!”

“Are you going to put it in a fish tank then, take care of it? Which wouldn’t work, you know. This is a wild fish. They don’t belong in a tank.” Max went on firmly. “I have one rule I learned from my dad. It’s a family rule, when it comes to fishing and hunting. You only kill things that you’re going to eat. And if we don’t put this fish back, that’s what’s going to happen, you two. It’s going to die. It needs water to live. If you don’t put it back, it’s going to die. You’ll have killed it.”

They blinked in horror at the idea, and Max nodded. “Hold out your hands for me.” They did so, palms up, and he plopped the sunfish into their grasp. They both gasped, but Max kept his gaze locked on them. “It’s your choice. Just think real hard first. Make sure it’s the right one.”

Ben and Gwen bit their lips and looked at each other, and then she got a look on her face and nodded at him. Ben nodded back, pressing his lips together, and then took the fish, waddling back over to the water and dropping it back into the pond. It splashed, then took off like a shot, burying itself in the cloudy water.

“It’s gone.” Ben said sadly, and Gwen came over and grabbed his hand. 

“For now.” Max said, coming up behind his grandkids and putting his hands on their shoulders. “But we can always come back and try again. And that sunfish will be able to have other baby fishes now as well. And we have a photograph of it, even, so you two can show it off at school.”

“Show n’ tell!” Gwen shrieked, her sadness gone in a blink as she looked to Ben excitedly. “We can do it at show n’ tell!” Ben got swept up in her enthusiasm all too easily.

“I can’t wait to show Mommy and…” And Max winced when he saw the light drain out of both Ben and Gwen’s eyes. As they remembered why they were out here with their Grandpa Max. 

Gwen hugged him seconds later. “It’s okay, Ben.” She said, sniffling. “We can stay with grandpa.”

Max blinked. “Of course you can. I’m not your home, but you can always visit with your grandpa.”

“We ran away from home.” Ben said sadly. Max blinked, and something clicked into place.

They thought…

“Do you two think that because you ran away, that your moms and dads don’t want you anymore?” Max asked, shaken by the idea. When they both looked down at the ground and nodded, Max wanted to cry. He laughed instead and picked them up into a bearhug that lifted them both off of the ground. “Well, that’s just the silliest thing I’ve heard. Sport, pumpkin, your parents love you. They’re never going to send you away, or tell you you can’t come home.” Especially not with what Max knew about his daughter’s other parents. Sandra’s especially. “When you came out and stayed with me, they were so worried. They thought something had happened to you, that you were hurt.” Holding them together in his arms, he looked between the two, pouting seriously. “Does that sound like something they would do if they didn’t want you to come home?”

“No.” Ben admitted. “Are they mad?”

“They’re worried.” Max said, setting them back down on the ground. “But they know you’re safe. Your moms...they both love you. And they have some things they need to talk about.”

“The fighting?” Gwen asked. Max nodded.

“The fighting. And how it’s bad. And how they can stop it. Because they need to stop it.” Max scratched at his chin. “I think that’s what your mommies and daddies are doing today. Talking to each other. Apologizing. So that when you do come home, they won’t have anything to fight over anymore.”

Ben nodded. Gwen worried her fingers together, rubbing them over the backs of her hands. 

“It is not your fault.” Max said, needing them to know that. Needing them to believe it. They finally nodded, and he smiled. “But, you know? They need to say sorry to you for yelling at each other so much. You could say sorry to them for running away. You did scare them, after all.”

“Okay.” Gwen said timidly. “How, grandpa?”

“How do you say you’re sorry?” He mused, and looked around. Then he smiled. Spring came earlier to the landscape around Bellwood, a side effect of the unusual congruence of landscape and weather patterns in this part of California. He could see a lot of spring flowers popping up here and there. “Why don’t you two go pick some flowers for your moms? We can make them a proper apology bouquet. Flowers...and I have some small hershey bars that you two haven’t eaten yet. We could include those as well.” Their heads perked up, eager, and Max sighed and amended his offer. “We can eat some ourselves too, if you hurry.”

They cheered and raced off side by side to collect flowers, and Max was left chuckling as he sat back down in his chair, picked up his forgotten fishing rod, and reeled in the line.

At the end was a bobber with no fishing hook or lure or bait. Max smiled at the empty fishing line, chuckled once, and then cast it out onto the surface of the pond again.

They were such good kids. In time, they’d learn the more important lessons. And maybe he’d get them to go fishing without needing to catch any fish as well some day. It was never about the fish, after all.

It was about the peace and quiet of just being happy and content and remembering what was important.

***

Gwen’s House

9:32 A.M.

Ladies didn’t fall apart. Ladies didn’t scream and throw insults and curses. Ladies held their composure, maintained their poise. It was the backbone of every lesson that the former Natalie Isabella Larrsen had learned from her mother. Yet she had done all of those things yesterday, with one irritation too many stacked up on top of another until she had gone off on Sandra for wanting to give her a dinner with her husband in private.  

Ladies didn’t frighten their children so badly that they ran off, either, but that had happened as well. By any definition of her mother’s lessons, Lili Tennyson had screwed things up by the numbers.

Sitting next to Frank, with Carl and Sandra slumped onto the chairs opposite of them, she gripped the ceramic coffee mug in both hands and tried to put her thoughts together. Carl and Frank were the ones keeping the conversation going; Frank had made muffins, Carl had brought an egg casserole that was a perfect match for the one Lili remembered Verdona making for her back when she had been pregnant, and there was plenty of coffee to go around. Their husbands talked about how Frank was moving up at his law firm, and how Carl was pretty much set to land that supervisor’s spot for the county if things kept up as they were. They talked about old stories about Grandpa and about them as kids, offered suggestions and plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and basically just talked .

They talked about everything except what had brought them all together that morning, subtly leaving it open to their wives to lean into the subject of why they were here, instead of Frank and Carl being at the office and Lili either outside gardening or doing volunteer work. 

But every time Lili looked over to Sandra and wondered if the blond-haired woman might start talking when the boys’ conversation hit a lull, Sandra would stir a little, look up, meet Lili’s eyes, and then just... wither. And then she’d look back down at the table, finger her glass of juice, and move bits of her breakfast around with a fork. She hadn’t taken very much; half a blueberry muffin, a small square of casserole. She’d gone after it like a bird, pecking at it and leaving more than half of it untouched. Well, unconsumed, at least. Her fork had shredded the casserole fairly well by now. Ben’s mother looked like she hadn’t slept a wink last night, and not all of the redness in her eyes was from that.

Lili knew she looked perfect, because even if she hadn’t slept well herself, and had kept getting up in the middle of the night to go stare into Gwen’s bedroom and look to where her baby girl should have been sleeping, Larrson ladies lived to a standard. Makeup, eyeliner, and good clothes were a must for breakfasts like this. She looked perfect.

She felt as miserable as Sandra looked, and for once, she regretted spending as much time getting dressed up. Sandra kept looking at Lili as though she had done something wrong, that she wasn’t as good as Lili, that…

They were getting nowhere, and her daughter was still beyond her reach. Not entirely, though. If she wanted, she could demand that Gwendolyn be returned to her. If she wanted to. But Lili remembered how Frank had looked at her last night, with that cold fire burning in his eyes, and it was like every nightmare she used to have back when Gwen was just a baby.

The dreams she’d have about going to that party with Frank back in College when he walked out on it. On her. And how, unlike how it had really happened, that he hadn’t just stormed off because he was tired of her lying to herself, but that he was tired of her, period. In those nightmares, he disappeared from her life, and she kept on going to parties and lying to herself and either ended up married and divorced and bitter, or that she just drifted. That she never married Frank. That she never got pregnant and had Gwen. She would wake up from those nightmares and reach out to Frank, just to convince herself that it wasn’t real, that he was here and then she would go and check on Gwendolyn and cry in the dark because her daughter was real too.

That look in Frank’s eyes last night had been what had made her stop arguing, stop fighting, and finally begin to look at herself, and Sandra, and the mess that they had made. She’d thought about it all night, about her daughter and her nephew and how they didn’t care about the petty arguments and fights about who the better mom was. They just didn’t want them fighting, period. They were so tired of their mothers arguing and fighting that they had done the unthinkable. And then Frank had looked at her with those eyes of his, and it cut her anger and blind reaction off at the knees. He only ever looked at her like that when she was wrong. She wasn’t wrong very often, and not that badly. She had damaged something, and wasn’t sure if it could be fixed. 

She needed to say sorry. She kept waiting for Sandra to say something, so she could build up to it, but Sandra just kept looking more and more miserable. 

They had promised each other, before they lost Verdona, that they would be sisters. Daughters abandoned by their families and invited into a new one. She’d been so close to Sandra once. They’d stayed close up until preschool, and then…

Damnit. Why was it so hard to apologize? Lili knew why, of course. Larrson pride. Ladies didn’t make a mess this terrible. To apologize for it would mean…

Would mean…

Lili shut her eyes, and tried to think of the memory of Verdona. Months ago before the kids had started kindergarten, Sandra had evoked the memory of the woman they both clung to as a surrogate mother and stopped another fight cold. If Verdona were here, what would she say now?

What’s more important, Lili Flower? Your pride? Or your family?

An easy question with a simple answer. If she had but the strength to say it. 

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” She blurted out, and everyone at the table stirred and looked at Lili. She pressed her hands against the table and curled her fingers into the surface, forcing herself to look at Sandra. Forcing herself to not look away, as much as she wanted to. “It had been a trying afternoon, and I was frustrated, and...and you didn’t deserve that, Sandra. You were trying to do something nice for me. For us. I should have seen it.” Sandra just stared at her, eyes dull and hollowed out, as if not believing her.

Not enough, Lili Flower. You’re just dancing around it.

Lili breathed out. Bit her lip. “I’m sorry.” She finally got out. “I’m sorry for it all. This is my fault.”

Sandra just blinked back at her, and Lili wondered if she was about to explode. What Sandra actually did shocked her.

“You said I was a bad mother.” Sandra said, and shut her eyes. “You were right.”

“Sandy, no!” Carl protested, pulling her into his arms. “You’re not, I swear you’re not!”

“My son ran away from me. He ran away from his home.” Sandra hiccuped, and Lili could hear the hurt and the tears in her voice. “What do I know about being a good mom? Nothing! All I ever got from mine was rules, rules and control until I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, and my brother…” She crumbled at that. 

Lili felt her heart skip a bit as she stared at Sandra then, remembering something that Verdona had said to her once. “I’ll try my damndest to be a better mother to both of you. God knows you both deserve one.” But Verdona had never told Lili why she had said that, and Lili, young and hurting and fragile, just dismissed it as some offhand comment, meant for her more than Sandra.

But it wasn’t. She could see that now. Lili still saw her parents. Gwen was a part of their lives. Lili had never met Sandra’s, and so far as she knew, they had never seen their grandson. 

There had been a reason for it she’d never pressed on. And she finally realized why.

Lili’s hand reached across the table, and she grabbed Sandra’s hand and squeezed it tight.

“We got pregnant at the same time.” Lili began carefully. “I never told you the story of what my parents said when I told them, did I?”

“Lili, you don’t…” Frank started, and she could see the pain in his eyes. She’d told him after, one night when not even living in the same house as Verdona and Sandra and the Tennyson brothers was enough to chase away the ghosts of her fears. It had hurt him then, and it still hurt to think about now, and not even their reconciliation when Gwen was born had fully healed the wound. Sandra had a wound of her own, Lili at last acknowledged, and it was nowhere near as healed up as her own.

“Yes, I do.” She told her husband firmly, and turned back to the other woman, who she had once called sister. “Sandra, please. Can you look at me? I don’t know if I can get through this more than once. Even now.” And Sandra stirred herself out of Carl’s arms enough to meet her gaze.

Lili breathed. “I was so happy when I got the news. Frank and I were going to have a baby, and...and I thought my parents would be just as happy. But they weren’t. My mother cried on the phone. She...she asked me to come home. She said that she and my father could ‘fix it’. I was pregnant with their grandchild, and it wasn’t a miracle to them. They weren’t happy about it. They weren’t happy with Frank. I made two choices of my own in my life, Sandra. I chose where to go to College, and I chose who to fall in love with.” Her lip quivered, and Lili ignored it. To hell with being a Lady.

“I didn’t know who my child was going to be, but I knew that they weren’t a mistake . And I knew I didn’t want to lose them. I didn’t want to lose Frank. I liked my life. I could have gone back, and I would have lost everything. They threatened to cut me off. I quit school the next day. Frank was more important. My child was more important. Didn’t mean I wasn’t lost. It didn’t mean I wasn’t hurt. I hurt so much. If I had been paying more attention...I should have seen just how much you were hurting too.” Lili’s eyes were blurry now, and she reached up to wipe at them with her napkin. “My parents came back and apologized. But yours never did, did they?”

Sandra shook her head. 

Lili exhaled. “I didn’t know.” She confessed. “Or I didn’t want to know. When you read all those parenting books and try to be a mother based on those, it drives me crazy. But I understand why now. The only example you have any memory of is your own mother, and…”

“I’ll never be like her.” Sandra sobbed. “I can’t. I won’t do that to him.” 

So much of the blind rage Sandra had for Lili and her rules for Gwen finally clicked. 

“I’m not your mother either, you know.” Lili added gently. “I want Gwen to have everything I can give her, to be able to be anyone she wants to be. To do whatever she wants to do. I don’t want to limit her, Sandr...Sandy.” She corrected herself, dropping that edge of formality. It didn’t belong here. It wasn’t needed. “But you’re not a bad mother. Because if you are, then so am I.”

She sloughed off that vulnerable confession all at once, and let it sit there in the air between them. Sandy gasped and looked at her, and Lili just let herself smile sadly and cry in silence. To hell with it all.

“My daughter ran away from me, too.” Lili said. “They ran away from both of us.”

Neither one of them said anything after that, and they both let their husbands hold them, grounding them, giving them something to hold onto. Sandy was still a mess. Lili somehow found the strength to keep going.

“How do we fix this?” She asked her sister, and clung to that word with everything she had. Sister.

“I’m tired of fighting.” Sandra whispered. “I’m tired of arguing with you. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

Lili froze up at that. “No.” She whispered. “No, Sandy. I don’t want to tell you what to do. I’m...I’m always telling people what to do. You, Frank, G...Gwendolyn.” She shook her head. “Maybe I need to let go for once. And maybe you need to hold on more.”

“A middle ground.” Frank murmured, and she felt him move his head. Looking at his brother, maybe. “Not as strict as we’ve been.”

“A little firmer than we have.” Carl added. “Like mom was.”

“I’m sorry, Lili.” Sandra said, finally echoing the apology that Lili’d been strong enough to give. “But thank you.”

Lili laughed, and wiped at her eyes again. “My mother would say neither of us was acting much like a lady.”

Sandra sniffed and gave her a tenuous smile, and reached over to squeeze her hand back. “You’re a woman, though. And a mom.”

“So are you.” Lili replied, meaning it. Because maybe that was enough, in the end. To be there for the people you cared about, and to leave decorum to the side when it got in the way. “And if you want to have Gwen stay over for dinner next time to let me and Frank have a night off...I’ll remember that you aren’t doing it to prove you’re better than me. It doesn’t matter. It’s not a fight worth having. They don’t care who the better parents are. We shouldn’t either.”

Sandra sniffed and nodded, then got up from the table and came around, pulling Lili up into a tight hug. They stood there, rocking back and forth, and finally let all the arguments die. 

“I think we can call dad now, Frank.” Carl said. Lili and Sandra both laughed at that.

“God, yes.” Frank sighed. “Time to bring the kids home.”

***

Gwen’s House

4:15 P.M.

Being told that their parents weren’t mad at them, being told that everything was okay and that their moms weren’t fighting anymore and they wanted them to come home should have been enough to make Ben and Gwen relax. But they were Tennysons, and just like Max, they were already putting more faith in actions than in words. When Max pulled the Rustbucket up to the sidewalk in front of Frank and Lili’s house and killed the engine, the kids didn’t squirm to get up and leave. They just sat in their seats, nervous and uneasy. Ben scratched at his arm, and Gwen twirled a finger in her hair. 

“Hey, you two. It’ll be all right.” Max counseled his grandkids, giving them an easy smile. “I heard from both your dads, after all. You’re not in trouble. Besides, we brought your moms flowers and chocolates. It’s hard to get a better apology than that.”

“What if they start yellin’ again?” Gwen asked him, nervous and on edge. 

“They won’t.” Max said firmly. “But next time you want to come visit grandpa? You don’t have to wander off. Just call me. I’ll come. You have my number now, both of you, right? Got my card in your pocket, Ben?” The boy patted his pants pocket, confirming it. “Good. Now come on, you two. Let’s get unbuckled. Up, up, up.”

He shuffled them to the middle of his old girl and had them grab up the small bouquets of wildflowers and the ziploc bags full of fun-size chocolate bars left over from when Max handed out treats last Halloween, and tried not to smirk as the two figured out how best to carry both without dropping either. They just stood there and looked up at him, and neither one of them moved to the side door. 

Well. He could be the brave one if he had to be. He’d done it before. He swung the door open and walked out first, then motioned for them to follow, and they trailed after him on unsteady legs. From the Rustbucket to the sidewalk and then past the gate in the fence around the yard, and up the concrete walkway to the front door…

The kids walked it like they were on their way to a prison cell.

Max pushed them ahead of him so they stood on the welcome mat, and then reached for the doorbell. Between the ding-dong and the door opening took only about three seconds. It was Frank in the doorway, and he met Max’s eyes for a second as they both nodded at the same time before he looked down at Gwen and Ben. 

“Hey, baby girl. Hey, Ben. Welcome home.” He smiled at them. “What do you have there?”

“For mommy.” Gwen mumbled, holding up her bundle of flowers.

“To say sorry.” Ben added, struggling to not drop his own. 

Frank bent down on his knees to look at the two on their level. “Flowers and chocolates?” He glanced up at Max and smirked. “Grandpa’s idea, I take it?”

“I helped.” Max admitted, trying to let the kids take the lion’s share of the credit. “Can they come in?”

“Of course you can.” Frank said, standing back up and moving out of the way. “Ben? Gwen? Your moms are in the living room. Why don’t you go take those to them?”

The kids walked inside slowly with Frank behind them, and Max walked just past the front door and stood in the entryway, closing the door behind him. He saw Sandra and Lili, sitting on the biggest couch in Frank’s living room side by side...and though his angle was skewed, he could have sworn that they were even holding hands as they waited and watched their children walk up to them.

He tried to think back to the last time he’d seen his daughters do that. Max wasn’t sure, but he wanted to guess that it hadn’t happened since before Ben and Gwen had been born.

Sandra and Lili looked so fragile, sitting there. Like one angry word from their children would break them. When Frank had called him, he’d said that they (All of them, his boys and their wives all together) had worked things out. Frank hadn’t told him how badly they had taken it. 

His daughters watched with hopeful, hurting eyes as Ben and Gwen came up to them, handed over the flowers they’d collected and the chocolates they’d ransacked from the Rustbucket. 

“We’re sorry.” Ben said. “For running away.”

“You ssouldn’t fight.” Gwen added with just enough censure to make the apology a more conditional one.

“You’re right. We shouldn’t.” Lili said, looking at her little girl. “We talked about it. We’re going to stop fighting.”

“We didn’t think we were hurting you. We were wrong.” Sandra added, looking at Ben with hope. “Can you two forgive us?”

The kids nodded. “Can we come home?” Gwen asked unsteadily.

“Of course you can.” Lili said, setting her flowers aside and letting go of Sandra’s hand so she could scoop up her daughter. Sandra did the same for Ben, and the kids and their moms didn’t say much of anything then, they just kept hugging each other tightly.

“Don’t cry, mommy.” Max heard Ben say when Sandra started sniffling. The blond-haired woman laughed and held him even tighter. 

“It’ll be better, Ben. I promise. Just please, please promise me you two won’t run off like that again. We were so worried about you.”

“Okay.” Ben grunted, relaxing once Sandra stopped hugging him so hard. “Okay, mommy.”

“Good.” Sandra kissed his forehead, then grinned. “Now. How would you two like to help us make dinner? You’ll have to wash your hands first, though; meatloaf gets very messy. And while we’re working, you can tell us all about what you did with Grandpa Max, okay?”

The kids hopped down and immediately started chattering away as they walked into the kitchen with their mothers, leaving Carl and Frank standing in the living room looking relieved and so very tired.

Max had hope that things would be better after this. They were off to a good start, at least, and if the kids did ever need a break, Ben had his phone number. It would keep the two of them from running off again, anyways.

He turned and opened the front door again, when Frank’s voice stopped him.

“Where are you going, Max?” 

“I…” Max turned and looked back at his boys, still standing in the middle of the living room. They seemed concerned. “I just thought that you all might want some time with the kids without me getting in the way. Besides, I did have them all day, and…”

“Dad.” Carl interrupted his rambling apology. “Unless there’s something critically important you have to go do, we want you to stay. Have dinner with us.”

“Are you sure, son?” Max blinked, his hand still on the doorknob, and looked over to Frank for confirmation.

His oldest boy nodded once. “We’re going to...try a family dinner tonight. The whole family. And that includes you, Max. If you want to stay.”

Max blinked a few times, and felt something settle into his chest that made him smile and close the door. “I’d like that.” He admitted, and went to join the rest of his family.

It had been a crazy 24 hours for them all, but as he and his sons went to go help out in the kitchen and join in the fun, Max thought that maybe it was a good thing that Ben and Gwen had decided to run off the way they had.

It took the kids leaving to bring the family back together.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: The Kids Stop a Break-In

By Erico

Gwen’s House

Wednesday, June 2nd, 1993

9:27 A.M.

Ben was happy that his mom and Gwen’s mom didn’t fight anymore. He was happier that it was summer, because that meant that he didn’t have to go to school to play with Gwen, he could just ask if she could come over, or she would ask her mom if he could. But this week, right here, had to be the best week ever. His mommy and daddy were on a trip for daddy’s job. They’d wanted him to come along, but they said Gwen couldn’t, and he got mad about it. They’d asked him if he wanted to stay with Gwen and her mommy and daddy instead, and that sounded so much better. A whole week staying over at Gwen’s house! 

  They even let him stay in Gwen’s room. They’d tried setting up a squishy balloon bed for him on the floor, but it just didn’t feel right. After he’d rolled around on it for a while Sunday night and let Gwen have a turn bouncing on it, she’d pulled him up onto her bed, which was lots comfier. Her mom woke them up in the morning and talked to him about sleeping in his own bed, which confused him and then made him angry when Gwen got angry. The next night, he tried to sleep on the balloon bed again and kept wiggling, but he stayed like Aunt Lili wanted. Gwen was smart though. Really smart. She just hopped down and cuddled with him and Furry Freddy until he got sleepy, and the next morning when Aunt Lili tried to argue with them, Gwen got the bossy look on her face and told her mom that Ben did exactly what she’d wanted. Gwen must’ve won, because last night there hadn’t been a balloon bed on the floor, and Aunt Lili tucked them in and didn’t say anything.

“Ha!” he cried out, snatching up a puzzle piece from the big pile. He and Gwen were working on a puzzle full of kitties and yarn balls, and she’d been looking for just the right color of green to go with the orange kitty fighting with the green yarn ball in the corner. “Got one, Gwen!”

“Lemme see, lemme see!” She was grabbing at his hand even before he could shove it in front of her, and he flattened his hand out so she could take it from him. She squinted at it and then grinned, moving it over to the puzzle and trying a few spots. Ben went back to the pile and started digging again, and a few seconds later she let out a happy noise. It must’ve fit. 

Ben wasn’t as good at puzzles as Gwen was. The ones from preschool hadn’t been hard; put the wooden fruits in the wood board. But Gwen’s mom didn’t have that kind of puzzle, or even one that had 20 pieces, or 30. The puzzle they were working on right now had two-hunnred pieces. And Aunt Lili kept saying that there were puzzles that were even bigger.  

He found another piece with green yarn on it and went to put it in, but Gwen grabbed for it. “Hey!” He sputtered, as she took it and slapped it into place. “I was gonna do that one!”

“But I saw’d where it was gonna go.” She told him with a frown.

“Did he give you that piece, Gwendolyn, or did you just take it from him without asking?” Aunt Lili said, walking into the room and smiling down at them. They had the puzzle spread out over her daddy’s desk and he and Gwen were standing up on top of big, huge books that smelled old and were full of dust to look over the top of it. 

Gwen got a pouty look on her face, and her mom sighed. “Gwen. We ask for things. We don’t just take them.”

“I know. I’m sorry, mommy.” Gwen mumbled.

“You didn’t take anything from me, Gwendolyn.” Her mom said, and then looked over to Ben. “Apologize to Ben.”

She turned, still pouting, and Ben just blinked and wondered why it was such a big deal. His feelings were a little hurt, sure, but she was Gwen. Gwen was always bossy. Why didn’t Aunt Lili see it? Gwen must’ve felt bad, because she hugged him. Gwen always gave the best hugs, even better than his mommy and daddy did. Even better than Grandpa did.

“... ‘m sorry, Ben.” She mumbled into his shoulder, and he hugged her and patted her back like his daddy sometimes did for him. 

Gwen’s mommy hummed to herself, nodding as she looked at them. Her eyes were all crinkly. “Listen, you two. I have to take something over to Mrs. Jansen’s house a few blocks away. You remember Mrs. Jansen, sweetie?”

“With all da wittle dollies?” Gwen said.

“The figurines, yes.” Gwen’s mom said. “Would you two like to keep working, or would you like to come along? If you want to stay though, there are rules.” Aunt Lili always had rules, but Ben was getting used to that. He looked at Gwen and she looked back, and he realized she wanted him to talk.

“Stay? Please?” Ben asked, and Gwen’s face brightened up. So. Right choice after all.

“Okay.” Aunt Lili ruffled his hair and smiled. “Rules, then. No touching any of daddy’s things, Gwen. You know what’s his in here and what isn’t. You can read from your bookshelf if you want to…” Ben made a face, and she laughed. “Or not. I’ll only be gone for 10 minutes or so. If you’re thirsty, you can wait until I get back. I’ll fix you both a snack and some juice then. So stay out of the kitchen. If you get tired of the puzzle, you can go play in Gwen’s room. Okay?”

Ben nodded his head and so did Gwen. He wasn’t good at puzzles like Gwen, but he wanted to beat this one. He had a good feeling about it.

Aunt Lili gave them both another hug and kissed their foreheads. Ben grumbled and rubbed at the spot, and Gwen’s mom stood up and crossed her arms. “Now. Last things. If someone rings the doorbell…”

“Don’t answer, ‘cause there’s no adult home.” Gwen chirped back.

“And if the phone rings?” Aunt Lili added, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t answer it.” Ben said, because even his mommy had those two rules.

“Good.” Gwen’s mommy turned around and left the room. She came back in a second later, sighing. “And I probably don’t have to remind you two, but don’t go running off to visit Grandpa, all right? He’s coming over tomorrow anyways.”

Ben didn’t say anything, even though he really wanted to yell that he wouldn’t, because Aunt Lili and his mommy weren’t fighting anymore. And they wouldn’t just go now, they’d call first. Grandpa’d made them remem’rize his number, after all.

Gwen’s mommy nodded again and left for real this time, and Gwen tugged on his sleeve. 

“I need orange for the kitties.” She said, and Ben got back to work in digging through the pile.

They got in some more pieces and the house was quiet aside from the two of them, and the tree outside which made noises in the wind and made the light coming in through the window over the couch dance a little. The left side of the puzzle actually was looking like the picture on the box now, and they were looking at the gray kitty with the purple yarn on the right when the doorbell rang.

Ben looked over at Gwen, a little surprised that something else was happening. She seemed dazed for a second or two before she shook her head and got that I know what I’m doing look on her face again. “Doorbell. We don’t answer.” She said, and Ben nodded. It was a rule, after all. He reached for another puzzle piece and was about to hand it over to Gwen when they heard something else. It sounded like something breaking, even louder and worse than the sound that a water glass he’d dropped had made back home when it hit the kitchen floor. His mom had panicked a little and scooped him up, taking him out of the kitchen while his daddy had gone after a broom. 

He didn’t realize that he’d frozen up until Gwen’s hand grabbed his and squeezed tight. He looked at her and his tummy felt awful, because she was scared. Gwen never got scared, Gwen wasn’t afraid of anything! 

She was scared now, though. Scared of that noise. Ben was scared of it too.

He got even more scared when they heard someone walking around downstairs, stepping on broken glass that got smushed into the floor.

“Ohh Mrs. Tennyson, come out, come out wherever you are!” A man, a stranger yelled out loudly. Ben heard Gwen suck in a big gulp of air, saw her eyes go wide and he knew that she was getting ready to scream.

Something told him that that was the wrong thing to do. He reached out and covered her mouth with his other hand, stopping her. Her scared eyes jerked towards him, and Ben shook his head. Gwen blinked a lot, and he realized she was starting to cry. But she didn’t scream, even when he pulled his hand back. She pressed her lips together tightly and nodded, both of them turning to the open doorway of the upstairs library while the stranger, the bad man kept stomping away downstairs.

Gwen was scared, and Ben was scared, but something burned inside of him and told him that he had to do something. He had to keep Gwen safe. No matter what. She was squeezing his hand so tight that it hurt. He squeezed back to get her attention.

He tried to be brave, and sound brave, but his throat felt funny. He ended up whispering when he told her, “We hafta hide. Be quiet now.”

They both jumped when the man downstairs swore loudly and kicked something over. “Hiding upstairs, are we? Fine! Just like every other woman then, always hiding!”

Ben was moving even before the bad man was done talking, and the sound of his loud crashing footsteps helped to cover up the noise of them darting from the library into Gwen’s room across the hall. Ben turned to close the door and froze up when the doorknob clicked into place.

The footsteps stopped then too. Gwen had both of her hands over her mouth then, and was shaking in place. Ben was trembling like a leaf, and the sick feeling in his tummy wasn’t going away. The burning got even hotter. It told him to keep moving. He grabbed Gwen and tucked her under her bed, jostling it a little as he slipped underneath it too, and Furry Freddy fell off the top of the bed and landed on the floor in front of them. Gwen reached for his hand again and held on tight, even as she clapped her other hand over her mouth. She was making noises like she wanted to cry.

“It’ll be okay.” Ben whispered to her. He had to protect her. He had to keep her safe.  

The bad man was upstairs now. He must’ve been touching the wall. Hitting it with a fist while he kept on talking.

“It won’t do you any good to call the police, Mrs. Tennyson. I cut the phone line. Didn’t want anyone interrupting me. See, your husband wasn’t a very nice man. He took my wife away from me. Hid her. Isn’t right, you know.” The bad man in the house said loudly. “A man’s wife is his life, after all. And since he took mine away from me, I figure I should take his away from him. He’s a lawyer, after all. Seems only fair. Seems like justice, doesn’t it?” He was shouting now from out in the hallway.

Don’t scream. Don’t scream. He’ll find you. He’ll find Gwen. He’ll hurt Gwen.

Gwen was pressed up tight beside him as he lay on his stomach, the both of them hiding underneath her bed and hoping that the bad man wouldn’t find them. That the bad man would just go away. She was shaking so bad now, and her head was buried into his side.

“It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.” He kept whispering, so soft that he didn’t think he was talking at all.

A door banged open, and Gwen flinched and hid into his side even tighter. 

“You’re not going to hide from me forever! I know you’re alone, Mrs. Tennyson. I saw your husband driving off to work. Going into work at ten in the morning? Miserable bastard keeping banker’s hours while you get to stay home and play happy little homemaker. It’s not fair. It’s not FAIR!” Another door banged open, closer this time.

The bad man was going to find them. He was going to find them and he was going to hurt them. They couldn’t run. Hiding wasn’t going to be enough. He wasn’t strong enough to stop him. He wasn’t strong enough to save Gwen.

Ben started crying too then, with Gwen huddled up tight beside him. He looked out and saw Furry Freddy lying on the floor just in front of them. Furry Freddy always made everything better. He’d hold Furry Freddy at night and the bear kept the monsters away. When Gwen had monsters, she’d borrow it from him.

Ben blinked, realizing something then. Furry Freddy made the monsters at night go away. And Furry Freddy could dance. He’d danced before when they were littler, when he and Gwen held hands and the stars came out.

“Furry Freddy.” Ben whispered, and Gwen stopped crying to look at him. He turned his head a little and looked back at her. “Furry Freddy will save us.” He squeezed her hand again, and this time, the hurt in his tummy eased off. The burning became a tingle. 

He remembered what it felt like when Furry Freddy had been dancing in the air with the blue and green stars all around them that turned purple when they touched. He tried to remember that feeling again as he held on tight to Gwen’s hand, and a little bit later, the tingling he remembered started to come back. It wasn’t as quick, but it was there.

“Come on, Gwen.” He whispered to her. “Furry Freddy will save us.” He squeezed her hand again as the first of the green stars poofed around them. A blue star followed it a second later.

Sniffling, shaking, Gwen held onto his hand and didn’t let go. “Fur - Furry Freddy’ll save us.” She said back to him. And she kept saying it, just like he was. It passed between them, until they started saying it together, closing their eyes tight. Furry Freddy Will Save Us. Furry Freddy Will Save Us.

They weren’t looking, but Ben felt like he could feel the stuffed bear roll over and stand up. He had his eyes shut tight, but he felt the soft and raggedy arm of the thing brush over his head, and a bit later, he almost felt it touch Gwen’s head as well. He didn’t let go of Gwen for a second. He didn’t stop saying it either. Furry Freddy Will Save Us.

The door to Gwen’s bedroom was smashed and swung in with a loud bang as it bounced off of the wall, and Gwen screamed.

Ben heard Furry Freddy turn around and make angry loud bear noises as he moved away from the bed.

He heard the bad man screaming after that, and he still didn’t open his eyes. He just held Gwen close and kept thinking about Furry Freddy. He kept thinking hard about their stuffed bear saving them, and he didn’t let go of Gwen’s hand.

***

11:08 A.M.

Frank Tennyson had thought that he’d heard the worst thing ever six years ago when he got a phone call from his brother brokenly telling him that his mother’s house had burned down and she’d been in it. Then he had thought the worst thing he’d ever heard had been the frantic call from his wife in the spring, telling him that Ben and Gwen were missing.  

The call that had forced him to beg the judge for a recess when the hand-written message was delivered by the pale-faced bailiff topped everything, because he couldn’t think of anything else aside from getting home.

The police have been trying to reach you. There was a break-in at your home. Your wife asked you to come as soon as you could.

As soon as he could meant excusing himself from the case when the hard-assed judge refused his motion for recess and then passing the rest of it off to the other junior partner he’d been paired with. As soon as he could meant going fifteen miles an hour faster than the speed limit with a police escort that had been parked outside the courthouse and who had volunteered to get him there, sirens wailing. As soon as he could meant that he couldn’t stop, couldn’t think and couldn’t react as the black and white screamed through the quiet streets of a mid-morning Bellwood, blazing through every red light that they could get away with.

Frank Tennyson didn’t find himself stopping until the police car pulled up just outside of the cordon of three other cruisers that were on-site along with an ambulance. He stared at the ambulance with its flashing lights and felt his world drop out from underneath him. On wooden legs, he stepped out of the cruiser’s passenger seat and stumbled forward, almost falling. 

Strong arms were around him and holding him up a second later. “They’re okay, Frank. They’re all okay.”

He shuddered as he placed the voice, and the arms. Those arms had always been so strong.

“D- Dad?” And there was Max Tennyson, wearing another of his gaudy red and white Hawaiian shirts and holding him up, strong and steady as ever.

“They’re safe. None of them are in that ambulance.”

It all finally caught up to him, and Frank collapsed. His father let out a little noise and held him up until the police officer who’d drove him home could come around and help him up.

“Sir, do you need medical attention?” The policeman asked worriedly. Max shook his head.

“The only thing he needs is to get inside and see that his family is safe.” Max ground out, helping him along. “Come on, son. They’re in the living room. The police will want to talk to you, but this is more important.”

Frank looked up and saw Max’s RV sitting down the street, parked in what looked like a rush with the nose half up onto the curb in front of a fire hydrant. “You...you’re going to get a ticket.” The old man just laughed. 

“This is more important.” Max said. 

“What are you even doing here, dad?” Frank asked in a daze. 

Max didn’t stop walking him towards the house, and Frank inhaled sharply when he saw the kitchen window smashed in and marked off with yellow police tape.

“I heard it on the police band. Somebody heard the guy screaming. Soon as they said the address...Son, Hell couldn’t stop me from getting here quick as I could. But it was all over by the time I got here. The kids are safe. Lili’s safe. The guy who did this, he’s sitting in that ambulance banged up and bleeding and screaming his fool head off. Least, that’s what he looked like when the paramedics wrapped him up and hauled him into it.”

“Lili did that to him?” Frank whispered disbelievingly. Max hesitated, and a moment’s worth of panic passed through him until Max shook his head of gray hair.

“No. No, Lili wasn’t home when the guy broke in. The kids were upstairs. I don’t know for sure, I’ve been out here keeping an eye on the perimeter and waiting for you so I haven’t spoken with the kids or with Lili much, but if I had to guess, he did that to himself breaking into the house through the window. Must’ve been high as a kite.” Frank shook his head, not quite believing it. “Frank, there is nothing you could have done.” Max told him quietly. 

Frank wanted to argue that. There was plenty he could have done to stop this. “A security system. Better windows…”

Max sighed and pulled him along gently to the front door. “That, I can help you with. I know a few guys from my plumbing days who were good with that kind of stuff. But right now, your wife and the kids need you. They need you to hug them and tell them that everything’s going to be all right.”

Just like Max used to when he was a boy, Frank remembered. When Max would come home from work tired and with a smile that brightened up when he saw mom and him and his brother.

“Okay. I - I’ll do that.” Frank nodded. “Can you…”

“I’ll keep the police back for a while, they can give you a few minutes. I haven’t given my witness statement yet anyways, so that’ll give them something to chew on.”

“Thanks, dad.” Frank found himself smiling at the man out of sheer relief. Max paused when they reached the front door, and Frank frowned. “What?”

“...You haven’t called me dad in a long time.” Max said quietly. That made Frank pause and think and realize that the old man was right. Bitterness from too many days away from home, and too many broken promises as to when he’d be home. 

“You’re here now.” Frank said, finding comfort in that. Max’s eyes misted up a little. “Think you could stay for a while? You can park the RV out front if you want, but I think we’d all feel better if you stuck around.”

The smile his father gave him was a thin and shaky thing, full of hope and grief all mixed together. “Yes. Absolutely. I was coming over for dinner tomorrow anyways.” Frank held out a hand to him, and Max looked at it for a bit before shaking it with a soft laugh. “God. Go on in already, you keep this up I’m going to hug you and you haven’t wanted a hug from me in years.” He gave Frank a wink and turned around to mosey towards the police at the white picket fence again.

Frank breathed in and out, then stuck his key into the lock of the front door, flipped the deadbolt, and went inside. He found Lili and Gwen and Ben all huddled together on the couch in the living room, his best girl’s face so pale that it made her hair shine like dull blood. Ben and Gwen were beside her, hugging Ben’s old teddy bear tight between them and not saying much of anything. They all looked up when he came in, and whatever lid they’d had on their emotions flew off when they saw him.

Lili broke out into sobs as he rushed over to them, falling into his arms. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I was only gone for ten minutes and…”

“It’s okay. We’re okay.” Frank promised her, holding her tight and looking over her shoulder to Ben and Gwen. They were safe. Just like his father had promised him. The kids were safe. “They’re okay. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I should’ve taken them with me. I should’ve...”

Frank kissed her to stop her from blaming herself anymore. “I’m going to tell you what my dad just told me. There was nothing that you could’ve done. We’re going to get through this.”

“Oh, god. Carl and Sandra, I - I haven’t called them yet.”

“I’ll call them.” Frank told her. Later. When we’re all calmed down. He had other things to worry about first, and he was looking at them. “Gwen? Ben? Are you okay?”

Neither one said a word. Gwen just squeezed in closer to Ben, holding the stuffed bear in her arms as she burrowed into her cousin’s side, and Ben looked back at him and nodded.

“When the - when the bad guy came in, what happened?”

Gwen squeezed the bear harder and whimpered a little. Ben was trembling himself, but held it together. 

“We hid. And Furry Freddy saved us.”

Frank let go of Lili then, but only so he could move around to the other side of the couch, putting the kids between them. He and Lili scooped the little ones up and held them tight, and they all cuddled together.

“You - don’t you have work? You had a case today.” Lili said, a minute’s worth of quality cuddling later that, for once, the kids didn’t try and wriggle out of.

“I’m right where I need to be.” Frank told his wife, and found comfort in the words and the promise in them.

***

Gwen’s House

8:20 P.M.

The kids were upstairs with Lili getting ready for bed, and as exhausted as Frank felt, he should’ve been up there as well. But the weight of the day and what he’d learned kept him from doing so. He stood out on the front step of his house and stared out into a street that was empty now aside from his father’s old RV, properly parked at last. The neighbors had all been prowling around earlier in the day, drawn in by the sight of so many police cruisers and flashing lights. Dealing with the questions that would come from them was something he wasn’t looking forward to dealing with. But he’d take the questions over the alternative.

He’d come so close today to losing his daughter. It would have broken him. It would have shattered Lili. And Ben…God. He’d called Carl and Sandra an hour ago, and his brother had been ready to leave the conference early and come haring back. Only the news that their father was there and helping to keep an eye on things had kept Carl from doing something that might’ve put his career at risk. Not that Frank didn’t understand why his brother had almost done it.

He walked out of a court case today. The firm would understand, the senior partners weren’t that heartless, especially once he would tell them about the circumstances of it all. 

They’d probably be willing to offer their services as prosecutors to the district attorney’s office pro bono, for what had happened. His firm looked after their own, or at least that was what Mr. Moreland had said.

Problems for another day. He went back inside the house and paused when he heard his father talking to someone in the kitchen. It was too quiet and muffled for him to pick it out, and he snuck a little closer to listen in.

Max Tennyson was alone, standing by the ruins of what had been the large kitchen window over the countertops with his bag cellular phone in one hand and the receiver with its curly black cord pressed up on the side of his head as he looked at the thick plastic sheeting that covered the wound. Max had hung it up himself earlier in the afternoon before ordering pizzas for them all.

“...Could really use you here.” Max said to whoever he was speaking with. “It broke. It wasn’t strong enough, they tore right through it. You need to…” He paused and tipped his head back, looking at the ceiling. “Look, I’m not sure how they did it, I’m not the one with the talent for it. All I know is…”

Frank leaned in a little more, and the shifting of his weight caught an errant floorboard that creaked. It was enough to make his old man tense up and spin around with wide eyes, and then just as quickly offer a weak smile as he relaxed. “I’ll call you back tomorrow. Frank just walked in. Yeah. Uh-huh. Night.” He set the receiver back onto its dock in the bag and closed the velcro flap. “Sorry, son. I thought I was staying quiet there. I didn’t wake you up, I hope?”

“Just making a last walk around the house before bed.” Frank said to him. He looked down at the bag phone. “Who were you talking to?”

Max paused for a second before speaking. “One of my old buddies. The one that’s good with windows. I thought they’d have some ideas on how to fix what got broken, but I guess it’s not the kind of problem they can solve in the middle of the night. I’ll call them back tomorrow, we’ll get it figured out. I should be able to put in a replacement for you by this weekend.”

“You don’t have to do that, dad. The insurance will cover it, and…”

“And how long would it take them to get someone to send out a claims agent to get an estimate and then authorize a window repair guy?” Max shook his head. “I’ll feel better once I know you’ve got more than a sheet of plastic here keeping out the elements. Let me help you out, Frank.”

“All right, all right.” Frank held up his hands in surrender, smiling slightly. “If you insist.” He yawned, and to his surprise, so did his father. “You’re as tired as I am, old man. You sleeping in the house tonight? We’ve got plenty of blankets and pillows if you want the couch, or I could get the air mattress…”

“No, my bed in the old girl will suit me fine.” Max dismissed the offer. “But I’ll be right outside, and I’ll help you put breakfast together tomorrow. The phone company’s sending out a repairman first thing also.”

“Good.” Frank moved to the kitchen table and sank down onto one of the chairs, sighing. Max took another one and looked at him.

“So. What did the police tell you about the break-in?”

“Enough.” Enough to make Frank feel sick all over again. “The bast - the guy who did it, he’s the ex-husband of an old client of mine. Abusive, heavy drinker. She got away from him the last time he came after her swinging, filed for divorce while she was still being treated in the emergency room for her broken arm and the lacerations on her head. My firm picked her up as one of our pro-bono cases, and I volunteered to take it on. As part of the divorce proceedings, we were able to argue with the judge that she didn’t have to appear in court, that a videotaped statement of intent was enough. Drove her ex right up the wall during the court case, the judge had to have the bailiff haul him out of there. He kept screaming about how it was wrong to take his wife from him, how she was a coward for not coming and looking him in the eye when she said all those things. I didn’t think much about him after the fact. He got tossed into jail for contempt of court, the judge signed off on the divorce papers, and the ex-wife went running for the hills. Left the state. I think she was headed for Las Vegas. Not sure if she stayed there. But her ex…”

Frank realized he was rambling, but he didn’t stop himself, he couldn’t, he realized. And his dad didn’t look terrified, didn’t ask him to stop. Didn’t say the dumb little things most people did to offer hollow reassurance. He just sat there and watched him, and waited for Frank to get it all out on his own time. To talk, or to stop talking. 

“Why aren’t you stopping me?” Frank whispered. Max pursed his lips.

“Back in...in the Air Force. Sometimes we just needed to talk about the things we’d been through and seen. The base doctors had their way of trying to pick through our heads. We just wanted somebody to listen and not judge us. To let us deal with it in our own time. So that’s what I can do for you. Just listen. If you don’t want to say anything, you don’t have to. If you need to get it all off your chest so you can sleep tonight, then that’s what you’ll do. I’m here for you either way.”

His dad had always been full of life lessons. Lessons about taking responsibility and cleaning up your own messes, about taking pride in your work. From his example, Frank and Carl had learned other lessons about being there for their kids and their spouses like Max never was.

Gwen and Ben were five and a half years old, and Max Tennyson was still teaching him things. So he took a deep breath, drummed his fingers on the table, and kept on talking. Because his dad was right. He’d never sleep tonight if he didn’t tell someone, and though he’d share the full story of this mess with Lili later, he couldn’t do it tonight. Because neither one of them would sleep then.

“I’m not sure how he found my house. Our address is unlisted. The firm’s employment records are kept in a locked file cabinet. The detectives are guessing that he must’ve gotten the records of the court case and found out my full name and the name of my firm. That he must’ve...must’ve waited to see me come out of work or go into work to get the make and model of my car. He could have followed me home some night afterwards, found out where I lived that way.” He took several slow breaths. “He...The kids heard him. He was going to hurt Lili. In his mind, I’d taken his wife away from him. So he was going to take mine from me. They found a knife at the bottom of the steps, a broken bottle of chloroform in his pocket. Rope out in his car. He waited until my car left this morning, must have figured I was driving it. But Lili was driving it, her van’s in the shop, and...”

The haunted look was back in his eyes, he knew it. “The...There was a hole in the drywall up in Gwen’s room from the doorknob. Dad, I need to know. Where were the kids? Lili said that you were already here when she got back. That you were downstairs in the living room with them glued to your sides and calling the police on your phone when she saw the broken window and came running in terrified.”

Max closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “They were in Gwen’s room. Hiding under the bed.” Frank let out a sob at that. God. That miserable son of a bitch had come so close to hurting his family. His father’s hand reached over and settled on top of his fist. “He didn’t get to them. He didn’t find them. He must’ve left and fallen down the stairs after, because that’s where I found him, banged up and bleeding and screaming his head off before he passed out. They were fine. Something could have happened. But it didn’t. And that’s what you need to focus on, Frank. The kids are okay. Lili is safe. What we need to do from here to make them safer, we do that. But you can’t hover on the might-have-beens, or you’ll never be able to function again. Okay?”

“Okay.” Frank whispered, wiping at his eyes. “Okay.”

Max patted his fist until he relaxed it, and then stood up. “All right, mister. We’ve done all we can today. You think you can hug your wife and the kids and tell them to sleep? Think you’ll be able to sleep tonight?”

“Will you still be here in the morning?” Frank asked him shakily.

Max nodded once. “I have nowhere else to be that’s more important than right here.”

“Okay.” Frank breathed, and gave him another handshake before heading up the stairs.

He passed the study first, looking at the unfinished puzzle of kittens and balls of yarn still sitting on his desk. It made him smile, Lili had said that they’d been working on it all morning until - 

Frank walked across the hall to Gwen’s bedroom and looked inside, expecting to see the kids huddled up together. Lili had given up trying to keep them apart after yesterday, and after today he expected he’d find them side by side. They’d hardly left each other’s sight, or stopped holding hands and that teddy bear of Ben’s since. He found her bedroom empty and the lights off, and was worried for a little bit until he heard Lili’s voice down the hall from the master bedroom.

To his surprise and relief, he found Lili, wearing a sleeping shirt and some pajama bottoms, helping Gwen to put on her own. Ben was lying on their bed already in his Kangaroo Kommando pajamas, holding his stuffed bear tight. Lili looked up just as she finished lifting Gwen’s hair out from the collar of the soft blue cotton shirt and gave him a tight smile.

“The kids asked if they could stay with us tonight. I didn’t want to say no.”

Frank nodded. “Yeah. I - I think that’s okay too.” He went over and picked up Gwen, hugging her tightly. “Eskimo kiss?” He asked, and Gwen didn’t waste any time in rubbing her nose against his. She giggled after, which put him even more at ease, and he looked over to Ben. “How about you, sport? Want one?”

“Ewwww, noo.” Ben made a face and curled in around the bear, getting a laugh out of Lili as she swept over and took Gwen from him before giving Frank an eskimo kiss of her own.

“Go get changed, dear. I’ll keep an eye on the little ones until you’re done.” Frank gave her a nod and grabbed his own nightclothes and stepped into the bathroom, working quickly.

It didn’t take him long to get changed for bed, and he dumped his clothes in the hamper before coming back out with three small paper cups of water, one for each of the kids and the third for Lili. They all took them and drank them eagerly, and he tossed the empty cups into the wastebasket by his nightstand before turning the lights off. Only the faint glow of Gwen’s blue-green nightlight, recently brought in from her bedroom, gave the room any light.

The kids were still shivering a little, but they were doing better than they had been when he’d first seen them. After a day spent with not only himself and Lili to comfort them, but their grandfather around as well, they were calmer. They’d just refused to stay apart. Or to let go of the bear that they still both had a hand on.

“Are you two sure you want the bear here?” Frank asked them. He took up one side and Lili took the other, and they kept the kids between them. An extra pillow was all it had taken to get the two comfy. 

“Furry Freddy saved us.” Ben told him stubbornly. “He’s gotta stay.”

“He did, huh?” Frank said, looking over Ben’s head to Lili who smiled and shrugged very gently.

“That’s what they told me.” She answered him. “Does it bother you?”

“No. Not really.” Frank surrendered to the wide-eyed pleading looks that the kids gave him, and sighed when Ben cheered and held up ‘Furry Freddy’ over his head, making Gwen giggle when he wiggled the bear’s arms like it was dancing. Then she pulled it back down and took it from Ben, snuggling it against her chest before she rolled over and lay her head down on top of her cousin’s chest.

As the two closed their eyes and finally stopped wiggling, Frank couldn’t stop himself from reaching down and tracing the hair on top of Ben’s head, or from touching Gwen’s little arm. He did it to remind himself that they were both here, that they weren’t hurt, and he wasn’t at all surprised when Lili did the same and their hands bumped.

“So. The bear saved them.” He yawned quietly, looking into her red but finally sleepy eyes. “Max said he’s going to stick around for a while. He has some old friends and he offered to help replace the broken window.”

“If he wants to help, he’s welcome to.” Lili blinked. “How did Sandy and Carl take the news?”

“A step short of coming home early until I told them Max was here and keeping an eye on things. That calmed my brother down. But Sandy took the phone from him and told me that we’re welcome to stay at their place while they’re gone, until...until things get fixed up here.”

“Knowing your father, that won’t be long at all.” Lili hummed. “But I think it might be good for us to get them away from here. For a while, at least.” She didn’t say that she was as badly shaken up by it all as he was, but then, she didn’t have to. Frank knew his wife’s tells. “Do you suppose we could take them to visit my parents?”

Frank thought about it. “If you really want to, sure. But we had the Fourth of July trip planned already.”

“You’re right.” Lili sighed. “And it’ll be a little easier on Morfar and Mormor if little Ben’s not around. He’s going to give me gray hairs. He’d make my far’s hair fall right out.”

Frank laughed at that, and Gwen shifted and mumbled softly with a frown, but settled once he stilled his voice. Frank watched as Lili stroked their daughter’s hair, reaching over Ben’s head to do so, and the thick lump in his throat came back.

The most important things in the world to him were all here beside him. “I love you.” He told Lili, a little desperately, but honestly. She paused and looked at him in the dim light, and her face softened. 

“We’re okay. I love you too, and we’re all okay.” He hummed one last time and closed his eyes, taking his wife’s hand and giving it a squeeze before resting their arms over the kids huddled up under the sheets and the comforter. Maybe he’d believe that himself tomorrow.

Some time later, he felt a soft touch brush against his arm, like someone was patting it consolingly. He muzzily blinked his eyes open, wondering which one of the kids had thought to do that, and found himself confused when only Furry Freddy’s tiny little felt paw could be seen above the covers, resting on the bed next to his arm.

Furry Freddy saved us, Ben had said. Frank blinked again, remembering how his wife had called him in a panic about flashing lights once a year or so ago, how she’d imagined seeing this same stuffed bear floating in the air around all the glowing sparks.

He watched the stuffed bear, hugged to death by Gwen, not moving at all aside from when it shifted with her breathing. Slowly, he closed his eyes again. A bear that moved. A bear that saved the kids. It was ridiculous. A story that the kids told themselves to get over the frightening memory of this morning. Just stories and active imaginations. Stuffed bears didn’t do things like that. 

Reassured, Frank Tennyson breathed out once more and fell asleep, listening to the sound of his wife and his daughter and his nephew quietly sleeping away. His dreams stayed untroubled by nightmares, real or imagined.

Chapter Text

COURTING DISASTER

By Eric "Erico" Lawson and Shadows59

Chapter Four: The Kids Face the Fantabulous Revenge of Marci Hunter

Angelwood Elementary

September 15th, 1995

12:07 am

" - mommy got me a whole new dress just for tomorrow!" Marci said with a grin over the lip of the plastic tea cup that Olivia brought for them to play with today. The rest of the tea set was set out between them on top of the picnic table, the one that was right under the tree and the bestest place in the whole school.

Especially today.

"...19, 20! Ready or not, here I come!" She heard him shout as he shoved away from the flagpole. Twenty seconds was the longest she'd ever seen Ben stand still for the whole time she'd known him and he made up for it now as he charged across the schoolyard under Marci's glare.

Not that he cared, the dummy!

"How rude," Amanda sniffed from her spot at Marci's left, her dark brown hair catching just a bit of the breeze as she lifted her nose after the boys who were hiding under their table screamed and ran the second he got close.

Close enough that Marci knew he saw her glaring and what did he do? He just grinned at her as he went running by. "What do you expect?" Marci said, the words only jumbling a little around her missing tooth, but she was sure she said them just like her mommy did as she put her cup down. "They're boys!"

That just got nods and sighs from the other four girls who were sitting on the table with her. "We should just ignore them," Blair sighed as she picked up the teapot and refilled everyone's cups. "And everyone who plays with 'em!"

Which only meant one person in their class. Only one who counted anyway, Marci thought even as her eyes brushed over Olive Oyl as she raced back towards the flagpole. Brushed over and forgot even as the too tall girl screamed and laughed as Ben somehow caught her just before she was safe as she looked for someone else.

Someone that Marci swore she wasn't even going to think about because she was just the worst, the traitor, and who cared about her when tomorrow was going to be so good? "We're all coming early tomorrow, right? Mommy said we should 'cause Mrs. Edith is teaching us herself and - "

"Where are you going?" A voice cut in even as more boys screamed off in the distance. A voice that made Marci jump even before she saw the two green, too wide eyes staring at her from over the lip of the table.

"Nowhere with you, Gwen!" Blair shouted before Marci could as Donna answered with a squeal, "Cotillion starts 'morrow!"

And the way Gwen's eyes lit up at that. "You're going to "tillion, too?!" She said it with a gasp as she bounced on her toes. "So are me and my - Ben!?" The last was a squeal as she just disappeared in a blur of motion that made Marci scramble towards the edge of the table so she could see.

She was sure there would be something like the boogeyman or aliens and her eyes burned at the thought even as she saw something so much worse! "Gotcha!" Ben said with a laugh as he hugged the redhead girl tight from behind even as their tumble through the leaves on the ground stopped. "This is hide 'n seek, Gwen! You made it too easy today!"

Even Gwen caught his laugh and giggled as she spun in his arms so she could give him a shove. Just a little one. Nothing like the one she gave Flint last week and made him run off crying after he grabbed her just like that. "No fair! I was talkin' to Marci! Not playing!" The words came with a pout as she stood back up, her face as red as her hair or the leaves that were mixed in with it now.

A pout that didn't last long when Ben blinked and bounced back up, too. Not in the face of his grin. "'Bout what? Something fun?"

"Not for you, Ben!" Marci snapped back as she wrinkled her nose at him. He might be in her class and wear the uniform, but there was a reason that the teachers always sighed when they saw him before school or after lunch. A reason that just started with the leaves that were all over his shirt and ended with the mess of his hair. "You're too - too scruffy!"

"I AM NOT!" The boy shouted right back as his face went red and then his eyes darted over. "What's scruffy?"

"It means messy!" Gwen squealed out as she glomped him and forgot all about being mad in the delight of the new word. "And you are!"

"I am not! Stop it!" Ben said like it was the end of the world, but he didn't push her away, even as everyone else picked up the word and the giggle fit.

Everyone but Marci, who kept glaring even as she sat back on her heels and crossed her arms. "And that's why you can't come tomorrow! Either of you! Cotillion is fancy!"

And neither of them were even close. Not with leaves in their hair and dirt on their knees and elbows and noses. More on Gwen, because at least he was wearing pants and was a boy. Not that Gwen ever remembered that she wasn't. Not when she'd run across the playground with all the other boys or climb the jungle gym with them until Mrs. Anderson reminded her that she was wearing a skirt. 'Specially not now as she grabbed the table and scrambled up. "Can too!" Gwen shouted, her face burning red again as her eyes narrowed and she stomped her foot. "You're just being mean!"

"Nuh uh!" Marci shouted right back as she jumped up to her feet because she had, and her next words only caught a little as she added, "And you started it!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

The two were nose to nose when the table shifted again. "Don't yell at my Gwen!" Ben shouted, his face dark as he stood at her side like he always did. Stood at her side and found her hand even as all the girls Marci thought were her friends backed away even before Mrs. Anderson shouted, "Benjamin, Gwendolyn, Marci! What do you three think you're doing?"

Marci blinked when she heard her name shouted, too, and felt her lip quiver as they all spun around because it wasn't fair! It wasn't fair that she was in trouble, too, or that they got to roll around in the dirt with nothing more than the teacher sighing their names as she picked the leaves off of them, or that the three got marched back inside even though lunch still had ten minutes left.

Or that Ben and Gwen got to sit together while she sat all alone and sniffled just 'cause they always got to since forever and ever ago and the teachers always liked the red head best.

"Is Cotillion really fancy?" she heard Ben mumble from across the room as he shot a look at her. One that was dark for a whole new reason before he slumped down in his desk. "I don't wanna be fancy! You said - "

"You're not fancy, Ben!" Gwen said right back from her seat behind him. A seat she was half draped over as she brushed dirt and leaves from his collar and giggled again. "You're scruffy! My scruffy!" Even with the lights off, Marci could see them glow as she said it, and she saw the look she got a second later from the girl who used to be her best friend and best dolly for a whole week. And all Marci could do was glare.

None of it was fair, but at least she knew Gwen was fibbing and she wouldn't have to look at either of them tomorrow!

- o - o - o - o - o -

Halvarrsen Etiquette and Dance Studio

Saturday, September 16th, 1995

9:54 A.M.

Mrs. Edith Halvarrsen had seen quite a lot of young girls come through the doors of her studio. The ballet program had always been the main draw, and she had other teachers to help her with that, but she was especially proud of the Cotillion program. It was the one she still taught herself.

There was something so very refined about it, even in the junior program. The pageantry. The formalized patterns of behavior. The script of the dances. In ages of refinement long past, Cotillion referred to the formal outings where young women entered the halls of high society.

Now, it was more of a glorified excuse to teach manners and ballroom dancing, and occasionally etiquette. Edith did her level best to try and drill the more old-fashioned ways into the heads of the girls who came through her doors. Her program was famous for turning out not just impressively refined young women, but debutantes. And she would have loved to do the same for gentlemen as well, but most parents of young boys, even in the circles her name was frequented, found it less deserving of their son's time compared to their daughters.

That was why she had been so thrilled when Natalie Larr- sorry, Tennyson had called and said that would it be all right if there was a tagalong to her daughter Gwendolyn? There was a cousin exactly her age she apparently did everything with, and given how exhausted the poor woman sounded, there had been some fights about the matter of her daughter coming to Cotillion if it meant her cousin Benjamin wasn't there as well. Mrs. Halvarrsen had laughed at that, more than was polite, but she happily agreed to it. At last, a young man who could be used as a dancing partner! Those were always in such short supply, she even agreed to waive half of his sign-up fee, provided that he stayed the entire time that Gwendolyn did.

It was only a little white lie - especially when Elna's donations covered both their tuitions easily enough that the fee she charged Natalie was more for show than anything else - and an easy enough decision. That's what she told herself anyway, until she saw a silver minivan that was new enough, but decidedly not up to the standards set by all the other cars in the parking lot, pull up.

"There's always someone who needs directions," Edith sighed even as she looked for one of her assistants even as she kept greeting her students and their parents because learning was best done by example and so she could see just how much work she'd have ahead of her.

She had no idea until she saw the driver's door open and heard a little boy wail - "I don't wanna! I look fancy!" - from somewhere inside even before the woman in the driver's seat could slip out and she didn't know how the boy managed to make that word sound dirty either, but he did.

"Ben!" The woman called out, her voice a mix of frazzled and embarrassed as she looked back before she slammed her door and hurried around to the one on the side as Edith blinked at the sight of her.

Blinked and whispered "Lydia!" Under her breath. She wasn't a snob and she opened her doors to anyone who wanted to learn, but honestly. It was bad enough that the woman's dress looked like she'd gotten it from the mall, but her hair? Who ruined blond hair as long and as lovely as that by putting a blue streak in it that ran from behind her ear all the way down?

Not a lady, that much was certain.

Lydia, the dear woman, was instantly at her side. "Yes Edith?" She asked, and Edith didn't have to do more than turn her gaze out and nod for her assistant to catch sight of the silver minivan and then catch on. "Ah. Right. I'll take care of it." Edith meant to thank her, but she was distracted by the sight of a set of familiar eyes underneath a perfectly styled head of red hair.

"Natalie. So good to see you." Edith greeted the daughter of her old friend with a beatific and immaculate smile, sliding up and holding out her hands palms down. Natalie grasped Edith's hands in her own and smiled back at her. A shift of movement led her to look down at Natalie's side, and there was a beautiful little girl with hair an even brighter red than her mother's, and sparkling green eyes that were looking all around. "And this must be Gwendolyn."

The girl swallowed then as she huddled close to her mother's leg and her gaze met Edith's for only a moment even as she waved a hand. "Hi!"

The word was barely more than a squeak that made her mother frown, but Edith was long practiced at this. "That simply will not do, Gwendolyn. Ladies don't say 'hi.'" She said as she tried for stern, but it was almost impossible when those eyes somehow got even bigger as Edith reached for the hem of her skirt and curtsied to the both of them like the girl was the Queen of England. "We say that it's a pleasure to meet you. Which it is."

Her knees ached a little at the gesture, but it was worth it just to see the girl's jaw drop at the display and watch Gwen take a step away from her mother so she could grab the hem of her own dress and make her own shakey attempt at the move and words. There wasn't a soul hardhearted enough that they wouldn't smile at the display. She just wished she kept the girl's attention for longer before she darted back to her mother's side and she started looking this way and that again.

"I can't tell you how much we've been looking forward to this." Natalie said to her as she brushed a hand over her daughter's hair in a vain attempt to make her stop fidgeting and looking around. "Thank you for accommodating her cousin, I know it had to be difficult…"

"Nonsense." Edith dismissed her concerns, taking another look at Gwendolyn, who wouldn't hold still. To be fair, all of the girls (And the only other boy in the class aside from Gwendolyn's still-absent cousin) were all a little nervous as they'd come in, but she wasn't acting at all like the bright and contienscious girl that Elna had promised she was.

"Where's Ben?" Gwendolyn asked in a voice that was nearly a mumble, and she turned her head and looked around so fast that it made her hair spin around.

"They should be here, Gwendolyn." Natalie said soothingly, and looked around herself while she kept speaking. "You know Ben lives a little farther out from here than we do…"

Edith felt a tiny shiver run down her spine, stuck in place from those two simple words. "Ben?" She said, already turning her eyes towards the parking lot where she'd sent her assistant to look in on the van and the woman who didn't seem to belong, a woman who'd had a child that she had called…

"BEN!" Gwen yelled, and took off running, paying no attention to her summer dress or her mother's (shout) loud gasp after her. Edith's face strained as she maintained her composure in the face of what would undoubtedly be the most problematic class she'd ever taught. Because of course the granddaughter of her dearest friend was the cousin of the scruffy-haired boy who fidgeted in a suit and bow tie he looked ready to tear off the moment he could.

Natalie let out a little gasp as her daughter glomped onto the boy with the uncombed mop of brown hair on his head, and Edith bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling as Lydia was stymied and left staring as Gwendolyn pulled back from the hug, talking a mile a minute and grinning like the eager and outgoing girl her mother had said she was. She didn't wait to even say hello to the blond-haired woman with the running stripe (Her aunt?) before she was dragging the boy behind her. Strangely, while he was still blushing and embarrassed, his protests had gone silent.

"That must be her cousin." Edith surmised, and Natalie nodded her head in surrender.

"That's Benjamin." She confirmed, with (a sigh) a louder exhale of air than normal even as her lips twitched up. "But he prefers Ben." They both fell silent as Gwendolyn and Ben came close enough that they could make out the conversation.

"...know why you're so embarrassed, we wear uniforms at school all the time! Besides, I think your bowtie's cute!"

"Gwen!" Ben whined, and fingered the offending garment, but he didn't tear it off either. They came to a stop next to them, and Ben waved shyly at Gwendolyn's mother. "Hi Aunt Lili."

"Hello Ben." Natalie replied, and motioned to Edith. "This is Mrs. Halvarrsen. She'll be your teacher. Please be respectful, and try to be the little gentleman I know you can be. All right?"

His blush increased and he ducked his head. "Okay, okay." He grumbled, but when Gwen squeezed his hand, his scowl softened.

"We're very happy to have you, Benjamin." Edith greeted him. "Cotillion is a time-honored tradition, you know. It may not seem important now, but in a few years, you'll be very glad you were here. You'll be so popular with the girls."

His blush came back in spades right as the blond-haired woman came up, laughing at his reaction. "Girls won't always be gross, Ben. After all, your cousin's a girl and you get along fine with her."

"Gwen's different." Ben muttered. "She's my Gwen."

Edith raised an eyebrow at that, but neither of the mothers seemed particularly surprised or worried by the possessiveness in his words. And Edith herself doubted that instinctive reaction when Gwen immediately pressed into his side, grinning.

"And he's my Scruffy!" She declared with a delighted squeal and another hug as the messy-haired boy groaned but didn't push her away. The noise made Edith wince and Natalie share an exasperated look with the blond woman who came rushing up and had the grace to look embarrassed even as she rolled her eyes. It should have been enough to set any Larrson off. Edith couldn't even imagine what Elna would have done if someone made that expression at her, but Natalie just sighed and smiled a little with the patience that only sisters shared.

So, perhaps the children really were cousins who acted more like close friends. Edith thought as she shook her head.

"I am certain that you will both learn a lot while you're here." Edith concluded, smiling at the children's mothers. "We'll be done in an hour and a half, if you have some other errands to run."

"Thank you, Edith." Natalie said, turning to Ben's mother, and the two gave Edith one last smile before turning and walking back to their cars. "Sandy, did you hear back from Max?"

"Yes, he's already got the barbecue pit started in our backyard. We just need to pick up the..." And from there, they were too far out and Edith was too distracted by the next people in line. By then, Lydia had returned, and after Edith waved the next girl into the building, she looked over to Lydia.

"My apologies. I made a wrong assumption." She said, and then took another look at Ben and Gwendolyn as they walked inside, still holding hands. "Could you keep an eye on those two for me?"

"You think that they're trouble?" Lydia asked in sotto voce. Edith watched them, trying to shake off the unease in the back of her mind.

"I'm not sure what they are."

- o - o - o - o - o -

"She's making all this up." The words were just a mumble as Ben stared at the mix of forks and spoons that were lined up around the plate in front of him. Marci glowered as she looked across the long, rectangular table that they were all sitting at while Mrs. Edith went over what all the little forks and spoons and knives meant, and what the difference was between the 'finger bowl' of rosewater that had been brought out to them first versus a bowl of clear broth. Ben had made the mistake of drinking a spoonful of the first, and the face he'd made had made everyone laugh. Even Gwen. It was too bad that it hadn't poisoned him. If it had, he would've left and then Marci could have been enjoying Cotillion instead of hating how Ben and Gwen were hogging all the attention. Again!

"She is not." Gwen whispered back, and looked down the table to where Mrs. Edith was sitting at the end, taking a moment to pause after she finished the first round of the explanations.

"Now, young ladies and gentlemen, I am sure that some of you have heard the saying, 'start on the outside and work your way in.' While that is generally true, there are occasional exceptions, as evidenced by the oyster fork, cake fork, and dessert spoon. When we get together again next week, there will be a quiz on these." The old woman's smile didn't break a bit as she looked down the table and locked her eyes on Ben. "But at least young Benjamin will never mistake his finger bowl of rosewater for a cup of broth again." There was a low titter of laughter while Ben blushed and looked down at his place setting, but he stopped looking so hurt when Gwen reached up and patted his shoulder.

Marci fumed even more at that. This was supposed to be special, and those two were ruining it! Heck, she could have put up with just having Gwen there if only Ben wasn't around! And Mrs. Edith had made it a point to single him and the other two boys out and to thank them for joining as well. That wouldn't have been so bad, really, because right after that she said hello to Marci in front of everybody as well, because Mrs. Edith knew her mommy.

The problem was that she knew Gwen's mommy, and was even friends with Gwen's grandmother. It was the first day of class and Marci was already behind. And Cotillion was just the start! This was the beginner's classes, and if she did a good enough job, then she could be invited to be a part of Mrs. Edith's ballet class as well. And sure, there were other dance programs in Bellwood, but Mrs. Edith's was the best. And mommy had always said that Hunters are always the best. So she had to make a good impression here. And Gwen should've been trying to make a good impression too, if she cared about anything besides showing off for her stupid cousin!

Mrs. Edith clapped her hands twice and Marci startled, looking up to the head of the table where the silver-haired woman stood up. "One last thing before we move to the ballroom for our dance lesson. When we stand up from a formal dinner party, it is considered polite for all the gentlemen to stand any time that one of the ladies does. No matter the reason." She glanced down the table expectantly, and Marci realized she was waiting for Ben and the other two boys to catch on.

Ben got up first with a small yelp, but Marci was sure that had more to do with Gwen pushing him than him being smart enough to get it himself. Or maybe she'd pinched his arm. Mrs. Edith didn't see it though, she just smiled more and gave him a nod.

Like he was special.

"Very good." The older woman said, when the other two were finally up on their feet again. "Now, let us adjourn. Come along, everyone! Today we are going to practice ballroom dancing by studying one of the classic forms; The Waltz!" All the girls in their class brightened up at that, even Marci, because who cared about silverware and place settings when they could be dancing?

The problem with dancing, Marci found out, was that a waltz needed a boy and a girl to work right, so out of a class of fourteen students with only three of them being boys, that meant that the girls had to wait and stand along the side of the room so they could take turns dancing with the boys. At least it wasn't entirely boring, Marci realized. All three of the boys were embarrassed, what she'd heard another girl at their school say was a 'hot mess' and Ben was the most embarrassed of the three. He was trying, but he managed to step on the foot of the first girl, which was something that Pierce and Daniel didn't even screw up that badly. She hadn't cried but her eyes had gotten wet and her lip had trembled while Ben sputtered and apologized over and over until he finally just backed away, and looked ready to run for it.

Marci was hoping that he would but Mrs. Edith had other plans. The old woman had taken him aside and spoken to him softly enough that nobody could hear, and Ben had breathed in and out a lot and nodded, calming back down again. Then she'd taken Ben back, patted him on the shoulder, and the three boys got to try again with different partners, and this time Ben got to dance with Olivia instead, who towered above him and made his arms stick up even more than usual to hold her. He didn't step on Olivia's toes, but he spent the entire time looking down at their feet and the circles they made while dancing weren't very big.

Marci fumed a little more until she looked over to Gwen further down along the side and realized that for as irritated as she felt, Gwen was a lot angrier. The red-haired girl had her hands down by her waist and she was balling them into fists and letting them go. She wasn't making a face, but she was watching the dancers very carefully. No, not the dancers, she was watching Ben and Olivia. But why?

Marci kept thinking about that until she was called up to dance next, along with Gwen and another girl. She rolled her eyes when Gwen got assigned to dance with Ben, because of course she would be. Let her dance with the scruffy boy, he was doing awful anyways. Marci smiled as she got paired up with Daniel, and he smiled back nervously even as he set one hand on her waist and held her other arm out to the side away from them. Daniel had been doing a little bit better than Ben, and his second dance was actually okay. And Marci had been dancing like this at home with her daddy sometimes when she'd been younger, so it was easy enough to get used to the cadence of it.

Halfway through the dance, with Mrs. Edith playing the orchestra music on an old fashioned record player in the corner of the ballroom, Marci looked over to see how Ben and Gwen were doing, and more importantly to see if he was messing up as bad as he had been before.

Her steps stuttered a bit and she lost track of where she was in her own dance when she saw Ben and Gwen smiling at each other, dancing like they'd been doing it for hours instead of only a few minutes. Daniel hissed her name and Marci flushed and apologized, picking the pace back up to stay in the dance with him. But she didn't stop watching Ben and Gwen. He wasn't looking down at their feet, and he wasn't uncomfortable. Neither of them seemed the least bit embarrassed. They looked like they were having fun. It made no sense to her! How could they be having fun? Dancing was important, that's what her mommy had told her! If she did good here, then she could get into ballet, and if she did good in ballet…

But. At the same time, there was something about how he moved with Gwen that was more. It took Marci a bit to realize what it was. He wanted to dance with her, and it made him dance so much better. Better than even Daniel was doing, and when Marci looked at Daniel's face, she could see how it was scrunched up in concentration. Ben wasn't thinking about dancing, he was just doing it. And Gwen looked so happy as they swirled around the hall, never looking away from each other. It took her a while before Marci realized why, and then she wasn't just irritated.

She was jealous. What did Gwen have that she didn't? If she'd been paired up with Ben, would he look at her like that? Like nothing else mattered?

"Wonderful!" Mrs. Edith exclaimed when she took the needle off of the record, and clapped her hands to end the dance. They all turned to look at her, and the old woman was beaming brightly. "Miss Gwendolyn, young Benjamin, that was very good! I've never had a young man who improved as quickly as you did." She laughed and shook her head. "My apologies, young man. I should have known you just needed a partner you could trust to get your feet under you." Ben blushed again and nodded while Gwen giggled. "Do you think that you could do that well with somebody else?" She asked, and Ben's eyes went wide. So did Gwen's.

"No!" The red-haired girl gasped, and wrapped her arms around one of his. "He's mine!"

A few of the other girls gasped, and Mrs. Edith blinked in surprise before she schooled her features. "Now, Gwendolyn. Everyone here needs to learn how to and Young Ladies should learn to share the gentlemen at a dance, it's only fair." Gwen narrowed her eyes, thinking about it, before Mrs. Edith added, "Tell you what. You let Ben dance with two more girls and I'll let you have one more dance with him before we dismiss for the day."

"...Okay." Gwen pouted, surrendering but not too happy about it. She let go of him and went back to the side of the room with Marci and the other girl while another three came forward for their turn.

Marci didn't pay much attention to anyone else after that. She looked between Ben, who was doing better than before but wasn't very happy while he danced with some girl she'd never seen before, and Gwen, who sat with her back against the wall and her arms crossed while she pouted and stared at the floor. She looked up every so often at Ben, but when he turned to look back at her, she ducked her eyes again.

Marci smiled as she realized why they were acting so funny. Gwen was jealous of the other girls! Because she wanted Ben all to herself! It was too late to do anything this week, the class was almost over, but next week…

Marci smiled to herself and only just kept from laughing and rubbing her hands together, like the bad guys did in the Saturday morning cartoons she'd watched while she was eating her cereal.

She had ideas for next week. She'd show Gwen. She didn't get to hog Ben all to herself just because they were like two peas in a pod. Marci wanted to dance with Ben too! She'd get her chance to dance with Ben and show him that she could be better than the red-haired girl. Maybe even get him to stop spending all his time with Gwen at school even! She'd show them both, and then Mrs. Edith would have to pay attention to her from then on!

It was going to be perfect.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Marci liked Amanda and Blair. Even when they didn't know why she was doing something, they followed along with her. So on Monday when they were all back at school, and Marci started telling Ben how amazing he was on Saturday and how it was nice that there was something that they could all do together, her friends didn't question it. Sure, they looked at each other and were a little confused, but they just played along even though they didn't know why.

Not like Marci felt the need to explain all her plans. She was a Hunter, and Hunters were good at getting what they wanted. No matter what. What she wanted was Ben and Gwen confused and more trusting than usual. They were, at first, and they kept looking at each other. But by Tuesday, when Marci asked (innocently) if they wouldn't mind spending some time at recess practicing the waltz they'd learned last Saturday so they could show everyone how amazing they were, Gwen and her scruffy cousin went along with it. Marci thought that they actually were enjoying it, by Wednesday. And, it was kind of nice having Gwen smiling at her and wanting to be around her again. Even if Ben was always there too. Not that she'd tell Gwen that. Not that she'd tell Ben that she was actually enjoying him being around for once, now that he wasn't always being so gross and immature all the time. But she did like how it felt dancing with him. They all took turns dancing with Ben, and Blair even took the boy's part in the dance so they could get more practice in, which was something Marci absolutely refused to do (Hunter Ladies never pretended to be boys, after all).

Mostly, though, aside from getting better at doing the waltz, Marci was watching Ben and Gwen. Looking for how they danced with each other, and how they reacted when they danced with anyone else. Ben didn't seem to mind a bit when Gwen danced with Blair, and he didn't seem to care anymore when he danced with anyone else besides Gwen. Especially since they'd asked the music teacher if they could take recess in her room so they could dance without anyone else watching, so it wasn't like there were any other boys who could see him dancing and make fun of him for it. Because Marci knew they would. Because they were boys, and they didn't know a thing about the finer things in life.

It still chafed, though, when she watched Ben and Gwen dance together. That was when he relaxed the most. That was when he wasn't just going through the steps. When he danced with Gwen, every time, his smile got a little bigger. And sometimes, he even would say something in a whisper that Marci couldn't hear and she would giggle. One time on Friday, he even tickled her while they were dancing, and Gwen busted out laughing as she squirmed away from him, and then he caught her and hugged her from behind while making bear noises.

Marci had wanted to get them comfortable and relaxed so she could pull her trick on Saturday and get them in trouble. But by Friday afternoon, when her mommy came and picked her up from school, Marci was more than a little jealous of Gwen. Because Ben was a boy, sure, but…

The way he looked at Gwen, and treated her nice, and took care of her...Marci realized why she was jealous. Because she wanted that too. So she changed her plan a little. It wasn't about getting Ben and Gwen into trouble any more, that had probably been a long shot.

But, maybe...Just maybe, she could steal Ben away from Gwen. Then Ben could do all those things for her instead. And besides, Ben and Gwen were cousins. They were family.

If Marci got Ben to start liking her, then they could be sweethearts. And when she lay in bed and snuggled under her blankets painted with unicorns, that thought made her smile as she closed her eyes. It might be nice, having a sweetheart. And Ben might turn out to be a good one. With a little more training.

Then Marci would be the girl that everyone looked up to.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Halvarrsen Etiquette and Dance Studio

Saturday, September 23rd, 1995

10:40 A.M.

The quiz on dinnerware had gone about as well as Marci had expected it to, and like everyone else, she'd been eager to move on to the dancing lesson afterwards. Mrs. Edith must have noticed that as well, because the old woman hadn't done anything more than to sigh softly and smile, without rolling her eyes or shaking her head. Like a real Lady, Marci heard her mommy's voice in her head. They'd moved to the ballroom where instead of going straight into the waltz again, Mrs. Edith had started them off with a new dance that she called the Quadrille, which had them pairing up into groups of four instead of two. Unlike the waltz, they were able to pair up in groups that weren't all boys, so Ben, Daniel, and Pierce each got put into a different square, and to Marci's delight, Gwen didn't get put into Ben's group. But Marci did.

Mrs. Edith's assistants were circling through the room after the first demonstration to give corrections and keep an eye on things, and there was a new (old) record playing from her machine in the corner with that trumpet sticking up out of it. The dance was kind of fun, but it wasn't nearly as much fun as the waltz had been. Mrs. Edith had talked about other kinds of dances that they'd learn as well, and most of those were between a boy and a girl also. For right now, though, Marci grinned as everyone kept up the pace in time with Mrs. Edith's called-out instructions and the pantomiming of her assistants, because this dance was hard. The Quadrille kept them bouncing between partners in their square of four, and then she and Ben were back together again, holding their hands up and their palms pressed together as they made a slow circle, stepping in time with the music.

She looked at Ben's green eyes, which were the same color as Gwen's, and that made her blink and look past him. Marci saw Gwen looking over towards them from her own group, and smiled and nodded back at the red-headed girl. Gwen didn't like not being around Ben, but she was holding up better than she had last week. Maybe that was because of all the practicing they'd done at school. Or maybe it was because there were two more people than usual dancing with Ben also. Gwen's face was a little pale, but she mustered a weak smile back.

So she was paying attention. Marci grinned and looked back to Ben. Good. She wanted Gwen paying attention for this.

"You've gotten lots better at this, Ben." Marci said to him with a giggle. Ben blushed under the praise and shrugged as he kept up the dance. "It's been nice, having you and Gwen around doing grownup things at recess. You're not bad for a boy."

"Um. Thanks?" Ben said unsurely. "But we can do other things too. Why don't you and your friends come play tag with us sometime? It's fun, honest!"

Hunter women don't run around like little hooligans, Marci. Marci blinked at her mommy's words and shook her head. "Thanks, but...Don't think I can." Ben shrugged again, and Marci felt a little funny. "Not tag, anyways. But maybe we could do something else?"

They traded partners, and Ben waited until the dance brought them back together again. "Like what?" He asked.

"Oh, I 'unno." Marci drawled, trying for something that she'd seen a woman do on TV once. "I just like being around you."

The Quadrille came to an end, and Mrs. Edith clapped her hands after turning her record player off. "Not bad! Not bad for a first attempt. Dances like this aren't quite as common as they were one or two hundred years ago, but it's excellent practice. You might one day find yourself at a square or a line dance, and no, we will not be practicing those. Still, if you can learn the Quadrille, you should be ready to do those when the time comes. But for now, we have the Waltz to review! Girls, line up along the wall and…"

Marci had been waiting for her opportunity, and now she took it, wrapping her arms around one of Ben's to hold him in place. "Mrs. Edith? Can me and Ben go first? We've been practicing!"

Mrs. Edith blinked, a little taken aback at the offer, and Ben let out a squeak. "Well...I don't see why not. If you've been practicing, I'm rather interested to see how you've improved. Yes, go ahead, Miss Hunter. And young Blair, why don't you partner up with Pierce, and Margherite, you…"

Marci stopped paying attention after that, because she was imagining a little her in her brain that was screaming happily and jumping up and down for joy. She glanced over to Gwen, who had gone pale with her mouth hanging open when she'd seen Marci glomp onto Ben's arm. Now as the assistants shooed everyone who wasn't getting ready for the first part of the Waltz over to the side of the room, Gwen's face was getting redder. And she wasn't watching Ben anymore, Marci thrilled. Gwen was finally watching her.

She'd show the Teacher's Pet. She'd show everyone. If she did this right, Ben would drop Gwen like a smelly towel and then everyone would be paying attention to her. And she'd be the one everyone liked!

They got into their positions, and Marci felt Ben's hand shift nervously on her waist. "It's okay. You can do this." Marci told him with a smile. "You've been doing this. Right? We practiced."

"Yeah." Ben answered. "It's just…" He looked over Marci's shoulder to the side of the room, and Marci knew he was looking at her. Marci harrumphed and tugged on his shoulder and his eyes snapped back to hers. They were blown wide, and she swallowed before giving him a nod.

"It's okay to dance with other people. Mrs. Edith said so." Marci told him. And then the music started, and they started in on the circles.

Marci knew what she had to do, but it was easy to per-cas-tinate and just enjoy the dance. Ben really had gotten better, and Marci realized she liked being held by him. The only problem was that she didn't have all of his attention. He kept looking away from Marci. He kept looking over to Gwen and nibbling his lip, and that made her angry. When she looked over to Gwen, she could see that the redhead's face was going purple and she was standing straight up. And some of the other girls had noticed the glare that Gwen was giving them. Or, giving her. Marci had seen Gwen get angry at Ben before, and she'd never looked that angry even when she was yelling at him. So, she was angry at Marci. Angry enough that if something happened, she might do something that would get her in trouble with Mrs. Edith and the other instructors. Something that would get her kicked out of Cotillion. Just like Marci wanted.

"Hey, Ben?" She started out, and he looked back to her. "Does Gwen like you?"

"What?" He blurted out, and missed a step. One of the instructors corrected them and he called out a 'sorry' before finding his feet again. "Of course she does."

"Nooo." Marci sighed, and she squeezed his shoulder again. "I mean, does she like-like you?"

Ben frowned. "What's that mean?"

"Is she your sweetheart?" Marci went on, and now he finally caught on, blushing. "Because I've never seen her say anything like that to you. Or give you a special hug. Or kiss you."

Ben's face was red as a beet, and he looked over to Gwen again. Or he tried to anyways, his eyes shot down to the floor and he shook his head.

"I'm...she...She's Gwen!" Ben stammered out, like that meant something important.

"But I could be more." Marci offered slyly, and she leaned in closer to him. Because she was a little bit taller than he was, it meant she was leaning over him also, and his eyes went wide as she pulled her head down, puckered her lips…

And then Marci Hunter kissed Ben Tennyson, on the cheek, in front of everyone in the class and she felt a tingle where her lips touched his face.

One that vanished as his hand left hers and he shoved her away even as she thought she heard someone shout out her name. And maybe she heard the record cut off and skip as she stumbled back. But mostly she was looking at Ben who was stiff as a statue and staring back at her with those big green eyes of his as she got her feet back under her and…

And he pushed her away! Daddy never did that when mommy kissed him!

Marci felt her mouth drop and hot tears fill her eyes as she tried to figure out why even as she heard the loud footsteps coming towards them a moment before small arms that were full of power ripped her away from Ben and spun her around, and Marci found herself staring into the angry face of Gwen Tennyson, as red as her hair.

"He's MINE!" Gwen shouted, and pushed her hard enough that Marci lost her balance and fell to the floor with a cry. "My Ben! Not yours! Don't you ever do that again!" The girl screamed. Marci's butt hurt from the hard floor and she was embarrassed, and she could see that everyone else in the ballroom was staring at them. Even the teachers were frozen, like they didn't know what to do.

"Gwen, I'm okay." Ben stammered out, and he rubbed at his cheek like it was covered in dirt. That hurt Marci more than anything, and her hurt feelings bubbled up out of her. She'd just...in front of everyone, and it didn't mean a thing to him?! And Gwen got away with saying something like that, and Ben let her? And none of the teachers did anything?

It wasn't fair. It wasn't FAIR!

"Is not!" Marci yelled back, shoving herself off of the floor and hollering back at Gwen with everything she felt as she stomped her foot. "You two aren't mommies and daddies or nothing!"

"Benjamin! Gwendolyn! Miss Hunter!" Mrs. Edith bellowed as she stormed over, and the closest of her assistants finally moved and pulled them all apart. "What in heaven's name has gotten into all of you?" She shook her head widely, exhaled loudly, and gestured to her assistants. "Lydia, Maureen, take them to my office. I'll talk to them. Later. But first, why don't we finish up with another practice round of the Quadrille? With Ben gone, it would be easier to make groups of four again."

Marci felt numb as Miss Lydia led her away, a feeling that lasted as she shuffled down the hall that went on forever and past the chairs that were waiting just outside the office. The ones that the hand on her shoulder guided her right by as she was led into the office like she was Flint and mean so she could sit on the chair on the bad side of the desk.

She didn't do anything more than sniffle into her knees after she pulled herself up into it as she was let go. Not when she knew she'd be left in here all alone even though she didn't do anything like always. Not until she heard Ms. Maureen say from the other side of the open door. "No. You can sit in the chair over there, Benjamin," and the horrible gasps that followed.

Marci's eyes were still wet as her head shot up and she scrambled around so she could look over the back of the seat, not that she could see anything, not until the woman went marching by the door as she pulled a red faced and screaming Ben behind her, but she could still hear everything that happened just before that.

"No! It's not fair! You can't - !" "

"I'm sorry! I'm - !"

Words that disappeared as the woman yelled. "No! That's enough! Proper ladies and gentlemen do not shove!"

There was more after that more that didn't matter. Not nearly as much as the fact that it wasn't just her! Marci's heart raced at the thought. They were in trouble, too! Her heart raced as she knelt there and just listened as Gwen cried and Ben howled as they were pulled apart just like they deserved. Like she always wanted ever since they were little and…

And it didn't help. Not as Marci felt the hot tears finally slipped free as she buried her face in the leather back of the chair and cried with them.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: The Kids Big Day

By Shadows59 and Erico

Gwen Tennyson's House

September 23rd, 1995

3:07 pm

Frank Tennyson tried his best to be a good husband and a better father every day. There were times that he didn't always love his job and what it required of him, but it was worth the hours and the working at home on some weekends to know that his Lily flower and his little girl were taken care of. Gwen was so smart, and more than that, she was bright and cheerful. Not even that break-in had kept her spirits down for very long, not with her cousin around to help keep her mind off of it and her feet and her hands busy with games and whatever else they always seemed to get involved in. Frank had been taking more work home at night after that horrible experience, and even Ma - even his father had been spending more time with Frank and Carl and their families and had been doing his best to mend the old fences. It seemed like everything was going good for a change, as good as they could be with Frank and everyone else still missing their mom. He was sure that the worst of his parenting troubles were behind him, at least until Gwen hit puberty.

He'd been out at the office in the morning even though it was a sunny Saturday because he knew that his girls were busy and the work never stopped. So he was filling out some requests for discovery and making preparations for the next case that his firm had handed off to him when he got a perturbed phone call from Lili that left him wincing, and promising to be back later in the afternoon once he'd finished up everything that still needed doing. It would give him time to cool off, would give Lili time to cool off, and give Gwen a chance to think about what she'd done before he talked with her. Frank had never thought that he'd ever be having a talk with his daughter about not shoving people. He'd been certain that Carl would have had that talk with Ben instead.

He wasn't even sure if Gwen and Ben would be allowed back in Cotillion after the dust settled. That was Lili's big fear, that this 'incident' would ruin her entire future. Frank was more pragmatic about it. They were 7 years old going on 8. If Mrs. Halvarrsen banned them from coming back or taking any of her school's other courses, doubtless Lili would find something for Gwen to do to fill in the space. It wasn't the end of the world. It was just disappointing.

Lili stood up from the couch in the living room as he walked in from the garage, her blue eyes a storm of worry, and her face drawn as she put down the photo album of the kids as babies that always came out when she was upset. An album that Frank just glanced at as he set his briefcase down next to the kitchen door and went over to her. She slipped into his arms and buried her face in his chest, and he sighed and kissed her hair as she hugged him tightly.

"So. How bad are things?" He asked.

"They're not allowed back next week," Lili said quietly, pulling back from his chest far enough to be heard clearly. "But after that, she can come back. Provided Gwen apologizes to everyone, and Ben won't be allowed to sit next to her or be her partner for the rest of the session. Which isn't really that much time, it's just a six-week course, but…"

"She's going to hate it." Frank realized. Those two did everything together, and he hadn't been surprised to hear that it had been the catalyst for the fight Gwen got into, as Lili related it to him from the teachers. "So. What have you done so far, and what do you want me to do?"

"I sent her up to her room, and told her she couldn't come out until you got home and talked to her." Lili shook her head. "I was thinking about punishments all afternoon when I wasn't on the phone with Mrs. Halvarrsen begging her to not kick Gwen out. I think she needs some time where she isn't around Ben, aside from school."

Frank winced. "Cold turkey?" He asked dubiously, which earned a glare from Lili.

"If she thinks she can hog Ben all to herself when there's only three boys that all the girls in the class have to share, then I think she could use some time away from him. Don't you?"

He laughed and kissed her forehead to mollify her. "All right, all right. But it's going to be lonely over here on the weekends. I was just getting used to not being outnumbered by my best girls, you know."

"Oh, you." Lili huffed, trying to stay irritated and failing utterly as he worked a kiss out of her. She put a hand on his chest after and pushed him away. "Now get going. I need to figure out what to get started for dinner, and you need to have a talk with our daughter about what Ladies never do." Frank nodded, loosened his tie, and gave her one last kiss before moving to the landing at the bottom of the stairs.

Stairs he didn't take with his usual rush because, for all that he loved his Lily, she sometimes forgot that the son of a plumber and a beatnik knew as much about what ladies did as his father did about cooking. But fighting? His mother had all sorts of advice about fighting. Most of which he didn't dare share with his daughter. Not now while she was just seven and hopefully not ever.

It was the Irish in her, his father had laughed on the rare occasions when he was home and his mother was in a mood, but never when she was around. And when she was...

Frank took a page from his father's book when he heard the soft sound of sniffling. Not from the closed door on the left like he expected, but from his office on the other side of the hall. He followed the sound and found his little angel curled up under the desk in his office instead, still in her fancy dress and with a book in her lap. One that he could tell she wasn't reading just by how she wasn't touching the page of flowers.

Not the kind he heard about from the other parents in his office, either. Or if they were getting science books full of the crosssections of plants and animals that were marked for kids a good three years older who wanted to know how things worked, they kept it to themselves. He knew his daughter was special and Frank couldn't help the pride in his voice at the thought even as he made it rumble a little. "I thought that your mother said that you had to stay in your room, Pumpkin."

It was a rumble that he regretted the second he saw her jump and almost bang her little head on the hardwood over it. And if that wasn't enough, seeing the bloodshot red that surrounded the green in her eyes almost broke him as her head twisted around and up. "Daddy?" she squeaked and squirmed like she was about to bolt.

An open and shut case, Frank could hear every prosecutor he'd gone up against saying right now, but there was a reason that he'd never gone in for that side of the law. It was the same reason that he sat down on the carpet next to her right now and held open his arms.

Gwen was stronger than he was. She held out for a whole three seconds before she charged into them and she hid her tears until her face was well buried in his shoulder. Tears he let run until they stopped, and that was when he finally said, "What happened, Pumpkin?"

He felt Gwen go stiff with surprise and worry in his arms, and he had to strain to hear her as she mumbled into his shoulder, "Didn't mommy - ?"

"She did," Frank said with a calmness that was well-practiced. "But I wanted to hear it from you."

"Marci was being mean again," Gwen hissed like the cats that she loved so much and that they couldn't own. Not when she'd gotten his mother's allergy along with the Irish temper. "I thought that maybe we were going to be friends again because she was being nice all week and then… then… she kissed my Scruffy!"

"Scruffy?" Frank asked with a sudden bit of worry as his mind raced over all the dolls and stuffed animals that filled his daughter's room and their names because this wasn't a test he was expecting.

And one he knew he failed just from the pinched look that filled that little face. "Ben!" She shouted like it was obvious. "He's my scruffy!"

Which… was something that Frank realized he couldn't argue with. Not when he was trying so hard to act stern when all he wanted to do was grin. "And she…?" He started to ask, and his baby's glare only got hotter as she nodded. "The little devil got the Tennyson charm early."

The words were just a whisper and certainly nothing that he wanted little ears hearing. It was a thought that worked out just as well now as it did when he was little or when he was out with his wife, because he didn't know which woman his baby girl got her hearing from, but he knew it was one of them when he felt little hands give him a shove. One that reminded him why he was here even as she cried out, "Daddy!"

"Gwen," he said as he rocked back half an inch and took her by the shoulder so she couldn't do it again. "We don't shove people, honey. You know that."

"I know," Gwen said, because of course she did, or else he wouldn't have seen her face fall in the split second before she ducked her head as her arms went around her middle.

"She shouldn't have kissed him," he said, and this time he managed to keep the pride from his voice, "but you don't get to push people either. So you're going back to your room and you're going to write an apology note to Marci, okay?" That should have been that. His daughter was a good girl, the misery in her voice proved that and he should enjoy the quiet while it lasted because maybe the kids should spend some more time apart, but there would be hell to pay when they found out about it. Maybe it would have been if he'd just left it at that instead of saying, "Honestly, Gwen. I don't even know where you learned that from."

"Mommy," the girl said instantly, her face pinched again as she thought. "I saw her push that lady the last time we went to Mormor's and - "

And Frank felt his face burn at the memory of that party. The ones his father-in-law threw were always a bit much, but nothing like that had ever happened before. "H - how did you even… Your cousin Sunny was supposed to be watching you!"

"That's what I was coming to tell you!" Gwen said, her face fierce as she looked up. "She was talking on her phone and not reading me my story like she said she would and - "

And it was a look whose sources were unquestionable, a combination of nature and nurture. Not when he saw the pursed lips when he walked into the house today and he still had nightmares about the looks he'd gotten as he grew up and just did something stupid thing or another. His daughter was a mix of the best and worst parts of the most important women in his life, and that was usually okay. "Your mommy shouldn't have done that either," he said, even though he didn't blame her a bit. Not after a woman she swore used to be her best friend did her best to shove her tongue down his throat right there in front of everyone before she broke away with a sneer and a snort and said, ''You're the nerd who made Natalie boring?'

There weren't words for what happened after, even if in-laws tried to find them after he got his wife off of her ex-best friend. Not words that his daughter was ever going to hear if he had his way anyway. There weren't any words now either, but he tried anyway. "She shouldn't have, and that's different."

It wasn't enough. Not when his daughter put her hands on her hips and demanded, "Why?"

"Because," Frank tried before he hit on the obvious. "Because your mother and I are married and that means nobody can kiss me but her."

It would have been good enough for a judge and must have been good enough for Gwen, too, because she went so quiet after as she made her thinking face. One that didn't go anywhere as he led his daughter back to her room and the apology note that was waiting for her to write. And he almost felt proud of himself as she made a little nod after he told her to be good and she picked up her pencil…

It didn't occur to him then, but he should have remembered something his dad said to him once when he'd been little. About how sometimes rockslides started with pebbles rattling loose. It would be a good six years before he found out just what he set in motion with those words.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Angelwood Academy

September 27, 1995

10:30 am

"But it's gonna be dress-up day!"

Olivia heard the words and at any other time, she would have been groaning right along with Maria because she already had hers all picked out and nobody was a better Applejack than her! She would have if she didn't have hearts in her eyes as she clapped her hands together and let out a squeal because her best friend in the world always had the best games and this one sounded like the bestest! "This is gonna be so much fun!"

And it was a good thing that they were in the corner of the playground with all the bushes because those words were out of her mouth before she remembered that Gwen said that this had to be a secret. "Sorry," she squeaked out between her fingers.

Anyone else might have yelled, but Gwen was grinning too wide to get mad or sit still as the three of them sat in a circle. "I know!" She said, her face glowing for the first time since Saturday. A glow that didn't go away even as she grabbed for her backpack and got the look on her face that she always did when it was time to study as she pulled out a handful of papers. "But we've got a lot of work to do first so we can get everything! Mommy showed me her album last night so I know just what we need, but the boys - "

"The boys?" Maria moaned as she threw herself back into the grass with a groan. "We gotta play with the boys?"

"Stop acting like Marci!" Olivia said as she poked her friend's knee with her foot and laughed at the gasp the words got. "You heard Gwen! We gotta do it right and they're not that bad! And we get to dress up!" Their prettiest dresses Gwen said, and she was ready to swoon at the thought.

At all the thoughts. "It's gonna be like Beauty and the Beast!"

"Beauty and the Scruffy!" Gwen said with a giggle and a nod as she handed over the papers that listed stuff like flowers and rice. "We gotta lot to do before next Friday! Ben said he'd talk to the boys, but - "

There was just a touch of worry at that, not that Olivia knew why. All the boys listened to Ben and everyone knew it. Even Flint at least pretended to and that was why it was her turn to throw herself back into the grass. The only one who didn't was -

"Marci!" She howled the second she saw the shoes hiding on the other side of the bushes. Shoes everyone knew because the blond was always showing them off after her mommy had them made special. Or she did until everything that happened on Saturday and even Blair and Amanda were ignoring her now. Not that any of that mattered as much as the fact that Gwen couldn't play on Sunday because of her and looked so sad all week because she couldn't play her with her Ben at all anymore just because that girl always had to ruin everything by being mean.

That's what Olivia thought the whole time she chased the blond off with Maria's help and it kept her grinning until she turned around and saw Gwen standing there with her arms around her middle and her face sad. "What? Did you wanna play with her, too?" There wasn't any hiding the shock in her voice. Not since Gwen had been fighting with her since forever, but her bestest friend was always a little strange and that was part of the fun.

"She just looked so - " Gwen whispered before she shook her head and the smile came back. Mostly. "Ben already talked to Matthew and he'd said he'd do it if he can catch you the next time we play tag, Olivia."

"What!?" Olivia couldn't help her gasp as she forgot all about the mean girl and spun on her best friend. Being the fastest was the only good thing about being the tallest, too, and she loved how mad the boys got when they chased after her. "But nobody but you and Ben can - !"

"We need him!" Maria broke in, her dark eyes wide as she grabbed Oliva's arm. "You know that he's learned all the words from his daddy!"

That did it. That and the look in her bestest friend's green eyes. "Okay, but only once!" She could live with being caught once. Especially for the best game ever. A game that still needed so much planning as she looked up at the leaves that were just starting to change color and realized that they'd need flowers. "And we've got to get - "

- o - o - o - o - o -

Angelwood Academy

October 6th, 1995

7:25 am

"Okay, Carol, I want to know how you did it."

Carol blinked as she rushed into the Teacher's Lounge to get a cup of coffee even though she was already late and she blinked again when she saw the Cheshire cat grin on Anna's face. "Did what?"

"Get them all to dress like that!" The Kindergarten teacher said with a sparkle. "When they were in my class they either came in their pajamas or some horrid costume and I want to know your secret. "

"You can't eat the paste either, Ahn," Carol teased her friend as she shook her head, lost, and happy for the warmth that filled her mug. Today would have been a long one even if she didn't get caught in all the traffic this morning. And all the longer because the kids wouldn't be in uniform and would be all the wilder because of it. And if they stood out enough that the other teachers noticed…

She couldn't help her sigh as she rushed out the door before the kindergarten teacher could say anything more. "Wish me luck!" A rush that wouldn't have happened if she wasn't so sure that Mrs. Coldwell would catch her in the almost empty hall. Almost, even if it seemed like every teacher there saw her and grinned as she rushed by their classrooms. Somehow she managed to make it to her class before the second bell rang, and she only paused for a moment at the door to steel herself as she heard all the excited voices on the other side. Voices that didn't die as she pushed it open with an "All right, everyone. I know that dressing up is fun, but - "

And that was as far as she got before words just failed her.

Not because the class was divided between the boys and girls or who they were grouped up around. That was the norm in most of the classes she'd taught and only a little strange in this one. It wasn't even a surprise who they were gathered up around. No, the only surprise there was that Ben and Gwen were sitting on opposite sides of the class instead of next to each other like they always did and that there was a whole crowd between them.

That should have been the biggest shock, but it wasn't. "I see that you all took dress-up day seriously." Those words were the only ones that made it past the shock. The day was usually a riot of colors and cartoon characters, but not today. Today she just gawked because all the girls were in the prettiest dresses and the boys….

The boys all wore suits. The smallest, cutest suits that Carol had ever seen and there weren't words.

The girls were far happier about it than the boys - all but Miss Hunter, who was just as pretty in her dress but looked as lost as Carol felt - most of whom were squirming and pulling at their ties as they stood around Ben, who looked the most nervous of them all. "What's - ?" She started to ask as she wished she had a camera.

And then normal came rushing back as Olivia called out, "Is it time for recess?" A whole cacophony of voices followed that. All of them excited, and no one as excited as the redhead who sat next to her, who just bounced in her seat in the middle of the circle of girls and was the only one who wasn't splashed in color. No, Gwen's dress was the only plain white one in the room. One that wasn't any less pretty because of it, but she'd seen little girls burst into tears over things like that before. Not that Gwen seemed even close to that as she stood by her desk with a grin so wide that she looked ready to explode as all the other girls fussed over her.

"We have to do math and spelling first," Carol said in the face of the groans that followed. Groans that didn't touch her smile because not even the Grinch could stay mad today. Not when her kids were so adorable. "But maybe if you all sit down we'll take a few extra minutes outside today."

She didn't expect the cheer that came from that. One that almost made her wish that it was time for recess, too, even though she didn't have a clue what was going on.

- o - o - One Math and Spelling Class Later - o - o -

Ben stood there in front of everyone and felt like he had all the frogs he'd ever caught hopping around in his stomach, even though it was recess and it should have been fun.

Gwen promised that this game would be, but she wasn't here. No, she was off with the girls in the back, girls who had all been giggling every time that they saw Ben for the last week and a half and it was just everyone else staring at him as he stood there all alone with Matt behind him, and he was the only one who looked more nervous than he did.

Still nervous or not…

"Flint!" Ben hissed as the boy tried to slip away. Not that he cared, not when he was always trying to shove everyone else around, but Gwen said everybody had to play if they were going to do it right. The boy glared back or tried to before the other boys surrounded him and pushed him back into his place because they wanted to play the game, too, even if they didn't understand it any better than Ben did, but Gwen always came up with fun games that no one else ever heard of.

And seeing Flint go pale was fun all on its own, even if it didn't last long before the girls all came rushing back into the little clearing that they usually played tag in and the music started from a small boombox that Vince had brought with him and even had his dad buy batteries for. The sappy kind of music that Ben usually rolled his eyes at and he would've now, too, except he finally saw his Gwen again as she made her way up the aisle in the middle that Maria had chased everyone else out of.

It wasn't her white dress that made him stop pulling at the sleeves of the jacket that he was told that he had to wear today. Not when he'd seen it before. It wasn't even the huge net-like thing that she had over her face. One that would've dragged on the ground behind her if Olivia wasn't holding up the back. No, it was her smile under it.

Ben always loved it when he made his Gwen grin and she'd never grinned like she was now, even if he didn't know why she was just walking when she could be running, or why she had a bunch of flowers in her hands and more in her hair.

It was a look that made Ben feel even warmer and funnier than he had before as he just stood there and stared until she was just a few steps away. Then her smile faded as she got the little wrinkle in her brow he was always teasing her about because it meant that she was thinking too much. "Ben?"

And she was thinking way too much right now, he could tell just from the little shake in her voice. Somehow that let him use his again as he just kept staring at her and not any of the kids they went to class with. "This game is weird, Gwen."

It wasn't just him complaining. Not completely. And he didn't tear off his jacket and tie so he could run and play even though that was all he was thinking about doing all morning. That thought went away the second he saw her squeeze her flowers. "I know…" Gwen said as she swallowed hard and everyone behind her started shifting because this wasn't in the plans she'd handed out and he had shoved in his pocket because there was so much. "We don't haveta if you don't - "

The words should have made him feel better, but they didn't. Not when he could see all the girls behind her and the looks that they were giving him. The same ones that he'd been getting since Marci… "You're right about the rules, right?" He asked, his voice squeaking. "Nobody can kiss me after this?"

Because he could still feel Marci's lips on his cheek, and it was only the warnings from his parents when they let him bring his suit today that kept him from wiping it off with his sleeve again. He was sure that he had cooties now because of it, just from the way his heart was racing right now as he looked at the girl in front of him. One who had a look as fierce now when she heard that as she had when it happened. "Nope! Nobody but me!" And then that fierce look broke as she looked down and dug her toe at the grass. "Unless you don't want me - "

"It's okay if you kiss me," Ben cut her off without even thinking about it because it was true. Marci was an icky girl, but Gwen…

She was his Gwen and her kisses were as good as her games and almost as good as her smiles. And he'd never seen her have one as big as the one as she got at those words. And it only got bigger as she took his hand and the two turned to Matthew. The game still didn't make any sense and the feel of her holding his hand made the tingles so much worse, but Ben didn't care. Not if it made her smile like this. She smiled until he couldn't help but smile back as the boy in front of them let out a squeaky, "Dearly Beloved…"

- o - o - Two Minutes Later - o - o -

Gwen wanted to bounce on her toes because it was all going so well!

It was just like all the pictures in her mommy's album, even if her dress wasn't big enough for her to have a pillow down the front of it like her mother had in hers. But that was okay, her mommy said that she hoped that she didn't when she asked if she had to have one when she was married. She said it with a laugh and a kiss, so Gwen knew it was true. She tried anyway just so she would match all the pictures as well as everyone else did as they stood in lines behind her all dressed up and Ben…

Her Ben looked every bit as handsome standing there as her daddy did in the albums. She just wished that someone had a camera.

And that her hand would stop tingling as Ben held it.

The feeling went all the way up to her shoulder now, and it almost felt like it did when she'd fallen asleep on it, except she could still feel Ben's hand in hers as they stood together in front of all their friends. She would've asked for a time out, except her mommy laughed at that and it wasn't on her list now. So she did her best to ignore it as Matthew said to Julio, "Do you have the rings?"

Julio blinked at that and everyone else held their breath even though it was his only job. Then his hands went in his pockets. "Si!" He said, nerves making him talk funny for just a second as he pulled out the two Kangaroo Kommando Decoder rings that Ben gave him. They were the same ones that Gwen had seen once before in his bedroom back before they even started Cotillion. He'd spent all summer eating cereal to try and get one, and then he'd gone crazy when he opened one box and there were two inside of it. She still had the sticker packs from the boxes that hadn't had them back in her room, even. Ben glowed as he grabbed the first one out of Julio's hand, while Olivia took the second. Ben reached for her left hand, and he wobbled a little as he looked down at her fingers. He couldn't have forgotten already which hand it went on, could he? But then again, Gwen felt so nervous, and when she looked at him, she could tell he was too. So she wiggled her second finger for him, and he smiled and slipped it on. It was plastic and it felt a little weird at first, but Gwen felt so warm when he breathed out after and rubbed his thumb over the top of it. And then she didn't want to take it off. She never wanted to take it off ever again.

She felt so warm and so buzzy that she missed everything that Matthew said, but there wasn't anything that could distract her from how serious and excited her Ben sounded as he nodded and said, "I do."

And then it was her turn, only Olivia didn't forget about the ring. She was a good foot taller than Gwen, and she blushed a little as she bent over so Gwen could grab the ring without getting grass stains all over the toes of her shoes. She didn't dare. Not when she was in so much trouble already.

Trouble that she forgot about as she turned back to her Ben, scruffy already with his hair a mess even though she told him that he had to comb it. She should have yelled the second she saw it as she made it down the aisle, but her tongue wouldn't work when she saw him and it seemed right anyway, no matter what Mommy said. Gwen took the second ring and put it on the second finger on his left hand, and when they put their hands together, the feeling of them clinking together made her stare at him while his eyes got so big.

Almost as big as hers felt as she stared at him. She hadn't been able to all day even though everyone told her it was bad luck. Not when he looked so handsome in his suit. The handsomest boy ever, she thought through the tingles as she stared into his green eyes. Stared until she heard Matthew clear his throat and whisper. "You're supposed to say it now!"

Gwen jumped at the sound of his voice and the fact that she'd missed her cue. "I do!"

"Then I now pronounce you mommy and daddy!" Matthew said as everyone else let out a breath at that. Gwen could have kicked herself for screwing up the game. The game that she was almost sure was over until she heard the preacher's son stammer, "Uh, you can kiss the bride!"

And the world froze as Ben's eyes went wide. Wide enough that she almost didn't. But he was hers now. And she was his and she could. Him and the rules both said so and when he didn't move, she did.

Not on the cheek either. Not where Marci had made him shout and push. No, she pressed her lips against his and waited for the feeling of his hands shoving her away, too. But he didn't. He just blushed as he stood there for a kiss that was just going to be a peck because everything tingled now, but then there was a flash of light and she heard the gasps all around.

It was those gasps that finally made Ben pull back and let out one of his own as he looked up. "Gwen, look! The stars are back!" There was so much awe in his voice as she followed his gaze up and she let out a squeal when she saw that he was right. Only it wasn't the blue and the green ones this time. Just bright violet ones that danced around each other and everyone else like fireflies before they collided and burned violet. Lights that almost ruined everything as their friends started chasing them with giggles and shouts.

And then she felt Ben press his lips against hers and she knew that there wasn't a thing that could ruin today even as he pulled her into the chase, too.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Angelwood Academy

October 13th, 1995

12:25 am

Marci found the two of them sitting together under a tree and reading during lunch because of course they were. Or Gwen was reading anyway, as she slumped against Ben and he talked the whole time. " - if I was the pig I wouldn't have hidden in a house," he declared, so serious as he sat there even though it was such a dummy thing to say.

Serious even with the rings that they both still wore, which was so silly. They weren't even real!

"I know that you would, Ben!" Gwen harrumphed and poked his chest, her anger as fake as her ring.

"And you would, too," Ben said right back because that was as obvious as the grin that filled Gwen's face at the words.

A grin that didn't fade at all as she closed her eyes and tilted her nose up. "Only because someone needs to - " she started, and then she forgot about whatever it was that she was gonna say as her eyes shot wide open and she jumped to her feet. One of which she stomped as she hissed, "What do you want, Marci!"

And Marci swallowed hard as she stood there. She almost crushed the picture she was holding, the one that was her revenge for all the trouble that the two got her into and was the only reason no one played with her now. It was the only reason that she'd even brought a camera last week.

They deserved this.

"I was there," she said, her voice nothing like her mommy's as she said it even though she imagined that she'd be laughing right now all week as Gwen's face went pale and Ben's went red. "You didn't want me to play last week, but I was there anyway and I took this!"

The two were already in trouble. Everyone knew that Gwen's mommy hadn't let Ben come over at all since the fight at Cotillion and she was sure that the photo of the two kissing would have made it so much worse. They'd never be able to see each other again! It was everything that she ever wanted and why she'd brought her little disposable camera to begin with that had ten shots left in it from summer vacation, but she never thought she'd catch them doing something so bad! The thought of them in trouble was all that she could think about as she waited for her mommy to bring the pictures back so she'd have proof.

"Here," Marci said as she shoved the worst photo, the one of them kissing with all those weird lights in the air around them into Gwen's hands instead and she didn't know why. Marci didn't know what to say either, and one nasty thing after another died on her lips. She didn't say anything else except, "You were really pretty."

The words were a sniff as she turned away because she didn't want them in any more trouble. She figured that out at Cotillion. She didn't know what she wanted right now except to be alone.

Which made the glomp that almost knocked her down all the more surprising. "I'm not trying to get you in trouble!" She shouted, sure that a fight was starting and she was so tired of them.

Sure until Gwen squeaked, "Thank you!" Into her shoulder.

Sure until Ben shook his head and looked at the book that had tumbled down into the leaves when Gwen sprang to her feet. "You wanna read with us? Gwen isn't doing it right! Pigs can't build houses!"

The words were a joke and Marci knew it just from the way Gwen's mouth dropped at them before she went stomping over. "You can't say that! I'm your wife now, Scruffy!"

"Can, too!" Ben said as he stuck out his tongue and then he laughed as he grabbed the redhead and pulled her close as Gwen squealed. "I'm your husband!" The two giggled so hard at their game and the new words that they'd learned when the teacher heard everyone talking about mommies and daddies. But they hadn't told the teacher why they were talking about it, and nobody else in the class had either.

Giggles that only faded a little as two sets of green eyes finally turned back to Marci and Gwen asked, suddenly shy, "Do you wanna?"

"You two are weird," Marci said as she flipped her hair back just like her mommy taught her because she was a Hunter and they were just them, but Gwen didn't let her go. And then Ben was there, too, and she let herself smile for what felt like the first time since kindergarten because the hug felt that good. "But okay. Just for today!"

Once couldn't be that bad. She could be a Hunter tomorrow.

The rest of lunch went by so fast as she spent it reading with them. Reading when Gwen wasn't staring at the picture or hugging it against her chest anyway like it was the necklace that her daddy got mommy the other day instead of some dumb photo. As dumb as the boy that the redhead kept cuddling with even as the three of them took turns with the book. Turns that Ben didn't care about as he played with the bright red hair that was the first thing that Marci ever noticed all those years ago and hair that didn't compare to the rings on their fingers now. Rings that touched after Gwen grabbed for his hand after he tugged at her hair.

Rings that cut one of their arguments short as they just stared, and then Ben let out a squawk as Gwen kissed his cheek again. A squawk, but he didn't shove her away as Marci stared at that little peck that made them both turn so red as Gwen gave her a look after. One that made Marci hide behind the book that they were supposed to be reading because she should have been jealous, but she wasn't. And it wasn't because they were so weird either, even though they were.

So weird, but them being mommies and daddies together didn't seem wrong. Not at all.

Chapter Text

Chapter Six: The Kids Go Solo

By Erico

December 25th, 1995 C.E.

Gwen Tennyson's House

If there was one good thing about Thanksgiving and Christmas, it was that everyone in the family got together, which meant that even though their parents had done a lot to keep them from spending time together outside of school, they couldn't stop Ben from being around his Gwen during the holidays. Thanksgiving had been a riot, something he'd heard someone say in one of Aunt Lili's comedies where a man and a woman started off hating each other and then ended up kissing and hugging a lot.

Grandpa had come by, and even Aunt Vera had shown up with him. She insisted on pinching his cheeks then, and that had been the second bad thing about Aunt Vera being there (The first was all the time that she and Gwen spent making bird noises at each other), but it meant that the 'big table' was full enough that Uncle Frank and Aunt Lili had to set up a smaller one for him and Gwen. An entire table, all to themselves! And nobody had said anything when Gwen pulled her chair around to his side of it so they could sit together while they were eating. Then afterwards, while Aunt Lili and his mom and Aunt Vera were cleaning up the dishes in the kitchen, he and Gwen got to go out into the living room with their dads and Grandpa Max. They watched some football game somewhere, but Ben and Gwen sat in one of the comfy chairs, and she fell asleep lying half on top of him. He'd ended up falling asleep a little bit after, and it felt really nice.

The picture that their moms had taken of them after, while Grandpa Max and their dads watched with big grins was embarrassing, and a copy of it ended up in both of their picture albums. Ben was sure that they would be teasing them about it for years, but even that was worth it. He'd had one day where nobody argued with him and told him he couldn't spend the day doing stuff with Gwen, or being with Gwen. And he even got to take a nap with Gwen, which they hadn't done since they were little. He hadn't known how much he missed it.

Christmas had started out about the same, but without Aunt Vera around. Grandpa had said that she went to spend time with their other brother, Uncle Gordon and his family, but it was Christmas. And they were doing it at her house! He had a stocking full of tiny toys and chocolate and an orange and a box of cereal he ate for breakfast, and then when Grandpa and their parents finally got finished drinking their coffee, he and Gwen got to race out and scramble for the presents under the tree. He loved his new Kangaroo Kommando utility belt from Santa, and his folks even got Gwen a mask like the one the detective girl wore on Gwen's favorite TV show. There were other presents that weren't quite as good. A new sweater? Really? Ben hated sweaters, his parents got him one every year and he only ever wore it for the family pictures, and then he took it off and threw it into his closet and never looked at it again. And Aunt Lili got him books. At least Grandpa's was kind of cool, he gave them both fishing poles! Ben still remembered how much fun he and Gwen had fishing at Grandpa's favorite lake when they'd been little. The fishing poles meant that Grandpa wanted to do that again.

And then Gwen was tearing through the paper that covered her big present with Ben's help, and they both froze when they saw the box inside. The box and the doll that was wearing a funny and fluffy looking dress. "Daddy?" Gwen asked, and Ben thought she wasn't sure if she should smile or frown.

Ben didn't have any trouble knowing which way his face should be going. Especially when Uncle Frank brushed a hand through her hair and said, "Santa must have thought that you would want a doll that's taking the same classes you are, Pumpkin."

And then there wasn't any doubt at all as Aunt Natalie pulled out a piece of paper and her face glowed as she said what it meant.

"I don't wanna take ballet!" Ben said the second she stopped talking, his face scrunched up as Gwen stared at the papers, her smile fading a little. And then it died all together as his Aunt Lili cleared her throat. "It's... We didn't sign you up, Ben. It's just for Gwen."

"No Ben?" Gwen whispered, not really scared but disappointed. "But we're going to have so much fun! And - and - "

"Ballet is a special kind of dancing, Gwen." Aunt Lili went on, giving Gwen a small hug. "It's not something that they let boys do, and Mrs. Halvarrsen was…" She stopped and looked over to his mom and dad, and when Ben looked at his dad, he sighed a little.

"We didn't think that Ben would want to go back to that building after school, especially with what happened. And you just said you didn't want to, Ben." Ben ducked his head at that, feeling a little ashamed now. He had said that, but he didn't realize that it meant she'd be doing something else without him.

Aunt Lili started talking again right after. "Besides Gwen, Mrs. Hunter was talking with me and she said that Marci was very excited to take ballet with you. Don't you want to spend time doing things with Marci? Now that you're not mad at her anymore?"

Gwen sank into her mom's arms and hugged her dolly, Her dolly and not Furry Freddy, who Ben brought with him when their moms and dads let them sleep out in Grandpa's Rustbucket last night just in case she wanted to borrow him. The bunks were smaller than he remembered, but they could still fit together in one. "I guess." She mumbled into the top of the doll's head. "What about Ben?"

"Oh, we're still getting Ben's 'activity' present lined up, sweetheart." Grandpa Max smiled. "Besides, the ballet classes don't start until after your 8th birthdays. So we have a little time left."

"And ballet won't be every night, Gwen." Ben's mom said. "You'll still get to see him at school and on the weekends. And maybe some school nights, if you two need to study."

Gwen looked over at Ben, her green eyes big and wide. "But…"

Ben could've done something then, he could've thrown a fit or yelled or got angry. But would it change anything? What if ballet was something that Gwen might end up liking? For a change, he wasn't thinking about what he wanted.

He thought about what Gwen might want instead. So Ben got up, walked over and looked at her so he didn't have to look at the stupid doll she was holding onto instead of Furry Freddy which was lying on the floor next to her. He picked up the bear and gave it the hug she wasn't. "You and Marci can have fun at ballet. You can tell me about it after, Gwen." He said, and Aunt Lili made a noise and smiled at him in a way that he just didn't understand, and then it got a hundred times worse when he heard his mom make the exact same noise and he looked back and she had her hands over her mouth. At least his dad acted kind of normal, enough that the burning in his face didn't make him want to run for the kitchen to get away from everyone. His dad blinked and didn't say anything, he just looked across the room to the other couch across from his where Uncle Frank and Grandpa Max were sitting, with Aunt Lili on the floor in the spot between them as she leaned against Uncle Frank's leg. Uncle Frank blinked and took his glasses off, and looked back at his dad.

"That's very mature of you, Ben." Grandpa Max rumbled, and he was smiling too. Ben looked down at the floor and shrugged, not sure what he could say after that.

"You sure it's okay, Ben?" Gwen asked. He knew she wanted to do it, but she was still asking. Why? Because he'd feel left out?

"Yup." He managed, looking at her, and added a little more so the last three minutes would stop being so weird. "I'll bet you can do even better than Marci, though."

"Yeah! Count on it!" Gwen grinned, bouncing in place a little. Ben plopped back down on the ground next to the tree and reached for the next present, one for his dad from Uncle Frank. His dad messed up his hair and Ben scowled a little and pulled back.

So Gwen would be taking ballet after their birthdays. That was fine. Things would be fine.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Tuesday, January 13th, 1996

4:43 P.M.

Things were not fine. It was after their 8th birthday and today was the first day of their after-school activities. Gwen's mom had come by and picked her up, and his mom had taken him to go to his own class. And even though he didn't want to take ballet, Ben almost asked his mom if he could go with her. He and Gwen did everything together, after all! That was just how things were!

But at least his class sounded more awesome. He was taking karate, like the kind that he and Gwen sometimes saw on television or in some of dad's old movies. Even his mom was okay with it and that surprised him, because she hated fighting. But Grandpa'd said he knew the man who ran the building - dojo - and that he would teach Ben to avoid fights. Of course, Ben knew that had to be a little bit of a lie, because people who knew karate always got into fights. You just had to fight for the right reasons.

The outfit felt weird, though. Why couldn't he just wear shorts and a t-shirt? He'd practiced putting it on at home a couple of times, but it still took him a bit to change into it. At least here in the changing room for the boys, his mom couldn't fuss all over him until it was just right. He looked over himself one last time after cinching the belt in place, nodded, and walked out into the gym.

They called it a dojo, but Ben knew what gyms smelled like, and this was a gym. There were even those blue folding mats leaned up against the back wall. Their teacher had the same stern look as the principal at his school did, and the black and gray-haired Japanese man stood and waited as everyone else filtered in from the changing rooms.

"Konnichi wa, students. Form a line." He rumbled, and the few kids who were whispering stopped talking. There was something about his voice that made Ben shiver a little and do what he asked. Their teacher nodded at them all and put his arms down at his sides. "I am Mister Yamamoto, but in our dojo, you will call me Sensei. It means 'Teacher' in Japanese, and is a mark of respect." He stated evenly. "Respect goes both ways in this dojo. You will answer 'yes, sensei' or 'no, sensei' and you will show respect this way. I will show respect by learning and using your names every day, and answering every question you have with patience and care. Do you understand?"

Ben wasn't the only kid who looked around nervously, as they all guessed what they should say. They managed to all say 'yes sensei' in a garbled mess, but Mr. Yamamoto seemed to accept it. The man smiled and gave them a nod.

"Good. We will work on that." He bowed at the waist, keeping his back straight the entire time. "Bowing is another sign of respect. I bow to you at the start of class, and you bow to me. Try it." They did so, and when Ben straightened up, Mr. Yamamoto was more relaxed than before.

"This is your first day, so we will only do a few things. Warmup exercises and some basic stances. They are the foundation for everything else you will learn here. I can see by your eyes that some of you are disappointed - perhaps you thought that you would be learning punches and kicks and throwing people over your shoulder on the first day. That is wrong. We do not study karate to start fights. You will learn discipline and patience, and self-control." Mr. Yamamoto folded his arms behind his back and walked in front of them, going down the line of students. "One thing that you will not understand now, but will understand in the future, is that you are not studying karate to master martial arts. You are studying karate to master yourself. If I hear from your parents or your teachers that you are fighting with what I have taught you, I will be very displeased."

Ben flinched a little at the warning, but at least he wasn't the only one. The few girls in the class didn't react, but from his spot at the end of the line, he could see three other boys that did the same thing. He jerked his head forward and looked up when he realized that Mr. Yamamoto had stopped in front of him and was looking down at him.

"We do not start fights. We use karate to protect ourselves and others...and to stop fights." He said, and his head moved just a little bit as he kept his eyes locked on Ben's. "Understood, students?"

"Yes, sensei!" The response from the class was louder than before, even if Ben's came out scratchy. The man smiled, stepped back away from the line, and moved so that everyone could look at him.

"Now, let's begin with some stretches…"

- o - o - o - o - o -

1 Hour Later

Ben was tired and his arms and his legs hurt and he was amazed at how sweaty his karate pajamas were. It wasn't as bad as the time he and Gwen had gone to Jimmy's birthday party and they had that enormous water balloon fight, but the white uniform still stuck to him. His mom had given him an old bag that she'd pulled out of the closet, and after he'd changed into his pants and his T-Shirt, he shoved the uniform into the bag and zipped it up along with the towel she'd made him bring. He was only a little sweaty after all, he didn't need it, and he felt warm enough that he just tossed his jacket over his shoulder as he walked out of the changing room.

His mom was waiting just inside the front doors in the little waiting area for the parents and she smiled and waved at him as he came out. "There's my little man!" She said, and Ben blushed a little. "How did it go?"

"Okay. Our sensei went over the rules and we learned some stretches and stuff." He told her. "It was a little harder than I thought it would be."

"Well, I thought you deserved a little reward for working so hard, so while you were in class I went and picked up dinner." Mom said, opening the door so they could walk out. Ben felt the cold of the outside air hit him and hissed a little, but kept on walking. "For heaven's sake, Ben, put on your jacket!" She told him. Ben just laughed and walked a little faster towards the van, and when he yanked open the side door to toss his bag in, the smell of chinese food smacked him in the face. He grinned and put his bag down inside so it wouldn't hit the food, then shut the door and went to the passenger seat.

"Chinese? Awesome!" He chirped as mom got into the driver's seat. "C'mon, let's get home!"

"Seatbelt?" She reminded him, and Ben groaned for the two seconds it took to pull it down and snap it into place. "Okay, now we can go." She said, starting the engine. "I got the noodles you like."

"With chicken?"

"Yes, with chicken."

"You're the best, mom!" He cheered, and she grinned as they pulled out onto the street and headed for home. "Did you remember to get the thin egg rolls that Gwen likes? She doesn't like the great big ones, you know." He loved the smells that came with chinese food, the sweet and the salty combinations. And the orange chicken which was the only good way to eat broccoli, no matter what Gwen said about the vegetable.

He kept thinking about what all mom might've ordered, so he didn't catch how she wasn't answering his question. He was looking out the front window, so he wasn't looking at her face as it changed.

"Ben," she said, and it sounded wrong enough that he finally turned to look at her and saw her frown, "Gwen's not here, honey."

He blinked, and looked in the back, seeing only his bag and the bundles of food. No Gwen. For a moment, he'd forgotten that she wasn't here. That she wasn't supposed to be here.

"Oh." He got out, and sank into the seat. Gwen was at ballet. He was taking karate on his own. But he could've sworn for a second that she was here! It - it felt like she was supposed to be here.

"It's okay, Ben." She told him, and reached a hand over to pat the top of his head. "You can tell her all about it tomorrow at school."

"Okay." He mumbled, and was glad that his mom didn't try to talk to him on the rest of the drive home. He suddenly didn't feel like it.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Angelwood Academy

Thursday, January 15th

Lunchtime

Ben rubbed his Kangaroo Kommando decoder ring when he was nervous or feeling sad. He didn't realize he did it until one of his classmates pointed it out the day before, and now he couldn't stop thinking about it. Sure, his sensei made him take it off in karate, but he put it right back on again after he got changed. It was always there, it had been there since costume day last October when they had -

"...and then Mrs. Henicke said if we did well tonight, she'd let us watch Swan Lake on Friday!" Marci cheered from her spot off of Gwen's left shoulder. Ben was sitting on her other side, because everyone knew to save a spot so they could always sit together. Ben looked up from his half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich (Which wasn't anywhere near as good as the ones his mom made) and the green beans he poked his fork at, and looked over to see Marci holding on to Gwen's arm as the yellow-haired girl kept on babbling about their ballet class on Tuesday. And they were talking about tonight too, it seemed.

From her spot across from them, Olivia sighed. "Well, you two are doing better than me right now. I musta tripped like, half a dozen times on Tuesday."

"Hey, I thought you did fine." Gwen said to the taller girl. "So you're a little taller than everyone else there. My mom said that girls grow up differently, but we all end up as women eventually."

"Really?" Marci raised an eyebrow. "She said that?"

"Once." Ben said, and everyone turned to look at him. He fidgeted a little as all the girls at their table looked at him with wide eyes and the three other boys gave him weird side glances. He coughed a little and looked to the side, rubbing his plastic decoder ring again. "It was at a picnic." He explained, and quickly changed the subject. "But you're having fun Gwen?"

"Um. Yeah. Lots!" She said happily, bouncing in her seat a little. "It's more fun than I thought it'd be, and Marci helps me out!"

"We're stretching partners." Marci grinned to the table. "You need someone to help you bend as far as you hafta to get warmed up."

"Yeah, who cares." Julio grumbled from his spot over by Olivia. The boy grinned and nodded at Ben. "Enough about dancing. I wanna hear about karate."

"Yeah!" Matthew cheered, bouncing in his seat a little. "Is it awesome, Ben? Are you learning how to kick butt?"

"Matt!" Marci hissed at him, and Ben knew if she'd been sitting by the boy she would've poked him in the shoulder for it. "What if a teacher heard you?" She demanded, trying to keep quiet, though Ben thought the low hissing was louder than if she'd just talked normally. Matt just shrugged, looking back at Ben right after.

"C'mon, Ben. What's it like?"

"A lot of stretches. And following directions." Ben admitted. Sensei managed to do what most of his teachers couldn't, though. He made Ben pay attention and not goof off. Ben didn't know what it was about the guy that made him stand up straight. Maybe it was just because after the first hour, the man had shown the entire class what they would be working towards when he chopped a wooden board in half with his bare hand. "It's okay, but I think I've got a while before I'm good enough to kick butt like the guys in the movies."

"Aw." Julio made a face. "But there's this one guy in my neighborhood I wanted you to mess with…"

Ben blinked and sharply shook his head. "No. Not ever. Sensei says that you don't start fights, and you don't learn karate to get into them." The table blinked a little and leaned forward, and sensing the audience, Ben blushed a little before adding, "He doesn't want us getting into fights, Julio. He wants us to be able to finish them."

Matthew blinked several times at the announcement, and Julio's mouth fell open. "Dude." Julio whispered. "That's so awesome."

"Yeah." Gwen said, and Ben turned to see her looking at him with stars in her eyes. "Karate sounds terrific."

Ben smiled a little at the praise. "Yeah, well." He shrugged it off, looking away long enough to hide his blush. He looked back after though, he couldn't help looking at Gwen sometimes. For a second, he almost asked her to quit ballet and come do karate with him instead. She'd probably say yes, no matter how much she was enjoying ballet. He didn't though. When he thought about saying it, his stomach got even more twisted up than it was already. "It'd be more fun if you were there, but ballet's fun for you too." He looked past Gwen to Marci, who had a sour look on her face. It was too perfect an opening. "Besides, Marci would get lonely without you there."

"Wuh - what?" Marci sputtered, hunching her shoulders up. "As if you knew anything, Benjamin!" The table laughed, and Ben did as well even if his heart wasn't in it. The knot in his stomach wasn't going away, and he pushed the rest of his sandwich towards Gwen.

"Ben?" She asked, surprised. Of course she would be, he never turned down grilled cheese.

"I had a big breakfast." Ben lied. "Go ahead, I coulda sworn I heard your stomach growling in spelling this morning." She huffed at the ding, but took the warm toasted bread and cheese and kissed him on the cheek for it.

"Eww!" Julio made a face, while Ben just sat there blinking. "Cooties!"

"Oh, please." Marci rolled her eyes. "You boys are so immature, there's no such thing as cooties. Boys are just gross."

The conversations went back to normal after that, and Ben stuck his hands under the table as Gwen happily polished off the rest of his sandwich. He rubbed at his green decoder ring where nobody could see it. He didn't want them seeing him touch it.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Friday Night

5:42 P.M.

The one thing that you could count on about Grandpa was that he always had the best ideas, and they were never ideas that you expected. When Ben got back from karate and saw the Rustbucket parked out on the curb in front of his house, he was beyond excited. He only had enough time to give the man a quick hug before his mom shoved him towards the house and ordered him to take a shower, because Gwen and her parents were coming over for dinner and Grandpa had spent all afternoon setting up a stone circle in the backyard and bringing in firewood. They were going to have a cookout in the backyard and roast marshmallows and everything, and even though it was chilly, Grandpa said that the fire would be hot enough that nobody would be cold.

Grandpa was right. Even though his mom made him wear his winter jacket and a stocking hat, Ben felt like he was sticking his head in an oven when he leaned in to cook his second hot dog on the metal stick that Grandpa had given him to use. Grandpa had gone all out and gotten what looked like half of a tree cut up and laid out onto the fire, and the little flames licked at the sky over the heads of all the adults. The little green plastic portable picnic table from the garage was set out and covered in all the fixings for hot dogs and s'mores and one of the two packages of buns was completely demolished. The small plate of deer sausages that Grandpa had brought along was nearly untouched, though. The adults talked a little about their weeks (Uncle Frank had a tough case that he wouldn't get into the details about, Grandpa Max talked about maybe going to see Aunt Vera soon, his dad complained about the city council not putting enough money towards the summer season, which meant they couldn't hire the high schoolers to help mow the lawns in the parks, his mom tried to talk Aunt Lili into going to her book club again), but soon enough everyone looked to Ben and Gwen and asked how their after-school activities were going.

Ben was rubbing his decoder ring as soon as Gwen started talking about the movie that they got to watch in ballet, and what they'd been doing earlier in the week. Which was bad enough even before his aunt gave her a hug and started cooing something about 'her little Prima Ballerina.' He wasn't paying much attention at all after that, which ended up getting him in trouble when his dad almost shouted his name.

"Ben!" He startled and looked over to his dad, who smirked at him with a half-eaten hot dog in one hand as he pointed with the other. "And here I thought I had a few more years before you'd start ignoring me."

"Sorry, dad." Ben apologized, and looked over to Gwen, who was nibbling at her lower lip. "Um. I didn't hear you?" He got out weakly, pulling his hand back away from his decoder ring.

"I asked you how karate was going. Tonight was your third class, right?"

"It's fine." Ben said without thinking about it.

"It's better'n fine!" Gwen argued, and Ben looked over to see her scowling at him as she hugged her doll which was way less awesome than Furry Freddy in its stupid tutu.

The same doll he'd been glaring at all night when she wasn't looking, and the one he forgot all about as she huffed and added, "You shoulda heard him talking about it at lunch a couple of days ago! One of our friends asked him if he'd come kick butt, and Ben told them that karate wasn't about gettin' into fights." Aunt Lili hissed Gwen's name at the words she used, but Gwen didn't back down a bit.

"Oh, that's a relief." His mom said, pleased by the answer. Gwen grinned from ear to ear and ruined the moment a second later.

"It's about finishing 'em." Gwen declared. His mom squeaked in horror, but Grandpa Max busted out laughing at that, and both his dad and Uncle Frank looked...happy?

"Well, that's a pretty good motto. Did your teacher tell you that, Ben?" His dad asked, reaching over and ruffling his hair a little.

"Um. Yeah. First day." He admitted.

"Ben, I didn't sign you up for karate so you'd get in fights!" His mom sputtered.

"Easy, Sandy Bear." His dad hummed, leaning over to hug mom and kiss her forehead. "You heard Gwen. He told off the other kids at school when they asked if he'd fight other kids for them. Seems to me like his teacher's passing on some valuable life lessons on top of everything else. You know, Ben, Uncle Frank and I got into some scrapes when we were kids too. Just keep up with that attitude. I don't want you charging off and fighting, but I do want you to know how to defend yourself if somebody else decides that they're stupid enough to not use their words. We learned how to fight a little ourselves when we were young and it came in handy."

"Really?" Grandpa said, sounding surprised. "I didn't teach you two how to fight."

"No." Uncle Frank agreed, a little distantly. "Mom did."

None of the adults said anything after that, and Grandpa ducked his head like he'd done something wrong. Ben looked around the campfire, wondering why his parents and Gwen's suddenly looked sad.

"Frank…" Grandpa started to say. Uncle Frank shook his head.

"It's okay, dad. It was a long time ago. And you're here now." Uncle Frank smiled, and chuckled when Grandpa Max looked up again hopefully. "Although you bring the weirdest things to eat still. Hey, Carl? I dare you to split one of those deer sausage dogs with me."

"Aw, fu -udge." His dad muttered, flinching a little when both mom and Aunt Lili glared at him. Dad rubbed the back of his head and laughed. "Well, can't say no to a dare from my big brother now, can I?" Everyone relaxed at that, and Ben felt itchy all over. And too warm as he looked at the girl who used to do everything with him, the doll in her hands, and the fire that towered over both of them. The one that would get rid of that stupid doll and its stupid tutu once and for all and make her…

Make her cry. "Mom, can I go get another soda?" He asked as he jerked his head away as tears flooded his eyes.

"Sure, honey. You know where they are, right?" He nodded, and set his metal skewer on his chair as he stood up, and rushed for the door.

"Hey, wait for me!" Gwen said. "I want one too!" Ben snorted once and headed in, making Gwen have to run to catch up to him.

They walked through the back door of the kitchen and Ben went straight for the stairs that went down into the basement where the furnace and all the house stuff was. There was an old refrigerator from dad's work he'd taken after they were going to throw it out, a big clunky metal thing with faded blue-green paint and a metal handle that he loved pulling on. It was always a little bit cold down here, especially with nothing but bare concrete for the floor. That made it great in the summer, but right now it was just a little bit warmer than outside, since all the heat from the furnace went upstairs.

"Which one do you want, Gwen?" He asked as he put Furry Freddy down because it took both his hands to pull open the door. The sodas were on the lower shelves, and he grabbed a grape soda for himself and his bear.

"Orange, please." She answered him, and her voice sounded a little funny. He looked back at her and blinked when he saw her mouth buried in her doll's hair again. "Ben? Are you really having fun in karate?" The worry in her eyes made him look away.

He grabbed her can of orange soda and closed the metal door again. Was he, he asked himself? He could blurt out the same thing he had to their parents and to Grandpa. That it was okay. But not Gwen. She saw through the little lies he'd try out, she always did.

"I miss you." He got out around the heavy lump in his throat, flinching when he heard that little gasp of hers. "But when you and Marci and the other girls talk about how much fun you're having in ballet…" He stopped talking, took a breath, and turned back around. He stuck the can of orange soda towards her, waiting until she took it. "We got in trouble because we did everything together. We weren't sharing." He tried not to spit the word out, even though remembering how their dance teacher had made such a fuss about it still made him angry. "And...And you're having fun with Marci. She's your friend now." Ben looked at Gwen again, wondering why she wasn't saying anything. Her lips were pressed together and she held her orange soda tightly between her mittened hands. He huffed and looked down at the ground, rubbing at his decoder ring again. At least he knew why he was rubbing it now, it was obvious. He missed her. Even when she was sitting beside him at lunch, he still missed her. She probably thought he was crazy now. "So that's what I'm doing." He ground out. "I'm sharing you. Even though I wanna ask you to quit ballet and come do karate with me, I'm not gonna. Because it isn't fair, because you like ballet and it's somethin' you n' Marci do together."

He waited for her to call him a doofus, or a silly scruffy, or one of the other things she liked to call him when his name just wasn't enough for the job. He kept on waiting, and Gwen looked between the can in her hands and the floor and his face, her own face turning almost as red as her hair the whole time before she finally said something.

"I miss you too." She said softly. Ben blinked. "But...But I thought that you wanted me to go away for a while."

His own face heated up as he rubbed at his decoder ring again. "No."

She let out a huff and shook her head. "I kept looking over my shoulder in ballet to talk to you, and you weren't there. Ballet's fun, but I hated that. Marci's nice and all, but...she isn't you."

Ben looked back at her, then snorted and finally let his hand drop away from his decoder ring. He smiled at her, and she smiled back and the two of them kept giggling, and that twisted knot in his stomach finally, finally started to work itself loose. He finally felt like himself again.

"I'm sorry." He apologized, and Gwen stopped giggling to look at him curiously.

"You're sorry? What for?" She asked.

"For making you feel bad. Duh." He said, and stuck his tongue out at her. "For making you feel like I - like I didn't want you around me." Because he did. All the time, and maybe that was a little bit weird, but she was his best friend, and they'd dressed up and gave each other rings and said those words. It wasn't just so nobody else could kiss him, Ben knew now. He'd promised to stay with her. Forever.

That wasn't such a bad thing.

"Well." Gwen coughed into her hand, smiling and blushing the whole time while her green eyes almost glowed. "I probably oughta stick with ballet for the rest of this year. You know. Just until we're done with school."

"Yeah." Ben sighed. He'd been expecting that. Gwen didn't do anything halfway, after all.

"But after...after." Gwen added hopefully. "Do you think I could come do karate with you?"

"You wanna?" Ben blurted out. "Just to be with me?"

"No, not just to be with you." She huffed, and gave him a little shove that their parents would've yelled at her for if they'd seen her do it. "Karate sounds so great. And besides, I know that you get in less trouble when I'm there to stop you from doing stupid scruffy things."

"I do not." He complained, and she laughed.

"You do! You really do, Scruffy!" Gwen giggled into her hand. "But...I don't wanna start karate next year not knowin' what to do." She pulled her hand away and looked into his eyes. "Can you show me?"

Anything, Ben thought suddenly, and wondered where that had come from. He coughed and shook his head, then went over and put his soda on top of the washing machine. Gwen did the same thing and looked at him, waiting for an answer.

"I guess I could try. But sensei's the teacher. I'm probably gonna goof this up." He warned her.

"You won't." She said, and he could tell that she believed it. Believed in him. The jolt of confidence made him feel like he could fight the whole world by himself...But he wouldn't need to. Not if she was there too.

"Okay." Ben smiled, and took off his jacket and his stocking hat.

"Watch Mrs. Curie, Freddy!" Gwen said with an excited squeal as she set her doll down so they could lean against each other and watch. Then she followed his lead and yanked off her coat and her mittens. Ben grinned at her as he walked out into the middle of the floor and Gwen mirrored him, standing in front of him expectantly.

He took a breath and nodded. "The first thing you do, every time in sensei's class, is you bow to him, and he bows to you…"

Their first private karate lesson began with Ben and Gwen bowing to each other in the cold basement of his home.

It wouldn't be their last.

- o - o - o - o - o -

(Erico) Author's Note: In the Little Moments-Verse, Gwen started taking karate after her 8th birthday instead of ballet, much to the chagrin of her mother. Here, though, the kids follow a much different script since the previous events in their lives have played out much differently and they're still best friends and more besides. Gwen's getting along enough with Marci to make going to ballet palatable, and even if Ben hates doing something without Gwen there, he's tamping down enough of his impulse control to act a little mature about it. For an 8-year old who's still struggling with empathy and putting others ahead of himself, at least. Gwen's the one person who he'd drop everything to help out in this reality, though. That helps a lot.

Chapter Text

COURTING DISASTER

By Erico and Shadows59

Chapter 7: The Kids KISS

Cleveland National Forest, Southern California

June 15th, 1996 C.E.

5:15 P.M.

If there was one thing that dad’s strange phobia to living in a house after mom had died was good for, it was the fact that his ‘Rustbucket’ could go anywhere and bring most of the amenities of home with him. Carl Tennyson had to chuckle at that, because there was nothing like a plate of spaghetti in the wilderness. Coming out camping with the whole family wasn’t something he’d planned on doing, it just sort of happened. Like most things usually did, it had spiraled out from one idea and gotten bigger.

Ben was eight years old and Carl had figured he was old enough to go to his first rock concert. As soon as he’d heard about one of the bands that he and Frank had listened to when they were kids reuniting for a tour, he’d called in to get tickets for the first show in California. He’d almost stopped at getting three, but then something had stopped him. The same thing that always did whenever he was talking with Sandy Bear about doing something fun for their son. 

Wouldn’t he ask if Gwen could come along?

It was the worst kept secret in their world that Gwen wasn’t going back into ballet when school started up in the fall again. Ben was teaching Gwen the moves he picked up in karate and everyone pretended that they didn’t notice. Unless something big was going on, the kids usually spent at least a part of Saturday doing something together, either with one set of parents or Grandpa if nobody else was free.  At the Parent/Teacher conferences in the spring, their teacher had even scheduled Ben and Gwen’s next to each other - and then combined them when they all showed up together anyways. She got a free 20 minutes out of the deal before her next kid, and Carl figured she needed the coffee break. 

He’d given it all of three seconds of hard thinking before he sighed, resolved he’d have a little bit more on his credit card bill that month, and bought a fourth ticket to the show before it sold out. Which it did. In less than an hour, according to MTV. He told Sandy, and Sandy told Lili, and then Lili had told Frank. And Frank, to his surprise, had mentioned it to dad one of the times that their old man came over to help them figure out a puddle of water in Frank’s basement that turned out to be a rusted valve coming off the back of the washing machine. 

“Well hell, son, that’s a bit of a drive back and forth, clear on the other side of Los Angeles. And that concert’s probably going to run late, so either you’d be staying someplace or you’d be dead on your feet for the drive back.” Their dad had said while he wrapped some plumber’s tape around the threads of the new brass fitting. “You know, I was thinking about heading down this summer and catching up with my sister Vera. We could meet up at one of the national parks down there on my drive back up. You two could take a few more days off and bring the girls and my grandkids with you. That way, instead of having to put up for a hotel or drive all night to get back, you could just turn back around and head south for an hour.” It had seemed like a nice idea, and Carl thought it made a lot of sense, but Frank had pointed out that he and Lili didn’t exactly have a lot of camping equipment. All their father had done was smile and tell them to leave it to him.

Max really had taken care of everything, from maps of the campgrounds to supply lists of what to pack ‘just in case’, and even the permit to one of the bigger campsites where they could park the Rustbucket and their cars without causing too much trouble. The tents that he’d pulled out from somewhere in Aunt Vera’s garage full of junk were old, but big, and they worked out well. The first night had seen the camp swarmed with bugs until Max started hanging up little bags of potpourri that smelled a little like citron candles, and then all the little critters had cleared out. He’d taken the kids for a nature hike that morning after breakfast to give Carl and Frank and their wives a chance to really relax even. And the best part of the trip, the reason for it even happening, was still coming up tonight.

Of course the kids were still bouncing like grasshoppers. They’d be bouncing off the walls if they had walls too, and Carl wondered where they found the energy. Had he and Frank ever been as energetic when they were kids, or did Ben and Gwen just pull on a different source of it altogether?

“Geez, save some for tonight you two.” He joked, hoping that they’d listen. “You’re supposed to make noise at these shows.”

“I remember my first rock concert.” Max chuckled, slowly shaking his head as he put a leg over his knee in his lawn chair. “I also remember Frank’s first rock concert.”

“Daddy was at a rock concert?” Gwen blurted out, stopping fast enough that Ben stumbled to keep from bumping into her. They’d been chasing after each other playing keep-away with Ben’s teddy bear as the object in question. How they hadn’t torn it apart yet was surprising. The fur’d gotten matted and packed down, but the seams were still good on it.

Frank shifted in his own lawn chair and swirled around his can of diet soda. “One or two. But the one your grandpa’s talking about I don’t remember.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” Max grinned, giving his grandchildren a wink. “Heck, Carl wasn’t even born yet. We were visiting my family in upstate New York and there was this music festival playing a few miles over on Mr. Yasgur’s land, so Verdona and I took Frank for a visit. That was one wild concert…” Max’s voice trailed off and he sighed. “Good thing we were able to call in those helicopters from Stewart to get folks in and out, or it would’ve been a nightmare. But that music…” The old man’s smile was back and he chuckled. “Ah, Verdona loved it. Later, anyways. There was some kind of magic at that festival, even for all its problems. And now it’s history, so even if you don’t remember it, Frank, you can tell people you were there.” Max paused, reflected, then chuckled. “Well. I guess you both were.”

Carl blinked, thought it over, and - oh. Yeah. Maybe he had been there. He just hadn’t been born yet.

“Anyhow.” Carl coughed, pulling the kids’ attention back to him. “We’ll stop and get a bite to eat on the drive in, but there are a couple of ground rules. We want you two to have fun, but we also want to make sure you stay safe, right?” Their heads bounced up and down in agreement, and he grinned. “Right. First rule, no wandering off. If you see something interesting, you get our attention and we’ll go with you.” Like the stands where they sold cassette tapes and CDs and T-Shirts. And just maybe someone would have a bootlegged copy of Phantom of The Park for sale…Well. That was his splurge buy if he found it, but Frank and Max had already handed over some money in case the kids wanted to get a T-Shirt or a keychain. “Second rule is that if you need to use the bathroom, one of us goes with you. There’s going to be a lot of people there and it’ll be easy to get lost. And the third rule. Once we get there, we’re going to pick a spot where we’ll meet up in case we get split up.” Which was not going to be a problem, Sandy had already promised a nervous Lili she’d be sticking to Gwen like glue, and Carl had Ben to look after. Their ‘rally point’ as Dad called it would be if their paired-up groups couldn’t make it back to their seats for some reason.

“We promise.” Ben said, and Gwen nodded in agreement. 

“Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.” Frank said approvingly.

“Well, as good as we can.” Carl shrugged. “And this isn’t a full performance either, it’s just a warmup show. But that might be better for the kids. A full two or two and a half hour concert might be too much.” 

Max chuckled. “Maybe. But they’ll have fun. Just like you will. And tomorrow, we’ll handle things so you two can relax and recover. You just forgot one thing.”

“We did?” Sandy asked, worried. “We’ve packed water bottles and sunscreen, and that second bag phone you brought along…”

“No, no. Your emergency kit’s fine.” Max cut her off, grinning. He reached to his hiking backpack and dug around inside of it, then pulled out a small plastic box and chucked it at Carl. Carl caught it and gave it a look, surprised. A box of multiple pairs of bright yellow…

“Earplugs?” Carl mused, and Max laughed. Well, it made sense. “Good thinking, dad.”

“Once a boy scout, always a boy scout.” Max Tennyson shrugged. “You kids have fun. We’ll see you when you get back.”

***

Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, Parking Lot

Irvine, California (South of Anaheim)

7:15 P.M.

Cheeseburgers were cheeseburgers anywhere you went, Carl had learned. The traffic was as crazy as he’d expected it to be, but Lili had talked the kids through talking quietly on the drive so he could focus on the road and the traffic. For the first part of the drive before the interstate got full, he played one of the old mixtapes he’d made for his Sandy Bear back in college when he’d been trying to impress her, and told them all he knew about the rock band that put on face paint and dressed up like superheroes. He had to laugh when he thought of how he’d looked at the kids in his rearview mirror and how wide Ben’s eyes had gotten. Even Gwen, who was a little bit calmer than her cousin on most days, had the same look on her face.

Superheroes who did rock and roll. Nagging from church groups aside, (Like he and Sandy Bear ever listened to those) it was easy to see why those four were so famous. And once they were in the parking lot and settled, that’s when he popped the back hatch and Sandy told them about the extra surprise that they had planned. 

If you go to a KISS concert, you get to put on the makeup just like the band.

“Lemme see! Lemme see!” He heard Gwen squeak from the back of the van, and then Sandra’s laugh answered it. Carl grinned and turned back away, feeling the cord from the bag phone hit the side of his arm as he tucked the receiver against his head a little tighter. 

“Sounds like she’s having fun.” Frank teased him.

“Yeah, and the show hasn’t even started yet. Right now Sandra’s giving the kids their face paint. They got to pick.”

“Oh? And what did Gwen go with?”

“The Catman.”

Frank busted out laughing. “I could have guessed. There’s this new kid’s show she likes that uses cats in it. Shame she got stuck with mom’s allergies, I wouldn’t have minded keeping a furball around the house. What about you? Did Sandra work a little artistic license on you?”

“Of course. Someone had to go first to show the kids what it looked like.”

“Lemme guess. You went with Simmons’ look, didn’t you?”

Carl stuck his tongue out and waved it around, the thing that ‘The Demon’ was known for in their shows. One of the things, anyways. “You think you know everything, don’t you big brother?”

“Nah. I just know you.” Frank joked. “Glad to hear from you. Call when you’re on your way back, all right?”

“Will do. Enjoy the night off.” Frank laughed again and hung up. Carl sighed and put the receiver back on the bag’s hook, then powered it down and closed it up again. He slung it over his shoulder and then double-checked his wallet to make sure the tickets were there, and not in the glovebox where they’d been sitting for months now. Satisfied at finding them, he hit the automatic lock and shut the driver’s door. “Okay! How are we looking, Sandy Bear?”

“Almost done!” His wife and his best friend cheerfully declared. “Come have a look!”

He walked around to the rear gate and found Sandy sitting half inside of the van and half out, while Ben sat beside her and did his level best not to squirm. He’d heard her call him out on it multiple times in the past five minutes, and if Gwen hadn’t been there bossing him around too it might’ve been a lost cause. Still, it was nice to know that his boy knew how to listen to his cousin. Maybe that was something else Gwen had gotten from Mom, like the cat allergy. 

Sometimes, Carl forgot just how good his Sandy Bear was with a pencil or a paintbrush. Working odd hours down at the art gallery in Bellwood helped to cover incidental expenses, but it gave her a chance to keep a foot in one of the things she’d really loved doing in College. When he saw Gwen’s Catman facepaint fully rendered, he missed a step before his grin came back full force. And seeing Ben’s Spaceman face, even half finished? He had to say something.

“Sandy, in case I’ve forgotten to tell you lately, you’re a wonderful artist.” He blurted out. Gwen giggled at his awkward compliment, and Sandy paused in her work to look up at him with a raised eyebrow and a demure smile. 

“Flatterer. But I’ve done yours already. Now if Ben would hold still, we could finish this up, but he’s a little wiggly worm tonight.”

“Ben!” Gwen hissed his name and stomped her little foot onto the asphalt. “Hold still!” His boy let out a groan but stopped moving, and let Sandy finish her work with a few more steady flourishes of her brush. 

“Done!” 

“Lemme see!” Gwen blurted out, tugging on Ben’s arm until he finally turned around so she could get a good look at him. She was grinning in under a second. “Oh, yeah. That looks good, Aunt Sandy!”

“Why thank you Gwen.” Carl’s wife beamed, and she held up a mirror so Ben could look at himself.

“Wow.” Their boy said, laughing. “This is crazy. I look so different!”

“Yeah! Your outside finally matches your inside!” Gwen crowed, and Ben squawked. Carl couldn’t help himself, he started laughing just as hard as Sandy did.

“Hey!” Ben sputtered, glaring Gwen down. The makeup accentuated the effect, and made his scowl legendary. Carl cut off the argument by rubbing Ben’s hair, getting another squawk from the boy. 

“You don’t look any sillier than Gwen or your old man does.” He pointed out. “Okay kids. If we’re all set, let’s head inside, hit the bathroom and then find our seats. We might wanna catch the warmup act.”

***

9:14 P.M.

As it turned out, the band they’d come out to see was the final act in what had been an all-day music event sponsored by a local rock station. The last act before the facepainted kings of hard rock took the stage was a band that Carl had never heard of, and he and Sandy shared a confused glance as they mouthed - ...Chili Peppers? - back and forth to each other. But the music was good, and it wasn’t all headbanging hair band music like Carl had jammed to in the 80’s. Some of the songs they played were mellow, although they did play a track or two from the headliner’s discography. Carl was glad that Dad had sent along earplugs too; they’d had the kids roll them up and slide them in before they got to their seats, and it definitely muffled the high-end squealing.

The smell of marijuana and cigarette smoke hung lightly in the air, and the seating of the outdoor theater was built so that the stage sat at the bottom of a sloped hill with all the seats set in a bowl around and facing it. All things considered, the crowd was a lot more mellow than either of them had first predicted. Everyone was happy and in a good mood and willing to get along. Carl made small talk with the couple next to him, a pair of tattooed bikers called the Hansens who talked fondly about how they met at a KISS concert back in the 70’s and never looked back. Their daughter was in college now, aiming to be an X-Ray technician. The Hansens even bought Ben and Gwen a couple of 7-Ups from the concession stand after Lili took a Polaroid of them with the camera that she’d brought along in case they wanted to snap some memories.

And there was dancing. Dancing and swaying in place down in the front, dancing in the aisles. Nobody danced in the seats, thankfully, they just sat back and enjoyed. With the kids cheering and humming along between them, Carl reached a hand up over the back of their seats to squeeze Sandy’s hand as she looked back at him and smiled. He found himself relaxing and just enjoying the moment. Everything was right with the world, the kids were having a good time, and his Sandy Bear was glowing. Did it get any better than this?

Carl should have remembered not to tempt fate as the sun went down and the stage crew finished tearing down and setting up for the last act of the night. The stage lights which had been at minimal all went dark, and the dull hum of the crowd rose to a roar of anticipation.

“It’s happening!” Carl warned Ben and Gwen, as electrified as everyone else was. “Get ready, kids, they’re coming out!”

The emcee bellowed into his microphone while a bass guitar’s low note hung in the air. “Allll right, IRVINE! You wanted the best, you GOT the best! The hottest band in the world, KISS!” The lights came up and there the band was, jamming away at the top of their set.

Of course it could get better. 

***

  Carl had been expecting a performance that might be a little shaky. Anyone who’d ever been at a live concert would be the first to tell you not to expect a perfect, note-for-note replication of what the band could pull off in a studio over multiple takes. There were spots where Paul Stanley’s voice was a little rough and broke where it didn’t on his old records or on the cassette tapes. There were parts where a word was lost because of the need to breathe, or a lyric came out rushed. But that was the fun of a live concert. If you wanted perfect, you bought the tape at The Wall and called it a day. This was done with no retakes, no real choreography, no lip-synching, just four guys pouring their hearts out in front of thousands of screaming fans.

But the feeling in the air...there was nothing like it. It prickled on his skin like electricity, it made everything feel more real than any concert he’d ever been in. He could have sworn that he saw colors in the flashing lights up on stage, flickers of green and blue and purple that phased in and out of existence faster than he could focus on. The band’s lightshow was phenomenal, and that wasn’t including the flaming guitar or the fake blood spitting from Gene Simmons. All of it in good fun, just like the costumes and the makeup. When KISS performed, you came for more than the music. You came for the show. He just couldn’t get over those lights. Everything else he’d been expecting, they’d told the kids about just in case they did it. He’d been expecting Gwen to maybe get a little sick when Gene Simmons did the blood thing. She didn’t, and that surprised him. Those lights, though, they seemed to be everywhere, dancing in and out of existence. What kind of wild setup were the special effects guys using to point a spotlight out into the stands and get that kind of a strobe that didn’t leave everyone half-blind?

It kept getting better too. The band got sharper as the songs rolled by, like something in how the audience responded made their fingers steadier and their voices more resonant. It was the first time that Peter Criss and Ace Frehley were back with the band on tour in nearly two decades, and they were hitting it. By the time they got to Detroit Rock City, there was no hesitation in their moves, in their licks, and in the steady driving beat of the drum set. And the only thing holding Paul Stanley back was the air in his lungs, or lack of it. But they didn’t falter once.

The only thing better than watching the band was looking down to Ben and Gwen as they bounced in their seats with those big excited eyes of theirs, making happy noises and humming along when there was a song that they’d listened to on the drive up. And they didn’t let go of each other’s hand the entire time, which he found cute. By the time that the band hit the end of their set and the last song, they had the audience singing along. And while neither of the kids could sing all that well (Poor Gwen tried, she really did), they screamed the words as loud as anyone else. 

The song ended. The show ended. Everyone who hadn’t been standing already got to their feet and kept cheering and whistling and clapping as the band took a bow and the kids started jumping up and down on their bleachers. It was nearly a minute before the audience finally let the energy of the standing ovation die down and started to filter out, and Carl slumped into his seat with a weak laugh as Ben started tugging on his arm.

“Dad, that was awesome! So awesome! You said we could get T-shirts, right? We need a T-Shirt!”

“Why’s that, Ben?” He asked.

“So we can prove to people we were here!” Gwen piped in gleefully. Sandy broke out laughing at that, and the biker couple next to Carl cackled as well.

“Their first rock show.” Mr. Hansen said, puffing out his chest pridefully. “Ah, there’s nothing like it. Well, the Missus and I had better be off. Thanks for the photo, Missus Tennyson.”

“You’re welcome.” Sandra nodded back at the man and his wife. “And thank you for giving the kids sodas.”

“You come to a show like this, you scream a lot.” Mrs. Hansen winked at Ben and Gwen. “Screaming’s thirsty work. Now promise me that you two will be good for your parents on the drive back home now.” Carl opened his mouth to correct them, but fell silent when he thought about it. Even though Gwen wasn’t their daughter anymore than Ben was Frank and Lili’s son, they spent so much time together that it was almost a moot point. While the kids bobbed their heads agreeably, Carl shook his and stuck out his hand. “You take care of yourself, Lou.”

Louis Hansen shook it. “You too, Carl. You’ve got a great family.”

“Most days.” Carl amended, giving Sandra and the kids a wink over his shoulder. The Hansens left with the first rush of the crowd, and Carl happily let them go. “Don’t worry kids, we’ll get those T-Shirts. We’re just gonna let things quiet down a little first.” Sandy happily agreed with the suggestion, and they gave it another ten minutes before the throng had cleared out enough that they were able to make their way up to the vendor’s area without much trouble.

They ended up picking out four shirts, one for each of them with the tour’s name and dates on the back and a band portrait on the front. And Ben and Gwen stubbornly refused to let him buy their shirts - they had the money from Frank and Max and they were going to use it, darnit! As a splurge, Carl even picked up a CD for his brother, who had a Bose CD player at their house. After a quick bathroom stop, they made their way back out to the van and started it up for the drive back home.

True to his word, Carl handed over their bag phone to Sandra so she could turn it on and give Frank and Lili and Dad a call. While Carl got them out of the parking lot and maneuvered back towards the highway, Sandra finished summing things up (The concert was great, the kids were bouncier than a bounce castle, everyone was fine and they were on their way back) while Ben and Gwen kept chattering to each other in the back, making fake guitar noises and talking about the show.

Good lord, they’d never quit. He found himself looking over to Sandra with a worried eyebrow. If they were like this the entire drive back, he and Sandy would both be fried. Then Sandy blinked, and got a look in her eye that Carl knew all too well. His beautiful wife had an idea.

“Say, Frank, how about I let your daughter tell you herself so you can get it straight from the horse’s mouth?” And then she handed the bag phone to the middle seat where the kids were, stretching the power cable plugged into the cigarette lighter almost as far as it would go. 

Ben dutifully took the bag while Gwen’s hands scrambled for the receiver, which she tucked to her chin. “Daddy! Daddy, it was so awesome! We had cheeseburgers and then when we got here, Aunt Sandy did face paint for all of us, and then…”

Carl allowed himself a small chuckle as he focused back on the road, but he stuck his free hand out to the side for his wife to grab onto. “Nice thinking.” Sandra took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. With any luck, they’d wear themselves out. Or at least Gwen would wear herself out, and Ben would calm down after.

Almost 20 miles down the road later, Gwen’s energy finally dipped enough that she wasn’t squeaking every eighth word and Ben stopped contributing details of his own, and they both ended up yawning at the same time. Frank said something that Carl couldn’t hear, and then Gwen mumbled an, “Okay, daddy. Love you too,” before she put the phone back on its hook and held it up for Sandy to grab. Once she’d turned the cellular phone off and put it up on the dash, Sandy reached down to the radio and turned it on, dialing it until she found a station playing soft jazz music with a lyrical piano and saxophone.

“I’m glad you two had fun.” She said, smiling at the backseat. “Once we get back to camp, we’ll have to get all your faces cleaned off. Yours too, mister.” She added, pointedly staring over at Carl. He huffed and turned his eyes back on the road, keeping an eye on the kids in the rearview mirror. 

Sandy was some kind of a genius when it came to handling Ben on a road trip. Between the darkness outside, the crash that came when the adrenaline from the concert wore off, and the smooth jazz on the radio, it wasn’t long before Ben’s eyes were drooping shut and he was nodding off. So was Gwen for that matter, and the two of them ended up leaning in towards each other, smushing Furry Freddy between them as a makeshift pillow.

“I love you.” Carl said quietly, once he felt safe enough in the silence to test the waters. He got no reaction from either of the kids, and Sandy hummed in agreement. “I’m glad we did this.”

“I’m glad that you went ahead and got that fourth ticket when you did.” Sandra added with a smirk. “They really do everything together, don’t they?”

“Yeah. That’ll change.” Carl sighed. “Once they get older and make some new friends, and get interested in different things. That’s why it’s good to make memories now. You get a lot of pictures?”

“Ran the photo pack dry.” She nodded, patting her purse. “I’ve got some really good ones for their albums.” He nodded, and they enjoyed the peace and quiet for another mile. When Sandra spoke, he was almost surprised. “Did Max and Verdona ever…?”

“What, take me and Frank to a concert?” He finished, and she nodded. “No.” Carl said. “Dad was always busy with his plumbing job. It seemed to take him everywhere but home. By the time that he got around to trying, Frank and I had moved on. We didn’t listen to the Dead, or Van Morrison, or Shag Carpeting or the Beach Boys. We had our own bands.” He found his mind drifting back to his own childhood, about the bands that he and Frank had listened to growing up. Judas Priest and Alice Cooper and Pink Floyd and KISS...their own form of minor rebellion against a father who talked up his own music, but was never around to share it. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I know that Ben will have his own bands, his own music he listens to. But I wanted to do what Ma - what our father never did. I wanted to share mine with him, before he got around to deciding to hate it. And who knows? Maybe having Gwen here for this will convince her it’s okay to listen to more than just the classical music that Lili tries to get her to focus on all the time.”

“You’re a good father, and a good uncle.” Sandra said to him firmly. And maybe he needed to hear that.

“So are you.” He added back, and she giggled, which made his face purple. “Oh, you know what I mean, Sandy Bear.”

“Yes, I do. But I do love teasing you. Now get us back to the camp so we can take care of the kids...and work on sleeping in.”

It was a plan he could get behind, as tired as he felt. But it was a good kind of tired. He’d gotten the chance to share something special with his son, and his niece as well. This was what a vacation was meant for. Sharing something he loved with the people he loved, and making good memories in the process.

Maybe the kids would look back years from now when they were all grown up and remember this fondly as well. At least the T-Shirts would help.

***

Bellwood, California

July 28th, 1996 C.E.

All vacations came to an end, and there was plenty of work to be done back in Bellwood. His job as a Senior Engineer in the Public Works Department meant that he got to go out and have fun with the other agents in the field, thankfully. Maybe in a few years, if Director Kentworth stepped down he’d move up into the role that would see him stuck in an office and going to all the city hall meetings and mayoral briefings. For now, though, his place was somewhere in between, training and leading the other mid-level supervisors as they did everything from sewer and water maintenance to electricity and even keeping the lawns mowed in the parks. And road maintenance. So much road maintenance.

It also meant looking over the calendars for final approval of the fall repairs, which the director had handed over to him this year. It wasn’t like he was the only one getting tested; Saylor got to try and put together the spring calendar and Dunmeade had put together the summer calendar’s first drafts. Of course, Kentworth had taken their proposals and made some tweaks before finalizing it, so now that it was Carl’s turn to take a crack at it, he planned on putting one together that would have no mistakes at all. 

Of course, as he sat in his cramped office with its five filing cabinets and a posterboard full of seasonal job positions and Post-Its of who the summer crew was and their availability, that was a task easier said than done. He could usually tune out distractions, but his head kept turning back to things at home. More specifically, Ben.

It wasn’t that his boy was getting in trouble or anything like that. No, he and Gwen had been as busy and hyperactive as ever, Sandy and Lili kept him informed. They’d go outdoors and play tag or throw a frisbee with each other or one or two of their friends, and Ben had been spending more time since the 4th of July working Gwen through his karate moves. Carl was convinced that by the time school started up again and Gwen finally joined her cousin for after-school classes, she’d be ready to graduate from her starting belt in two weeks or less. As much as she liked him, she refused to let him hold anything over her head, and that was all too familiar territory for Carl when he thought back to growing up with Frank.

What had changed was what else Ben was doing. Nearly every day while they were out on errands, as Sandy had related, Ben kept asking if they could visit music stores. Not to buy cassette tapes, no. That, Carl would have understood. He’d gotten his first taste of real rock and roll. Of course he’d want to see what else was out there. But those weren’t the stores that he asked to visit. He wanted to visit the other kind. The kind that sold instruments. Ben was obsessed with electric guitars. 

Sandy had humored him at first. Sure, it wouldn’t hurt anything to go inside and visit. Window shopping existed for a reason after all. Even if some stores got a little picky about kids touching the instruments (Well, that one might make sense if they’d had kids drop and break some in the past), Ben found ways to make it work. One Saturday, Carl had even given in and taken him to a store that sold electric guitars and talked the younger fella behind the counter into taking one down and playing it a little. It had resulted in a 15 minute impromptu lesson on chords and finger placement and the difference between a solid-body and semi-acoustic and Gibsons and Fenders and Carl had tuned out of it a few minutes in after he saw the price tags. He figured the boring lesson might finally make Ben lose interest and ask if they could go pick up some tapes instead.

He’d been wrong. If anything, that one day he’d taken Ben out to the shop had made things worse. He and Sandy had talked about it at night, sitting in the backyard and looking up at the sky as they shared a beer or in bed when it was just a touch too warm to get to sleep easily. It was obvious Ben wanted an electric guitar, which also meant buying an amplifier, and the price of those two things…

It’d be like two Christmases, honestly. They couldn’t do it, not if they hoped to have some money put aside for his college tuition. Carl had even looked up some pawn shops on his lunch break a week back, but even used, they were anything but cheap. 

No, he wasn’t going to get any work done on this calendar until he figured this guitar thing out. Carl sighed and rubbed at his head for a bit, and then reached for his office phone. Maybe Dad would have some ideas. 

The man picked up on the third ring, pleased to hear from him. He wasn’t in Bellwood, he’d actually been off visiting his brother Gordon and his family, and Carl knew that his uncle could get a little intense sometimes. They’d never been too close but it was hard to forget the cowboy hat the man always wore and the gun collection he kept trying to show off. He and Max idled away the minutes talking about what they’d been up to and keeping it light. 

Finally, Max paused and spoke with the beginnings of some concern. “Is there something bothering you, son? It feels like you want to talk about something.”

Carl chuckled. Yeah, the old man hadn’t been around a lot growing up, but when he was, he never missed a beat if something was eating at his boys. “Well, dad, Ben’s been kind of obsessed since that last vacation we all took together. I think the rock and roll bug hit him pretty hard.”

“Oh, let me guess. He’s buying posters with his allowance of bands that you and Sandy don’t agree with.” Max chuckled.

“I wish.” Carl muttered. “No, that’s not it dad. He...well. He doesn’t want posters and he hasn’t been burying himself in the listening kiosks at the record stores. I don’t suppose that you’ve got a friend somewhere who’s got an electric guitar and a small amp that they’d be willing to part with cheaply? Because Ben’s been sniffing around for one since we got back and getting him a new one just isn’t in the cards. It wouldn’t have to be a fancy one. One with some dents in it or some missing paint would be fine if we didn’t have to spend an arm and a leg.”

On the other end of the line, Dad didn’t say anything for a bit. He finally ended up laughing flat out, and Carl had to snicker as well. “Yeah, I wasn’t expecting that he’d ever want to pick up an instrument. It is kind of funny.”

“Oh, that’s not why I’m laughing.” Max finally settled back down, and Carl could just imagine him wiping his eyes with a finger. “What’s funny is that your brother called me the other day and asked me if I knew anyone around Bellwood who had an old drumset they weren’t using anymore.”

Carl blinked as that fact settled into place, and all he could do was shake his head. It figured. Those two kids really did everything together. “God, I hope they’re not planning on starting a band.”

“For the sake of our eardrums, let’s hope not.” Max agreed, chuckling again. “I’ll see what I can do, Carl. Listen, I’m gonna let you go. You give everyone my love, I’ll be back in a couple of days.”

“Yeah. Thanks, dad. See you later.” Carl hung up the phone and tipped his chair back with a sigh.

So, Gwen wanted to play the drums…

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: The Kids Break Up

Angelwood Academy

Bellwood, California

Tuesday, December 3rd, 2000 C.E.

There were a few unwritten rules about making it at Angelwood Academy. Not as many as there were at other places, thankfully. There weren't nearly as many cliques and the nearest thing to a gang of hoodlums was kept in check by the unique environment. The two most important unwritten rules dealt exclusively with the whirlwind Tennyson cousins who found themselves at the heart of every important group of movers and shakers, and simultaneously, outside of the usual machinations.

The first of those rules were, it was better not to question them. That one applied to the kids as much as it did the teachers because Ben and Gwen Tennyson were brilliant, but other times, remarkably obtuse. The second unwritten rule regarding them was far simpler. Ben and Gwen always came as a pair. Always.

Lab partners, group projects, book reports, gym class, and especially lunchroom seating. Some teachers tried early on in school years to break them up, but it never took. The kids who knew them the longest, like Olivia, knew that it never had. They still wore those goofy plastic rings that they'd put on each other when they were all in elementary, even though Ben's only fit on his pinkie anymore and Gwen usually had hers on a leather string or whatever necklace she could get away with wearing that day, tucked inside of her shirt. It was just better to let them stick together. They liked hanging out with other kids too, but they always came back into orbit around each other.

Just as they were today again.

"Ben, you need to eat all of your salad." Gwen nagged at him. Olivia watched him scowl as he wiggled his fork through the mess of his chef salad, scraping off the slices of white root vegetable ringed with red. "It's important!"

"I eat enough weird things between visiting Grandpa at his RV Parks and whatever crazy tofu dish mom thought to use on me and dad," Ben told her. "I'm not eating radishes. You can have them if you want." Then he reached over and snagged the banana pepper Gwen had picked off of her own, taking a bite out of it to make her squawk. "I'll eat these, though."

"Ben, I was saving that!" Gwen smacked him on the arm, and Olivia let out a small sigh and shook her head. From his spot next to Ben, Liam looked across the table and gave her a slight nod. It was turning out to be another one of those days where the Tennysons were going to pick at each other instead of playing nice.

"Anyhow." Olivia said, reaching for her bottle of diet Snapple, "Gwen, is it true that Marci is throwing a New Year's party at her place?"

"That's what I heard from her this morning." Gwen grinned, picking up one of the radish slices from Ben's salad and chucking it at his face. He glared back at her, huffed, and then tried to ignore her. "I think she's inviting everyone in our class, and a few people from the other classes. She needed my help finding everyone's lockers to stuff invitations in."

"How do you - Oh. Yeah, never mind." Liam answered his own question with a rueful roll of his eyes. Of course, Gwen knew everyone's lockers Olivia reminded herself. Gwen was one of the students the office ladies used to run errands for the other students, including grabbing books and papers when they were sick. "So what's so special about this party anyways? I mean, if the boys are invited, great, but if we have to dress up and make small talk, I may as well stay home. Do enough of that here."

"Her parents are having their own party outside in the backyard," Gwen explained, pushing some of her hair away from her face. "Marci blamed my parents for what they did a couple of years back for the millennium, said that her folks wanted to do something bigger and better. They're even hiring a live jazz ensemble to play for them."

"Any chance you two will play with them?" Liam asked eagerly. It was another not-so-well-kept secret that Ben and Gwen had been learning how to play instruments of their own when they weren't at school.

"Not my kind of music." Ben grinned. "Besides, Gwen here can't sing to save her life."

"Rude!" Gwen gasped, putting a hand to her chest, but she didn't tell him he was wrong either. "But the point is, her parents are going to be busy with their party, so Marci got to put together her own inside the house and in the living room and dining room!" Olivia thought back to Marci's house and could easily picture the large spaces, connected by open walls without any doors. It was a lot of space meant for entertaining, and Marci's mom usually kept it off-limits when she had friends over. "There'll be music and snacks and dancing and we'll get to use their new DVD player...and we won't have her parents poking their heads in every five minutes checking in on us."

"Unchaperoned?" Ben's head perked up at that news, and he grinned a little. "Reaaaally…"

"No Ben, no. Best behavior." Gwen cut his planning off at the knees with a frown, poking her finger into his chest. "This is a test for Marci, you got it? Nothing can go wrong, I've already promised her that I'll be helping her to make sure that the party doesn't have any problems."

"If you let me and some of the guys bring some quality entertainment, I'll think about it."

"Your Gamestation?" Gwen guessed, raising an eyebrow.

"Gamestation? Nah. Movies." Ben grinned. "Liam?"

"Goldeneye?" Liam inquired, smiling a little.

"Yeah."

"I'll borrow it from the old man's collection, then."

"Top notch, old sport." Ben thanked him, mimicking a nasally British voice before he turned back to Gwen. "Just don't get so wrapped up in helping Marci plan this party that you forget to have some fun yourself."

"Isn't that why I keep you around?" Gwen teased him, and Ben leaned in way too close, close enough that if he'd done it to any other girl they would have turned beet red or yelled and smacked him.

"Sure you don't keep me around for another reason?" He growled out, and damnit, Olivia's face was on fire because even though they'd been like this since they were kids, they were growing up now, and doing that meant a lot more these days. At least it would have to Olivia.

Gwen just rolled her eyes, put her hand over Ben's face, and pushed him away. "Down, Scruffy." She mumbled, and Ben let out a small laugh. "You see what I have to put up with, Olivia?" Gwen added, pointing a fork at Ben. "You're such a pest some days, Ben."

He laughed again and rubbed at the back of his head, and was looking away in a different direction when Gwen struck up a conversation with someone else at their table. Olivia still had her eyes on Ben, though, if only because he was definitely cute these days, and looking was free even for someone as taken as he was.

Only, for someone who was taken, Ben's smile seemed a lot more forced as he stared off to the far wall of the cafeteria. Gwen didn't notice it, but Olivia did.

She wondered what it meant.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Ben's Home

December 6th

11:40 P.M.

He couldn't sleep. Usually, he'd be out like a light after Gwen went home, especially since mom had refused to give them any soda with caffeine tonight after the Halloween incident. They'd re-watched Jurassic Park tonight downstairs in the living room on dad's big TV, ate popcorn, laughed, and cheered when the T-Rex went after the velociraptors in the welcome center. Then Uncle Frank had picked up Gwen, taken her home, and he'd gone upstairs to brush his teeth and climb into bed. He just couldn't sleep. Oh, he'd tried. He'd tossed and turned, thrown off the covers when he felt too hot, tried breathing in and out slowly and counting his breaths. Nothing had worked, not when his mind was racing. Not when he was finally able to wrap his head around something he'd been grappling with for months now. No...years.

With a groan, Ben pushed the covers off and sat on the edge of the bed, hanging his head as he pushed a hand through his hair.

He was in love with his cousin. Head over heels, gag-romantic comedy in love with Gwen 'bossy-britches' Tennyson.

But he wasn't sure if she loved him back. If anything, she'd been getting cooler since school started this year. It was like some kind of switch had flipped in her head over the summer when he wasn't looking because she hadn't been the same. She didn't jump on his back and hug him when he wasn't looking anymore, she didn't smack a kiss on his cheek like she used to when they'd been in elementary school. And tonight, when Ben had tried to get her to watch the movie up in his bedroom, Gwen had ignored him and asked if his mom and dad wanted to watch it with them. Then she'd even sat on the outside of the couch, putting his mom in between them and ignoring him. She didn't sit beside him or lean against him like she used to. She never even reached for his hand during the scary parts.

She'd always reached for his hand before.

He wasn't able to figure it out sitting on his bed, so Ben got up and went downstairs, trying to move so the stairs wouldn't creak. They only did a couple of times. In the quiet they sang out brightly, making him wince. He went down to the kitchen and dug in the fridge for milk and the bottle of chocolate syrup, using the light from inside of the refrigerator to get a glass from the cupboard and start mixing it up. Ben had thought he'd been quiet enough, but it turned out he hadn't been, because the kitchen light suddenly flipped on. He froze in place, stirring spoon still in the chocolate milk, and turned his head in time to see his dad standing in the doorway of the living room. His old man looked a little worn down and the T-shirt he had on was faded to match.

"Might wanna shut the fridge door there, son. You're letting all the cold out." He teased Ben. "Or were you trying to get a snack without waking us up?"

"No! I just…" Ben scrambled for an answer and deflated. "I can't sleep."

"Yeah, that makes two of us." Dad sighed and walked in. "Think you can pour me a glass of that stuff too, champ?" Relieved at the reprieve, Ben went back to the cupboard and got a second glass while his dad sat down at the kitchen counter and scratched the back of his head. "Take it easy on the syrup in mine, though. Two squirts. Not the three you use."

Ben finished making the drink, stuffed the milk back into the fridge, and pushed the glass over to his dad. The two sat next to each other drinking quietly for a little bit. "Work?" Ben asked him carefully.

"You get put in charge of more people, you make more money but you have to worry about more. Nothing you have to worry about." His dad nodded, setting the half-empty glass down. "So how about you? What's keeping you up, Ben?"

Ben bit his lip. What should he tell him? Should he lie? His dad was pretty good at spotting lies, though. Almost as good as mom was. "There's a girl...at school," Ben said, quickly rushing for the qualifier as he blushed.

"Really?" His dad perked up and ruffled his hair. "Way to go, sport! I guess you are getting to be that age. You need some advice?"

This was beyond embarrassing, but...Ben swallowed down his pride and his first reaction and decided to give his dad a chance. Although he couldn't bring himself to tell the whole truth. His dad would never understand, he'd tell mom and then they'd call Uncle Frank and Aunt Lili and the whole thing would blow up and Gwen would never look at him again…

...Just like she could barely look at him now.

"How do I know if she likes me the way I like her?" Ben asked in a whisper. It was an honest question, and he could feel his dad staring at him for a bit before he reached for his glass and took another long swallow. His dad only started talking once he set it down again.

"Well, Ben, you don't."

"...Great."

"I wasn't finished." His dad's hand rested on his shoulder, and Ben tried to shrug it off, but dad wouldn't let him. "What you do, Ben, is you talk to her. You're afraid because you don't know what she's thinking? How she feels about you? Well, girls don't know how we think either. That was how it was with your mom and me."

"Dad!" Ben complained, and dad just laughed it off.

"Hey, this is important. I was taking this art class, and I couldn't draw to save my life. But there was this girl, Mary, who sat beside me when we had to draw and I thought she felt sorry for me, so she introduces me to her roommate who's in the class with us and is actually better than either of us. But very shy. That was your mom, by the way." Dad nudged Ben's shoulder with his arm. "She's still kind of shy about her drawings, but she comes by working for that art gallery naturally. But here's your mom bending over backwards to help me out so I don't fail this class, and at first I didn't think anything about it. Stupid guy, right? But after a while, something finally starts to stick in my brain. How she was so eager and cheerful when she first started helping me, how she'd make the time to help me out around my schedule, and how she was smiling less and less as the weeks went on."

"Why?" Ben didn't usually like hearing about his parents being in love and doing stuff, but...there had to be a point in here. Dad liked his stories, but this one felt different. It felt important.

"Because your dad can be an idiot sometimes." The old man gave him a wry look. "I finally broke down and asked her about it at a study session two weeks before our finals. I did it stupidly, of course. Just dropped the question in there without any tact. 'Are you doing this because you have a crush on me or something?' And she stopped what she was doing and just looked at me and fell apart a little, because yes, she said, she did. Had since the start and had just been waiting on me to pick it up. And boy, didn't I feel like a jerk after that."

"...How'd you make it up to her?" Ben asked him, curious. "I mean, you still ended up with mom, so, how'd you work it out?"

"Easy." His dad explained. "I told her I was sorry, and that I was an idiot who'd been too wrapped up in worrying about his grade to pay attention. Then I took our notebooks, closed them, and asked her if she wouldn't like to go get something to eat with me instead. The smile she gave me then...night and day." His dad sighed a little and looked off into nothing, and Ben fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Maybe that's a little too serious for your problem, but. The point, Ben, is that girls usually don't know what we're thinking and guys don't ever know what they're thinking. So if you really want to know how she feels about you? Just ask her. And be honest. It's good advice when you're in junior high and it's still good when you're in college. Talk to her. Okay?"

The butterflies in Ben's stomach settled a little, and he reached for his chocolate milk again, using the rest of it to push down the lump in his throat. "Okay." He answered.

"Good." Dad finished his off with three big swallows and taking their glasses over to the sink. "Now, come on. Let's get back up to bed, little man. And thank you."

"For what?"

"For being honest with me." His dad said, and Ben felt some of the butterflies start to come back. "You're growing up. Some day, you won't need your old man for anything, so I'm glad I can help you now. Don't worry, you're a Tennyson. We Tennysons don't back down from life. You'll get through this just fine. Besides, you don't have to worry about it until school on Monday."

His dad led him back up the stairs towards his bedroom, and Ben's butterflies came back in full force.

Monday.

He wasn't sure if he'd make it that long.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Monday, December 9th

Angelwood Academy

Monday came at last. By the time that Ben got off of the bus, he had gone over the words he wanted to say to her so many times that Henry had told him to stop muttering. At least he'd be able to get it all out of his head and confess to her today. He still had some butterflies, but at least now he could do something about them.

At least, that was the plan. There was a line his U.S. History teacher from last year liked to say that suddenly made sense. No plan survives contact with the enemy.

He tried to meet Gwen at her locker before the first class started because they rode different school buses but he knew she always went to her locker first. She was there talking to two other girls from their grade about something and seemed to freeze up when she finally saw him coming. He was maybe ten feet away from her when he cleared his throat after squeaking a bit and then tried again. "Gwen, could we…"

"Sorry, Ben, Lauren needs some help before class!" She cut him off with a bright smile and a wince of apology. "I'll see you later today, all right?" Before he could say anything, she'd grabbed Lauren's arm who let out a meep as Gwen dragged her away and the other girl followed, looking back at him for a second before spinning back around and racing off. Ben stood there looking like an idiot for a bit.

"...Yeah. Later." He said, knowing that it sounded wrong. Ben tugged on his uniform's tie a couple of times and then dashed for his locker with an irritated grunt. He barely made it to homeroom before the bell, and even with all of his karate classes he was still breathing hard from the delay. There wasn't any time in homeroom to talk to Gwen, not between her helping Lauren with her homework and everything else, and then they were off to their classes.

That seemed to be the pattern for the rest of the morning. Ben would rack his brains for a chance to get Gwen alone for a talk, and she kept finding reasons to - to avoid him. He wanted to talk to her in the hallway between classes? Oh, sorry Ben, I promised Mrs. Belvenson I'd help her get the slides ready for her next biology class. He tried to talk to her during P.E. class when they paired up for Badminton? She got on his case about focusing on the game and made everyone else laugh when he took a shuttlecock to the face for being so distracted.

Ben was sure that he could drag her away from everyone at lunch so he could talk to her properly. It would be one of his last chances since his classes in the afternoon didn't line up with hers as neatly. But sure enough, as soon as he sat his tray down next to her, she jumped on him before he could get a word out.

"Ben, I was saving that spot for Marci!"

Ben made a point of looking around the lunchroom before turning back to her. "She isn't here yet." He argued. He always sat next to her at lunch, that was just how it worked.

"She will be," Gwen said, shaking her head a little before taking the edge of his tray and pushing it to the other side of the lunch table. "Besides, don't you get tired of always sitting next to me?"

"No, I don't," Ben said, glaring at her. Why was she acting so weird all of a sudden? He could tell she was nervous, she had that line on her forehead she only got when she was twitchy about something. What did she have to be nervous about? She wasn't the one getting ready to - to -

"Well, maybe I do. And I do have to talk to Marci about her party. We have karate after school today so I won't have any time tonight to do it."

"Maybe you oughta spend some time talking with your -" Ben started, and froze. Her eyes got huge like she was panicking, and before he could move, she'd whacked one of her hands out to the side and smacked him on the side of the hip, pushing him away.

"You can wait your turn." Gwen stammered, looking away from him. "Now go sit on the other side of the table already, Scruffy." That got some laughs from the gang they usually sat with, but Ben didn't have to look at their faces to know that they were nervous laughs. He was fuming and hurt, but he finally walked around the table and sat down on the other side, stuck on the end with Liam. The boy was fidgeting in his seat and kept looking back and forth between Ben and Gwen, trying to use just his eyes. Ben could still feel him looking. He felt everyone looking at him.

When Marci finally came over to the table and sat down in his spot, Gwen immediately started talking to her. She was a little louder and the words came a little faster than normal, and she never even looked at him.

Liam leaned in towards the side of his head and spoke in a whisper. "Hey, Ben, is everything okay?"

Why wouldn't she just talk to him? Ben gave his head a shake and poked at his slice of pizza. For once, he didn't feel like eating it.

"I don't know," he admitted.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Maybe Gwen thought that because he didn't have any more classes with her the rest of the day she'd be safe from seeing him again. It wasn't like they could talk on the ride to karate, or during karate. It was wishful thinking on her part. Maybe Ben didn't have her talent for picking up new book learning as quickly, but he could out-stubborn her any day of the week. And he did a better job of coming up with plans on the fly.

Plus, he knew her schedule just as well as he did his own, including where she'd be halfway through 7th period. Gwen might have thought she could go on avoiding him, but she never stood a chance. When she stepped out of the school library where she'd been tutoring others in French (A language she'd struggled to get a handle on herself), she wasn't expecting him or looking for him. She turned left after passing out the doors, not even sparing a look to the right. That was where Ben was, absentmindedly rubbing at the faded Kangaroo Kommando decoder ring that only fit on his pinkie finger now and staring at her with all the feelings he had bubbling away in his chest. One still boiled harder than all the others she had made him feel today. Or last week. Or the months before.

"Found you." He forced out, and Gwen let out a yelp as she spun around, dropped the books she'd been carrying. They flopped around to her feet, forgotten as she stared at him, the deer in the headlights look back on her face in full force.

"Ben!" She blurted, panicking for a bit before she worked herself up enough to sound indignant again. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in…"

"I took a hall pass." Twenty minutes ago, for the bathroom, but he didn't care. Gwen did, though. She stomped her foot and glared at him.

"You're going to get yourself in trouble if you don't…"

"I don't care." Ben cut her off before she could finish that sentence about being proper and doing the right thing. Please. "This is more important."

"Bothering me is more important than not getting written up?"

"Yeah," Ben growled, pushing himself off of the wall and walking towards her. "It is." And sure enough, that indignant look faded away for panic so quickly it almost made his head spin. She backpedaled away from the books on the floor, nearly tripping over her own feet. Would she actually try to run from him? He took a step towards her and then she did stumble over one of the books that had fallen further away, falling backward with a yelp just as wild as when he'd surprised her.

Gwen had fast feet but Ben's hands could strike like cobras. All his years of karate had made sure of that, and even though she'd started taking classes after finishing that stint of ballet, he'd always kept that advantage over her. Ben caught her by the forearm and the shoulder before she could hit the ground, and she froze. Ben held onto her for only a second, long enough to stare into her eyes at close range and pull her back up onto her feet - well clear of the books she'd dropped. Then he let her go, not losing eye contact. She whipped her hand back and rubbed at her elbow, and he deflated.

"Why do you keep running from me?" He asked her. "All day. All day I've just wanted to talk to you, and you keep…" Pushing me away, he thought but didn't say. Gwen winced like he'd said it anyways.

"I need to say something." Ben pressed on because he knew if he didn't say this now, he'd go crazy over it. "Gwen, I - I like being around you."

"I like hanging out with you too…" She started, and Ben held out his hand in a 'stop' gesture. Gwen closed her mouth and nibbled at her lip.

"I think about you. All the time." He said, moving another step closer. "I remember how you used to be when we were little. How you'd brighten up whenever you saw me coming." Another step and Gwen pressed her hand to her chest, breathing shallowly. "You were...we were…"

She used to call him 'mine'. My Ben. My Scruffy.

He couldn't look away from her now. Even in her school uniform with the dark blue sweater and her black skirt and leggings, she was beautiful. Wild.

"You're my Gwen." He forced the words out. "And it took me a while to figure it out, but... I love you. I want to be with you. I want to be with you the way we were when we were kids. When we did everything together."

One of Gwen's hands stayed on her chest, but the other went up to her mouth, covering her lips. They hadn't kissed each other on the lips since that one game they played on the playground in elementary school. Ben hadn't figured it out at the time, but the memory roared at him now. What they'd done. What they'd promised.

God help him, he had married her when they were eight years old.

"Ben...I…" Gwen stammered out. He smiled at her.

"I'm your Ben. Nobody can kiss me, except you." Then he closed his eyes and leaned in to do what that little voice in his head, louder every day for a whole six months, had told him to do. To kiss her for real.

Warm skin pressed against his lips, and he froze. Because it wasn't Gwen's lips on his mouth. It was her hand.

And she pushed him away.

Ben wasn't expecting it, and he nearly ended up on his butt. Only all of his years of karate let him steady himself after three or four wobbly steps. He ended up six feet away from her, no real distance at all, but after that push…

His chest hurt, and the lump in his throat was back.

"We can't," Gwen spoke, a rasp in her voice that Ben had never heard before. "Ben, we... we're cousins." Gwen's eyes were always so bright, but now the gleam in them faded as she fumbled out words that made no sense to him. "It's a miracle our parents haven't - The kids here already…" She stopped herself and shook her head. "I know. Okay? I know how you feel about me." Gwen looked at him again, nothing but fear and hurt for him to look at. "But you shouldn't. You can't."

"I do." Ben pressed the point, but he didn't try to walk over to her again. He'd been pushed away once, he couldn't take it again. "And so do you! What are you afraid of?!" His hand slashed out in front of him. "Every gaggy romance movie you've dragged me to, every stupid British drama show always says the same thing. Even our English class last year! Love is worth it!" Something in his chest twisted. "And you're afraid of what other people think? When have you ever cared about what people thought when you were chasing after something you wanted?"

She just stood there, her head shaking back and forth ever so slightly and trembling, not saying a word. It only made him angrier.

His dad had told him to open up. To tell her exactly how he felt. Sure, dad hadn't known he was talking about Gwen, but - this wasn't how it was supposed to go. And what really wasn't fair was…

"I know you feel the same way for me that…"

"I don't." Gwen blurted out and clapped both hands over her mouth while her eyes went wide.

Ben heard a ringing in his ears after that and felt...off. He leaned against the wall with one shoulder and stared at Gwen. "What?" He asked. He was confused, the ringing got louder, and that twisting feeling in his chest got worse. Or maybe it was his stomach. "What?"

"I…" Gwen's hands shook as she lowered them back down. She took in a breath, and Ben lost his. "I don't." She told him, as the shaking in her hands stopped. "We were kids. Everything we did, we...we were kids. You were my best, my best friend, and you still are. But we're older now. We're growing up and feelings change. That's what my mom told me."

"...Liar," Ben whispered. The ringing in his ears was deafening. His hands tightened into fists and the decoder ring dug into his palm. "You love me."

"I can't…" Gwen shut her eyes again, breathed slowly, and her right hand came up to her neck. The first two buttons of her sweater and her shirt popped free as she rubbed at the skin there. "I can't love you. I don't love you." She finally opened her eyes and tried for a smile that didn't reach them.

"But you're still my best friend, okay? I still...I still want you around. We're cousins, right? Besides..." She kept saying more words after that, empty ones that he didn't hear as the ringing drowned everything else out. And then, right as his eyes locked onto her neck and noticed - not something, but the absence of something - the ringing finally stopped.

Her decoder ring. The one he'd put on her finger, the one she'd worn and used as a necklace when it didn't fit on her ring finger anymore, was gone. The leather string around her neck wasn't there. It wasn't there.

"Ben?" Gwen said, using his name as a question. He stared at her bare neck for a few more seconds, and thought he heard a door opening behind him and girls' voices talking quietly. Ben put it out of his mind, because he saw Gwen looking back at him, confused. He saw her follow where he was looking. He saw her turn surprised when she figured out what he'd been staring at, what wasn't there. And she panicked. "Ben…"

"Save it." Ben choked out. He ripped the plastic ring off of his pinkie and threw it at her, and it bounced off of her chest before hitting the floor. The girls behind him gasped.

Ben felt his eyes start to burn, and shook his head. "We aren't together. I guess we never were."

He found he couldn't look at her, not there. Not then. He took off like a shot, bending around her and running down the halls at speeds that would get him yelled at if a teacher caught him. He didn't care. He had to get out of there. He couldn't stay, not when everything felt wrong and he didn't know how to make it right again.

He couldn't make it right again.

When Ben finally made it back to class, he got written up for being gone for so long, and it didn't matter. It didn't matter when he had to stay after school for detention, it didn't matter when his mom had to come pick him up and he missed karate because of it. It didn't matter when his dad talked to him in the garage after dinner and asked him what he was thinking goofing off in school like that, and if the girl he liked had something to do with it. He didn't have an answer to his parent's questions. He only had an answer to his own.

Gwen didn't love him. And nothing made sense anymore.

Chapter Text

Chapter 9: The Kids Come Out of the Closet

Angelwood Academy

Bellwood, California

Monday, December 9th, 2000

Gwen Tennyson stared at the empty space where Ben just was. At the space he'd left behind as he spun around and ran away from her. She didn't register the words he'd said until after he'd said them.

"We aren't together. I guess we never were."

Gwen jerked her head up towards him and tried to say his name, to say something, but now after she'd said all those other words, now her throat decided to close up on her.

But only her.

"Gwen!" She heard someone call out behind her. Someone she knew even before Olivia got there and pulled her into a hug. She always gave the best ones just because she was so tall.

Second best….

"What happened? Are you alright? Do you want me to go get Marci?" The questions came just as fast as the other girl could run. And not just from her.

"What was his problem?" Another of the girls asked. Gwen knew her name, she knew that she did, but she couldn't remember it. It was as gone as everything else.

"Boys," the other one said, her nose in the air but her eyes staying on Gwen. Gwen felt sick, and dizzy, and Ben was gone. But his ring was still there lying on the floor, and…

Her legs gave out on her when she bent down to pick it up, and Olivia let out a small cry when Gwen fell onto her knees and pulled her along for the ride as she picked up the plastic Kangaroo Kommando decoder ring again. The one that he threw at her. It felt like a wrecking ball smashing into her when it hit her chest, but it was even heavier now as she picked it up.

Heavy in all the ways it wasn't when she put it on his finger to begin with all of those years ago.

And she wasn't the only one who remembered that day. "He threw away your ring?" Olivia asked, as horrified as she would have been if Ben was hers.

"Your ring?" The third girl asked, her mouth an O. "Isn't he your - ?"

Gwen made a horrible little noise, and Olivia's arms tightened around her, holding her steady as her whole world got pulled out from under her.

"Oh, please. Like Gwen Tennyson would ever do something that scandalous." The second girl shut that open-ended question down with a disgusted snort.

"It's just an old toy," Olivia lied. Gwen wondered how her friend could pull it off so cleanly. "Something from when they were kids. Gwen found it in a cereal box when Ben was into that cartoon, and she didn't want it, so she gave it to him."

Liar, Gwen thought. Olivia had been there when Gwen had given it to Ben. She'd been her maid of honor even, back when they'd both thought it meant she was made of the stuff.

"Boys," the second girl sighed again like that explained everything. And more than Gwen could when the two finally went away after they heard the bell and Olivia gave her a look. "Gwen, what happened? He's Ben! He's your Scruffy a-and..."

"I don't know," Gwen whispered.

And it turned out that she could lie after all.

- o - o - o - o - o -

3:17 PM.

The whispers had followed Gwen around all afternoon, a noise that she couldn't ignore or block out and buzzed around like a nest of wasps. Marci and Olivia were twitchy but they stayed close, trying to keep her from the worst of it. But they couldn't stop everything.

Innocent questions. "I heard you and Ben had a fight, are you okay?" To the less innocent questions that bordered on hurtful. "Did you get fed up with him following you around everywhere finally? I mean, that was weird..."

The words that brought it all to a head - the ones that were even worse than the question that a girl named Lacey who'd moved to Bellwood two years ago, who didn't know her and Ben as well as some of the others asked her, "I heard about the fight from Paulette. So, since you and Ben 'aren't together', do you think he'd like to be my date for Marci's New Year's party?"

Those words made her forget all about getting her biology books from her locker, but they were still better than what she heard Nadia say when she was rushing for the door after last Bell.

"I guess that home's not so sweet in Alabama after all," the Russian girl sneered as she went by. Gwen flinched at the barb and refused to make eye contact, pulling on every lesson she had so she didn't rush her mother's car, but she couldn't help slamming the door behind her as she got in.

"Gwendolyn!" Her mom sounded as surprised as she felt awful. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Gwen said as a lifetime of lessons kept her head up as she put on her seatbelt, but it couldn't keep her from blinking away tears. "They're just jerks."

"And you let them get away with that?" Her mom asked, her voice still light. Then the frown came as she craned her head. "Or Ben? Where is he anyway? We're going to be - "

"He's not coming," Gwen said, her head finally bowing as she felt for the empty space over her heart. She knew her mom, she knew the woman would argue about it, so she cut her off at the pass. "Mom? I don't feel good. Can we just go home?"

"You want to skip karate?" She reached over and put a hand on Gwen's forehead. "Hmm, well maybe you should. You're a touch warm. Do we need to stop and pick up some medicine for you?"

"No." Somehow Gwen managed to pull her legs up onto the seat and curl herself against them. It gave her something to hold onto, and something to hide her face in. "I just want to go home."

"Honey, did something happen at…" Her mom started, and Gwen shook her head against her legs. Her mom thankfully left her alone after that, starting the van again and taking them out of the school parking lot. Gwen didn't lift her head at all. She'd been stared enough at today, endured enough whispers. She couldn't take looking out at the buses and the other cars with parents and kids and seeing them watching her still.

When they got home, mom sent her upstairs with a gentle pat on the back. "You go ahead and lie down, honey. I'll call your Sensei and let him know you won't be coming, and then I'll bring you something to eat. Do you think you can handle some soup?"

Three steps up the stairs, Gwen managed a slow nod without turning around. Mom went into the kitchen and Gwen walked to her room.

She should have changed out of her uniform into something else, but once her bedroom door was shut, Gwen just leaned up against it and shut her eyes as she tried to get her breathing under control again. It was only when she wrapped her hands around herself and felt an unfamiliar lump in her shirt pocket underneath her sweater that Gwen could bring herself to move again.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, she thought. She was too hollowed out for tears or even let out a whimper. Too overwhelmed by this mess of a day.

Ben had taken off his ring and thrown it at her. The ring he'd worn since they were eight years old. Gwen went over to her desk and stared at herself in the mirror built into the frame at the back of it. Someone she hardly recognized blinked and looked back at her.

She turned away from the mirror with a shake of her head and pulled her jewelry box out of one of the bottom drawers. With the latch snapped open and the lid pushed back, she stared down at the contents and finally let out a miserable sniffle.

There, on top of all the other earrings and bangles and necklaces that her mother and her daddy had given her for social events and presents over the years was another Kangaroo Kommando decoder ring, secured to a leather string necklace and folded with care.

She set Ben's ring next to it, hating that they were a matching set again. Not wearing it to school had been a choice - a choice she'd made this morning because it had seemed like the right thing to do.

Gwen closed the lid and left it on the desk.

She trudged over to her bed, collapsed on top of the comforter in her rumpled clothes, curled in on herself, and did what she hadn't been able to do since Ben left her. She cried.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Friday, December 13th

She had karate after school, but Gwen just didn't have the heart for it. Monday had been a wash, but she knew that she couldn't try the 'not feeling good' excuse again. So when Wednesday finally came around, and it felt like every second that lead up to it was both painfully slow until they all rushed by at once, she'd gone to the dojo hoping to get back to some semblance of normal. It hadn't lasted. As soon as she saw Ben, all of the energy she'd had just evaporated. So did Ben's, and worse, everyone else saw it too.

Everyone in that dojo, their Sensei included knew that something was wrong, and it took everything she had to pair off with someone else and push through the session with sheer grit. Every so often she'd glance over to peek at Ben, wondering if he'd be watching her.

He hadn't. Not once, in the entire class. As soon as they were done, he raced to change. By the time she grabbed her bag and came out again, he was long gone. She couldn't deal with another karate class like that. So after the last bell rang and she stopped at her locker to drop her books off, Gwen pulled herself into her mom's van and said that she needed a break from it for a while. Her mom looked at her for what felt like forever before finally giving a crisp nod. It was fine with her, mom told Gwen, but she would be the one calling the dojo and explaining that to her teacher. Ordinarily, that might have made Gwen buckle. Instead, she mutely nodded and made the call as soon as they got home, telling her Sensei that she would be taking the rest of December off. He was just as intense on the phone as he was in real life, but he never said anything disapproving. He just told her that if she was coming back in January, he expected her to be focused, not like she'd been on Wednesday. All the while, the back of her head itched from where she could feel her mom staring at her.

"Is there something you need to talk to me about, honey?" Her mom asked her gently, standing by the stove as she minded the tea kettle. Gwen set the cordless back on its charger and tried to ignore the question. "I know that something's been bothering you since Monday. I just don't know what. I wish you could talk with me about it."

Those words were an invitation and also a plea. Gwen didn't dare, though. Not after everything that her father had said over the summer.

God, she could still feel the hum of her drumming in her hands and hear the last few notes of Ben's guitar echoing in her ears, and that wasn't anything compared to the feel of the peck that her Scruffy had pressed into her cheek after they got done playing for their friends at the talent show. It was better than the cheers and the silver medal that was pinned to her chest.

It was a quiet drive because her mother stayed behind to help clean up - she would have, too, if it wasn't for the test she had the next day. A test that would have kept her from the show altogether if she hadn't promised she'd spend the rest of the night studying - not that Gwen noticed. Not when it felt like she was flying the whole way as her hand kept drifting back to her cheek.

No, the day felt better than that. It felt like magic.

She never even noticed that her daddy was being even quieter than normal. Not until they got home and he coughed out her name just as she reached for the door handle. A cough that he repeated because in her mind she was already up the stairs and it wasn't so she could study or get changed or wash off her face paint. No, she had a bag full of all the Polaroids her mother had taken. A bag she needed to sort through so she could add the best to her photo album before Marci called so they could crow about her win.

But it wasn't the cough that stopped her. It was the look that her daddy gave her, his face red and his eyes unfocused because he'd already taken off his glasses and he was busy shining them like he always did when he was nervous, but usually it was just a few quick swipes. Now he did it for what felt like forever before he looked at her.

And then he started talking…

"You're growing up, honey. Soon, you won't be a young lady anymore. You'll be a young woman. I wish you wouldn't, but you will. And when we grow up, our feelings change." That hadn't been what twisted her stomach in knots, though. It was what he said after, as he reached up and brushed his thumb over her cheek. "And I'm not saying this just for your sake, but for Ben's. He's growing up, too. I'm glad you two have stayed friends, but things will be different when you leave junior high. Things that were okay when you were little aren't okay now. You wouldn't want to give anyone the wrong idea. So maybe this year, you could spend a little less time with him, hm? Before people start talking. You don't need that kind of gossip following you into high school and neither does he."

It was the kind of thing that her mother and her mormor were always going on about and if either of them had said it, Gwen wouldn't have given it a second thought, but it wasn't. It was her daddy and -

And up to then, she hadn't much cared what people thought. Sure people talked, but life was just better when she was with her Scruffy. She teased him, he teased her right back. She trusted him more than she trusted anyone. It was only after her dad had said those words that Gwen suddenly started taking a closer look. Began to feel self-conscious about it as she sat there during lunch and listened to all of the girls in her class gossip about boys - even Olivia and Marci - while Ben went off with the other boys instead of staying with her as they did dumb boy things together like shove each other for no reason or stupid tricks that almost always got one of them hurt, not that that stopped them.

Dumb boy things that always seemed to happen in front of their picnic table. Things that always ended with screaming and giggling and somebody getting chased. Mostly by him because her Ben was a Doofus and he always grabbed whatever book she was reading or some of her lunch and -

And it was almost normal. It was almost what they did together for their whole lives, but…

But…

But it was like their hugs. Ben was always hugging her. He had for as long as she could remember. He'd even done it when he was covered in mud, but it felt different now that she was thinking about it. Different enough that she couldn't help squirming away from him as her Daddy's words filled her ears again even though Ben looked so hurt and confused when she did.

Which was nothing compared to how he looked a few days ago when she'd torn his heart out before he threw it at her. And hers…

Hers raced as she remembered all the other looks he gave her in class and at karate and everywhere else. Little ones that she could have sworn that she caught him giving her more and more over the last few months. Little ones that made his mouth do something that wasn't the smirk that she was used to. The smirk that always made her grin because it meant that he thought of some game they could play or some new kind of trouble he could get them into.

He wasn't looking at her like that when she caught him now, but she still wanted to grin even as their gaze bounced away from each other. She wanted to, but she couldn't. Not even when she watched his face burn with a brush so bright that she should have teased him for days over. Not when she had her daddy's words in her ears. Words that seemed so silly when he said them, but now…

But now her Scruffy could make her stomach do flip-flops with just a touch and his looks left her a stammering mess in front of the whole class and -

- and now she saw the looks that they got when she did. The smirks that weren't a thing like Ben's…

"I'll figure it out, mom," Gwen said as she spun away from the memory of those looks, her face hot again. She might have run for the safety of the stairs and her bedroom if she wasn't a Larrson and a Tennyson, but she was. Not much, not as much as she should have been, but it was enough that forced herself to stop and look back over her shoulder so she could say, "Ihavesomehomeworktodo. Comegrab mefordinner?"

Gwen saw the disappointment on mom's face as the rush of words hit her, but she could live with that. She was almost used to it by now and the sigh that she got didn't cut anywhere near as deep as the thoughts that were running through her head.

Thoughts that didn't stop even as her mother said something that Gwen didn't catch before she gave her a nod that she did. Thoughts that followed her even as she disappeared upstairs with her bookbag. Her books were poured out onto the bed and she tried to get through her math, but it was a waste of time. The only problem she could focus on was one that she couldn't solve.

Ben was braver than her. She knew he was. He always had been. He was the one who charged up to people and dogs and everything else. He was the one who always wanted to play in the woods no matter what their parents said and he was the one who led the way to Grandpa's when they were little and ran away.

He was always so brave just like she was always the only one who could make him stop and think, if only for a second. She was the only one who was strong enough to tell him no when he got too crazy and somebody had to. Nobody else could say that. Not their teachers or her aunt and uncle. Not even her mother or her mormor or her morfar. Not even Grandpa.

Gwen just never thought he'd be brave enough to actually say what he had and she never knew that doing the right thing would hurt so much.

"I don't love you," she whispered the words again as she tapped her pencil against her notebook, just running over the moment that she realized she'd lost him over and over again as the sun set and her room got dark…

She was just about to turn on her desk lamp when there came a knock at her bedroom door. Gwen looked up, expecting to find her mom or her dad there to call her for dinner, but neither of them filled up so much of her doorway, and neither of them grinned so wide when they saw her. "Grandpa?"

Her Grandpa Max, dressed in his usual red Hawaiian shirt, smiled from where he was leaning up against the doorway. "Hey, pumpkin. Hitting the books on a Friday night? That's a little extreme even for you." She got up and raced over to him, and he pulled her in for one of his hugs that was strong and warm and went on forever.

But of course it did. Grandpa always gave the best hugs, and she sank into it eagerly.

He must have noticed how long she kept it going for because he chuckled lightly and patted her back. "Gwen, I just saw you two weeks ago. I didn't realize you missed me that much."

She sniffed once and pulled back, smiling at him. "Sorry. It's just a good surprise, I guess."

"Well, how about an even better surprise?" Grandpa teased her. "I got permission from your mom and dad to take you out for dinner tonight. There's a barbecue place about half an hour away from here next to a little wooded area, and it's a great night for stargazing. I've got the telescope loaded up if you feel like coming along."

"That sounds great!" Gwen cheered. She loved going on little surprise trips with Grandpa. Sometimes he came over to visit for an afternoon on the weekends or for dinner, but he saved his Rust Bucket Excursions for special occasions. The sudden thought of who else had gone on with them before put a damper on her high spirits. "Um. Grandpa? Ben - Ben isn't coming along, is he?"

There was something that passed behind Grandpa Max's eyes, but it was gone too fast for Gwen to figure out what. He gave his head a shake with another one of his patented smiles. "Not this trip, honey. It's just you and me tonight."

She didn't know how she could feel relieved and hurt at the same time, but somehow Gwen found a way to manage it. At least the smile came easily enough. A Lady always smiles, even when she doesn't feel like it, was one of her mom's old lessons. Sometimes Gwen didn't listen to that one. Tonight, she did.

"Great." She said, giving one last look at her desk. She passed over the homework without a care, but she stared at her jewelry box for a good two seconds before breaking away from it. "Let's go then."

- o - o - o - o - o -

The fries they cooked at the barbecue place Grandpa picked out were made from whole potatoes shoved through a honeycomb slicer, long and thicker than anything McDonald's ever had. They came out crispy on the outside and steamy on the inside and tasted better to Gwen than the coleslaw or even the smoked chicken she ordered.

If Ben had been there, he would've gnawed an entire turkey leg on his own, with the fries, and then tried to eat some of hers as well. He would have -

Gwen caught herself then when she felt her smile start, and shoving that thought away took everything she had. She tried to keep all of that off of her face, too, but something must have slipped through because Grandpa laughed over his plate of chicken gizzards and smoked brisket and pushed the rest of his fries towards her. "I get the feeling you'd steal them anyway. Your grandma always used to," he said fondly, and then he let out a little sigh that she could have sworn was a laugh, the jerk. "I'm just sorry that they're not organic and fat-free like you wanted."

"So am I," Gwen said with a sigh of her own even as she fought down the urge to lick her fingers because she was a lady. Fought it and lost. "How did you find this place? I didn't even know this was out here!"

"Too many years of being on the road for my job." Grandpa conceded. He looked like he was going to say more, but then he got sad and shook his head, changing the subject. "So. Christmas is coming up soon. Is there anything in particular you want, or should I just go with my best guess?"

She gave it about two seconds' thought. "Best guess. You give good presents, grandpa. As long as it's not some new recipe." She still shuddered whenever he mentioned his octopus casserole surprise. Just thinking about it made her nose wrinkle enough that he saw it and laughed a little.

"Fair enough. I haven't decided what to get Ben yet either. Maybe I'll get something the two of you can share - like those kayaking lessons up in Oregon last summer you got from my old friend Jesse." Her face fell a little at the reminder of who she was trying to forget about for one night, and he corrected himself a heartbeat after. "Or maybe I'll get the two of you something different this year. I still have some time, after all. Sorry, Gwen. I didn't realize that would be a sore spot for you."

She shrugged and nibbled at his basket of fries so she wouldn't have to say anything right away. It left her thirsty, though, and she finished off the rest of her orange soda, giving the cup a dirty look. "I'll be right back, grandpa." He waved her off and she got up from their table, moving across the room to the soda machine.

Another song from the jukebox nearby kicked on, a melody that wasn't entirely country this time. Gwen half-listened to it as the opening spun into the lyrics of a woman singing, sounding almost heartbroken.

"Here you come again, just when I'd begun to get myself together…" And somehow that was all it took to get her thinking about Ben again. About how heartbroken he'd been when she refused him. When she tried to play off everything they had as just…friendship. How destroyed he'd been when he realized she wasn't wearing his decoder ring on a necklace that day.

How she wished she could kick herself for not wearing it. She didn't even know why she didn't and she'd give anything if she could just go back and -

But she couldn't. She scowled to keep from crying and slammed the cup against the dispenser, watching more orange soda flow into her cup and over the ice.

"All you gotta do is smile that smile, and there go all my defenses. Just leave it up to you and in a little while, you're messing up my mind, and fillin' up my senses…"

It didn't matter what Ben thought. It didn't matter what she thought, Gwen told herself. It couldn't happen. Better that it hurt now, better for him to move on. It was better that she buried those burning embers before anything caught fire. If she kept telling herself that, if she kept remembering all the things her mom had told her about being proper and keeping up appearances then maybe someday things would feel normal again. Maybe she could be in the same room with him without feeling like there was a wall between them, and they could carry on a conversation like other cousins did.

Maybe.

Just not now.

She went back to the table and sank back down in her chair, not feeling much like eating the rest of the food in front of her. She just sipped her soda and stared at the wall behind Grandpa Max, letting the words from that woman's song rattle around in her head and feeling Grandpa watching her the whole time.

He didn't pry, not there in the middle of the restaurant. "Guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach. You going to need a doggy bag too, Gwen?" She managed a weak smile as she nodded, and bless his heart if he didn't leave it there, just smiling back. "Sit tight. I'll go get us some to-go boxes for the rest. We'll have a midnight snack for our stargazing tonight." And then he headed for the counter, leaving Gwen alone with her thoughts again.

"Here you come again, and here I go…"

- o - o - o - o - o -

6:45 PM.

The Rust Bucket was parked in a grassy field with a mess of trees 100 yards away. Mountains around them blocked out so much of the glow of lights that never went away when she was home, which made the stars so much brighter even before Grandpa Max started putting his telescope together. And after he had - after he put the little battery-powered camp lantern out, too….

Even with her heavy coat and gloves on, it still felt like Gwen was alone with the universe.

Almost alone. "That's got it," Grandpa said, peering into the lens one more time before stepping away with a smile as he turned off the camp lantern. "I've got Mars dialed in. Care for a look?"

She did, even if the small size of the telescope meant that the planet wasn't much more than a red smudge of reflected sunlight in the darkness. "That's something, all right." She mused. Things like outer space weren't quite her usual fancy, but she could appreciate it. It brought up another thought that brought nothing but new pain, and she pushed it down and away, trying to forget about it.

Grandpa somehow knew exactly what was on her mind, though. "I'll have to remember to do this with Ben later." He mused. "He loves stuff like this."

He would, Gwen knew. Ben could be bored to tears over most things at school, but when it came to space exploration, he didn't forget a thing. Their teachers barely talked about it or the aliens that were a part of so many of the games that they played at school, but it didn't matter. Every space probe, every lander, he'd go on all day if nobody stopped him. God, she still remembered the time that they'd met an actual astronaut and she knew that if it wasn't for the line behind them that her Doofus would still be talking to that poor man. It was mortifying and so cute and -

And she stiffened up and looked over to the two lawn chairs set up for them so she could stare at the man who took them. Grandpa had a thermos of coffee down by his feet, the worn plastic lid with its handle in his hand as he watched her with the same sad little smile that he'd had then.

It was a smile that she didn't understand then or trust at all now.

"Did mom ask you to talk to me?" Gwen demanded, suspicious and a little bit angry that this was all some kind of setup.

"No." He shook his head, only his outline visible in the starlight.

"Though your mom did say she was worried about you, I didn't bring you out tonight because she asked me to. This was my idea." Gwen digested that and grandpa waited before adding, a few seconds later, "Funny enough, your aunt and uncle were worried about Ben's behavior the past few days, too. But you know how he is." Grandpa Max let out a weak laugh. "Trying to get a straight answer out of him when he doesn't want to give you one's next to impossible."

Gwen did know that. "So you decided you'd try to get one out of me?"

"I'm not trying anything." He replied, calm as he always was. "If you say it isn't my business, then I'll leave it at that and we can just spend the next hour looking at planets and stars. Or if you don't, Heaven knows there's more food to eat if you want. But I only needed to watch you for five minutes to know that there's something tearing you up." He took a drink of his coffee and let out a sigh. "I'm listening, Gwen. If you want to talk about it."

Her first reaction was to deny that anything was wrong, of course. It's what she'd been doing all week, after all. She opened her mouth to deny it, and…stopped.

Maybe it was because she'd been denying this all week and it hadn't gotten any better. Maybe it was because she hadn't been able to get a good night's sleep since Ben walked away from her, and she was definitely tired. Or maybe the things she didn't dare talk about with others in the light of day were easier now in the middle of nowhere, in the dark. Maybe it was because this was Grandpa, and he'd never once judged her.

Maybe it was all of those things stacked on top of each other, a weight that finally broke her down. She trudged away from the telescope, too exhausted to look up at the stars. All her thoughts were down here on earth.

The lawn chair barely moved under her weight. She let her head drop back and stared up at the sky full of stars. "What do you want to know?"

"What happened, Gwen?"

"We had a fight."

"I figured that part out, pumpkin."

"I got scared." She confessed. The words poured out of her like poison drawn from a wound. "Ben, he…He said…"

He told me he loved me. He was so brave. Why couldn't I be?

"I panicked." She went on. "I said something horrible back to him. I hurt him. And I can't take it back. I don't know how to fix this, grandpa."

"What did he say that scared you?" His voice was soft in the dark, barely any louder than the soft breeze that didn't even move her hair.

The question made her crack out a laugh that hurt as soon as she made it. "It doesn't matter. It can't happen." She whispered. "It's for the best. Isn't it?"

She drew her legs up and pulled them to her chest. And even though she didn't dare say what the fight was over, directly, she worked up the courage in the dark with only one person listening to allude to it. "We're already weird. We're already freaks. I'm not as brave as he is, I can't…No."

"Since when have you and Ben ever cared what anyone else ever thought about you?" Grandpa countered. "Would you have ever gotten him to take dance lessons with you if you did? Or done karate together? Or started a band?" She could feel the smile in his voice, but she couldn't match it. Gwen shut her eyes, feeling miserable all over again. Even in the dark, keeping her eyes closed was the only way she could ever hope to keep on talking.

"This is different." She got out in a quaver. "If we…You'd hate me. You'd think I was sick. I did the right thing. I did."

Grandpa Max didn't say anything, and Gwen thought he was getting ready to yell at her. She had nightmares about her mom finding out and yelling at her. She heard him move and tensed up, bracing to be pulled to her feet and hauled back into the Rust Bucket for the ride home.

She wasn't expecting his warm hand to settle onto the top of her head, and she snapped her eyes open to look at him as he knelt in front of her.

"If it was the right thing to do, Gwen, then why are you so broken up about it?" He asked, and smiled in the dark. "There is nothing you could ever do, honey, that'd make me hate you. I'm your grandpa. Unconditional love's part of the package. I'm there for you no matter what. And I respect that you still want to work this problem out yourself. Okay. Just let me offer one piece of advice, as someone who's had a long time to think over his own regrets. All right?"

It was so unlike what she'd been expecting that Gwen mutely nodded, waiting.

"There were times in my life that I found myself struggling with what other people expected of me, and what I thought was right. There were too many times I didn't listen to that voice inside of me and pushed things back. Because it's easier just to go along with expectations. It's easier to worry about what others will think and act in ways that'll keep them from looking at you funny. But there's times that doing what really matters, and reaching for what's really important, means standing up against that current. To not get swept up in what other people want you to do. Maybe if I'd been stronger, I would've done things differently. I would've had fewer regrets now than I do."

He let that sink in, then pulled his hand back and stood up. "Seems to me that whatever you're thinking so hard about is another hard choice. And I don't need to know what it is, exactly. It's something you'll have to figure out yourself. You're a smart girl, you don't need an old man like me confusing things more. Just remember that I'll love you no matter what you do. And that sometimes, the best things in life are worth fighting for. Even if you get a little bruised for it. Okay?"

Gwen sniffled and wiped at her eyes. "Okay." She got out. Grandpa watched her for a bit more before he nodded, accepting that she'd heard and understood him.

"Do you wanna go back home, or do you wanna stay out here for a while longer?" He questioned.

"Can we stay out here and just watch the stars?" She hesitantly asked.

"Of course we can. You don't even need to use the telescope if you don't want to." He went back to his lawn chair and settled in with a sigh. "I'll just warn you, if we stay out here for too long, I'll have to break out some hot chocolate to warm back up again."

The joke finally got a giggle from her. "If you have to." She said.

"My, how gracious of my granddaughter to allow me the privilege of hot chocolate." He teased her. But he stayed quiet after that, content to sit next to her and watch the sky. She sat in the dark and the quiet, still thinking through things. But maybe less panicked than before.

If only just a little.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Tuesday, December 17th

There were only three more days before the winter break started, and while their teachers tried to keep everyone focused on their end-of-semester exams that were spaced throughout the week, it was a wasted effort. No, everyone was preoccupied with Marci's upcoming New Year's party, and who would be going with who for what was turning out to be the biggest event of the school year. Not even homecoming had been as exciting as this was.

Gwen didn't pay much attention to it herself. She'd shut much of it out because kids kept making snarky comments about her and Ben, which just made her hide into herself even more. And she was still sorting through everything. Everything everyone said and could say, but even with Grandpa's words in her head now she couldn't process it. And she'd been trying for days.

Maybe if she'd just told him. Maybe if she hadn't beaten around the bush, then -

Then all of a sudden, a question from Marci stopped all of her thoughts cold. She felt faint and spun around with her ears suddenly ringing, and it wasn't from the bell in the hallway. "What?" She got out, blinking rapidly.

Marci stared back at her, confused. "I said, I was thinking about asking Ben to be my date for my New Year's party."

"Why?"

"Because he's a nice guy, and I've maybe wanted to get to know him better for a long time now," Marci explained, twirling a lock of her hair around her finger as she did. Gwen just stared at her and Marci huffed a little. "Well, it's not like the two of you are together or anything, right?"

"No," Gwen said, frozen to the spot as the ringing in her ears rose for a bit before dying down again. "We…aren't together."

"I told people that." Marci rolled her eyes. "A lot of the girls have been getting really nasty the past week, but I told them they were wrong." She must have seen something in Gwen's face because she stopped and frowned a little. "They were wrong…weren't they, Gwen?" That ringing only got worse, and Gwen made a face before pushing it away.

"As if. If you can put up with him, go ahead and try." Gwen snapped out, almost immediately regretting the words as soon as they were said. Marci blinked a couple of times and then smiled, patting Gwen on the elbow.

"Thanks, bestie. I think I will." And she scooted past Gwen before she could do more than choke out a small noise that made no sense at all. Still rooted to the spot and too scared to chase Marci down and stop her, Gwen turned around to see her friend prance over to Ben with her arms wrapped around her history book and tap him on the shoulder. Ben turned away from his locker and listened as Marci chattered away at him. Gwen saw the moment when the girl popped the question and asked Ben - her Ben - to be her date for her party. The boys gathered around Ben stood up a little straighter, and the ringing came back worse than ever as Ben stood there, surprised by the offer.

For a second, he stared at Marci, and then jerked his head up, looking past her. Ben's green eyes caught hers and bored into her, and Gwen's heart thundered in her chest. Something she'd never seen before was in his eyes, and it scared her. She didn't know what to do with it. So she turned around and hid away, the ringing dying down as she held her breath and listened.

"Okay. Sure." Gwen heard him say, right before a cheer rose up from the other kids in the hall and that same droning noise filled her head again. She slammed her locker closed and walked away, unable to look back as the noise chased her away. It stayed with her all day until right at the end of school, when one of the boys, Derrick from the soccer team, some part of her vaguely recalled, cornered her as she was putting stuff away and asked her with a stammer if Gwen wanted to go to Marci's party with him.

She said yes, and later that night as her mom pressed her for details, couldn't remember why.

- o - o - o - o - o -

Gwen's House

Wednesday, December 25th

Christmas this year was at Gwen's house. It had been the tradition for the Tennyson family to change houses between years, just as it was a tradition for her mother to play the piano when it was their turn while everyone else sang carols - badly. There were cookies, Grandma Verdona's recipe, and Aunt Sandra and Uncle Carl were still wearing their terrible holiday sweaters, and Grandpa Max grinning like a loon as he handed out presents from the chair set up next to the tree while he wore his Santa hat.

It should have felt normal. It should have looked normal. But it wasn't. Not when Ben barely even looked up from his presents. Not when he didn't try to steal the best of hers or tug at the ribbons in her hair.

Not after she flinched away when he tried. She didn't even think he realized what he was doing until she jumped and saw the look on his face when she did even though she didn't mean to. It was just that his fingers…

God, his touch was like electricity against her skin, and she didn't know how to explain it as everyone stared at them. It was all she could do to keep his name from being a gasp. Or a cry as she watched his ghost of a smile disappear and take what little bit of joy that she had felt with it.

After that….

After all of the presents had been opened, Ben started organizing his stuff and taking it out to his mom's van. Grandpa had gotten him the new Sumo Slammers game and smirked at him when he was on his second trip. "Can't wait to open up that new game and try it out, I'll bet. Why don't you take it upstairs and play with Gwen first?" His gift to Gwen last Christmas, after all, had been a Gamestation to match Ben's so they wouldn't have to drag his between their houses anymore.

Ben froze in place for a second and Gwen's smile was a little more strained. He finally started moving again and Gwen shook her head, still wearing the smile she didn't feel. "Maybe later, grandpa." Her mom couldn't tell the difference. The way Grandpa blinked back at her, she knew that he had. "I'd better give him a chance to practice for a few days before I stomp him. He'll probably bring it along to Marci's party anyways." It was a cheap deflection and one that Ben would've had a comeback for if things were normal. As things stood, he let it slide and moved on.

Ben's mom jumped on the opening anyhow. "Oh, Max. I don't know if Ben told you yet, but Marci asked him out. He's her date for her party."

"Really?" Grandpa was surprised. "I hadn't heard. Did you say yes, Ben?"

Ben scowled a little. "It's no big deal, it's just a stupid party."

"He said yes." Aunt Sandra half-whispered as Uncle Carl chuckled and reached out to ruffle Ben's hair. Ben lunged out of his reach first and ran for the door, which got a laugh out of his parents and Gwen's for his reaction.

"Of course, getting that much out of him was like unsticking the superglue lid. Don't worry, dad. Ben and I will be having a chat about what's appropriate behavior for a date like this." Uncle Carl added, and Ben's face withered even further as he walked outside.

No, this wasn't like any of the other Christmases at all. Gwen looked at the pile of gifts in front of her and felt utterly trapped as her daddy and Ben's talked all about Ben going out with Marci.

It was almost a relief when her mother finally cut in with, "Well, Ben's not the only one. Gwen was asked out, too. What was that boy's name again, honey?" Her mom asked, and Gwen blanked out for a bit before grabbing some of the abandoned coffee mugs scattered around the low table covered in wrapping paper. She had trouble remembering his name, and it came out unwillingly. Derrick, she answered in a quiet voice. Or at least she hoped she'd said it out loud.

"I'll go ahead and get started on cleaning up the dishes." She said. Her mom started to get up to help her, but Gwen waved her off. "No, it's okay, mom. I can do this on my own." Thankfully, her mom and her aunt didn't force the issue. Though she caught Grandpa keeping an eye on her as she slipped into the next room with five empty mugs dangling from her fingers. It made her walk even faster.

It was quiet in the kitchen at least. The action of opening up the dishwasher and loading the morning's cups into it was repetitive, but at least she didn't have to deal with Grandpa looking at her like she'd made a mistake or hear about her mom or Ben's gushing about that stupid party. The thought of it was making her sick, and it was only six days away. Maybe she should just say she was sick and skip out on it.

But she couldn't. She had promised Marci she'd help get things ready for it, and…

More dishes and mugs were dropped onto the kitchen counter next to her, and Gwen jumped almost a foot in the air as she spun around. It turned out to be Ben, who gave her an unimpressed look as he took a step back.

"What are you doing?"

"Bringing in the rest of the dishes, duh." He answered, before turning away and adding in a softer voice, "Grandpa asked me to help out."

"It's not like you weren't trying to rabbit out of that conversation either."

"And you didn't?" Ben countered, making her wince. She gave him a nod and they got to work.

Even though the dishwasher was new and worked perfectly well, her mom still insisted on rinsing off the dishes before putting them in. It was something that she and Ben had done together countless times to help out when he came over for lunch or dinner, but it felt so strange now. There was tension and space between them that had never been there before, and they hadn't done this since their fight earlier in the month. She snuck glances over to Ben and saw how stiff he was standing. His jaw was even clenched up. And she knew it was her fault.

"Why is everything so messed up?" She asked the air and froze when she realized that the words weren't just a thought, but that they'd come out of her mouth. So did Ben, but he recovered faster, taking the plate she'd just rinsed clean of cinnamon roll crumbs and sliding it into the dishwasher's lower rack.

"You know why." He said, and she flinched. There was no heat in those words. No anger. No resentment. And no warmth either, like she had grown so used to. There'd been a smile in his voice for as long as she could remember that was gone now. Just the sense of an absolute that he knew exactly why things were wrong, and so did she. Even if she couldn't admit it.

But she could get angry, and she did. How dare he think that any of this was as simple as he thought it was! He was just a boy, what did he know about her parent's expectations, about what the world expected of them? The next dish she passed over was wet enough to splash him, and he blinked a few times before giving her a dirty look. He didn't say anything, though, and that made her even angrier.

"So. You're gonna go out with Marci." She spat her friend's name out. Her best friend and the girl she'd barely talked to since that day. The girl who'd always been after him and - "Do you even like her?"

She barely recognized the voice that asked that. It couldn't have been hers. Not when it sounded so angry - so hurt - so scared - as her hands squeezed at the wet dish she'd been passing over so hard that it almost popped out of her grip.

For the first time in days she wished she was still in her karate class. She wanted to run through katas - to move until she was too tired to think and know that the room was really moving around her instead of whatever it was doing now.

"Do you like Derrick, or did you just say yes because that's what people expected you to say?" He countered as he grabbed the dish away, finally sounding angry. And his voice rose enough that they both went still and looked in the direction of the living room, waiting to see if they'd been overheard. But their parents and Grandpa Max just kept on talking in the background in muted, happy tones. She looked over to Ben, who seemed both relieved and ashamed before he averted his gaze.

"I - I - "Gwen sputtered before she turned back to the sink and rinsed off the last of the plates and glasses in silence, waiting until Ben had finished loading up the dishwasher before handing him the green box of powdered detergent from under the sink. He filled up the soap compartment, closed the dishwasher's door, and handed the box back before punching in the buttons to turn it on with a little more force than was required.

"I hate this," Gwen admitted as the machine started hissing and filling up with water. "I hate that we can't even talk to each other." She gingerly extended her hand over and touched his elbow to get his attention, but the look in his eyes when he swiveled his head around made her jerk it back suddenly. "Can we still be friends, Ben? I can -"

"Do what? Talk about school?" The words were a tease. She knew that they were. They were just him. They were just the quick wit that none of the other boys in their class ever really managed. Not really. And they hurt, too, but not as much as what he said next even as she opened her mouth. "Help me get ready for the party?"

His voice cracked as he asked that, but not as much as her heart even as her mind raced over all the ways that she could. She could remind him that Marci was even more of a lady than she was and show him how he was supposed to dance with her. For a second she thought about doing just that, because he forgot sometimes. She could him the steps and where he should put his -

His hands. His hands would be on Marci's hip and shoulder if she showed him how to dance right instead of the wild thing that he usually did that drove her absolutely crazy and -

And she couldn't. Ben knew it, too. His entire expression tightened up as he slumped a bit, grabbed the edge of the counter in both hands, and squeezed.

"What do you want, Gwen?" He finally asked her in a tired voice. There were layers of meaning in those words, something that she'd always been jealous of. She could ramble on like nobody's business, but Ben seemed to make a game out of saying as little as he could and packing as much into those few words as possible. Her first flip answer, that she wanted her friend back, got stuck on her tongue as she parsed out all the other questions he'd hidden beneath that first one. And found she didn't have answers for those. Or at least, answers that didn't make her want to run away again.

Ben snorted and she blinked, realizing just how much time had passed while she was thinking. "Right." He said softly, shaking his head and pushing himself away from the counter. Away from her. "Let me know when you figure it out."

He walked back out of the kitchen to rejoin the rest of their family.

It took Gwen forever to do the same.

- o - o - o - o - o -

December 31st

Marci's House

8:34 PM.

Everything was just like it should be.

Marci and Gwen had planned out the party to the last detail, from the time everyone started arriving at 5 to when they would be picked up by their parents around 10. Marci had pushed for a post-midnight party curfew but her mother had put her foot down. They weren't in high school yet, after all.

But Gwen was out on her first date anyway, and everything was perfect.

Like it could be anything less for a Larrson or a lady. Her mother wouldn't hear about it, and neither would her Mormor, who came visiting just for today so she could be there and see Gwen in her perfect dress and shoes and smile. The first two were still perfect now, but the last… The last hurt as she stood there and stared at the party that was happening all around her.

There was pizza and snacks and soda, one of the new James Bond movies going on in the background, the entire entertainment room set aside for dancing with a stack of borrowed CDs, and even personalized party gift baggies full of snacks and widgets that Marci had agonized in putting together for everyone. Bags that were scattered all around the house now as people played and partied and danced.

Enough of them that Gwen almost couldn't see the boy across the room from her through the crowd. Almost, but she'd found him once when he wandered off during a KISS Concert and this wasn't anything compared to that. She'd spotted him the second she got here. Her Ben.

Her cousin, she reminded herself again and again every time she made herself look away.

But her eyes always went back because Ben looked almost as perfect as she did in clothes that almost looked like his uniform, only without the wrinkles that always plagued his clothes no matter what Aunt Sandra or the teachers tried. It was wrong, somehow, and so right all at the same time. Just like it was right that the blond girl who was Gwen's bestie managed the impossible as she hung onto his arm and they laughed with their friends.

And Ben hadn't looked at her at all since she got here. Not even once. Which was good. It was the way that it should be. Gwen told herself that over and over again, too, just like she had been for weeks now, but today was different.

"Your hair is doing that thing again," Olivia whispered.

And Gwen bit out a word that ladies didn't when she turned and saw her reflection in the glass of the hutch she was hidi - standing beside.

"I hate this," Gwen grumbled as she finally gave up on the elegant waves that washed down her back that her mother and Mormor both agreed looked so good on her at the salon, and just pulled it back into the ponytail that she usually kept in any way.

"Welcome to my world," the tall girl teased with a glance up at her own hair even as she reached out to help Gwen with hers. Except hers was behaving for a change, which so wasn't fair, and -

And the rest of the thought disappeared as Marci's bell-like laugh cut through the room. Gwen's eyes shot back just in time to see the blond hug her Scruffy close…

"Ow!" Olivia said as she yanked her hands back as the static in Gwen's hair cracked. Then she tried for a severe look that was spoiled by her lips twitching as she wagged her finger at Gwen. "Have you been rubbing wool socks on the carpet again? Because I thought that we all agreed that you wouldn't. Not after - "

"No," Gwen swore even as she fought back a grin from the memory of that science class even as she reached up. "I don't know what - "

"- what two girls as pretty as you are doing over here alone? N-Neither do I," Another voice cut in. One that might have been trying for smooth or maybe just teasing until his voice cracked at the end of it and spoiled everything.

No, it wasn't his voice what spoiled everything, but none of had was his fault and Gwen made herself smile just a little more as she turned to her 'date,' as Olivia turned and put a hand on her hip. "I don't know either, Derrick, but you were the one who left us here."

They were the words that Gwen should have said. She'd said so much worse over the years, but she couldn't. It was all she could do just to keep her perfect smile in place as Derrick protested, "For drinks!" As he nodded down to the three water bottles that were tucked in the crook of his left arm. And then he grinned and pulled his right out from behind his back and held out the paper plate he'd been hiding back there.

Gwen stared at it and the single piece of pizza that was piled high with every kind of topping that there was. "I know that it's your favorite," Derrick said, his grin faltering just a little. "I always see you grab it at lunch."

"Yeah," Gwen whispered and she didn't look across the room. No, she just made herself grin and say "Thank you." She even took a bite even though it wasn't the Hawaiian that she loved and somebody else always got for her.

Somebody that she didn't think about. Not now. Not when Derrick was so sweet just for trying. Sweet and smart and nice and everything that her mother could have hoped for. Gwen knew that he was, and if she hadn't, then the way the woman whispered, 'Oh, Silly Bean, he's perfect,' in her ear after her daddy opened the door and they all saw the boy who was standing there in his suit coat and a red rose in his hand.

A rose that he almost shoved into Gwen's from nerves as Gwen was almost shoved into him for pictures as she could just whisper, "Sorry," at him because she could see the shock written all over his face as her mother and mormor did everything they could to embarrass both of them.

But the shock turned into a smile as he looked at her and whispered, "Worth it," right back. They were words that she'd heard so many times before. Enough that Gwen couldn't help smiling back at him.

But that was almost an hour ago. A perfect hour where she did everything that she should, right down to taking a single bite from her pizza and a single sip from her water bottle before she set them both down because that was what ladies did. That was what was expected.

And so was what he said next. "If you're not hungry, then maybe - "he started as he held out his now free hands, his eyes on the couples who were busy dancing over by the stereo. There was so much hope in his eyes. "I know that you can get down," he said, his face flushing.

"I - "Gwen started, her face burning because he'd asked before and she'd said no even though everybody knew that she loved dancing just like she knew that Derrick could, but -

But it was almost a relief when Marci came out of nowhere and grabbed her hand. Grabbed both of their hands. "Come on!" The blond all but squealed as she dragged them away from Olivia and around the edges of the crowd for the hallway in the back.

No, for the door that Blair was guarding. The door that led down to the basement. "What's going on?" Derrick asked as they were all ushered down and the Asian girl closed the door behind them.

"I don't know," Gwen admitted, her face twisting as they went down the stairs. They hadn't done anything with the basement when they were getting ready for the party and it showed when they got down there.

It was the only room in the house that Mrs. Hunter hadn't touched and it showed. It looked like nothing so much as a ski lodge with its wood-paneled walls. It had a billiard table once, but now there was a huge TV for when Mr. Hunter wanted to watch movies with his friends and a poker table he could pull out when he didn't, but neither were set up now.

No, now there were just a dozen kids down milling in front of the blank TV in the space that the table would have gone. A dozen out of all the ones that Marci had invited from school and ballet and her mother's groups. A dozen that Gwen knew even if they weren't her friends. Not really.

There was Amanda and Sara and Rafael and -

And Ben, who looked just as lost as Gwen felt as he stood there in the middle of the room. Ben, who Marci rushed to the second she let go of Gwen's hand. Ben, who stumbled back as he was glomped, but his arms went around the blond's waist anyway as she squealed, "This is going to be so much fun!"

"What is?" Gwen asked, her stomach as tight as her fists as she stood there and stared.

Not that Marci answered with anything but a smug "Sit down in a circle and you'll see! Boy, girl, boy, girl." That got nervous looks from everybody, but they did it anyway as she rushed over to a bookcase in the corner and grabbed something off of it.

Even Ben, even if he was the last one who did. Even if he looked ready to bolt the second Blair brushed his knee because there was enough room. Almost. Gwen shivered as she felt the fabric of Derrick's pants against her knees as she tucked her feet under her and she wasn't the only one, but she was the only one who was staring at the empty spot on the other side of her - of Ben as Gwen finally demanded, "What are we doing, Marci? This isn't on the schedule!"

And Marci just laughed as she came hurrying back. "Don't get me wrong, Bestie. Tonight has been fun, but we're not babies anymore, so…" she declared as she held up the old soda bottle with all of the confidence that she hadn't had a few weeks ago when they saw a bottle just like that on some movie or other when she was spending the night. Only back then, the girl had declared that it was the grossest thing that either of them had ever seen as she hid her burning face behind a pillow. Now…

Now Marci's grin was a wide smirk and a dare in so many ways as she turned her head and gave them all a look as she set the bottle down. "If anyone doesn't know how this works…"

Her eyes flickered towards the stairs as she said it, but nobody moved. Nobody even made a sound. Not anymore than the glass did when it touched the carpet, but Gwen was sure that she heard something anyway even though that was impossible as Marci stood back up with a grin and put a hand on her hip. "We all know the rules to this game, I'm sure," she almost purred, her eyes passing over all of them as she turned and everybody must have seen the same movie because nobody shook their heads, "but I figured that we're not going to do things the usual way. We're better than that."

Gwen heard her say it, and she knew that she should say something because she hated it when the blond said things like that. She knew it, but she couldn't make her mouth work. Not when her whole world shrank down to the bottle in front of her. The bottle that she already knew -

If it was anyone else, they wouldn't have even noticed. But it wasn't and a pair of dancer-thin legs in white tights were suddenly in front of her. Legs that were followed by blue eyes that were pinched with annoyance and worry and a laugh all at the same time as Marci knelt down and declared, "No doing Math, Gwen! That's cheating" as everybody else laughed.

Almost everybody.

"Here's how it works," Marci finally kept going after Gwen made herself nod, the words almost lost in the pounding that filled Gwen's ears. "We spin the bottle like usual. Those of you who came with dates get a choice when it's done spinning. You can either pick whoever it's pointing to or you can choose to pick your date instead. Whoever you pick, you go into the closet for three minutes, no questions asked - but we'll be making sure none of you boys try anything funny!" She warned with a mock glare that got some uneasy laughs. "Girls get to do the spinning, each girl gets one spin. The party's almost over, after all."

Gwen swallowed as the lights flickered around them. She didn't know why and she didn't care. Not when her heart was hammering so hard in her chest as she looked at Derrick and saw him blush before smiling slightly and turning his head away. And then immediately after, her eyes flashed to Ben who was sitting across the circle. He was staring at Marci with his eyes narrowed like she'd grown another head. And then right after, his eyes darted to Gwen. Not for very long. Just enough that she could sense his agitation and see him clench his hands into fists for about half a second before he forced them to smooth back out and press to his legs. And by the way Marci's smile dipped for a moment as she looked over the crowd and then quickly looked at Gwen - she'd seen it too.

"Okay, then," Marci said through a smile that was suddenly forced. She set the bottle down in the middle of the circle and stepped out, sitting down next to Ben. "Sara, why don't you go first? Spin a winner. Let's make this a New Year's to remember."

Everyone was nervous and on edge as the brunette reached down and set the glass bottle spinning. After enough rotations to have everyone sweating bullets, it slowed down before pointing to Rafael. The boy's eyes went wide as he whispered, "Ah, Dio…" and swallowed. Marci giggled a little and looked over to Sara.

"Okay, Sara. Since you didn't come with a date, Rafi is all yours." Sara, blushing brightly the whole time, got up from her kneel and walked over to the Spanish boy, who shakily took her hand before the two of them started walking for the door to the utility room. They closed it behind them after turning on the light. Marci, the master of setting the mood, pulled out an egg timer and set it to 3 minutes. Utter silence reigned in the basement, everything breathing softly to try and hear what might be going on with the gentle tick of the windup timer in the background.

Gwen wished she had brought her water bottle down here with her. She couldn't speak because her mouth was too dry, and the whole time they all waited her hands gripped at her skirt for the lack of anything better to do. They heard some nervous laughter, some giggling, and then the timer went off in a drone that made everyone flinch as the silence ended.

"Time's up!" Marci announced, strolling over to the door and flinging it open. Sara and Rafael walked out, still blushing, but there was a smile on her face while he rubbed the back of his head. And when they looked at each other…they didn't shy away. There was a look of mutual closeness that hadn't been there before. "Well, looks like you two had some fun."

"But not too much!" Another girl piped up with a giggle. "We hope."

"Um. Y- yeah." Rafael muttered, and Sara buried her face in her hands.

"All right, all right." Marci waved them back to the circle, and Gwen saw that they chose to sit together this time. Marci picked the next girl, the bottle was spun, and the game went on.

The minutes ticked down, and the whole time Gwen realized that Einstein had been right about so much more than math. Time really was relative. When that damn bottle was spinning, it went by at a crawl. And when the next girl and her chosen boy walked into the closet, it blew by at lightning speed.

And then it was her turn.

The lights flickered again as she stared at the bottle and every eye turned towards her. She knew that they were staring even though she couldn't take her eyes off of the faded red label. Not even when she felt Derrick's hand brush her knee. She couldn't make her hand move either. Not until she heard Marci sigh and say, "Go ahead, Gwen," in a tone that could have been mocking or confused or worried, she couldn't tell.

And neither could Olivia, who let out a warning, "Marci…"

A warning that got another spattering of laughs after that as she finally made her hand move. Laughs that stopped as the lights flickered again just as her fingers brushed the cool glass.

The glass that should have been cool, but felt boiling hot as she yanked her hand away. "No."

"But - "Marci started as Derrick sucked in a hurt breath.

"I'm not playing this stupid game," Gwen snapped out as she shoved herself back up to her feet and ignored all of the boos and catcalls behind her as she stormed for the door.

A door that she didn't reach. Not before a hand caught hers again. Caught it and held it tight as it spun her around. "What's wrong?" Marci asked, her voice a whisper and this time there wasn't any hiding the worry in her eyes now as they darted over Gwen's face. Worry that turned to fury as she spun around on Derrick. "Did he -?"

"No!" Gwen gasped out as she caught her friend's arm and pulled her back. "I - "Gwen started before the words all caught in her throat as she tried to explain, but she couldn't. She just couldn't. Not when all she could hear was the sound of her heart pounding and all that she could see was Ben -

Was Ben, who was halfway up to his feet and who had his mouth open in a soundless cry until he saw her looking. Then his mouth slammed shut and all she saw was his hair as he dropped back down to his butt and his eyes went to the floor.

And she didn't know anything could hurt as much as that did. It hurt enough that she barely heard what Marci said in a rushed babble, "-have to play, but we only have a few more rounds left and - "The words were too much. Enough that she just nodded and let the girl lead her back into the circle and when somebody said something she snapped out, "Oh, shut it! She's too good for any of you anyway!"

There were more words after that. Words that were just gone as she sat there. Her heart thundered ever louder in her chest, and more and more she found herself unable to look away from Ben even as Marci sat down, too, and the game started again.

"What do you want, Gwen?" He'd asked her at Christmas. Gwen hadn't had an answer back then. She'd thought about little else in the week between then and now. Everything else had been done more or less on autopilot, going through the motions without any real focus. She still didn't know what she wanted. But she knew that she didn't want this as she watched the bottle spin again and again.

Only once did it fall on Ben, and the withering stare that Marci gave the girl was enough to make the other blond balk and make a safer pick. Gwen's heart was in her throat when that happened, and it didn't get a chance to go very far before Marci leaned in and reached for the Coke bottle.

"And finally, it's my turn!" Marci announced dramatically, making a show of checking her wristwatch and wincing at the time. "And right before we have to get back upstairs for the parents."

No, that little voice inside of Gwen begged. Please no, it said, as she watched Ben finally look up again, his face just empty as Marci set the bottle spinning with plenty of force. Every rotation dug the knife in deeper, making her strain and her knuckles go white as she kept from screaming like she wanted to. Don't do this. Not to him. Not to Ben.

The bottle began to slow down, more ponderous and full of tension than the Price is Right wheel had ever been when she watched it during summer vacations. Every time it got close to Ben, Gwen could hardly blink. Not Ben. Not Ben. Not Ben. She stared at that bottle as if her very thoughts could will it from that terrible fate.

But on its last rotation, when it had only whimpers of that kinetic energy left to it, the Coke bottle denied her wishes as it went past her one last time and almost stopped right before it reached Marci, where another boy was…

Almost, and then, with the last of its energy, it rolled that last razor-thin inch and pointed at Marci's knee.

Ben stared at the bottle with some inscrutable emotion, and Marci let out a squeal of joy as she glomped onto his shoulder even harder. "Talk about lucky! Looks like you're mine after all, Ben!" The blond cheered, pulling herself and Ben up from the concrete floor. She moved with a will, while Ben…

None of the boys had rushed into the closet, but Ben moved like he did when they were going to class. He didn't stop though, or even try to pull away and Gwen felt like she was drowning as she watched them - watched him, not knowing what to do, what to say.

This…this was what everyone expected, Gwen realized. This was what everyone thought was right. If this happened, then the world would go on spinning. And the kids at school would stop gossiping about Gwen and Ben. They would stop looking at her like she was a freak, like there was something wrong with her. Marci tugged on Ben's hand, dragging him step by step towards that open door.

I don't want this, Gwen realized. It was like a whimper at first, small and barely heard in the dark, but a realization that grew stronger with every repetition. I don't want this. I don't want this!

Gwen loved him. She loved her cousin. She loved Scruffy. She loved Ben. It cleared the fog from her mind, but it wasn't enough to unfreeze her from where she was sitting. It wasn't enough to throw the weight of everybody's expectations off, and she screamed and raged inside herself, a tempest boiling over in her heart that set her body trembling even as it didn't move.

What was, what made the boiling pot of her emotions and thoughts and fears finally bubble over and set the stove of her life to hissing was when Ben, in a sudden moment of weakness or desperation, looked back over his shoulder to the circle of kids watching the drama unfold.

He looked at her. Given the gasps from at least two girls there, it had been noticed who he was looking at. It was enough. It was finally enough.

"NO!" Gwen snapped, and her hands tingled a little bit as that word nearly echoed in the dim lighting of the basement. It was startling enough that Marci froze in place, that everyone else stopped moving completely.

Heedless of the whispers that would come from this and the gossip that would come when school started up again, Gwen rose from the ground in a smooth movement that would have made Sensei proud of her readiness and took six brisk steps - two to clear the circle, four to reach Ben - then she grabbed Ben by his free arm and tore him out of Marci's grip.

"Ben is mine." Gwen hissed at her startled friend, and before Marci could make a sound beyond the choked noise she was letting out, Gwen pulled her - Her Scruffy into the closet and slammed the door behind them. She even locked it for good measure.

The closet was crowded with the folded up table and all the other odds and ends that ended up in here, but there was still enough room for her to pace past Ben, fuming and struggling to piece her thoughts together. Everything had been so clear in that instant, and now - and now -

"Gwen?" Ben finally asked, uneasily as he just stood there.

"Just…just give me a second!" Gwen fumed, still moving, still pacing.

She heard the door handle jiggle furiously as Marci angrily shouted, "Gwen Tennyson, you open up this door this instant, you date-stealing hussy!" It was the angriest Gwen had ever heard her best friend sound, but she ignored her anyway as she focused on the storm in her head and trying to put into words everything she felt.

"What did you mean when you said I was yours?" Ben asked. Of course he wouldn't give her the time to think.

"Because you are!" She snapped back at him, her hands clenched into fists down at her waist. More pounding came at the door, and Ben looked over at it for a couple of seconds before turning back to her.

"Gwen, you just dragged me in here in front of about half of our class. I'm going to need more than that."

"Why?"

"Because you always have a reason for every single thing you do. You always have a plan. But right now, it feels like you're acting like me." Ben folded his arms, refusing to give her any room to maneuver. "So why did you do that?" She chewed on her lip, and Ben raised an eyebrow at her silence. "Was it because you didn't want Marci kissing me like she did when we were kids?"

Yes. "No!" Gwen blurted out.

Ben cocked his head to the side a little. "Was it because you got jealous? You think that because you don't want me, that somehow nobody else can either?"

YES. "NO!"

"Then why, Gwen? Why did you drag me in here and lock the door?!"

"Because I love you!" Gwen yelled at him and went ramrod stiff right after. The ferocity of it had shocked her into silence, and the pounding on the door had stopped too. She'd said it. She'd actually said it, and now that it was out there, it was like a hole had been smashed into the side of a dam. The rest of it came pouring out of her without an end. "I love you. God, Ben." Her eyes burned, and she dug the heels of her palms into them. "I love you, okay? I love you and it's been tearing me apart for weeks now, ever since you threw your ring at me and walked away."

Ben didn't say anything, and Gwen let out a sob. "I should have been braver then. I should have told you the same thing."

"So why didn't you." His voice was flat.

"Because I was scared, Doofus! After what my dad said, after hearing all the whispers and the jokes, I just…I just…"

"You froze up." He said, and she nodded mutely and ashamed. "So what's changed?" He pried, his voice still giving away nothing. No warmth and no outrage. She wanted his love, she could accept his anger, but him giving her neither tore at her in ways she didn't know she could be wounded. "Gwen. What changed?"

She let out another sob, feeling wet tears roll down her wrists from where her hands still covered her eyes. There, in the dark and the quiet of that part of the basement, the answer finally came to her.

"I saw you being dragged away from me, dragged in here," and somehow she knew that if he walked through this door with Marci that she'd still see him every day, but he'd just be Ben. He'd just be her cousin for the rest of their lives and - "- and I didn't want that. I've tried to be who everyone wants me to be, to act the way they want me to, and I can't. I saw Marci dragging you away, and…and it scared me."

"What do you want, Gwen?" Ben asked her.

"You." She finally confessed, cracked clean through with no part of the shell around her heart left intact. She couldn't hide it anymore. "I want you." And she stood there, waiting for him to deny her, to laugh at her, to hurt her like she'd hurt him.

Strong, warm hands wrapped around her wrists and pulled her hands away from her face. Through blurry eyes that she blinked to clear, she saw Ben looking up at her with a gentle smile…and tears of his own.

"You're such a Dweeb." He teased her, and the normalcy of it made her let out a weak laugh that made her crumble all over again. She tipped forward against him, burying her face in his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her and held her up. "But you're My Dweeb."

"You promise?" She gasped out, still crying.

"Say it again," Ben demanded. Her mouth was right by his ear, and it took almost no effort at all to turn her head to tell him what he wanted to hear. What she needed to say.

"I love you." She whispered. His arms tightened around her, and he sighed as she sank into them.

"I said it first." He had, and she knew that he'd spent the rest of her poking her with that fact. She knew it and she didn't care.

"Jerk," She laughed like she always did and rocked against him. And then she took a shuddering breath because she did and that was why she added, "You did and I'm sorry that -"

"No. No more sorries," Ben said, his voice suddenly soft as he reached up and touched her chin so that she'd look at him. "Just promise me you'll never do that again."

"I don't have the heart to do that again." She promised. She pulled back away from him, smiling through her tears as she reached up and ran her fingers through his hair like she'd wanted to all night. Until no one but her would have ever guessed that a comb had ever touched it and she had her Scruffy back.

Her Scruffy, who finally relaxed as he reached up and brushed her tears away with his thumb. Or he did until some impulse made her turn into his hand and kiss his palm. Ben's eyes got big at her bold move, and there was tension there, like a tightly drawn wire…

Pulled by the moment, both of them drawn by the same desire, Gwen leaned in when Ben did, closing her eyes.

When they had been little, she'd kissed his cheek like his mom used to more than once. This kiss was nothing like those had been. This kiss was more like the kiss they'd shared that one day at school, the day she'd worn white and he'd given her the decoder ring that she wore until it didn't fit. She'd given him one, too, and a kiss that she still remembered after all of these years.

This kiss felt like that one had. Like a promise. It didn't last anywhere near as long as she wanted, even while it felt like it went on for forever. Einstein again, some part of her brain laughed at her.

They pulled apart for air, and after, Gwen was smiling. So was Ben.

"So we're together now?"

"That depends. You were already my Ben. Do you think you could handle being my…my boyfriend?" Gwen asked him shyly.

"I think I'd like to try," Ben answered, squeezing her hand. "But that means you have to be my girlfriend."

She hugged him again, as easy as breathing and way more enjoyable. "I'm more than that." She replied, thinking again of the plastic rings in her jewelry box back home and just what they meant, even if she tried to forget for a while.

"You are." He affirmed because he never did. before he hugged her back like that could keep her from seeing the smile that filled his face, or just how dorky it was.

It was almost as bad as the one she felt on hers because this wasn't perfect. It was just them.

And not even the pounding on the door could change that as it came back stronger than before. Strong enough that Gwen jumped at the sound of it before she pointed out the obvious. "There's just one problem."

"What's that? Them?" Ben snorted, nodding towards the closet door.

"Marci's not that scary."

"She so is," Gwen scoffed. "And no. I don't care about what they think." Not anymore, she said to herself. "But we have to tell our parents about us." Because she wasn't going to pretend anymore. Not for anybody. Not even for her parents, who she knew would have a thousand questions about tonight that she didn't have an answer for. Not any that weren't lies anyway and she didn't know if she could. No even for her Ben, who she knew was coming up with some wild plan just from the look in his -

"So we tell them."

Gwen pulled her head off of his shoulder and looked at him curiously. "Just like that?"

"Yeah." Ben shrugged. "It's no big deal."

"What if they tell us it's wrong? Because we're - ?"

"Let 'em try." He scowled, and the determination there calmed her down somewhat. "If my mom and dad want to fight me over this, then I'll fight them with everything I've got. I'm not giving you up again."

Gwen didn't think that her parents would be anywhere near as understanding, but his never demanded perfection. Aunt Sandra just wanted him - both of them - to be happy. Hers made Ben run away screaming so many times and that was before - before all of this. "Will you…will you help me tell mine?"

The shame came back as the question slipped out because she should have been brave enough to tell them alone. Especially after everything that she just put them both through. "No, never mind. I'll - "

Ben's lips were on hers before she could finish, and his smile stayed even after he pulled away. "Of course I will," Ben promised even as he squeezed her fingers gently. "Isn't that what a good boyfriend does?"

You're more than my boyfriend, she thought as she remembered the rings that were waiting in her jewelry box and what they meant, but out loud she just sniffed and said, "They do, but since I'm stuck with you..."

The words were just a tease. One that he more than met. "You better believe it," Ben told her with the smirk she knew all too well and missed so much over the last few weeks. It was a smirk that slipped only a little as the banging at the door started again and he took a deep breath before he asked, "You ready?"

Gwen could have said something then, but she didn't. She didn't have to. Not now. She just nodded at him, grinned, and gave his hand one last squeeze as she marveled in how right it felt being with him.

Then they took those few steps to the door, unlocked it, and together, Ben and Gwen Tennyson, boyfriend and girlfriend at last, walked out into the world…