'Ben, what is this?'

At the tone of Kai's voice, hard, with a small, light, disbelieving lilt at the end of it, Ben spins. And then laughs nervously at the sight of her and the way her hand lands on her hip, the other clenched round a torn-off strip of newspaper like a security blanket.

'I, err, didn't do it, whatever it is?'

He offers up his own hands, still wet from the dishes like a peace-offering, soap-suds and bubbles attached to the large wrinkles of his palm, but Kai simply scowls at him.

'How many times do I have to tell you? Use. A. Dishcloth.'

Her hand unwraps from its place on her hip and Ben has just enough time to admire the nice, vase-like curve of her waist, before a thin towel is thrown at him and he has to catch it before it can hit him in the face. Belatedly, he realises the existence of a small puddle forming beneath his fingertips and bends to sweep it up, ignoring the grin of his printed self on the towel as it falls out across the tiles in wrinkled waves – from this angle he can see the dorky leopard-print sunglasses hanging off the perch of his nose from that dreadful Malibu photo shoot they did three weeks back. That wouldn't have been so bad except Kai, over the course of the last several months, has gleefully ordered ever single scrap of merchandise involving that same wretched photo because 'that sunburn down your back is just adorable.' But personally, Ben doesn't find it cute at all.

Bye, bye, bubbles, he thinks mournfully as each one wavers and pops, suffocated between the squeeze of the towel and the press of the floor. And then he looks up, just in time to see Kai shove the scrap of newspaper in front of his nose.

'Now, like I said before: what. Is. This?'

Ben frowns. 'Is this a trick question?' he asks. 'Because I stopped changing into Wildmutt in my sleep and ruining whatever papers were lying around years ago. And that was all because of those sessions with that hypnotist from L.A – your idea by the way, I seem to recall.'

Kai makes that little uncute 'urgh' sound, the one she always does when she doesn't want to be dissuaded from whatever tirade she is about to embark on. 'You were having nightmares and punching the pillow! Besides that has nothing to do with this.' She points a finger heatedly at the grey-scale photo wedged within the tatters of her fist.

So Ben peers closer, making out the smudged line of a date in the cut-across corners of the by-line. 'Huh, that was when Jimmy Jones started writing for the 'International Journal' wasn't it? We were twenty-two then, weren't we?'

It was also, he remembers, back when newspaper still existed in the form of paper. They still get printed for those who can afford them of course, but nowadays the articles are cycled through web-pages, sent signal to signal, rather than door-to-door.

'Very good,' says Kai from between clenched teeth. 'But Ben, what else happened when we were twenty-two? In July?'

Ben frowns, staring at the photograph blankly for clues. The sky in the background, he sees, is an oily black, denoting night which is a rather strange choice for any newspaper photographer to act upon, and the person that fills the frame is some grinning old guy, his beard twisted into fancy braids.

'Doctor Stepson? Wasn't he that guy on that expedition to the shadow realm to retrieve some Aztec medallion that had gotten stolen...' his voice trails off as he suddenly makes out the blurred glint of the thing between the proud fingers of Doctor Stepson, all the ridges and markings rendered carefully into a stormy grey.

He remembers now: that mission had been important to Kai. It had been the first one she had been able to take Excalibur on, the first one she had received international notoriety on, thanks in no small part to the credit Jimmy Jones had given her. Ben had tagged along for the ride, mostly to keep her Grandfather happy; Wes had never quite got out of the habit of forbidding her from doing certain things alone. But nothing could detract Kai from the joy she had experienced afterwards despite the bother, and Ben smiles as he remembers her practically preening as she held the Aztec coin between tight fists, Doctor Stepson touching both their shoulders in a paternal fashion just as the camera went off.

'Okay,' he agrees. 'That is weird. I remember Doctor Stepson being way more handsome the last time I saw this photo. Of course, that was probably because of the charming young woman he was busy fondling at the time...'

Kai bops him on the head with a closed fist like he's a dog or something – but she's smiling as she does so. 'Ha, ha, very funny. But that's not the only thing that's weird.'

She grabs his hand, ignoring the wetness he pastes into her palm from the cloth he's still holding, and pulls him up through the kitchen doorway. And Ben's eyes widen as he sees books and other newspaper clippings on the cabernet desk nearby, next to a tablet in sleep-mode.

'I'm missing,' Kai declares solemnly. 'Not on every expedition or in every paper I've ever written, but enough of them to matter; some of it's gone or modified, as if I was never there. Or worse, someone else, someone that I've worked with, has swooped in and stolen the credit. That Melody Blake girl wrote up how she found the incomplete skeleton of Cerberus – only I was there and I remember finding the whole thing. Sure, I prevented her from using the wrong kind of tool to brush the bones and I had to stop her from taking up a sledge hammer when she got too frustrated by how slow everything was going – she was a lot like how you used to be, now that I think of it. But still, according to all the photographs I've found, the entirety of the jawbone is missing, and the rib-cage is shattered despite the fact I never remember it cracking...so, you can see how I'm worried.'

The bottom of Ben's stomach drops. He can't imagine how he would feel if his life's work were ruined, parts of it yanked away by some hacker that can magically erase facts from paper and re-arrange events to make his impact on the world look smaller than it is.

'Kai...' he reaches for her shoulder but with a bitter laugh, she spins from his grasp and chucks the tablet at him.

'Wait for it,' she tells him.

Ben frowns in confusion but obligingly scrapes his finger across the screen. Only to see...nothing.

'Kai,' he says numbly, unsure whether or not this is a trap. 'This is a blank document.'

She laughs again only now, Ben notices with alarm, there's a hint of hysteria to it. 'Yep,' she says extending her hand dramatically. 'But a few days ago it was a scan of our son's birth certificate. The original is missing by the way; it's disappeared from the safe without a trace.'

And just like that, the start of Ben 10,000's world begins to collapse.


Hours go by. Anniversary gifts go missing, the hand-drawn Mother's Day cards Ken painstakingly drew up till he was five, vanish, and Kai shivers in his arms that night as though she's too cold to cope.

And all the while, Ben really wishes Paradox had a phone.

Kai clutches at his arm, nails pushing the boundary of his skin and he finds himself pressing whispers into her hair, telling her that he'll put all of Plumber HQ on high alert if he has to, anything to get to the bottom of this. Finally, after minutes of these empty reassurances, she falls asleep, her shudders worn down into uneasy breaths and Ben can't help but watch her, a pang in his heart as she snuffles and shifts in her sleep. He wonders what dreams she has and where they take her, whether they're anything like his, and if she has her own personal Vilgax to slay, deep within the contours of her nightmares. He hopes she always wins.

Then he blinks. For just a moment, he thinks he sees green where there should have been orange, the flare of her pyjamas suddenly melting away into the press of the duvet above. He narrows his eyes. And for another moment, nothing else happens.

Seconds pass, and then all of a sudden, the brown in her skin fades, a deathly pallor present in her face as the orange in her clothes flickers down like a dying fire into a yellow linen blend. Alarmed, Ben reaches for her, throws himself forward just as the black of her outstretched hair slips through his fingers, disintegrating into a liquid spill that hangs between them in an oily brush of colour. And then it's green, all of her green, morphing like a chameleon into the thread of their sheets beneath, outlines fading like charcoal muted into down pencil strikes as someone, God probably, takes an eraser to her face and all those other fine lines that twist her limbs into reality. And Ben is forced to watch, horrified, as his gropes for her skin shear through her muscles like water.

'KAI!' He shouts it, screams it, loud enough to wake her, but she doesn't roll over to look at him and shout something insulting back the way she should. No, with her eyes still closed, she disappears into the air and the bed, like a Greek nymph melting into her tree.

Ben doesn't think. His wrists brush together automatically, all of him in action as he's plunged into inky blackness. And then Bellacious and Serena stare back at him their expressions etched into something beyond alien apathy.

'Bring her back!' he demands, ignoring the crack in his voice. He clenches his fists firmly, hating himself for not trying this sooner and in the background, the whisper of other voices surround him, all those other mask-like faces prowling round him like vultures, born from the years where his personality has grown and developed past his teenage ego.

'Complicated,' mutters one called Creecian, his frown caught in a twist of pity.

'Yeeeah,' drawls another named Joshua, sounding remarkably like his teenage self. 'We can't change something if you're still doing it, because it's not, like final or anything. Time's tricky like that. Ask the fucking Time-Walker.'

A shudder runs through the circle at the mention of Paradox, but Ben is still caught on the words of before. 'I'm doing this?'

'Not precisely.' Serena speaks and her voice is gentle, more gentle than Ben can ever recall hearing and oh, that punches him straight in the gut. 'The 'you' of 'now' is not doing a thing to rewrite her life. The younger version of yourself however...'

Ben's blood runs cold. He doesn't understand.

'Is he...I'm...changing into Eon?' he chokes out. It's the only thing he can think of in the heat of the moment, however stupid it sounds. Because while he barely knows enough to understand how the timelines function and fluctuate, he knows enough to know that Eon is another version of him, born from the same cocky seventeen year old he used to be. It's a little fucked up, that he and Eon used to be the exact same person, used to walk around and laugh in the exact same body, but then so is time in general.

But Bellacious snorts indignantly at the very thought. 'No,' he says and it's uttered with such scorn that Ben is instantly relieved. 'Don't be stupid. The timelines split in a much more dramatic fashion when Eon was created. The whole universe practically screamed as his divided from our own.' He hesitates and just like that, all the panic rides hard and fast into Ben's veins again. Because Bellacious is actually looking sorry. 'The difficulty with the changing in this timeline is that it's linked to a time loop; Maltruant's specifically,' he tells Ben. 'And the time loop Maltruant's a part of it is fixed, or it was meant to be, particularly because before it's end, because before he's recycled back to its beginning, he plays a role in the start of our universe.'

Ben feels a little loose. 'Right...' he says slowly. 'I would never have touched the Anihilaarg if it hadn't been for his interference. And that probably had some kind of effect on the way it created everything later on.' He shakes his head. 'But that had nothing to do with Kai!'

'Any deviation, however small, in such a fixed event has consequences,' murmurs a small mask, her expression arranged into the dreamy smile of a young girl pondering fairytales. 'Your part, and your wife's, in fighting Maltruant when he retrieved the Anihilaarg, automatically linked you to the Ben that appeared from the past in order to help, the Ben that finally trapped Maltruant in his time-loop. You came from him; that much is certain. But he has not become you; not yet.'

'Um, obviously,' says Ben.

She nods, as much as a mask floating in the black of the ether of their shared mind can, anyway. 'Yes. But he has also not married Kai yet, either.'

A small sinking feeling develops in Ben's stomach. He can't really imagine how his past self has turned away from Kai, how he could continue dating Ester, but the puzzle pieces are unwittingly slotting together all the same.

'So what?' he asks. 'I have to find a way to go back in time and fix my marriage?'

There's a rustle running through the circle, masks shifting, looking at each other like they know something he doesn't. 'Well, that depends on, like, if you can change his mind?' says Joshua, a crease of confusion running through his brow. 'But like, people are complex, man. Especially you.'

'I don't care,' Ben says grimly. 'I want my wife back.'


He wakes to find Kenny clutching his wrist, frantic questions pouring from his mouth as his eyes rake the side of the bed his mother was on.

'Dad! You're back! Where's Mom? And why were you screaming? Did she get sucked up into a portal again? Jeeze, it's always freaky when you're just Alien X and not combined with another alien to make him, seem, I dunno, more normal. Can't you make him learn to wave or something? Maybe with a wink so I know you're not brain-dead? Also, you're not being very talkative with your thousand yard stare.'

Ben struggles to rearrange his face into a smile. 'It's alright,' he says quietly. 'Everything's okay.' He straightens, feeling the knots in his spine unroll and unbend along the muscle of his back. 'We'll get her back.'

Because maybe if he projects enough confidence to his son, he'll wind up believing it for himself.


Kenny watches as his Dad dismantles his Spanner suit, the small stature of a fused Upgrade and Jury Rigg scrabbling through metal and tearing cloth apart in a slap-dash hurry to make a workable belt.

'Fix, fix, fix!'

Kenny winces and turns as the fabric rips with a loud snap and seizes hold of all the sound in the room. Dimly, from the corner of his eye, he can see half of his familiar green scarf flutter to the floor like a flag in surrender, its knot chopped into threads.

'You wouldn't have to do this if you hadn't dismantled the Chronoporter after Animo tried to use it to change the past,' he mutters sulkily. But his Dad turns deaf ears to him, hurriedly working and snipping something that was never his to dismantle.

Finally, there's a bright flash and his Dad springs back into his human shape, carefully inspecting the new harness he's made. It reminds Kenny of some over-sized baby reins, all white with black veins running along the surface, extensions ripping out of it's sides like cords for the parents to tug hold of.

'Wow, majorly uncool, Dad,' he says dully.

Ben winces and takes a second to stand and look at Kenny. Really look. 'I'm sorry,' he says finally. 'I get that this suit is your thing. But I'm not Paradox and have no way to contact him and this'- he points to the harness, which Kenny notes idly doesn't make it look any less lame – 'is the only thing within reach that allows controlled time travel.'

He yanks the harness over his head, the dial-pad of the wrist cuff now flattened and moved towards the left side of his chest, like an armoured plate.

Kenny sighs and kicks the side of his heels into his bed-frame angrily. 'Mum's missing and if I ask you if I can come to actually help rescue her, you're gonna say no, aren't you?'

Ben hesitates and Kenny's eyes widen. His Dad actually looks torn.

Ben swallows. 'I...I'm sorry.'

Kenny's eyes widen even further. His Dad never apologises for leaving him behind.

But before he can say anything, another protest perhaps, Ben's large hand falls onto the control panel with a heavy smack, reminiscent of the way Kenny's seen a younger, slimmer, more impulsive version of him smack the version of the Omnitrix that's been passed down. And then, with a faint whoop of matter displacing itself, his Dad is gone.


Notes: UM. Timelines probably don't work this way? Then again, if watching Doctor Who (and the various time-travel plots of this show and the way future of Ben 10, 000 constantly seems to alter series-to-series) has taught me emanything/em, it's that time works however the writer of the week says it does. Hmm.

This is probably still gonna be one of the more messed up of all the things I've ever written though.

Edit: ...I just discovered how to use the pairing brackets in the character tags. Only to realise, of course, that they won't do me a whit of good in this story, because you can't put the same character tag down twice, or place a single tag within two pairing brackets, for obvious reasons. Still, at least I can go back and edit previous summaries.