A/N: New one-shot, thanks to me getting a new smart phone and being able to write on the go. Knowledge and such will be updated once my computer stop being a noob and works again.
Disclaimer: I don't own nuttin!
Heavy foot falls echo around the deserted streets, darkness swallowing the hunched figure as he makes his usual nightly route. His only company is the litter that dances around his feet in the brisk wind that signals a particularly nasty thunderstorm is about to head his way. Though this does nothing to deter him. He trudges on, mop of brown hair covering his bright emerald eyes as they stare wistfully at the pavement below as he gets lost in his thoughts and memories.
How many nights had he walked the streets alone? Unable to sleep for the bitter ache in his chest that refused to cease since her departure? He didn't know the exact time-scale, but for him it felt like an eternity.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Ben shivers against the cold night air as small rain drops begin to cascade around him, signalling the beginning of the powerful thunderstorm. Turning down a lit street, he continues on forward, seemingly oblivious to Mother nature rumbling around him in warning.
Soon the rain is coming down in torrents, soaking through his thin green and black cotton t-shirt and causing his brown hair to stick to his forehead. Letting out a tired huff, he turns his head towards the dark cloudy sky, letting the cool rain to fall on his face. Sliding his eyes closed, he relishes in the feel of the rain against his skin, letting his body and mind relax for the first time since that day.
But it is short-lived as he reopens his eyes only to spot a familiar house hold in front of him. Once again, the brunette is swallowed by the grief, the dull ache in his heart returning ten-fold as he stares directly at her window, silently praying she would look out and see his broken form.
But deep inside, he knows it is just too late. His hand instinctively moves to his pants pocket, he can feel the small price of paper burning into his flesh, taunting him. But his words are too little and just too late. She had finally found someone who would put her needs first, treat her like the princess she was.
Backing away, he continues on forward, using every once of will power not to turn around to stare at her window one last time.
It was a late night phone call from his distraught cousin that led her here, searching in the thundering rain for any sign of the missing hero. Due to her being at least 200 miles away, the redhead was unable to help with the search, and since his phone was switched off and his partner had no clue to his where abouts since earlier that night, it was left to the ebony tennis player to scourer Bellwood for her now Ex-boyfriend.
Sighing as she noticed the emptiness of the boys favourite smoothie shack, she headed to the last place she thought he could be, cursing the green-eyed boy and his stupidity the whole way.
A fork of lighting shoots across the sky, lighting up the hill before him. Plopping himself down on the wet grass, he pulls his legs up to his chest and rests his head on his knees. Puffy emerald eyes study the quiet town below, hands idly pulling lumps of grass from beside him.
How could he sit and pretend he didn't care? Go round acting like there wasn't a massive hole in his heart were she had once been? He had worn the happy-go-lucky mask for so long, it seemed permanently locked onto his features.
As rain continued to pour around him, making his clothes stick to him like a second skin, he finally lets the tears fall, feeling them mingle with the cold raindrops that slid down his cheeks.
He was broken, fighting a losing war to try to piece the shattered pieces of his heart back together, while she was off carving new memories and falling in love. It was true what they say, when a heart breaks, it never breaks even.
Trudging up the sodden hill, the ebony brings her pink umbrella closer to try to fend of the heavy rain and biting winds that batter her slim frame. Squinting through the darkness, she spots a hunched figure perched on the grass and let's out a sigh of relief. She had found him.
Pulling out her phone, she gets ready to fire off a text to her Anodite best friend when she hears the boy's voice cry out against the thunder that rumbles around the land.
"She was my only one"
She stops in her tracks, her mind fumbling over the words that echo round and varying emotions that seemed to burn through her veins like lava. An unexpectedly loud crack of lighting from above shakes her out of her stupor and causes her to let out a frightened yelp. Stumbling backwards, she loses her footing on the slippery grass, causing her to tumble backwards and land with a pained 'ooof!'
Snapping his head in the direction of the sound, the boys right hand immediately hovers over the watch on his left wrist, its luminous face sending eerie green shadows dancing across his pale face.
"Stupid lightning, now my skirt is ruined, ugh!" The girl grumbles, picking her self off the ground and inspecting her now drenched items of clothing.
"Julie?!" Ben calls out in surprise, hand moving away from his watch and once again drowning himself in the endless darkness that spanned around the two teenagers.
"Yes it's me!" She snaps unintentionally, angry frown marring her delicate features as she continues to look over herself "your parents and cousin are worried sick about you, so I had to come out and find your sorry butt before they all blew a gasket!"
Looking up from herself, she can just make out the faint figure only a few metres in front of her. She doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to know he is probably frowning at her, green eyes staring at her quizzically as if to say "Why are you here then?"
She huffs, placing her hand on her hip, she frowns back, lips flattening in a straight line. She prepares herself to give him a verbal beat down, much like his fiery red-haired cousin would do in this situation, when his voice stops her tongue in its tracks.
"I'm surprised you're not too busy planning your next romantic date with that dumbass boyfriend of yours" the venom in his voice surprises even him.
Deep down he knows he shouldn't be blaming her, especially since she has come all this way to find him in the pouring rain, but Ben just can't help it. He had bottled it up for so long he couldn't hold it in anymore. Turning back to face the city view below, he goes back to idly pulling grass from the ground around him, bracing himself for the verbal and possibly physical abuse that certain to rain down on him after the clearly insensitive comment.
Brushing away the dripping ebony strands of hair that had managed to fall into her line of vision, Julie does her best to push away the annoyance of his outburst and turn it around constructively. "Why are you it here anyway Ben? It's the middle of the night and its pouring with rain?" She questions in a gentle tone, hoping to get to the source of his erratic behaviour.
Letting out a huff of aggravation he doesn't even face her when he replies "Can't a guy go for a walk in the middle of the night now? Or do I have to ask everyone's permission?" The bitterness in his voice is evident. He doesn't quite know were it was exactly coming from, but he couldn't lie that it was making him feel, even if only slightly, better about the whole situation he was currently engaged in.
"What is wrong with you Ben?" She snaps back, the anger that had been there since his last comment boiling over with his continued brashness. "You run away in the middle of the night in the rain and then have a temper tantrum when I ask you why!"
"You wouldn't understand" is all he supplies, the bitter edge in his voice still underlining every word.
"Then why don't you tell me!? Julie's question is followed by a tense silence, one she is not so ready to break. She needs to know why. He never used to hide things from her, she was always the first person he would tell his feelings too, so what exactly had changed?
Oh that's right, they weren't together anymore...
"Because you can't help with this one. I created it, I caused it to break down. Now I just have to suffer" His voice was is broken and distraught, a stark contrast to the bitterness that had been there before. His whole body seems to slump with the confession, his hands ceasing their movements as silence once again holds them in its steel grasp.
Analytical mind running over the several meanings and or causes of the boys distress and sudden flighty nature, Julie takes a step towards him, tennis shoes squelching in the soggy ground. Her umbrella is long forgotten, the heavy rain drops cascading upon her form, further drenching her clothes and making her long ebony hair cling to her cold skin. "Maybe of you talked about it, we could fix whatever the problem is?" She supplies in her typical gentle tone.
He flinches at her words, an exasperated grunt leaving his lips.
"Ben, please. Just tell me"
He whirls round on her, narrowed emerald eyes piercing through the darkness and burn through her own murky brown.
"Don't you see?!" He yells, arms flying up from his sides "It can't be fixed! I screwed up, I lost you! I hurt you too many times to ever be forgiven! And now my only choice is to let you go so you can be happy, no matter how much it is going to destroy me to see you in the arms of another guy!"
A crack of lighting follows his outburst, allowing Julie to see his face for the first time since she found him. And what she saw in those milliseconds would be something she couldn't forget even if she tried. In those few moments she had seen the boys features, she had not seen the usual bright-eyed smiling teen that usually greeted her. Instead stood solider, his face a blank mask while deep jade eyes showed the horrendous things he had witnessed and the face of the innocents he just wasn't quick enough, strong enough or smart enough to save.
In front of her stood a broken man, clinging to the last hopes that maybe he can try to make things right, one last time.
But like the lightning, it disappears in an instant, only leaving the pouring rain and the inky darkness between them. Julie opens her mouth to say something, anything , to break the silence that hovers over them like a phantom. But her voice seems to die in her throat, rendering her speechless.
"You got the answer to your question, are you happy now?" The bitterness from before is back, and he stands up from his position on the floor, his back still facing her silent form. Snapping out of her daze, she frowns at the brown haired male stubbornly refusing to face her, her voice almost mimicking his own bitterness.
"No. I'm not."
He snaps his body round to glare angrily at her, fists clenched at his side. But she doesn't even flinch and instead levels him with her own icy glare. "Ben, we had our chance but it didn't work out! You are too busy with hero work! You couldn't put me at the top of you list or even second. I can't just sit around hoping that maybe we can have time together. I let in you in so many times just for you to walk straight back out again. I can't do it anymore"
"I only did that to protect you!" He shouts back over the rumbling thunder that crashes around them, almost drowning out his voice "I didn't want to see you get hurt because of me, because of who I am!"
Julie lets out a disbelieving scoff and rolls her eyes "Really Ben? How many times have you used that excuse? For once give me a real reason! Tell me why you kept pushing me away!"
"Because I love you!" He roars back, tugging furiously at his drenched brown locks. He chest heaves from the effort of the outburst and the weight of the confession "I love you too much to see you to get hurt! To watch you fall because of one stupid mistake! Don't you see now?! I pushed you away to try to get you to leave, to move on and be safe! But the more you stayed the harder it was to let go!"
He begins to pace, continuing to pull at his hair as if it was a way to rip out the pain burning through his chest, while Julie stands silent, staring at the boy she thought she knew, when in reality she had only seen the skin of what really lied beneath.
"I can't do this, I can't hurt you anymore, I...can't be here" he turns on his heel, fleeing as fast as he can down the hill, shoes sloshing against the mud.
It only takes a second for Julie to snap out of her daze as she cries out desperately to him "Ben! Wait!"
But her plea falls on deaf ears, and before she knows it he has disappeared into the night.
"I love you too"
Her whispered confession goes unheard, swallowed by the suffocating darkness and freezing rain that swallow her small shaking figure. It would be the last time she would properly speak to Ben Tennyson and the last time she would ever utter those words intended for him. But she would never forget, she would remember it all too well.
A/N: Please don't forget to review :)