He met her at Los Soledad around sunset.
She had insisted to him that they would merely be catching up, and that nothing more would come of it.
Yes, Ben had a crush on Kai (and probably still did).
And she did like him, in a way.
However, her feelings for him were never quite the same as his feelings for her. But it was getting harder to deny anything romantic between her and Ben. For one thing, Ben had recently split with Julie, so he was "on the market." Not to mention, when Kevin and Gwen told everyone that they weren't dating, nobody was convinced. So, Ben and Kai chose to walk around Los Soledad because they both agreed it was the least romantic place imaginable.
"You still dance?" Ben broke the ice.
"On occasion," she replied, "but nothing ceremonial."
"Why not?"
"I got older. At 10, I was a quiet kid; the adults took that as a sign of compliance, so they expected me to observe and maintain my heritage. It was almost like Sunday school, which is why I was so well-versed in Navajo beliefs. But then I-
"Started to question them?" he attempted to finish her thought.
"No, I just didn't need to abide by them once I started working as a Plumber. When I turned 13, my grandfather agreed to let me join him on missions. Most of the time, I was just there in the background. But I didn't want that; I wanted to help on a mission, maybe even do one on my own. That's part of the reason why I had you serve as backup in London. I could easily have rescued my grandfather on my own; but since the Forever Knights were involved, and you had fought them before, it made sense to ask you for help."
"Yeah, about your grandfather. Did he tell you to take judo classes or what?"
"Kind of. I took judo classes mainly because he wouldn't let me use weapons. Not because he didn't trust me with them; he just felt that I didn't really need them. In hindsight, it made sense because, over time, I had gotten so good at it, I didn't even need weapons."
"Wow."
"...but don't think that means I can't go 'Kill Bill' on a bad guy's ass."
"I have a black belt martial artist for a cousin; even I know better than to misjudge the abilities of someone like that."
"How is she, anyway? I heard she got a new place."
"Yeah, it's near her college campus; she moved in with her boyfriend."
"You mean, Kevin?"
"Right," nodded Ben.
When the suspicions were confirmed, and Kevin and Gwen made it clear that they were, in fact, dating, everyone in the Plumbers had already figured that out. All the magisters, security guards, ambassadors, pilots, and new recruits had known by then. Even the Null Void prisoners, many of whom knew Kevin personally from his time there, knew about it. Kevin and Gwen were like a Plumbers version of a celebrity couple. So it shouldn't have been a surprise to Ben that she also knew.
Sticking with the issue of couples, one of the two tusks adorning the figurative elephant in the room was Ben's recent split with Julie. Kai thought about bringing it up; but aside from making his bad situation worse, she worried that the question, coming from her, would sound less like she was genuinely concerned and more like, "So, you're single now? Wanna hook up later?" Trying her best to avoid that, she asked Ben if he had any regrets about his relationship with Julie.
He sighed, "My two biggest regrets: letting my work with the Plumbers take away from the time I could've spent with Julie, and letting the press get to my head."
"What do you mean?" she asked, referring to the latter explanation. "The good press or the bad press?"
"Both."
As he explained, the good press obviously gave him a bit of an ego boost. The bad press, however, tried to make him out into something worse than anything he ever was or could be. It made Ben think, "How could they say that about me? I saved the universe!"
Evidently, Ben liked the "saved the universe" line a lot. Otherwise, he wouldn't have used it on her in London.
But the press had agitated a kind of arrogance in Ben, and it reflected in his relationship with Julie, most infamously in the "clone" incident.
"It was stupid of me," assured Ben, "and Julie deserves better than that."
He walked a few steps in front of her before turning around and looking her right in the eye.
"I don't know if you felt the same way after telling me I wasn't your 'type', but you're probably lucky that you didn't end up with me."
Just then, she started to regret asking the question altogether. This wasn't the "leap first, look second" side of Ben who used "universal savior" for bragging rights; this was a side of Ben that meant business. However, the "type" incident had, in fact, bothered her for a long time, so she tried to set the record straight.
"You wanna know why I really said you weren't my type?" she countered. "It wasn't your alien, Blitzwolfer, or whatever. It was you, Ben. You don't think it was so blatantly obvious that you were trying too hard to impress me? I mean, yes, you saved my life. But be honest: did you save my life only because you were as genuinely concerned about my safety as, say, Julie's?"
Ben stood silently for a moment, like he was waiting for the echo of her voice to die out before releasing his own. Not only did she then start to regret her question, but she started to regret the whole encounter. She took a step away from him in case she had to run away. Instead, he leaned against one of the buildings, looking deep in thought.
"Maybe I just wanted to help people," Ben answered. "Maybe I'm naive enough to think I can save the world. I can't save everybody, or waste my time wondering whether you'd save me if you had alien powers and I was holding on to a giant clock for dear life."
He paused heavily, like he had made room for the sound of her footsteps as she softly approached him. She began to realize that, in a way, she was a lot like him. They both held a heavy empathy for others, and shared an ambitious, comic-book-hero-like aspiration to help people, or possibly even the whole world. This was yet another side of him that greatly surprised her.
Ben looked too frustrated to continue his thought, or else he was distracted by the orange-and-pink-tinted sunset. It was a warm feeling, though it seemed odd that the feeling was only in Ben's hand.
The warmth, it turns out, came from Kai's hand, which had quietly become intertwined with his.
"I'd save you."
She looked at Ben with her vitreous, mirror-like brown eyes that glistened in the warm color of the sunlight. An optimistic affection overwhelmed him and he could now put aside his uncertainties for the sake of someone who genuinely cared for him.
"You mean it?" he inquired.
"I do."
And they embraced.
Although Ben and Kai had both initially agreed that "nothing more would come" of them catching up, something more did come out of it.
But it probably wasn't what either of them had expected.