"Stories never really end ... even if the books like to pretend they do. Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page, any more than they begin on the first page." - Cornelia Funke
Chapter One: A Gift From God
Origin of the name Micah: Derived from the Hebrew mīkhāyah (who is like God?) The name is borne in the Bible by several Old Testament characters, including an 8th-century B.C. prophet of Judah. His prophecies are found in the book of Micah.
Biblical Meaning:
The name Micah is a Biblical baby name. In Biblical the meaning of the name Micah is: Poor, humble.
Hebrew Meaning:
The name Micah is a Hebrew baby name. In Hebrew the meaning of the name Micah is: Who is like God? Gift from God.
SoulUrge Number: 1
People with this name have a deep inner desire to use their abilities in leadership, and to have personal independence. They would rather focus on large, important issues, and delegate the details.
Expression Number: 7
People with this name are excellent at analyzing, understanding, and learning. They tend to be mystics, philosophers, scholars, and teachers. Because they live so much in the mind, they tend to be quiet and introspective, and are usually introverts. When presented with issues, they will see the larger picture. Their solitary thoughtfulness and analysis of people and world events may make them seem aloof, and sometimes even melancholy.
Micah – [Latin Meaning] Someone Familiar
It was a cold, windy, winter, Saturday night, when Ben took Micah – his "favorite girl" – out in "Time Square". Ben, no longer the skinny teenager he once was, had stopped growing at 6' 6", and his weight seemed to have finally caught up with his height. He now kept his hair cut short, almost always with a Baseball cap covering it. He dressed mostly in casual clothing. After choosing to give up his lavish lifestyle, he was no longer a Multi-Millionaire, but a Journalist and an Author. Like his former-self, he'd never let a month go by without buying his girlfriend a beautiful gift – a bracelet, necklace, earrings or anything. He just loved showering her with anything he thought she would like. It was always more than welcomed, but Micah constantly and increasingly felt the need to tell him that she wasn't with him for money, or gifts, or prizes. "You're my prize" was what she always said to him, and it was just what he needed to hear. The flashy things never mattered to her like it did to almost everyone else. She was refreshing.
Micah Sanchez, was a woman Ben met on an Italian College Campus, a few months into his courses there.
"Là", Ben said, attempting to make conversation. "Bella giornata. Non è vero?"
"Sì, se ti piace nuvole." Micah looked at him a bit funny. "Siete di qui?"
"No. Come poteva dire?"
"Your accent. It's pretty American. I'm American, too." Micah said smiling at Ben.
"Wow. Small world."
Ben continued to stare rather love-struck at Micah.
"Well ... Hi", Micah said smiling, bubbly. "My name is Micah." She extended her hand out towards his, but Ben just stood there, staring at her. "Well, I have to get to class."
"Wait", Ben blurted out. "My name is Ben. Benjamin Boykewich", he announced, extending his right hand to her left.
"Nice to meet you, Ben", Micah said, grinning at him and shaking his hand. "Boykewich? That's an interesting name."
"Really? You never heard of that name?"
"It sounds familiar, but I don't know from where."
Ben looked upwards, dreamingly, and smiled.
He had gotten her cell-phone number and they had communicated almost every minute of everyday like infatuated teenagers - not only through phone-calls, but through Social-Media outlets Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and even Skype. They had spent countless nights staying up talking to each other about their lives and what directions they wanted it to go in. Micah had a major in Medicine, with Ben having a double-major in Art and Journalism. Usually he was always begging for her to spend more time with him, which she often did – opting to listen to music in-doors, go the movie-theaters, even restaurants, and when he was just desperate to be with her they'd even go shopping - quickly became a close-friend that he was often never seen without. He often would brag to his male dorm-mates about her whenever he could. Her soft voice. Her witty, sarcastic yet delicate humor. The beautiful words she used. The kind manner in which she treated him. Her flirtatiousness. While he occasionally did hook-up with other girls while drunk or "high" on drugs, something he often tried to hide from her for fear her opinion of him might falter, he never did sleep with Micah. He didn't want to ruin his friendship with Mica the same exact way he felt his friendship with Adrian was ruined. In a way she was kind of like Adrian, which was often brought up whenever he introduced her to people that knew him from California.
"Hi, Chloe. Ben has told me so much about you", Micah said throwing her arms around the younger girl. Sensing her hesitance she added, "It's me, Mica. We've talked on Skype."
"No, I remember you", Chloe said, hugging her back.
Taking her bags in, Chloe then looked at Ben and commented, "Familiar, eh, Ben."
"Shut up", Ben responded grimacing at her.
Micah had her Italian mother's hair and skin color, but her Puerto Rican father's features and curly hair. Though their physical appearances were somewhat similar, he saw them as almost two entirely different people. Both he and "Mickey" – as he often called her – had Italian mothers that had died, ironically enough. Mica was as soft spoken and shy as Ben, though whenever he was unable to do it, Micah would stand up for him with passion and fire like Adrian had done in the hallway that day. Micah was highly intelligent, and multilingual, but Micah was not self-interested. Her appearance mattered to her, but it wasn't everything. Micah had had more than a truck-load of fan-boys but Micah never let it go to her head. Sex and sexuality were important to Micah, but it was never a coping mechanism for her, it was in and of itself an art-form. Micah had a humanitarian's spirit and wanted to help others. Her intelligence was never used in any way but for positivity. He never felt this constant need to protect her. She liked to think she protected him, and he let her think that. With Adrian, he always felt like he had to tend to her wounds before his own. With Micah, she was stronger, bolder, and didn't want to rely on him anymore than Ben himself would want to rely on any other individual. Like himself, Mica was somewhat of an introvert but had a never-ending list of acquaintances and friends. But, unlike Adrian, she never treated him any less than any of her other friends. Micah throughout the years had continued to be "the light of his life" after his father had died, and the prime source of his happiness during his dark times.
As the years went by, he and Micah's relationship gradually became romantic.
"I'm have to tell you something. Now what I have to tell you is pretty serious and I understand if don't ... but I ... I ..."
"Ben, what is it?" Micah was somewhat frightened by the seriousness of his tone.
"I love you." Sensing Micah's surprise by the shock on her face, Ben felt he needed to explain himself. "I've only said this to like two people before, and even then I don't think I really knew what the meaning of what I felt until a few years ago, with one individual. But I'm getting off tropic. I've never in my entire life - I mean no one has ever made me feel the way I am when I'm with you. And I just - I really admire you. I mean you're so loving and kind and - "
Covering Ben's lips to quiet him, Micah replied, "I love you too." Taking Ben's face in her hands, she kissed him passionately.
After graduating College together they travelled to various countries and city-states all over the world together - often taking pictures and posting them to Social-Media to share with close-friends and others. Ben bounced between different cities, due promotion of Ben's books, and his pursuit of screen-writing and various acting roles. Neither was happy about the constant moving, then. Ben and Micah decided to settle down where they thought they'd be happiest - New York City. The move to New York was a logical one. Brooklyn was a place that held a special place in both their hearts, due to it not only being where Sarah and Leo were born, met, and grew up - but it was also Micah's birthplace.
To Micah, Ben wasn't "The Sausage Prince", he was her King. And like all the love-interests he had had before her, he treated her like a Queen. She often tried to talk to him about having future "princes" and "princesses", in the near-future, but Ben would instantly become nervous, quiet, and withdrawn – ending the subject-matter before the much needed conversation could begin.
In the midst of the winter night with electricity surrounding them, in Time-Square, Ben looked at Micah dazzled. "I don't know how I got so lucky … to be with you", Ben said beaming with delight, stroking her long dark-brown hair.
"The same way that I'm lucky to be with you", she said, staring back – meeting his green eyes with her hazels. "You're the guy that I've always wanted. You're like a dream come true."
"Not to everyone", Ben frowned, diverting his eyes from her, focusing on a medium-size pebble he moved with one of his sneakers. "You're a lot different from every other girl I've talked to, Mickey. But I guess that's why I love you so much."
"Well, that's because I'm a woman, Ben … And I'm not any different from any other woman. I bleed red", Micah giggled. "You just needed to meet someone that's like-minded. You just needed to meet someone that shares the same values as you do. Someone that wants the best for others as much as you. Someone that wants the best for you, for a change. I guess, someone that wanted to heal you for change."
"An honest – even if slightly disturbing – slip", Ben responded. "You've definitely healed me, though … in so much more ways than one!"
"See, that's what I love about you. You could always make me laugh, Ben." She paused before reaching up to kiss him on the forehead. "We healed each other."
"Yeah, we did. Mickey, I was so damaged and empty before I met you. Now look at me!", he said holding her hand tighter.
"You were never damaged. Just broken. In some ways, we all are."
"Well you … with these magic little fingers of yours, you fixed me and brought me back to life", Ben stated grinning, holding her hands in his, and kissing each finger.
Standing adjacent towards him, she gently disconnected her hands from his. "I never 'fixed' you, Ben."
"What do you mean? You're the one that encouraged me to go to Rehab. I wouldn't have done it if it weren't for you. You're the one that talked me into it, forced me to go, drove me there every single day and –"
"Yeah but the point is you went to Rehab, on your own, because you wanted to 'fix' yourself. You stayed there because you wanted to get the help you needed. Even though it was tough, you repaired your own honor, your own dignity, your own humanity, through hard mental-work, emotional clarity, and dedication. That was your own doing. That's the thing most people never understand. Only we can save ourselves from ourselves. You never realized it, but you've helped me as much as I've helped you. But it was each us, individually, that turned everything around for ourselves. I never talked about it but when I first met you I thought all these negative things about myself. That I was never worthy of my father's love – that I was the reason my mother died. You know, she died because I lived? That I always messed things up for everyone else. But with the love you gave me I was able to realize that not every bad thing that happened to me or my family was all my fault. That I didn't deserve my father's cruelty. You opened me up to the possibility that our loved-ones maybe really are watching over us, and that my mother was probably always with me. Accepting your love helped me to finally accept the love my father had been trying to give all these years, underneath it all, even though I had convinced myself I didn't want it."
"I don't mean to ruin this beautiful moment with profanity but how the hell did I make you realize all of that?" Ben asked genuinely bewildered.
"You were the one person in my life that never treated me like my whole entire life was a mistake. You loved me for me. You treated me like I was everything."
Ben nods, humbly, rubbing her left cheek with his right hand. "You are my everything."
"Sometimes I used to think that I deserved to die and she deserved to live. That everyone was better off without me."
"I use to have the same thought process." Ben looked down, diverting his eyes from her once more. "I use to think that everyone would be so much better off without me. My dad … and Adrian."
Micah rubbed his back gently, "Ben, it's like she said. She didn't love you in the way you loved her. But she loved you. You were never just nothing to her. Omar was the one that ended your friendship, not Adrian."
"She was 'in love' with him enough to listen to him, and that crap he said. She never loved me enough … to do anything, really. Not enough to stay married to me. Not enough to not to sleep with Henry. Not enough to … Not enough to not marry that-that … jerk. But if I hadn't left her maybe –"
"Ben you can't say that you guys would still be together, if you never left the condo you guys shared. She made her decision based on feelings she had for Ricky at the time! She was in love with him. And when you told her you were in love with her, she said she was in love with Omar! It's just the way life goes sometimes." Ben continues looking silently at the sky – almost at nothing in particular – just the stars. "Ben I'm here for you, now. I love you." She said tilting his head to look at her. "I love you with all my heart. Even if no one else cared about you, I still would. And I always will. You're someone worth caring about."
"I love you, too, Mickey", He said looking into her eyes.
"Besides, if Adrian had wanted you back, we wouldn't've started dating."
"It's not that I'm still in love with her like I'm in love with you. It's just that … It's that she was the first girl I ever slept with, she was the first girl I ever lived with, we got married, we have a daughter together that we buried together, she was the first girl I ever really loved …etc. And I don't know, it still hurts me that she never made me feel like she ever really cared about me or my feelings. Like ever."
"I know."
"I think in a way, I'll always love her", he said once again, looking at the stars, as Micah for once was speechless. "She'll always mean something to me … even if I wish I didn't care about her at all, anymore." He paused looking out in the distance, before turning and looking at her. "But I'm with you now. And I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like you're 2nd-Best to someone that I don't even think ever thinks of me anymore, much more still cares about me. I won't ever make that mistake again. I care about you too much to. You know that, right?"
"Honey, I know you care about me. You don't have to say it. I know that you're still upset about a few things and I'm always here to listen. Honestly, it would disturb me, more, if you didn't feel anything."
"She really doesn't care about me", Ben blurted out. "She hasn't contacted me in years. She's happy, content and perfectly fine with someone that doesn't respect her choices, her friendships and … even just her. I respect women – definitely now more than ever before. I've grown up even if she refuses to do so. She can be with him for all I care. Besides she has four children now … and she probably feels like she has to be with him for them, you know? I respect that, at least. She was always that kind of person … a good mom, a wonderful mom … I always knew she would be –"
"You're doing it, again", she said with an under-hint of annoyance. "I'm here. I can hear all of this. You're not talking in your head."
"Mickey, I'm sorry. This isn't going the way I planned", Ben stumbled, rubbing his neck and tried to find the right words to respond with. Rambling about an ex-wife wasn't quite the romance he was aiming for. "She doesn't want to be with me, I've grown to accept it, and I've moved on." He couldn't gauge what she was thinking from the almost blank emotion on her face. "Hey … why don't we go back to our room and I'll show you just how much I love you and how much I adore you", he enquired, holding her hips – pushing her closer towards himself – running his hands through her hair.
"Baby, I have another idea. Why don't we just go to Olive-Greens instead? Or even Red-Lobster?" she asked, seeming even more excited about the idea of dinner instead.
"Cool. My two favorite things to do", he grinned. "So we eat out now … and I'll 'eat out' later", he said grabbing her from behind and kissing her softly on the neck.
"Clever, Ben", she said, chuckling.
A/N:
** Micah is a character Ben met in 5B in the original show, of which mutual physical-attraction between the two was shown. Micah seemed to have really liked Ben, as a person as well.
** Leo said he always thought Ben would eventually end up in Europe.
** In a 5B conversation with his adopted-sister Chloe, Ben has sated that he always was interested in "the arts", and pursuing a career related to the arts.
** There was a lot of foreshadoment of Leo's death.
** There was a lot of foreshadowing - since season three - that Ben would become an alcoholic and drug-user.
** Ben stated in 5B that he wanted to travel all over the world.
