A/N: BACK! FINALLY! Rite now, I would be outside, chilling in the sunshine, but I'm too sore. Camp totally sucked the life out of me. Ran at least seventy miles and walked six to and from the caf, the dorm room, and the gym. What I do for the love of basketball…
So this was a special point I caught when I was watching 'Fused'. Dunno who else saw it… but I did and I flipped out….
Disclaimer: own nothing at all.
Gwen was poised in the passenger seat of the car, hair flowing over one shoulder as she attempted to run her fingers through it, trying to get out the worst of the tangles and the knots. The frizz of the heat of a long muggy night was getting to her.
Already asleep in the backseat was Ben. He'd crashed fast and hard when his head hit the window. Out cold and exhausted, his snoring was light and not as obnoxious as it could have been.
Grip tight on the wheel, Kevin stared straight out the windshield. His jaw was clenched tight and there was a silent battle raging on behind his deep, dark eyes. Why couldn't he stop Aggregor? Why was he just a hatchling? Why couldn't he channel power like he used to? Was it the problem that he'd become good again? Was it the problem that maybe he was older now? What the heck was wrong with him? Why couldn't he save the two people he cared about most? A slight headache made its way to his mind. This was going to hurt, all this thinking.
"You look like crap," noted Gwen, her gaze falling to him and his scratched up face. The marks stretched across his face and there was clearly something wrong. He did look like crap. Kevin's face was twisted into confusion, the way it was when he was thinking too hard or over-analyzing something. She knew she had to worry, despite their recent problems.
Only an hour had passed since Rad had been taken by Aggregor. One hour had passed. That was all. They were going out to Los Soledad to shut it down for the night so that they could all head home and get some actual sleep for a couple of hours before heading out again to do whatever.
"Thanks," Kevin muttered softly, definitely distracted.
"What's up with you?" she snapped, finally giving in. "You're moody, you're snapping at me of all people, and you're just totally irritated at anything! Yesterday, you were yelling at your car!" She knew she shouldn't have sounded so mad at him for all that, but she couldn't help the temper that had overwhelmed her. Gwen turned her face slightly away from him, more towards the buildings out his side of the windshield. "I'm just worried about you, that's all. It's normal for you to be annoyed a lot, but to yell this much and to take things out on me instead of Ben… It's not right. It's like you're not even yourself anymore, Kevin."
He let out a long sigh. "I know." His obsidian orbs disappeared for a long moment as he closed his eyes for a few seconds. "I wish it wasn't like this, but I know that you guys wouldn't understand half of what I'm going through right now. So telling you is pretty much useless."
One of her hands reached out to cover one of his on the steering wheel. "I'm always here to listen, even if I don't understand it."
A tiny smile curled up one corner of his lips. His gaze flickered to her from the road. "Thanks, Gwen."
There was a long yawn from the backseat. "We there yet?" asked the brunette Tennyson as he blinked open his jade eyes. "I'm awake and I didn't have a nightmare and Kevin didn't put my hand in warm water, so I'm assuming we're not."
"Nope," replied the raven-haired driver. He checked the signs off the side of the highway. "But you got like another minute or two to wait before you'd have to wake back up. We'll be there in a few."
Ben looked out the window. "What time is it?"
"Late." Kevin wasn't in the mood to check the clock. He tugged the wheel to the side so that he could hit the desert's cold sand. It was bad for the tires, but he had to get there somehow. The small pale grains were kicked up behind the vehicle.
"It's like midnight or something," said Gwen, knowing very well that the clock in Kevin's car wasn't accurate.
The old base rose up on the edge of the horizon. "Welcome to Los Soledad. Population: zero. Meaning in Spanish: The Loneliness." Kevin floored the pedal, anxious to get back home and maybe make a couple of calls to figure out more about this Aggregor guy. The car rolled over the desert a little faster.
Gwen wasn't about to question how he knew what it meant in Spanish.
Kevin let the car slide into the sand, kicking it up over the stone walls of Los Soledad's outer barriers. "Let's get this over with." He disappeared from the car within a few seconds, vanishing into the base.
The redhead followed, her cousin tailing her with a quick shuffle, stretching his arms out wide and everything.
Moments had passed as Gwen was shutting down the systems, Kevin was fixing the pieces of broken tech everywhere, and Ben was curled up in a plastic chair, catching a few extra z's.
"Kevin?" called Gwen through the open door that was the only opening in the barrier of a wall that separated them.
"Hm?" he replied, muffled by the wrench that he was holding tucked between his chin and his chest while his hands were busy placing the last of the screws that held it all together. Why did Rad have to destroy everything anyways?
"What did Rad mean when he was talking about all Osmosians?" asked Gwen, finally cutting off the main power for the night, leaving only the light system on so that Kevin could see to work.
He got the wrench busy tightening those bolts. "How am I supposed to know? I just figured out this stuff a little while ago, courtesy of my father's murderer." Kevin gave a little shrug from his position on the ground. "Gwen, I'm still kind managing all this new stuff. Working it out isn't on my to-do list at this exact moment."
She leaned against the wall that was adjacent to the one he was working against. "Well, Rad said 'like all Osmosians, Aggregor can absorb matter, energy, or the powers of any other living creature'." Gwen looked down at Kevin closely. "All Osmosians, Kev."
Sliding out from under his work, Kevin glared up at her. "You saw me as a kid. You know what it was like for me to have that much power. To be able to level an entire city in about an hour. Electricity isn't something I mess with anymore, Gwen. Not to mention the fact that I don't know if I could still manage that kind of power anymore without facing an imminent death." He could tell the tone of his voice was hardening. "I nearly died. Not just because of the Omnitrix, but because of absorbing raw energy. I was going to kill myself eventually and the only thing that saved me was the Null Void. It nearly killed me, but it also saved me. And it turned me into this. I'm closer to normal than I've been in a while. And I'm kind of glad." Kevin took a couple of breaths. "I'm not even going to attempt it, alright? Not even if the whole world is counting on it. Because I'm practically indestructible when I'm like that. And if I'm stuck like that, I'd rather not live. Can we just leave it at that?"
The rest of the night was quiet as the rest of Los Soledad went dark once again.
A/N: kind of intense, don't you think? Thanks for reading and don't forget to review!
~Sky