Ben struggles with asking his dad for permission to go to New York with his girlfriend. Ben/Denny. 3rd Person POV. Set in the AU of Strange Brew in Season 3.
Disclaimer: I do not own Falling Skies.
Chapter 8
Hal sighed as he clicked his seat belt on. It wasn't a long flight to New York, but he wasn't particularly excited about it. He'd met Rita's Aunt Charlotte only once before, at last year's Thanksgiving, and she'd hated him ever since. Spending a week in the woman's company, in her apartment, was going to be hell.
Next to him Rita was beaming. Charlotte was her favorite aunt, the doting and sweet one to have her tell it. Over-protective and manipulative, in Hal's opinion. But whatever made Rita happy, made him happy. Despite his mood Hal found himself smiling at Rita's excitement.
"We should try to get together with your brother when he comes in," Rita said as the stewardess went through the repetitive safety lecture. Her soft brown hair brushed against Hal's face as she leaned her head on his shoulder.
Hal chuckled, "Yeah, because Ben and I don't see enough of each other in Boston." Rita narrowed her eyes playfully, elbowing him a little, "Oh, come on, you know all we do is fight."
"I don't see why," Rita rolled her eyes, "You're actually a lot alike."
"How?!" Hal pushed a stray bit of hair out of Rita's face, eyebrow's raised incredulously.
Rita laughed, "You're both sweet. Kind. A little arrogant." Taking Hal's hand in her own she smiled up at him, "And you're both wrapped around a beautiful girl's finger."
Hal smirked at that, nodding, "He's not even flying out for another two days, Denny's dad just got back from Chicago or something." Rita leaned up and kissed his cheek, "That isn't me giving in."
"Not yet," Rita smirked, laying her head back against his shoulder as the plane started to lift off.
Denny rolled her neck, trying to ignore her father's shouts as she sketched a new idea for a painting. Harrison Bayard did not have a quiet voice though. And whenever his ex-wife was involved it went up a few octaves in a way that always made Denny's ears ring.
Every now and then she would catch her name and words like 'responsibility' and 'duty.' Setting down her pencils Denny got up from her desk, grabbing the remote for her stereo to turn it on. Nightcore came pouring out of her speakers.
She could still hear the faint vibrations of her father's voice, but the words were meaningless now. Grabbing her laptop, Denny plopped onto her bed. Ben and Jimmy were both online, along with Jamil and Dingaan.
Almost instantly she was bombarded with questions upon entering their guild's chat. It was a well-documented fact that Thursday's were 'Don't Bug Denny' night. Since her father took most of his business trips on the weekend, Thursday's were their usual dinner.
She hooked up her mic, "Miss me, boys?"
"Don't you have plans tonight?" Dingaan sounded worried, the oldest of their group he tended to act more like a mother than a friend. Not that they minded, much.
"Things changed," Denny replied, "Are you guys raiding tonight?"
Ben's sigh was just audible beneath Jimmy's rage, "If Cochise would get his ass online, we would be!" Denny laughed, Cochise and Shaq, the brothers were notoriously unreliable.
"I can sub for Cochise," my words were met with silence. It was echoing over my headphones, "What?"
"It's Thursday." Jamil stated, as if she didn't know. Denny rolled her eyes, happy now of them could see her face right now.
Ben cleared his throat, "It's just that…" He stopped mid-sentence. A ping notified her of a private message from him. He and Jimmy were the only ones that knew what tonight actually was.
"I'm fine Benji," Denny's voice was sharp and she bit her lip, knowing every single one of them could tell she was in a bad mood, "Can we just talk strategy? If I wanted girl-talk I wouldn't be talking to a bunch of guys."
Jimmy swiftly turned the conversation onto the dungeon map. None of them commented on outside topics for the rest of the night. Not even when Dingaan's wife interrupted or Cochise showed up with excuses about helping his father.
Only Ben stayed on afterwards, a voice full of worry and his face tinged with a tad bit of annoyance when they switched to video. Only then did Denny managed to admit why her music had played in the background through the whole raid.
"I'm worried," Rebecca stared at her husband through the mirror as he came into the doorway of their bathroom.
Tom chuckled, "Hal will be fine. He promised to text us when he got to Rita's aunt's house."
Rebecca managed a half-smile, but shook her head, "I'm not talking about Hal."
"Ok," Tom's face scrunched up in concentration, "Matt and Ben are both in their rooms, pretending to sleep while playing video games, so who are we talking about?"
"Denny," Rebecca said, turning around to face him with a pointed look.
Tom raised an eyebrow, a frown settling onto his face, "Why?"
Rebecca scoffed at him, "You saw it as well as I did, Tom Mason, don't pretend you didn't." She turned back around to the sink to apply her face creams.
"She doesn't come from an ideal home environment," Tom drew a hand down his face, "But it could be much worse." Rebecca made eye contact with his reflection, he shook his head, "I know, not the point."
Rebecca nodded, her thoughts still lingering on the events from the day before. The sight of Denny with blood-shot eyes and a sad smile asking her if she could stay had nearly broken Rebecca's heart. The girl had seemed down the whole day and unsurprised when her father's assistant showed up to pick her up. More than a little bit of irritation had been obvious on the woman's face too.
"Denny's healthy and well-cared for. She may be overly-indulged I'll admit, and –"
"She was alone, Tom," Rebecca interrupted, anger in her eyes, "Can you imagine being seventeen and being an afterthought to her parents, on Christmas."
Tom nodded, "There's nothing we can do." Rebecca huffed, aggressively grabbing the toothpaste.
"I'm a mother," Rebecca said, "I'm meant to worry about children." The conversation was quickly over as Tom held up his hand in surrender. On the bright side, her teeth had never been brushed with quite as much vigor before.
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