Star Trek: The Next Generation – Souvenirs

Written By: Commander Cody CC-2224

CHAPTER 25

Ben was still feeling a growing resentment within him; a resentment about all the favoritism to Felicity from her family members and friends he perceived after browsing through the memory logs. He was still musing on thoughts of leaving the Enterprise when the door chime rang.

"Come," he said in an almost grimly tone of voice.

The automatic sliding doors opened and in entered Felicity.

"I didn't expect to find you here," she said.

"Nor you," replied Ben. "The tone in his voice seemed to indicate a state of irritation. Felicity could notice it. Not good.

"Benjamin Davidson, I dare say you've gotten quite peevish today!" she exclaimed. "Pray, what ails you so?"

"Oh, nothing," Ben lied.

"It is something, I just know it," said Felicity a little snappishly. "You've been having some difficulty hiding your feelings from me, Ben, and this time, beyond suspicion, something is really wrong. So tell me. What is it?" She was beginning to sound almost like her mother.

Ben rudely slapped his hand on the desk surface. "Fine," he said irritably. His thoughts were blunt. "Here's how I feel. I can't stand it anymore, Lissie, staying on board this ship. I'm leaving this place and time."

Felicity slapped both her hands on the desk. "Benjamin Davidson!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Surely you're not thinking of running away again!"

"As a matter of fact, I am," retorted Ben in a rather discourteous manner. For him there was no need to get blunt now, since he knew that Felicity would just poke and prod and criticize him.

Felicity sighed crossly and crossed her arms. "Ben, how can you even think of such a thing?"

"You're not keeping me prisoner in here, Lissie."

Felicity was confused. "What do you mean, 'prisoner'? I'm letting you walk around this ship as much as you like. How can you say such a thing like this to me?"

"You don't understand, Lissie. I want to go back to our time. The time we came from."

This statement stunned Felicity. It seemed that she wanted to stay in the 24th century, where everything was at its most ideal, and Ben could just not seem to accept that. At least, not for himself, mostly.

"My living aboard the ship is pointless, Lissie. For me, my sense of purpose is taken away because I wanted to join Washington's army when I reach 18." He really wanted very much to join the Continental army and make his mark in the history of America's fight for freedom. "Besides, we don't belong here! Neither one of us!"

"Ben, I don't give a hoot as to whether we belong here or not!" Felicity replied hotly.

"Well, what about your family, Lissie?" Ben asked calmly.

Felicity bowed her head despondently. She missed the family members left behind: Father, Mother, and little baby Polly, and there was the strong, looming certainty that they were deceased long ago in this time. But seeing no way to get back to the time they were in, much less to the time when they were alive, she figured that she and Ben, as well as her best friend and her little siblings would have a chance to live together, and seek comfort in the fact that Ben will not have to be obliged to do any fighting. She feared that if she, along with her family members and friends, went back to the 18th century, Ben would be off to join Washington's army, and they would be forced to live in "interesting times", something that she wasn't particularly looking forward to. After all, the period during the American War for Independence was fraught will all sorts of horrifying perils and times that tried the souls of men, women, and children, at least from her own point of view.

She raised her head and stroked back her hair. "I miss Mother and Father and Polly, as well as some of our friends and acquaintances we left behind. I even miss Grandfather, too, and I kept wishing that I went back to the time when he was alive and when we were so happy together. But right now I, and most likely the rest of the group, don't seem to be very willing to give up the comforts of future civilization to go back to a time fraught with peril, as the war would most likely be doing." She looked at Ben with a solemn seriousness. "For the most part, we're here…to stay."

Ben frowned. "Fine. You stay, I'll go."

Felicity grabbed hold of Ben's right shoulder. "Ben, no! Please! You can't do this! You'd be doing something wrong! We all want you, nay, need you here! You can't just leave us alone like this in this place!"

"Yes, I can," retorted Ben. "The past was what I really wanted."

Felicity immediately let go of Ben's shoulder, distanced herself from him a bit, and frowned disapprovingly at him. "Are you the one who keeps telling me that you can't have everything you want?"

Ben snorted. "That's the second time you said, that Lissie, ever since I made what you call from your point of view a foolhardy attempt to run away to join Washington's army. For the second time I say this: The circumstances are different."

"Not to me it isn't!" snapped Felicity

"And why is that?" retorted Ben, feeling annoyed.

Felicity hung her head in sorrow. Ben sauntered to the desk chair and plopped himself on it. She went to Ben and put her arm around him."

"Ben, please don't do this to me," she pleaded. "You'll break my heart."

Ben just simply waved Felicity's hands off his shoulders in a rude manner and immediately got off the desk chair.

"You're using your feminine wiles on me to convince me to stay cooped up in this "space" vessel, Felicity Merriman. I sure as hell don't intend to give in."

Now Felicity began to say the same thing that she said nearly a year ago, when Ben was running off to join the Patriot army.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Benjamin Davidson!" she burst out uncontrollably. "'Tis cowardly to run away, to break promises, and to hurt those who need you and trust you!"

That statement sort of got deep into the bottom Ben's heart that for some reason he was beginning to find it rather hard to refuse Felicity. But he wanted to test her resolve.

"I…wha…" he stammered crossly before he regained his composure. "Lissie, you've got a smutty mind!" he declared determinedly.

Felicity gasped in horror and suddenly cast a furious glare at Ben. How dare he! she thought horrifically to herself. Then in a fit of headstrong impulse she approached Ben rapidly and slapped him rather hard across the face on his left cheek with her strong right hand. SMACK!

"Benjamin Davidson, that…is the most despicable thing you could ever say to a young lady!" she snapped loudly and angrily.

Ben forced a smile, while rubbing the slightly bruised area of his cheek where he got slapped. "Hell," he muttered. "Who cares?"

"I do!" cried Felicity hotly.

Ben simply scoffed vociferously. "You?" he sneered. "You've never been known to have a complete sense of propriety ever since I've known you?"

"This is different!" cried Felicity. "Your statement implies that I'm a lewd person!"

Felicity's expression changed to a rather sad one. Sensing that something was clearly wrong with Ben now, she lowered her voice to amore gentle and understanding tone. She seemed determined to give him a second change for him to come back to his senses.

"Ben, you don't have to do this," she said. She felt as though she could cry, but she controlled herself. "What's got into you? Please, come back to your senses. Let it go"

There was a brief silence before Ben resumed the conversation to his side. "Lissie, men need some sense of purpose in life. You take away the means to achieve that purpose, you take something away from a man."

Felicity looked at Ben forlornly and hopelessly, as if her seemingly persuasive arguments to him were failing her.

"Besides, we're getting too used to easy living!" Ben continued protesting. "We'll lose our cultural identity! We lose who we are!"

Now Felicity was all of a sudden aghast with burning anger. "Benjamin Davidson! Is that all you of all people are going to only care about?"

There seemed to be no point for Ben to attempt evading the question or defending himself. So in a slightly fierce and vary blunt manner, so not to be ashamed of what he was about to say, he replied in one single word: "Aye."

As a result Felicity became even more cross with him than usual. "I dare say, you're getting to be quite a selfish, foolish boy!" she declared crossly, as she crossed her arms.

"And you're so…security-centered!" retorted Ben indignantly. "What happened to you, Lissie? Lost your ardent fire for the Patriot cause?"

Felicity only looked sadly at Ben.

"What's more, I'm just…an apprentice in a shopkeeper's establishment…training in the business of shop-keeping. My family sent me to your family to learn the tools of the trade in the shop-keeping business of your father." He darted looks back and forth around the room. "The methods of shop-keeping in this timeline are far more complex than in the time where we came from!" He changed his voice to an impolitely presumptuous tone. "I seriously doubt that I'll be able to adapt!"

"Yes, you can, Ben!" exclaimed Felicity hotly.

"Oh, don't be so presumptuous, Lissie!" retorted Ben vehemently. "I can't, and I won't!"

"Benjamin Davidson! You're as headstrong and stiff-necked as a mule!"

"The hell I am! And the same can be said of you, too!"

Now Felicity started acting as though she would never let such words hurt her. Ben still wanted to see how far he could take the matter.

"If you "proper young ladies" want to stay behind, fine. But I'm going back!" He rudely turned his back on Felicity.

"And how will you explain our absences when you meet father?" Felicity burst out. "How will you be able to explain how Felicity, Nan, and William Merriman are gone? Hmm?" Ben slowly turned around and faced Felicity with a serious look.

"And how will you be able to explain to Mr. and Mrs. Cole about their youngest daughter Elizabeth being missed?" Felicity continued, as she approached closer to Ben and looked him solemnly in the eye. "These are serious questions that you'll have to answer, Ben Davidson."

Ben was all of a sudden compelled to follow Felicity's advice, but a surge of rebellion flowed through his itching rebellious teenage body. Also, at the same time, he wanted to test Felicity's resolve. In his mind he remembered the time when Felicity made him feel ashamed in his attempt of running away to join the Continental Army of the Republic. This time, he wasn't going to let Felicity win the argument in its entirety. No more, Ben thought to himself rather bitterly. No more….

However, a thought hit upon his head that he would let her win by staying in the 24th century, but not in the way she wants. Again, he was still determined to test Felicity's resolve.

"All right, Lissie," said Ben calmly. "You win, I stay. But…I get to go looking for wars to fight."

Felicity slapped her right arm on the left sofa arm. "Ben, how can you even dare to go gallivanting on such escapades?" she asked in furious exasperation.

"I've already told you, Lissie," replied Ben, smiling a mocking smile. "Men need some sense of purpose in life. This life here is booooring."

Still remembering vividly the incident where Felicity shamed Ben when he tried to run away from his apprenticeship with Mr. Merriman, Ben was still very much determined to test Felicity's resolve to the breaking point. It seemed that he wanted revenge, and he knew that it was sweetest when it was served up cold. Perhaps it would be too much to just simply leave Felicity, her little brother and sister, and her best friend all alone in the 24th century, with no brotherly male protector, and Ben was a somewhat honorable lad. But perhaps for revenge's sake, he wanted to secretly take pleasure in seeing how poor Felicity would react if he took the matter too far. (Besides, his teenage hormones were restless, goading him to rebel against the conventions of responsibility.)

If I find a way and an opportunity to back to 1776, I will take it," declared Ben determinedly. And this time, you won't stop me, Felicity Merriman."

Felicity reacted rather violently as she cast a glare at Ben. "Oh, that does it!" she exclaimed angrily. "I shall never speak to you again, ever!" She flounced. "You are such a despicable boy, Benjamin Davidson!"

Ben smiled ruefully as he pointed his right hand index finger at Felicity. "Did you just call me 'boy'?"

Felicity turned sharply to face Ben. "Aye," she replied tartly. "And if such a term insults you, then good for you. You deserve it."

"Hussy," muttered Ben.

Such a term was pretty much enough to make Felicity gasp in shock, as the term was very offensive to her. Furiously throwing a sofa cushion at Ben, she said in a rather deadly voice for her age, "Get…out."

"You don't mean that, Felicity Merriman," said Ben in a rather causal manner, as he tried to control his rebellious self.

"I do, Benjamin Davidson!" cried Felicity hotly. "That…was the most despicable term you could ever call a young lady! I feel ashamed to have affections for you, to even kiss you, you of all people! Get out of this room!"

"This is my room, too, you know," said Ben calmly. "You can't just evict me as if you own this entire bunk. Besides, you didn't even say 'please'."

In a hasty, headstrong manner Felicity bent over, took off her black buckled shoe off her left foot, stood up straight as a fencepost, and poised herself to throw it at him.

Ben held up his right hand in a gesture indicating her to relent from throwing her shoe at him for the time being. "…But I will get out of this room, for your sake…" he said serenely.

A brief moment of solemn silence passed before Ben resumed his conversation. Felicity put her arm down, with her hand clutching her shoe.

"…And proceed to the virtual room to train for war."

The last statement was enough to make Felicity feel agitated again. She rudely turned her back on Ben and plopped herself on the coffee table in an unladylike manner. She felt as though she was about to cry, but resisted the seemingly justified urge.

"Fine!" exclaimed a crossly exasperated Felicity. "If fighting in a war is all you care for, go! Go seek your glory! But don't expect me to cry over you! I won't care for someone who doesn't care about me!"

"Oh, I'm afraid you're not going to resist caring about me or crying over me, Lissie. I know you. You love me too much."

The name "Lissie" touched Felicity by a slight, but, while attempting to fight back tears, she glared angrily at Ben. "Don't…call me Lissie," she said tartly. "That's a name reserved only for those who love me. And you don't really love me."

Ben simply shrugged his shoulders sadly, and ranted his indignations in a little more controlled fashion. "If that's what you want to believe, go ahead," he replied. He paused for a moment before resuming his rants. "Could it be that you seem so used to getting whatever you want that you've just simply given up on your 'Ben, please come back to your senses?' whenever Benjamin Davidson gets so damn near hotheaded about fighting for a cause he believes in? You get to sleep in a comfortable bedchamber, while I have to sleep in a drafty old stable! You get to have Penny, and what about me? I have to get stuck as an apprentice to your father for three more years, which, when I'm thinking right now, is a little too much for me to take!" He nearly lost control, as he was intent on exacting a little revenge against Felicity in his seemingly uncontrollable hotheaded, headstrong mood. "Personally, I think 'tis time you realized that you can't always have whatever you want, Felicity Merriman," he finished, reciting the name with a little more spite than was necessary.

Immediately Felicity sprang up from the coffee table and faced him fiercely, her fiery red hair reflecting all the anger she could nearly vent at him. "Oh, do go away, Benjamin Davidson!" she demanded hotly. "I don't love you anymore! You have lost my friendship!"

Ben's anger sort of died down after he nearly exacted every once of verbal and psychological retribution against the girl he considered both a friend, and possibly a lover. Regretting that he took it too far than was necessary, he just simply shrugged his shoulders sadly and left the room completely with out another word. Another burst of anger overcame Felicity as she approached the table in a seemingly unstoppably determined manner and whisked her right arm holding her shoe over the table at a very close distance, thus shoving off the personal computer, which dropped to the floor and smashed to pieces. She curled her hands into tightly clenched fists; her other hand with the shoe clenching the shoe itself.

"ALL BOYS ARE JERKS!" she screamed in a violent outburst.

Felicity plopped herself on the main sofa and put her shoe back on her foot. After minutes of being on the verge of tears, she hung her head despondently, heartbroken, and cried, sobbing impulsively. Instinctively she brushed her flowing tears away from her face with her right hand.

A/N (1): Whether it seems realistic to portray Ben in this seemingly negative way (at least from the point of view of the avid Lissie/Ben fans and shippers) remains to be seen. For those who think that Ben would never do such a thing, here's a thought: If I were rebellious as him, I would not hesitate in doing something like that, if I was so overcome by resentment over being criticized, poked, and prodded by friends and acquaintances. That's usually what happens with most teenagers; well, sometimes. (Don't think I'm trying to be moralistic about this, though.)

A/N (2): It may be quite possible that the term "jerk" was a new word Felicity had learned (on board the Enterprise; hee hee...)