"Okay, why'd you tell me to meet you here?" Ben asked the duo.
Gwen wasted no time in getting straight to the point. "We want to know what's wrong with you."
"What do you mean?"
"You haven't been acting like yourself at all. You're always angry and you always look like you're thinking about something."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Ben denied.
"Excuse me," the waiter said after sauntering to their table. "Are you ready to order?"
Ben spoke up first. "Can I have a coffee?"
Gwen and Kevin looked at each other. Coffee? Since when did Ben choose coffee over smoothies? Since when did he drink coffee at all?
"Of course, sir," the waiter politely replied, writing down the order.
"Actually, can you make that two coffees?"
"Two?"
"Yeah. Oh, and I want the coffee with the most caffeine in it." Ben tried to pretend his friends weren't giving him the eye.
The waiter scribbled in his note pad, then looked at Gwen and Kevin. "And for you?"
"I'll have a strawberry smoothie," Gwen said.
Kevin followed with, "Same here."
When the waiter left, Gwen immediately continued giving Ben the third-degree. "Ben, why did you order coffee? I've never seen you drink coffee before."
"Why is it such a big deal if I drink coffee? It's a drink. I can drink what I want." He yawned subconsciously.
Kevin noticed the enormous bags under Ben's eyes. He was surprised he had missed them before. "Dude, when was the last time you slept?"
"Last night?" he lied.
"Your eye twitched," Gwen commented, pointing out that nervous habit of his. His eye always twitched when he lied. It was like his Pinocchio's nose.
"There's an eyelash in it." Another twitch of the eye gave him away.
"You really expect us to believe that?" Kevin asked.
"I don't think you're smart enough to know otherwise, Kevin," Ben mumbled, instant regret hitting him like a fright train.
"What the heck is your problem?" Kevin growled. "Did we do something to you?"
"No."
"Then, what is it?"
"I'm just having a bad day." Although, a bad week was more like it. And not just bad. Horrible.
"This isn't the only day that you've acted like this," Gwen said.
The waiter saved Ben from having to defend himself. "Here are your smoothies," he said, transferring the strawberry smoothies from the tray onto the table. "And your coffee." Just as he went to set one of the coffees onto the table, his hand slipped and he spilled it.
Ben's usual reaction would have been to help the waiter clean up the mess. But to everyone's horror, Ben's included, that wasn't what he did.
"Are you stupid!" he berated uncharacteristically.
"Ben!" Gwen could not believe her ears.
Kevin looked like a fish out of water with his mouth hanging open.
The waiter stopped to gape at Ben. Each of them could read the panic in his expression. "I'm sorry. It was an accident. I can bring you another one."
The waiter placed the other coffee in front of Ben, and hurriedly began wiping up the spill with napkins as if his life depended on having it cleaned up within the next five seconds.
As Ben watched the waiter, he realized the irrational criticism that had made its way out of his mouth. No wonder his friends were interrogating him. He really wasn't acting like himself at all. "Look, man, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell." Ben noticed these were the same words he had said to his mom. "I can clean it up. It's okay."
The tension in the waiter's shoulders did not relax. "No, it's alright. Let me get a rag real quick, and I'll come back to clean this up."
Ben sighed. How could he let himself get so angry over something so dumb?
"Now I know for sure something's wrong with you," Gwen said. "You would never do something like that. You know, I'm not even positive that you're the real Ben anymore."
"Yeah," Kevin nodded, "Even I wouldn't do something like that. Are you a clone or shapeshifter or whatever it is you want to call it? What have you done with Ben?"
Ben groaned. "Guys, I'm Ben."
Gwen turned to Kevin. "Let's ask him questions that only Ben would know. What was the first alien you ever turned into?"
"Heatblast," Ben answered, his annoyance obvious in his voice.
"What was your favorite alien when you were ten?"
"Four Arms."
"Where did I first learn spells?"
"From Charmcaster's spell book."
Kevin joined in with his own questions. "How did we meet?"
"You got me tokens at an arcade game."
"What's your favorite color?"
Ben quirked up an eyebrow. "Really? That's something only I would know?"
"Just answer the question."
"Green."
Gwen and Kevin both seemed convinced.
"Okay, if you're Ben, then what's wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong!" he insisted uselessly. "I'm the same Ben that I've always been."
Suddenly, a little boy ran up to their table, jumping with excitement. He was holding a pen and paper. "Hi! I'm Mathew. I think you're so awesome! Can I have your autograph?"
"Do you mind!" Ben yelled.
The boy's face fell. His mother behind him glared at Ben and shook her head, looking ready to tell him off. Ben quickly recovered. ". . .if I use that pen!"
The boy's smile returned, which was a huge relief to Ben. He grabbed the pen and signed his name for his fan. "You seem like a great kid," he told him in an effort to make up for his unprovoked outburst.
"Thanks!" the boy replied cheerfully. Then, he and his mother went sit at another table.
Kevin and Gwen were both staring him down, as if willing the truth to come out.
Ben just could not stop digging himself into this inescapable hole. "Okay, so I haven't been sleeping that well. But it's fine. I'll get a goodnights sleep tomorrow and be back to the same, old Ben."
Ben chugged down his coffee.
Kevin and Gwen were not at all buying any of this.
Before Gwen could object, yet another person came over to their table.
"Hey, loser," a heavyset boy their age chuckled. He had a mullet and three black piercings in one ear. Two lackeys were at each of his sides laughing along with him.
Neither Kevin, Ben, nor Gwen recognized them, but all three recognized the terrible confrontation that was about to go down.
"Hey, fatso. Stupid haircut you got there," Ben retorted.
What kind of a hero are you?, Ben chided himself.
The trio was taken aback. They were not expecting the "hero of all centuries to come" to throw insults around. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be saving the world from demise? Or did you finally quit because you realized you can't."
Kevin stood up. "Look man, you're making yourself look stupid. Leave us alone."
"Aren't you tired of living in the shadow of a guy who still has chores?" one of the lackeys asked Kevin, high-fiving the second lackey as if he had told the greatest insult of all time.
That was all it took. Gwen was surprised it didn't take less.
"You want a piece of me!" Ben threatened, standing up and stomping over to Mullet Boy. "Do you want a piece of me? Because I'll give you a piece. I'll give you the whole thing."
"Ben, calm down." It was weird that Kevin was the one having to say this to Ben.
"Do you actually want to fight? We can fight. Let's go outside right now."
Gwen grabbed Ben's arm to hold him back. "Ben! What are you doing?"
"Chill, man," Mullet Boy said. "Geez. Take a joke. Let's go guys."
He and his crew were quick to leave Smoothy. They weren't running, but it was easy to see that Ben had shaken them up.
"Ben! Are you kidding me?" Gwen said as Kevin and Ben sat back down.
"Alright. So I'm a little bit irritable," he admitted.
Kevin cocked his head in disbelief. "A little?"
Ben took a deep breath to calm himself. "Okay. Okay. Fine." No use hiding it anymore after his many dramatic displays. "These past couple of days, I've been feeling really angry and for some reason I can't get any sleep whatsoever. And don't ask me why because I don't know."
Gwen asked, "You don't know why?"
"Did I not just say that?"
"Well, maybe you're irritable because you can't sleep," she suggested, ignoring his comment. "Is it nightmares keeping you awake?"
"No."
"Are you worried about something?"
"No."
Gwen sighed. They weren't going to solve anything if Ben wouldn't open up.
Gwen suddenly noticed the slight green tint of Ben's wrist. "Ben, why is your wrist green?"
"What?" Ben looked at his exposed wrist and saw that it was normal.
"No, your other wrist."
Ben turned his gaze on the skin under the ultimatrix, and as Gwen had noted, there was a green hue to it.
Kevin voiced their thoughts. "Maybe, you're like this because something's wrong with the ultimatrix."
"But what could be wrong with the ultimatrix that would keep me from sleeping?"
"Let's ask Azmuth," Gwen said.
"I don't want to bother him over this."
"Oh, come on, Ben!" Kevin erupted. "It's his job to fix that thing, isn't it?"
Ben shrugged. "I'm totally fine, anyway."
Shortly after that claim, the waiter had finally come, rag and coffee in hand. "I'm sorry I took so long," he said nervously, starting to clean the spill. "My boss wanted to talk to me."
Ben bit back his unwanted urge to ask if he was being fired for stupidity. "It's fine," he said, instead.
Once he had finished, the waiter carefully placed the coffee on the table. "I hope you enjoy your coffee," he squeaked out.
Ben watched as the waiter scurried away, tripping over his feet and nearly falling on the floor in his rush to escape another possible fit of rage.
"Alright, we can go," Ben at last gave in, moving to gulp down his second coffee.