Summary: Ben's soulmate was dead, he'd known she was ever since she first appeared in his dreams. It had been his greatest fear for that to happen, but at least he could talk to her. However, for some reason she always tried to tell him something before the dream ended. Mal's soulmate was alive, and she could only see him through dreams. She would probably have to wait years to really meet him. For now, she just wanted him to know she loved him, but she never seemed to get the chance.
Okay, here we go! Back to the world of really strange Descendants AUs! I'm not sure where I was going with this - it definitely turned out longer than I expected. But it was fun to write, and I hope you enjoy!
Ben first saw her when he was ten.
One night he went to bed, and instead of the regular dreamless sleep, he found himself in a garden. It looked like his parents' rose garden, but at the same time different. It was...brighter, and there were purple and blue flowers growing everywhere, and a lake with a bench by it.
But the biggest difference was that, sitting on the bench, was a young girl. She had blonde hair and was wearing a dark purple tank top and denim shorts. She was barefoot and wearing a leather jacket with two dragons on the back. It was much too big for her and hung over her shoulders.
Ben drew closer, a bit hesitant.
"Hello?" he said softly.
She looked up, and her eyes were a startling shade of green.
"Hi," she said, looking as confused as he was. "Where are we?"
"I don't know. This looks a bit like my parents' garden," he answered, sitting down next to her.
"It looks like my mom's flower shop. At least, the blue and purple flowers are from there," she motioned around at them. "They're my favorite."
"They're pretty," Ben commented. There was silence between them after that, but not uncomfortable silence. More like they were waiting for something to happen.
"I'm Mal," she said, looking up at him.
"Ben."
Another three years passed, and every night Ben ended up in the same garden, with Mal by his side. The silence faded, and soon his nights were filled with laughter and conversations. In the garden, it was like time didn't exist. He could never tell how long he was there until he woke up.
She became his best friend, and he didn't tell anyone about her. He didn't even know if she was a real person. But that wasn't it. She felt real, just as real as Audrey or Doug or anyone else in his life. He just felt like it would be wrong to tell anyone.
However, his parents had noticed he was starting to act differently, and he knew he couldn't keep his secret for much longer. Finally, he decided to tell them.
To his surprise, they didn't look at him like he was crazy. They just looked...sad and shocked.
"What does it mean?" he asked, confused.
Belle sighed.
"Well, we learned about this when we were teenagers, in school. To put it simply, when your soulmate dies, you start seeing them in your dreams every night until you also die," she said, reaching across the table to take Ben's hand.
He was numb with shock. Mal was...dead? And his soulmate? How...
"Hey, how was your day?" Mal said, greeting him when he arrived.
"Good," Ben mumbled, sitting down next to her.
"Ben?" she said, frowning. Immediately she could sense something was different with him. "What's wrong?"
"Are you dead?" he said, so softly she could hardly hear it.
Mal froze, staring at him in shock. Then she took a breath and whispered, "Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, looking up at her, sadness clear on his face.
"Because why would you want to be my friend if you knew I was dead, if you knew you wouldn't get to meet me for years? You would think I was insane, or - even worse - you would think you're insane and then we would never see each other again because you'd tell your parents you were imagining a dead girl and then they'd put on some sort of medication and I didn't want that to happen!" she said, reaching up to brush away her tears. She pulled her knees up to her chest, the jacket that still didn't fit her flopped down at her sides.
Ben stared at the ground, and the silence filled the air.
"I know I'm not insane, and my parents were the ones who told me you were dead," he answered simply.
Mal looked up, confused. "Your parents? How did they know?"
"Apparently, you can only see people in your dreams if they're dead," he said, trying his best to remain vague.
Mal's eyes narrowed.
"You're hiding something," she said bluntly, and Ben cursed the way she could read him so easily.
"Believe me, this is something you don't want to know," he said. After a moment of hesitation, Mal nodded, deciding to trust him.
They sat there for a moment before Mal, hesitantly and slowly, moved closer and leaned into his side. He wrapped an arm around her and they sat there for the rest of the night, in their garden, until the real world dragged them back.
It had been six years. Mal sat on her bed, absentmindedly fingering a lock of purple-blue hair. She'd recently dyed and cut it, and after years of having long blonde hair she was still getting used to the shoulder-length hair cut. She was focused on a drawing, so jumped a bit when the door was opened.
"Hey M," Evelyn Queen said as she walked into the room.
"Hey," Mal smiled, sitting up straight and putting her sketchpad down. "What's up?"
"Nothing really, I just wanted to come over. It's boring back home, Jay's out on a date with Lonnie and Mom and Dad are working," Evie explained, sitting down on her bed. Her mother and father, Grimhilde and Jafar, still had to work. Apparently, even death couldn't get you out of that.
"I would think you'd want to go out with Carlos," Mal responded, smirking as Evie blushed slightly. Her adopted brother and Evie were so clearly in love with each other but were too stubborn to admit it.
"Anyways, what are you drawing?" Evie asked, looking over at the book.
Mal stiffened a bit. She usually didn't mind people looking at her artwork, but this was a bit different.
"Who's that?" Evie asked, pointing to the incredibly detailed drawing on Ben. This wasn't the first one Mal had done of him, but it was the first one anyone saw. He was a good model, and some nights he would pose dramatically for her so she could draw him. Other times, when she was alone, she would draw him in more natural positions, or just draw his eyes. He claimed they weren't nearly as beautiful as her's, but Mal loved them.
"No one, just a random person," Mal said, quickly closing the book.
Evie raised an eyebrow, skeptically asking, "Are you sure about that?"
Mal bit her lip and glanced towards the door. Maybe it was about time she told Evie.
"Okay, but you have to promise not to tell anyone this," she said seriously.
"Promise," Evie answered, curious. Mal launched into an explanation of Ben and how she'd met him all those years ago.
"Wow," Evie whispered, shocked.
"Yeah, it's pretty insane," Mal chuckled.
"No, that's not what I meant. Mal, you do realize what this means, right?" Evie said.
"What are you talking about?" Mal frowned, baffled.
"M, this guy's your soulmate."
That night Mal had difficulty falling asleep. Did Ben know? If he didn't, how could she tell him? It may ruin something, what if he didn't love her? DId she even love him?
Eventually, she just got up and went downstairs, trying not to make much noise.
As she poured herself a glass of water, she heard a noise behind her.
"Hey," Persephone, her stepmother said, walking into the room. "Couldn't sleep?"
Mal shook her head. Persephone was like a mother to her, ever since her dad married her when she was eight. It was difficult to trust her at first, since Mal's biological mother, Maleficent, had just recently been arrested for child abuse. She would hit Mal, but managed to keep it a secret from Hades. Maleficent and Hades had never married, but still both had large roles in their kids' lives. However, while Hades was a wonderful father, Maleficent was far from a good mother.
Still, Mal loved Persephone, and she had certainly filled the holes her biological mother left in her childhood. And life got even better when she and Hades adopted Carlos, who also came from an abusive mother. He was Mal's little brother by a few months, and she adored him.
"I'm thinking 2AM pie," Persephone answered, snapping Mal out of her thoughts and pulling the container out of the fridge.
Mal gave her a grateful smile and sat down at the table.
"Thanks Mom," she sighed.
"You okay? What's troubling you?" Persephone asked, worried about her daughter.
Mal hesitated, then decided since she'd told Evie already, may as well tell Steph. She admitted everything about Ben, and her mother sat in silence for a moment before sighing.
"Well, that complicates things," she said bluntly, and Mal chuckled. "Let me guess, not going to bed so you won't have to talk to him?"
"Yeah," she sighed, resting her head in her hands. "Do you think he knows?"
"My guess is he probably does. You should talk to him - he is your friend after all," Persephone said, placing a hand over Mal's who nodded numbly.
"Yeah, I probably should," she muttered, yawning. It was 3 in the morning now. "I think I'm going to bed now. Good-night Mom."
"Good night Mali."
Mal was nearly asleep when the memories came. The laughter and her parents' smiling faces as she and Carlos debated something, she'd long forgotten what. The bump in the road and her father's frowning face that turned into panic as he saw the car in front of them. The sharp swerve that didn't work. The flash of light.
Then nothing.
Would Ben really want to be with someone like her? She was dead for God's sake!
Too late now, she could feel herself sinking into sleep.
"You're later than usual," Ben commented as Mal arrived. She sat down wordlessly and stared at the ground. Should she tell him? There was the possibility that he already knew, but if he didn't? Maybe he was in a relationship, she might ruin something!
"Mal?" Ben said, pulling her out of her confused thoughts.
"Did you know?" she muttered.
"Know?" he echoed, frowning.
"About the...soulmates thing."
His silence was answer enough.
"What now?" she eventually asked, after sitting in silence for who knows how long.
Neither of them knew.
They eventually decided to keep their relationship as it was now, and see if anything changed in the future.
It had been ten years when that finally happened.
Ben had tried dating some other people, including his close friend Audrey, but none of the relationships worked out (and he and Audrey decided they were much better as friends). Mal, meanwhile, only found herself falling more and more for her best friend of ten years. Still, she had no idea how Ben felt, and decided it was better to just do nothing.
Years later, neither of them would remember exactly how it happened, but they did know that one night, when they were twenty, Mal had finally decided to acknowledge her feelings and, just as she was being pulled back into consciousness, kissed Ben.
The next night consisted of talking. A lot of talking. And maybe a bit of kissing.
Still, from that point on they could both confidently say their relationship status had changed.
Mal tried. She really did. She tried for years to tell him how she felt. But, somehow, every time she tried to say those three words the dream would end and she would be harshly tugged back to reality.
She knew how she felt about him, but never got to say it.
Thirty-eight years. Mal had known Ben for thirty-eight years. She still looked twenty-five, since that was the age she currently preferred to look like, and Ben only looked a bit older. But that was in their dreams only. She may get to choose her age, but he didn't. She didn't actually know how he really looked.
She'd known Ben for thirty-eight years when they received the news.
"Hey Benny-boo," she said teasingly, sitting down next to him, then frowning when he saw his face. "What happened?"
He took a breath.
"I'm sick," he said bluntly. "Cancer. I've had it for a while. The doctors say I have about two years left."
"Oh," she whispered. A part of her was happy, she would finally get to meet him! But she was also upset. She'd died at ten years old, and had been hoping Ben would live a long life. He was nearly fifty, but it somehow didn't feel like enough…
Pushing away her own emotions, Mal placed an arm around Ben and hugged him, which he accepted, still shaken.
They would be okay.
Forty years, and then - one night - it all changed.
She was with Ben when his eyes suddenly widened. She expected him to start fading, like usual, but that wasn't the case. He did seem to be fading, but instead of disappearing he was getting brighter.
"Ben?!" she exclaimed, eyes widening as she stood up.
He looked as shocked and confused as she felt, but then understanding overtook his emotions.
Ben turned to her, taking her hands and smiling with tears in his eyes. Tears of joy or sadness? Probably both.
"It's time."
Mal shot up in bed. It was early in the morning, before any of her family members would wake up.
She now lived with Carlos, Evie, and Jay, having moved out of her parents house a while ago.
She hurried outside, still in her pyjamas, not sure what she was looking for or what she was doing. But she knew one thing - Ben was here.
And hardly a moment later, she saw him, looking just as he did in their dreams. He saw her too, and a large smile spread over his face. Finally, after forty long years, she ran into his arms - his real arms.
Finally, she was able to lean up and whisper those words in his ear.
"I love you."
Mal's family loved Ben, and were incredibly happy to finally meet him. Years later, Mal and Ben would adopt three kids who were killed on the same day - little Mitchell, Dove, and Chloe. They moved into a new house, and worked for months to recreate their garden, but it ended up looking exactly like how they always dreamed.
Even after they spent more and more time together with their new family in the afterlife, those forty years of laughter and smiles, forty years of conversations on the bench, forty years of never being able to say "I love you," stayed with them forever.
But when you got to literally be together forever, forty years wasn't that much of a sacrifice.
Yeah, like I said, longer than I planned. Please review and let me know what you thought, I always enjoy getting feedback!
-Creator of Magic