On December twenty-third, Ben gets off work long past the boy's bedtime and finds his and Mal's rooms empty. He checks both of the boy's rooms since Mal is sometimes prone to go cuddle with one of them before bed. Both love physical affection, something they inherited from both of them. Zach and Tyler are both still up and reading and playing quietly in their rooms, which isn't a problem, but he still asks them to go to bed soon.
He's just texting Mal to ask where she's vanished off to when the door to their room flies open and she stumbles in, dropping plastic shopping bags to the ground and clutching her hair. She kicks the door closed and turns to fling her gloves and scarf to the ground with a feral scream.
He stays still and blinks several times before he dares to ask "What happened?"
Mal starts wiping frustrated tears out of her eyes as she collapses down onto the bed and tugs herself into his side, seeking immediate comfort. "I took the boys to Evie's today and they were so impressed with the way she decorated her kid's presents. She has pretty paper and fancy folds and the bows are all pretty and they said her house looks like a Christmas card. So I thought I should try and go the extra mile and make things look nice here too. And I was going to make a 3D paper dragon and a 3D paper beast like I used to do in High School to put on each of their presents."
She pauses here, wiping streams of tears away and takes a deep breath. "But I didn't have the right kind of paper, so I had to put the boys to bed early and Tyler fought me, and then I had to go out but my car is low on gas so I took yours and traffic was horrible and three stores didn't have the type of paper I needed so I went all the way out to Cinderellasburg-" She flings her hand outwards, presumably to indicate Cinderellasburg even though she's more closely gesturing to Arendelle on the opposite side. "And they didn't have the right size cut so I waited extra while they cut it and I was trying to get home so I pulled out too fast-"
"You were in a crash?" Ben panics, staring at her in shock.
"Just a small one," Mal frowns miserably. "But - you won't believe this - there was a Christmas Tree festival right next door and cameras out and when they heard the brakes screeching everyone turned around and-"
"You were caught on Live Television sliding into someone," Ben realizes, chuckling a little at her misfortune. "I'm sorry, Mal."
Mal sniffles. "And then traffic was horrible and I got here and realized I got the wrong shade of green," She finishes. "This green looks like a lime was sunburned and cried itself to sleep."
Ben hesitates. There're a couple of different ways he could go about comforting her, and he starts by giving her a long hug as she starts to calm down. "You know you don't have to make them dragons and beasts," he mumbles. "They're kids. They're just going to rip the paper off anyway."
"But I want them to look nice," Mal whines. "I want them to have nice presents and nice wrappings like Evie's kids do."
"They do look nice," Ben sighs. "You spent an entire night last week wrapping them." All of Zach's have the royal crest on them and are blue and gold and all of Tyler's are purple and green with stripes. "They're not going to love you any less for not doing origami on top of them, I swear."
"But I have to at least try!" Mal snaps, sitting up and pulling at her hair. "If they don't turn out okay and if I ruin them and if evil really can be inherited and if anything my mother said about me is true then the very least I can say when one of them tries to destroy Auradon is that I tried to be a good mom and I tried to teach them what they needed and I tried to wrap their presents nicely at Christmastime."
"You're not going to ruin them," Ben groans. They've had this conversation over and over throughout the years. She never can believe him. "And a Christmas present decoration isn't going to tip that scale."
Mal shakes her head still and refuses to look at him. Finally, Ben sighs. "I'm sure they'll love it," he says. "But will you have time to finish? Christmas is in two days and you still need to sleep."
"It shouldn't take me too long," Mal sighed. She puts her feet underneath her and wanders over to where she dropped her shopping bags. Ben follows her and helps her pick everything up and put it on their bed. As he leans over, he sees a bit of purple hair in the living room, just behind the couch. He whips his head around and it's gone, but Ben's been with Mal and her friends for too long to write it off as imagination. He drops everything on the bed and marches back into the living room while Mal starts opening things and muttering instructions to herself under her breath.
No one is in the living room, so Ben opens the door to the hall and finds both boys sitting against the wall, whispering. They both stop and look up sheepishly when he crosses his arms in disappointment. Tyler looks madder to be caught. Zach just looks embarrassed.
"Do I want the explanation?" Ben asks slowly. Tyler looks at him in confusion at the bigger word. Zach just looks at the ground.
"We wanted to see our presents," Zach admits, blowing his bangs out of his face. He needs a haircut. "We're sorry."
"Sorry that you found us," Tyler mutters. Ben snaps. He reaches down and seizes Tyler's hair and uses that to haul him to his feet. Then, he gets down on his knees and glares at him.
"Well, I'm sorry you're sneaking around and breaking rules and making it so Mom and Dad can't trust you," He snaps. Tyler flinches away with wide eyes. They don't generally get yelled at, these two. Tyler's a little wild, but Mal usually keeps a close enough eye on him that there isn't a lot of wrongdoing he can do. He's obviously taking advantage of her bad day and recent exhaustion. Zach has never really needed the supervision. It makes Ben wonder how his oldest got weaseled into this scheme.
Ben swats Tyler's butt and pushes him in the direction of his room. "Go to bed," He calls, using the scary authoritative tone that makes meeting rooms still and which is guaranteed to make the two kids quake. Tyler's face goes red and tears start running down his face as he balls up his fists and stomps away. He slams his door when he reaches it. It's a great sacrifice of pride for Ben not to pull him back and really lay into him for that attitude. Zach, the moment he hears Ben start to yell, jumps up and sprints in the direction of his room. Ben hears the door closing a little too hard but knows Zach isn't trying to throw a tantrum - he's just trying to escape.
Ben pokes his head back into the room. Mal is standing in the doorway of their room, looking regretful. She's probably heard him yell maybe three times before, and only once at her when she tried to use her spellbook on him after he'd caught her lying. He waves her concerns off and then shuts the door into the hall as he heads down towards the boy's room. In Tyler's room, he's flinging toys at the ground in anger with hot-headed tears running off his cheeks. Ben picks him up, puts him in his bed, and goes around picking up some of Tyler's favorite toys and action figures to take away for a little while. Tyler just buries his face in his pillow and screams. He's tried throwing temper tantrums before, but Mal will use magic if he starts screaming aloud. He's still very good at making it clear he's angry, but at least his mother has trained him well enough. Ben locks the door from the outside as he leaves. He'll have to remember to unlock it before he goes to bed so Tyler can still go down the hall to the restroom if he needs it.
In Zach's room, the lights are out and it is dark and Ben doesn't see his son sitting in the corner of the room until he hears the hiccups and sees the hall lights reflecting off crocodile tears. He sets Tyler's confiscated toys by the door and goes to sit against the wall beside Zach, who recoils. Ben holds out an arm and after a few long seconds of hesitation, Zach hesitantly rolls into his dad's side and takes hold of his shirt as he cries. "I'm sorry," he cries. "I'm sorry. Please don't be mad at me."
"I am mad," Ben frowns. "You were sneaking around and you were eavesdropping on Mom and I. I trusted you to be better than that."
Zach begins sobbing. Ben's heart aches a little. He tugs Zach's chin up - he has a lot of Mal's features in his face -
and wipes his tears away. "Deep breaths," he whispers and Zach hiccups as he tries to calm down. "Now, Mom is working very hard on this Christmas for you two. I know it's hard to wait, but I need you to act maturely. You've got a big brain and you're very smart, so use it. Do you understand me?"
Zach nods furiously and then Ben pulls him in for another hug until Zach's breathing returns to normal against his chest. His son is about a third as tall as he is, he realizes. Maybe he's half of Mal's height too.
"Dad?" Zach whispers as he wipes the last of the tears away with the back of his sleeve, "What did Grandma tell Mom?"
The question catches him off guard. "What do you mean, champ?"
"Mom said 'if everything my mother said about me is true'," Zach quotes. "What did Grandma say to her?"
Ben sighs and rubs a hand up and down Zach's back. This is Mal's personal stuff he's digging into, and he doesn't want to go too deep. "Your Grandma," he sighs, tightening his grip around Zach's body, "Is as evil as they come. I don't like her at all. When Mom and I got married, her mom used to tell her that it wouldn't work out and that I was going to get bored with her. She said that I only wanted to marry someone from the Isle to look good and I picked her because she was very powerful on the Isle. And she said that if she and I had any kids together, then they'd be just as evil as she was because evil runs in her blood."
"Evil can't run in blood," Zach hiccups. "There isn't any genetic material for evil. All that's in blood are antigens and blood cells and plasma and nutrients."
"Well, you know that, and I know that, but she thinks otherwise," Ben sighs. "That's why Mom stopped talking to Grandma when she learned she was gonna be your mom. She didn't want to hear Grandma talk about you."
"Does Grandma know I'm here?" Zach asks, sitting up and then sliding to lean against the wall beside Ben.
Ben chuckles. "Well, I assume so, but we don't talk to her. You were kinda announced to the whole kingdom and there was a big coronation, remember?"
Zach nods even though logically there's no way he remembers that day. He has no clue about Mal's panic attacks and how she used to refuse to allow herself to be around Zach, sure that some evil that still resided on her would taint him. No idea how hard far she stretched herself to protect him from prying eyes, judging whispers, and a past that still follows in her shadow wherever she goes.
"Dad?" Zach asks, rubbing his eyes a little. He's gotten older and he now rubs his eyes the way Ben does - with his fingertips instead of his fists. "Is Grandma the reason Mom's so scared we'll grow up bad?"
Ben's hands still. His son is seven, still. How is he supposed to explain this to a seven-year-old? But, he figures, if Zach is able to ask the question, he's probably old enough to receive most of the answer. "Well, bud, that's a tough one," he sighs. "Give me a moment to think about how to respond."
Zach still sniffles every once in a while, but aside from that, everything is silent. Finally, Ben clears his throat. "Grandma... She wasn't a great mom. So, mom doesn't feel like she can be that great because she doesn't have a good example. She kinda just follows me and tries to not do what Grandma would do."
"What would Grandma do?" Zach mumbles.
Ben exhales. "Grandma... yelled a lot. She used to hit mom. Mom couldn't come home because she'd lock her out and sometimes she'd throw mom's stuff out in the street and she'd take money from other people who wanted to hurt mom."
"So she'd sell mom?" Zach asks softly. Ben can only nod.
"Yeah. She would." He pauses to think of other, specific things. "She used to tell mom that she wasn't good enough to be her daughter and that if she didn't do well enough then Grandma would just replace her with someone better."
"That's not how it works," Zach protests, sitting up. "What would have happened to mom? You can't just get rid of her."
Ben swallows. "Well, Zach, Grandma was talking about how she would kill mom. And she tried a couple of times."
Zach takes this ragged, hurt breath and Ben squeezes his small body. Partly to give him comfort, partly to comfort himself. "It's okay, though. Mom's tough. She took care of herself and now we don't talk to Grandma anymore."
"The Isle of the Lost sounds horrible," Zach hiccups and then slowly pushes away and sits up on his knees. "I'm sorry for sneaking. I thought mom had already wrapped the important things and so it wouldn't matter as bad."
"Well, you picked a bad day," Ben sighs, rubbing his eyebrows. "But it's okay. Just don't do it again."
Zach nods and gets to his feet before crouching down for one last hug. Ben watches his son go sit down on his bed and slowly gets to his feet himself. Zach pulls the covers up himself but doesn't protest when Ben fixes them even tighter around him and then kisses his hair before he leaves.