Gwen and little Dawn arrived at the restaurant and a waiter led them to the table already reserved by Ben. That was one of the fanciest restaurants in Paris.

"Where's daddy?" Dawn spoke with a sad expression.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. I know you miss him, and so do I. He just sent me a message. He will be here soon," Gwen said with a smile. They hadn't seen Ben in a week. He had been attending meetings with investors in Europe and Asia about some of Grey Matter's inventions. His last appointment was in France, and Ben asked Gwen to fly there to meet him in the restaurant after the reunion was over. And after dinner, they would fly back home together.

A few minutes later, Ben arrived. Gwen obviously didn't expect him to look any different - he had been gone for just a week - but he was. Ben now had a beard. Gwen was astonished not only by how fast it grew, but also by the fact that Ben could barely grow a beard before.

"Ta-dah!" Ben opened his arms. "Did you like my new look? It is thanks to one of Grey Matter's new inventions. I used it to make my beard grow, but the goal is to be a revolutionary product against unwanted baldness. It's proving to be quite successful."

Gwen gave him a tight hug. "Ben!" She also wanted to kiss him but realized that some people were watching them. Although Gwen knew that the French were far more tolerant about cousin relationships than the USA, she and Ben were famous now. Fearful that anyone could take a picture that would turn into a cover of a tabloid back at home, the redhead just kissed Ben on the cheek and whispered in a flirtatious tone, "You'll get more when we get back home at the Tower."

"I can't wait, Dweeb. I'm going to try out my new beard. I hear women like tickles in the right places, and beards are perfect for that." He winked at her.

Gwen laughed and blushed heavily in embarrassment. "Doofus."

"Dweeb," Ben snapped back, sticking out his tongue at her.

Then Ben took Dawn in his arms and kissed her forehead, "I missed my baby girl so much."

"Daddy!" The girl replied with a smile from ear to ear. But then she frowned as she ran her hands over his face, "ugly beard."

"Hey, it's not ugly!" Ben sat on the chair, still holding Dawn in his arms, "It makes me look older and more experienced, but that's the intention. I'm an 18-year-old guy signing contracts and selling things to rich older guys. I want to look like someone very mature, and the beard helps," he said, beginning to smooth his beard when he suddenly stopped in shock. "There's something wrong. I can't feel my beard anymore."

"Your face is clean-shaved now, Ben," Gwen noted in amazement.

"How?" Ben replied, still shocked.

Dawn started to laugh. "Daddy cute now!"

"Dawn!" Ben said in a scolding tone. "You took away my beard with magic. You little brat? Ok, you got your laughs, now you can give the beard back to me."

"Can't," the little girl said, laughing and tilting her head.

"I think you can, you just don't want to," Ben sighed. "I spend a week away, and she gets spoiled like that. Unbelievable."

"She's always been like that, Ben. The problem is not the week she spent away from you. The problem is the long months she spent with you." Gwen giggled. "But don't worry, you're handsome, beard or not…" They both blushed after that comment.

The waiter came to take their orders. Ben had no idea what to order from the menu, and when Gwen noticed that, she made his request for him.

"Thanks, cuz," Ben said after the waiter left.

"Don't thank me yet. You don't know what I ordered," she said with a Cheshire cat grin.

"What?!"

Gwen laughed. "Relax, I'm just kidding. I ordered something I know you will like, ok? Don't worry, Doofus. But why did you want to come here? I thought you didn't like these fancy restaurants."

"I don't. I wanted to come here because of Aunt Natalie." Ben shrugged.

Gwen looked at him in amazement. "When Mom knew I was coming, she called you, and asked for you to take her and Dad with us, but you said you wanted this moment just for us. If it was because of my mother, why didn't you want her to be here? Don't say it's because of the money, Mr. Richie Rich."

"Your mother wanted to come, exactly. I said 'no' to her. I felt so good. It was liberating," Ben smiled, spread his arms and took a deep breath.

Gwen rolled her eyes, "Unbelievable."

"You know your mother hates me - and now that I have money, she pretends to like me while still hating me - don't blame me for making fun of her every once in a while," Ben smirked.

Shortly afterwards the plates arrived. Ben and Gwen ate, and fed Dawn. At first, the baby girl didn't want to try that 'different food.' She wanted to eat what she was already used to at home. But Gwen used an airplane-shaped spoon for the flying spoon trick and Dawn finally accepted eating it. Ben and Gwen talked a lot too, about Ben's inventions, about Gwen's college and about the future lawsuit against Will Harangue for attacking them on television.

After they had finished dinner, Ben said, "Thank you, Gwen."

"What for?" She asked a bit puzzled.

"For ..." Ben went silent for a moment and then lowered his head. He breathed heavily and said, "I'm a misfit. I could blame this on the fact that I found an alien watch at 10 years old, but I think I've always been like this. And you're the only girl who made me better for accepting me instead of trying to turn me into something I'm not. "

"Ben, you ..." Gwen was speechless by those deep words.

"With any other girl, she would like me for being a badass alien hero, or she would try to make me fit in and be normal. But not you. You see more than the 'Hero Ben' I strive to be and the 'Normal Ben' that I pretend to be sometimes. You see the real Ben and you pull me back in when I'm losing myself."

Gwen put her hand over his on the table and smiled, with tears in her eyes, "Ben, you did a lot for me too. You taught me to have fun, that I didn't have to follow the plans others had made for me. You're the only one who was there to help when I decided to raise Dawn."

"I'm glad you feel that way," Ben let out a silly laugh, "Because ..." he lowered his head, took a small box from his pocket, put it on the table, and then looked at Gwen. He broke in a cold sweat and there was panic written all over his face, "I-I c-can't d-do this."

Gwen opened the box and gasped, putting her hands over her mouth. She was startled to see a ring inside it, "Ben... are you asking me..."

"Yes," he said in an almost inaudible whisper, "Will you marry me?"

Gwen stood up from the chair, threw herself at Ben and gave him a passionate kiss, not caring in the slightest whether anyone would see that or not.

When they broke the kiss and Gwen broke from the 'trance' of the moment, she was surprised to hear applauses of the people in the restaurant. Either the French were very, very tolerant, or she and Ben were not as famous as she thought they were, and they were mistaken for a common couple by most people.

Kevin's house.

Sitting on the couch, Kevin was watching television. It was time for Will Harangue's news.

"Well, I was accused of spreading fake news about Ben Tennyson, but today one of the things I said about that alien threat was confirmed. We have footage, available on the internet, of Ben Tennyson kissing his cousin Gwen in Paris," the screen showed a video recorded from a cell phone of Gwen and Ben passionately kissing in a public restaurant. Kevin's jaw dropped.

"According to reports from witnesses, he even asked his cousin's hand in marriage, in an act that is an insult to morality. Unfortunately, greedy entrepreneurs who are more interested in money than ethics are still associating with Tennyson, and e-"

Kevin violently kicked the television. It fell to the floor and broke. Kevin began to sweat and ran his hands through his hair in despair.

"It's time to act, now." He heard the voice of his other personality, Kevin 11, echoing in his mind.

Kevin sighed. He didn't want to hear his evil side, and he didn't want to do that, but he knew that if he did nothing, he would lose Gwen. He had to move forward with the plan.

Ben and Gwen were back home, in a very calm patrol in the area to which they were assigned that day. Ben was literally getting a kitten out of a tree when the communicator beeped.

"Ben, Gwen ..." a Plumber said, "Dawn ... She was taken by Hex ... I'm sorry ..."

The cameras showed everything. A portal was opened, Hex appeared, grabbed Dawn - who wouldn't stop crying - escaped, and the portal closed. Of course, the Tower had mystical protections to make sure this kind of thing wouldn't happen. But they had been turned off by a Plumber.

Ben and Gwen stopped in front of an improvised cell in Ben's Tower where the man responsible for the security breach was being detained.

"I don't know what got into him..." a Plumber named Elliot said, "He was my friend and a good person... Now the only thing he says is that he loves Hex more than anything. He is not in his normal state."

"He's probably innocent," Gwen said, "Hex has some kind of extremely powerful love spell. Margie, Dawn's mother, was a victim of it as well."

"Can you fix him?" Elliot asked.

"I can try, but Dawn's magic was what cured Margie before. Without her, I ..." Gwen began to cry. "My baby girl..."

Ben put his hand on her shoulders in a gesture of comfort. "Ledgerdomain. Hex has to be there. Let's go. We'll get Dawn back. We'll kick that cretin sorcerer's butt and fix everything."

Ben - as Grey Matter - tried to read and understand some magic books, but Gray Matter was definitely better with technology than magic; while Gwen spent hours levitating in a lotus position inside a magic circle surrounded by books, trying every spell. Both wanted to find a way to open a portal to Ledgerdomain, but to no avail. Ben suspected that Hex - perhaps even using Dawn's powers in some way - had put The Realm of Magic in lockdown.

At one point, Gwen simply collapsed and fell.

"Gwen!" Ben turned back to human form, took her in his arms and laid her on the bed. She was unconscious, but she had a steady pulse.

A few minutes later, the Plumbers' doctor examined her, "She's fine, she just fainted from exhaustion. She must sleep and eat. And you too. I know you want your kid back, but neither of you will be able to do anything for her in that state. Rest, please," the doctor said.

Gwen had trouble sleeping. She was crying desperately, thinking of what could happen to Dawn in the hands of Hex. Ben hugged his cousin to comfort her, at the same time trying to hold back his own tears. Lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling, the cousins wondered about Dawn's fate, both blaming themselves for what had happened.

"Ben ... What if Hex drains Dawn's magic and kills her? And if he doesn't, he'll raise her the same way he raised Charmcaster... The next time we see our Dawn, years from now, Hex will have shaped her into a criminal... " Gwen sobbed softly.

Ben wiped the tears from her face. "We'll find her, Gwen. We'll find a way. It's what we always do." Ben himself was desperate inside but tried to appear confident to comfort his cousin.

"I failed, Ben. Margie was my friend, and now she's dead. Her daughter, whom she entrusted to me ... I lost her. "

"No, Gwen ... you did the best you could. You sacrificed a normal student life to take care of Dawn, standing up to your own family for it... I failed. This is my fault ... I could have avoided it," he said in a guilty voice.

"What are you talking about?" Gwen asked confused.

"Eye-Guy... The visions of the futures... I could have seen it ... But I stopped trying to see the future, because I'm a coward..." Ben tried to hold back his tears, "In every future that we were together, there was so much pain, so much death... I was so happy with you, happier than I've ever been before, and I just wanted to stop looking at the bad things, I wanted to stop the nightmares ... So I stopped using Eye-Guy. If I hadn't stopped, we would know this would happen. Damn, we could even have prevented our identities from being leaked to the press. Everything that happened, it's my fault for wanting to avoid my accountability."

"It's not your fault. You always did the best you could, for me, for Dawn and for the world. You shouldn't have to torture yourself with visions-" Gwen began to say.

"Right now, I could try using Eye-Guy to see something from the future that might help us, but I'm terrified of what I might end up seeing." Ben did not want to say it out loud, but he was afraid that if he saw the future now and Dawn was dead or destined to become a second Charmcaster under the tutelage of Hex, he knew it would break him, "Don't misplace the guilt. This is not your fault, it's mine. I'm so sorry, Gwen. "

Gwen hugged him tightly, "You ... It's not your fault ... We ... It's not our fault. It's not our fault. "

They remained cuddled up, comforting each other and letting the tears roll in silence for a few minutes until Ben finally said, "Do you remember the story of Benjamin and Flopsy, from Peter Rabbit?"

Gwen laughed softly through her tears, "I do remember. Why?"

"Their baby bunnies were taken from them, but they found them, and brought them home safe and sound." Ben placed a comforting hand on Gwen's back and smiled, "We'll find our baby bunny too, and we will bring her home."

"We will. Together," Gwen said, laying her head on Ben's chest.

Deep down, neither of them was sure about that, but they had hope and they had each other. That would have to be enough.

Days later, Kevin's house.

"Three days since the girl was taken," Kevin said in front of the mirror, cell phone in hand, "I think it's time for the big strong hero to appear in the story and solve all the problems," he grinned.

"Hero?" The reflection of his insane side, Kevin 11, laughed, "Last time I checked, heroes don't help evil sorcerers kidnap toddlers."

"It was a necessary, and temporary, evil for a greater good!" Kevin shouted back angrily. "Benjamin Tennyson is a monster! I was his best friend and he betrayed me! Julie was his girlfriend and he cheated on her! And with his sociopathic charm, he dragged his own cousin into the mud with him! I have to show Gwen the failure that he is, as a boyfriend, hero and father. When I save Dawn from Hex, Gwen will see how I am a better man than Tennyson ever will be."

"Gwen will see, heh?" Kevin 11 crossed his arms and smiled wickedly, "So why do you still have the love potion that Hex gave you? Just as a precaution in case she doesn't see things that way and still prefers to be with her cousin after all?"

"I can't afford to risk Gwen's life!" Kevin yelled, "What he did to me and Julie, he will do to Gwen one day. I have to save Gwen from that bastard, by any means necessary!"

Kevin 11 rolled his eyes, "It would be easier if you just admit the truth. We are not the knight in shining armor who wants to save the princess from the dragon. We are the dragon who wants to eat the princess. Just figure out a way to make Gwen take the potion and leave the snotnose brat with Hex. We don't want an idiot child in our lives."

"No," Kevin said firmly, "I'm going to save everybody. I am a good person. GO AWAY!"

The reflection of Kevin 11 finally disappeared.

Kevin dialed Gwen's number on the phone and left a message in the mailbox, "Gwen ... I think I found a pretty good clue about Hex. I want to help find Dawn. Please come here and talk to me."

To be continued...

Author's notes

*Once again, I'm sorry about another long delay. But good news, I'm on vacation now! That means I'll write more! I hope to finish After the Dawn soon.

* There is a scene in this chapter out of order. The scene where Kevin learns about Ben's and Gwen's engagement is set right before the last scene of the previous chapter, where Kevin kidnaps a Plumber for Hex. Kidnapping that plumber was Kevin moving forward with the plan.

* Thanks to Aurora Nightstar for beta reading this.