Chapter 57: Dukes of Hazzard Style
Since I forgot to do this last chapter...
To TheEtherealLord: Thank you so much for the amazing review! It made me so happy. :D As for your questions, well, if I put Carter on the brink for too long, it'd get old. Also, I don't want to get into Cordelia's extreme measures just yet. That's for later down the line. Sam can replenish her energy from fire, but in order to do so there has to be a newly made batch around. She can't absorb her own fire for energy, and starting a fire from scratch can be dangerous. As for Ben and Evan, they can't use their elements for energy cause then they'd be all powerful and that's no fun. And I may explain shadow travel, just not right now.
To Helene: I could, but this story is rated T for teens, so I won't. But I will most certainly push the envelope in that regard.
To everyone else, Carter's real name isn't Candy. Her mother wanted to call her that, but Cordelia convinced her to change the name to Carter at the last minute. So her real name is Carter Valentine.
Anyway, on with the show!
The next day
"Why did you convince me to hide the alien?" Ben grumbled as he and Carter entered his disaster area of a room.
"I already told you my reasons," Carter snapped.
"I forgot."
"Not my fault your memory sucks." She plopped down on the floor, leaning her back against the bed frame. "Besides, I'm not happy about this either. You think I want to help babysit some alien brat?"
Ben sat down next to her, an eyebrow raised. "I thought you'd leap at the chance to take care of a baby. Isn't Aquaria the mother of the gods or something?"
Carter took a deep, calming breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. As she exhaled, she tersely explained, "Ben, Aquaria didn't raise all those kids. She and Ventus created them through wishful thinking."
"You know, I've heard mention of this 'wishful thinking,' but I can't imagine how you'd get an actual human life out of it," Ben said.
"Okay, so you know how Athena was born, right?" Carter asked. Ben made a half-and-half motion with his hand. "Well, according to mythology, there was a prophecy that if Metis, goddess of cunning and wisdom, ever had children with Zeus, the kids would become more powerful than the king of the gods himself. To prevent the prophecy from happening, Zeus convinced Metis to turn into a bug. He then turned into a bird and swallowed Metis whole."
"…What."
"Yeah, I don't get his reasoning either," Carter said, completely missing the point. "Unfortunately for Zeus, Metis was already pregnant, so by the time she went into labor, Zeus had a splitting headache. Somehow one of the other gods cleaved open his head and out sprung a fully adult Athena, clad in armor."
"…Greek myths are fucking weird," Ben muttered.
Carter rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it. Anyway, wishful thinking is a lot like the birth of Athena. The biggest differences re that it happens in a cathedral, in a circle full of ruins, and with a basin full of water in the center, and with two people agreeing on the attributes to the Master Alchemist so the baby can form."
"Master Alchemist."
"Hey, I don't make the rules. But from what I've heard, the people who normally use wishful thinking are the ones who are sterile or don't want to go through the actual pregnancy. And the result is always a baby. You can probably create a fully grown adult or a teenager or even a young child, but that takes a longer time thanks to all the paperwork."
"So, in short, wishful thinking is for creating your version of the perfect child," Ben simplified.
Carter snorted. "Hardly. You don't know what kind of person the baby will grow up to be. My mother was a wish baby and she was a total airhead. If she didn't look like Cordelia and have Isaac's hair color you'd never think they were related."
"So, Aquaria had a lot of kids with Ventus thanks to wishful thinking…" Ben said slowly, trying to understand everything. "Either way, wouldn't she be considered the mother of the gods?"
"Not quite," Carter said with a frown. "I know she had at least one pregnancy, but apparently she hated it so much that she decided that if Ventus wanted more kids, they'd have to do it magically. And Ventus was obviously a family man."
What's wrong with big families? Ventus grumbled inside Ben's head. Ben mentally shushed him and tuned back in to Carter.
"It's kind of fuzzy, but I think Aquaria was given the title 'the mother of the gods' against her will," she mused. "Whenever someone tried to pin it on her she'd curse them or something. But it seems like she was okay with being called the unofficial mother, because she never hurt anyone who announced her along those lines."
"I can't wrap my mind around that," Ben admitted.
Carter scratched at her neck. "Neither can I, and I'm the one with her in my head." She grimaced as she took off the choker from her neck.
Ben stared at the leather item in her hands. He hadn't noticed she had been wearing it until now. "How long have you been wearing that?" he asked her out loud.
"Since this morning," Carter told him and she put the choker back on. "I forgot to put it on yesterday, in case you were wondering."
"I bought that because I thought you were going to have scars," Ben told her. "If you don't need it, I can always return it."
"No!" she snapped at him.
"But you don't-!"
"I said no," she said sternly, glaring at him.
"Why?" he asked, meeting her glare with one of his own.
She turned red in the face, her angry stare turning into an embarrassed one. Ben stared at her bemusedly as she stuttered out, "B-because you bought it for me."
Ben blinked once before roaring with laughter. Carter pushed him away, yelling, "Idiot!" before storming out of the room.
In a garage on the far side of town
"Hey Sam, remember when I said I'd feel bad if I hit this thing?" Evan asked as he hid under the table. Sam, who happened to be near him, answered back:
"Yeah. What of it?"
"I take it all back," he whimpered as the baby alien threw a car at the wall. It seemed to be crying about something, but no one could tell what. And until the baby could be satisfied, it would continue its tantrum until it-she-tired herself out.
Kevin did an army crawl towards his two friends and snarled, "Why did you convince me to hide this thing?"
"We didn't," Evan insisted through gritted teeth.
"If you want someone to blame, then blame Gwen," Sam pointed out as the screams from the baby grew louder. "Where is she anyway?"
The door to the garage then opened, and their friendly neighborhood magic wielder walked in. The baby was about to throw another car at the wall when, Gwen, alarmed, used her powers to snatch the vehicle out of her hands. Bewildered, the baby stopped crying and looked up where the car once was. And then she looked before her at Gwen. The baby chirped happily and crawled towards the human.
Sam took that moment to lift the table she and Evan were hiding under as she and the two boys stood up. The three of them looked at the happy scene exhausted. "I have half a mind to just leave them here," Evan grumbled under his breath.
"You know you won't," Sam said with an eye roll. He just groaned.
After Gwen got the baby situated with some new toys, she walked over to them. "So, I'm guessing taking care of it was a challenge?"
"We should have left it in the desert," Kevin snapped.
"I told you we didn't know what we were doing," Sam moaned. "But does anyone listen to the crazy one? No, they never do…" she trailed off with murder in her eyes.
"Uh-huh," Gwen noted uncomfortably. She turned to Evan. "Are you guys going to help me or are you just going to keep standing around and arguing about it?"
"I'd like to just keep standing around," Evan said with a hint of his normal joviality.
"I'd like to keep arguing about it," Kevin said just as happily.
"I'd like to keep arguing about it as we slowly walk out of the building," Sam said, backing away slowly towards the door. Before anyone could react she ran towards the door, threw it open and let the sunlight filter in. And then she called out, "Kevin, where's your car?"
Arching an eyebrow, Kevin walked through the doorway. "I parked it in front-MY CAR!"
"Someone stole his car, didn't they?" Gwen asked rhetorically.
"Question is who?" Evan rubbed his chin. "According to Kevin no one really comes around these parts, and no one besides Kevin has the keys to his car…" he trailed off, a sudden, devious grin on his face. He roared with laughter, holding his sides as tears began to slide down his cheeks. The baby, not understanding, clapped her hands and laughed along with him.
"What's so funny?" Gwen demanded to know.
About forty minutes ago…
"LOOP-DE-LOOP!" Ben shouted as he dived and flipped through the air.
"YOU'RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT!" Carter shouted at him. "THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT!" She then zoomed downward on a thermal and did a proper loop-de-loop. Ben laughed as he flew downward, catching up to Carter. The two raced at break-neck speeds as they flew towards the ground. Simultaneously they flipped feet first and flapped their wings, slowing their descent. Eventually their feet lightly touched the ground and they magically hid their mismatched wings.
"I need to fly like that more often," Ben said cheerfully as he ran a hand through his windblown hair, trying to right it. He untied his jacket from around his waist and put it on.
Carter gingerly touched her face. "It'd be a lot more fun without the windburn though. Ow." She winced when she touched a sensitive spot. She touched the worse spots again with glowing hands.
Ben jerked his head towards the looming building. He could hear crying sounds, and it seemed like someone was throwing things in there. "You hear that?" he asked her.
"Baby crying again?" Carter asked her voice muffled.
"Yup."
She groaned. "I really don't wanna go in there." Her face healed she let her hands drop to her sides.
"We can't leave Gwen alone in there," Ben protested.
"You were the one eager to leave it in the desert," Carter retorted.
"That's because we have bigger things to worry about," he shot back. "Besides, Gwen's a big girl, she can handle it. And if not, she's got Sam and the guys helping her. She'll be fine."
A Cheshire grin stretched across Carter's face. "Which means we can leave them for a while."
Ben's eyes widened. "Where you planning this?"
Carter took a look at the parking lot. Only one car was in it: a familiar green Dodge Challenger. "How's about we hijack Kevin's car, drive it a few blocks away, and make out in it?"
Ben's eyes bugged out. "Oh, that is dirty." He turned serious. "But wait, you don't have Kevin's keys."
Carter held up a finger coated in ice. Quickly the ice turned to liquid and solidified into a familiar key shape. "You were saying?" She walked over to the driver's side of the car.
"But this is wrong!" Ben protested as Carter got to work on the car. "We can't just steal Kevin's car, it's illegal!"
"Uh-huh."
"And if Kevin finds out we took it he'll kill us!"
"No, he'll kill you. He'll probably just yell at me or something." Carter finished her work on the car and opened the door. She slid into the driver's seat and told Ben, "You coming or not?"
Ben was about to protest when he heard another cry coming from the garage. He screwed up his face. He then slid over the car's hood Dukes of Hazzard style and slammed the passenger door shut.
"Let's go."
Fast forward forty minutes…
Just a few blocks away from the garage, in an abandoned parking lot, was the Dodge Challenger. It was conveniently hidden between two tall buildings, and there were only three ways in and out of the parking lot, two of them involving cars, the other the alleyways.
The Dodge Challenger, in case the audience was wondering, was not violently rocking back and forth. It was gentler, almost like a rocking chair. Though the windows were steamed up quite thoroughly, which was why it was hard to make out a certain green jacket carelessly thrown on the dashboard.
"Wait!" came a sudden shout from the inside. The car stood still. The green jacket was taken from the dashboard.
Carter rolled her eyes, but that was the only sign of any annoyance. The rest of her was wired, as if her entire body was thrumming with electricity. She didn't know how she could be so calm, but she was.
She quickly tried to straighten her clothes, but there was only so much she could do in the limited amount of space. And there was Ben next to her, making it all even more cramped. Though she hadn't minded the close proximity moments before…
"Look, it's not like I'm not saying I don't want it," Ben rambled on as he straightened his shirt, trying to hide the red scratch marks on his back. "But I don't feel ready, like our relationship isn't mature enough to handle something like that."
"I know Ben," Carter said gently as she ran her fingers through her disheveled hair. "I shouldn't have tried that."
"I mean, it's not like I don't find you attractive." Ben turned to her and gave a lingering stare. "No, it's not that at all," he mumbled in a low voice. He snapped out of it, his voice growing more high-pitched as panic continued to set in. "I mean-!"
Carter put a finger to his lips and made a shushing noise. "Shut up," she ordered him as she put her neck piece back on. "One, I admit I was out of line, and I'm sorry for that. I should have waited until you were more prepared for something like that. Two, we're not at the state's consent age, so even if I tried going for it, I probably would have stopped soon."
"Probably?" Ben said incredulously.
Carter was about to give a sheepish answer back when her phone beeped. Fishing it out of her boot, she read the text from Sam: You stole the car, didn't you?
Carter smirked. "Who is it?" Ben asked, the panic already washing itself away.
"Sam. Kevin found out his car's missing."
"Aw, man, we need to bring it back." He leaned back in the seat and groaned.
"I'll tell Sam to distract Kevin so we could sneak it into the parking lot," Carter said, already typing out the message.
"We can't park the car in the actual parking lot. It's too obvious," Ben pointed out, pursing his bruised lips.
Carter thought a moment. "Maybe we can park it in the street and sneak out that way?"
"But there's no room to park the car on the road!"
"There's no one around, so we shouldn't get caught."
"…Good point. Okay, let's go."
Carter quickly sent the text and started the engine with her ice key. Rolling down the windows and getting rid of the steam, she peeled out of the parking lot, breaking the speed limit until she neared the garage. Then she slowed the car to a crawl and gently parked it right in front of the building. Right before Kevin could come out and kill them, Carter grabbed Ben's arm and smirked. Together they shadow traveled out of the car the second Kevin came storming out.
Carter dropped the two of them on the roof. They watched as Kevin got in the driver's seat of his beloved car and quickly got it into the parking lot before he could get a ticket. Ben quickly put his jacket back on and winced. "You really need to clip your nails. My back hurts."
With a deadpan expression Carter undid the buckle of her choker to reveal the bite marks on her neck. "Speak for yourself."
"Oh, admit it, you enjoyed that."
"Like how you enjoyed what I did to your back?"
"…Touché."
Once Ben and Carter were presentable enough to walk into the garage, they did so, trying to avoid Kevin as he searched his car for any stolen items. The inside of the garage was trashed; boxes were thrown everywhere, cars and other heavy items were lying totaled against the wall, and the most recent of babysitters looked thoroughly exhausted. Except for Gwen, who was playing with the baby alien.
"Any luck with Tiny?" Ben had the audacity to ask. Evan glared at him while Sam gave them a Cheshire grin.
"We know that it doesn't see very well in the daytime," Evan noted coolly.
"That would explain why it took all that property at night," Carter said. She gave Evan an innocent look. It took a while, but he gave her a smile.
Kevin took that moment to march into the room, seething. "What happened to you?" Ben asked as guilelessly as he could.
"Some bastards stole my car, that's what happened!" Kevin snarled. Tiny seemed to pick up on his mood and whimpered. Gwen gave him a deadly glare and tried to comfort her.
"But we saw your car in the parking lot," Carter pointed out.
"Funny thing," Evan interjected. "Whoever stole his car gave it back."
"Did they steal anything?" Sam asked Kevin. He shook his head.
"No. That's the weird part," Kevin said. "They didn't take a thing. Makes me wonder what the hell they used my car for?"
Schooling their faces as best they could, Ben and Carter looked at each other. "Drag racing maybe?" Carter thought out loud.
Kevin raised an eyebrow. "In the daytime?"
"Anything's possible," Ben pointed out. Suddenly Tiny bumped into something, solidifying the fact that it couldn't see very well in the light.
"How much longer do we have until we can get rid of it?" Kevin grumbled.
"Her," Ben and Carter insisted before Carter said, "At least until nightfall. If we bring her out now she's a moving target. And since the DNAliens want to get their hands on that cup-link…"
Kevin cried out as Tiny began to chew on a piece of scenery. He ran over to try and stop her. "At least it isn't trying to eat your car!" Sam called out in the hopes that Kevin would calm down.
From the way he groaned, it was safe to say he didn't.
Later that night
After Gwen was convinced that Tiny would be safer wherever she came from, the infant alien led them to the cave she emerged from. A broken, metallic bridge fed into the quarry. And, of course, there were DNAliens guarding the entrance.
Upon seeing the enemy, Tiny took her favorite toy and threw it at them, knocking the three aliens out. Once everyone else had caught up to her, Tiny pointed to the inside of the cave and, with a grunt, led them inside.
"I'm guessing it's this way," Evan said dryly to Gwen. She rolled her eyes and followed Tiny as she ran.
Tiny led them into the catacombs, where little deposits of citrine quartz clumped together sporadically against the walls. They couldn't admire the view though, since a DNAlien on a hover cart flew past them. They quickly ducked as it sped away, and then continued their search.
It took a while for them to find the nest where Tiny came from, but she eventually led them to her home. Unfortunately, the DNAliens were already there. Gwen was the first to spot what they were doing. "Look."
They looked. A machine was situated at the top of the cavern; a big bronze block with a hexagonal machine stacked on top. There was a circular window on the hexagon, and there was an antenna attached at the very top.
"Looks homey," Kevin joked in a serious tone.
"Looks evil," Sam pointed out.
"Good enough for me." He turned to Tiny and said in a rapid fire voice: "Okay, this looks like goodbye. See you and have a nice life."
Tiny gave him a confused grunt.
Kevin gave an easy-going grin. "Worth a shot." He led the way as they all ran under the manmade bridge leading up to the machine. It was like a highway, the traffic of DNAliens going to and from the cavern. They quickly ran up a hill, hiding behind quartz deposits and stalagmites as they neared a giant doorway. It was huge and bronze-colored, the metal seemingly worn away. A group of DNAliens were around it, another one in a red machine with a strange-looking drill contraption attached.
Tiny made noises of understanding and went around the hiding spot. Alarmed, Ben went to his Omnitrix. Gwen put a hand on his shoulder. "Stay and guard the door," she ordered him. "I'm going in." She ran to follow Tiny.
Evan asked the others, "Shouldn't one of us follow her?"
Sam gave a long-suffering sigh. "Fine, I'll go." She got up and went after Gwen.
"Be careful," Kevin said as she ran past him.
Sam climbed into what she could only describe as a ship. It had alien tech she'd never seen before, all bronze-like metal and circular designs on the wall. She didn't have much time to survey her surroundings as she heard the familiar grunts of Tiny and the click-clack sounds of Gwen's heels to her left.
Sam ran towards the sounds and found numerous pieces of clutter leaning against the wall. Stop signs, traffic lights, and other pieces of property; it was everything Tiny had stolen, thinking they were toys. The alien herself was sitting in front of three pod-like chambers. Two of them were gigantic, taking up half the space, while the third was miniscule in comparison.
"I'm guessing she was inside the stasis pod when she woke up," Sam said as she walked in. Gwen turned to her, surprised, before turning back to Tiny.
"Your parents are still inside their pods, aren't they," Gwen stated. The entire ship suddenly began to tremble.
"We need to go!" Sam shouted over the noise.
"We can't leave!" Gwen protested as the quaking finally stopped.
"The DNAliens are going to destroy this ship," Sam said in a calmer tone of voice. "We either leave the ship to fight or we can find some way to wake up the parents." She suddenly turned alarmed. "Do you hear fighting?"
Gwen cocked her head. She could indeed. "What do we do?"
Outside the ship, the DNAliens were drilling bedrock away from the metal. Once all the remaining debris had broken away, the DNAlien piloting the drill readied himself. And then it was realized that it wasn't a drill at all-the funny-looking tube at the end was a center point for a laser. Go figure.
As the laser slowly charged up, Ben put a hand over his Omnitrix. And then Evan put a hand on his shoulder. "I got this," he said as he walked out of the hiding spot.
"What is he…?" Kevin started before he saw Carter grinning.
"Keep watching. Evan's in his element."
Just as the laser fired, a boulder flew in front of it. The laser hit the rock, shattering to bits. And then the ground underneath the laser exploded, scattering the DNAliens surrounding it. The machine itself flew upwards, the passenger flung out of the cockpit like a rag doll. The machine fell over on its side away from the fight.
No one could see Evan, but they could hear him laughing, a sweet, mirthful sound that sounded mocking as it echoed throughout the catacombs. And then rock spires appeared out of the ground, jamming DNAliens in the sides. It didn't hurt them at all. In fact, it seemed to simply annoy them.
The mocking laughter grew softer, but only because a new sound could be heard. It sounded like pieces of earth crashing together like an ocean wave, if that made any sense at all. And then they saw Evan sliding across the floor on his own earthen tidal wave, wearing a horrible feral grin wide enough to show off his needle-sharp teeth.
The DNAliens began to attack, firing their handheld lasers at him. Slabs of earth sprung up beside Evan, taking the shots for him. And then with a wave of his arms the slabs moved, sliding across the ground and slamming into offending aliens.
Evan jumped down from his rock slide and landed feet first on an alien. With a stomp of his foot he brought up a disc of earth and grabbed it. With a giant heave he threw it like a discus, forcing it into the gut of a DNAlien. The force dragged it back into another, and another, and finally a third one until they slammed into the giant bronze doors.
He heard a shuffle next to him. Evan formed his wolfish grin and, pupils suddenly turning into slash marks, he turned his head to his next victim. The DNAlien, in a sudden panic, took a single step back. And that was all it took.
Crouching down to better his stance, Evan brought his arms together and threw them up. The ground trembled yet again; clods of dirt broke from the ground and levitated in the air, the conscious DNAliens standing on the islands. For a second the islands stood high in the air. All was silent.
Evan put his arms down.
The islands dropped back into the ground, creating a thunderous boom. A final quake could be felt, and dust flew everywhere. And then the dust rapidly settled; Evan was moving his arms rapidly in whirlwind motion, settling the mess before he could choke on the particles in the air.
With a clap to remove the dirt on his hands, Evan took in the sight of unconscious DNAliens littering the cove. He heard a whistle come from the ship the DNAliens were trying to break into. Sam was grinning, an impressed look on her face.
"Remind me next time not to get into an argument with you."
Evan smirked as his face slowly turned back to normal. "You'd just ignore me and argue some more."
Sam shrugged. "True." She turned inside. "Come on. You should see this." She turned to the others hiding in the background. "All of you."
Inside the ship
"So what do you think she was trying to do with all this…junk?" Ben asked as he waved a hand over the pile of clutter inside the ship.
"When she got out of her pod and saw that her parents weren't up, she toddled outside and grabbed stuff that looked like it could help," Gwen explained.
"Like…us?" Carter had to ask.
Kevin looked up from the control panel he was working on. "Think I got the stasis panel working," he announced.
"Good. Wake them up," Sam ordered.
The stasis pods instantly turned blue, and they slowly slid open. The pods revealed two creatures identical to Tiny, except larger in size. They opened their eyes and roared, slowly walking towards Tiny and cuddling her.
"D'aww, I love a happy ending," Evan joked, pretending to wipe away a tear.
"It's not an ending just yet," Sam reminded him.
Once Tiny was happily tucked away in her crib, the smaller of the species quickly explained the situation to the parents. "What do you mean this isn't Alpha Proxima?" one of them asked.
"And it's not 1952?" the other asked in a feminine voice.
"It's the 21st century," Ben explained.
"You're on the Earth," Kevin said.
"In the Earth, actually," Gwen pointed out.
"What are you doing underground?" Evan asked.
"No idea," the female alien said, mystified.
"We were travelling to the other side of your galaxy to colonize in suspended animation for the journey," the father explained.
"But some kind of temporal inclusion occurred while we were flying by the Earth that must have caused us to crash land here," the mother continued.
"In 1952," Ben exclaimed in realization.
"You think…" Carter said. She turned to the alien parents. "There was a time machine experiment that year that must have affected your ships engine."
"And when you crashed your ship dug a hole in the ground," Kevin noted.
"That filled in and grew over after all this time," Sam finished.
"We've been asleep underground for half a century?" the father repeated in a disbelieving tone. He stood up and walked over to the window.
"The DNAliens weren't digging for your ship," Evan quickly explained. "They just happened to find you down here."
"Lucky for you," Kevin added.
"I can't imagine why anyone would need this much crystal quartz for," the father said. "Maybe a teleporter grid?"
"Well, that just about solidifies that theory," Carter muttered under her breath as Tiny started to whimper. She was staring at Gwen for some reason.
"No honey," the mother said gently. "You can't keep her."
"Earthlings need to roam free," the father agreed. Tiny slumped in her crib dejectedly.
"What I can't figure is why translation circuits in our badges and Ben's watch didn't work on Tiny, but I understand you two just fine," Kevin said suddenly.
"Our daughter can't talk yet," the mother told him, smiling. "She's just a baby."
"Told you," Gwen teased. She went over to Tiny to say her final goodbyes. Evan suddenly got an idea and ran out of the ship. Sam and Carter looked at him strangely before turning to each other.
It took a while, but the happy family was finally able to leave Earth. They left nothing behind except a quarry full of fond memories and a room full of unconscious aliens (though that was Evan's doing).
Evan tapped Gwen on the shoulder and held out a closed hand. "I know you had some special connection to Tiny, so I made you this." He put a quartz figurine in her hand. It was almost like a tin-solder, but she could make out the features that perfectly matched her memory of Tiny.
Gwen gave a little gasp and wrapped Evan in a bear hug. "Thank you!" she cried.
Evan gave a weak chuckle. "Yeah, well, needed to end this on a feel good moment…" His voice trailed off and his body went slack. Gwen staggered back under his weight and struggled to put him gently on the ground. It was only thanks to Sam and Carter's help that he didn't fall on his face.
Lying on the ground, Evan looked weak and pale, but he still managed to stay awake.
"Dude, you were so close to ending this looking cool," Ben griped. Evan gave a weak chuckle.
"Yeah, well, at least this is still a feel good episode."
In regards to Ben and Carter's actions in this chapter...if you had to take care of a baby but didn't want to, and you had other people who could take care of it for you, wouldn't you try to prolong the inevitable? I know I would. As for what happened in the car: 1) both were fully clothed, and 2) they didn't have sex. And no, I won't tell you what Carter did.
So, thoughts anyone?