Chapter 80: From Darkness, There is Light

Okay, so while I'm pretty satisfied with this chapter overall, I have to admit that some of it sounds pretty heavy-handed. You know those cartoons that had those very special episodes that dealt with drugs and guns and other relevant things and seemed to pound the message into the viewer's head? Parts of this chapter feel like that to me despite the way I worded it. But it's more of a case of 'some anvils need to be dropped', so despite everything, I think it's necessary.

(Let's be real here, when talking about mental illness or guns or poverty, it's gonna sound kind of preachy regardless. I don't know how different it would be if a bunch of teenagers discussed it, but I think it would sound the same either way. I did the best I could with trying to make it all sound natural.)

So, despite all this, on with the chapter!

It hurt.

His hand was grabbing at the space near his heart, warm blood dribbling through the cracks in his fingers. The pain was achingly familiar, a sharpness that tore through him and spread out, reaching out past his arms and legs to his fingers and toes. He could feel his body twitching in response, little spasms that made him feel like he was losing control. He could smell something sweet and metallic, a strong stench that wafted upwards as he curled into himself.

It really hurt.

His vision blurred, everything becoming too bright too quickly, tears trailing down his face without his consent. He was tired, so, so tired. His left arm felt like a burden, suddenly too heavy to lift without feeling his wrist bones being crushed, grinded down to fine powder. He could hear voices inside his head, or was it outside? A bit of both? They sounded worried and scared, almost exactly how he felt, balled up on the asphalt with the searing afternoon sun beating down on him.

Could he just lie there? Let the world turn without him? Let the tears fall from his dull eyes until he was finally dry inside? Or would the world force him to stand up, duct tape his body back together in a half-hearted attempt to keep him together and have him walk like a puppet for their entertainment?

Could he rest for one day? Was he allowed to be tired?

Ben closed his eyes and let out one last heartbreaking sob. And his world turned black.

At the Valentine Manor

Gwen slowly turned her head towards the doorway, gripping the armrests of her seat. "It was a blank?" she hissed, eyes glowing dangerously.

Carter nodded grimly, arms crossed. "It was, thankfully."

The others sagged back down, their bodies hitting the plush seats of the living room with audible thuds. Sam kneaded the heel of her palms over her eyes. "That was way too much blood for a blank."

Carter snorted, devoid of any humor. "Yeah, well, you'd be surprised by how dangerous blank shots can be. They may not be as lethal as bullets, but the air pressure alone can cause some damage to the human body."

"Which is why you should never shoot someone in the eye with a blank," Evan added, wiping his glasses with a semi-clean rag. "They could go blind and everything."

"Oh, please don't tell me you've done that to yourself," Gwen scoffed, glaring at him reproachfully.

His expression darkened considerably. "Not to me."

"So, what, he used a blank knowing Ben would react like this?" Kevin interjected, weaving his hand through his hair. "What kind of sick bastard does that to someone?"

"He wasn't sure," Gwen said slowly, as if she were just realizing it herself. "He kept talking about inconclusive evidence and theories and… whatever the hell he was talking about, I don't know," she spat out, throwing her hands up in frustration.

"He hypothesized that Ben would react this way, but couldn't be sure unless he tested it out," Sam sounded out, her eyebrows slowly rising as she ended her statement. "He was like a scientist with an experiment."

"That's why he used a blank," Evan realized, putting his glasses back on. "He didn't want to kill Ben, he just wanted to know what would happen."

"In other words, he just saw Ben as an experiment," Carter said, eyes narrowed and staring daggers at the opposite wall.

"And he got his results, whatever good that does him," Sam finished, her hands turning into fists in her lap. Kevin quickly looped an arm over her shoulder and gave her a concerned look.

"Yeah, but now we know that Ben's been faking his mental health this entire time," Evan suddenly piped up, arms and legs crossed and expression stern.

Gwen sighed, a look of hopelessness taking over her features. "I thought he was getting better after the last time…"

"Yeah, we all did," Evan said softly, his voice full of shame.

"Technically, what he was doing was compartmentalizing everything that's happened to him," Sam spoke out, capturing everyone's attention. "I mean, the guy's had evil alien warlords and other villains after him since he was a kid. How else would you explain it?"

"I still don't like the idea of that," Kevin muttered.

"Except that compartmentalization helps a lot of people," Evan told him pointedly. "It's how the three of us deal with being the Pride."

"Because it's not like you can't stop," Gwen scoffed.

"No, Gwen, we can't," Carter snapped, glaring at her. "We're at a point where being the Pride is a fundamental part of who we are. We may be the 'good guys' all of a sudden, but we still have our roles to play out."

"I mean, we might be able to stop eventually," Sam said quietly, eyes on the floor, "but we don't know when. We can't know when. We just have to stick it out for now."

As Kevin and Gwen gave each other identical unbelieving looks, Evan cut in with a downward swipe of his hand. "Let's go back to the real problem at hand here: Ben's psyche being at stake."

Wanting to argue but knowing that he couldn't right now, Kevin instead asked, "So, if boxing everything away is supposed to help him, why didn't it?"

Sitting down in front of the coffee table, Carter replied, "Because in most cases, victims have gone through some type of therapy and have been trained to compartmentalize. Ben hasn't."

"And let's face it, this was probably a long time coming," Sam told them. "He may be an extremely good actor, but it wasn't like he could keep this up forever."

"So, getting shot was the catalyst to Ben breaking down?" Gwen asked rhetorically. "And today's episode was a sign of…" she trailed off, too terrified to say the words.

"…PTSD," Sam said softly. The air in the living room became heavier, so thick it couldn't hope to be cut. But she soldiered on, gazing at her fellow redhead. "Normally it takes about thirty days to be sure, and while it hasn't been that long, it's pretty obvious that Ben's suffering from it."

"How did we miss it?" Gwen asked her, the unspoken words hanging in the air: How did I miss it? I'm family.

"He didn't want you to know," Sam said bluntly, faltering a bit when she saw Gwen flinch. She went on, her voice quavering ever so slightly: "I think he didn't want people to worry about him, so he acted like he was fine all this time."

"And for a while, he probably was, until…" Kevin trailed off, a look of guilt on his face.

Sam put a hand over his own. "It wasn't your fault," she told him firmly. "It was Ben's choice to take the bullet for you. Don't blame yourself for his actions."

His brow furrowed, and he grit his teeth. "Doesn't make it easier."

Her stern façade melted away. "I know."

"What do we do know?" Gwen asked helplessly.

Carter took a deep breath. "We be there for him," she replied with a small shrug of her shoulders. "We can't exactly coddle him and treat him like he's something breakable."

"But he is!" Gwen insisted.

"He also has his pride," Carter retorted sharply. "If we treat him differently from before he's going to think he's bothering us. That's the last thing we want."

"It's not that you have to pretend like nothing's wrong," Evan explained, "it's just that you can't treat him like he's sick. You don't have to act all callous about it," he hurried to say when he caught the dirty look Gwen was giving him, "but you also can't enable him so he gets worse, you know?"

"Basically, we all have to treat him like he's a person and not some patient in a hospital," Sam clarified further. "Talk to him, listen to him, be there for him… That's all we can do in the end."

"Everything else is up to him," Carter said, cupping her chin in her hand and putting her elbow on the coffee table.

"And in the meantime, he takes lots of therapy," Kevin said, leaning forward slightly. "Question is, how're we gonna convince him he needs help?"

"…Yeah, I doubt he's going to do anything about his PTSD even after today," Gwen said, defeated. "I mean, why would he after all this time?"

"Don't suppose we can somehow convince him this is the best course of action?" Sam asked somewhat hopefully.

"I kind of doubt he'd listen to family. He'd probably see you all as meddling in his life." Carter heard Gwen sigh as she slumped against her seat. "I'm just his girlfriend, I don't exactly have a lot of clout."

"And the rest of us are just friends, who would just be bothering him," Kevin finished, scowling.

Gwen rubbed the bridge of her nose, looking as if she'd aged ten years too quickly. "I hate feeling so helpless," she admitted, eyes slightly damp.

"We all do," Sam told her quietly. "But there's very little we can do about this."

Even suddenly stiffened and took off his glasses. "Maybe I can do something."

As he began pulling his hair back into its usual long ponytail, Kevin raised an eyebrow. "You can? How?"

"Believe it or not, I am the leader of the Pride," Evan responded, tightening his hair band before taking off his glasses. "I may act goofy and weird, but I may be the only person who can actually knock some sense into Ben."

"'Maybe.' You said, 'maybe,'" Carter said as she watched him quickly put on his contacts. It didn't gross her out as much as the others. She and Sam had seen it too often.

Evan shrugged and stood up. "Hey, if not me, maybe Cordelia or Isaac or someone else will. It's worth a shot." He began to walk towards the doorway. "Are they still monitoring him?"

Carter shrugged listlessly. "They were when I left them."

"I'll find him," he said tiredly. "Wish me luck." They all did so with varying degrees of faith. Only Kevin's was the most honest: "You're gonna need it."

"Yeah, I definitely will," Evan muttered.

Eventually

It was dark.

Ben was floating somewhere, his mind adrift. His body felt feather light, frigid air rushing over him as he continued to hover. Grimacing, he tried to curl into a ball in an attempt to stave off the cold, but his limbs felt like lead weights. A soreness was spreading inside him, reaching from his head to his toes.

Suddenly he could feel it, the darkness creeping towards him. Like ropes they were binding him, rudely pulling him left, right, left, down, up. The cold was worse now, numbing the digits on his hands as the blackness quickly began to smother him, pulling him downwards to drown him.

It was dark, it was cold, and he was scared.

Ben.

That voice. It was so achingly familiar. The numbness was going away, the frigid air slowly turning warmer.

Ben, it's time to wake up now.

The darkness was receding, the tendrils snapping away and leaving him to drift again.

Please wake up. We're waiting for you.

Ben slowly opened his eyes, little bits of light searing his retinas. He closed his eyes, feeling the pinpricks of pain rapidly come and slowly, slowly go away. He blinked, his sight adjusting as he languidly took in the sterile white room.

Ah. He was back in the Valentine Manor, inside one of Cordelia and Isaac's guest rooms. But could it be called a guest room? It looked more like a standard hospital room.

It didn't matter. Ben slowly lifted a sore arm and felt at his chest. Bandages. Right. He'd been injured again.

A shot in the air- the bullet burrowing in his chest- blood spurting from his heart, his treacherous heart pumping his lifeblood out of his body-

Breathe. You're safe now.

Ben sighed, feeling his heart slowly return to its normal pace. His skin was clammy and quite possibly gray. He had to smile; when Ventus said he was safe, he was usually right. It was comforting to know that someone was always looking out for him, even if his reasons weren't exactly altruistic.

Ben then had a sudden, intrusive thought. He slowly propped his arms so that he could lift his head up. He quickly gave himself a once over: except for the aforementioned bandages, his upper body was bare. So were his feet, but at least he had his jeans on him this time around.

Giving a sigh of relief, Ben flopped back onto his pillow, an eerie sense of calm washing over him. He knew he should be feeling something, anything, but after getting shot a second time, he couldn't muster much of a reaction. Aside from his earlier panic attack, he was too mentally exhausted to care. Vaguely he wondered if that was a good thing.

Ben then turned his head, and his eyes widened. He took in the sight of Evan Force sitting in the chair next to his bed, some form of textbook in his lap, writing on an enormous packet. From the look of things, he had been hunched over, his neck bent painfully so he could write and read at roughly the same time.

Evan suddenly shot his head up, hand over the back of his neck to massage it. He gave a low groan and threw his head back, the cricks in his neck popping loud enough for Ben to hear. Evan then looked down to meet his eyes.

Simply putting the book and papers on the bedside table, he said, "You're up."

"I am," Ben answered, his voice hoarse.

Evan quickly took a water bottle from the table and opened it for him. Propping himself up again, Ben drank greedily, guzzling down most of the water in the bottle before he was satisfied.

"How're you feeling?" Evan asked, his eyes flitting over the bandages briefly before he met his eyes again.

"Hurts," Ben answered, wiping his mouth and putting the bottle away. "Everything hurts."

"I bet," he agreed. "Blanks don't hurt like normal bullets, but they can still do a lot of damage."

Slowly raising an eyebrow, Ben repeated, "Blanks?"

Evan nodded and went to prop his pillows so he could rest and talk at the same time. "Yup. Mr. Gray, as I like to call him, wasn't actually trying to kill you. He used blanks to distract us."

"That…" Ben blinked. "That's such a dick move though."

Evan scoffed. "Tell me about it." His gaze then turned grave, and he leaned forward in his chair, hands clasped together. "Ben," he said, "you need help."

He gave him a look. "I've just been shot at again. Of course I need help."

Evan shook his head. "Not that kind of help. Do you remember what happened after Mr. Gray shot that blank at you?"

Ben furrowed his brow and his eyes slid away from Evan, focusing on the nearby wall. "I… I remember it hurting. A lot. And then darkness. And…"

"And…?" Evan gently prodded.

He winced, as if ashamed. "I felt so tired."

There was a sudden intake of breath, and Ben turned back to his fellow brunet, who had a pained expression. "Do you still feel tired?" Evan asked quietly.

Ben blinked slowly, the answer confusing him. "Yes. But I also feel… numb."

"Numb?"

"Like I'm too exhausted to care anymore?" Ben asked, bewildered. "It's hard to describe."

Evan nodded, and he took another intake of breath, this time letting it go quietly. He squared his shoulders and announced, "Ben, you need help. And I don't mean you just need medical attention," he hurried to say, "but actual help."

"For what?"

"Ben, you had a panic attack," Evan told him softly. Ben just looked at him disbelievingly. "The tiredness you felt, the exhaustion you feel right now… Tell me, does it feel like you just suffered from a heart attack?"

"I… maybe?" Ben continued to stare at him. "Where are you-?"

"Panic attacks are serious, Ben," Evan went on. "I mean, they're normally not lethal, but it's still scary to have them… or see someone have one." He averted his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Ben told him honestly, guilt welling up inside him.

Evan quickly waved the apology away. "It wasn't your fault. The point is, that gunshot earlier triggered a panic attack in you."

"Yeah, we've established that," Ben huffed. "Where are you going with this?"

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. "Ben, you have post-traumatic stress disorder."

The boy on the bed blinked once, twice, and then retorted, "No, I don't."

Evan shot him a disbelieving look. "Really? Because I've seen evidence to the contrary. Don't try to hide it."

Ben glared at him, but relented. "Okay, fine, maybe I do have it. It's nothing I can't handle."

"You had a fucking panic attack."

He winced at the vitriol in Evan's voice, the heated glare forcing him to look away. "I'm fine though," he protested weakly.

"Stop lying," Evan spat before taking a deep, ragged breath. "Ben. You can't keep this up. We're worried about you."

"I'm fine!"

"You're not fine!" he shouted, shooting out of his chair. "You are literally suffering from PTSD, you just had a panic attack, and you keep going on as if everything's okay! It's not! You can't lie to us anymore!"

Clambering into a sitting position, legs over the edge, Ben glared up at him. "Why shouldn't I?" he snarled. "What good does it do if the wielder of the Omnitrix is too unstable to help people?"

Evan staggered back, incredulity and a bit of hysteria written all over his face. "Oh, is that what this is about?" He began to laugh, the wheezing sound filling up the room. "You think that by pretending everything's all gumdrops and lollipops in your little world that somehow you can keep the Omnitrix and keep playing the hero?" His laugh grew louder before he abruptly cut it off, eyes narrowed into slits. "It won't work."

"It's worked before," Ben pointed out, spreading his arms out wide in the most sardonic manner possible.

"Oh, and you think people are just going to keep buying it when you have another panic attack?" Ben flinched, but Evan didn't bother acknowledging it. "You think people won't notice the sudden bouts of anger, the dissociation from your peers, the bags under your eyes from severe lack of sleep? You really think they won't notice how unhinged you'll become?"

"I-"

"They will, you know," Evan went on, leaning in close so that Ben could hear every word. "They always do. They'll call you out on your behavior, but they won't pinpoint why you're acting like this- they never bother to dig deep enough. And in the meantime, they call you the nastiest names, spit on your legacy, drag your very existence through the mud- and they won't stop until one day, you don't leave the house, and your mother finds your corpse on the bathroom floor, the gun still in your hand."

Ben was silent.

Evan leaned back, falling into his chair. "I don't know what you've been through, but I know what PTSD is like. All of the Pride does. And trust me, it's that much worse as a child. But do you know how we went through it? We got help."

He opened his mouth, and then closed it.

Evan nodded. "It wasn't easy. Sometimes, it was downright humiliating to admit I had night terrors. But I had my friends who went through the exact same things I did, and I had my family who did their damned best to make sure I had the best care possible, and who listened to me when I needed to talk. I still have nightmares, but it's so much better now."

Ben swallowed the words he was about to say.

Evan sighed and rubbed at his eyes, exhaustion taking over. "I'm not like you, Ben. I'm a murderer. I accept that. But I do genuinely try to help people, so I can see why you're trying to hide your problems from your friends."

"You do?" Ben whispered.

He nodded. "I'm supposed to be the leader of the Pride and of the other vessels. I know what it's like to be put on a pedestal."

"I didn't…"

"Yeah, I don't act like a leader when I don't have to." Evan offered a half-smile. "I normally leave that to you."

Ben scoffed. "I know."

Both boys laughed weakly, the tension slowly draining away. Evan then said, "What I'm trying to say is that we're all here to help you, but you have to let us. You can't do this alone anymore."

Ben looked at him, mouth opening and closing, eyes damp. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself and whispered, "I'm tired of this."

"Of what?" Evan prodded gently.

"Of having all this affect me so much," he said, his voice thick. "It shouldn't, but it does and I hate it."

"Yeah, I can see that," Evan told him, smiling a bit.

"It's just- I don't-" Ben trailed off, his voice failing him. His shoulders shaking, he closed his eyes and leaned forward. Instantly Evan wrapped his arms around him, pulling Ben close as the other boy gripped the back of his shirt.

"It's okay, I'm not going anywhere," he said as Ben began to cry.

(I have been waiting so freaking long to use that Rise of the Guardians reference, you have no idea.)

Like I said, it's kind of heavy handed. Then again, considering how Ben bottles things up, a stern talking to may be just what he needs. Seriously, its canon that Ben has nightmares about past villains and events, but no one seems to think much of this. Seriously, those are warning bells that something's not right.

So, this chapter fell a bit short of my 4,000+ words goal for each chapter... but then again, it's always about quality, not quantity.

So, thoughts anyone?