A/N: To the reviewer who said this reminded them of The Blue Lagoon, I have to admit that that story was a big inspiration for this in the first place. Thanks to all who reviewed/will review/read/continue to read on. :D

Chapter 4

"Well, I guess it's been about seven months now."

Watching as her cousin dropped a rather large stone down into a half-broken, glass jug that he'd come across shortly after they'd come upon the island in the first place, Gwen tilted her head to the side, feeling mildly confused. "Seven months now since we got here?" she ventured to ask. "Probably. How do you figure, though?"

"Well, I've been keeping little stones in little piles up here, to count for the days. When thirty days go by, I put a larger stone in the jug there. Today I placed in the seventh one."

"You do realize that some months have more or less than thirty days, right?" Gwen asked him.

"Oh, shut up. At least I've bothered to keep up with it at all," Ben answered her.

And to be fair, he did have a point. Gwen hadn't bothered the first time to try and really tally up the months that they'd been castaways there on the island. Sure, she'd kept a mental count for about the first forty days or so, but those were also the days when she felt sure that someone - anyone - would also be by at any time to rescue them. Alas, the tides, and the times, had long since changed. She felt quite sure that she was stuck here for the time being. Stuck here with her cousin, who was now chasing a crab along the sand.

"I'm gonna get you!" he howled at the poor thing, before leaping down on it.

"Benjamin Tennyson, you are fourteen and a half now, if your record keeping is to be trusted. Stop acting like a little kid," Gwen scolded him, her hands on her hips.

"I'll act like whatever I wanna act like," he replied, grabbing at his throat as his voice inexplicably dropped a few octaves, before rising back up again toward the end of his statement, cracking. "Oh jeez, not this again."

"Ha! Your voice is changing," Gwen teased, sticking her tongue out.

"Now who's not acting their age?" Ben retorted, his voice screeching again. "Gah, it looks like I won't be talking for a while."

"What a relief," Gwen said with a smirk, before raising her eyebrows in her cousin's direction as the crab he'd been chasing earlier snapped at his foot, narrowling missing one of his toes.

Glaring down at the crustacean, Ben shook his head, before folding his arms across his chest haughtily and then turning to march away, both from the crab and from Gwen. He'd had enough of the both of them for now.

As the sun set on the eve of the seventh month of stranded island life, Gwen sat up on a hilltop, running the clothes she'd just washed out in the water against a large, rough rock. Naked, save for a piece of flannel she'd fixed around her waist like a skirt, the ginger counted on her hair to hang down the length of her bosom and cover her whilst she did her work, and she also counted on Ben to not show up, especially seeing as how she'd irked him so much earlier that same day.

Once she'd washed and scrubbed out the clothes, the lanky girl stood, hanging them over the various rocks about the area, knowing that the plateau would be the opportune place to leave them, for the breezes would reach them over night, air-drying them. The sun would finish up the job the following morning, and, in the mean time, Gwen would put on Ben's undershirt for cover, which he never took to wearing anyway, so she just as well wear it herself.

She had just pulled it over her head when she heard a sound behind her, one that made her jump. "I've come to get you!" Ben cried out, clad only in the underwear Gwen had left him to keep on; a crab - presumably the one from earlier - was held outward in his hands, pincers pinching as the young man ran forth, aiming the creature at his cousin.

"You get away from me with that!" Gwen shrieked, taking off at a run.

Undeterred, Ben continued to chase her, even on down the hillside. "I'm gonna get you - I am! Keep making fun of my voice cracking - see what happens!"

"Alright, alright, I'll stop making fun of it, Ben, or, should I say… Benita?!"

"Oh, that's it!"

Putting the crab down to the ground, Ben threw all he had into running down the hill, jumping over and dodging little rocks and obstacles along the way. Keeping just ahead of him by a foot or so, Gwen shrieked every so often, whenever she would look back and see that her cousin had gained on her.

"You can't keep away forever!" Ben called after her, jumping forward as he threw his arms out in front of himself; they came to wrap around her middle, pulling her down to the ground as he himself fell atop her from behind.

"Get off me, Ben!" Gwen cried out, wriggling and turning over onto her back there on the sand.

In the distance, the moon was rising higher and higher up in the night sky, over the water. With the moon beams gleaming down upon the waves, it was a beautiful sight. Nearer to the sands, upon the island, Ben himself was gazing down at a beautiful sight. Lying beneath him, barely clad, Gwendolyn's hair fell and fanned out behind her head. Her tanned skin glistened almost as much as the waves beneath the moon, and her eyes, green as emeralds, shined brightly as she laughed up at him. "Let me go…" She'd fallen and rolled over into a bed of strongly perfumed flowers. Brushing against the sides of her hair and face, they made the perfect crown for her head, even as she lay there lazily, suddenly finding herself being tickled by sandy fingers.

"I won't let you go until you swear me something," Ben said to Gwen, his hands slipping and sliding all over her ribs and stomach, his fingers moving swiftly to tickle all of her funny spots.

"Swear to you what, Ben?" Gwen breathed out amidst her giggles, tossing her head to and fro as her own hands moved to his chest, before slipping beneath his underarms, going for his known ticklish spots.

"Hey, no fair!" Ben said to her, letting up on his tickling to instead grab her wrists, pinning them down to the sand, his knees remaining on either side of her body; she was quite trapped.

"Talk about no fair!" Gwen cried back to him, struggling, but unable to move even an inch. "Go on, tell me what I need to swear to so I can swear to it and then get up."

"Well now hold on, I need to think of something for you to swear to first," Ben replied.

"Oh, are you kidding me?" his cousin asked him, still struggling against his grasp. "You're holding me hostage for nothing?"

Gazing back down at Gwen, Ben shook his head, saying, "Don't make me tickle you again. Next time I'll be merciless. I won't stop until you feel like you can't even breathe. And then… Gwen, don't move now."

The sudden change in her cousin's tone of voice was startling; Gwen felt a bit frightened. "What?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"That crab," Ben said quietly, his eyes staring just above and off to the left of her forehead. "From earlier… it sort of has some of your hair in its pinchy-things… Don't move too fast."

"What do you mean, don't move too fast?" Gwen exclaimed in a panicky voice, quickly rolling out from under Ben (whose grasp had since relaxed) and away from both him and the crustacean; it proved to be a bad idea.

"Oh, now why'd you go and do that for?" Ben asked her, watching by the light of the moon as the crab scuttled away, a long lock of Gwen's hair held in one of its claws.

"Oh my God!" Gwen screamed, reaching for her hair; she could, indeed, feel where a small lock of it was gone; still screaming, she scrambled to her feet while Ben did the same. "I can't believe you!"

"Well, it's not my fault!" Ben shouted back at her. "I told you not to move!"

"Oh, if you hadn't been messing with that stupid crab-" Gwen shouted, stepping forward and smacking Ben on the front of his shoulder. "-then none of this wouldn't have happened-" Shoving him now, she used her other hand to smack at his chest. "-why do you have to be so stupid?"

"Ow, ow, hey now!" Ben cried out, once at each smack, before he finally reached forward and grabbed at her wrists, pulling them in towards himself. "It's just hair. It'll grow back."

"Yeah, in another seven months maybe!" Gwen shouted at him, her face less than an inch away from his. "Then it'll grow back, won't it? If I'm lucky, maybe!"

"Oh, come on, Gwen! It's not like you don't look pretty without it or something!"

"What?" the redhead replied sharply, blinking. "Did you just call me pretty?"

"No, no I didn't," Ben lied; his hands were still tightly clung onto his cousin's wrists.

"Yes, yes you did," Gwen whispered back, her chest heaving as she panted to catch her breath after her last screaming fest.

"So what if I did?" Ben said to her, letting go of her wrists at last. "So what if I called you-"

The rest of his thought caught off and kept from being spoken, the brunette young man suddenly found his lips caught up in a kiss along with Gwen's. His eyes wide open, he gradually began to return the kiss, however random and unexpected it was. Within another flash, Gwen had pulled away, and was running away from Ben, heading back toward their hut by the looks of it. Feeling too stunned to go after her, or even to say anything, Ben simply remained rooted to the spot. It was seven months to the day that evening that they'd gone off into the water - give or take - and they'd finally, just now, shared a second kiss.

Funny how they still hadn't spoken of it, though.