Chapter 7

Gwen sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, her back resting against a palm tree. The sun was barely rising out over the water, but she and Ben had been awake for over an hour. They'd been startled from their slumber by what sounded like helicopter blades. Frightended and confused, they'd made a mad dash from the hut, hiding amongst the trees until they could tell that the sound they'd heard was fading, going further away, rather than incoming. Only then did they return to their usual dwelling spot near the beach, tired-eyed, but wide-awake.

"Eight months now, give or take," Ben said, glancing over to his cousin as he dropped a large stone into the half-broken jar that had recently only contained seven of them. "And I guess the Forever Knights have been here twice in the past one month, at least. What are they coming here for? It's not like I have the Omnitrix on me or anything."

Staying silent and turning her head to the side, glancing away from Ben, Gwen bit down on her bottom lip, before tightening her arms around her bent knees. Resting her head atop them, she let out a sigh, before saying, "I guess it's only a matter of time before someone finds us out here anyway."

"Yeah, well, it's not like that'd be the worst thing, though I hope it's someone other than the Forever Knights that decides to find us."

Hesitating upon hearing his words, Gwen swallowed back a strange, surprise of a lump in her throat, before lifting her head and looking over to glare at Ben. Noticing her expression, the shaggy-haired teen blinked, before taking a few steps towards her, leaving the jar forgotten for now.

"What is it? What's wrong?" he asked her, frowning as she continued to glare at him, looking as hurt as if he'd just said something insulting to her.

"Nothing," she said quickly, sharply, before shaking her head and getting to her feet. "I'm just still tired, I guess;" It was evident that she was about to cry, though Ben went along with her insistance that nothing was really that matter. "I, uhm, I'm going to head back to the hut now and try to go back to sleep."

"Oh, okay then," Ben answered, watching with a frown still as Gwen turned and walked away from him, her arms wrapping around herself as she went.

"Oh, come on, you've been inside there all day long now!"

Poking his head into the hut sometime later on in the evening, Ben shook his head in the direction of his cousin, who sat at the far right side of the shelter, one knee bent upward, the other relaxed as she herself leant back against the side of the wall. "Are you ever planning to come out today?" he asked her.

"Why? Are you just dying for someone to spot us out here, or something?" Gwen returned snidely, before also returning Ben's disdainful look with her familiar glare from that same morning. "Maybe we should build a signal fire. Maybe we should make a swim back for another shore! Maybe… oh, nothing. Forget I said anything, Benjamin."

Raising his eyebrows, the young man directly disobeyed her words, instead coming on into the hut with her. Walking up to her, he remained stood nearby where she sat, and he towered over her as he looked down, his arms folding over his chest. "What's going on? The least you can do is tell me how and why I made you so mad at me."

Blowing outward from puckered lips, Gwen shook her head as she turned to look upward at Ben. "Look, I'm sorry," she said, her breathing uneven as she felt the strange lump return to her throat again. "I guess I was just sort of surprised to hear how, well, just how eager you were this morning to get us off this island."

"Huh?" Ben replied blankly, moving to sit down beside his cousin, confusion in his eyes as he placed a hand at the side of her face. "Don't you want to be rescued, too? Don't you want to go back to, well, being normal?" Unable to stand the tears that he now watched drop from his cousin's eyes, Ben leant his face inward, kissing them away, before placing a gentle kiss on her lips.

At first, Gwen returned the kiss, but she then broke it off, saying quietly to him, "If we go back to being normal… If we go back to our families and school life and everything, then we can't ever do this again. We can't ever be together, kissing, holding hands - none of that, can we?"

"Oh…" Ben said softly, withdrawing slightly from Gwen as he hung his head downward. "Well, not necessarily. We could just tell our family that-"

"Tell them what? That we're together now? That, yeah, we're cousins and all - we're family - but we kiss all the time, and maybe that's not right, but we wanna stay together here in Bellwood, too? Is that what we tell them?"

"Look, I don't know what we'd tell them, but I just…"

"You just what, Ben?"

"I always just figured we would get off of this island eventually, you know? And I don't think that leaving it means we have to not be together, either. You're just assuming that to be true, Gwen. Come on, do you really think we'd just stop being together, just because our family -or whoever else- didn't like it?"

Looking back at Ben with serious contemplation in her eyes, Gwen finally answered him in a somber voice, "Maybe. Yeah, maybe they would stop us."

Scowling at Gwen, Ben shook his head, before standing up and saying, "Well, fine then. If you'd break up with me that easily, then, then I don't even know what."

"That's not what I was saying, Ben!" Gwen cried back, before picking up a nearby stone and tossing it at him; it struck his chest, though it didn't really hurt. "Why do you have to be so stupid about everything?"

"Yeah, you want to stay stuck on this island, but I'm the stupid one."

"Oh, just go away from me! Leave me alone!"

"Why don't you leave me alone, Gwen? I mostly built this hut anyway."

Standing up at once, the redhead took another stone in her hand, before saying angrily, "Get out before I aim this next one at your teeth."

Making a growling sort of aggravated noise back at her, Ben did as was ordered nonetheless, and turned to stomp out of the hut, leaving his cousin to be alone. Marching over to the jar of larger stones, he picked it up, before tossing it against some nearby rocks. The shattering noise drew Gwen's attention, taking her from the hut, also.

"What was that sound?" she asked as she ducked her way out onto the sand.

"Why do you care what it was, Gwen?" Ben shouted back at her, still enraged by how impossible she could be at times.

"Because it sounded like something broke, that's why I care!"

"Something did break! I broke the stupid jar of stupid stones, because who cares how stupidly long we're stupid out here for anymore?"

"Okay, fine, see if I come to check on you anymore when I hear something! Go off and get yourself hurt, Benjamin! See if I care!"

"Who needs to go off to get injured? All I have to do is stay around you long enough and you'll throw fricking rocks at me!"

"Well, fine!" Gwen shouted, red in the face as she turned and marched right back into the hut.

"Fine!" Ben shouted back, more loudly as his even redder face scowled in the direction of the shelter; how dare she be so infuriating?

Kicking at the sand and stones along the way as he made his way down toward the beach water, Ben didn't turn to look back at the hut. He felt that if he saw Gwen's face again at that moment, he might become so angry with her that he'd lose what mind he had left altogether. So he didn't see her immediately coming out of the hut, bringing a hand to her eyes as the sun took to setting, keeping a watch on him near the water's edge. Even if he did know that she really meant well, he damn sure didn't feel like acknowledging it at the moment.

Not knowing - nor caring if she did know - what Ben did or didn't want to acknowledge, Gwen soon found herself walking down toward the sunset beach her own self. Chewing at the corner of her lip as she walked, she paused a few feet shy of her cousin. She noted to herself that it was amazing how much chillier the island air could turn in a matter of moments, now that the sun was almost completely gone from the sky. After another moment or so of just standing there, feeling unsure of whether or not Ben knew or cared that she'd come down to speak with him, she said, "I'm sorry I hit you with a rock."

When nothing but silence met this, she rolled her eyes, but ventured to speak to him again. "So… what did you do all day anyway, while I stayed inside the hut?"

At first it seemed like Ben was going to ignore this, too, but he eventually turned slightly to his side, somewhat facing her. "Well, the other day I noticed the Forever Knights heading across the island on some different path that I myself hadn't traveled before. So I went and traveled it."

"Oh," Gwen replied. "Well, did you discover anything interesting, or...?"

"Well, if you can call it interesting, I did notice that they have markers on certain trees. They might have missed their mark the first couple times they came here, but I'm pretty sure they'll be back again, as many times as it takes to get to whatever they're trying to find."

Closing her eyes and hanging her head, Gwen took a blind step forward, before reopening them and looking up at her cousin. "I know what they're coming for."

"You do?" Ben asked her at once, arching an eyebrow.

"At least, I'm pretty sure I do."

"Well, what is it, Gwen?" he asked her again, placing his hands at her shoulders. "What are they after?"

Sighing, the redhead closed her eyes again. She was about to divulge her secret about what was buried beneath the shallow part of the lagoon, and though she couldn't be sure of what exactly, or how, she felt that it was going to change everything for the both of them.