Chapter 10
Rubbing sticks together to make a small fire later on the evening that he came back to her, Ben would occasionally glance up and over to Gwen as he did so. She'd barely spoken two words that day, and this trance of sorts that she seemed to be in concerned him greatly.
Though he himself didn't want to believe it at first, Ben soon came to terms with the fact that the meeting with Paradox hadn't been a dream after all. Though he'd been away for what had felt like a mere hour, at the very most, he'd actually been away for an entire year, and the effects thereof were now quite obvious to him.
For starters, not only had Gwen grown taller, but he had, as well. His hair was much shaggier, too, and it now nearly reached his shoulders. Finally, his voice was a bit deeper, and it didn't really seem to crack much at all. He'd figured that much out while telling Gwen about his encounter with Paradox, a story that she'd listened to quietly, not saying much of anything in return. She seemed shaken, almost; fragile.
"So do you want me to cook us some fish for dinner?" Ben asked her, finally moving away from the fire to instead go sit beside her. "Come on, maybe if you eat something you'll feel better."
"Maybe," Gwen said quietly, folding her hands in her lap nervously.
Sighing, Ben placed a hand atop both of hers, before moving his face in closely to her own. "Tell me what's wrong, Gwen. You act like you're afraid of me or something."
"Maybe I am," she answered, a sad look in her eyes. "Maybe I am terrified that you'll disappear again, and leave me all alone for another year - maybe even longer."
"I already told you, Paradox plotted when and where to send me back to, to avoid the Forever Knights. I'm not going to just disappear again, Gwen."
"You don't get it!" Gwen exclaimed, her hands balling into fists. "To you, it felt like a little bit of time had passed. To me, it was a year. An entire year! At first, I thought you'd come right back, just as quickly as you'd disappeared. Then, after a few weeks, I thought maybe you'd made it back to Bellwood somehow, and that you were organizing a party to come back and get me. After a few months had passed… well, I thought you'd gone for good, back to Bellwood, just like you kept saying you wanted to be all that time…"
Leaning his face in more closely, until his forehead was pressed against hers, Ben took hold of Gwen's hands in both his own, before saying quietly, "I would never do that to you. And, I'm really sorry you ever thought I would have."
Feeling Ben squeeze her hands as he held them, Gwen sighed quietly, the tip of her nose just barely nuzzling against his as they kept their foreheads pressed together. "I'm sorry, too. I guess I should have known better, but after so long, I just couldn't come up with anything else that explained it. Oh, Ben, I'm just so glad you're back here with me."
"Me, too. I'm so sorry, again; I'll always be sorry that you were left alone for so long. I'll never do it to you again - not for the Omnitrix, not for the world."
Beginning to cry, Gwen turned her head slightly then, bringing her lips in to close against Ben's. Returning the kiss, the fifteen and a half year old boy let go of her hands, instead slipping his arms around her, holding onto her as they let their bodies simultaneously fall backwards onto the sand.
"Don't cry," Ben finally said to her, breaking the kiss as he kept her wrapped up in his arms. "You don't need to, not anymore." He then resumed the kiss, his hands moving to slide up and down the back of Gwen's makeshift top.
Moving her hands to run through his longer than normal hair, Gwen kissed Ben back again, their lips parting and moving back together again over and over. After a few moments of this, Ben broke away, before saying, "We'll find a way to destroy the Omnitrix. We'll do it tomorrow morning."
"Are you sure you want to do that?" Gwen whispered back, her eyes searching his. "I know you said that that Paradox guy told you that you should, but if we do, maybe we won't have any way to get back off this island. You do realize that, right?"
Ben, who didn't have it in his heart to tell Gwen about the alternate future Paradox had led him to, where he was as good as dead and where she herself was in danger of dying, too, simply gave a nod of his head. However important getting off the island had once been to him, it certainly wasn't worth jeopardizing Gwen. Echoing what he'd been told before, he said to her,
"Sometimes we really want things, sure. But, then again, sometimes some things are meant to be. It took me long enough, but I guess I get that now."
"You really mean that?" Gwen asked him, her gaze still penetrating his as he held her tightly against him.
Kissing Gwen once more, slowly, in earnest, Ben eventually pulled away, before planting an additional kiss on her forehead and saying, "Yeah, I do"
Smiling, Gwen closed her eyes and replied, "You're right, you know. It did take you long enough to figure this all out."
Sticking his tongue out at her in response, Ben placed a kiss on Gwen's nose, before kissing her hard on the mouth; breaking away, Gwen gave a small laugh.
"I thought you were gonna cook us something for dinner," she said, wrinkling her nose up at him as she grinned.
"I can think of better things to do than cooking," Ben answered her, before kissing her again, just as hard.
"I can, too, but I'm kinda hungry," Gwen mumbled, breaking away once more.
Sighing apathetically, Ben rolled away from her, onto his back. "Fine," he said, before turning to look at her, giving her a crooked grin. "I'll go catch us some dinner."
Sitting up on the sand and drawing her knees to her bosom as she watched her cousin walk away for the hut, where he kept a makeshit fishing pole, Gwen herself gave a crooked grin. She could feel a strange warmth encompassing her body, limb by limb. She was also quite sure that there must be a bit of a blush on her face. Whatever the cause was, Ben had everything to do with it - she was certain of that. Maybe it had to do with having not seen him for an entire year. Maybe she'd just missed his touch - his kiss - a little too much. Maybe it was just because they were fifteen now. Yes, she considered, maybe it had to do with how much he'd grown -or how much she'd grown- whatever the case, it caused her ears to buzz, her body to flush.
Her head spinning, blood rushing, Gwen felt that an all new sort of trouble was on the horizon for her. Then again, it was just a feeling she had.