Chapter 3: Reflection

"Oh my God, Ben, BEN? He's bleeding!"

Gwen couldn't hide the hysteria in her voice as she propped Ben's head up with her arm and knelt down next to him. Ben was lying on the floor howling and writhing in pain and clutching his left side as blood seeped out of his black shirt.

"Gwen, help me please" Ben whispered. The begging and desperation in her beloved cousin's voice made her want to cry.

"Quickly Gwen, tear a piece of his T-shirt off and tie it around his wound and press hard on it" said Kevin struggling to get Ben's signature green jacket off as Gwen scrambled to do what he said. "Now, keep lifting him up, I'll go get the car" he said running away, "Hurry!" she yelled after Kevin. "Ben?, Ben! can you hear me? Please stay awake, I'll get you some help, I promise, Ben"

He uttered something inaudible as he slowly drifted in and out of his sleep.

"I'm here Ben, stay with us" she said. Kevin pulled up to them and jumped out of the car and picked Ben up from the ground while Gwen opened the back seat door and Kevin placed the almost unconscious Ben into the car as they both jumped into the car again and Kevin raced away his mind still trying to sink in what had just happened as he pulled up to Prosperity Academic Hospital, with everything still a blur in his mind. When they got to the hospital Gwen jumped put of the car and summoned the nearest paramedic who deployed her team and got Ben on a stretcher and raced him through the somewhat unkempt hospital with Gwen and later Kevin running along with them."Will he be okay?" she asked frantically."I don't know ma'am but if you would please be patient, we'll keep you updated when we can". Gwen stopped where she was and watched them race away with her unconscious cousin...

After a few hours, Gwen was sitting in the waiting room of the hospital in Prosperity City when Kevin, who had just talked to the doctor, came to sit next to her. Gwen was looking down covering her face with her hands and her curtain of hair while Kevin sat down and looked at her helplessly. She was visibly shaken up by the experience, they both were. He didn't know what to do, should he talk to her or leave her to calm down. He finally garnered enough courage to place his hand on her back and stroke her. "The doctor said he'll be fine, he's in surgery now to remove the bullet from his diaphragm, but he has lost some blood". It was a while before she said anything...

"I don't know what to say to you Kevin" she said softly unable to keep tears from falling down her face still looking at the ground. Silence lingered in the air again before Kevin finally replied "Gwen, I—"

"Why didn't you tell me that you were in a gang?" interrupted Gwen with her tear-stained face.

"I didn't feel like I had to, I wanted to leave that life behind and start over, and I was afraid that you wouldn't trust me". He said softly.

"But Kevin you know I wouldn't do that, Ben and I gave you another chance because we knew that you wanted to change by your own will and not because someone told you to do so, you're the one who didn't trust us and now look! My cousin is lying in a dingy hospital in some rotten city!" she said raising her voice which attracted some onlookers around the waiting room.

'I'm sorry Gwen" he whispered finally. The guilt he felt was eating away at his insides, and so was the sight of her anguish.

"That won't change anything now, I still have to explain to Ben's parents why he won't be home tonight, and we still have to inform the plumbers about all of this that happened here today".

He sighed heavily "That's another thing… I don't think we should tell the plumbers about this"

"What? why not? We have to! how can you even ask that".

"Gwen, you don't understand how lucky we were to have escaped almost unscathed"

"Except for Ben!"

"It could have gone a lot worse, believe me these guys don't usually leave plumbers alive if they found them interfering in their business, and calling more police will only make the situation even worse, we can't tell the plumbers about this just yet".

"Don't you remember that one of them said that they'll be back (she didn't dare mention the woman's name) Which means that they'll be back for us and telling the plumbers will guarantee that we'll get them for good and we'll be prepared"?

"No, Gwen please listen to me", he said gripping her shoulders and turning her body towards him in her chair. "we are going to get into even more trouble if we tell the plumbers now, this gang goes further than just the guys we saw today, there are dangerous people in higher places controlling them, people who are not afraid of law enforcement. This is bigger than us"

"Please, you're just trying to cover your own skin from being in trouble with the plumbers"

"See! This is exactly why I didn't tell you and Ben that I was once in a gang, you'd treat me like I'm still a bad guy and a criminal, and no matter how much I proved that I'm not like that anymore, you'd still see me as someone you need to keep an eye on!, you don't know how much that hurts me!" he said also raising his voice now.

She looked up at him directly in his dark eyes, breathing deeply and shaking her head. "Is that really why you hid this from me? Because you thought that I would always see you and treat you as a criminal? Then you really don't know me at all do you? Is it fair for you to judge me and me not to judge you?"

He looked away from her defeated before saying "You once told me that you trusted me, and that you would try understanding what I've been through, and I'd like to think that you were being honest with me" he said softly.

"I do trust you" she said quickly and unconvincingly which didn't go unnoticed by Kevin

"Then please trust me now with what I'm saying" he said hurt.

She thought about his for a while before she said "...I can't promise anything, but I won't tell the plumbers, for now, we just need to figure out what to do"

"Okay here's what were gonna do then, we'll go back to Bellwood and I'll have Ben transferred to a hospital there tomorrow under a pseudonym so the universe doesn't find out what happened to the famous Ben Ten, then when Ben wakes up we can decide on what to do then okay?"

She nodded still not looking at him, he said "C'mon I need to take you home; you have school in the morning. Gwen sighed; school was the last thing she needed at this time.

As the two of them drove away from the hospital with the sky darkening,with a million thoughts going through their minds, and after Gwen phoned Ben's parents lying to them that they would all be spending the night at Grandpa Max's R.V, they sat in awkward silence for the rest of the three hours to Bellwood.

GWEN'S HOUSE

When they got to Gwen's house, she got out of the car and Kevin walked her to the front door. They stopped at the door before Gwen turned around and looked at Kevin.

"Kevin, I need to know something... that woman, we saw earlier today...who was she?" Kevin knew this question was inevitable.

"She's Revenna, also one of the top ranking members of The Futha gang because of her knowledge of alien tech... Is this because of what she said earlier?" Gwen didn't respond.

"I didn't have sex with her like she said Gwen, she was lying".

"But you did date her before you knew me; I mean who better than you to have taught her about alien tech". It was Kevin's turn to remain silent.

She took that as confirmation of what she just said. She turned around to go inside but Kevin held her arm and turned her around again, he held her chin and drew her face in for a kiss but before their lips met, Gwen turned her head to the side, dodging his kiss. This left him stung. "I'll see you tomorrow and I'll help you revise for the G.E.D, when you need me" she whispered going in, leaving him alone and dejected in the dim porch light. The guilt... threatened to destroy him... he hadn't felt like this since he ran away from home all those years ago... leaving his mother heartbroken... For the first time in so long he had a thirst for the bottle again...

KEVIN'S HOUSE

When Kevin returned home a little more exhausted than usual, he noticed the quiet house immediately. "Mom, mom?" He went to check upstairs in his room, her room the living room but it was empty. A frightening thought made its way into his head "No way, they wouldn't dare do anything to her would they?" "Mom?" he said a little more desperately searching the living room mindlessly until he heard a car engine outside. He quickly ran outside only to see his mother stepping out of her car carrying files in her hand and a laptop bag on her shoulder.

"Hi honey, sorry I'm so late, I had to fetch some files for work tomorrow from a colleague and we got carried away talking! I tried to call you to explain but—

"Kevin interrupted her by running up to his mother and giving her a hug and almost knocking her off-balance. "Oh my goodness Kevin, what's this all about?" she said amused by his childish antics.

"I'm just glad to see you, especially after the kind of day I just had".

"That's funny the last time you ran outside to greet me after work was when you were four years old" she said embracing him also. Kevin looked into the forgiving eyes of his beloved mother, the most important person to him in the universe and the warmness they had, it melted his heart. "Here ma, let me help you with those" he said taking her laptop bag and files.

"Thank you dear, you're very helpful". "So how was your day today honey?,I figured you were pretty busy because you didn't answer your phone and I called you several times. Did you have any plumber business?".

"Erm… no we were just patrolling, it was a slow crime day". Kevin hated lying to his mother especially because they had both agreed not to keep secrets from each other since her divorce with Harvey Hackett but he knew what telling the truth would do to her emotionally and all he wanted was for her to be happy, she deserved that much.

"So why didn't you answer your phone?"

" I don't know,I must have been busy with Gwen at that time". Mrs Levin misinterpreted what he'd said and smiled dryly.

"Well Kevin I can't force you to abstain but at least I can hope that you too are being safe".

'Oh my God mom, that's not what I meant!"

"Anyway" he said changing the awkward topic, "I was wondering whether you would consider taking leave off work for a while"

"What, why?"

("Because I fear for your safety when you're away from me") he said in his head. "Because I think, erm… that you've been working really hard lately and you need a break".

She walked up to him and Kissed his forehead affectionately, "That's very sweet dear but you know that I can't take leave from work now, I can't afford to be behind on my payments again and what kind of mother would I be if I was always depending on my teenage son to cover the bills for me every couple of months" she said softly and stroking his black hair.

Her words weighed heavily on his heart. He felt even more pressure now to be there for her as they had gone through so much together, from his father passing, to her remarrying which caused many problems, then having her only child run away at eleven years old only join a gang and land up in the Null Void prison, then the divorce of Mr Hackett, and now financial problems… he remembered what Max Tennyson once said to him on a camping trip years back... "You're the man of the house now, so step up and take responsibility". And now with 'The Futhas' back in his life, things had just become more difficult.

"I can't go back to my old ways, she really does work so hard for me to see me succeed in life and not be the problem child I once was". He said in his head.

"Are you hungry? I can fix you something now if you want"

"No, I'll just go to bed, long day being a plumber... patrolling the universe".

She sighed. "What's a matter?" Kevin asked

"Nothing… you just remind me of your father when he would come home after a long tiring day as a plumber, I swear you're starting to look just like him every day". He felt a lump swell up in his throat; she had never said that to him before.

"Goodnight mom" he said before emotions could engulf him.

"Kevin wait, what's that on your shirt?" she said pointing to a dark fresh stain on his shirt. His heart skipped a beat when he realised that it was Ben's blood that must have rubbed off onto the bottom of his shirt when he lifted him into the car.

"It's a bloodstain! What happened?" she asked worried.

"Oh that must have been from some other time".

"But I washed that shirt before you left this morning."

"Don't worry about it mom, it's just a small injury I have".

"Let me see the wound" she said already lifting his shirt.

"No! Just… don't worry about it, I'll take care of it" he said. "Goodnight" he said leaving his mother staring after him, concerned. He hated doing that to her but he had no choice, he couldn't let her know about his old gang, it would break her heart again. He finally went to bed unable to sleep with echoes of the day still haunting him... Meanwhile...