A/N: A huge thank you to all of the wonderful reviewers! You guys are awesome.

And a big thank you to Greg for beta-ing.

Read.

XIX.

In the coal black night, when Ben slipped out for his hunt, he was surprised to find Rick standing on the fringe of the 2nd Mass's camp perimeter, staring blankly out at the horizon, as though fixated on something in the distance.

Rick was the other 'razorback' of the 2nd Mass, the only other one of the unharnessed children that retained his spikes and developed abilities akin to Ben's own. He didn't use his Skitter-gifted powers to help fight like Ben, however; in fact, he rarely left the center of camp. Usually, he could be found sitting in a common area outside, watching birds fly overhead or land nearby and peck at the ground for miniscule morsels of foodstuff, looking akin to a retired old man. Which in a way suited him, he'd been through more than most went through in a lifetime at such a young age. He'd been the first of the children 'saved', his father having snatched him up on an emotionally motivated impulse, ruining the first planned rescue of Ben.

Rick initially held onto a perverse attachment for his Skitter masters, and even once attempted returning the harness to his backside. He witnessed his father's death, not long after Ben's own subsequent rescue, at the hands of traitorous humans, which seemed to push him even more towards favoring the Skitters, some of the comments he'd made to Ben still sent shivers along Ben's spine, and then suddenly, Rick didn't want anything to do with the Skitters anymore. He became a defeated man, robbed of hope and purpose.

Ben spoke with Rick on occasion. He felt an obligation, his life entwined with Rick's like fellow former prisoners of war, and he felt a sense of guilt, as the only one aside from himself that showed Rick any concern was Dr. Glass and hers was merely an ethical interest as his doctor.

Unfortunately, Ben didn't enjoy their conversations, as if a reminder of what he could have been perhaps if he'd worn the harness a month or so longer. Regardless, he reached out, though significantly less often since starting his relationship with Jimmy, he sat with Rick sometimes and asked questions, typically receiving only one worded responses, or even none at all. It was the rare days, however, that Ben truly dreaded, when Rick was seemingly more lucid and became an active participant in the conversation, because he only spoke on one topic: the harness.

Rick didn't see the evil of the harness; he only saw its possibilities. He saw what it had given him, health. Rick had been ill before, with a disease that caused muscle degeneration but he was cured by the harness. Ben could certainly understand, he'd suffered from acute asthma before, and now he could perform physical activities, like running great lengths, that long ago he never would have dreamed possible. Rick talked about his belief that the harness could be used for the resistance's benefit, that they could create an army of super soldiers to rival the alien forces. Whenever Ben asked about the other effects of the harness, mainly the mind-control and the neurological rewiring that altered the harness's host on a psychological level, Rick remained disturbingly placid.

Needless to say, given their prospective conversation topics, Ben wasn't in the mood to deal with Rick that night, not after his argument with Jimmy hours earlier. It didn't make sense to Ben how things could go so quickly from perfect bliss to utter disaster in a matter of seconds, and all because Jimmy had to be a complete and total stubborn ass.

I should trust you because…?

Ben winced as the words echoed in his heart. They still stung with all their implications beginning and ending with the only answer he could have provided Jimmy at that moment: You probably shouldn't.

Would you ever lie to me?

That one was less of a sting and more a no-holds-barred punch in the gut. It wasn't a real question, Ben had known as soon as Jimmy spat it out. Real questions weren't asked by people who already knew their answers.

Hours had passed since Jimmy had left Ben with the sweet parting words, 'go to hell', nonetheless, their fight still ran hot through Ben's veins, and there stood Rick, suspiciously out of place on the edge of camp. As if the day hadn't pummeled Ben enough.

Warily, Ben moved towards the other boy, darting furtive glances to that spot on the horizon where Rick stared so intently. It took him several seconds, but eventually he realized Rick was looking in the same direction where he had seen that explosion of white light several nights back.

"You saw it too," Ben accused, "The other night, you saw it…"

"No," Rick replied, not bothering to tear his eyes from that horizon to so much as glance at Ben, and notably ignoring the glaring question as to what it was Ben was claiming him to have seen, "But I felt it. I still feel it. You feel it too."

Ben pursed his lips and furrowed his brow, turning to gaze out the same direction as Rick. He closed his eyes, concentrated, explored, prodded, and sought. There was the crackle, like lightening, incessant, ever present. He'd pushed it to the back of his mind, muffled it with an onslaught of thoughts and emotions, wrestled it down by giving into it moments at a time and embracing his less-than-human side until it subsided in its persistent demand for attention, but it was there still, buzzing loud and clear.

"What is it?" Ben wondered, then narrowed his eyes on Rick and demanded haughtily, "Do you know?"

"No," Rick answered certain and without hesitance, "It's calling to us."

A lithe blonde flickered through Ben's mind, he imagined for a moment her words a soft hiss against his ear, and flinched, shook his head furiously. His heart was hammering away in his chest.

"Have you been having weird dreams?" Ben questioned, his voice wavering slightly, revealing his fears.

"Weird?" Rick returned, quirking his brow, "Weird how?"

Ben shrugged, "Just anything?"

"I haven't dreamed since the harness was removed," Rick stated unabashedly, then remarked, "Same as you."

"I've had dreams," Ben snapped, folding his arms over his chest and drawing in a sharp breath, letting it out slow. He couldn't recall any of those dreams off the top of his head, but he was sure he'd had them. He wasn't like Rick; the harness hadn't affected his mental state so profoundly, he was certain of it. Despite the spikes and the super-abilities, he was still more human than alien.

Rick remained stoic, ignoring Ben's huffy comment and keeping his eyes set on the horizon. Ben studied Rick a moment, adrenaline pulsing, blistering, through his veins, begging to be used and there was a sound like the roaring ocean in his ears. He took a deep breath and sorted out the thoughts in his head, before folding his arms over his chest and clearing his throat.

"Have you…um…been having blackouts?" Ben asked. The question tasted like dread on his tongue.

"They aren't blackouts," Rick returned. He finally tilted his head to look at Ben and remarked, "You know what they are."

Ben bit back the vapid response to that smug assertion. He had been losing more and more chunks of time; on the roof during surveillance, out hunting Skitters, earlier that day in bed with Jimmy, and 'blackouts' seemed the best explanation. He couldn't fathom any other reason for it, and here Rick was, not only confessing that he knew what they were, but that Ben himself should know.

"All I know is that I can't account for periods in my day, and that I keep having visions of some girl," Ben seethed. Rick's expression shifted interestedly, almost bemused, then fixed back into a mask of apathy.

"We all experience it differently," Rick noted.

"It?" Ben pressed, "What is it?"

"The harness," Rick remarked. Ben felt as though knocked back by a sudden and powerful force, his lungs emptied, his heart faltered, his entire body felt wiped of all strength.

"We aren't harnessed anymore," he spat out, "Why is that always the topic with you? Why can't you just forget about that fucking thing? It's not on us, it has nothing to do with us-"

"It's left behind its mark on us," Rick cut in, fixing his gaze once more to the horizon, "They severed our connection to the harness, true, but you can't deny that a part of it still remains in us. Isn't that why you were leaving camp? Because of that part…that part of you that's still connected."

"Shut up," Ben whispered.

"You've been leaving every night because of it. You know it's true," Rick insisted.

Ben hand shot forward almost subconsciously, grabbing hold of Rick's collar and ripping him forward, so that their eyes were locked.

"I said shut up," Ben hissed.

Rick didn't so much as flinch, remarking dispassionately, "You can deny a lot of things, Ben, but it's kind of difficult to deny that you're not still in-part connected to the harness, when the evidence on your back suggests otherwise. You complicate it too much. You deny it when the 2nd Mass hates you for it, but you embrace it when they need it? It's changed you. It's still changing you. I know, because it's still changing me too. You can't lie to me, we're the same you and I, remember that."

"We're not the same," Ben murmured petulantly. As soon as that thing was cut from his back, he never wanted it reattached. There was never a time when he longed to be reunited with the aliens. There was never a moment when he would have betrayed humanity to be accepted into the alien community. He was fundamentally different from Rick and Rick needed to remember that.

"What does she say?" Rick asked. Ben grimaced, glared at him.

"What does who say?"

"The girl; in your visions. She says things to you. What does she say?" Rick persisted.

Ben didn't like the self-assurance in Rick's words, despite the fact that Rick was right, the girl did say things and though Ben couldn't remember what those things were, he knew they disturbed him deeply.

"I don't know," Ben muttered, "Why do you care?"

"It's the important part of the visions," Rick stated, as though it should be obvious, "It's the message."

"The message…?"

Ben wrinkled his brow; his heart started hammering away as thoughts tumbled rampantly through his mind. He thought back to that Skitter watching him in the distance the other day near that strange alien structure. It could have attacked him at any time while he was lost in his vision, but instead, it turned and left him. It hadn't occurred to him that, perhaps, the vision had been instigated by the Skitter, or at the very least, that the Skitter knew what was happening to him.

Ben released Rick, the other boy returning his gaze to the horizon. Watching Rick's eyes, scouring the distance as though the answers to life lie just beyond the dark glow of twilight, a thought occurred to Ben.

"What message do you get?"

Rick grimaced, lowered his eyes. It was the first 'human' reaction from him that night, the first that Ben had witnessed from him in a long time.

"Join us," Rick murmured answer, "She says join us."

Ben drew his breath in deep and let it out slow. His mind swarmed with disjointed images, fragments of sentences just beyond his reach of comprehension. He remembered blonde, an innocent smile on soft pink lips, and a sinister intent behind gray-green eyes.

"Who is she?" Ben asked, though even as he spoke the words aloud he knew he didn't really want the answer.

"My mother," Rick whispered and Ben startled, looking at the other boy in confusion. Rick quirked a brow at Ben and snorted softly, "I told you, we all experience it differently. I don't know who the girl is in your visions, Ben, but she must have been someone you knew or there wouldn't be a reason for them to send her to you."

"Them?" Ben repeated dumbly.

Rick folded his arms over his chest.

"Obviously someone is sending these messages," he clarified.

"Where do you think they're coming from?" Ben wondered.

Rick gestured with a jut of his chin towards the horizon, the direction where that light had exploded far in the distance.

"It started the same night that started," Rick said, "They're connected. It's been calling to us, maybe it's also sending the messages."

"Or maybe the messages are from something else trying to keep us from going towards the light," Ben suggested, he shook his head and questioned, "What are you going to do?"

"Do?" Rick pressed.

"Well…yeah. That thing is calling us out," Ben elucidated, "And the visions definitely want us to do something…"

"I plan to ignore the visions and stay as far away from that thing out there as possible," Rick answered sharply, then giving Ben a meaningful look added, "I suggest you do the same."

Ben dropped his eyes to scan the pavement, swaddled in darkness. He couldn't say he liked the idea of something out there in the distance calling to him and not being able to respond, to face it head on, or silence it altogether. The visions were more perturbing, however. He didn't know what brought them on, they started and ended whenever they pleased, and it seemed he had no way to keep them from taking him over.

At a movement from Rick, Ben lifted his eyes; the other boy had spun round and was heading back towards camp.

"It's a bad night to go hunting," Rick commented over his shoulder.

Ben let his eyes linger on the horizon a moment, considering Rick's words, before ducking his head down and stalking forward into the night.

It was a shorter jog than Ben expected before he found Skitters. There were three in total, clustered too close together for him to take them one at a time, in a business plaza a few miles from camp. Ben hadn't brought a rifle with him, only the knife strapped to his thigh, which he unsheathed.

Though reason told Ben he should walk away, that the risk was too high, his earlier fight with Jimmy remained vivid at the forefront of his mind kicking adrenaline hot through his veins, and then his conversation with Rick ran ice up his spine. He needed these kills; his body was begging him for it. So he strode forward, openly approaching those creatures that would undoubtedly haunt his nightmares if he still had any, with only a knife and the abilities those self-same creatures were responsible for giving him.

"Can anyone tell me, what is meant by the term 'subjugation'?" Mr. Grayling asked at the front of the class, his thick black hair shimmered unnaturally in the fluorescent light, heavily greased, his dry lips were cracking and he nibbled them every so often. He eyed all of his students behind tortoise-shell rimmed glasses, a plastic wire stringing from their arms back across his sunburned neck.

Ben darted a glance around the room. A couple hands were held high in the air, Arnie's amongst them. The room was dingy, the white walls stained with yellow, and plastered with outdated posters from the early eighties and beyond, purporting that the, "Past is Groovy", amongst other things. The threadbare red and black carpet stunk of mildew; the desks were rickety and marked up with ancient scrawls: curse words, pornographic cartoons, initials in heart-shapes like the 'J.B.' on the top right corner of his own desk, and various other remnants of students that once roamed the school halls.

"Arnold, why don't you give it a shot," Mr. Grayling bellowed. The hands went down and Arnie eagerly spoke up with answer.

"Subjugation is when the enemy is completely and unequivocally defeated."

"Very good, Arnold. Subjugation is to be defeated," Mr. Grayling boomed, "In war, when the enemy surrenders or is annihilated, we can say that it has been subjugated."

"Wait, wait, that's not really true," Ben interrupted, "That's not an accurate definition at all."

A hush fell over the room, all eyes turning to Ben, nestled in the corner beside a bookshelf lined with texts titled, "The Invasion: An Intergalactic History".

"Well then, please, Benjamin, enlighten us," Mr. Grayling replied, his tone light and airy, somewhat patronizing.

Mr. Grayling had been Ben's favorite teacher, and Ben his undisputed 'teacher's pet', until they disagreed about the factors that played into the Confederate Army's defeat during the Civil War, Ben citing his father 'the university war history professor' to back his argument. Ultimately, in front of the entire class, Mr. Grayling had pulled up a series of scholarly articles online in attempt to prove Ben wrong, but only managed to garner greater support for Ben's claims. Instead of admitting he was wrong Mr. Grayling stuck Ben in the most unsavory desk in class and treated everything he said as though coming from a pampered child.

"To be defeated is to be defeated," Ben started carefully.

"Well articulated," Mr. Grayling jeered sardonic, and the rest of class burst into laughter as Ben flustered mildly, seeking to regain control of his emotions.

"By defining subjugation simply as 'defeat', you're ignoring all the other implications behind the word," Ben seethed.

"What exactly are you suggesting, Benjamin?" Mr. Grayling prodded, folding his arms over his chest and leaning back against his large desk at the front of the room.

"Defeat is final. There's no coming back from it. I'm done, dead, game over," Ben explained, his tone quivering with a subtle hint of anger, "Defeated. Subjugation, on the other hand, is a kind of forced surrender, I'm pushed down so far I might seem defeated but although I can't fight back yet, that doesn't mean I won't as soon as the opportunity presents itself. I may be subjugated for the moment, but it's only temporary."

"What if the subjugation expands so far that it suppresses even your will to fight back, Benjamin, is it defeat then?" Mr. Grayling posed and then wondered, "And what if the defeat is only in your mind, is that not subjugation?"

"No, that…" Ben faltered, shook his head and glared at the floor, "What does any of this have to do with history?"

"Well, I would think that was obvious," Mr. Grayling answered easily, "It's your history, Benjamin."

But on his final words, the bell rang overhead dismissing class and everyone stood, gathering their belongings and rushing from the room. Ben gathered up his own books and bag and stumbled to depart with the crowd, keeping his head down to avoid Mr. Grayling's notice, as the words echoed in his mind: 'subjugate' and 'defeat'. Were they interchangeable? Were they fundamentally separate of one another? Did it really matter? Could you tell the difference if you were either one or the other?

Ben exited the classroom and the door shut heavily behind him. Through the flood of students he caught a flash of blue, the figure of a familiar, yet at the same time completely unfamiliar, boy slipping into a classroom and his breath hitched. His feet moved without his permission as his books fell haphazardly to the floor. He pushed his way through disgruntled peers.

For a moment, the world grew dark and blurred around the edges; Ben could hear a screeching sound as if a siren, it cut through his mind like a serrated knife. Suddenly he was aware of a cold dampness on his forehead, slithering down his face, and images flickered before his eyes, too fast to be made sense of, as if a glitch in reality, and then there came a blinding light. He grasped the classroom door handle, twisted, shoved, and stumbled through.

Ben stood in the family room at home. Matt was watching television, laughing at the comical genius of cartoon marine life.

"Ben? Get in here, hon, it's your turn to clean the dishes tonight," Ben's mother called from the kitchen.

Ben glanced around the living room confusedly. His brow furrowed, he looked over his shoulder but there was no door there, only the open corridor leading back to his and Matt's shared bedroom. He was dressed in his pajamas, sweatpants and a t-shirt, fuzzy slippers. He was certain he wasn't standing there a moment ago, but he couldn't quite recall where he had been. He trudged into the kitchen, his mother and father were sitting at the table holding hands and talking in low, hushed voices. Ben made his way to the sink, piled high with the dinner dishes; they'd eaten baked chicken and scalloped potatoes.

"How was school today, son?" his father asked. He'd been at lectures until late into the evening, getting home just in time for supper, and then spent the meal discussing Hal's upcoming lacrosse match, and date that past weekend with some girl named Betsy or Beverly or Beatrice something. It seemed he finally had the opportunity to give his middle son attention.

"Fine," Ben murmured. He started the faucet, warming the water, as he poured soap over the pots and pans. He couldn't recall school that day. He couldn't recall what day it was, had he even gone to school?

"Did you look into the scholarships for space camp?" his father questioned.

"Um…no, I didn't…I uh…I forgot," Ben quietly answered, scrubbing at a piece of crispy fat stuck fast to the bottom of the baking pan.

"Son," his father started in a disappointed tone, "You know deadlines are fast approaching. You've been talking about wanting to do this for the past two summers, we finally have a bit of money set aside but we can't afford the whole cost, you know that."

"Yeah, well, it's just that…I was thinking…maybe…I don't know…I could play on the summer intramural lacrosse team this year…maybe," Ben stammered suggestion, keeping his eyes fixed on the pans.

He could hear his parents both draw their breath in sharply at the same time.

"Sweetheart, you know that you can't," his mother started gently, "Your asthma…"

"I just thought that maybe, this year, I can," Ben attempted, pausing on the dishes, his hands trembling. He swallowed back the swell of emotion in his chest, "People grow out of those sorts of things, I mean, my allergies weren't that bad this year, and Dr. Kim said she thought I was growing out of those, maybe it's the same with my asthma. We won't know unless I try…"

"I said no, Ben," his mother interrupted sharply, "And that's final."

"You're never going to be able to do those kinds of things; you know you aren't capable of it," his father spoke up. Ben shook his head furiously at the words.

"Then what am I capable of?" Ben demanded, spinning round abruptly and losing his hold on the baking pan in the process. It slipped to the floor and shattered into millions of little, glistening, soapy pieces, "Oh shit, I'm sorry…"

"Some people were born for greatness, son, and others…"

Ben wasn't in the kitchen anymore, now standing in the middle of a far-stretching field of yellow and red flowers that resembled small beetles, they had thorns that caught in Ben's clothing, and bit into his skin, scratching deeply through his flesh and drawing blood. In the distance stood the girl with blonde hair, her expression imploring, an ache spread through Ben's chest.

"Are you still fighting, Ben?" she asked, her voice carrying across the field like a rippling wind, "Or are you ready to admit defeat, and accept what you were born to be?"

Three dead Skitters sprawled along the ground at Ben's feet, mangled and dismembered. He held his knife still at the ready, as though awaiting another opponent, blood and ichor stained from the tip of the blade up to his elbow. There was a gash across his chest, a strange soreness in his back under his shoulder blades, a stinging on his cheek.

Ben blinked away the faded after image of an alien flower field, refocusing on his surroundings. The adrenaline had stopped pulsating through his bloodstream, his rapid breathing, more a reaction to the energy rush than a desperate bid for air, was returning to a calm and steady gait. He closed his eyes a moment, reopened them and with a trembling hand wiped the blade of his knife clean on his pant leg and sheathed it.

What had transpired moments ago, how exactly the Skitters had met their fate, Ben wasn't certain. It must have been by his hand, the evidence was literally all over him. He checked the watch on his wrist and grimaced, a sickening shudder rolling through him and turning his stomach. Roughly fifteen minutes had passed and he couldn't recall a single second of them.

Taking a deep breath, Ben headed back the direction of camp.

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A/N: Right. Who can tell me what word we talked a lot about in my women's studies class the day I wrote this? And lookee! Rick makes his debut. I've kind of decided he's going to have a big role in this story - it would be remiss if he didn't, because a lot of this story focuses on the unharnessed children and he is the original unharnessed child. His role will grow bigger more so towards the middle and end of the story though, so you won't see much of him in these beginning chapters...maybe around chapter forty or fifty...we'll see.

Anyhow, tell me what you think please!

Reviewers: I love that almost everyone felt compelled to pick a side after Ben and Jimmy's fight, but I think I loved more that not every one chose the same side. Cookie97, yes, they had met before the attack, so we all know they would have met and fallen in love if the aliens never invaded, but unfortunately, Jimmy doesn't remember :( . WhisperMaw, lol, I like your alternate reality Ben and Jimmy story. Truthfully, I can imagine it being something along those lines too, but Ben was telling the story so he got to make all the moves. One day someone should write an AU Ben/Jimmy "if the aliens never invaded" fic. That'd be awesome. Always glad when you have a chance to stop in! Facepalmer123, I'm glad to hear it! JDMlvr1, yes, Thursday it is! Hehe, I'm glad the chapter caught you by surprise. Haley, I love your description of how Ben is with Jimmy. Jimmy can be the same, he just has so much baggage. SassySavanna190, hehe, I do love cliff hangers. I don't think I write enough of them. I'm glad you liked it...and yes, I guess arguing is what makes them them. Glad I made you laugh too! CheckyourMetrics, wow, that's a lot of paragraphs to favorite! Now that you mention it, Ben was pretty smooth, I think he may have learned a thing or two from his playa brother Hal, or maybe his Casanova daddy Tom - bagging the doc less than a year after they lost their significant others? He's a fast operator. Glad you liked it, thanks for the kind words! IcicleLilly, yeah...I don't believe in straight fluff. Lol, you sound so begrudged at having to choose Jimmy's side! I'm glad you still liked the chapter overall!

Thank you again to all the reviewers! I need to go get some coffee. See you all...Sunday? Yes, Sunday. Oh...when the hell are finals over?