A/N: It's 5:30 in the morning and I am dead tired, have to run to class in a little bit...ugh...so forgive me if I sound a bit out of it.

Thank you to the reviewers for being your ever awesome selves!

And thank you to Greg for being the beta-max...

Read.

XXXI.

Ben furrowed his brow, confused, and followed Jimmy's dangerous glare. His eyes were fixed on the stack of books, three in total that Ben had managed through the sudden shit-storm to bring with him from their shopping trip. Jimmy tugged away and crossed the room, knocking the stack over and plucking up the book on the bottom. He crossed back to Ben and shoved it against Ben's chest.

"What the hell is that?" Jimmy seethed.

Ben frowned, turning the book over in his hands to get a look at the cover.

"Oh," he said, finally processing what he held. He smiled cheekily at the other boy, "It's a book. I know you haven't seen many in your life, you've read even less…"

"Fuck you. Why is it here?" Jimmy interjected hotly.

"I'm still not wearing a shirt…so I should be safe," Ben murmured humorously, before proclaiming, "I thought it would be a good, educational read."

"You are a pervert," Jimmy accused.

"I'm not a pervert," Ben protested. He shook his head and grumbled, "Jeez, Jimmy, it's not porn, it's an instruction book. On. Um. Sex. Between men. We're men, sort of. So I kind of thought that…it might…possibly…be relevant. To our situation."

Jimmy scowled, folded his arms over his chest.

Ben rolled his eyes, "Don't act like you're not interested."

Jimmy loosened slightly. His expression remained the same, though he dropped his gaze a bit. Ben had to fight the urge to smile. Jimmy was really going to just keep pretending he hadn't been thumbing through that book in the bookstore in those few minutes before Ben had found him. Ben sighed, as though exasperated.

"Come on, Jimmy, you can't possibly want to just keep doing what we're doing forever," Ben persisted.

"I thought you liked what we did," Jimmy complained.

"I do," Ben hastily insisted, "I really do. And that's why, you know, I kind of want to, eventually, start doing more."

Jimmy didn't look entirely convinced.

"Seriously, you cannot honestly tell me you're satisfied with where we are and you don't ever want to do anything else," Ben pressed.

"Well…I just…" Jimmy shrugged, and pouted somewhat subconsciously, "I like where we're at. I know what to do and I know what's going to happen and…and I don't need to read a fucking book to know how to do it."

"So what you're saying is that you're comfortable with where we're at."

"I guess."

"But I didn't hear 'satisfied'."

Jimmy took a deep breath and glared petulantly at Ben. Ben smiled winningly in return.

"Come on, Jimmy. We're stuck, and it's not like we can ask someone, or look on the internet," Ben pleaded, waving the book in the air, "You know, we've pretty much got the first three chapters down…but there are like eight more chapters in this thing."

Jimmy sighed, shook his head and slumped slightly. He took a deep breath and looked up at Ben warily.

"You have to ask me before you try anything in that book," Jimmy growled.

"Cool," Ben grinned, bounding over beside Jimmy and flipping through the book to a page he'd dog-eared in the bookstore, pushing it under the other boy's nose, "I want to try this."

Jimmy took the book and Ben watched anxiously as he read the passages. Slowly Jimmy's features shifted from confused, to bashful, to somewhat disgusted, to concerned, and finally, an indiscernible expression, almost his entire face a noticeable shade of red. He closed the book and then used it to whack Ben across the shoulder.

"What?" Ben cried in modest surprise, "I thought it sounded…I don't know…fun and it seemed tame enough…"

"And exactly whose fingers were you thinking would be doing this?" Jimmy demanded, thrusting the book back at Ben. Ben shrugged sheepishly.

"I don't know…" he mumbled, "Maybe we could both try…"

"No," Jimmy snapped, flushed and shaking his head emphatically, "Not happening. No. No, no, no."

"So that's a maybe," Ben teased.

"That's an 'if I had a gun, I'd shoot you right now'," Jimmy said.

"So that's a definitely, then," Ben smirked, dragging Jimmy into a kiss.

"What happened to you wanting to break up?" Jimmy wondered, his tone light.

"Well, you said 'no', remember," Ben replied, joking, "And, you know, I can't make you do anything you don't want to do."

Jimmy scowled, and then relented, "Okay…maybe…we'll talk about it again later."

Ben smiled, pressing his mouth to Jimmy's, diving his tongue in for a swift taste. He wondered briefly why it couldn't always be this way between them. When they were alone, just the two of them, everything felt so natural and easy. It felt like the beginning, when it was just walking around, talking about nothing on nightly patrols and learning how to kiss each other in an old abandoned ranger station. Somewhere along the way it all got so complicated. Everyone and everything else, Hal, Weaver, expectations, the war, the aliens, Roman and the other unharnessed children, responsibilities, the future and what was or needed to happen next just kept getting in the way.

If they could go back, back to before, back to before the storage closet, the warehouse, the first kiss, the first patrol, Ben wondered, would they still want to do it all over again? He almost wished he could go back, stop from saying those words, "I like you, Jimmy," just to see if it would've, could've happened differently. Talking to Jimmy in that bed, dreaming of a future that never was, he hadn't been certain what he was searching for. Maybe some validation that this was how it was always supposed to be, the two of them together like this. No matter the life, no matter the choices, no matter the distance in time and space, that this was their fate, each other. Maybe then he could think about the future with some kind of certainty.

"That reminds me," Ben said suddenly, kissing Jimmy again, "I got something for you."

Ben pulled away, heading towards his duffle bag and fumbling around in the front pocket. Jimmy watched curiously. Ben produced the bottle of ointment he'd gotten from Dr. Glass and held it up with a smile.

Jimmy quirked a brow and then narrowed his eyes dangerously.

"Uh…should I just punch you…or…?" he wondered.

Ben creased his brow, startled at the response. He looked at the bottle in his hand, felt the book still held in his other hand, peeked back to a very flustered Jimmy, and then realization dawned on him and he paled, gaping.

"What? No, this…this isn't…it's for your shoulder, dumbass," Ben stammered. He shook away the embarrassment, Jimmy's features relaxing as he explained, "It's still bothering you from the hell you put it through last month, right? So I asked Dr. Glass for something to help with sore muscles, because I figured you never would, and she gave me this."

"Oh," Jimmy murmured. His cheeks reddening, as he repeated quietly, sheepishly, "Oh…"

"Yeah. Oh," Ben jeered, "You know there's a saying about people in glass houses…"

"Fine, I'm a pervert," Jimmy returned sharply, "I'm a teenage boy and sex constantly crosses my mind. Are you happy now?"

"No, but you know what would make me happy?" Ben said suggestively.

"Fine, we'll try your stupid finger thing," Jimmy grumbled.

"Actually, I was talking about you taking your shirt off so I could put some of this on your shoulder, but…I'll take that too," Ben replied in stun, laughing despite himself.

Jimmy buried his face in his hand, groaning, "You're such an asshole."

"Lose the shirt, babe," Ben cheekily replied.

Jimmy shook his head, peeling his shirt off and tossing it aside as he muttered, "I really need to start bringing my gun when I come see you…"

They plopped on the floor again, Ben seated behind Jimmy and Ben squirted some of the ointment in the palm of his hand. It was a creamy white color and smelled pungently of menthol. He dipped his fingers into the stuff and dabbed it onto Jimmy's right shoulder.

"See, you think I don't want you out there with me, but here I am going out of my way to help you feel better so that you can be out there with me sooner," Ben mentioned offhandedly as he smeared the cream over Jimmy's shoulder blade. The bone protruded out beneath Jimmy's skin rather significantly.

Most of Jimmy's bones were more readily apparent then Ben recalled them ever being before. Everyone in the 2nd Mass was malnourished, it was a consequence of the war and lack of steady resources, food needed to be rationed and there were a lot of mouths to feed, but Jimmy looked far gaunter than he'd been a month ago.

Ben wrinkled his brow, and asked, "Have you lost weight?"

"Probably. I don't eat that much," Jimmy answered, shrugging. He leaned forward on his knee, balancing his chin in his hand.

"You need to take better care of yourself," Ben murmured, "Why don't you eat more?"

"Not hungry," Jimmy answered, "I'm fine, Ben. Could you skip nagging me like you're my mother or my wife or something…?"

"Okay, okay, I'll leave the nagging to you, dear," Ben relented. He could just see Jimmy rolling his eyes at that statement.

Ben daubed a bit more of the ointment on Jimmy's shoulder and then began massaging the area, digging his fingers into the skin, pinching and kneading. Jimmy grunted approval, his muscles almost melting at the touch, his head lolling forward.

"So…what did Dr. Glass say when you asked her for something to rub on me?" Jimmy jokingly asked. Ben flushed a bit, smirking and shaking his head at the question and the thought of asking something so insinuative of the doctor.

"I didn't exactly word it like that," Ben said, "I just asked her for ointment, I didn't say why I needed it."

"Good. I don't need her harassing me about my shoulder too," Jimmy returned.

Ben snorted softly. It figured Jimmy was concerned about it getting out he still had lingering pains.

"You're pretty good at this," Jimmy quietly remarked.

Ben smiled vaguely, smoothing his palm over Jimmy's skin, and adding more ointment to the area.

"I wanted to be a doctor. When I was a kid," he confessed, "Like a brain surgeon or diagnostician, something like that."

"Sounds about right," Jimmy determined, candidly he pronounced, "You would've made a good doctor."

"You think? Why?"

"I don't know. You're smart and you…care about people. And you…you've got that way-too-understanding personality…kind of like Dr. Glass. You're a lot like Dr. Glass, actually. And, you know, you put up with me, so I figure you've got the patience of a saint. Which seems important for a doctor," Jimmy determined, and then distantly he noted, "You're good at taking care of people."

Ben leaned forward, pressed a kiss to Jimmy's left shoulder as he continued massaging the right.

"Yeah…well…when I got older I gave it up, decided I wanted to be like a…uh…like a history professor like my dad or something," Ben murmured against Jimmy's skin.

Jimmy nodded, but didn't say anything. Ben straightened, smeared more of the ointment along the side of Jimmy's arm, working his fingers into the muscle there.

"What about you? What did you want to be?" Ben asked, "When you were a kid."

"Nothing," Jimmy muttered. Ben's brow rose at that.

"Come on, everyone wanted to be something when they were a kid. And I just told you what I wanted to be…"

"Fine, fine, fine…shut up. I guess...when I was really little, I mean like…five, six…I wanted to be a baseball player. A pitcher," Jimmy answered, and then sighed and admitted stiffly, "My dad had been a pitcher on his college team. And I guess he was my hero then or something so..."

"What happened?" Ben wondered.

Jimmy shrugged and lazily explained, "I wasn't good enough. They made me short-stop a couple times, third base, and catcher…so my dad would have me practice outside every day. When he'd get home we'd be outside until it got dark. One night I didn't want to do it anymore. I guess I realized…I don't know…that it didn't matter; I would never be good enough. I complained after like an hour that my arm hurt and I wanted to go inside and he got mad and…" Again, Jimmy shrugged, his breath came out shaky, "He grabbed me and started yelling about being lazy and not really going for what I wanted and…and, well, I guess he got a little too…um…enthusiastic in his anger and accidentally dislocated my shoulder. I started crying, my mom came out and started yelling at him…"

Ben paused his hand on Jimmy's shoulder, delicately tracing circles with his thumb across the skin. Jimmy fell silent a moment, sniffed loudly, and rubbed at his face.

"When I got older my dad wasn't my hero anymore and I stopped wanting to be anything like him. That's all," Jimmy concluded wistfully.

Ben ground the rest of the ointment onto Jimmy's shoulder, saying, "Engineer."

"What?"

"I think you would've been an engineer, probably mechanical or computer," Ben said decisively, "You know, if the war never happened."

Quietly, Jimmy wondered, "Why is that?"

"I don't know. I hear you talking to Dai sometimes. The conversations you guys have go way over my head, but I kind of get from it that you understand what he's saying and something about it makes me think engineer," Ben explained.

"So…you just listen in on my conversations around camp all the time or…?"

"What? No, I don't," Ben quickly replied, flustering, "I promise I don't."

"Why did you decide you didn't want to be a doctor?" Jimmy asked, suddenly flipping the subject back to Ben. Finished with the ointment, Ben reached forward, wrapping his arms around Jimmy's shoulders and leaning against him.

"I don't know. I just did," Ben answered quietly. He sighed, "Well, the whole reason I wanted to be a doctor in the first place was because…well, when I was a kid I was sick a lot. I had the respiratory problems so I'd have asthma attacks and I'd get pneumonia every winter. I was allergic to just about everything that grew – if I wanted to breath in spring and summer I had to suffer being doped up on antihistamines all season - cats, dogs, birds, hell, just about anything with fur or feathers, bee stings, ant bites, dust. My mom…" he hesitated a moment, "She was always worrying about me. I felt like, you know, if she could've gotten me a plastic bubble to live in she would've.

"I couldn't go to gym class with the other kids; I had a doctor's note a mile long. The coaches didn't want to go near me for fear of a lawsuit. So I got shafted to the library every day with this kid we called Crumb, it was his last name, he wore a back brace, and this girl, Marty, her parents got her out of gym because she didn't want to change with the other girls, they were lawyers I guess. I would argue with my mom that I could handle gym and that I wanted to play sports at school and my mom would tell me I couldn't and my dad was always on her side. He'd take me to practice lacrosse with Hal sometimes at the park, and I did alright and I always thought he might switch sides, help me out with mom, but he'd lie to her about where we'd been instead.

"But our family's pediatrician, Dr. Kim, always stuck up for me. She tried convincing my mom to ease up, that I wasn't an invalid, that I could live life like a normal kid. She told my mom that playing a low impact sport like wrestling or baseball or swimming might be good for my asthma and that it was healthier for a growing kid like me to be active. I guess, in that way, Dr. Kim was, sort of, my hero. I used to read up on a bunch of medical stuff before my doctor's appointments and then ask her a bunch of questions when I got there so I could impress her. She'd quiz me on things too, it was great," Ben sighed and buried his face in the crook of Jimmy's neck.

"What happened? What did she do to stop being your hero?" Jimmy prompted.

"Nothing happened. Dr. Kim was always awesome," Ben replied, taken aback by the question, "My interests just changed as I got older. Part of me still wanted to be a doctor but I learned that you needed to use a lot of math in it and I hate math, and I started really getting into history anyway. I mean, mostly because of my dad. It gave us a way to connect. You know, he and Hal had lacrosse, and I couldn't play lacrosse, so I took history. He'd spend the day at the park with Hal and then spend all night talking to me in our family's study."

Jimmy pulled back, turned to look at Ben in puzzlement. By his expression, he looked like he was trying to work out a difficult problem. Ben chuckled lightly, surprised by the other boy's reaction.

"People don't always have to let you down, you know," Ben said.

"No," Jimmy murmured, "I guess not."

He pulled away from Ben and stood, stretching then plucking his t-shirt off the ground and pulling it up over his arms. Ben watched quietly a moment before following suit.

"Weird," Ben noted, and Jimmy quirked a brow at him, "This might be the first time in a while that we've gotten dressed without…you know…fooling around."

"Is that a good thing…?" Jimmy wondered. He sounded as though he might be offended.

"No. It's a complaint," Ben returned smartly, "All the trouble I went to with the ointment to get you out of your shirt and the heartfelt confession and we're not even going to go to second base?"

Jimmy stepped forward, his expression weary. He hastily pecked Ben on the lips.

"We have to talk about what happened at the shopping complex," he said.

Ben donned a serious expression, nodded shortly and braced himself. It wasn't like Jimmy to readily initiate a conversation about himself and his emotions but Ben was ready to be whatever support Jimmy might need.

"What you said, about why you went against the plan," Jimmy continued. Ben grimaced. That was certainly not the conversation he had prepared himself for. He knew he needed to choose his next words carefully or they might cascade back into another fight and, Ben really didn't want that, things were almost copacetic between them again.

"Yeah. That," Ben mumbled, "It's not that I don't think you can handle yourself, because I do…"

"I don't care about that right now. Is it going to be a problem?" Jimmy countered, "Or do we need to tell Weaver…?"

"No," Ben hastily answered, realization at Jimmy's concern striking him hard. If Ben's emotions were compromised, he and Jimmy would not be able to work on the battlefield together anymore. There were few people Ben trusted to watch his back, there were fewer he trusted to watch Jimmy's. He sighed, ran a hand across his face and over the back of his head, and walked away a few paces, "We don't need to tell Weaver anything. I was only…it was just that…it was our first real high-risk battle since the warehouse…I heard the gunshots and…" He shook his head, turned to fix Jimmy with a hard look, "It won't happen again."

"It better not," Jimmy softly responded, putting his hands in his pockets and saying, "But you know, I guess I know what you mean. That's kind of where I'm at when you're out hunting on your own."

"Okay, I get it," Ben muttered, disgruntled, "You hate the hunting..."

"No. I mean, yes, I do. I really do. But if it's what you need to do. If it's what's helping with the losing control and the excess energy," Jimmy interjected, reluctantly deciding, "I'll let it go. For now."

Ben perked a brow, cautiously wondering, "What did you do?"

"What? Nothing. I didn't do anything. I can't just let you off the hook without there being a catch?" Jimmy said.

Ben dropped his brow and narrowed his eyes on the other boy, folding his arms over his chest.

Jimmy sighed, slumped, and haggardly explained, "Weaver wants me to keep working with the unharnessed kids."

"What? Even after what happened at the complex?" Ben groaned, and easily surmised, "And you agreed to it."

"That was before I ran into Roman in the hall," Jimmy hastily clarified, "He's got nothing to do with the decision."

"I wasn't going to say that he did."

"Listen, I was thinking…well, I was…kind of…sort of…thinking that you could help with training them," Jimmy meekly suggested, dropping his gaze and peeking up at Ben through loose strands of hair falling across his face.

"Not your best thought," Ben remarked.

"I also might've told Weaver you and Roman could make a good team," Jimmy sheepishly admitted.

Ben smacked a hand to his face, growling low in the back of his throat.

"Why the hell would you say something like that?" Ben demanded.

"Because it's true," Jimmy returned sharply, fidgeting with his pockets and bouncing a couple times on the balls of his feet, before restlessly pacing away and back a few steps, "I think…with the right training, maybe he could keep up with you on the battlefield and…and that…if you guys learned to get along…"

"I'm not the one that has to learn anything. He's the asshole," Ben muttered.

Jimmy sighed and tentatively asked, "What did he mean? What he said outside of camp…what did he mean by that?"

Ben furrowed his brow and turned away from Jimmy. Roman's words weren't that hard to interpret. The older boy blamed Ben for his and the other three being harnessed and that could only mean that when harnessed Ben played a role in their capture. Ben knew that Jimmy was smart enough to figure that out on his own, so Jimmy wasn't looking for an explanation, he was looking for some confirmation that it was true or false.

"I don't know," Ben answered.

There was a pause. Ben drew in his breath, held it a moment, waiting for the other boy's response. Would he believe Ben or would he think Ben was lying again?

"Are you sure you don't…?" Jimmy pressed. Ben blew the air hotly from his lungs. He lied about one thing and he would pay for it the rest of their relationship it seemed.

"I don't," Ben insisted, "When they were taken and harnessed, I already had a harness on. I have no clue what he was talking about."

"About when you were harnessed…" Jimmy started.

"I don't want to talk about it," Ben quickly and decisively cut in.

"Ben," Jimmy began protest.

"As the most secretive person in camp, I don't think you have any room to argue, so you might as well quit while you're ahead," Ben said sternly.

Jimmy shook his head, wandered away covering a yawn. Ben examined the other boy a moment. Jimmy had lost weight. His eyes had obvious bags under them, and he looked paler than normal. He'd blacked out on an op, and he'd made mention that it had happened before. Ben frowned, thought of those rare moments they'd had with one another. Jimmy had been resting progressively longer after they were intimate, and while Ben had thought it was because Jimmy was feeling more and more comfortable sleeping with Ben beside him, now Ben wondered if there might be another reason.

"…protect me," Jimmy mumbled distractedly and Ben perked a brow at that.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just thinking about something you said," Jimmy replied, turning round with a wry smile, "That you wanted to protect me."

"Yes, I do," Ben readily confirmed.

"I want to protect you too," Jimmy admitted. He lowered his eyes and smirked, his expression melancholy, "But I can't. I'm not strong enough, fast enough. I don't see like you, I don't hear like you. I never told you about in the warehouse…"

Ben straightened; his full attention on Jimmy. They never talked about what happened in the warehouse or those days after when Jimmy was alone and lost. For the most part, it was a taboo topic. All Ben knew was that, whatever went down, it made Jimmy want to be with him, and in the end, that's all that mattered.

"It was you that made me keep moving," Jimmy said quietly. He shrugged and went on, "I thought I was going to die. I should've died. And I was okay with it…dying…because it was for you, to protect you. This, training them," he took a deep breath and met Ben's slightly confused gaze with one shimmering and full of apprehension, "It's my way of dying for you. I'm training my replacements, Ben. Everything I teach them is another bullet in my chest, and when I'm done, I'm done. I'll have killed myself, and any opportunity I could have had from here to the end of the war to earn a place as a respected fighter sent on important missions, hitting those six-legged bastards where it actually hurts."

"Jimmy…" Ben breathed, struck utterly speechless.

"My plan isn't to sideline you, Ben, it's to sideline myself," Jimmy concluded.

"That's not going to happen. You're my partner, Jimmy, I won't work with them. Even when they're trained, I'll tell Weaver I won't," Ben insisted.

"Yes, you will work with them. Don't let my sacrifice be in vain," Jimmy returned wistfully, "Because we need to win this war. And I am holding you back," He sniffled, looked away and swiped at a stray tear tumbling down his cheek, "We saw that yesterday at the grocery store. Only way you'll be able to fight to your fullest capabilities is if you're fighting with others that can keep up, instead of having to always lag behind to protect me."

Ben crossed the tent to Jimmy. He slipped his hand round Jimmy's neck, looked at the other boy with a softened expression. Then he pulled Jimmy forward into a hard and passionate kiss.

"Help me train them," Jimmy pleaded when they broke apart.

"I'm not going to help you kill yourself," Ben whispered reply, and then murmured, "But I guess I can't stop you either."

"Nope," Jimmy agreed.

Ben sighed, kissing Jimmy again. It wasn't the far future, but it was the future, if Jimmy's plan worked. Soon they wouldn't be fighting beside one another. The thought of it sapped the air from Ben's lungs, and caused his heart to stutter.

Without knowing why, Ben offered, "Later today, come hunting with me."

Jimmy furrowed his brow in question. Ben shrugged.

"You've been throwing a fit all this time about me hunting alone and now I'm asking you to join me and you're just going to leave me hanging?" Ben teased.

"No. I'm…yeah. Yeah, I'll go with you," Jimmy replied, stammering his way out of shock. He wrapped his arms around Ben's waist and kissed Ben in return, grinning, "Of course I'll go with you."

"But right now you're going to sleep," Ben said, smiling at Jimmy's flummoxed expression, "You look like you're about to pass out."

"I'm fine," Jimmy predictably protested.

"Fine? Did you even sleep last night?" Ben demanded.

"Like an hour, yeah," Jimmy answered.

"I'm not taking you hunting in this condition. You need to rest if you want to come. How are you going to snipe Skitters off my trail when you can't even see straight? You can use my sleeping bag."

"And what are you going to do?" Jimmy asked, suddenly suspicious.

Ben grinned boyishly, "I'm not going to molest you in your sleep if that's what you think. It's more fun to molest you when you're awake. You molest back when you're awake."

Jimmy shook his head, rolling his eyes though he was shaking with light laughter.

"I might just stare at you while you sleep. I know how much you love that," Ben continued.

Jimmy raised a brow at him and they kissed again.

"Seriously, though, I think I might go find Matt, see if he wants to do something," Ben finally said, donning a serious tone as he expanded on the decision, "Hal and me took him to see the movie last night, but I took off like ten minutes in because I heard you leaving Weaver's."

"That'd probably be good," Jimmy determined, stretching and wandering to the sleeping bag. He straightened it out a bit with a nudge from his boot toe, "Matt seemed down last night. I'd wondered why but…you know…I was a little too distracted to check up on him and he was with Hal and Lourdes, so…you know…"

Jimmy plopped on top of the sleeping bag, falling back on it. Ben walked over and sat on the ground beside Jimmy and Jimmy offered a quizzical look.

"I'll hang out until you fall asleep," Ben said.

"I won't go to sleep if you're sitting over me like that," Jimmy argued, though he was already starting to sound drowsy. Ben smirked. He leaned forward and dropped a kiss to Jimmy's mouth.

"Yes, you will," Ben returned plaintively. He smiled with a distant look in his eyes. He gently brushed the hair from Jimmy's face and stroked Jimmy's forehead absently with his thumb, traced the other boy's features. Quietly he remarked, "You always do."

.

.

.

A/N: Confession time, this and the previous chapter were originally one chapter when I wrote them...but because they pushed about...9K words, I had to cut them in half...snip, snip. I think it's because Jimmy and Ben had been fighting so much lately, they needed the huge chunk of story-space dedicated to them being lovey-dovey-ish to each other.

Um...also, I'm hoping that this fluffy-sweet cotton candy chapter will distract you all from the news I bear. It opens with a story, I'm trying to kill myself apparently. Three four hundred level anthropology classes, an internship, and Japanese 2. Um...two of my classes are going to want 15-20 page papers featuring original thoughts with roughly 15-25 references, and those are just the final papers, and I'll be doing roughly two hundred pages of reading a week. I'm a slow reader if you're reading. On top of that, I also work 23 hours a week. Do the math. It means my time for writing Fire Light chapters is down to roughly the hour before I dash off to classes or perhaps the hour before I go to bed. Read as: maybe four hundred words a day, if I'm lucky. What all of this means is...I have to knock down updates to once a week.

Updates for now will be on Sundays only - because Sundays are the most convenient day for me to update, which means there will be a new update this Sunday, but no more on Thursdays.

I'm sorry! I'm too tired to beg for forgiveness though, so I'll just wrap this up with: Please let me know what you thought of the chapter!

Reviewers: (Real quick) typhoonboom08, I'm glad my stories can still surprise! Honestly, this is how I most like writing them, happy together with no expectations. But, yeah, always feel sorry for fictional characters once I get my hands on them...Haley, hehehe, yes, cliffhangers are fun, aren't they? I hope this chapter was worth the wait. JDMlvr1, he did just save their relationship! And remember that book you were lamenting them not bringing, there it is. I never said Ben put it back on the shelf, did I? Sorry that the news wasn't better...Greg, I wasn't really subtle about it, was I? But, hey, I'm from one of the most famous cities on Earth, I can be a bit proud, I guess. Though I guess now I don't feel weird having figured out where you're located out of. SassySavanna190, I wondered where you were, when your review didn't pop up first I started to worry. Hehe, I'm glad all you did was forget...I think. Anyhow, the two reviews in one works. Yes, Roman does play dirty, and that was an emotionally charged chapter! And there's plenty more where that came from not too long down the line. Hm...but interesting speculations on what's going on with Ben in chapter 30. Are the aliens regaining control, I wonder? Wait, I know what's going on, I'm not wondering. Hah! Drama queens are awesome, though, nothing to get over. And yes, you did call it. Answer to Question: So...okay, so Dylan and Connor are the actors who portray Ben and Jimmy, right? Took me a minute...um...honestly, I think being working actors in Hollywood, neither of them really have the time to look up fan material based on characters they play. I'm glad they don't though, I don't think they'd appreciate my work nearly as much as all of you awesome people do! P.S. No apologies necessary, I do understand what you say. :) Leave grammar apologies to me. WhisperMaw, ah...you are way to awesome. Have I told you lately that I love you. I laughed so hard when I read your reviews...I totally forgot that I wrote that author note. I guess last chapter was the long awaited "Jimmy nursing Ben scene", and look...hahahahaha...he did call him an idiot! Also, he didn't splash water in Ben's face, but he was none too graceful with that alcohol...though he was a little more tender than I predicted, I think it's because Ben's having that affect on him, he did still flick Ben's ear and give him a hard time about the duffle...hahahahahaha. Oh, I love it, thank you for that.

Alright you guys, I have to run because...I have a long day...long days ahead of me. God, I need coffee. I'm off to find coffee.

I'll see you all on Sunday!