Seven weeks after the Omnitrix arrives
"Hey, cootie queen!" the short boy (shorter than her, anyway, and she was in the middle of any shortest-to-tallest line in her class) with messy brown hair called out from in front of the fridge. Gwen looked up from the "fun things to do" web site she was scouring and glanced at the clock - a little after six thirty in the afternoon. The little doofus appeared even smaller than usual, peering into the fridge with his back to her, crouched over and holding the door open far longer than needed. He was totally ignoring Grandpa's instructions to only open it long enough to take a quick look, find what you want and get whatever out. Otherwise it just lets all the cold out, and the fridge, like almost everything else in the Rustbucket, could only just manage to do it's function without breaking; it could barely keep up with the added stress of knucklehead holding the door wide open. She was about to tell him, for the umpteenth time, to close it when he turned towards her with a white butcher paper package in his hand.
"You won't believe what I found on the top shelf!" Ben said with a disgusted sneer. "The label on this says 'live meal worms'! Two whole pounds! … You know what this means?!"
Gwen didn't try to suppress the shudder that ran through her, thoughts of scolding her cousin about the still open door forgotten as she considered the implications of his discovery. Two pounds of worms? About a pound and three quarters more than needed for fishing, and they weren't anywhere near a fishing hole anyway. The thought of what else the creepy things could be for dredged up a memory they both wanted to repress of a previous meal Grandpa put in front of them - a bowl of parboiled meal worms that the man intended to replace the sliced steak in an otherwise normal chef salad. It was one of the first times she and that boy agreed on something during the first week of their trip - complete revulsion to their grandfather's weird fixation on what he called 'exotic food'!
It was the first time she saw Ben voluntarily eat salad as a main course, as they both pointedly ignored the disgusting mass of plump pinkish-gray things that Grandpa took three heaping servings of. It was also the first time she was grateful that the hoodlum was obnoxious enough to buck the old man's dinner intentions and got out bread and peanut butter and made a sandwich, even while she was still nibbling her salad. It would have been nice if he made her one too, but at least he asked if she wanted one.
Gwen scrunched up her nose as she replied. "Eww! It means whatever Grandpa has in mind will be inedible! Looks like another PB'nJ sandwich for dinner, I guess."
"That's what you think! It's a good thing I was digging around, 'cuz I found stuff that gave me a better idea!"
Gwen snorted, remembering the open pack of hot dogs on the second shelf. "Come on, you doofus, we just had chili dogs a few days ago. I mean, you did a good job doctoring up the chili, but i don't want that twice in one week!" It really was good - Gwen put away two fully loaded dogs to the brat's three, and even the frozen French fries they found were pretty good with his chili layered over them.
"Good! Neither do I." His smirk turned into a good natured grin. "I'm talking about flank steak and rice and, just for you, even some healthy crap. There's red and yellow bell peppers, and onions, and snap peas, and some stuff I don't know - what the heck is lemon grass? … Anyway, we could do a stir fry!" He said with a happy twinkle in his eyes.
Gwen grinned back at his suggestion. That wasn't a bad idea. Not what she was thinking of when she insisted on getting the steak when they went to the store, but it could be used a lot of ways. Ben picked out a pretty good one - easy to cook, lots of ways to add flavor with different sauces, and one of the few ways to get both Grandpa and the little freak to eat some veggies. And if the big man wanted to add some worms, well… that was on him.
"All right, dork. We'd better get started, though, before Grandpa comes in and hijacks the plan."
A few minutes later they had the ingredients out, along with pots and pans and the other things they'd need to start cooking. Ben threw a heavy pinch of salt into a pot of water on high heat with a box of rice nearby, ready to dump some in when it started to boil. He was adding some cooking oil to the large fry pan he put on the burner next to it when Gwen glanced up from where she was busy dicing up an onion.
"You sure you want to mess with that pan after the last time you cooked with hot grease?" she teased as he put the cap back on the bottle of oil. He stared at his left wrist for a long second and grimaced as he put the oil on the counter next to the stove top. The burns were healed before the Omnitrix attached itself to him and covered the spots, but he remembered searing pain like he'd never felt before that they caused, that almost sent him to his knees before someone's arms caught him first. And the awesome sight of the freaky blue glow from her hands engulfing his as she somehow healed the wounds, soothing the intense burning that overwhelmed his senses, but still couldn't keep him from seeing the equally intense concern for him in her eyes.
He wasn't likely to forget any of that episode, he knew. And not just because it hurt so bad. It wasn't the first time he'd gotten hurt because he didn't pay closer attention to what he was doing - not that he'd ever tell those stories to anyone - but it was the first time that someone besides his parents or the school nurse felt bad for him because of it.
He felt his lips starting to curl into a grin at the memory, surprised that what should have been something he'd want to forget was instead somehow an event he wanted to brag on. If it had been him with the mysterious indigo aura he'd be boasting loud and long, that was for sure. The fact that it was Gwen was only slightly less awesome. He didn't because she didn't, though, even if he didn't know why. He did know he owed her more of a thank you than the single word he said to her about it, but what else could he have done for his geeky girl cousin?
He looked up at her and shook his head ruefully. "I'm just getting it ready, I'll let you do the cooking this time." He checked to make sure the pan was centered over a burner and murmured "I'd do it if you could do that blue glowy thing again, though."
Ben read through the recipe again to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything important. "Hey, this says it will make ten servings. Maybe we should cut it back so we don't have too much left over? The last time we made spaghetti, there was so much that we couldn't eat it all before it went bad."
"That's a good idea" Gwen agreed as she finished the onion. The little pest had been listening to Grandpa's don't-waste-food lectures after all. "OK Ben. So how much should I reduce the ingredients?"
"Huh? How should I know?" Ben said defensively. He looked back at the ingredient list, noticing all the different measurements - 1 of these, 3/4 cup of that, 1 and 1/3 tablespoons of the other. How should they adjust the measures to only make enough for four (assuming it tasted good, he'd probably want some later like the spaghetti; and lately everything they cooked together they ended up splitting for a midnight snack or something) instead of ten?
Ben shuddered at the thought. Cooking just went from fun thing to do into one of his worst horrors - a math problem with fractions! He never understood that lesson a month and a half ago, trying to figure out how to add and subtract and divide and multiply until it was all a jumbled mess in his brain as he stood confused in front of the classroom whiteboard while the rest of the kids snickered at him. The test on that unit was a disaster - he barely passed it with a C-. If he'd missed just two more questions he would have gotten a D, which would have meant he'd have had to retake the whole class during the summer, according to his teacher, so he wouldn't have been able to take this trip. He still resented that awful woman for threatening his summer with Grandpa. And now Miss Knowitall had to remind him of thatcatastrophe!
Not that she would know about that godawful day, or the couple of bad dreams that came after it. Why would she? Everything she did at school went perfectly, as his Mom made sure he knew by telling him about every honor roll announcement and academic award invitation her Mom sent along. If they saw each other more than a couple times a year, like they used to, maybe she'd know why he hated school…
But they didn't, and she didn't, instead assuming he knew how to do what she could, without needing a pencil and paper even. Typical clueless geek.
If he could turn into Greymatter, the little ultra-genius could figure it all out at a single glance, but he was never certain the flippin' Watch would do what he wanted - he was just as likely to turn into Wildmutt, and the dog-like alien species wasn't known for its brain power. Besides, Gwen would only give him grief at feeling the need for alien help for a simple mental task. Not exactly hero stuff…
"Come on, this isn't hard to figure out, is it?" the super nerd said with a hint of a smirk. "We're in the same grade, and even your school has to teach fractions." Her tone of voice sounded like she was only playing the game, and he'd complained about his school often enough that she'd naturally figure she could do it, too. Still, there was something else to it, an edge to her voice…
"Just reduce everything by two fifths. Or multiply everything by three and divide by five, either way would work."
There it was! That smug, condescending attitude and tone of voice (yes, he knew exactlywhat those words meant - he'd been subjected to them often enough in class last year!) that she used, that rubbed all fifty-four inches of him the wrong way!
It crowded out any trace of being just part of the game, 'cause it sure as heck wasn't funny. It was just one more time that she was making fun of him for being dumb. He glared at the ingredient list, reliving that awful, embarrassing, flustered feeling he had only a few weeks ago as he tried to simplify fractions to solve the problem. At first in his head, then in a crazy mess of black numbers on the whiteboard that got smudged up as he tried to step through the equation. Of course he didn't get the answer right; instead the episode just reinforced to him and his classmates that he was one of the dunces in the room.
It didn't make any more sense now than it did then. He didn't need his super genius cousin to rub his face in it, either, any more than that dirt bag teacher did!
It drove him nuts that he couldn't even match her grades. Trying to beat her wasn't even worth trying.
Not that he was going to admit that to her!
So he just threw out some numbers that sounded right. Having perfect measurements wasn't all that important for cooking anyway, was it? "Um, so… a third of the onion, and half the red bell pepper. Two thirds of the green one, and four cloves of the garlic. That should work with the two pounds of flank steak, and I'll make, um, four cups of rice… " he rambled, hoping it sounded reasonable.
Gwen laughed lightly as if he'd just made a joke. "Yeah right, dork!" He felt his face start to burn red, frustrated at being called out as a screwup again when he was trying to be serious. She didn't even bother to look up from the cutting board to see his reaction. "Really, what are the right amounts for only three of us?"
"I just told you!" he said, letting his internal failure come out in an angry tone. Why wouldn't she just figure it out herself?! She was cutting up the veggies!
"But that makes no sense, doofus! The three of us don't need two pounds of steak. The bell peppers should be the same amount since they're pretty much the same size, and anyway the original recipe calls for only half each! And four cups of rice?! That's way too much!"
She finally looked up at him, but with a frown that showed she was irritated at his answer. As if he screwed it up on purpose! This whole situation was getting more and more messed up! All he wanted to do was cook dinner without making too much; they'd done it before without it turning into a fight. Heck, he kinda liked doing it with her now. He didn't like how it was turning out this time, but he didn't know how to stop it.
He couldn't admit he dorked up the math, though. Not about something she thought was so easy. "Well, you asked me and that's my answer! If you don't like it, then you figure it out, you're so smart!"
"Always have to throw school stuff in my face…" he fake mumbled to himself, knowing full well that she'd be able to hear.
Which only got Gwen angry. "Why are you so pissed off you little freak?! It's a simple answer - three fifths of the onion, one third of each of the bell peppers, one and a third pound of the steak... If you didn't slack off in school you'd know how to do this!"
Why is she being such a… a bitch!, Ben fumed to himself, letting himself use a word that was normally out of bounds. He knew he was bad at school, but bringing up how short he is was dirty pool - he was very much aware how much he lagged behind his classmates, screw you very much, and there was nothing he could do about that.
"UP YOURS, you… you… " he stammered. "Why are you always such a know it all?!" he yelled, angry almost beyond words, but not enough to say everything he was thinking out loud.
Aaand that still pushed Gwen over the edge. He should have predicted it would, he'd set her off on purpose just for fun more than once and knew all the right buttons. But that wasn't what he'd wanted to do this time. He just wanted her to back off. Why didn't she get that?
But of course she didn't, instead throwing his attack back at him and making everything worse. "Why can't you just admit you were wrong, instead of acting like such a numbskull?! Why do you always have to be such a jerk?!" she yelled back
"Why can't you just let it go?! I'm not wrong! … I'm … Aaarrgh! This is stupid!" Ben screamed. He didn't like this, it wasn't fun! He wasn't looking for a fight! They were fine with each other just a few minutes ago. How did it get so messed up?!
He didn't want it to get any more out of hand, he could already feel the adrenaline surge he'd get whenever they went hero and fought bad guys. But his cousin wasn't one of them, and he really didn't like that that thought even crept into his mind. He needed to physically get away from this situation, so he took a step to her side to go around her and get out of the Rustbucket. Instead of letting him go, though, Gwen got in front of him with her left hand up as if to physically block the way out.
"Oh no, knucklehead! You can't run away from me this time! We're not done!" she kept yelling.
Even though she knew that would only make him yell back. Gwen couldn't figure out what was making him so mad. Especially over such a trivial thing. Why is he acting like this?! she thought. Just yesterday he was nice all day, even when they played the game. She really liked that, even started to think they could be friends again, and then he goes and acts like a jerk!
But him rejecting her like he was about to do, like he'd done before, hurt too much to just let it go. This time she wasn't going to just take it.
"Oh yes we are, geekazoid!" Ben replied forcefully. He caught her hand with his right, intending to just brush past her and find some space to simmer down, like the school counselor told him last year. He didn't know how she did it, but her fingers interlaced with his as the force of them pushing at each other raised their interlocked hands into the air.
"I'm not running away from anything! Except a crazy …" Ben growled through gritted teeth.
She tightened her grip as Ben brought up his left hand to push her away, only to have Gwen catch it before he could swat at her. He grabbed her right hand forcefully, this time matching the finger lacing she started. They pushed and shoved at each other, knuckles white from the strain, both leaning into the sudden almost-wrestling match with fierce, angry glares.
"Let me go! What's your deal, you psycho?!"
"NO! You can't just run away from me all the time! What, are you scared?! Some hero!" she sneered
"Scared of a smart-ass teacher's pet like you?! That'll be the day!"
Pushing turned into shoving, and that almost became a full blown wrestling match as the two combatants strained against each other. They were mostly evenly matched - the fiery redhead had a height advantage, a couple inches that gave her some leverage over the small boy, much to his irritation. But he had recent experience actually fighting bad guys thanks to the Omnitrix; between that and a surprising amount of wiryness he fended off the girl's shoves and attempts to turn her grips on his hands to her advantage.
But this was family, his cousin, not someone who was actually trying to hurt him, so he wouldn't adapt the fighting abilities he remembered from his alien forms to actually hurt her, either. Just as she couldn't make herself take full advantage of her longer reach.
So the pushing and pulling continued for a solid minute and a half longer, with no winner; there wasn't even an obvious change in their positions besides moving a few steps away from the stove.
This was as pointless as his idiotic attempt to do fractions in his head. Ben screamed an incoherent noise in frustration as he threw his hands down, jerking them free from her white knuckled grips, and took two steps back. He shook out his hands while he kept up his angry glare as Gwen fell into the ready stance she learned in karate, hands up in an aggressive-looking pose. Her eyes were hard and determined, too, and both were breathing hard from the exertion and the anger that made it happen.
"You're gonna use karate stuff on me?!" Ben sneered. "What happened to all that talk about how your Sensei says you're not supposed to use it to pick fights?!" He looked pointedly at how her hands were now balled up fists, then met her furious green eyes with his own. He deliberately grasped his right wrist with his left hand - the one with the Omnitrix, that he very obviously now couldn't activate.
"I knew that was just a bunch of BS!" he muttered in a disgusted tone.
As soon as he finished saying that, his cousin's eyes blew from being a squint of angry concentration to wide open shock at being called out like that. He'd heard her say exactly what he repeated, including once at the beginning of their trip when Grandpa asked her how the karate classes were going. As she was proudly explaining how she was promoted from yellow belt to orange, Ben asked if she could use karate to stop kids from bullying smaller ones. She went on for forever about how her teacher drilled into his students that they couldn't use their skills to start fights. He didn't really believe her - why wouldn't you step in if you could prevent a weaker kid from getting beat up? - and what she just did only convinced him he had it right.
"N- No, I'm not!" she stammered, caught in an obvious lie. "You don't know what you're talking about!" she said disdainfully. At least her eyes, that were so much like his, reflected the embarrassment the rest of her tried to conceal. That just made him angrier - one more thing she just wouldn't admit, instead trying to pretend she was perfect!
It was more than he could let go. "GEEZ, YOU JUST DID IT AGAIN!"
"DID WHAT?!"
"Telling me I don't know what I'm talking about!" he fumed. "Treating me like I'm stupid! … I've watched you practice, I know that's how you stand when you do! You accuse me of never admitting when I'm wrong, but you do it all the time too!" He glared back at her, daring Gwen to tell him to his face that he was wrong.
"And making sure I know you think I'm an idiot when you do!" he said in a suddenly dejected murmur. He looked away from the fierce glare he'd thought she'd only use on bad guys, letting his hands fall to his sides and jamming them into his pockets.
His fury broke, replaced by sadness as he recognized she really was just like the classmates he couldn't get away from fast enough on the last day of school. The ones who didn't care if he knew they thought he was only a shrimp, a useless dumbass. He never thought his own family would see him that way, though. Especially not the cousin who was turning out to be a decent hero partner. Not to mention someone that he was starting to kind of like hanging out with.
Gwen suddenly seemed to share his disappointment as she took a step back out of her fighting stance, unclenching her fists and letting her arms drop to her sides.
"I… I'm not saying you're an idiot Ben." she said with a chagrined voice. "You're not!"
She stared at her shoes, all of the anger and fight suddenly drained away.
"I just thought your math class covered the same stuff mine did. I didn't think that maybe you haven't done fractions as much as we have…" She raised her chin just enough so she could look up at him for a moment, her eyes glistening as she apologized.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have acted like that. I know you're not dumb! I didn't mean to make you feel…" rejected, she finished the thought in her mind with a pang of guilt. Her voice faded away as she turned away from him, facing the kitchen cabinets and wrapping her arms around her stomach.
The way he sometimes used to when his parents scolded him when he was younger.
The words were an apology, and she may have actually felt bad at what she said to him. But he'd been on the receiving end of similar "apologies" before, when kids got caught by adults, calling each other mean things during class and at recess. It usually ended up with the apologizer and his posse deliberately ignoring the kid who was taunted for the rest of the day. Sometimes longer. The apology was only about being caught, while h- the wronged kid ended up feeling even worse than before the adult intervention. It was better to just ignore the original insult.
That was what Ben knew, anyway. Real or not, he couldn't stand this.
"Does this mean you hate me again?" Ben asked in a low monotone. He'd been accused of being "sullen" on the few times he had to see a school counselor when his reaction to one of those apologies didn't match how his teachers thought he should. Like he was the one sulking, not Ca- Um, the kid who caused the problem to begin with.
Like Gwen was doing now.
He took in a deep breath and sighed softly as he let it out. This sucked! They were just starting to act like they did before the big fight years ago that separated them, and now they were going back to being nasty to each other. He didn't like that, it took too much energy being mad all the time. But how could he stop it?
Gwen whirled around to face him again, a look of genuine shock on her face. "Hate you?! No! I… I've never hated you, Ben! I thought you couldn't stand me!"
"It's just… It really hu-…" She stopped talking, fidgeting her fingers together for a few seconds before starting again, staring at some spot to his left.
"Um, it bugs me when you totally ignore me like you've done, though." she said softly. "I can handle it if you just don't like me. But when you pretend I'm not here, it makes me…" sad, lonely, feel like I don't matter, she said mentally to herself. Her classmates were good at making her feel that way.
Did her cousin mean to make her feel it, too? Or was he just such a social doofus that he didn't get it? Would it make a difference if she could say them to him out loud, instead of wishing he would just understand? Was that worth taking the chance, or would he just make fun of her like usual?
Ben looked at her silently for a moment and took another deep breath. "I…" he started to say, but he couldn't find the right words. Like usual when he found himself in situations about feelings. His or anyone else's.
He rubbed the back of his head with his right hand and looked down at his left wrist, remembering how Gwen caught him when he got burned so bad, and actually healed the burns before the Watch came and covered them up. She may not have done that on purpose, but it wouldn't have happened if she really didn't like him. Would it? He looked back up at her, feeling as miserable as she looked.
"I shouldn't have gotten mad like that. It's just… school stuff always makes me… " He fumbled in his mind for what to say. How to let his smart cousin know why he hated school without whining about it. That's not what heroes did.
"I don't like it the way you do. I'm not good at it." he blurted out in a rush of uncomfortable words.
Several seconds went by in awkward, thick silence. Ben looked up at her again.
"Can we just go back to doing fun stuff?" he asked plaintively.
Gwen jerked her eyes to look directly at him. "Making dinner with me is fun?!" the dweeb said, unable to hide her astonishment at his admission as her eyes met his.
"Pshht!" Ben scoffed. "It beats eating the freaky glop Grandpa makes. Right?" Ben said. "And it's way better than talking about school crap!"
"Whatever you say, dweeb." Gwen murmured, then grinned bashfully at him, showing that she knew this was as much of a real apology that he could manage and that she accepted it. They had gotten too close to another stretch where they wouldn't talk for years, and she realized she couldn't bear to have that happen again. Her cousin was right, even if he couldn't say it out loud very often - cooking together had turned into fun. So did the other stuff they'd been doing on the trip. She didn't want that to stop.
"All right, doo-, I mean, Ben. ... I'll finish getting the veggies ready. Can you cook two cups of rice? And cut up the steak? A little over half of it, OK? That way there'll be enough for all of us and maybe a little left for a snack or something later." She said with a timid look, picking up the knife as she turned back to the cutting board on the counter.
"Yeah, OK. How big should I make the steak pieces?"
His question made her stop what she was doing for a moment. That was actually a smart question. To cook the various ingredients evenly they needed to be close to the same size, so they needed to agree on what that size should be. She picked up a piece of the onion she just chopped and held it up so he could see, turning her head a little in his direction.
"Um, this is how I'm cutting up the veggies. So, bite size." she replied, waiting a second or two before she put the onion down and she started back on slicing the bell peppers. She decided to not tell him exactly how to prepare the beef; he wasn't bad at this, after all, and she'd just deal with however he did it anyway. Still, her answer could be a little more descriptive without sounding over controlling…
After a second or two she looked up at him with a smile that was sly and hesitant at the same time. "Bite size for me, I mean. You get the thickness right, but you and Grandpa make pieces that are twice the size of mine." she teased gently. She held her breath as she waited for his reply: explosion, or banter?
To her relief, Ben picked up on her playful tone of voice and reflected it. "Are you trying to say I have a big mouth, Dweeb?"
"Not at all, Doofus. Only that I have a petit size one." she replied with a grin that included that twinkle her eyes got when they were having fun.
They both went back to what they were doing before the blowup, embarrassed at how they acted and amazed that they didn't drive each other away for another three years after a fight like that. Ben focused on starting the rice cooking, then turned towards Gwen, leaning back against the counter, watching her clean the seeds and stem from a large orange bell pepper.
"Gotcha. … Just be careful with that knife, ok? Grandpa sharpened all of 'em this morning and you know how he likes them to be deadly" he said in a joking tone. He pushed off the counter and got another cutting board and the flank steak and was just reaching for the carving knife in the block next to her.
Gwen put the pepper she cored and cut in half in front of her, holding it with her left hand and started cutting it into thin strips with a rapid slicing motion of her right.
She looked over her shoulder with a happy expression. This Ben, the one she had things in common with again, was so much better than the one who could be such a pill. Now she had a hint of why he sometimes was, though, at least about why he hated school stuff so much. Maybe she could help him with that, like she did for some of the kids at her school? Later, she decided after considering it for a moment. Summer vacation is not the right time for that.
"Thanks for the tip" she said with a small but genuine smile, as she kept cutting the pepper. She should have focused back on the cutting board, or stopped slicing, but her hand was on autopilot and she couldn't break away from the happy look he gave her.
That turned out to be a painful mistake. The slicing motion she was using had gone through all of the pepper that was exposed beyond where her forefinger and thumb held it, and the last motion got her hand instead, ripping through the skin down her finger and across the web of flesh connecting her hand to her thumb. The thick flesh of the pepper needed a moderate amount of force, and the combination of that and the sharp serrated knife left a deep, slightly ragged cut that immediately bled freely.
Ben's eyes widened in horror as her finger and thumb were quickly covered in blood. They'd both gotten scrapes and cuts when they battled aliens and bad guys, and he'd had more than a few split lips and nose bleeds from lucky shots to his face in those fights, as well as schoolyard dust ups. He was used to seeing a little of his own blood, and the scrapes Gwen got only oozed a bit - easily covered by a band aid or maybe a gauze pad. No big deal to either of them. But this time the amount of her blood and how quickly it coated her hand unnerved him. He was still new at dealing with the rules for being a hero, but he knew one of the top ones was to protect family, to keep them from being hurt. That certainly applied to his cousin, whether they liked each other or not.
And Ben had to admit, at least to himself, that he was getting to like having her around. Despite the fight they just had. The fact that they ended it and went back to doing something fun meant that she must feel the same way. Didn't it?
Only now she was hurt worse than he'd ever seen before. He knew there was nothing he could have done to prevent it - accidents happen, after all - but that didn't stop him from from being scared for her. Like the way he was when they battled Hex in Las Vegas on top of that hotel with a roller coaster.
Without thinking Ben yelled out "GWEN!" like he did that time, when the car she and Grandpa fell into was hurtling towards a broken section of track hundreds of feet above the ground. As he was yelling her name he rushed to her side with his arms out, ready to do whatever he could to help her. It didn't matter if she liked him or not.
Gwen felt the difference in how the knife cut her versus how it sliced the pepper. She looked at her hands and saw the red welt on her skin starting to bleed before she actually felt the long, uneven slice, knowing in a detached way that it really should hurt, and wondering why it didn't.
That lasted for a second. And then the force of the pain hit her. Yes, it did hurt! A LOT!
She gasped as the pain took hold and the blood ran out of the wound over her hand. The sight of it combined with the intensifying pain made her scream out something, a noise so similar to the one Ben made after he got burned that she wasn't sure it wasn't him to begin with. A second later she felt him almost crash into her back, felt his arms circle her waist just as her knees gave out. She'd never seen so much of her own blood before. She sucked in a sharp breath as the pain kept getting worse, and yelled again as Ben held her up, bracing her back against his chest with firm pressure from his hands.
"It's OK, Gwen, I've got you." he said over her shoulder in the even, reassuring voice he would get during hero times. "I'm going to help you fix that up by the sink." He adjusted his grip on her stomach."Here we go…"
He took a step towards the sink and felt the taller but slender girl move with him, following his lead. Another two steps and she was in front of the faucet, and Ben reached out with one hand to turn it to a cold, moderate stream. He grabbed her wounded hand at the wrist and moved it under the water and winced at the new scream Gwen let out as the water started to wash away the blood.
The mild stream of water flushed away the red covering her forefinger and thumb, revealing a two and a half inch long wound from the middle knuckle of her finger almost to the base of her thumb. Ben was no doctor, but even he could tell the now clear cut needed way more than a bandaid. They had to get her to an emergency room, and somehow on the way protect the cut from further damage and dirt as well as stop it from bleeding; the running water continued to turn red as it washed over her hand.
The side door of the Rustbucket burst open as Grandpa rushed in. "Gwen?! What's wrong?! I heard you screaming…" he said, stopping at her side next to where Ben was holding her up at the sink. She tried to explain through gritted teeth, but only managed a weak "I…".
The still oozing cut on her hand under the running water and the red liquid on the cutting board and knife were self explanatory, but Ben filled in for her, anyway. "Gwen cut her hand. It won't stop bleeding! We need to get her to a hospital, Grandpa!" he said with urgency and a tinge of fear.
"All right, the cut looks pretty clean, but ragged. You're right, Ben, we need to control the bleeding now. I need you to stop the water and cover the cut with something, a dishcloth or paper towels…" Their grandfather was all business now, quickly sweeping the galley with his eyes for a makeshift bandage. He grabbed a clean cotton dish towel and folded it in half twice, then came to a decision.
"Gwen, honey, we need to get you to sit at the table. Can you do that for me?"
She heard him through a haze of pain but could only manage to nod her head; she didn't trust her voice because of her yelling, making her throat hurt. Her eyes were shut tight, her legs felt weak and rubbery; it wasn't until just then that she felt arms around her waist and something warm pressed against her back. She opened her eyes to see a small hand at her waist, firmly pressed into her and holding her up. A short turn of her head showed a mess of brown hair at her shoulder, with a pair of worried but strong green eyes peering slightly up at her. She felt a wave of relief interrupt the pain - Ben! Her cousin was holding her up, who held her hand in the water, who had been talking quietly into her ear, telling her to not worry, she would be OK. She didn't know who she imagined that person could have been, but knowing it was him gave her more comfort than she ever thought it would.
His worried, protective eyes reinforced that feeling, as did the next thing he said. "Yeah you can, dweeb! I'll be right with you, just like you did for me. I'll catch you if you need it." he said in that mostly calm, confident voice.
Catch her if? She knew she wouldn't make it more than one step without help. Even with how much her hand hurt, she almost grinned at how he was giving her a pass on the teasing that was normal for him. It came out as a grimace instead, but she was grateful for his presence anyway.
"OK then, Ben you help her to the table. I'll hold this towel against the wound to hold back the bleeding until you two can sit down. It's going to hurt a little while longer, Gwen." Grandpa said. He turned off the water and held Gwen's hand in his, pressing the cloth against the cut with his other one. Gwen gasped at the new source of pain, forcing her eyes to stay open so they could get to the table. Grandpa led the way, walking backwards and keeping pressure on her hand as Ben shuffled behind her until they got her seated at the dining booth. Ben scooted around Grandpa, sliding into the bench seat opposite her.
"That's good. Ben, you need to hold the bandage in place when I take my hand away." Grandpa let go as Ben did what he said, and the older man turned back to the sink to clean off his hands.
"I've got a first aid kit in one of these drawers…" he mumbled, opening and closing several hidden compartments in the galley and rummaging in them. He didn't find what he was searching for and moved towards the front of the RV, continuing to open and close drawers and cabinets.
"First aid kit?!" Ben cried. "Grandpa, shouldn't we take her to a hospital?! Gwen's hurt more than a first aid kit can handle! Come on, you're wasting time!"
While their grandfather looked, Ben focused on Gwen's face, ignoring the growing wet spot slowly turning the cotton cloth red. "Don't worry, we'll get it fixed!" he said as soothingly as he knew how.
Gwen looked at him and wished the concern in her cousin's eyes was instead the playful look she was getting used to. The one that said he was having fun. With her! She didn't like being the cause of his worry even though she appreciated it right now more than she could say. Ben shifted his grip on the dish towel, and Gwen gasped and winced at the sharp pain the motion induced.
His eyes blew wide. "Oh my gosh I'm sorry!" he rushed out.
Gwen wanted to reply with a sarcastic burn, or at least some variation of 'I'm fine, don't worry about it', but the continuing pain and the sight of a small but growing pool of her blood next to their hands scared the words away. Instead she whispered hoarsely "Hurts!"
"I know…" he said. "I want to make it stop, but… Grandpa will fix it! I know he will!"
The sight of the white towel turning red, the pain he saw in her brimming eyes, and that word in a tone of voice he knew all too well made his eyes burn, too. There was more than pain involved with getting hurt like this; it was scary, not knowing what to do or how to fix it, to make the cut better. To see that in someone else's eyes, wanting desperately to do something that would help. It was bad enough to see it on a stranger when they went hero, but now with her, his family… Even during their fight he had been careful to keep the wrestling away from the stove in case one of them slipped - she may have made him mad, but he didn't want her to get hurt. He may not have liked her, especially when they started the trip, but he didn't not like her either. Either way, he'd still do anything right now to make her better.
Like she would have when he got burned. She didn't say it, but he knew it was true.
The reverse scene of Ben's injury made him think of what else happed then. "Why isn't the blue glowy thing happening ?" he asked. "This is almost the same thing as when you made my burns go away? Can't you do that again?"
"No!" she whispered in anguish. "I've been trying, but I don't know how that worked! I can't do it!" Her eyes finally overflowed from her frustration on top of the hurt, tracks going down both cheeks.
"Ah, here it is!" Grandpa said loud enough to get their attention. He turned back from a cabinet and hurried to the table, opening a medium sized case in his hands.
"This is an experimental emergency injury kit, Ben. Latest tech available. I got it from one of my old NASA colleagues a while ago - it's not uncommon to get injuries like this on my plumbing jobs. I want to try it first - I don't know where the closest emergency room is. This'll be faster."
Grandpa took out a small aerosol can and showed it to Gwen. "I know that hurts, Pumpkin. This is an antiseptic, and also has some anesthetic in it. It should make you feel better. It'll sting a little at first though." he said as he moved Ben's hand and the bandage off her hand, then sprayed a heavy mist over her finger and thumb.
The spray was cold but didn't hurt as much as the original cut. Gwen clutched at the hand underneath her palm anyway and stared at her hand, still shocked at it being covered in blood. She tried one more time to make the blue glow around her and Ben's hands. For a moment she thought she saw a few green-blue sparks, but she blinked and they were gone.
Grandpa put a couple butterfly bandages on next to hold the still seeping edges of the cut together. Then he opened what looked like a toothpaste tube and squeezed out a glob of white paste on his finger. "I'm going to put this on the cut. I need to get it in there - don't worry, that's how it works - and it will start to heal the broken tissue and skin."
He put the stuff on her finger, then started to spread it towards her thumb with firm pressure. Gwen sucked in a sharp breath. "Yeah, this is going to sting, too. I'm sorry, honey, but I've got to do it." Grandpa said apologetically. "Hopefully this will keep you from needing stitches."
He finished spreading the goo, then grabbed a damp paper towel that he somehow brought to the table with the first aid case. He cleaned off the blood from her hand, so gently… Gwen held her breath, expecting the cleanup to make the cut hurt some more. It didn't though - whether because of the pain killer Grandpa said the spray had or because of how carefully he was wiping away the blood, she didn't know. It didn't matter. The sharp, intense pain from the knife cut was now a dull throb, nothing she couldn't handle. She closed her eyes with a soft sigh and let herself breathe normally again.
Ben had been watching the procedure intently, still holding the towel saturated with Gwen's blood without really noticing it. That or the small pool of red water that surrounded his other hand. The one that was still holding her injured one so Grandpa could fix it, that was covered in the same shade of red as the bandage. Both glistened with a wet sheen. His eyes widened as the impact of that sight finally registered in his not yet tweenage brain.
He was holding her hand! A girl's hand!
And not just any girl, it belonged to his annoying, cootie infested, too smart for her own good cousin!
He was about to jerk his out from under hers - if anyone from his school had seen this the teasing would be merciless and never end, even from his teacher! - when he flicked his eyes up to her face and saw for the first time in over five minutes that she wasn't in frightened, agonizing pain. Her eyes were closed and she had tear tracks down her cheeks, but the lines in her forehead from the grimace he caused when he adjusted how he held the bandage against the cut had smoothed out, and she was breathing quietly. Almost like she did when she was asleep.
If he moved his hand away too hard he'd only make her hurt again, like he did a few minutes ago, and he didn't want to put his cousin through that. So he sucked it up and left his hand as it was, holding hers steady so it wouldn't be painful.
That's all he was doing.
Strange as it felt - and this was really weird - that's all it was.
Grandpa broke his train of thought when he spoke, startling him from his hyper focus on Gwen's injury. "Come on, Sport. Let's get you cleaned up next." The big man slid out of the booth's bench seat and took the red soaked towel from his hand before heading for the trash can under the sink.
"Um, hey, Gwen, you can let go of my hand now." Ben said in an apologetic tone, trying to hide what both of them would normally find impossible to accept.
Gwen opened her eyes and looked at their clasped hands. Those watery eyes opened wide as she realized their situation and abruptly let him go. "Oh my gosh, Ben, I'm so sorry!"
"Huh?" the boy replied, suddenly bewildered. Not the reaction he expected. It made sense in this situation that she wouldn't smack him one, but what did she have to apologize for? "You're sorry?! What for?"
"For making such a mess all over you! I didn't mean to gross you out!" Gwen said in a horrified voice. It didn't bother her - well, it didn't now, after Grandpa put the healing spray and goop on it - although the sight of so much of her blood and the searing pain had made her queasy. She imagined her immature cousin was completely disgusted by the whole event. Even so, he stayed right by her side the whole time, despite the fight they just had. She couldn't help but wonder what got into him.
"What, this?" he said as he raised the blood covered hand that had been holding hers. He grinned as the way out of this embarrassing mess popped into his brain. He could play it off like he would at school, as the class clown. Making her laugh might take her mind off how much it hurt, too. If nothing else it would make her see him as only the doofus she kept calling him, and right now that was better than any alternative.
He rolled his eyes and snorted. "Pssht! This isn't gross! It's just some blood. We've both gotten bloody from fighting bad guys, this is nothing. Gross would be if you barfed up spaghetti and meatballs or stew or something!"
He made a gagging face, holding one of his red hands near his throat. That made her giggle. "You are such a doofus!"
Somehow that, her feeling better, made him feel almost normal. He got up and walked to the sink.
While Ben was scrubbing his hands, Grandpa returned from where he was stowing the fancy first aid kit (if she could really call it that - since when did a stash of band aids and Neosporin include the things their grandfather used? She'd been to an emergency room more than a few times, and even they didn't have the spray and cream that made her hand feel so much better…) and sat opposite her again at the table.
"How does your hand feel now, honey?"
"Better, Grandpa." she replied.
That was a major understatement. The throbbing from just a few minutes ago was now hardly noticeable, and that wasn't just because the dweeb at the sink made her laugh. But if she started peppering their grandfather with the questions she had, she was sure the boy would revert to normal and tease her about being such a nerd. She didn't actually mind that as long as he wasn't being mean, and in fairness he wasn't that much lately, but she liked Ben's current consideration. Keeping him in this mood wasn't really trolling for sympathy, was it?
"Good! I was hoping it would fix you up OK. A drive to a hospital would have been a bit tricky." the man said.
Ben finished drying off his hands and slid into the bench seat next to Grandpa. He'd brought some paper towels and wiped up the remaining mess on the table. He even had a few damp ones that he used to clean the rest of the blood on the palm of her hand. "Yeah, well, you better hope it doesn't leave a scar or Aunt Lily will have a cow! That was a pretty deep cut." he scowled. Gwen appreciated his concern for her, even if it was so out of character. And he was right, even if by accident - her Mother definitely would be upset about that. Very perceptive of him! Maybe there was hope for the socially inept boy after all.
"Hmpf. Like that really matters." she mumbled anyway. He flashed her a brief grin, showing that he wasn't buying her act any more than she did his, but they needed to follow the unwritten rules. Can't show weakness now that the crisis was past.
"I used that stuff on a few of my fellow plumbers earlier this year, and even on myself once or twice, Ben. Never had any complaints. I was sure it would work for your cousin's injury. I'm glad to hear that seems to be the case."
He gave Gwen a questioning look, which could have been to ask how the cut felt now. Or it could be asking why she was uncharacteristically OK with her cousin cleaning off the remaining blood from her hand. Not to mention the even stranger sight of Ben holding her hand in his to do it. Gwen felt her cheeks burn at the situation, but it felt oddly good after the pain and fear that started all this.
Still, this was getting way too bizarre. She tried to pull her hand free. "That's good enough, Ben. I'll finish in the bathroom sink."
Instead of letting go with a startled yelp, like she almost did, he just growled "Stop that! You're gonna make it bleed again!" and held on a bit firmer. He kept at it until the last of the blood was gone, leaving the only unnaturally red things at the table his and her faces. And Grandpa's ridiculous Hawaiian shirt.
He glared at their hands as the crimson burning spread from just under his eyes to cover all of both cheeks. "I'm not gonna clean up after you again, so just hold still until I'm done." he grumbled.
Gwen just let herself have a small smile. If that's what the little fr-, um, her cousin needed to say to keep their dignity intact, she wasn't going to argue it.
Grandpa gave him a funny look then, cocking his head towards the table where Ben finished cleaning Gwen's hand.
"So Sport, what did you mean when you mentioned a blue glow around your hands?"
Ben felt a little apprehensive at this shift in the conversation. He and Gwen didn't talk about that episode and whether or not they should tell Grandpa. It wasn't a secret as much as they just didn't want him to know they had a serious accident in the kitchen when he wasn't around. No point in getting him worried; he might tell them they couldn't cook without him there any more.
At the same time, it was really cool, even if she couldn't do it for herself. It was a great story. He gave the girl across the table a questioning look, and she shrugged her shoulders in reply. He took that as her agreement to tell it, so between the two of them they told him the whole thing. Even Gwen's observation that he had the heat turned up way too high and didn't pay attention to how a big lump of stuck together bacon strips would obviously splash the grease. He scowled at her about that, until she immediately added praise at how well he took the pain.
That was unexpected; he thought he handled it bravely, but it was nice to hear that she didn't think he was a wimp about it.
"So you're telling me you saw a blue glow appear out of nowhere and spread from your hand, Gwen, over Ben's; it lasted close to half a minute; and it healed second and third degree grease burns?" Grandpa repeated the essentials of the story.
"Both hands, actually. But yeah. It was almost like magic!" Gwen answered, nodding her head.
"But it couldn't be that" Ben scoffed. "You're no magician!"
Gwen was about to let him have it with a comeback - her hand didn't hurt much at all now, and she wasn't going to let that challenge go - but Grandpa beat her to it.
"Don't be so quick to dismiss the idea, Ben. We all saw how Hex could use magic a few weeks back. Charmcaster, too. So we know it's real. … I've never heard how it starts to manifest in a new user, so who's to say if Gwen made it happen or not." he said with a thoughtful look.
"You mean she could be a witch?!" the brat asked excitedly. "For real?!"
"Well, from what I've heard, magic users don't use that word. They prefer sorceress or wizard." Grandpa said. "And it's impossible to say right now, but it's not so far fetched. After all, Ben, if someone told you six months ago that you'd be able to turn into a red, six foot monster with four eyes and four arms, would you have believed it?"
"That's right, doofus! You can call me a sorceress!" Gwen crowed, even though none of them knew if that label applied to her or not. It was fun to imagine, though, even for a moment. Until that boy turned it into yet another burn…
"That would be so cool!" Ben cried.
That caught Gwen by surprise. "Wow, Ben, you really think so?!" He was probably just being nice because of her injury, but wouldn't it be great if he was being honest?
"Heck yeah! Think of how much better we could be at fighting bad guys and aliens! Four Arms or Diamondhead, or even Wildmutt with a magic partner? We'd be awesome!" Nothing got the goofball as excited as being a hero; the only reading he did since the trip started was his superhero comics, and when he got started he could hardly put them down. Once he got the Watch and could act on his fantasies he was more often than not insufferable! Which was why Gwen was flabbergasted at his reaction to her possibly being able to use magic. It wasn't like him to share the glory.
"Even if you could only do a little, it'd make you a great sidekick!" he smirked. So much for her flight of fancy at being his equal - looks like things were back to normal between them…
Except the smirk wasn't mean, like it could be, and that was another surprise. Instead, his green eyes had the playful gleam she liked to see.
It was all a bit more than she could handle, frankly. Caring and considerate Ben was a rare thing, and she didn't want to use it up all at once. "Sidekick again? I don't think so…" she murmured through a reply smirk. Then she made a point of looking away from him to the still messy cutting board. She started to move out of the booth to go clean it up.
Grandpa put a stop to that. "Sit back down, Pumpkin. Ben was right, you don't want to open that cut again. Let the medicine do it's work."
Both kids looked at each other with panic. Their dinner plan was ruined, and if Grandpa decided to use the worms…
"I appreciate that you two were going to make dinner, but I don't think you should try to finish tonight. You can do the stir fry another time. Instead, why don't I order some pizza? Sport, you can put away the stuff you were working on and I'll clean up the rest."
"Yay!" "Way cool!" two young voices cried out together as Grandpa got up to place the order.
While he was in the front of the RV, Gwen looked carefully at her very surprising cousin. She knew she needed to tell him how grateful she was at how he just acted. He would always boast after going hero, but now he looked back at her in a bashful way.
"What?" he said as his eyes focused on something over her shoulder.
This was awkward for both of them, but there wasn't any reason why it should be. She had an accident that he helped her with. That's all.
She reached out with her good hand and touched his to get his attention. "Thanks Ben. I'm glad you were there to watch my back." she said quietly.
"Of course, you dweeb." he said as he looked her in the eyes again. "It's what we do."
Then he looked to the driver's seat with a mischievous grin and called out "And make sure the pizza comes already sliced, Grandpa. We need to keep the dork away from sharp knives for a while!" Ben said with as much snark as he could. He looked at her with that grin, then quirked his eyebrows at her.
Gwen snorted and exaggerated rolling her eyes. "Brat!" she said and stuck out her tongue at him.
The doofus just laughed!
.
