Chapter 2: Christmas Eve
I Don't Own Ben 10 or Any of the Respective Characters, The Rights Belong to Man of Action Studios and Cartoon Network
Author's Note:
* Hello everyone and welcome to the second chapter of Ben 10: Cold Winter's Night Version II! I may have to shorten that down a little bit... Anyway, there were two last things that I meant to mention in the author's notes for Chapter One.
* So, the first thing I have to talk about is regarding the title of this story: That being Ben 10: Cold Winter's Night V.2.0. I just want to come out and say that I'm only keeping the title of the story as a reference to the original. I'm not entirely sure that keeping the name "Cold Winter's Night" will make sense, considering what this iteration of the story will bring to the table. But then again, I wanted a title that told you guys exactly what this was: a remake of the original.
* And second is part of the whole "remixed retelling" of the original series that I talked about. When I came up with a rough draft for this version's story, I had to omit several episodes, namely from Season 2 and Season 4. I find episodes like Season 2's "Big Tick" to be impossible to adapt for this story. I think that episode is a bit too silly to adapt for this story, seeing as I want to keep this story as grounded and serious as I can (within reason, when you look at the source material).
* Small side rant, but I am absolutely in love with the original series, however Big Tick is the one episode that I've never been able to get into. I kind of think that it's the most boring episode out of the original series and the only good thing to come out of it was Cannonbolt. Another episode that I kind of had to axe was Big Fat Alien Wedding, but it's possible that with enough time, I'll actually figure out a way to adapt that one in a satisfying way. So, please don't be upset if you have a favorite, underrated episode that didn't make the cut for this story. It's just the way it is sometimes.
* Alright, then. I've said my piece. I got nothing else, so with that having been said, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!
Ben
Sunday, December 24th, 2017
The Tennyson House
It's just now dawning on me that I probably could have spoken a little bit more about myself, but for whatever reason, I just didn't. So, just for the sake of being thorough, I'll talk just a bit more about myself. My name is Benjamin Tennyson, but everyone calls me Ben. Except my parents. If you ever hear me being called "Benjamin", that's how you know I'm in trouble. I have brown hair, green eyes and I'm eighteen years old (just turned eighteen, actually)in my senior of high school. I attend Madison High School, about fifteen minutes from home, with all my friends.
There's Kevin Levin, my best friend since second grade, and there's also J.T. and Cash Murray, who came along in my first year of middle school. There's also Ken Tennyson, my cousin and another person I consider to be one of my best friends, but we'll get to him soon. And lastly, for the important people that I go to school with who are my age, there's Julie Yamamoto, my current (and first) girlfriend.
I was also a bit skinny before I found the alien watch, but after I started using it to fight crime within Bellwood, my hometown, I started trying to be more athletic in order to build a little bit of muscle. Before and even after finding the alien watch, I was a nerd who enjoyed playing video games, reading comic books and talking about comic book stuff with Kevin, J.T. and Cash, who were also comic book fans, as well as gamers.
We would also hang out at one of our houses every once and a while over a weekend to play video games together and marathon a bunch of super hero movies. Just to recap, I was out on a walk not too far into summer break, around the beginning of June, when I found the alien watch in a crater in the middle of the woods. I have no idea where it came from or who made it. For all I know, maybe it came to Earth inside of a meteorite or something.
But that would kind of be a cliché, seeing as that's exactly how they introduced Venom in Spider-Man 3. Anyway, as I said before, finding this watch was a dream come true for me. When I started getting into comic books and super hero movies, it was inevitable that I would start fantasizing about being a super hero in real life. When I found it, the watch latched itself onto my right wrist and unfortunately, wouldn't come off.
I won't lie, when it happened, I kind of had a panic attack. I eventually got over my fear of it and was curious enough about it where I began fiddling with it. Which is how I caused a forest fire within the wooded area that I found the watch in. It wasn't like I was trying to do it! I just couldn't get over how cool it was to actually be able to throw fireballs. To make a long story short, the fire department was alerted and they came to put out the fire.
That's the thing with this watch. While it can allow you to transform into ten different alien forms, it can only allow you to do so temporarily. I tested it and it seems like you can stay in one form for only ten or fifteen minutes, though sometimes it's shorter than that. It's like the watch knows when I want to revert back to my human form. I don't know how it's possible or if it can read my thoughts, but that's just a weird quirk. Said quirk happening after I took down Thumbskull yesterday is a good example of this.
That's pretty much all I knew about the watch. Even though it never came off my wrist and it was a bit suspicious to be seen wearing it all the time, but it was actually pretty easy to pass it off as a cheap collectible that I won at an arcade. As for my "super hero career", just like I said yesterday, I've stopped a few muggings, some robberies and attempted burglaries, along with the occasional fight in the streets.
Nothing that big. Thankfully, in the time that I've been doing this, I've never been severely injured. I never ended up getting stabbed in the stomach like Dave Lizewski from Kick-Ass. So, anyway, it was the day of our Christmas festivities with our family. It had actually been at least five or six years since our family last got together on Christmas Eve. During that time, it had really just been me, Mom and Dad for Christmas.
Mom got into contact with Gwen's Mom and Dad, my Uncle Frank and Aunt Natalie and pitched the idea of them coming over for Christmas dinner and opening some presents with us. They hadn't arrived yet, so Dad and I were sitting in the living room, while Mom cooked dinner in the kitchen. All she needed him to help her with was prepping the ham and getting it into the oven.
Meanwhile, as she focused on the making the rest of the meal herself, Dad and I sat in the next room, watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Mom and Dad absolutely loved this movie; they watched it several times every year around Christmas time. It's an okay enough movie for sure, but I preferred Christmas movies like Home Alone and A Christmas Story. Anyway, we were sitting there watching the T.V., when the doorbell rang.
"Can somebody get the door?" Mom called from the kitchen. "Carl? Get the door, please!"
Dad lightly kicked my leg from his spot on the couch next to me.
"Make Ben do it!"
"Ben, get the door!"
"Make Dad do it!"
"Carl, get the door!"
I really wasn't interested in getting the door, just because I knew I would have to face Gwen at some point and it was inevitable that we would start fighting about stupid stuff again. However, I would not win this ordeal.
"Make Ben do it!" he repeated as he kicked my leg again.
"Ben, get the door!"
I sighed with defeat as I got up from the couch. As much as I didn't want to get the door, this would turn into a never-ending cycle if I kept this going. I walked over to the door, opened it and saw my Aunt Natalie, Uncle Frank, and cousin, Ken, standing on the doorstep.
"Hiya, Ben!" Uncle Frank was the first one to greet me.
"Hey, guys." I replied in a cheerful tone. "Merry Christmas."
"Right back at you, cuz." Ken replied as he and my aunt let themselves into the house.
"Gwen is getting the presents out of the car." Uncle Frank told me after they came inside. "Be a sport and go help her, please?"
"Okay."
I put my shoes on and once I stepped outside, I noticed that it had begun to snow.
As if we need more snow, I thought.
Something interesting about Bellwood is that our winters don't usually bring snow. We live in an area of the U.S. that is usually warm-ish all year round. This is actually our first year in sometime where we'll have a white Christmas. I walked toward their car, where I saw a feminine figure bending over into the backseat, grabbing presents. I stopped a few feet away as I found myself deep in thought.
Why do I have to see her immediately? It's not like I don't want to see her, I do want to see her. But I'm just so terrified that she'll want nothing to do with me given our history.
She stood up back up as she pulled the presents out of the car and she ever-so-slightly turned her head and saw me out of the corner of her eye.
Well, this is it, I thought. Time for her be mad with me about stuff that happened years ago. She'll assume that I haven't changed at all and treat me like she did when we were kids.
Except...
"Hey, Ben!" Gwen cheerfully exclaimed with a smile on her face. "Merry Christmas!"
Her kind greeting hit me like a fucking truck. I never in a million years expected her to actually be happy to see me. But here she was, happy as could be. When I didn't answer, she gave me a quizzical look.
"Doofus," she spoke still with a smile on her face. "aren't you going to greet me in return or will you just keep standing there?"
I finally found my voice and somehow managed to say one of the worst things that I possibly could.
"Okay, this is a prank, right? Ken's hiding somewhere with a camera, recording us talking while he waits for you to drop the act and start fighting with me like when we were kids. Right?"
Much to my surprise, Gwen's smile disappeared and was replaced by a look of confusion.
"What? No! This isn't a prank, I'm really happy to see you, Ben. Didn't your Dad tell you that I was looking forward to seeing you again?"
I nodded.
"He did, but I thought he was just saying that!"
"Why would you think that?"
"Um, we fought a lot when we were kids. Like a lot. We fought so much that your parents and my parents decided to stop having family gatherings together!"
After I said that, her smile gradually returned.
"We were kids, Ben. Kids fight all the time! That's part of being a kid! We've matured now and I don't want to think about how we used to treat each other. I just want to think about how we could start over and hopefully be friends someday. Isn't that what you want?"
I found myself dumbfounded after what she said.
Here she was, not only forgiving me, but also wanting to look past our past issues with each other? This is great and all, but I almost don't want to believe it!
All of a sudden, she put the Christmas presents down onto the snow covered ground.
That's probably good for the wrapping paper, I thought.
"You're such a Doofus! Now, come here!"
She took me completely by throwing her arms around me and hugging me. I was still utterly dumbfounded, just trying to get over the fact that she didn't hold anything from our past against me and now here she was hugging me.
"God, it's so good to see you!"
I awkwardly returned the hug before she pulled away to look me in the face.
"I have no animosity toward you. I just want to put the past behind us and move on. So please, let's try!"
I finally allowed myself to smile back at her and nodded.
"Yeah, okay."
She let go of me and let out a sigh of what I thought was relief.
"Alright, now that that's out of the way, could you be so kind as to help me with the rest of these presents?"
"Sure, I'll get the ones that you haven't got out of the backseat yet."
"Thank you so much!"
"Not a problem."
I got halfway into the backseat and grabbed the remaining Christmas presents, before backing out of the car. She had already picked up the presents she had been carrying and once I had grabbed the rest, used her hip to shut the door.
"Ready to go inside?" I asked.
"Lead the way."
And so, I made my way back toward the front door, with her right behind me. Once I was back in the house, I tried to maneuver myself to the side so that she could get past me without getting caught in the door once I would go to shut it.
"Thank you." she replied once I was out of the way.
I nodded as I lightly kicked the door shut. She put down the presents that she had brought in by the Christmas tree and I did the same. She then turned and greeted my parents.
"Hi Aunt Sandra, Uncle Carl! It's great to see you guys again!"
Dad gave her a "Hi, Gwen", while Mom gave her a "It's nice to see you again, too, dear".
"Ben," Mom spoke as she turned to look at me. "Frank, Natalie, and Ken put their coats in your room. Could you please show Gwen to your room so that she can put her coat somewhere?"
"Sure. This way, Gwen."
I gestured for her to follow me and she did. We got into my room and she pulled off her coat (which was more of a winter jacket), putting it on my bed next to the other three coats. As she took off her jacket, I noticed that she had changed a bit since we were kids. When we were kids, she had red hair that really didn't grow past her neck, but now she had shoulder length hair. The color was more of a fiery red now, instead of just "standard" red hair.
Her emerald colored eyes seemed to have gotten brighter than mine. She had grown a lot, as well. She was no longer as skinny as she was when we were kids (okay, she was still a bit skinny, but you know), instead she had a well fit body. The way her clothes fit her, I got the sense that she worked out semi-regularly. She looked really nice, all things considered.
Wait, I thought. It's not weird to describe my cousin like that, right?
I guess I was just mindlessly staring at this point and Gwen made it a point to make me aware of that.
"Um, Doofus?" she asked as she gave me a quizzical look. "Could you maybe stop staring at me like that? You're creeping me out a little bit."
That made me snap out of whatever daze I had been in.
"Sorry, it's just that you look a lot different than you did when I last saw you."
She smirked back at me, the quizzical look quickly disappearing from her face.
"A lot can happen in six years, Ben. We grew up."
I chuckled.
"Yeah, I guess we did."
One Hour Later
After Gwen, Ken, and their parents arrived, we were informed that dinner still wouldn't be ready for about an hour and a half or so. I went downstairs to watch T.V. in the big room, with Gwen and Ken pretty much following right after me. Right around the time we got downstairs, A Christmas Story was airing on TBS for its annual twenty-four hour broadcast and I loved that movie, so of course I was going to watch it. Or at least I was going to try.
"So, what's your deal with this movie again?" Ken asked out of the blue.
I turned to look at him.
"What do you mean? I love this movie."
"Yeah, I get that. But why this movie? What about movies like Home Alone, Christmas Vacation or the Santa Clause?"
"All good movies. But they're just not A Christmas Story."
"Why? What's so good about this Christmas movie in particular?"
"It's just objectively the best Christmas movie. I don't know what it is about it, that's just how I feel."
"Oh my God, you do this with a ton of other stuff! Like, you say that Spider-Man is better than Spider-Man 2!"
"Spider-Man is better that Spider-Man 2!"
We probably could have argued for ages, but Gwen stepped in.
"What's the deal with Spider-Man?"
I turned to look at her with a bit of an offended expression.
"Um, sorry?" she asked.
Ken chuckled.
"Unfortunately, my little sister doesn't understand all the hub bub with comic book movies."
Ken saying that made me completely get over what Gwen just said. Now I was kind of triggered by him instead.
"You did not seriously just say 'hub bub'." I said as I turned to look at him.
He grinned back at me.
"I seriously just did."
It was always a good time when Ken was around. He was four years older than Gwen and I, and was currently attending college. And given all of that, he still found time to hang out with us on a regular basis (well, by us, I mean myself, Kevin, J.T. and Cash). He was like the cool older brother to all of us, yet he always acted like he was our age. He liked all the things that we like and rarely missed an opportunity to hang out with us. Just then, I heard Mom call to us from upstairs.
"Kids, dinner's ready!"
Ken looked at us as he gestured to the stairs.
"Come on guys, let's go eat." He said. "I'm starving!"
"We'll be right behind you." Gwen replied as she turned to her brother.
I got up to follow him up the stairs, but Gwen stopped me.
"Hey, wait up just a second."
I turned to look at her with a curious gaze.
"What is it?"
"I just want to catch up a little bit more. Is that alright?"
"I guess so, but what about dinner?"
"Dinner can wait. It's not going anywhere."
Her vibrant green eyes stared at me with intensity, so I knew that this wasn't a fight I could win. Knowing that, I gave in and sat back down on the arm of the couch, facing her.
"Alright, you got me. What's up?"
She leaned up against the support column a few feet away from me as she crossed her arms over her chest.
"You really changed, didn't you? You're not acting anything like you used to."
I gave her a sheepish look.
"What can I say? I had a change of heart. I didn't want to be the snarky, jerk of a kid anymore. I told myself that I was going to start being nicer and more outgoing. I'd like to think that I've come pretty far in six years."
"Is that so?"
The sheepish look on my face disappeared as I sighed.
She's not convinced, I thought. She must think that I'm acting or something.
However, she must have read my mind judging on what she said.
"Don't worry, I believe you. I just a bit surprised. Who knew a person could change so much?"
The blank look on my face remained.
"2010 was a hard year for me, Gwen."
The look on her face also changed now and I felt as though I saw a longing look in her eyes.
"2010 was a hard year for all of us, Ben."
"Yeah."
After a few seconds of gloomy silence, the look on her face brightened and she smiled.
"Well, enough of that. How's school going?"
"Pretty good. Far from times like when I hit my teacher in the back of the head with a paper airplane back in elementary school."
She smirked.
"Ever the prankster, huh?"
I smirked back at her and shook my head.
"No, I've mellowed out, actually. I pay attention in my classes, make good grades and I take school seriously. And still find time to geek out with my friends about dumb comic book stuff."
"You shouldn't call your hobbies dumb. You like what you like. Proclaim your support of it, even to people who may think that it's dumb."
I chuckled.
"Thanks. What about you? Play any sports or anything?"
"I enjoyed playing on the girls' basketball team back at the private school that I went to. And I also take a Jiu-Jitsu class. By the time I was fifteen, I already had my black belt in Taekwondo."
I let out a low whistle in response, which she heard and smirked in response to.
"What? A bit more than you expected, Doofus?"
I shook my head.
"No, I just find it a bit surprising that you play basketball. I didn't think that you would be into that."
"Oh. Well, that's fair. Do you play any sports yourself?"
Before I could answer, Mom called down to us.
"Ben, Gwen, where are you? I said that dinner was ready!"
I looked toward the stairs before responding.
"We'll be up in just a minute, Mom!"
I turned back to Gwen.
"Anyway, sports for me? No." I said as I shook my head. "I'm not athletic enough, as well as too skinny to play any sports."
Well, it's kind of that, I thought. But it's more like I just don't have time for it.
"Don't talk down to yourself. I'm sure you could play one or two sports, regardless of your body type."
"Um, thanks, I guess."
I thought Gwen might have been taken aback by my confused answer, but she wasn't.
"No problem. You shouldn't ever talk down to yourself, even if it's about something as small as playing sports."
"Well, I guess part of it a lack of interest, too. I like comic books and video games, that's where my interests are."
"And that's perfectly fine. You shouldn't have to play sports if you don't have much interest in them."
"Yeah, I just—"
As I was speaking, I slightly looked up just a bit and that's when I saw it.
"—Shit." I finished my sentence, completely forgetting about what I was saying.
A confused look appeared on Gwen's face as she spoke in an equally confused tone.
"What is it?"
She couldn't see it. How was I supposed to point it out to her? I couldn't just casually point it out!
I found myself pointing up at the ceiling above us and as I did, I could feel my face begin to heat up for some reason. She looked up and saw what I was pointing to: the mistletoe that was hanging from the ceiling.
"Oh..." she spoke in a bit of an awkward, uncomfortable tone now. "That."
"Yeah... Damn it, Mom must have hung it down here in case she and Dad were ever down here at the same time."
"So, what do we do?"
"Well, it's tradition, so..."
"I know, I know! But do we have to?"
I smirked.
"What's the matter, Dweeb? Afraid of a meaningless kiss?"
Her cheeks turned a bit pink, probably because I said the word in question.
"What?! No, of course not!"
"Good. Neither am I!"
I didn't give her a chance to react. I simply stepped forward and gave her a quick peck on the lips. That was it. There was no need for it to be a make out session and she clearly didn't want to do this anyway. I thought that making it quick would embarrass her less, but I guess I was wrong. Her cheeks turned bright red and she began stammering, trying to find her voice.
"I—I w—wasn't ready, D—Doofus! Why'd you have to go and do that?!"
"What's the big deal? It's not like it meant anything, anyway. It's just stupid, harmless kiss. No need to get so worked up about it."
Her eyes darted back and forth from one end of the room to the other, as if she were trying to figure out what her best course of action was. About a second later, she spoke again, but did so as she suddenly turned around as if to avoid eye contact with me.
"You know what? I think we should go upstairs." She quickly said as she made her way to the stairs in an equally quick manner. "I'm hungry!"
I watched her go and eventually began to follow after her, chuckling to myself.
"Didn't know that you could get flustered like that, Dweeb." I said to myself.
Author's Note:
* And that's it for this chapter! I hope you guys enjoyed.
* So, was there anything in particular that stuck out to you guys in this chapter? What did you guys think of the background stuff at the beginning of the chapter?
* Did you guys like Ben and Gwen's reunion? How about how this chapter ended? Did I do a good job of writing their characters? Is there anything else that I haven't mentioned? Please, let me know your thoughts on anything in a review or even a PM would be okay, too.
* Anyway, that's all I got. Again, I hope that you really enjoyed and thank you for reading! That's going to do it for me, so have a fantastic day and bye.
Review Responses
Car45 (Chapter 1): A great start. I'm looking forward to the next chapter.
Thanks, Car. I'm glad you that you liked the start of this story. Thanks for the review, as always.
Bahhhh (Chapter 1): Can't wait for the next part!
Thanks, Bahhhh. I'm glad you like the story so far. Thanks for the review, as always.
jasongd (Chapter 1): It promises to be interesting I'll be waiting for the next chapter BWEN FOREVER
Holy crap, jasongd! I haven't seen you comment on one of my stories in a long time! Anyway, please excuse my enthusiasm. I'm glad that you think this story promises to be interesting. Thanks for the review, as always.
Next Chapter: Ben and Gwen do their best to get past the embarrassing mishap that they found themselves in. Later after the Christmas gift exchange, Ben gives Gwen her gift and formally apologizes for something he did when they were kids.