disconnect

Gwen stared into the gaping maw of the staircase from the top of it, unmoving, back ramrod straight. The first floor landing was dim and quiet, and the darkness of her room behind her a beckoning cocoon of safety- relatively, at least. Nowhere was really safe, but she'd take the illusion. But she had to resist that illusion now, because she needed to go down those steps rather than retreat. She had promised her mother, after all. She had to go down into the living room and get on with her session. It was good for her, she knew that. It'd help her forward, she was aware.

The very thought of going down there locked her into place like the roots of a tree anchored it to the earth.

A part of her was screaming at herself. Being downstairs could be… exposing, unnerving, all that, but she'd managed it for the last few days! She'd gone to school, she'd even been outside- and if Emily had to hold her hand during recess so she wouldn't burst into tears, that was just fine. Emily didn't judge. Emily just smiled and held her and showed her all those special cupcakes her father experimented with and Gwen would indulge in the distraction.

It worked. It was fine.

She'd also gone downstairs for tea, every day at four. She'd even managed to sit with her parents for half an hour yesterday before she'd needed to go back up. It shouldn't be this hard to go out that door and join her mother for therapy in the living room.

And yet. Her body was frozen and her heart was trying to beat its way out of her chest. And she tried not to think about it, tried to distract herself, tried not to let it spiral out of control like her mother warned her but every distracting thought she tried to summon to take her mind off it circled back to the fact that she had to go down there and be exposed in so many ways. She'd have to talk about how she was feeling. About how she was coping. About how she missed… how she missed him and how she hated that she couldn't reach out and every time that fear registered, her heart would jerk and her brain would scream at her that she needed to pick up her phone and call him, or fly out of there and get him, but she couldn't and just thinking about it made her want to cry so she tried not to think but then she had nothing to distract her from her heart, or from her shallow breaths and why couldn't she breathe why couldn't she breathe-

"Pumpkin?" Her father's voice drifted up the stairs as he made his way up, ringing loudly in the silence. "Are you okay up there? You didn't forget about your session, did you?" He asked, gently.

Gwen's mouth opened to answer, but all she could manage was a wheeze of air, chest expanding and contracting with breaths that sucked in no air and made no sound. She felt like a washed up fish, just gasping, gasping-

Her father's face filled her vision and his steadying hands clasped her arms.

"Christ- honey, it's okay, it's okay, steady now- steady- good, now look at me. Come on, focus on me- that's it. Now breathe with me, just like your mother showed you. In through the nose, hold, and out. In. And out. In. And out."

It took several agonizingly long seconds before she could force herself to breathe. That first breath she managed to take came out with a sob but at least after that she could breath. She could move. She could talk.

"I-I'm sorry-" she hiccuped, trying to wipe away tears that just would not stop. "I'm sorry I'm late-"

Through the haze of tears she could only describe the look her father gave her as 'heartbroken fondness.'

"It's fine, pumpkin. Just focus on breathing." She nodded enthusiastically, trying to suck in as much air as she could. Her father rubbed her back as she did. "Nervous, I take it?"

Gwen chuckled, a watery sound that was a mockery of actual mirth. "W-What gave it away?"

"Just a hunch." Her father smiled, before he turned serious again. "What do you need?" He asked her, cautiously, testing if she was coherent enough to even think about that.

She hated that the first thing her brain could think of was 'Ben.' She glanced back into her room, dark, too dark to even see, really, to her phone on her nightstand. Her father followed the look and when she looked back at him he smiled- a smile perched between warm and mischievous.

"Do you need to call Ben?"

She flinched at the name, wanting to desperately scream 'yes'. Instead, she sighed.

"He can't help me either. There's no point." She whispered. The thought inspired no panic, really. Just resignation. In a way, that was far more terrifying.

Her father patted her shoulders. "Hey now, it doesn't have to be helpful to hang out with someone you love." He winked at her. "I do it just for the fun of it." She startled, but he was already straightening, stretching his back with an audible pop. "Tell you what, I'll go get your mom, and you can have your session up in your room, okay? Maybe she can help you figure out what you need."

Gwen considered this for a long second before she nodded. She had promised her mother she'd keep trying, after all. Her father smiled, reaching out to place a comforting hand on her hair.

"That's my girl." He praised before slowly turning, as if loathe to leave her out of his sight, but eventually he was making his way downstairs and Gwen all but launched herself back into the dark of her room, cozy and familiar and safe. She burrowed into her blanket and lay down, uncaring that it was the afternoon. Sometimes, you just needed your bed.

She almost quirked a smile at the thought that Ben would whole-heartedly agree, the lazy bum.

It wasn't long before her mother made her way up the stairs and into her room, shutting the door behind her with a click that promised finality. Gwen flicked on the light at her bedside, revealing her mother's smile. If it was anyone other than Natalie Tennyson, Gwen would have called the smile 'sheepish.' As it was, it was just slightly rueful. "Normally, I try to keep your personal space and the space where you have your sessions separate." She explained, pulling up Gwen's desk chair and taking a seat, somehow managing to make it look elegant for all that it was improvised. "Helps keep things separate, and reinforces the 'mother-therapist' distinction."

Gwen snorted, softly. "You mean, keep it separate while having the sessions in the house that I live in?"

Her mother chuckled softly. "Just one more unique challenge of our… circumstances." She said before giving Gwen a long look. "Are you sure you are alright like this?"

Gwen mulled it over. She could see the logic behind wanting to keep it all separate, they were blurring enough lines as it was with her mother treating her, but still…

"I think it's either this, or no session." She finally admitted, shoulders hunching. It felt like admitting defeat.

Or it would have, if she didn't already feel defeated.

Her mother took it in stride with a grace Gwen was grateful for, even if it still left her a little surprised. She was so used to her mother being strict and unforgiving. For all that she'd placated Ben time and again that the woman really wasn't all that bad, it seemed that Gwen had adjust her own expectations, too.

"Then we do it here." Natalie agreed easily, gesturing to her notes. "Ready to begin?"

Gwen sucked in a breath. Moment of truth. She exhaled. "Yes."

"Good. Now then, how have you been?"

She shot her therapist a flat look. "You know how I've been. You see me every day."

Her mother was the picture of undisturbed composure. "I know how I've seen you. I want to know how you have have perceived the time since our last session."

Gwen deflated. Figures. No easy outs here. "Crap." She answered, simply, mind whirling. Because here came the kicker question-

"Why?"

Gwen breathed a sigh. She'd known this question had been coming for several days now, and she still didn't know how to answer it. 'I got attacked by aliens and nearly died' wouldn't go over well.

Though really, that wasn't even the problem. Not all of it, at least. Getting attacked by aliens and nearly dying was basically Tuesday. Her summer had been many things, but 'safe' wasn't one of them.

"I feel trapped." She finally admitted.

Her mother-therapist,wrote that down, brow furrowed. Gwen hoped is was in thought, not in alarm. "That's quite specific. Can you elaborate?"

The girl grit her teeth. She knew she'd gotten off easy in earlier conversations, she knew that under normal circumstances a therapy session was less of a conversation and more of a controlled dumping of issues. She knew that. Her mother had told her as still was not a fan of talking this much about her feelings. But she'd promised her family. She'd promised… Ben.

And she was going to keep that promise.

"Ben and me ran into some… uhm…." She tried to find the right word. "Some of our triggers." She finally settled on.

"Do you mean… monsters?"

Gwen's head snapped around, body jerking up, giving her mother an alarmed look. The woman held up her hand, a gesture of peace, not that it did anything for Gwen's racing heart. "Just a phrasing I came across." She said, tactfully, but her eyes were sharp.

Too sharp, too knowing. Gwen felt her heart slow and her blood cool, while another part of her was cheering, desperately, that her mother did know, that she could just stop even having to think about hiding anything. She reigned that part in hard. Her mother might suspect or know something, but that didn't mean she knew everything, or that Gwen felt comfortable telling her all of it.

It felt like a bitter joke that she'd once reprimanded her grandfather for keeping his past from them despite his grandchildren already knowing the most important things like aliens. She understood his hesitance far better now. Finally, she settled on a nod. "Yeah. Monsters."

Her mother's expression crumpled with obvious worry, a hand already shooting up to reach out, to comfort, to see if her daughter was alright- and with all the times that Gwen had sometimes doubted her mother cared for anything beyond her grades, that response, that instinctual need to protect her- it was a soothing balm on that wound. But the look was gone a moment later, the woman closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. She nodded to herself. "I will not ask if these are metaphorical monsters or actual ones." She told Gwen, and something in the girl relaxed. Slightly.

That told Gwen a thing or two that she'd needed to know.

"Thank you." Gwen replied, meaning it, and at her mother's surprised look, she added, "For not pushing me. And," she swallowed, "for caring. It- I- thanks."

The smile she got in return was a bit wobbly, but her mother still focused on being her therapist. Gwen could only imagine the amount of restraint that took.

"Session's not over yet, pumpkin." Natalie remarked, making another note before meeting Gwen's gaze. "This wasn't the first time you ran into… monsters, correct?"

Gwen couldn't help it. She laughed, even if it was more than a little bitter. "Not even close."

Her mom nodded. "So, what was it about this encounter that left you feeling 'trapped'?"

Gwen groaned, flopping back onto her bed. "Straight for the jugular." She grumbled.

"I told you the session wasn't over yet."

Gwen shot her mother a glare. It was the sort of attitude she was never going to get away with under normal circumstances. She'd might as well milk it.

Her mother was completely non-pulsed, merely quirking a challenging brow. "You told me you've been feeling trapped. I'm merely working with your cues here."

Gwen grit her teeth. She was on a roll with truthful answers, that was for sure, but how the heck was she supposed to answer this one? Where was she even supposed to begin? What did she even want to say about it?

She deliberated for a long moment before sighing. In the absence of Ben's courage, she'd make do with her own and just take a leap of faith.

"I suppose I feel trapped because the monsters are back and trying to eat me." she averted her gaze, glaring at the ceiling. Having her mother's eyes bore into her as she bared her soul was not making it easier. "I feel trapped because despite everything, it feels like I'm just as weak as I used to be." She bit out, feeling tears forming but not caring. "I feel like no matter what I do, I'm only ever one slip away from being back at square one." But that wasn't it. Not all of it, really. "I feel trapped because Ben wasn't there." She finished miserably.

Wow. That was pathetic, even by her standards. Her younger self would be disgusted with her, even if it was only about six months younger.

"What do you mean, Ben wasn't there?" Her mother's voice drifted over.

"He wasn't there to help me!" She snapped, sitting up and anger flaring. "He was too busy getting his butt kicked by something he should have been able to handle in his sleep and then left me to face the monsters alone again!" She screamed the last part, uncaring that she maybe revealed too much, invited more questions that she could not answer, but she needed to let this out. "He promised me he'd be there. That he wouldn't ever let that happen again. And then- then he wasn't." She trailed off, all the fight bleeding out of her. "And I couldn't do anything either and it just, it just..."

The sheer feeling of misery was almost suffocating in its own right. She curled into a ball, trying to hide from her mother's penetrating gaze, though she couldn't have seen it through the gloom and tears. She sniffled, words coming out haltingly. "If I can't help myself and- and he can't either, then I'm..."

Trapped. She was trapped. Ben couldn't save her, and she couldn't either. Which left it just a matter of time before whatever came for her next, would get her. For all that Ben had a literal time bomb strapped to his wrist, at least it wasn't ticking anymore.

Hers was ticking faster every day. And she used to be able to stop it herself, she used to be good, strong, but now she couldn't do it alone, and yet…

Here she was. Alone.

Or not so alone, after all, as her mother rose from her seat and sat beside her on the bed, pulling her into a tight embrace, cradled close as she could be and Gwen let it happen, soaking it up. Her mother's embrace was different from grandpa's or Ben's. Grandpa's was huge, warm and strong, anchoring. It was a promise of affection that Gwen never realized how much she'd missed until she got it back. Ben's was like a puzzle piece slipping into place, his hold making her feel like everything was right- or it had, at least. She had no idea how it'd feel now.

Her mother's hold was different. Her mother's hold was tight, clawing, possessive even, in a good way. Her mother's embrace was a promise that she'd fight for you. And if nothing else, her mother had never lost a fight.

"We'll make this better, sweetheart." She murmured. "We're all still here for you, we're not going to make you do this alone. You or Ben."

Gwen's mind recoiled at the words, not daring to believe them. They sounded like Ben's- just another promise they couldn't keep. But this was her mother and… Gwen desperately wanted there to be someone to catch her if she fell again. Even if it was in vain. Even if it blew up in her face.

She at least tried to let herself believe the words. Maybe she'd believe them for real if she pretended for long enough.

When her breathing had calmed and their embrace broke, her mother remained seated beside her. Gwen idly wondered if her breaking down and her mom breaking all decorum to be there for her was going to be a running gag for their sessions. Gwen couldn't honestly say she'd mind if it was.

Her mother regained her composure quickly enough, reaching for the notes she'd left on the desk chair. "I'm glad that you told me this." She informed Gwen, giving the girl a small smile. "We'll dig deeper into it another time. It looks like you've had enough for one session. Do you feel better, letting it out?"

Gwen chuckled weakly, resting her head against her mother's shoulder. "Yeah." She admitted after some thought. "A little."

The woman hummed, one hand coming up to brush stray hairs from Gwen's face before turning back to her notes, her expression hardening a little. "So, I think we're going to need more time to unpack all this at a pace that's comfortable for you," she mused, "but that doesn't mean we can't already start on helping you more in your day to day struggles." Gwen's head snapped up. Her mother seemed almost amused. "Did you really think I was going to leave you hanging? Have some faith, Gwendolyn." The woman teased. Gwen giggled. Her mom didn't joke often but it always felt great when she did so with Gwen, like their own little secret.

"How can we…?" She started, curious.

"Well," her mother got up, patting her on the knee once before striding over to the door, opening it, and picking up a box she'd left outside. She say back down in Gwen's desk chair. "as you said, I see you every day." She started. "And as far as I can tell, the most deliberating problem you have right now is your panic attacks. Not only are they just terrible to deal with, they also limit your ability to tackle the root of the problem." The woman laid out, giving Gwen a considering look. An open look, though, one that invited Gwen to correct or add anything she wished.

Gwen was mostly busy trying to get her normally pretty adept brain to actually focus. Two panic attacks in under fifteen minutes were doing a number on her. She nodded, slowly. "That- that sounds right."

Her mother nodded, grimly. "And that's a problem. We can't tackle the root of your fear if you're this high strung. So I reckon we should start by fighting the symptoms of your panic attacks, so we can actually have harder sessions without..."

Melting her down. Gwen could see the logic. She nodded. It was terrifying, both the prospect of actually tackling this, and the prospect of harder sessions in the future if she did- this one was leaving her beyond raw and it had barely lasted ten minutes- but it gave her a goal. Something to work towards.

A lifeline. "How do we deal with the panic?"

Her mother's dimly lit face became an apologetic mask. "Your panic attacks seem to have some very specific, if common, triggers. And unfortunately, pumpkin, the only way to tackle that is by exposure therapy."

Gwen's blood chilled and her heart jerked, but she wrestled it down. She was safe here, with her mother. She was fine. She wasfine."...am I allowed to swear in these sessions?"

"Just this once."

Gwen inhaled, stilling her beating heart to the best of her ability. "Fffffff… fornication!" She finally burst out.

Her mother was giving her the flattest look in the universe. Gwen puffed out her cheeks, ignoring the heat in them. Her mother snorted, delicately.

"You are adorable."

"Mom!"

"You are." Her mother teased before sobering. "You ready?"

Gwen swallowed, the fear creeping back into her but she wrestled it down. No. She had to make an attempt, and she couldn't wait until she felt like it. She didn't have the time. "Let's do this." She resolved.

She got a proud smile from the woman she respected most- and then said woman pulled a potted plant out of the box and set it on the floor.

"Gwen, this is Daisy the Plant." She introduced. "It's going to be your job to keep her alive."

Carl spent a lot of time thinking about words. It was part of his job; well, one of them anyway. City engineering was his main one, but he made sure to make time to write columns for the local newspaper. They were nothing groundbreaking, just whimsical observations of the town he called home that mostly appealed to the nostalgic. He held them dear anyway. But finding ways to keep them fresh was always an interesting challenge, so Carl mused on words often.

Today's was 'normal', and all the ways in which it had changed over his life- and the rueful realization that perhaps he was not an ideal candidate to judge what 'normal' was at all.

Normal used to mean him, his brother and his mother. Aunt Vera was there, too, ghosting in and out where his parents were at a loss. And there was Max.

He supposed that to most children, being told that you're 'just like your father' was something of a reassurance, or at least a point of anchoring. A way to understand yourself by understanding another. Carl had always felt like a stranger to himself when someone compared him to his father.

Later, 'normal' had first brought the addition of Natalie to their little family, followed a few years later by Sandra, as well as a father that had progressively reentered into their lives even as his mother passed from hers.

He no longer felt so much like a stranger to himself, or to his family, and that had been a blessing he hadn't known he needed until he received it in abundance. He learned a bit of who he was in the quiet moments of companionable silence with dad, in the japes and jokes shared with Frank, in the bickering, waspish friendship he'd built with Natalie, and in the helpless, overwhelming affection he felt for Sandra.

And then Ben came along and he finally truly understood what it meant to know yourself by knowing another.

Ben was loud, rambunctious, energetic, unfocused, but brilliant if he put his mind to something, driven like no child had a right to be, being intermittently the most sullen creature in the Western hemisphere one moment and the brightest, happiest star in the sky the next.

Seeing the boy together with dad made him see something of Max reflected in Ben. But he also saw the parts that were Sandra. And he saw the parts that were him.

In a way, Ben felt more familiar than anyone else in his family. As far as Carl was concerned, that was a good thing.

But that changed when Ben came back from three months away and normal was different again. Normal became his boy waking up gasping for breath, calling out for Gwen in a panic before calling her for real on his phone. Normal became keeping a weather eye out so that they could interfere if Ben decided to try and remove the bomb strapped to his wrist again. Normal became watching his boy run around with weight and fear on his shoulders that he had no idea what to do with. None of them did.

But later, when Ben's fear receded ever so slightly so as to not be blinding, normal became… different, in a somehow even more confounding way.

Normal became to receive calls that Ben was staying over at dad's, at Frank's wherever- if Gwen was there, he was staying there. Normal became watching the kids be attached at the hip, affectionately bickering or sharing quiet moments of togetherness that almost stopped his heart in their tenderness. Frank, hopeless romantic that he was, saw something in that tenderness that Carl did not see at the time- how could he, when it so obviously stabilized Ben in a way nothing else could? The relief alone was worth putting up with any delusion Frank conceived.

But as the new normalcy had settled, he had started to see it too. Touches too lingering, gazes too intense. An undertone between them that always seemed to be on the cusp of something more that he could never quite pin down, but still recognized distantly. It was a more that he teased them about, a closeness he both appreciated for what good it did for them, but found off-putting the longer he thought about it.

And then there was that morning in the kitchen not too long ago, when that 'more' had seemed so easy to pin down that the only reason he didn't call it then and there was because he refused to give Frank the satisfaction. The romantic fool might have been on to something but Carl would hold out as long as he could before admitting it to him.

Even if his eyes all but confirmed it to himself. The lingering looks had been on full display, not stolen quietly but brazen in their obviousness. Their closeness, too, was not incidental but deliberate, not even the seemingly unknowing intimacy that was just 'them' these days- no, it had been a clear, intentional proximity that was clear as neon lights. And the way they spoke…

The way they spoke made his skin prickle with hidden meanings and layers of promises. It felt of something deeper than they had suspected, like an inside joke they only knew half the context of, and Sandra had agreed.

So, he'd gone searching. Through the photo album Max made of the summer, trying to find where this 'more' had started. Through his memories of after, to see if he could pinpoint where dislike had given way to friendship, to affection and eventually into that elusive more.

He hadn't found it. He could see clearly that as the summer progressed, the kids grew fonder of each other. And he could remember, with clarity, all the ways in which Gwen's very presence lit up the boy like even his comics or games could, how it had grounded him. He knew that somewhere in there, it must have shifted. Something had to have been the tipping point.

What he did find was a possible reason for why his child had returned from his trip so fearful. Of the way places lined up, of the way that scribbles under pictures of happiness lined up ominously with the dates printed on news clippings he'd collected over the summer.

Part of him wished he hadn't followed the thread. Even the idea, the very thought that even one of those strange things had occurred to them, was too cruel. Too cruel to imagine his family running into danger, too cruel to think it happened even more than once. But reality put even that injustice to shame.

Because it hadn't been once or twice. It had been every single one. Every single monster and paranormal phenomenon that had happened over the summer had happened right along their route. Carl didn't know whether it was the world's biggest cosmic joke, but it lined up too perfectly. And even if the kids had sounded whole and hale on the phone throughout their summer, again, it lined up too neatly to not be connected with their fears.

But just as that crack in his new normal had added to the crack that was the more between Ben and Gwen, Ben had up and shattered normal completely. His boy had returned from his stay with Max and Gwen despondent. Glum and beaten down in a way that seemed tired unlike Ben had ever seemed.

And he wasn't talking to Gwen.

The very mention of her name caused him to flinch, and that worried Carl more than anything. Reservations aside, it was obvious Gwen acted as a stabilizing force in Ben's life and to now be without that… it scared Carl. And so he had fully prepared himself for an old, unwelcome, normal to reassert itself. A normal where Ben cried out in the night and where he watched the boy like a hawk for new scratches on his arm.

But as of a few days, normal became something new again. And this time, it genuinely terrified Carl. This new normal had Ben become distant, cold, blunt in a way he had not been before. Rather than flinching at Gwen's name, a grim determination filled his eyes and he looked constantly ahead with a focus that was uncanny. It felt like watching a machine.

Carl knew Ben better than anyone else in his family, and knew his family through Ben. Even when the boy had been panicked and terrified, he could easily see his father in those green eyes- so alike when his mother had collapsed suddenly that fateful Sunday. He saw the affection in Ben when he was with Gwen later, just as clearly, and he saw it in his brother with Natalie or in Sandra with him. As strange as these normals were, he knew them still.

But for the first time ever, he couldn't see himself or his family in Ben anymore. Not this cold, mechanical Ben that spoke little and was present less. Not this Ben, who had disappeared from his bed and the house twice already at night and had returned to his bed by morning with nary a sound to mark his departure and return. Not this Ben, that should have been home from school an hour ago but was nowhere to be seen.

And until a few days ago, this would only have made him and his wife roll their eyes and sarcastically wonder how long it'd be that they would receive a call that he was staying with Gwen. But Ben wasn't talking to Gwen. He wasn't seeing Gwen.

Which meant they weren't sure where the boy was. And given their son's despondence, that was alarming.

"Maybe we should call dad?" He mused to his wife. The woman hummed, eyes darting nervously to the clock every few seconds.

"Maybe he already made up with Gwen and is with her?" Sandra countered. Carl liked the thought a lot, but…

"We might still want to call dad. He's… he wasn't doing too well either when he dropped him off, remember?"

"...true." Sandra looked miffed at the thought. "I'll make us some coffee, we can call afterwards-"

The front door opened and slammed shut and Carl was out of his seat and into the hall just in time to catch Ben halfway up the stairs. "Ben!" He called out, and he gave a silent thank you to the universe that the boy actually stopped and gave his father a questioning look. Carl smiled, disarmingly, gesturing for the living room. "Can we talk for a minute?"

The boy nodded slowly, moving down the stairs and into the living room seemingly without a care- but his shoulders were tense enough and rather than launch himself onto the couch like he was diving into a swimming pool, Ben sat down stiffly, gaze distant.

Promising, that was. Carl took a seat in his armchair, facing the couch. "Ben," he started, hesitant. The word slowly drifted on the breeze till it reached Ben, seemed to echo through him for a few seconds longer before Ben's eyes lit up with awareness again. Cal swallowed. He considered going for a gentle approach, but... "where were you last night?" He asked, bluntly. Being late was one thing, but disappearing? That was a little too serious to just wave away with a gentle smile and a talk. Behind him, he heard Sandra shift where she'd gone on making coffee in the kitchen. Not interfering, but angled to hear. He appreciated the back-up.

It took a good long moment before the words seemed to register with Ben and he stilled, the hand on his shoulder clenching minutely before a mask of innocent surprises came over him. The boy opened his mouth.

"Right here." He answered, looking bemused and mystified in the most endearing way. Carl could smell the bullshit from a mile away. It was the exact same look Max used when he was so obviously lying. The difference between his old man and his son, was that Ben wasn't as good at covering his tracks.

"You weren't." Sandra answered from the kitchen, turning to give their son a sharp look. Carl nodded.

"You weren't in your bed. Or anywhere in the house." He stressed, forcing the calm in his voice. "Where were you, Ben?"

For a split second the bemused innocence cracked and a twitch of annoyance flashed across the boy's face- another difference with his father. Max had a way better poker face. For all that he had grown to love the man dearly after he had retired and actually did his best to be a part of their family, Carl knew his father was a consummate liar and was to be approached accordingly.

It unnerved him that he now had to approach Ben in the same way.

"I was right here." Ben insisted, voice strained.

"You weren't-"

"I was!"

"Benjamin Kirby Tennyson," Sandra finally snapped from the kitchen, anger and hurt clear in her tone and visage. "stop lying to us this instance!"

Ben's mask cracked entirely, a fierce glare overtaking his features. "Stop ganging up on me!"

"We're not ganging up on you." Carl insisted before his wife could snap again. Turns out I'm the good cop today. Joy. Well, that was fine. His wife had always been infinitely fiercer than he could ever be. "We're just worried about you."

"Well," the boy crossed his arms petulantly. "don't be! I'm fine!"

"Then why weren't you here last night?" Sandra countered, calmer, but still sharp.

"No reason! It's no big deal!"

"So you're admitting that you weren't home, now?" Carl quickly picked up. Ben, sweet Ben, looked equal measures lost and frustrated.

"I didn't say that! Look, just leave it alone. I know what I'm doing."

"But what are you doing?" Sandra asked, anger draining out of her. She just looked tired now, skin and hair pale and wan. It took everything in Carl's power to remain seated in his chair and focus on Ben.

Another difference with his grandfather: Ben had the decency to be genuine in his guilt. But like his grandfather, it didn't change anything.

"I- we-" Ben sighed, dropping his head in his hands. "Look, just, trust me, okay? I got this. I'll explain later."

Now, Carl would be the first to admit that his wife had a fiercer temper than he had. That didn't mean he had none at all. He slapped a hand down on the arm of his chair in frustration, the bang startling everyone- himself included. "No you will explain now!" He snapped, rising from his seat, pacing. "We've been letting your run about with your secrets and your space for as much as we safely could because it seemed like it was helping you get better." He told Ben. "But this? This isn't making you better- you only seem to be getting worse! You barely sleep, you disappear from the house, you're distant, and you're not even talking to-"

"I know!" Ben yelled. Carl stopped his pacing, turning to look at his son, quirking an expectant brow. Ben grit his teeth but sighed. "I know it sucks for you- I do!" Ben bit his lip, averting his gaze. "I know I cause everyone trouble." He grumbled, almost to himself, and before Carl could gently but firmly correct that particular sentiment, Ben's eyes snapped back up. "but I'm not just running around. I'm working on it. I'm making itright.Just, trust me. A bit longer."

Carl closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath through the nose, expanding his lungs to their maximum capacity before exhaling the breath through his mouth. He opened his eyes to meet Ben's determined, pleading ones.

He wanted to. He wanted so much to take Ben at his word, to have faith that the boy was as wise beyond his years as he sometimes seemed to be, to dream that perhaps Ben could claw his way back to a good normal, or at least what counted for good these days. Carl had been happy to let Natalie handle the therapy, he'd been contend to let Sandra hound his father and he had been beyond grateful Gwen was simply there for his boy. They had picked up the slack where he simply could not- or hadn't wanted to.

But that had brought them here. Enough was enough. Much as he wished to give Ben one more chance at this, to stand back and let others set the course for his recovery, he couldn't. Not anymore. His resolve hardened and the pleading in Ben's eyes gave way first to weary resignation and then to fierce stubbornness.

Carl grit his teeth and opened his mouth-

The phone on the wall rang loudly in the silence.

And again.

By the third ring, Sandra sighed behind him. "I'll get it." She walked over and picked up the horn. Carl kept his gaze firmly trained on Ben, the boy not breaking eye contact for a second. Distantly, he heard Sandra. "Hey Nat, everything alright? Good. How is Gwen? And how are the plant- what?"

Carl and Ben silently broke their glaring competition- Carl to give his wife a questioning look, and Ben apparently to give his mother a look of terror that bordered on hysteria- one that only eased when he took in his mother's disgruntled expression. If the situation hadn't been so tense, Carl might have laughed, all the more so when said disgruntlement morphed into a picture of sheer incredulity. "You need more- I gave you four pots yesterday!" His wife protested. Carl supposed that it was about the plants Natalie had asked to borrow. "Even with conscious neglect that should have lasted her a week at least- ...you have got to be shitting me."

"Honey!" He burst out, scandalized. Ben perked up a little and Carl shot him down quickly. "That does not give you permission to use that word too, young man."

Ben poked out his tongue. Carl turned back to his wife, who was giving the horn a particularly flat look. "...I'll get you some new ones. Plenty to dig up in the garden. Yeah. I'll bring them by tomorrow. Please, for the love of God, pace yourselves this time. Alright, yes, bye, Nat." She placed the horn back on the wall and sighed, giving the two males a tired look. "So, those plants I loaned to Natalie to help Gwen?" She held up a finger. "The first got tossed out of the window three seconds after Natalie revealed it- taking out the window while at it, mind you- the second went the way of the first, the third up and disappeared entirely and the last, somehow, found its way into their garden last night and got struck by lightning." She finished listing, her left eye twitching minutely.

"...lightning?" He asked, disbelieving.

"Lightning." Sandra confirmed in utter deadpan.

Carl was just about stumped already, and more than a little frazzled, but his capacity for incredulity was about to be stretched further when Ben threw back his head and laughed. Laughed till he was gasping, till he fell off the couch. At his parents' surprised look he only laughed harder.

Carl had honestly thought Ben just… wasn't capable of that sort of joy anymore. Even if he didn't quite see the humor in all of this, he was glad Ben could.

But before that sprinkle of surprise could develop into a kernel of hope, Ben's back pocket vibrated and the boy stilled, entirely, for one excruciatingly long second, and then he fished his cell-phone out of his pocket, checked the screen, jumped up and made for the garden door.

Carl shot forward to block his path. "Ben, stop!" He protested, reaching for the boy, because no levity or laughter was going to make him forget their previous conversation-

Ben grabbed the hand and pulled, yanking him off balance, and then threw Carl despite their size difference. He landed on the floor, flat on his back, winded moreso than hurt, with a glimpse of Ben's hardened look meeting his.

"Sorry." He muttered, barely audible over Sandra's outraged yell. Before Carl could respond or before she could reach him, their son pivoted on his heel, yanked open the garden door and dashed off, quickly clearing the backyard and the fence like he had done it a million times before.

"Are you alright?" Sandra was there quickly, helping him into a seated position, looking distraught and angry and sad and- and nothing good.

He sighed. "Yeah. He didn't throw me hard. Basic judo move, really."

Sandra gave him a long look before she deflated. "Do you think he got that one from Gwen, or Max?"

Carl groaned, rolling his shoulder. "I honestly don't care."

Sandra mulled on that silently for a minute, letting Carl catch his breath, before she spoke up. "We gotta get the story out of Max." She said. "Our son just threw you. He's only been getting worse. We can't keep dancing around this anymore, trust be damned."

Carl flinched. "I don't like going behind their back like that..."

His wife nodded, reaching out to squeeze his hand briefly. "I don't either, but right now we're busier trying to respect their boundaries than we are helping them. And it's not working."

Carl's sore back could attest to that. Still. "I… agree, on one condition." He looked his wife in the eye. "We compile what we found, and send Natalie to Max. She's the one that needs to know. We… don't. And," He smiled ruefully, "she's the only one that dad is scared of."

Sandra snorted. "Oh, he'll be scared of me too when I'm done with him-"

He placed a comforting hand on her arm and raised his other one to thread through her hair, bringing her head to his to rest his forehead to hers. "Natalie is the only one he's afraid of that won't tear him limb from limb on sight. I kind of want him to live."

"...fine." She conceded, the very picture of a snapping turtle that had swallowed a lemon.

He smiled again. "I love you." He told her, meaning it. She clung to her anger for a moment longer, but an imperceptible softening of her features gave her away. Eventually she sighed, lightly.

"I love you too. And Max. And Ben. Though I want to kick two of those asses right now." She grumbled, before slumping, anger giving way to something more vulnerable there on the floor of their living room, the cold air from the garden washing over them in the bleak light of autumn. She gazed forlornly into the garden. Tears welled up in her eyes. "W-what if he… what if he stops listening to Natalie, too?" She asked. "What if he stops letting her help, stops letting us help- he's already not talking to Gwen-!"

"We'll find a way." He stressed, holding her close and scrunching his eyes shut against tears of his own, fighting so, so hard not to let the sheer helplessness he felt from overwhelming him entirely. That would be too easy. Just another thing in his life he had to accept.

He refused to just accept that his son might be wounded beyond healing.

"We'll find a way." He repeated, running a hand over his wife's golden hair. She held him in turn, and it centered him like nothing else in the world could. He wasn't entirely sure who was comforting who at this point, but it hardly mattered to him. "We're going to get the full story out of Max, we're going to make sure Natalie knows it. She can help them better that way. And we're going to make sure that Ben knows that he doesn't need to hide from us, that we'll be there for him."

"And what if he doesn't open up, even after that?" She whispered, clutching at him. He returned the gesture, clinging to the faintest sense of hope he had.

"Ben said that 'he's got this.' That we'd just need to wait." Sandra pulled back with a look of outrage, so he continued quickly. "And I don't think we should!" He stressed, silently agreeing with her unvoiced protest. "We need to do more. Just waiting… it isn't working. You're right about that. But that's not the point. The point is," He cupped his wife's face, breathing in her beauty and all the features that she'd passed on to their son as a reminder of why this mattered. "that he wants to be better. He still wants to, even if he's going about it wrong."

Carl dearly hoped the boy would be open to at least compromise on that. The unresolved fight they'd had, interrupted first by Natalie and then by whatever text he'd gotten- they'd need to check in with Frank and Nat to ask if Gwen was okay, if Ben had gone running to her- left a bitter taste in his mouth.

His wife slumped, looking like she'd aged ten years in just fifteen minutes. "I hope you're right." She said, simply, weakly.

Carl only held her, clinging ever harder to that faintest kernel of hope. Ben was still fighting in his own way. He just hoped that the boy would let them fight on his side, instead of against him.