Revelations

Natalie stirred her coffee, idly watching the vapor rise from it as it cooled. Across from her and a little to the side of their quaint round kitchen table, Sandra was fidgeting- not so much in nervousness as in nervous energy, she thought. Carl had always been the calm in their marriage.

Speaking of which, her brother in law sighed into the receiver where he stood leaning against the kitchen counter, a rueful smile ghosting across his lips, a small spot of happiness in his otherwise tense frame. He always looked disturbingly like Frank in moments like these, something Sandra and her had often mused about.

"Of course they are. And of course she did. No, no I'm not even surprised anymore. Is he doing better-? Ah, glad to hear it. That'll put Sandra at ease."

At her name, the blonde glanced up from her own coffee, quirking a brow at her husband before turning her inquisitive gaze on Nat. The redhead shrugged. She had a pretty good idea of what had happened, but wasn't in any hurry to mention that.

"Okay. I'll pass it on. Keep us posted? Yeah. Of course I'll give Sandra a kiss for you- Natalie too?" Carl turned a bemused look onto Nat. She pulled out her best death glare in return and he flinched. The move reminded her so much of Ben in that moment that she almost wanted to get up to ruffle his hair. "Err, how about a crisp high-five…? Yeah, I'll do that then. Later, dad."

Ending the call, he sighed, still smiling that rueful smile. As if to highlight his similarity to both his son and father in that moment, he all but marched over to Sandra as soon as he put the phone down and shamelessly kissed her deeply, holding up his hand for Nat. She bit back a chuckle and held out until he was done eating his wife's face before finally giving in and smacking the hand back. Hard.

Rubbing the appendage, he took his own seat at the dinner table. "Alright, with that out of the way: dad called. Turns out that Ben was having a really rough day, and Gwen sorta walked out of school to go see him." He turned to give Natalie a look. She held up her hands.

"I have yet to hear from Gwen's school, but even if they did call, they probably contacted Frank rather than me." And he had neglected to call her. Probably saving it for when he could soothe her wroth with dinner and a back-rub.

The joke was on him. She wasn't angry about Gwen at all. But she supposed milking the situation for a free back-rub couldn't hurt. She'd been raised to seize opportunities, after all.

"Right." Carl continued. "Anyway, Gwen made the executive decision that Ben needed some 'home away from home' time and dad has no spine, so we'll be seeing them somewhere tomorrow. Maybe." He finished sipping his coffee, grimacing slightly. The man had never liked coffee as much as the rest of them.

Natalie sighed, mirroring Carl's rueful expression while Sandra pinched the bridge of her nose with an equally exasperated look. "Well," the blonde stated, "raise of hands for who's surprised?"

Carl snorted, putting his mug down before he accidentally inhaled it. "I know we always raised him to be independent, but I didn't think he'd be moving out so soon." The man wiped mock tears and Natalie rolled her eyes. He wasn't far off though; she was pretty sure Ben effectively spent half his free time not being home.

And a lot of that time was at her house. Making out with her daughter, to boot. Her left eye twitched. That… still took some getting used to. As well as quelling the instinctual urge to throw any boy out the window for coming near her little girl.

She bit back a sigh. She'd made a promise to the kids. And to herself. Though she couldn't help but wonder if this visit to their grandpa wasn't simply the next step in their plan to win everyone over. She wanted to scoff at the thought, because they were ten, for crying out loud. And acted like it most of the time.

But she'd seen them be clever beyond their years before. She was not underestimating them again.

"I suppose that means we can take our time with whatever you've got going on here." Natalie remarked, using her coffee mug to gesture at the map on the table. A map, marked with a route, and a photo album next to it, as well as a pile of paper on the edge of the table. Clear hints, but perhaps Carl could surprise her. "What am I looking at?"

"A map and a photo-album-"

"I see where Ben gets the sass..."

"Yes, bit of a story to that." Carl interrupted them, giving Sandra a pointed look. She blew him a kiss and Natalie couldn't contain a quirk of her lips. Sandra grinned when she spotted it and all was fine. For now. The stern woman turned her full attention on the man. He sighed, looking far more troubled than he usually did, the tension returning to the room in spades, snapping into focus the bags under his eyes. And that of his wife.

If it was for the reason Natalie thought it was, that did not bode well for Ben and Gwen. For the time being, the woman took a sip of her coffee and settled in for a wait. Much as Carl and Frank could be alike, if there was one difference between them, it was that the columnist had a way of taking forever to get to the point.

"Last week," he started, "when Gwen was sleeping over, we noticed something… odd about the children." Natalie quirked a brow at him, conveying her meaning well enough. He held up his hand to forestall her. "Odder than usual, I mean."

Natalie bit back another sigh, leaning back in her seat. Okay, so they were doing this now. "What do you mean, Carl?"

The man's jaw worked silently for a moment before he continued. "You know the way they are, these days. They bicker all the time still, but they also… cuddle. A lot." Understatement of the century. The brats lived in each other's pockets. "But last time..." He trailed off.

"Last time they were looking at each other like you and Frank do after a good round of-"

"Thank you Sandra, I think we got it." Natalie interrupted primly, taking a delicate sip of her coffee and fighting down the heat crawling up her face. She cleared her throat before fixing the others with a pointed look. "Surely you're not suggesting that Ben and Gwen are doing more than just cuddling…?"

Because she was pretty sure that was physically impossible at their age. And she hoped that the open door she left for Gwen would leave her feeling secure enough to bring things like that up with her a few years down the line before things escalated. She was not ready to be a grandmother anytime soon.

And if there was a distant part of Natalie that was laughing hysterically at herself for thinking in terms of 'years down the line' when it came to Ben and Gwen, she squashed it ruthlessly. That way lay madness and there was enough of that going around.

Sandra and Carl immediately started spluttering. "No, no! Not at all!" Sandra said. "Just a joke to illustrate the point, let's not go there-"

"I'm just picking up where you left of, Sandra dearest." She pointed out, innocently. Goodness gracious, the kids were rubbing off on her. She was having far too much fun like this.

"All we're saying," Carl picked up, taking a sip of his own coffee- not his first mug, by the looks of it. He looked like he'd pulled an all-nighter. "is that the… energy between the kids was pretty tense. And the way they talked made us think that..." He sighed, running a hand through his hair before fixing Nat with a penetrating look. She almost swallowed, but instead sipped her coffee. It seemed he was ready to get to the point.

"You've seen them together more often than us recently." He asserted. "Do you think there might be… more, going on?"

Natalie sighed inwardly. Alright, so the kid's plan had worked, and like Gwen had feared, Sandra and Carl had brought it up with her. Not that this was the first time anyone had brought it up in the group, Frank had started on about the potential for this weeks ago. Sandra and Carl had only cared about Ben getting better and stopping his inadvertent self-harm, and Natalie and Max had assumed that if it was a thing, it was a phase at best and no big deal.

Needless to say, they'd underestimated this. Tenting her fingers in front of her, she answered carefully. "What about the way they acted was so very 'different' that it made you worried enough to call me? I've seen them be close plenty of times, but nothing I wouldn't expect from children in their… situation." Aside from the obvious canoodling. But she was pretty sure that mentioning that one would go against her promise to the kids.

The other two exchanged a look. Carl hummed, continuing. "It's actually about that situation, rather than, err, that. I'm not being very clear here, let's just skip to the end-"

"No!" Natalie interrupted, startling both of her in-laws… and herself, because this was not how Natalie was supposed to react to Carl offering the benefit of a lifetime by getting to the point. She ought to be jumping for joy, but she really wanted to know. "I mean," she coughed into her hand. "the kids have, as part of their therapy, opened up to me more. Maybe I can make more sense of it if you tell me what, precisely, was so different." She gave them a rueful grin. "Though I likely won't be able to tell you my findings. Patient confidentiality and all that."

Carl eyed her curiously, but not suspiciously. Sandra did cock her head, though, and Natalie could see the gears turning in her head. She was the one that spoke up, quietly, slowly, eyeing the redhead for her reaction. "They talked like they were… considering each other romantically." She pointed out, succinctly and diplomatically. "Heavily at that. Put that together with the intimacy and..."

And you have credible reasons to be suspicious. Part of Natalie wanted to scream. Because sure, the kids' plan would have worked brilliantly, but only if they assumed that Ben's parents would take longer to catch on than they did, and weren't already at least a little suspicious.

For all that the adults underestimated the kids, it seemed they in turn were underestimating the adults. Natalie sighed internally. The brats had better be grateful for this…

She scoffed, waving her hand dismissively. "Hardly my dear. As far as I can glean from my talks with the kids, there's nothing going on there. As far as I can tell, not disclosing anything they actually said, Ben and Gwen rely on each other because they are the only one they have for comfort." She gave Sandra a look askance. "And my daughter can do better anyway, and she knows it."

Well, having a passable relationship with Sandra had been nice while it lasted. But going by the incandescent rage lighting up the blonde's eyes, Natalie was at least three months worth of cooling off away from being considered a friend again. She did not give the woman a chance to vocalize it, though, leaving her to stew.

Rather have her rage internally at Natalie as a distraction than be suspicious of Ben and Gwen. They weren't ready for that. "As far as I can tell, they rely on each other because, whatever they've been through, they went through it together. That's why no one else can give them the comfort they need."

Both Sandra and Carl tensed, anger dissipating from Sandra's features while the annoyed ruefulness that Carl adopted whenever she threw shade at Ben melted into a downcast look at the map in front of them. Natalie suddenly felt that this romance was the least of their problems.

"...about that, I may have a… theory." Carl started, licking his lips, sounding parched despite downing the remainder of his mug just seconds earlier. It set Natalie on edge. "I borrowed the photo album dad made of the holidays. I guess, after seeing that closeness, I wanted to see where it started, see the change." He swallowed, looking Natalie in the eye. "And I guess I wanted to see my boy be happy again, even if on a photo."

Natalie wanted to protest that there were times that Ben was happy, that he needn't look far to see his son like that, but she found she couldn't. Ben had times where he smiled, where he laughed, but she'd seen enough of him to see what Carl saw: both Ben and Gwen moved like there was a constant weight on them. Natalie had thought, briefly, that it was the secret of their affection weighing them down.

But it was more likely that the secret of whatever trauma they'd suffered was the real cause. Ben and Gwen were happy around each other… but also the most burdened it seemed.

Ben and Gwen weren't happy. And given that the last time Natalie had seen her daughter be truly happy was when she was crying tears of joy over getting a full night's sleep for the first time in weeks… she could sympathize with Carl's plight. "Did you find it?" She asked in a near whisper.

Carl sighed, giving a hollow chuckle. "In glimpses." He admitted, sounding more bitter than he usually did. Sandra reached over the squeeze his hand, eyes sad. Natalie swallowed. Maybe they all needed a few rounds at the shrink. Hiding away how truly distressed they were was better for the children- they needed that solid foundation of normalcy and support that only a family could provide- but it was clearly wreaking havoc on Ben's parents.

Carl squeezed his wife's hand with a smile before looking Natalie in the eye. "But I did find something else." He started, voice clear again. "You recall how the news has been abuzz with stories about monsters and magic?" He asked her, almost rhetorically. Natalie's brow furrowed slightly, raising her mug to take a sip.

"In passing. I prefer not to follow those things as they happen. I'd rather check in at a later time to get a complete story. But Frank has been an avid follower of that particular news reel." If mostly because the outlandishness of it all was fuel for his imagination when his soaps and romance novels failed him-

No. No, he couldn't mean-

"Surely you're not implying," the voice of a stranger tore from her throat, for she could never sound that timid, that scared, right? "that the kids were caught up in one of those things? Met one of those monsters?"

Silence met her question. Her wide eyes fell on Sandra, who could only offer her a sympathetic look, then they flicked back to Carl, silently pleading him to deny what he was so obviously implying. He would not meet her gaze, contrary to his wife. No, his eyes were focused in front of him, trailing down to the table.

Down to the map. The map on which, she could see now, the man had charted the route the kids had traveled with their grandfather. The map on which, spaced with pins and Carl's neat, precise writing, all the supernatural events of the summer had been plotted.

The map on which these two things aligned, perfectly. Her eyes snapped to a pile of news print-outs she had previously judged as just a stack of paper, sitting with deceptive sereneness on the edge of the table, before her gaze returned, painfully slowly, to Carl's. He looked as devastated as she felt.

"Not caught up in one of those events." He spoke, softly, and she could see both him and Sandra bow in on themselves slightly and Natalie realized that they too had tried to stave of acknowledging this. Until now.

"All of them, Nat." He ground out, pressing a hand over his eyes. "They were caught up in fucking all of them."

"That's is a terrible idea, doofus." She groused, pointedly ignoring the pleased noises the boy made as he nuzzled into the back of her head like a needy cat. Or they way both their bodies swayed as the Vulpimancer gently headbutted them. They'd probably have fallen over if they hadn't already been seated on the ground. Ben's arms, slung around her shoulders, tightened.

"C'mon dweeb. Neither of us are gonna be able to play this cool. We might as well use that as an excuse to show grandpa how badass we are together."

Gwen grit her teeth as the Rustbucket quickly approached from the air. "Yeah because that went so well with your parents. I should just lock you in the bathroom so I don't have to deal with you until the spell wears off."

Ben stilled behind her, arms tightening around her shoulder. She could feel his breath on her neck as he helped ward off the chill. "Can you?" He asked and it… wasn't a tease. Not even a challenge. No, instead, her cousin was asking if she could be apart from him right now, if she wanted him there. Knowing that he'd be there if she asked him did wonders to calming her steadily fraying nerves.

Because she did need him. Locking him in the bathroom would only mean she'd break down the door in a minute or two, and not just because of the spell. Or he would. "I… I think I'll be better when we're inside the Rustbucket." She confessed as the vehicle finished its landing just a few yards away from them.

Ben's hold on her tightened, a comforting squeeze, and she raised her hand to grasp his arm in a small squeeze of her own. She didn't need to tell him that nearly crashing to her death above a forest of bare branches and then getting attacked in a field of dull green grass had put her far too close to the edge for comfort.

He already knew. And in a way, she was glad for the spell, because if nothing else, that anchoring feeling Ben always gave her was amplified by it. "We'll just roll with it." She decided. Behind her, Ben nodded.

Grandpa Max eyed them with amusement when he came up to them, eyes lingering on the now docile Vulpimancer before resting fully on Gwen. She grinned innocently. He did her the courtesy of not pointing out the fragility she could feel in the expression.

"So, when I said 'subdued them' I may or may not have forgotten to mention that I used a love spell to do that..." Ben buried his face in the crook of her neck with a snicker and she squeaked. "S-So we might be a little more, uhm..." In love than usual? More clingy? More affectionate?

"More you than usual?" The old man finished for her, looking far too amused with the entire ordeal.

"...fine darn it. Yes, more us than usual." She grumbled, yanking Ben's head back by his hair, pointedly ignoring his pained yelp. There was no heat in it, and he stuck close to her as they got to their feet.

They followed grandpa Max back inside the RV and while he pulled out a busted down Vulpimancer translator and set about fixing it ("Might just be useful for talking to our guest."), Ben and Gwen moved just to the other side of the booth, contend to watch him work and give the full report on what happened. At least, until she spotted the mutt laying down under the window.

The creature had been riding the high of her spell, for sure, but now that she had some distance she could see the exhaustion in the emaciated figure. Gwen wasn't sure if it was the love spell that made the state of the mutt pull on her heartstrings, or if it was just her. Ben, of course, noticed, biting his lip with worry too.

"You know, Vulpimancers love fried squid. It's similar in texture and taste to their preferred prey." Grandpa Max offered, startling them (and letting Gwen realize that she and Ben were holding hands under the table, and when had that happened?), not looking up from his work, a faint smile ghosting across his lips. "I think we have some next to the worms in the fridge, and some flour and spices in the cupboards..."

Gwen shot him a wide grin, hoping her smile wasn't as watery as it felt. "Have I told you that you're the best?"

The old man laughed, eyeing them both. "Only a million times, but it never hurts to hear."

Ben grinned to, already moving out of the booth seat. "Well aside from me, you are the best-"

"How does your ego fit through the door, again?"

Ben didn't respond to that, instead tugging her out of the seat with a grin, catching her stumble just so he could peck her on the forehead which did not cause her to grin like a lovestruck fool and even if it did it was because of the stupid spell. So there.

Her heart did stutter for a moment when she registered the intimacy of the act (and their position because she was all but leaning on Ben and nuzzling her cousin's face), but grandpa Max seemed to roll with it. Turns out this love spell cover was working quite well. Ben waggled his eyebrows at her.

Told you, cootie queen.

She shoved him away and marched to the kitchen, staunchly ignoring her blush and the way he snickered. They whipped up the fried squid easily enough, some degree of cooking skill being a necessity when surviving with their eccentric grandfather. All the while they jabbed at each other, kicked at each other shins and bickered.

But whenever they had to reach around each other they would linger too long. Wherever they could they stood side by side, hip to hip if possible. And all too often they would reach out to brush hands for no better reason than because it felt pleasant and they couldn't quite stop themselves. Gwen was nervous for the first minute of it all, but relaxed into it slowly. They had their cover. And grandpa Max was busy fixing his machinery anyway.

So when they waited for the chicken to fry Gwen just leaned in and placed a chaste kiss on Ben's lips, and was delighted to feel the smile grow against her own. She was nearly okay. But she could feel that Ben was still tensed up.

Pulling back just as quickly, she scooped the finished meat into a bowl and handed it to the doofus. "Go play with the mutt." She told him, poking out her tongue at him. He didn't take the bait.

"...are you sure?" He asked, warily. Her grin faltered a bit.

"Yeah, no worries. I'll call you if something… happens."

Ben eyed her for a long moment before leaning in to brush foreheads, for only a second that felt like an hour, before he turned away and went outside to present the very happy Vulpimancer with the treat. She smiled despite the hole in her chest that she felt at being apart again. She shuffled into the booth seat across from grandpa, moving up to the window so she had a front row seat of the mutt devouring the food. Ben spotted her and waved. She returned it with a sigh.

"You sure you don't need Ben here, princess?" She turned her entire body to face grandpa properly. He was still preoccupied with the machinery but she could feel his attention on her. She nodded.

"Yeah. I'm okay in here. Ben's not really, though, but if he cracks now I'm not sure if I'm strong enough to help." And they'd already had at least one time where they'd both broken down at the same time, and while it had done wonders for the intensity of their affection, it had been terrible at the time.

"...so you're keeping him busy till you recover, giving him a poor animal to be a hero for." The old man surmised. "Sometimes, it's frightening how well you two read each other."

Her eyes trailed to the window and she smiled at the sight of another Vulpimancer playing chase with the mutt, Ben happily yipping in the growing gloom. "It's what we do."

Grandpa Max hummed in agreement. "Not all you do, it seems." From the corner of her eye she saw him look up, and slowly turned her head to meet his raised brow.

"What do you mean?" She asked, curiously.

Grandpa Max sighed. "I've seen you two together for months now." He stated, simply. "And you and your cousin have changed a lot in that time, become closer than I could've dared to hope. And you needed that, after what you went through. It seemed only natural." He turned his gaze to the window, where she could see Ben's human form play-wrestling the mutt. She hardly noticed it, with the wind roaring in her ears. Part of her had no idea what they were talking about, while another part knew precisely where this was going.

"But for the last few weeks in particular," he continued, quietly, "I've wondered if what I was looking at wasn't something… more, than what I assumed it to be." His gaze returned to meet hers. He quirked a smile. "And then my granddaughter tells me that they've been hit by a love spell, that they'll act like it until it wears off, and then my grandchildren proceed to act exactly as they have been acting for the past few weeks, if not more."

...it was the mall all over again. That time at the mall, the day she met Anna and Lizzie, where she realized how many unknown touches she and Ben shared. What the two of them looked like to those who saw them.

Grandpa had seen their closeness and understood it as comfort, just as she and Ben had for a long time. And now they had all but told him, without knowing it, that what he had been seeing was in fact love.

This was, she supposed, the part where she vehemently denied his implication. Made an excuse. Made up some magical mumbo jumbo that would muddy the waters. Or just pretend innocence, that she didn't understand what he was even saying. It would've worked on her parents, though grandpa Max knew her better than that.

Instead, she rested her head against the window, seeing the boy in the encroaching darkness. He was sitting on the ground now, a look of focus on his face as he clutched his elbow and the glowing green veins of the Omnitrix danced up his arm, lighting a fire in his eyes. She sighed, softly, wistfully.

"...why did I have to fall in love with Ben, grandpa?"

Grandpa met her question with silence for a long minute, and Gwen waited for the ax to drop. For the rejection. For the anger. For the hurt.

She should've known better. It was grandpa Max, after all.

"Do you remember Xylene?" He asked, nonchalantly, returning his focus to the small, oval machine he was tinkering with. He didn't wait for an answer. "I met her when I was much younger, on a joint mission between her militia and the Plumbers. I forget the name, I think it was disbanded a few years later. We hit it off immediately." He quirked a smile. "Her blunt candor reminded me so much of my Rose, I absolutely adored her." His expression faltered and Gwen immediately reached across the table to grasp his hand, squeezing it.

"When- when Rose died, I was… distraught. I threw myself into my work, more than anything. The kids were fully grown, and Vera looked after them as best she could. I couldn't." He raised his head to the ceiling, inhaling deeply. "Xylene, she... she was there for me when I needed someone to rely on. There had always been something between us, we just never acted on it. I was married, she was of an entirely different species. These things didn't matter in the end, for one reason or another. She was there, and she was what I needed."

He quirked a humorless smile. "Plumber work asks an open, tolerant mindset of a person. You can't work together with people from all walks of life and aliens from distant planets if you're weighed down by close-mindedness, not in this line of work. But for many of my coworkers, my 'unnatural relationship' with Xylene somehow invalidated all they knew of me. They grew cold. Some even tried to have me fired on account of it."

Gwen bit her lip, leaning back into her seat. "That's… horrible." She didn't even want to think about how she'd feel if her friends and family turned on her for being in love with the stupid doofus.

"It was." The old man agreed simply, lowering his gaze back from the ceiling to smile at her. "Which is why I wouldn't put anyone else through that."

Which is why I'm not going to put you through that. Gwen felt that tension in her shoulders slowly ease away, a feeling of relief spreading through her that reminded her very much of when her mother told her she was going to help them. She breathed out a shaky breath.

"Thanks grandpa. I-I figured you would be the most at ease with it but..." But that didn't stop the fear of rejection. The old man smiled sadly, an understanding smile that she'd never treasured more.

"Gwen, loving someone who loves you back is never wrong, and I won't ever treat you worse for doing so." His kind smile morphed into a full blown grin. "And I gotta admit, you two are adorable together."

"Grandpa!" She spluttered, beet red.

"No, seriously. I think the Germans have this phrase for it, 'you tease that which you love.' Should've seen it coming, really, when you think of it like that."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this."

"Although," his grin turned sour, "we're going to need to have a serious conversation about you two getting any sweeter. Growing up with Vera and then raising Frank was bad enough. If there's anymore sweet romance in my life, I'm going to get heart problems."

Gwen rolled her eyes so hard she saw the back of her skull, but smiled regardless, her gaze finally settling on the boy outside. When he caught her looking, he jokingly flexed and winked before he was tackled down and licked by the mutt. She snickered.

"No promises