"Another, half, day of boring school done, another bad guy's butt kicked." Ben swiped his palms across each other with a satisfied grin on his face. "All in a day's work."

The ten year old boy put his hands behind his head and walked down the sidewalk with a smirk on his face. The brown haired kid was wearing a green t-shirt and black pants, the same he had worn to the first half of school that day before hearing about the bank robbery during recess and skipping out. He looked up at the sky, watching the clouds as he walked. If only I had turned into XLR8 for the way back, he thought. I would have made it back to school by now. Not that Stinkyfly is slow, but I really gotta figure out how to make this thing work. He lifted up his left arm above his head and stared at the red symbol on top of the Omnitrix.

"Maybe if I call Grandpa he'll have some ideas," Ben said out loud, smiling even more at the thought of talking to his Grandpa Max again. It had been almost a month since the summer ended, and he missed not seeing his grandfather every day. "Yeah, Grandpa will know what to do... and maybe Gwen's got a new spell that could help." He added, a smaller smile on his face this time. After a second of smiling like that he opened his mouth wide and laughed loudly, "As if! Bet the dweeb's too worried about homework to even work on her magic. Not like this hero..."

"Hey kid!"

"OoooOOHHT!" Ben spun his head to the left where the horn started. As his head finished its swivel though, the truck was right there. He didn't even realize he'd walked into the road, but he was already halfway across. The back of the truck where the cargo was, was swinging out to the side to avoid, but the front couldn't move fast enough. Ben actually saw inside the glass windshield and the panicked expression on the driver's face as he tried spinning the wheel as hard as he could.

BAM

"Could anyone tell me what x would be in this equation?" Mr. Foley, the short math teacher in the front of the room asked his class. He looked around and smiled at the sight of at least one enthusiastic student in the room. "Yes, Ms. Tennyson."

"X = 25," she stated, a smirk on her face as there was not much to the simple question.

The short man wearing glasses and a toupee, (or at least the entire class thought his hair was fake), smiled back at Gwen and nodded his head. "That is correct." He wrote down 25 on the board next to the equation, and kept talking as he did. "Now class, on Friday we will be having a quiz on-"

Ch-ch. The sound of the speaker system turning on made the entire class look up near the clock above the doorway, where there was also a small circle for the announcements to come out in the morning. "Mr. Foley," a woman's voice came over the speaker and many of them recognized it as the principal, Ms. Janice's voice.

The fifth grade teacher looked up at the speaker and responded respectfully, "Yes?"

"Please send Gwendolyn Tennyson to the principal's office. That is all." Ch-ch. The speaker turned back off and everyone looked over to Gwen.

A girl sitting on Gwen's left leaned in, "What did you do?" she asked in a low whisper.

Gwen had a pissed off expression on her face and she stood up angrily. She looked down at her friend and muttered, "I didn't do anything." She looked over at the teacher and Mr. Foley motioned for the door. She left her books and belongings back at her seat as she walked over to the door and left her classroom. I don't plan on being gone long. She thought in frustration as she started marching down the hall.

I told him not to cut class anymore. But he just had to go save the day! Agghh, he is so infuriating! She turned down another hallway and headed towards the front of the school where the main office and the principal's office were. She took a deep breath before grabbing the doorknob to the principal's office, and as she pushed the door open she started, "Listen, I don't know where Ben is-" She stopped short as she noticed not only the principal standing behind her desk, but also a chubby old man that made her smile from ear to ear. "Grandpa! Wait, what are you doing here?" Before she ran up to give the man who she missed so much a hug, she wanted to know why he was in her school, and why he was not returning her bright smile.

Max Tennyson walked over to his granddaughter with a sad frown on his face. She was starting to get nervous, a lot more so as the old man wearing a red Hawaiian shirt got down on one knee in front of her so they were eye level with each other. "Gwen," he started, in a voice that made her take a small step back.

"Wh-" she looked from her Grandpa back to the principal who shared Max's sad look. She looked back at the man in front of her with gray hair, "What's going on Grandpa?"

"Gwen," Max began, making sure to keep eye contact with her as he spoke. "There's been an accident. Your cousin, he's-"

"I knew it," she snapped, looking angry all of a sudden. "I knew this was about Ben-"

"Gwen," her Grandpa said sternly, cutting her off. Her eyes widened at his stern expression, but it softened almost immediately. Max spoke softer, "Ben, was hit by a truck." Gwen's eyes widened as her grandfather continued, "He's in the hospital right now. The doctors, say it doesn't look good," he said, putting it lightly.

"Wh-" she began, her head swirling with confused thoughts. "What do you mean? What's 'not looking good' mean?"

Max's face filled with hurt and he lifted up a hand, putting it on his granddaughter's shoulder and squeezing it lightly. "They say, he may not make it past the night."

"Not make, it…" she repeated slowly, wondering if she just heard that right. She shook her head a few times, "No. This is Ben we're talking about!" She shouted at the old man in front of her. "How could a truck- Not even Vilgax- This, doesn't…"

"You will be excused from class for the rest of the week," Ms. Janice spoke up from behind her desk. Max turned around and nodded at the principal who nodded back grimly.

The man turned back to his granddaughter and squeezed her shoulder a little tighter. "Your parents asked me to pick you up from school on my way to the hospital. Come on," he stood up and started walking towards the door.

Gwen turned and followed her Grandpa with her eyes, then her legs started following after him too. A car crash?! This doesn't make any sense. Ben has to be… this is probably an elaborate scheme of his to get out of school. Ah! What am I thinking? Ben can't come up with elaborate schemes, that's my job!

"I don't understand Grandpa," Gwen whispered as they were walking out of the school building. "How could Ben, get hit by a truck? It, it doesn't make any sense!" The older man with gray hair sighed as they reached the RV he had parked right in front of the school's front doors.

Max went and sat down in the driver's seat and Gwen hopped up in the passenger one. Her Grandpa started up the car and spoke quietly, "An eyewitness said he just wandered right out into the road. He, wasn't paying attention…"

"That idiot!" Gwen shouted, throwing her arms up in exasperation. She leaned back in her seat as her Grandpa drove them out of the school's parking lot and onto the road. The girl in the passenger seat crossed her arms and angrily glared through the windshield. "I always knew he was stupid, but this is just," she growled and her hands trembled in rage as she clenched them under her armpits.

"Don't be too upset with him," her Grandpa said softly. "Apparently ten minutes before the accident, a bank robbery was stopped by an alien-"

"I don't care," Gwen snapped at the man driving the RV. He stopped mid-sentence with his mouth open, then slowly closed it as Gwen yelled at him. "I don't care what he was doing! He should have been more careful!" She ground her teeth in annoyance and glared back through the front windshield. "They say, he may not make it past the night." Her expression lost its anger and her hands started shaking in something other than rage. What do those doctors know? They don't know Ben. That idiot couldn't die if you killed him!

"We're here," Max whispered, snapping Gwen back to focus outside the window. The RV was pulling into a driveway on the right, and she looked up at the large hospital building they drove alongside. She stared at the windows of each room they past, her heart racing as she imagined… well, she couldn't really picture what she thought she was going to find. She thought about Ben and all she saw was the same goofy smile she saw earlier that day, just that morning.

The RV parked and the two of them got out and walked towards the hospital. Max put a hand on his granddaughter's shoulder to comfort her, but she shrugged him off, a small frown on her face as they walked towards the doors of the hospital. There was a man outside with a mop, and Gwen's eyes darted down to a patch of red on the ground the guy was cleaning. Her heart clenched, then she shook her head angrily at herself. You're at a hospital. It could be anyone's!

"We're looking for Benjamin Tennyson's room." Gwen heard her grandpa speak and looked up to see him looking over the front desk at a nurse behind it.

The woman in blue scrubs had a flash of sadness fill her face for a second, then she pointed her arm over at a hallway. "Second room on the right," she stated, then looked away from Max and down at Gwen with the same apologetic expression on it. Gwen looked into her eyes for a few seconds, then turned away and started walking towards that door she pointed at.

"Gwen, honey," Max began, but the girl was walking faster than him and even broke into a small jog as she headed towards the room.

No. Ben wouldn't have, this isn't right! Gwen reached the door and twisted the handle, throwing the door open and running inside. The room was pretty empty other than the woman standing next to the bed on Gwen's left. She was leaning over the bedside and when she turned around, Gwen saw it was her Aunt Sandra.

The woman had black streaks down her face from the tears that made her makeup all runny. She looked over at Gwen and sniffled a few times, then stepped out of the way so Gwen could see the boy on the bed next to her. Gwen's green eyes grew wider than ever before at the sight in front of her. It made her stomach turn upside-down and she gagged, but could not turn away. The boy on the bed had bandages wrapped around his legs, up his torso, covering his stomach, chest, and his arms. It covered it right arm all the way down to the bump where the bandages were wrapped around what looked like his elbow, except there wasn't anything below it. On the other side his arm was outstretched, looking completely fine except for the shoulder that was bandaged like everything else and being held up by a few strings.

The bandaged up body wouldn't be so bad, if there weren't splotches of red all over it. His neck was wrapped a little too, but his face was left out in the open more. The top of his head had a few loose bandages wrapped on it, with clumps of bloody brown hair sticking out from between. One of his eyes was swollen shut with a huge gash over the top of his eye socket, sewn shut with stitches. His right eye looked a little better though it was closed. His nose looked like it lost a chunk and had a Band-Aid slapped on it above the stitches. His cheeks each had bumps and near his chin it looked like something was broken, maybe his jaw. Each of the normally white bandages on his face had a decent amount of dark red blood soaked through them.

"Oh Ben," a voice said behind Gwen and the taller, gray haired old man lightly pushed past to run over to Ben's side. Max stopped at Sandra's side and held her close to him as he looked down at the bedside. "I can not tell you how sorry I am," he whispered to the mother next to him who he could feel start crying into his arm.

"C-Carl says he's on his way here," the woman sniffed a few times and then looked up at her husband's father who was comforting her. "I just, can't believe this."

"I know," Max Tennyson whispered into his daughter-in-law's ear, hugging her close to him.

Meanwhile, Gwen had not torn her eyes off of the horribly injured boy lying on the bed. That isn't Ben, she thought, looking at the figure who looked nothing like her cousin. From head to toe he was covered in bandages except for his face which she barely even recognized anymore. Only his left arm, with the watch that was unmistakably the Omnitrix, made her truly believe this was the same boy lying in front of her who she saw that morning.

"Mrs. Tennyson," someone spoke up behind Gwen and she looked back for a second. There was a man behind her wearing white scrubs, a pair of glasses, and holding a clipboard in one hand as he looked into their room. "If you could come out here for a minute there are some things we would like to discuss with you," the doctor said, trying to keep his voice as respectful as possible.

Sandra sniffled a few times and looked over to the doctor. She made to walk to him, but her legs felt weak and she lifted up her hands in front of her mouth as the reality of it all came rushing to her again. Max saw her getting weak in the knees and helped her to stand, walking over to the door while holding Sandra up. The old man nodded at the doctor outside the room and they all walked out together, then Max looked inside at his granddaughter still standing near the door, having not walked too far inside yet. "Gwen, I'll close the door behind us. If you want to have a little time with your cousin."

She looked back at her grandpa and opened her mouth. She wanted to retort something like, 'Why do I need to have time with him if he's going to be fine?!' or 'He made me miss school so…' She couldn't think of any other ways to imagine herself in the situation, and she was normally great at coming up with ideas, so she just stood there and watched as her Grandpa Max closed the door behind him and Ben's mother.

Gwen turned towards her cousin's bed, now the only other person in the room besides him. She started moving towards him, keeping her eyes pointed at his face the entire time. He's so bloody. Why's he- Damn it Ben! Gwen clenched her eyes shut for a second, then opened them with a little water on her bottom eyelids. That water vanished as her eyes doubled in size, because Ben's right eye was open now, looking right back over at her. "Ben," she whispered, stepping the rest of the way up to his bed. She looked down at his right arm to maybe hold his hand or something, but the sight of the rounded nub near his elbow made her heart drop again and she looked back up at his face.

He looked right back at her with such a confused look in his eye. He opened his mouth and winced in pain, not realizing how bad his own face looked at the moment. "Ugh-" he grunted as the surprising pain shot through him.

"I'll go get a doctor," Gwen started, taking a small step back.

"Wait," Ben began, and tried to raise his right arm to stop the girl on the right side of the bed he was on. He barely even managed to move his arm, and it screamed out in pain, but the panic rushed to his face because he couldn't feel his fingers or his hand at all. His eye darted down and he tried to lift up his head a little to look down, but it hurt so much and he just grunted again in pain and lay still on the bed. "What happened?" he asked, his voice coming out as little more than a low groan.

The orange haired girl at his bedside looked behind her back at the door. Someone come in here. Did, like the anesthetic run out or something? She looked back and saw Ben staring straight at her with a confused, scared expression, which only got worse seeing the fear on her own face. "Gwen, what's going on?" he asked.

She frowned at the boy lying there and began, "You got into an accident doofus. Walked right into the street," she couldn't keep her annoyed, scolding-cousinly, attitude up any longer and her voice cracked as she continued. "You got hit by a truck."

Ben looked up and his mouth lowered a little, "Whaattt?" he groaned loudly, which hurt his face from moving his jaw that much. "That's, totally lame," he muttered, while a little distracted since he could only see Gwen out of one eye. He struggled hard to force the other one open, and he managed to get it open a crack, but everything was too blurry out of that one.

His cousin watched as the swollen bumps over his left eye wiggled a little and his eyelids beneath split apart the tiniest bit. See, he's better than he looks, Gwen thought. Ben felt the opposite way though, since the anesthetics still were in his system and he didn't feel much pain. He knew it was bad though considering how Gwen had been looking at him for the last minute. "Hey, you got a mirror, dweeb?" he asked, his voice a little hoarse as he tried turning his head to look back at her. He caught a glimpse of his nose, and some more of his head just by looking around, and he could see some blood and bandages.

Gwen didn't know what to do. There was a hand mirror sitting on the cart on Ben's other side, but all the equipment hooked up to Ben's arm was over there too. The IV tubes going into his left arm and the machine that kept beeping were there, but since Ben's left ear was a little torn up, and wrapped up, he couldn't hear it much. She walked over to the foot of his bed and around the other side, glancing back at the door as she did. She could see shadows on the other side of the window of the door that had the blinds down, but suddenly all three of those shadows walked away for some reason. No, come back in here! she thought, then turned back to see Ben moving his head a little, trying to follow her with his right eye all the way to the left side of his bed.

"Grr," Ben growled as he struggled against the tight bandages wrapped around his neck that kept him from turning easily. He didn't even know why it was so hard to turn but he could feel the itchy sensation on his neck and wanted to itch. He tried with his right hand first, but again he couldn't feel it, so he tried moving his left arm.

"Hey Ben," Gwen started, grabbing his left hand and holding it there. He had started to move it and the tubes would come out of his arm if he wasn't careful, and he wouldn't have been careful considering he didn't know the tubes were there yet. "Just stay still for a minute," she muttered at him, trying to use a tone she normally would have for her annoying cousin even though he looked terrible.

He felt her soft touch on his hand and he stopped moving. His breathing was heavy, he was trying to stay calm despite this weird sensation of not being able to move. Ben darted his good eye over to Gwen and looked past the Band-Aid on his nose to see her reach down and grab something. He tried looking with his other eye again, but it stung too much trying to keep it open just the slightest amount, so he just let it stay swollen shut. He watched her lift up a mirror by the handle but she hesitated before turning the reflective part towards him.

Maybe I should go get someone. What if he freaks out? I would probably freak out. "Show me," Ben stated. Gwen was snapped from her thoughts and looked back into Ben's eyes. "Gwen," he whispered, trying to sound brave despite what his own imagination was doing to him right now. "Show me."

She gulped and then carefully lifted up the mirror so that Ben could see his face. She held it pretty close to him, keeping only his face in the reflection. As Ben stared at his own face in shock, managing even to open his right eye further from the sudden surprise, Gwen shifted her gaze back to Ben's right arm. Apparently Ben noticed her gaze however, and he said quietly, "Let me see the rest."

Gwen calmly pulled the mirror farther backwards, while angling it a little to Ben's left. She showed him the IV sticking out of his arm and then pointed the mirror down his torso to his legs in their casts. "There are a lot of bandages, but I don't think-

"I can't feel my right arm," Ben stated. Gwen shut up instantly and Ben continued, "Can I see it?"

"Umm," Gwen started. She darted her gaze back to the door of the room, then looked back down at the boy in front of her. "I don't know."

"Gwen, I already have a pretty good idea in my head," Ben stated, sounding more clear than earlier when he was in his drug-induced daze. "So stop being a coward and show me my-" Gwen shifted the mirror to point at Ben's right side. Ben stared at the mirror in silence for a few seconds. He stared at the point where his arm ended, where his elbow should be. He tried moving his arm a little and watched as the half-arm in the mirror moved at the same time. "Okay," Ben said in a quiet voice, much less serious and clear than a few seconds ago. "I was wrong, I didn't expect that."

Ben leaned back on his pillow and ignored the growing pain through his body. My arm is… No, I don't think it's just my arm. I don't really feel, fine. "Ben! BEN!" Gwen exclaimed, and this time Ben lifted up his head a little. He stared at the foot of his bed where Gwen was looking at him with a scared look. "Are you alright?" She asked, as he had ignored her the first five or so times she said his name.

He stared blankly at her, and then his busted lip started to curve up at the corners. His eyes squinted and he smiled wide, hurting his busted jaw and his bruised face. His chest started to hurt too as he began laughing. Gwen stared at him like he was stupid as Ben laughed, "Ha, haha, hah-ha- did- haha, did you really just ask, if I'm alright?" He burst out laughing and the tears that came out of his mouth were more from the laughter than the intense pain in his chest from laughing so hard. That pain quickly overcame his laughter though and his body started arching up in the air.

beep-beep beep-beep beep-beep-beep-beepbeepbeep…Ben's heartrate got faster as the pain only grew worse the more he arched up in the air. "Ben! BEN!" Gwen yelled, panicking at the sight of her cousin in this state.

The door flew open and some doctors came running in, followed by Max and Sandra. "What is it? What's happening!?" Sandra yelled as she chased after the doctors.

The main doctor wearing white scrubs turned and shouted, "Someone get them out of here!"

A few doctors ran around getting Max and Sandra out of the room. Gwen took a step towards the bed and whispered, "Ben, no…"

"Come on, you too," a nurse put her hands on Gwen's shoulders and rushed the young girl out of the room as well. Gwen looked back right as she was getting pushed out the door, and she watched as a doctor shoved a needle into Ben's arm, stopping the arches he was making with his bandaged body. He became still and his head turned to the side so he was facing the door. While the nurse closed the door behind her, Gwen saw her cousin's eyes pointed right at her as they closed.

Gwen heard her Aunt Sandra yelling at some nurse on her left and glanced over for a second to see Max with his hand on his daughter-in-law's back, trying to calm her down by rubbing it and telling her everything would be alright. Max listened as the nurse tried to explain they were doing everything they could, but he noticed some movement in the corner of his eye and looked away for a second. He only caught a glimpse of her back as she turned the corner down the hall, but he definitely recognized his granddaughter's orange hair.

Max Tennyson closed his eyes and sighed, then opened them and looked back towards the door Ben was behind. Oh Benjamin, I don't think any of us are ready to lose you yet. He squeezed Sandra's shoulder a little harder, though it was not clear whether it was for her sake, or his own.

Down the hallway and around a corner, Gwen leaned against the wall on her left. She pressed her forehead into the white wall, then flipped around so her back was against it. The orange haired girl slid down her back to the ground where she held her knees to her chest and pressed her face between them. "Ahh, ahhahh, aaahh," the reality of what she just saw hit her all at once and she couldn't help but start sobbing.

Images of her cousin's body covered in bandages appeared in her mind. They were followed by a loop of watching him start spazzing out on the bed. His face full of pain, his right arm missing, his whole body was destroyed. It made her want to cry louder, but she managed to restrain herself to quiet sobs into her legs.

"Ben," she whimpered into her legs. Countless times you've fought bad guys, aliens, criminals, and, and you were always okay. You were always making fun of me the next day, calling me a dweeb. But when we were fighting the baddies together, it was so much fun. Going to space, teaching you how to dance, God Ben. She put her hands through her short hair and grabbed the back of her head, pulling herself even farther into her knees. Agh, Doofus you can't, not make it. I don't want to lose you. Her eyes snapped open and she stared through blurry vision at her knees that were covered in her own tears. "…he may not make it past the night." Her grandfather's words echoed in her mind and her eyes turned as wide as saucers. That couldn't have been our last conversation right? No way! I need to see him again. I need to talk to him more. I need to… save him!

A/N Hope you enjoyed the new story! Let me know what you think!