Ben 10/Alien Force/Ultimate Alien (c) Cartoon Network

Sinking to her knees with her back pressed up against her bedroom door, a thin, lanky-legged teenager with fiery red hair emitted a low sigh, before glancing down at the piece of paper held in her hand. Neon pink with big, bold typing in a lacy font written across it, the paper was a flyer that mentioned a school dance - the Valentine's Day dance, to be exact.

"Too bad I'm not going now…"

Sighing a second time, the redheaded thirteen year old let go of the paper, watching it flitter down to the carpeted floor of her room, before folding her arms across her bosom, hanging her head. Off to her side lay her cell phone, which she'd just tossed away from herself moments beforehand.

"Hey, Gwen?"
"Yeah, Brady?"
"Like, you know the dance tonight? I know I asked you to go, but, well… I'm not gonna be going after all. Sorry."
"Oh. Well, okay. But why aren't you-"
CLICK
"…Going…?"
BEEP BEEP
"Is that a text? … Oh, a SocialBook update. … Brady Spacey is now in a relationship with Sarah Cole. So that's why you suddenly aren't going, is it - back with your old girlfriend? Whatever."

"Honey, are you almost ready? I'm sure Brady will be on his way soon."

Inwardly groaning, Gwendolyn Tennyson slowly pushed herself back to her feet and then turned to face her door.

"He won't be walking over, Mom," she called out through the door. "He just called me to cancel."

"You're kidding."

"Afraid not."

"Well… I'm sorry, sweetheart. Do you want me to give you a ride over there then? You're still going to the dance anyway, right?"

"I don't think so, Mom."

"But you're already all dressed up, and we did your hair…"

"Sorry… I know, but, I just really don't feel like going now."

Waiting until she heard the sound of her mother's footsteps turning and trailing away from the other side of her door, Gwen then turned and moved over to her bed, before lazily plopping down atop it. Lying spread out on her back, she brought a hand to rest over her face, concealing her furrowed brow and grimacing frown. She then thought she heard what sounded like the doorbell ringing from downstairs in the living room, but it didn't really pique her curiosity. It obviously wouldn't be Brady, after all. However, she was forced to stir a bit when there came a sound of a knock mere moments afterward - a knock on her very bedroom door.

"Mom, I already told you, I just don't feel like going," she called out from the bed, before leaning up to a sitting position as the knocking persisted. "Mom, seriously…"

Rolling her eyes as she got up from the bed at last, Gwen trudged on over to the door glumly, before turning the brass door knob and slowly pulling backward. "I'm not trying to be rude or ungrateful about the dress, but- Ben? Sorry - thought you were my mom. What are you doing here?"

Lazily holding out a good-sized text book, a thirteen year old young man with brown hair and piercing green eyes took a step over the threshold and into the room. "I was hoping you could help me with our science homework."

After giving his explanation, the young man gave pause, trailing his eyes downward a bit, then back up again, a strange expression on his face.

"What are you looking at?" Gwen asked.

"Sorry, just, you're all dressed up. How come?"

"Uhm, tonight's the night of the Valentine's Day dance?"

"Ooh, right. Totally forgot."

"How'd you forget about it?"

"Well," Ben said, stepping further on into the room, before tossing his text book down onto his cousin's bed. "It's pretty easy to let things you care absolutely nothing about slip your mind."

"Yeah, well, I wish I could not care about the dance right about now, too."

Turning around then and heading back over to her bed, Gwen bit down on her lip a bit as she sat back down at the edge of the quilt-covered mattress. Leaning over to lift the text book that was sat beside her, she opened it up across her lap, before glancing up at her cousin. "Well, go on - sit down."

"So you're gonna help me?" Ben asked, before taking a seat alongside Gwen. "What's the deal, then? Why are you all dressed up if you're not going to the dance?"

"I got stood up."

"Oh, really? Who in their right mind decided to do that?"

Giving a cynical, crooked half-smirk, Gwen flashed her emerald green eyes in Ben's direction for a second, before gazing down at the opened book instead, beginning to thumb through its pages. "Brady Spacey. He got back with his girlfriend again tonight, apparently. So that kinda left me just flat out of luck, date-wise."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Gwen," Ben said kindly, reaching a hand over to grip at her shoulder, giving her a squeeze there. "That was really stupid of him anyway. I mean, you look really great."

"Really?" Gwen replied, before smoothing her hands down on the open pages of the science book. "Well, thanks for saying so, but I definitely don't feel great."

Feeling sorry for his cousin, Ben slowly moved his hand away from her shoulder, before lifting the book up from her lap, taking it away. "Well, maybe we should do this tomorrow night instead or something."

"How come? I said I'd help. I have nothing better to do," Gwen said at once, reaching and pulling the book back from him.

"I kind of feel like a jerk, making you focus on something as awful as science work after what just happened. We'll do it tomorrow," Ben insisted, grabbing the book back.

"I don't wanna do it tomorrow. I want to do it now, Ben," Gwen replied, snatching the book back with a bit of a frown.

"No, I don't want to," came her cousin's retort, as his hands grabbed onto the sides of the book once more.

"Let it go!" Gwen cried out in a frustrated tone of voice, tightening her own grip on the book as she pulled it in toward herself.

"I won't!" Ben returned, tugging equally as hard in his own direction.

"You are so annoying!" Gwen exclaimed, giving an even harder tug on the book.

"Yeah? Well if I'm annoying, then you're impossible!"

Holding onto the text book for dear life, the teenaged boy gave an almighty tug with all his strength, succeeding in taking the book away from his cousin at last. However, he also succeeded in taking his own self backward, right off the bed, in the process. With a loud crash, Ben soon found himself collided into a boom box that was sat against the wall on Gwen's floor. Making a bit of a skipping sound at first, the CD player soon blasted to life, playing a pop album that had been left in its disk tray.

"Good going, Captain Clutzo," Gwen said to him, rolling her eyes as she got up from the bed to step over to him, leaning forward to take the science book back from him.

"Oh, I don't think so," Ben said at once, grimacing in the pain from hitting his head against the boom box as he tightened his still firm grip on the edges of the text book. "I almost just broke my head, I'm not going to let you take this away from me now. There's no way you're winning after all that."

"It's not a competition, Benjamin, so just hand over the banana-flipping book already!"

Bending over forward suddenly, thrusting her arms out as she did so, Gwen caught her cousin off-guard when she wrapped her arms around the book, even while it was still in his hands. Tugging once, she lost her balance and recovered; tugging once more, she lost her balance and did not. With a muffled outcry from the two of them, Ben and Gwen soon found themselves a mass of tangled limbs next to the still playing radio.

"Look at what you've done now!" Gwen exclaimed, struggling to get to her feet, tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

"Look what I've done? You knocked yourself right into me!" Ben said back, before doing a double-take when he noticed the tears brimming in his cousin's eyes. "Why are you crying? Did you get hurt just then?"

Reaching down as the tears in her eyes finally splashed down across her cheeks, Gwen grabbed the book from Ben - jerking it away, angrily - before tossing it across the room, where it smacked into the door and then fell to the floor with a loud drop.

"No, I did not get hurt - just - then! Thanks for asking!"

Ducking down as low to the floor as possible as his cousin reached over to her bed for a nearby pillow, which she threw at his head, Ben jumped to his feet as soon as the cushion sailed safely over his head, before moving in toward Gwen and placing his hands at her shoulders.

"What's going on with you? Is this really all over studying?"

"What do you think, Ben?" Gwen said, frustration in her voice as she hung her head forward, half-wondering to herself if her eye makeup might be running down her cheeks now due to her tears. "I was so excited about this dance, and in the end, Brady just made me feel stupid; like an idiot."

"You're not an idiot," Ben said in a soft voice, bringing a finger to the redhead's chin, before tilting her face back, so that they were looking at each other. "He's the idiot - the total, stupid, no-good-excuse-for-him idiot."

"You're just saying that, Ben."

"Do I ever just say anything?"

Blinking away the gradually reducing tears in her emerald eyes, Gwen kept her gaze locked with her cousin's as the CD playing in the knocked-into boom box changed songs, bleeding from a faster tune into a slower one. Returning Gwen's gaze, his finger still resting just beneath her chin, Ben bit down at the bottom corner of his lip for a few seconds, before sighing and cocking his head over to the side.

"Hey," he said, sliding the hand on Gwen's shoulder downward, trailing it along her arm until his fingers came to rest at her wrist. "You wanna dance with me?"

"What? Are you serious?" Gwen said at once, arching an eyebrow as she stared back at Ben curiously.

"Well, you might as well at least dance once tonight. What a waste of a party dress otherwise, am I right?"

"You are such a nerd," Gwen replied, before lowering her gaze and turning her hand over, so that Ben could grasp it; she could feel his other hand moving to rest at her side, too.

"I'll take that as a yes, you will dance with me."

Rolling her eyes as she hung her free arm to rest it about Ben's neck, Gwen shifted so that her body was moved in, nearer to his. After another few second's hesitation, they began to slightly sway back and forth, with the time of the song playing.

"Huh," Gwen said, another moment later. "You're a surprisingly good dancer, Ben."

"Well, I had a good teacher," he replied. "Remember that time before that wedding when we were kids? You gave me a little lesson in dancing."

"Oh, yeah, I do remember that."

"Mhm, Gwen. Grandpa walked in though, called us sweet or cute or something silly like that - broke up the lesson. I mean, us? Cute? Come on."

"Yeah," the redhead murmured back, as her head moved to rest on Ben's shoulder. "It's ridiculous, right?"

Not giving an answer, the brown-haired Ben simply relaxed into the even closer embrace with his cousin, keeping her hand held tightly in one hand as the other squeezed slightly at her side. Reacting to this, Gwen tightened her grasp around Ben's neck with her arm, her face nuzzling somewhat into the crook of his neck. Her tears had long since disappeared entirely.

"Thank you for the dance," she finally said, moments later. "I do feel a little better now."

"Good. That's good," Ben answered her, sliding his hand up and down her side in a soothing way.

As the song faded away into a new, faster song, he continued his sway with Gwen, not bothering to try and break from the embrace. After a moment had gone by like this, Gwen cleared her throat slightly, somewhat moving her face away from her cousin's neck. "Ben," she murmured. "The song ended a little while ago."

"So what?" he murmured back, before releasing her hand, instead moving both his arms to place them around her, so that he was holding her, keeping her pulled in, close to him.

Going along with it, relaxing once again into his arms, the redhead placed her face against his shoulder, her hands resting at his sides. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"Partly because I feel bad that you felt so bad in the first place, and partly because… I don't know. This just feels right. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yeah…" Gwen answered. "I do know. Ben…"

"Yeah?"

"I -"

Breaking apart at once as the bedroom door opened up suddenly, Gwen and Ben found themselves looking back at Lily Tennyson with startled, inexplicably awkward expressions.

"Hey, Mom," Gwen said at once, somewhat breathily. "What's up?"

"Oh, well…" the redheaded woman began, feeling the awkwardness in the air. "I was just coming to ask Ben if he wanted to stay for a little nighttime snack of lemonade and cookies with us."

"That sounds great, Aunt Lily," he answered her, nodding his head eagerly, if not a bit too eagerly. "Thank you."

"Sure. No problem, dear…" she answered him, still feeling and looking a bit puzzled as she turned and left the room, leaving the door open behind her as she went.

Not looking at each other, the Tennyson cousins both gave slightly nervous chuckles at her absence, before finally turning to face each other once again.

"So, how does that studying sound now, Ben?" Gwen dared to ask, giving him a bit of a smirk.

Shaking his head slightly, he finally gave in with a sigh, saying, "Oh, alright. I'll study - on one condition."

"Which is what?"

Returning the smirk, the teenage boy folding his arms across his chest, before saying simply, "Save one last dance for me before I go later, and you've got yourself a deal."

Shaking her a head a bit also, Gwen gave him a crooked sort of grin, before answering him. "Deal."