Ben was sitting at his desk in his office, his head in his hands. It had been hours since his talk with Nelson Syphus and he was still trying to come to terms with the fact that his boss wanted him to experiment on himself. He supposed Nelson was right about something, he did trust his work. He had been working on Project Pegasus for years now, and he had made so much progress with the serum. He had known that human experimentation would be happening at some point but he just hadn't expected it to be him.
A loud knocking on his office door jolted him out of his thoughts. He lifted his head out of his hands before calling for whoever it was to enter. He was surprised when Deborah was the one to open the door and walk in.
"D! What are you doing here?" He asked standing from his desk. "I thought you were working from location 3 today."
"I was. Until I found out that you're planning on experimenting on yourself!"
This took him by surprise. "Wait, you didn't know?" He thought for sure that if anyone knew about what Nelson had said to him then it would be Deb, her being the head scientist and all. Part of him wondered if Wesley knew.
"Know that you were going to do this to yourself? No, I didn't. What are you thinking?"
To anyone who didn't know her very well they might not be able to hear it, but for someone like Ben who had known her for years he could easily hear the concern in her voice.
"I know what I'm doing." He tried reassuring her.
"Do you?"
"Yes!"
"Please don't do this Ben."
"I have to!"
She looked down in thought for a moment before her eyes widened and she looked back up at him. "Nelson! He's forcing you to do this isn't he?"
Ben fumbled with his words, trying to think of what to say to her. Nelson had told him not to tell anyone.
"He is." She concluded. She sighed, "I - I won't let him do this to you! I'm the head scientist, he needs my 'ok' for experiments!"
"Deb."
"There has to be some way to stop this from happening to you."
"Deb! He's our boss. There's nothing we can do to stop this. I'll be ok. I'll take every precaution I can."
She wrapped her arms around him in a hug. "Please be careful. You're my friend. I'd hate to see anything happen to you."
He hugged her back. Her calling him her friend made his heart twinge painfully, just another reminder that she was in love with Wes and not him. But he didn't want to think about that right now so he held her close for a moment longer until she pulled away.
"I will."
She nervously smiled up at him and then turned to leave. Before she could open the door he quickly placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Wait!"
She turned to face him again, a questioning look on her face.
"Can - can you please not tell Wes about this? About what Nelson is doing?"
"What? Why not?"
"Because, if you tell him he's gonna try and talk Nelson out of it and then Nelson will think I told him and… please?"
She hesitated a moment before responding, an apprehensive look on her face. "Okay, I won't tell him."
"Thank you."
