Smokescreen

5

Alexander peered into his daughter's hospital room. She was laid in the bed, her hair spread out around her like she was underwater. Her eyes were unfocused, and clear tears dripped out of them as she despondently slumped in her hospital bed.

"Erica?" She didn't even look. It was like seeing the same heartbreak from a few years ago all over again. Alexander sighed, walking in and sitting down in the cold hospital chairs. He grabbed her hand, and she didn't move.

"What happened?"

"Ben." A croaked word. Alexander felt his heart split at the melancholy note in her voice.

"What did he do?" Erica shook her head, and Alexander held her close, vowing not to lose his daughter ever again. She didn't need him to protect her, but he was not going to be a screw up this time. Alexander's misguided and vengeful thoughts were interrupted by Zoe's arrival.

"Is it just me, or did Ben get kinda hot?" The moment was shattered, so Alexander took the prerogative to stare at her in disbelief. Did she really not notice the sweetest father-daughter moment he had gotten in years?

"I mean, I'm totally committed to Chip and I wouldn't dare, but..." She gave a small wolf-whistle, coming over and kissing Erica gently on the head. "How are you, sweetheart?"

Something akin to a whimper escaped Erica's lips. Zoe sat down at the foot of her friend's bed, awkwardly smoothing her hair back, and beginning to braid it. Clearly, Ben had done something that had an effect on her, though not the effect that Zoe had been rooting for.

"I understand." Zoe finished the braid, tying it off with a blue hair tie- good for slingshots and for choking people- she kept on her wrist. She contemplated everything that had changed these past few years.

So many people- friends- dead. Warren, Murray, and Catherine were all gone in a snap, it felt like. She watched her best friends- her love- die in front of her, and then saw the spirit of the ones remaining wither once they noticed who was gone. She had been building herself back up again since that day, like a shattered mirror. But there would always be a big piece of the mirror missing, one that she would only see again in the life after death.

Ben was their leader, their rock. He was the one who had brought all of them together- the boy who wasn't even supposed to be there was their glue. Maybe they had put too much pressure on him, and that was why he snapped. Maybe it was the horror of seeing... She couldn't even think about it. Three years had passed, and Zoe was almost an adult. Yet she couldn't seem to shake the bitter feeling that maybe if it had been Ben that day, things would be different.

"He's so different." Erica said. Zoe gave her a small smile, one that was full of sadness and longing. Longing for the world that would never be- where Ben was still with them, where Ben and Erica were together and their friendships were full of love and laughter once more.

Alas, things like that only happen in stories. For things had changed: Erica had seemingly achieved every dream that she could have wanted, Zoe had lost her love but found a new one, Jawa had grown apart from them, and Ben had changed most of all.

What happened to that small boy with sandy brown hair that had seemed so scared on the first day of class? Where had the nervous spy with a stutter around Erica gone? He had died, truly, and Zoe knew this. He had died the day that his friends did, and he was replaced by a man who knew that to save himself, he would have to cut all others off.

Ben had always been on the nerdier side. Sure, she'd liked him, at one point, and Zoe had never really been sure why. He had a sort of charisma that drew you to him. Erica was the same in that way. While Warren had been a physical chameleon, able to blend in and appear to be a bush, a tree, or a friend, Ben had become a mental one. He'd masked himself so that it was harder to find the cracks in his armour.

"I think he's the same. Maybe a bit more on his bones, but underneath..." Zoe had always been good at reading people. Look at their mannerisms: what they do and what they don't. Ben had been polite and gentle. She had seen that he had stiffened several times through the interview when Erica had looked particularly vulnerable, and had seen the emotions in his eyes as he fought against the urge to say something. She had seen him canvas every corner they rounded as they ran back to the hospital. It was something that she had only seen Cyrus Hale do.

"You really think?" Erica asked. What had they done to her? The ice queen flinched when her father so much as touched her shoulder. "He called me Agent Hale the whole time."

"We hurt him." Zoe said honestly, her heart aching at the words. They were true, but not easy to admit. It never was. "He hurt us too. We've all been doing our best to heal."

Erica shook her head sadly. "I should have done more. I could have done more. I ran away!" She buried her head in the pillow.

"Erica," Zoe reached out to touch her friend, but stopped herself. "There's no use worrying about the past now. If I could time travel, I would."

She cleared her throat. "Ben said the people who did this to you..." She looked at Alexander with a grimace. "They're the ones who tortured him back then."

Erica shifted to look at Zoe, her blue eyes wide with shock. "I didn't know." Her voice was timid, quiet.

"How could you, sweetie?" Zoe tried to soothe her friend. "It wasn't your fault."

Oh, but it was, and they would never know. Ben had been so overcome with paranoia and grief that he went rogue at age 15 for a time. Most teenagers feel the need to rebel, right? The CIA had done nothing to stop the destruction, pushing everything on their little child soldiers.

So Ben had taken things into his own hands. He hadn't been thinking, really, with his eyes and his mind clouded with tears while he stole- "borrowed"- a car and drove to the CIA headquarters in Langley. Erica had left, gone to be deployed in a different place as the head spy, the allure of power seducing her away. Zoe was grieving, too hurt to even look him in the eye for the fear of being reminded of her lost love.

At fifteen years old, Ben had proved how dangerous he could be when he broke into the CIA headquarters, disabled the cameras, and made his way into an office, hiding in the corner. He scoffed, wiping away his tears as he heard two men enter the room and begin to discuss the victory against SPYDER. He had lucked into finding the office of a mole. When one of the men left, Ben didn't even think, he couldn't.

Suddenly, there was a vial in his hand and then it was down the man's throat. The mole screamed and thrashed as foam spilled from his lips. Ben stood there, tears streaming down his face as he remembered a promise he had made to himself: that he would never become a killer. But this man deserved it, no? He had brought upon the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of people. He was a part of the enemy that Ben had been trained to destroy.

There was blood on Ben's hands now, and he looked over to the man's desk. Photos of a happy smiling family, photos of two young children playing in the grass and a happy couple watching them. What had he done? He didn't have time to think again as he climbed the wardrobe in the office and slipped into the vents, shivering under the implication of what he had just done.

They would never forgive him; his future was ruined, all because of an impulsive mistake. The consequences... that poor family... The faces of the dead that he had caused floated through his head, the echoes of the man's screams. He didn't dare wipe the blood off his hands yet as he dragged himself with his elbows through the vents.

Erica would never look him in the eyes again. Thoughts like these: abandonment, expellment, and being kicked out of the program and forced to go home weighed on his mind. No one could ever find out about this. A horrified scream echoed through the vents, and he cringed, moving faster, the blood smearing across his face and his hands. He finally busted out of the building, the side near the cafeteria and began to calmly walk to his commandeered vehicle, so as to not draw attention to himself.

In fact, no one should ever know. After Erica's abandonment, Ben picked the pieces of his shattered heart up, and they turned into ice. Why draw unneeded attention to himself if all he wanted to do was survive?