Subjects

27- The Thing About Trust

Leo is dead.

"What are you talking about, Ben?" Eva panics.

"I should have told you before but I just didn't know how... I'm sorry," the look in Eva's eyes is exactly what Ben was afraid of.

He expected her to start bombing him with questions and accusations but instead she became quiet. "Leo is dead," she whispers, the words not entirely sinking in. She starts pacing, thinking about everything he did for them. "He just wanted to help us, I don't understand. How did he die?"

No tears, only quiet words filled with raw pain. Eva's grief cut dipper than her anger. Come to think of it, Ben never did let himself mourn Leo's death. "When they took us, you were all under the influence so you don't remember."

"I remember someone shouting," Eva tries to think. How did she miss this? "I was so scared."

"They shot him. As we were walking to the ship. It was all my fault, I didn't stop them. I did everything wrong!" Ben doesn't understand how could he have been so stupid. "If I didn't interfere in the first place, if I didn't get inside the ship like they told us to, if I turned around for one second!"

"Stop it," Eva tries to piece things together, to understand what happened, but it is all just a big blur and Ben is not helping. "I don't know what happened exactly but I know for sure that it wasn't your fault."

"Eva," Ben realizes something he didn't know about himself until now, that he is a coward. "It is all my fault." In some part of his mind, Ben feels that he didn't tell anyone about Leo's death because he thought they'd hate him. How doesn't she hate him?

"You couldn't have saved him!" now Eva yells at him, "don't you get it? If you would have tried to stop them you'd be dead too right now! Is that what you want?"

"Maybe I should have died too!" This is his fault, he should have known, but he was too scared to even think back to what happened.

"Stop it, Ben! Just stop," Eva can't let him beat himself up like this. He is a good person, that she knows for sure. "You told me that I am not alone," she steps closer to force Ben to look at her, "and you are not alone either. You shouldn't have to deal with this by yourself. Everything is hard enough as it is and if we keep feeling guilty for the mistakes we've made... We will never make it. Stop being so hard on yourself. You lost him, we all did, and if it weren't for you than we would still be in the spaceship or even worse."

"I just don't know what to do anymore," Ben says.

"For now, you need to sleep," Eva tells him. "And tomorrow we need to talk to Emily and Roger."

"What about Angie?"

"We will tell her," Eva takes his hand, "together."

The next day Ben started to regret being a morning person.

"Ben," a small voice calls in his ear and he jumps up in bed.

"Angie," he whispers, the rest are still asleep. "Why are you up so early?"

"I'm hungry," she says. "Can we go eat?"

Knowing that now there is no way that he could go back to sleep, he agrees. "Why didn't you wake Roger?"

"Because you don't mind getting up early," this girl is more perceptive than he thought.

"Fine, let me get ready."

So Ben and Angie are walking to the dining hall together. To the crew of the ship, they are just a normal brother and sister walking around the cargo ship that rescued them after being stranded at sea. Well, not only are they not related, but Ben is feeling more nervous then he ever felt in his life. Today he has to tell her about her father. Today he has to break her heart.

"Hi Patch!" Angie high fives the sailor.

"Did Ben make you get up early?" Patch sympathizes with the girl.

"Don't worry, Patch," Ben says. "This time it was her that woke me up."

Angie is skipping into the dinning hall as Patch calls after her, "keep an eye on your brother for me!"

Ben takes some of the freshest looking vegetables he can find and two hard boiled eggs before joining Angie at the table.

"Did you see the stars?" Angie asks him.

"The stars?" Ben is too tired to remember what is she talking about.

"On the deck yesterday, you said you want to go see the stars."

"Oh, yes. I did," Ben feels a little less like himself this morning. He feels tired, unenergized. He has a feeling that this dark message that he carries is the cause of his gloominess. It is just hard for him to talk to the girl like everything is normal when it is not.

"Why are you so sad?" Angie surprises him with a question.

"I'm not sad, just tired."

Angie looks him over carefully, "no, you look sad." Ben looks away, embarrassed by her sharp observation. "I hope that you feel better soon."

A strange sensation washes over Ben, like a warm fluffy blanket. He is not completely free of his worries, but it somehow got easier. He is not alone. He is safe. Ben can tell that this feeling in not exactly normal.

"Did your dad ever tell you," Ben asks Angie. "Did he tell you about where he's from? About who you are?"

Angie shakes her head, "but he says that I am special."

"You are," Ben says. "I wonder if he knew just how special."

"What do you mean?" Angie still hasn't exactly wrapped her head around the concept of influence.

"You have some sort of gift," Ben says. "I can always feel it, even if you don't know that you are doing it. The others feel it too. I don't know how to explain it, this is like a bond that lets us feel what you want. Your dad had a gift too, but his was a little different."

"Was?"