Benedict

The surprise

Benedict's POV:

'How are you Ben?'

'I'm okay, yeah... Focussing on new work will help me, I guess.'

To say the truth I wasn't okay at all. But Sophie has tried a lot to help me and I didn't want to sound unthankful. I wondered if she really already was over Conrad or if she just was a better actor than me. I felt a bit bad for bothering her with my problems, while she had enough trouble herself.

'And you?'

'What about me?'

'Well, are you okay?'

'Yeah sure, I'm fine.'

I looked at her expression, trying to read what she was really thinking. She noticed. Of course she did.

'Really Ben, I'm fine.'

Giving me a smile she lead the car on the highway leading out of the city.

'This will cheer you up a bit.'

'What? I thought we were going to have lunch...'

'We will. But it will take us a while to get there.'

'A while' seemed to actually be the whole day. At about one pm we had a little picnic on an abandoned field, just sitting in the sun, laughing and talking about unimportant things. But it didn't stop there. It was already dark when I was woken up by Sophie, singing along to the radio silently. I must have fallen asleep.

First, you think the worst is a broken heart
What's gonna kill you is the second part
And the third, is when your world splits down the middle
Then fourth, you gonna think that you fixed yourself
Fifth, you see them out with someone else
And the sixth, is when you admit, you may have fucked up a little...
(Six degrees of seperation, The Script)

She sang it with so much feeling in it that again I doubted that she was alright. But my concern about her was soon overflowed by the pain of my own seperation brought back by the fitting lyrics and I felt my heart aching again. Keeping my eyes closed I let her soft voice sadly sing me into sleep again.

Sophie's POV:

It was about 3 am when we finally reached our destination. It was cold and windy outside but seeing the familiar old building in the small lights of the car in front of us and hearing Benedict breathing calm and peaceful beside me I finally felt like cooling down again.

After my emotional 'breakdown' the day before I had been really afraid of this trip and my confused head just drove me into driving all the way at once. I just had felt like I was running away from something and I couldn't stop until we finally arrived. But now it was better. I felt okay again.
Emotional crisis overcome for now

After taking all our stuff into the house I returned to the car and woke up my sleeping guest.

'Where are we?'

Rubbing his eyes he got out and looked around. Not that he could see a lot cause it was cloudy and pitch dark.

'Scottland.'

'WHAT?'

He looked at me with sleepy confused eyes, reflecting the car light with a billion different colours.
That looks so adorable... Oh shut up! You just got over this!

'Yeah we're at my mum's house. She's away for the weekend and allowed us to stay here for that time. But don't worry that's not all of the surprise.'

I blinked and locked the car.

Slowly Benedict followed me into the house. After showing him the guest room and revealing that I actually packed a bit of stuff for him when he was still having a shower as I picked him up, I made us some tea in the kitchen.

He came in and sat down at the table. He hadn't said a word since we entered the building.

'What if I don't have time to stay away the whole weekend?'

'Oh you have, I checked with your manager.'

Laughing I put two cups on the table, sitting down in front of him.

'She doesn't know all of my appointements. I have a private life, too, you know. Also I really need to prepare for that play.'

'Oh come on, Ben it's just two days. Getting away helps.'

'Helps who? You or me?'

I couldn't understand why he was so rude right now and I could understand even less why it was making me angry.

'Look this isn't about me it's about you! I'm doing this FOR YOU! I... I'm trying to help you here but of you don't need it, GREAT.  Then just go back home and drown in your alcohol and cigarettes!'

With that I rushed out of the room, slamming the door behind me.