Ben 10 : Unlimited

32

In the Interim

An Unlimited Christmas

San Francisco

Ever since moving in with Ben, Kara had only one wish for the holidays: to sleep in on Christmas day. Ben, however, seemed determined to deny her that wish, if the gentle shoving she felt was anything to go by.

"Kara, wake up," Ben whispered, "It's Christmas!"

"Ugh," Kara groaned, trying to bury herself in the covers, "Santa should give you coal for waking me up this early."

"But Kara," Ben whined, "it's Christmas!"

As mature as Ben normally was, and as much as Kara loved him, Ben had a tendency to act like a child on Christmas, a trait that her fiancé shared with her cousin.

At first, Kara tried to ignore Ben's gentle nudges, but Ben noticed, and pulled out his ace in the hole; Kara felt another nudge on her other side.

"Ship ship," Ship softly called out, and then Kara caved; she couldn't say no to the little alien.

"Okay, I'm waking up," she said as she sat up reluctantly, then gave Ship a hug; after doing so, she gave Ben a glare. "You fight dirty."

"Hey, it worked, didn't it?" Ben shrugged, "Now come on, we've got presents to unwrap and a party to get ready for!"

With that, he dashed out to the living room, where a tree stood with presents underneath. Sighing, Kara put on a robe and followed, where she found Ben almost bouncing in excitement.

"Has anyone ever told you to act your age?" Kara asked.

"All the time," Ben replied with a grin, "but I just ignore them."

Kara couldn't help but smile as she sat next to her fiancé, who slid a present towards her.

"Merry Christmas, Kara," Ben said, "but you should also thank Clark for this present, too."

Curious, Kara ripped the wrapping off of the small box, then opened it up to find a necklace; it was a simple silver chain, with a black, polished stone pendant on the end. The stone was pretty, but it didn't look like anything special; she looked at Ben in confusion.

"Clark and I took a little trip a couple of weeks ago," he told her, "and we stopped at… Argo."

Kara was surprised that Ben and Clark had visited her dead homeworld, considering there was nothing there, save for ice and corpses.

"I remembered that you still miss your home," Ben went on, "So I took a piece of stone and polished it and… here you are; you get to carry your home with you from now on."

Kara stared at the necklace, trembling slightly as tears welled up. It was true, she'd occasionally mentioned how much she missed her family and her people, but Ben had gone through the trouble of finding the planet, then making a necklace with a piece of her home on it? Kara gently placed the box on the ground and wrapped Ben in a hug.

"Thank you," she said, then kissed him, "I love it."

Kara held her hair out of the way, allowing Ben to place the necklace on her.