Chapter 15: Fiona's Questions
Fiona appeared at the garage door at 12:47 AM, backlit by streetlights, looking exhausted and wired in equal measure.
Ben was still awake, cleaning tools he'd already cleaned twice. Sleep had become elusive since Marcus's ultimatum, since the gold scam, since every choice he made seemed to dig him deeper into moral quicksand.
"We need to talk," Fiona said.
Not a request. A statement of fact delivered with the authority of someone who'd made up her mind hours ago and was now executing her decision.
"Come in," Ben said, setting down the wrench.
Fiona stepped inside, arms crossed, posture defensive. She didn't sit. Didn't lean against anything. Just stood in the center of his workspace like a prosecutor preparing to deliver closing arguments.
"You don't add up," she said.
"What?"
"You. Your whole thing. None of it adds up." Fiona began ticking off points on her fingers. "You appeared out of nowhere two months ago. No history, no references, no connections. You charge half what anyone else would for repairs. You're too good at everything—cars, appliances, electronics, all of it. You help my family specifically, multiple times, for basically nothing."
Ben kept his expression neutral. "I'm just—"
"I'm not done." Her voice was sharp. "Everyone in the neighborhood trusts you immediately. Mrs. Rodriguez, Kevin, even Frank. That doesn't happen here. People are suspicious. But somehow you waltz in and within weeks, you're part of the community. How?"
"I helped people."
"That's my point. Why? What's your angle?" Fiona's eyes locked onto his. "Because everyone has an angle. Everyone wants something. So what do you want?"
Ben's Silver Tongue stirred, offering smooth lies, convincing explanations. He forced it down through sheer willpower. Fiona deserved better than manipulation, even if the truth would complicate everything.
"I'm running from something," he said quietly. "Can't give details. But I needed to disappear, and South Side seemed like a good place to do that. I charge cheap because I remember being broke. I help people because..." He paused, searching for words that were honest without being complete. "Because it feels good to be useful instead of running."
"Running from what?"
"Can't say."
"Can't or won't?"
"Both."
Fiona studied him, weighing his words against her instincts. "You expect me to just accept 'mysterious past, can't explain' as an answer?"
"No. I expect you to decide whether my actions matter more than my history." Ben met her eyes. "Have I hurt anyone? Stolen from anyone? Done anything except help people who needed it?"
"Not yet."
The addition hit like a knife between the ribs. Not yet. As if his goodness was temporary, conditional, inevitably leading to betrayal because that's what this neighborhood had taught her.
"Fair," Ben said. "In your position, I wouldn't trust me either."
Something shifted in Fiona's expression. She hadn't expected agreement. "So why should I?"
"Because you need help, and I can give it. Because your family's drowning and nobody's throwing you a life raft." The words came out more intense than Ben intended. "Because watching you carry everything alone makes me want to do something, anything, to make it even slightly easier."
Fiona's arms uncrossed. Her defensive posture cracked. "Why us? Why my family specifically?"
"Because..." Ben stopped. How could he explain that he'd watched nine seasons of her life, memorized her struggles, fallen for a character who was now standing in front of him as a real, complicated, terrified young woman?
He couldn't. So he said the only truth he could: "Because you reminded me of myself. Trying to hold everything together with duct tape and willpower. I saw that and wanted to help."
The silence stretched. Fiona's expression cycled through emotions too fast to track—suspicion, vulnerability, anger, something that might have been hope.
"I don't trust easy kindness," she said finally, voice softer. "It always comes with a price."
Ben stepped closer. Close enough to see the dark circles under her eyes, the tension in her jaw, the way she held herself ready to either fight or flee.
"The price is you let someone help," he said. "That's it. No expectations, no strings. Just... let someone give a damn about whether you're okay."
The air between them felt charged, electric. Fiona's eyes searched his face, looking for deception, hidden motives, the inevitable catch. Ben held still, letting her look, hoping she'd see the truth even if she couldn't know its full context.
For a moment—brief, suspended, infinite—he thought she might kiss him. Or punch him. Her body swayed forward fractionally, close enough that he could smell her shampoo, see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes.
Then she stepped back. Walls rebuilding with visible effort.
"I should go," she said.
"Fiona—"
"It's late. I need to..." She gestured vaguely toward the door. "Kids wake up early. I should go."
She turned. Started walking. Ben watched her retreat and felt something in his chest twist painfully.
"Let her go. Don't make it worse. You've already said too much."
But his exhaustion betrayed him. His guard dropped for one fatal second, and words spilled out before he could stop them.
"Steve's not who you think he is."
Fiona froze mid-step. Turned slowly. Her expression shifted from confused to suspicious to dangerously sharp.
"What did you just say?"
Ben's Danger Intuition detonated. Warning screaming too late, showing him the massive mistake he'd just made.
"Steve. He's..." Ben scrambled for explanations that didn't reveal impossible knowledge. "His cars. They're different every week. Expensive. That's not normal for someone who lives around here."
"How do you know about Steve's cars?"
"I've seen them when he drops by."
"You've been watching us." Not a question. An accusation.
"No, I just—"
"You just happened to notice which cars Steve drives? Happened to keep track?" Fiona's voice rose. "How do you even know his name? I never mentioned him to you."
Fuck. Lip mentioned him. Lip told me about Steve. Think.
"Lip mentioned him," Ben said, clinging to the truth. "Said Fiona's boyfriend drives fancy cars. I just... noticed he was right."
"Why would you notice? Why would you care?" Fiona advanced on him, anger replacing vulnerability. "Unless you're interested in my family for reasons you haven't explained. Unless you're planning something."
"I'm not planning anything."
"Then why are you watching us? Why do you know so much? Why do you—" She stopped, something clicking into place. "The washing machine. The money at the store. Helping Ian. All of it. You've been inserting yourself into our lives deliberately."
"I've been helping."
"Or positioning yourself. Getting close. Earning trust." Fiona's eyes were hard now, defensive walls fully reconstructed. "Stay away from my family. I don't know what your angle is, but we don't need someone else using us."
"Fiona, that's not—"
"I mean it. Stay away from my siblings. Stop helping unless they ask directly. And stop—" Her voice cracked slightly. "Stop acting like you care when I don't know why you're really here."
She left. The door slammed with finality that echoed through the garage's empty space.
Ben stood frozen, replaying the conversation, cataloging every mistake. The slip about Steve. The obvious knowledge he shouldn't have. The way his concern had looked like surveillance from her perspective.
He'd just destroyed her trust by caring too obviously. By letting his foreknowledge leak through careful lies. By treating her like a character he knew instead of a person he was just meeting.
Ben's fist hit the concrete wall before he realized he was moving. Pain exploded across his knuckles. Blood welled from split skin. He hit the wall again, harder, needing physical pain to override the emotional kind.
"You fucking idiot. You had one job—don't reveal you know things you shouldn't know. And you lasted exactly two months before blowing it."
His hand throbbed. Three knuckles were bleeding. He'd probably fractured something. Good. Let it hurt. Let it remind him what happened when he stopped being careful.
Ben wrapped his hand in a shop rag, applying pressure. The blood seeped through quickly. He'd need ice, maybe stitches. But first he needed to sit down before his legs gave out.
He collapsed onto an overturned crate, head in his hands, and felt the full weight of what he'd just lost. Fiona had been starting to trust him. Had come to him at midnight because some part of her wanted to believe he was genuine. And he'd ruined it by mentioning Steve, by revealing surveillance she couldn't explain.
Now she thought he was running a con. Positioning himself near her family for unknown reasons. And she wasn't wrong—he was hiding things, did know more than he should, was absolutely using knowledge she hadn't given him.
The truth would sound insane. I'm from another universe where you're a TV character and I memorized nine seasons of your life before transmigrating here with supernatural powers. She'd call police or psychiatrists or both.
So he'd have to live with her suspicion. Watch from a distance while she dealt with Monica's arrival, Steve's inevitable betrayal, all the disasters he knew were coming. Unable to help because helping had revealed too much.
Ben's hand throbbed in rhythm with his heartbeat. The pain was grounding, real, a reminder that he lived in this world now with all its messy consequences.
He'd wanted to protect the Gallaghers. Instead, he'd made Fiona fear him.
"Maybe that's for the best. Maybe the damage I cause by interfering is worse than the pain they'd face naturally. Maybe I should have stayed an observer."
But even thinking it felt like a lie. Because he was already too involved, already cared too much, already couldn't imagine walking away even if Fiona never trusted him again.
Ben cleaned his hand properly, wrapping it in clean gauze. The pain dulled to a steady ache. He locked up the garage and walked back to his sleeping space as dawn broke over South Side, painting everything in cold gray light.
Tomorrow, Monica would arrive. Ian would struggle. Fiona would be right about everything ending badly.
And Ben would watch from outside, knowing the future but powerless to change it because his knowledge had become the very thing that isolated him from the people he wanted to protect.
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