Ben's Briliant Idea (open to the F4; Crystal later)

[eastside_thing]

Ben Grimm stared at the black brew for longer than he’d like in the same living room where Luna had appeared. The problem wasn’t that he gotten to bed or fallen asleep easily enough. Almost as his head had touched the pillow he was out and pretty much was that way for six hours. Which was not enough sleep unless if the end of the world was

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[sue_invisible]

Early in the morning found Sue on her way to the same place, generally. In the kitchen getting ready to work on breakfast. And having a bit of a snack herself. Generally speaking no one was up this early, so she tended to wander around in her bed robe (tied in case of surprises, of course).

She saw Ben in the living room and stopped. "You're up early."

[eastside_thing]

There was a time long ago where Ben had to leave the room if he caught Sue into a robe like that. Years ago, before Alicia and Sharon, he'd have problems seeing her like that. Now she was family, and it didn't matter. He moved on long ago (unlike other freaks he wasn't going to name).

"Had things on my mind, Suzy." Ben replied, taking a sip of coffee as he sat comfortably in his seat. "Needed to talk to ya, actually."

[sue_invisible]

"What kind of things? And what about?" Sue asked simply, smoothing out her hair with a hand. Even though she had brushed it out of force of habit before leaving the bedroom it still was tousled a bit too much for her tastes.

"Did something happen?" She thought (or at least hoped) if anything major had happened they would've been woken up in the middle of the night. Which had happened.

More than once.

[eastside_thing]

"Uh.. about a guest we're havin' for a little while. Jus' uhm..." It was too early to spring this up on her. Damn, was Reed even up? Maybe he could chill out at Cage's or maybe even Roger's. Hell, maybe even Stark could put up with him. Or a nice walk in the park maybe.

"Well, jus' don't know how to break it to certain people, ya know?"

[doc_richards]

Reed emerges from the bedroom - already dressed, of course - stretching his neck in towards the common area.

"What's going on? What's the commotion?"

[eastside_thing]

"Luna got here wit' Lockjaw," He threw a look at Sue, "At 2AM and Suzy been givin' me nothin' but a riot act for the past couple of minutes in my attempt to keep the kid from sneakin' out again and lettin' the kid get some rest."

"And it don't matter if Lockjaw teleports her somewhere safe, we don't know WHERE he would teleport her." Ben hopes that Reed can see it from Ben's point of view and hopefully Luna's. If not, it's off to the Avenger's mansion he goes to crash on a couch.

[sue_invisible]

"That's not the point, the point is you should've told us right when she showed up!" Sue said. "I never said she couldn't stay, but Crystal must be mad with worry by now." Sue saw this from a mother's point of view. If the same thing happened with Franklin... she didn't know what she'd do.

Which meant half of Attilan and the Blue Area of the Moon might be little more than burning piles of soaked ash.

[doc_richards]

Reed's face is frozen for a moment - then he finally chuckles with relief.

"Thank heavens, that it's only that."

The rest of him walks in to join the conversation, his neck contracting to its normal length.

"Ben, in the future, you feel free to get one of us up if Luna shows up with Lockjaw - or better yet, I'll set up the communications room so you could contact Crystal more easily. Of course she must be mad with worry, so we should contact her at once."

[eastside_thing]

Ben walked into the communication room with a rather sour expression on his craggy face. Leave it to Sue to know how to guilt trip him even more. There WAS a reason he got over her. He settled himself down in front of the monitor and leaned back in the chair, putting his hands behind his head and took a deep breath. “You can do it Benjy…”

He removed his hands and switched on the monitor and watched the idyllic imagery of clouds and seascapes as he waited for Crystal or one of her family members to pick up from the Moon’s end.

[crystal_element]

Crystal was a wreck. Though she'd tried to sleep and had planned on making calls first thing in the morning, sleep really hadn't come. A couple of hours from sheer exhaustion, yes, but no more than that.

"Ben?" she asked, rubbing her eyes. She was certainly not looking presentable in the way that Attilan royalty was supposed to...but Ben was her friend and wouldn't care about something like that. Especially once she told him what was wrong.

[eastside_thing]

Of course Ben cared. The poor kid looked exhausted and Ben felt extremely guilty seeing the princess’ face. But then, he had only chosen the action he thought would have been best at the time. Ben cracked a weay smile at her, he didn’t look quite much better though his excuse was much more petty than Crystal’s.

“Heya doll, I got some good news fer ya, we got Luna and Lockjaw here. They’re sleepin’ like babies.”

[crystal_element]

Or at least, Ben wouldn't care that Crystal's appearance was improper and not groomed in the way royalty was supposed to be groomed. That's what friends were for.

Relief, all the previous distress that she'd been holding onto, and a plethora of other emotions all mixed in, and tears started streaming down Crystal's face.

"Oh, thank Agon!" she exclaimed. "I was terrified...she left a note that said she felt unwanted. I don't know how she could ever feel that nobody here loved her..."