Twisted Family Love (Wade & Ash)

[Wade von Mackensen]

Three months. That's how long it had been since Morgan had seen Ben. He had been overseas for a study program his adopted father, and her step-father, Ted signed him up for, and he was finally returning home. And it was not a moment too soon. Ted and her mother had known each other for years since their days at medical school, even meeting his brother and wife on several occasions, but they had eventually drifted apart once graduating, and his name only came up again in her life when tragedy struck Ted. Ben's parents were slaughtered in their home, and the infant was kidnapped, with no ransom note or clue to if he was even still alive. He simply vanished into the wind without a trace.

Ted took it hard. He struggled emotionally, and even slipped into alcoholism as the case wore him down. Years would pass, but never any answers about that night. Ted had all but given up, on both the case, and finding happiness. But, years later, a random chance meeting between the two happened. And, not too long after, they began to date, before Ted decided to take her hand in marriage. He seemed to be moving on, and wanted to start a family with Morgan's mom, the two wanting to start over after a tentative decade for each of them. Then, there was a breakthrough. A random lead that would send the police to some shack in the middle of nowhere. Upon raiding it, police would find a young blonde boy all by himself, half clothed and malnourished. Ben had been found after eight long years. It took a couple of months in the hospital to get him healthy again, but eventually Ben would be released and given custody to Ted. He didn't even need to think twice about adopting young Ben. His brother's boy was alive, and in need of reconnecting to both his roots, and the world beyond whatever horrors had been inflicted upon him.

It was much more challenging than Ted had anticipated. Ben was a troubled child, struggling to adapt to his new environments. He struggled in school, showed a lack of emotional empathy, and lashed out into emotional tantrums. As much as Ted tried, he didn't seem to know how to navigate the complexities of Ben. He tried making him do therapy, counseling, even boot camp and military schools to try and get him into the habit of obedience and regimental temperament. All to no avail. It took until his first year in high school for Ben to finally begin to calm down his troubling personality 'quirks,' and integrate fully into society. That didn't mean he finally started to like Ted. There was a lot of resentment towards his uncle, and while Ben didn't make trouble publicly anymore, the two would still get into fights quite often. The last one was the worst, almost ending with the two coming to blows. It was a year ago to the day it happened, and both had barely spoken to each other. Ted agreed to give Ben his own place until after he graduated, but once he went off to college, that would be it. The two would part ways, and Ted would stop interfering with Ben's life.

Today, all four of them would have lunch at a local restaurant to discuss graduation. See where Ben and Morgan wanted to go afterward, go over curriculum with each, and what both would need going forward if this was to be their last time together as a family. All three of them waited in the lounge besides the baggage carousel. Ben's plane landed only a few minutes ago, and Ted was eager to get their lunch going, mainly because of the nerves running through his body. He wanted to try and mend fences with his 'son,' instead of leaving things in such a sour situation.