His bed is somewhere. He knows where, he just doesn't feel like getting it. He's cleaned the house from abandonment back to something like human occupation, and the whole place smells like DHARMA brand Pine Sol. Everything but his "bed", the holdover from his time as a recovering cancer patient. It doesn't smell like anything good. Perhaps that's why he couldn't sleep in it. Doesn't quite explain how he went from there to Alex's room, but if he needs an explanation that will make sense in his mind, there it is. He couldn't sleep, so he decided to make himself miserable instead.

In a way he's happy he was enterprising enough to reclaim his house. He couldn't bear the thought of someone else clearing out her room, doing whatever they'd like in it--more drunken revelries that's made everyone other than him cozy in someone else's bed, someone else's tent, anyone else's place but his. For all that he's happy he's stopped people from destroying this room, he thinks it remarkably fitting that the only other company he has in here is a memory, a ghost, someone whose body is lying not too far away from here but will never occupy this room again. He had seen to that.

He's waiting for the tears to come, the avalanche of grief that never quite caught him as he circumnavigated the world, looking to hurt Charles Widmore, looking for something resembling a purpose. So far he's only managed to achieve a persistence in sitting on Alex' bed, clinging to the one drawing she had framed but had hidden over the years. It was a drawing of her and him on the beach, smiling--similar to the picture he hid from Locke, only the stick figures betrayed that this drawing was much older than this picture. That, and she had buried it deep in her closet so she wouldn't have to see it. So she wouldn't have to remember that in some point in her life, she had loved her "father".

The tears aren't coming, but he's finding it hard to move, hard to focus on anything but loneliness and loss.

True to his suspicions Ben had spent the entirety of yesterday in the bar, at times looking apprehensively at the door, at times losing himself in a book. Today he finds himself outside staring at the mountains across the lake, wondering if he has it in him to leave and subject himself to --

Well, if he's thinking of it in those terms, perhaps it's for the best that he not leave just yet. Self-preservation remains still a strong motivation for him, and after his encounter with it he would be foolish to throw away his life so recklessly. Caution was imperative. How could he be any more cautious than this, to stay here while time stood still and waited for him to collect himself? Ben was well aware of his weakness, of his tendency to act first when his mind was clouded by emotions. Much better for him to fall into the proper state of mind over time than to tumble in it with the time provided to him on the Island.

Or perhaps that was all just an elaborate excuse for an abject refusal to return to an Island that had fallen out of love with his iron will. Didn't matter. What mattered was that he didn't feel like he was in the right state of mind to deal with the iron will of whatever John Locke was these days, and until he did feel like he was he would spend his days like today, roaming outside by the lake, staring at the mountains.

Ben had put on one hell of a show during breakfast. Some of it was genuine: he did feel a bit relaxed, a bit cheerful, but as the meal went on anxiety kept creeping in, and the realization that he had talked to Penelope Widmore and let her go was nagging at his brain. What did this mean for him, for his future, for his goals? Did he mean what he had thought, that he was done with the Island? Could he be done with the Island? These things were all so heavy that by the time breakfast was over his cheerful mood was a farce, easily dropped when he looked at Alex and asked if they could go to their room. Now he's pacing, staring at the floor, more than a little nervous for being on the verge of doing something he was far too cowardly to do in the past: tell Alex the truth. The whole truth.

I know I'm a n00b and it may be early for me to do this, but what the hey. Here are the plots I have in mind for Ben going forward.

I was just finishing Carrie. I still don't know why you picked it, but boy is it depressing.
A friend of mine said Ben Linus with telekinesis is bone-chilling. While I wouldn't use such strong language, the notion of Ben with TK is a troubling one, but more for him, now, than anyone else. Ben has many-a botched breakfast in his future, besides the self-inflicted bruises caused by his attempts to hit accio book. And Ben likes to read. Anything. Even very big books. Ouch! I am open to threads where Ben TKs it out on another character, but your character will have to do something that unnerves him enough for his powers to go wild. Ben can be a cool customer. Then again, this isn't his playground. I suspect he may be easier to freak out here than at home.

Just something sentimental.
Ben has lived a hard 43 years and it's just now that he's getting a break from it. Some of the hardest times for him have occurred when he was a child. They've also occurred within the past 24 hours. He made a promise to an old friend, an eye for an eye tooth for a tooth kind of deal. It didn't go down as he thought it would -- hence the bruises on his face and the injured arm. He'll heal, physically, but emotionally and psychologically he'll be a mess for a little while. Not that that's new, for him. As I said: he's lived a hard 43 years. Now here would be where the concerned player character comes in, but Ben Linus isn't an easy man to like nor an easy man to talk to. He lies. He's closed off. He probably won't tell anyone anything about his life and his problems. So if you really want to know? You need to work at becoming something special for him.

Single white male seeks attractive blonde doctor who enjoys opera and red wine. Must look "just like her".
Ben has a, um, thing for Juliet Burke. A pretty big thing. A pretty big thing that leads him to kill any man who gets close to her. I'd like to think he's calmed down from all that, what with being distracted by his off island activities, but now that he's mission-free in the same place as the woman of his memory dreams, well, I'd like to see how this plays out. And I'd like to see if Ben's capable of forming any relationships like the one he so desperately wants to have with Juliet Burke. I don't ship Juliet/Ben, but I must confess I am psyched to see how their relationship will play out now that they don't have a pesky island with its destinies to complicate things any further.

There's a finished cake on the counter top, a thin slice cut out of it. The person who baked the cake is no longer in suite, having gone out for a walk in the never ending loop that is the exterior of Milliways Bar. It's all so very metaphorical: his life has no meaning, so he's out walking a pointless walk in a place that leads to nowhere.

Ben has no idea why he's been doing the things he's done lately. He has no idea why he reacts so erratically, why at one moment he's ready to steal Max's identity and at the other he he wants to cuddle. He guesses if he had more purpose he'd have greater control over his behavior, but as long as that door to his world is not there, as long as the work he has to do remains unfinished, he'll have no reason to keep control over anything. It's only a matter of time before he completely unravels. Will his door show up before then?

He wasn't sure. And who knows; maybe it was his destiny to go insane.

So how long before he totally lost it and took it all out on Max?

There are some scars that Ben refuses to tell Max about. Max has given up trying to find out the stories behind them as a part of adjusting to the relationship. That's fine by Ben. Some of his scars have stories too dark for him to tell. Some scars have stories that hurt too much to tell -- like the scar that's on his mind now. It's exposed, like it always is after they make love.

(Though Ben doesn't think he call what just happened as love making. More like pure, rough sex for the sake of forgetting.)

And Max hasn't asked about it. If he did, Ben knows he'd say at least one thing in response: stay the hell away from Sayid Jarrah.