A/N: We've come to the end of this journey. Thank you all for reading.

Peter let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding when the plane took off. His hands touched the soft cloth of the seats, sprinkled here and there with orange sand that kept falling from his pockets and the folds of his clothes. In the large, more sofisticated bed Neal now occupied in the back of the plane, there was also sand and dirt staining the crisp white sheets. Neal still wore his tattered clothes. They were stained with his blood, just as Peter's were stained with Charlie's blood. Charlie, he remembered, was still out there in that desert they were flying above for a second time. He can see if he sits next to the window, and he knows that if he does, it will still look beautiful from a distance, beautiful and daunting and eternal. He knows he will remember it for a long time, even now that he hasn't even spent a full twenty-four hours indoors between the hospital and the plane, he already feels like it has all become much smaller. He knows he won't miss the desert but he will miss that feeling of awe at wide open desolation. He had never known before that the world could feel so big.

The main dealers of the treasure are gone, the meetup deadline long past, but he is happy with the knowledge that at least they didn't get what they wanted. Diana had told him he'd have his chance again and then he'd do it right, it was just a matter of time, and he was okay with that.

He heard Diana's voice behind him, chatting with an increasingly sleepy Neal, and he felt a stiffness leaving his muscles. He needed to stand, it was so strange, and seeing both Neal and Diana looking away, he took his chance and walked sideways and away. He no longer had the IV, with already two bags in him he'd convinced the nurse he'd talke care of his hydration himself from then on, and so he only had to drag his plastered leg behind him, from the cabin to the bathroom. Being in an ambulance plane, the bathroom was much larger than in a commercial airline, and he managed to fit inside comfortable, shut the door, and then turned on the water from the tap. The sound of it, and the sweetness of it, when he tasted it, his whole head stuck in the sink, it was glorious. Relief rushed through him and he believed it then — It's finally over. Thank God. He suddenly felt like crying and he was glad there was no one there, no one to see. He covered his face with both his hands, rested his weight against the sink, and shook. He just shook, breathing hard, not quite sobbing but very close, and those shuddering images of endless sand, the despair that filled him when he thought it was all over, the feeling that he came so close, so close, that all was slowly washed away. Thank God. Thank God.

Relief pumped through his veins and it ran down in his tears. He had no idea of the tension and fear he had accumulated until it was all gone. Still shaking, he dialled home with the sat-phone he'd taken from Diana, and he waited for El to pick up. She only took two rings.

"Hello?"

"Hon, it's me," Peter said, and he had to sit down against the closed toilet seat and rub the dampness from his face. "I love you, hon. I just had to say it."

When he emerged from that bathroom, he was feeling stronger and happier than he'd felt before he'd stepped into the getaway plane. He hobbled to the back of the plane, and seeing that Diana was gone he went over in his head what he was going to say and how he was going to propose that they establish the narratable version of their story and got it straight before Diana pulled out her tape recorder and stopped with the small talk.

When he reached Neal's side, he didn't look up, he appeared to be asleep or close to it. Peter thought of letting him rest, after all they both needed it, but the doctor had said no sleep, and besides there was something Neal still did not know. "Hey, Neal, wake up… Wake up!"

Neal opened his eyes, disoriented, and then his face twisted in fear. Every time he had woken up since they'd gotten out, he'd forgotten for a minute where he was and what had happened. This was no exception, but Peter waited patiently for it to pass, and then he lowered himself so he could face Neal at the same level.

"Hey, Neal."

"What? Oh." His eyes searched Peter for a moment before they found him. "Hey."

"Want to hear some good news?"

"The plane is here?"

"Neal, we're in the plane."

"Right, yes. Of course."

"It's better than that, anyway."

"Okay, now you have me officially intrigued." Neal's eyes widened and he stared more attentively at Peter. "Tell me."

"Remember Simon?"

Neal nodded. "Is he dead?"

"No. Do you wish him dead, Neal?"

"I have, several times. Please tell me he got arrested, then."

"He did. I dropped him at the jail myself. By the way, I forgot to mention, the fishermen who saved us wish you a good recovery and said they'd pray for you, despite the fact that you made them miss the only day at mass in which they get free food and wine. Or so they say."

"I hope you thanked them profusely on my behalf."

"I did. Rest assured."

"So… That's it?"

Peter smiled. "Of course not. See, you know there were three fishermen."

"Three? I only saw two."

"The third one was the one with the truck, the one who found me. And when he found me, he wasn't alone."

"Simon."

"Exactly. And guess what he'd filled the back of the pick-up with?"

"The loot! Peter, was it badly damaged? Where is it? Is it flying home with us? Can I see it?"

"Uh… it was as poorly kept as before, to your second question: it's in a warehouse; no, it's staying here, and no, you can't see it. Did I miss any?"

"No, you got them all. God, Peter… Why did you tell me… if I wasn't going to be able to do anything about it!"

"I thought all you cared about was for the pieces to be restored. And they will. Just not by us. I did, however manage to procure a little something for you." Peter dug his hand into one of his pockets, and extracted a roll of woven cloth kept in a plastic bag. "It was one of the pieces of a wrapping cloth that tore to shredds during landing. It was already incomplete."

Neal took the cloth, and then raised his eyes to Peter.

"Well, look at you… The FBI agent violating international jurisdiction laws and looting cloth from a tomb."

"It wasn't looting, the thing was broken, and the archaeologist I spoke to told me that cloth quality was worth next to nothing here anyway, they have so much of it, he basically gave it to me to take."

"Peter, more than half of the monuments in the Met were broken, and then restored."

"Well, if it bothers you so much, I'll send it back, so give it here."

"No."

"Then stop complaining about it."

Neal held the plastic bag to his face and gently touched the cloth through it. Peter could see the rough scratches and cuts in his hands, a result of his brief swim. They were all unbandaged, but none required stitches, so it wasn't as worrisome as all the other issues that had been explained to him in a fast monotone by the only doctor he'd seen in the regional hospital. He shook his head. It did him no good to dwell on those matters.

"We need to get our story straight," he said. Neal looked up, smiling, although his face now looked less lively, more pained.

"Our story straight? Spoken like a true conman."

Peter lowered his voice to a whisper.

"Do you want to tell Diana everything? I certainly don't. If we don't coordinate it might be obvious we're skipping parts."

"Okay. What should we skip?"

"Everything from where we found the wrecked car til we met again."

"That's going to be more than obvious."

"We'll just say we made our way out to the sea together. You were faster so you went ahead, and that's when we got separated. No need to make anything up."

"You say I went ahead… they're all going to assume I made a run for it."

"But you didn't. You were going to get help and you did, that will be official, and that's what I will say, so that's what they'll believe. Don't be so eager to think the worst."

"I'm just being-"

"You're being ridiculous. You wanted to be the one who found help? You'll be the one who finds help. Everyone wins."

"I didn't want you to say I was the one who found help, that's not…"

"That's not, what?"

"That's not what I wanted."

"Then what did you want?"

"I wanted it to be true."

Peter sighed, and touched Neal's shoulder lightly.

"Well, I can't help you with that, unfortunately."

"Yes. I know."

"They say that it's the intention that matters."

"They also say the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

"You need to stop spending time with Mozzie."

"Mozzie didn't teach me that one."

"Neal, we made it. We both made it, and right now, I don't care one bit about the how, or the why, or who has the most merit or the most fault. We both made it, we are alive, and that's the best outcome I could've hoped for since the crash. For all I did, I'm sorry. I already know you're sorry for whatever you may have done. We have already forgiven each other. Let everyone else think what they want, I don't care and neither should you."

Neal blinked a few times and then looked away. His back ached despite the more comfortable bed, all the little cuts and scratches and bruises were starting to throb, and he felt an all encompassing weakness unlike anything he'd ever experienced. Moving his head, even if only slightly, made the plane shift around him and the dizziness took a while to fade. Of course, that was to be expected, seeing as he'd hit himself so hard by all accounts he should be dead or at least brain damaged, but he had a shoddy plane with a thin plexiglass windshield to thank for that. They were going to fix him when he landed, and he would be all right, but the prospect of someone messing with his head filled him with terror. Anything could happen. Couldn't they just sow it up and let the bones heal themselves? Wasn't that how it usually worked? Was is absolutely necessary?

He wished he could close his eyes, go to sleep, and wake up fresh and healthy back in June's place. He would wake up late, head down to the office to say hi to everyone, go out to lunch to a nice place, and come back home to drink some wine with Mozzie while hearing him babble on about one of his preestablished topics of conversation. Better yet if Peter was there, and El as well, so he'd tell her the better, braver, more entertaining bits of their adventure, ommitting all the details in which he pulled out bodies from a wrecked truck, called Peter a coward, and fought over a bottle of Gatorade. He'd tell her only of his valiant jump into the ocean. Of their finding of the cactus. The sunsets every afternoon, how hot it was, how blue the ocean shined. He'd make it like a story, like an adventure story, and he and Peter would stick to that story and they would tell it over and over until they forgot all those bad bits.

Yes. That would be a good day. And it would be a good story to tell the hypothetical grandchildren, with all its highs and lows. Looking back he knew there were several things he regretted, things he knew had been wrong, or short-sighted, harsh words he now saw were uncalled for, but he found that even when bringing back to the front of his mind the most painful memories of the past few days, he wasn't ashamed of any of it. They were the sort of memories that you never want to relive, but that you never find yourself wishing had never happened, either.

"What are you thinking?" Peter asked, breaking the silence. Neal looked sideways at him, blinking back the exhaustion from his eyes. He realised he never answered Peter. He didn't even know how ago it was that they'd been talking.

"Besides the fact that in a few hours I'll have people drilling into my head?"

"They're not going to—"

"But they are. How do you think they'll put the pieces back together, with glue?"

"Neal…"

"What if they do it wrong? I mean, they could do it wrong, doctors get it wrong all the time…"

"They're not going to get it wrong."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. Now, tell me what you were really thinking."

"How do you—"

"Neal…"

"I was just… thinking that if I could go back in time… I wouldn't change a thing."

Peter frowned at that, like he wasn't expecting it.

"Why?" he asked. Neal moved his shoulders in as close as he came to a shrug in his current position.

"I've gone over it. There's nothing I could've done that would've changed things. If I had checked the seatbelt, I wouldn't have hit my head, but I would've stayed in the cockpit and be crushed there. If I had stayed where you left me, I would've never found the fishermen who gave me water."

"I would change plenty," Peter said. "Starting by convincing Simon to leave Charlie at the landing strip. He was just a kid, Neal… His sister was there when I spoke with the policemen in the hospital…"

"You wouldn't have changed his mind," Neal said. "You're not reponsible for that, Peter."

Peter just shook his head. "Someone is always at fault when these things happen, and it's always worse when we're on foreign soil. They will look for who's responsible, there will be an inquiry, they'll be looking at me, they'll be looking at you, at Diana, at Hughes, they will analyze and correlate all our actions…"

"So? Let them do it. Our story is foolproof anyway."

Peter chuckled.

"Our story… Stick to the story, right? That's the idea?"

"That's the idea exactly. We stick to the story."

They both felt the slight pull of a smile in their faces, but they kept their eyes averted from each other. Neal could feel sleep draining his resolve to stay awake and appear calm and in control, and he knew that he would not be able to keep on talking lucidly for much longer. Soon his thoughts would drift back to the fear of imminent surgery, and he would rather be asleep than think of that.

"We'll laugh about this one day, when we're old," he said, and yawned. "Maybe we'll cry a little bit, but… but we'll laugh harder. I just know it."

"How do you know it, Neal?"

"Because if we're still friends after this… I think we can still be friends through anything."

Peter smiled and watched as Neal turned away and closed his eyes. He went back to his seat and thought of sleeping himself, but the sun was just setting and orange light was streaming through the window to his left, straight into his eyes. He reached to close the blind, but he stopped himself short, and he moved to the window seat in order to look at the scene below. Though this plane flew much higher in the sky, there was no fog or clouds blocking the view far below. As he watched, they left behind a large expanse of sand, they crossed a river, and from then on, all he saw below them was bright, bright green.

A/N: This is the end. Thanks to all of you who've been along for the ride, and I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I have. If you liked this, regardless of whether you've reviewed before or not or are a guest, I'd love to hear what you think. Even if you're reading this ages since I posted it, your review will reach my email and I will cherish it all the more. Until the next time!