A/N Life is a crazy, unpredictable thing. 'Nuff said. I'm still plugging away on this story--thanks for sticking with me despite my lapse in updates :) This chapter does little to advance the story, but I wanted to post it anyway--the thinking being that it would get me back in National Treasure fanfic mode and I could get moving on the next chapter (much of which is already written as well)...but enough of my rambling. Thanks for reading and reviewing if you choose to do so :)

"It's from Ben," Riley repeated, still trying to convince himself of the fact. He glanced up at Abigail, then back at the phone, his eyes quickly skimming over the words faster than his brain could process them.

Abigail felt her heart beginning to race as she watched Riley expectantly, waiting for him to elaborate about the message.

"How do you know?" She asked, adding as a logical afterthought, "We have his phone."

"It's him," Riley stated definitively, a puzzled expression forming on his face as he tried to make sense of the string of numbers and letters in the message.

"What does it say?" Abigail asked eagerly, reaching forward to try to take the phone from Riley.

He quickly pulled it back toward him, out of her reach, and she scowled at him.

"Riley," she warned, still holding her hand out for him to turn it over.

"Just wait a sec, ok?" He rubbed his forehead in bewilderment as he stared at the numbers, feeling even more pressured to figure them out now that Abigail was glaring at him.

"Riley."

"Alright, ok," he finally submitted. "It says, 'Riley-it's Ben. Need your help.' Then there's a long string of numbers and letters. Then it says, 'Tell Abby I love her x x x—'"

"Ohh, it does?" Abigail sighed longingly, her eyes beginning to cloud with tears. She momentarily zoned out, her mind creating an illusion that at any moment, he would appear out of nowhere and wrap his arms around her from behind, hugging her tightly to him and promising to never let her go. The imaginary scene both comforted and tormented her, and she forced herself to come back to reality before it could go any further.

"I love you too, Ben," she whispered softly. "We're coming, sweetie…just hang on."

"What's with the x's?" Riley asked somewhat hesitantly, not sure if he really wanted the answer to that.

Abby looked up at him and smiled. "They're kisses, of course."

"Are you sure?" Riley wondered, raising an eyebrow suspiciously. "That's not what comes to mind when I see three x's. But hey, whatever—your love life is your love life but…eew—"

"Riley!" Abigail cried out, realizing his implication. "Ben isn't like that! And even if he was, why would he send a message of that nature to your phone? They're kisses…you know, like x's and o's? Kisses and hugs?"

"Um ok, but where are the o's then?"

"This is ridiculous," Abigail said, trying again to catch Riley off guard and take the phone away from him. It didn't work. "Are we seriously having this discussion?"

Riley guarded the phone closely, pulling it back against his chest. Abigail sighed with frustration.

"Riley Poole, you let me see that message right this minute!" Abigail demanded, standing up and looming over him with her hands on her hips.

Riley grinned innocently at her. "I'm still reading it. And I still want to know where the o's are…"

"They're understood, Riley!" Abigail exclaimed loudly, earning her a few looks from some travelers who were waiting for their flight to begin boarding. "Ben's kisses already include hugs, so he doesn't see the need to be redundant in his messages!"

Riley laughed out loud. "That's so Ben…the ever efficient one!"

"I really don't think that's our biggest concern right now, Riley," Abigail said in a serious tone, growing more and more impatient with his stalling.

"I know, I know," Riley agreed, looking back down at the phone. "Ok, 'Tell Abby I love her…kisses and implied hugs…" he paused, glancing up at her with a goofy smile. Abigail just rolled her eyes. "Don't bring—"

Riley abruptly stopped when he realized Ben didn't want him to bring her along. Uh…kinda too late.

"What?" Abigail asked. "Don't bring what?"

"Um…don't bring any unnecessary…uh…things or, um, people…"

Abigail looked at him skeptically as he fumbled over his words. "What?"

"Hey, I know!" Riley exclaimed, snapping his fingers as though he just came up with a brilliant new idea. "Maybe we should go get a room at a hotel where we can try to figure this code of his out…ya know, in case it takes longer than just today…"

"A hotel room? Riley, we don't have time for that."

"Yeah but, we could probably think better if it's quieter…yeah…quieter."

"Oh just give me that," Abigail huffed, finally grabbing the phone out of his hands successfully. She stared down at the message, first the mysterious string of numbers, then his quick love note, and then—

"Oh, I see…" She mused, reading for herself what Riley was trying to avoid. She looked up at Riley and tossed the phone back to him. "Well too bad. I'm coming."

"I don't think I can let you do that," Riley said hesitantly.

Abigail's eyes widened and she crossed her arms in her usual defensive stance. "Excuse me?"

Riley swallowed, glancing from her daunting expression to Ben's message and then back at her. "Ben said—"

"Of course that's what Ben said!" Abigail snapped back, not even allowing him to finish his statement. "When would Ben ever say that it would be ok to bring me along?"

"Well," Riley considered, "maybe if we were meeting him for a few games of miniature golf..."

"Riley."

"Just saying…"

Abigail shook her head disapprovingly. "Forget what Ben said. There's no time to entertain his grand heroic notions, especially when he's obviously not in a position to be a hero this time."

"Abigail, I don't know…"

Abigail's phone suddenly started ringing and they both looked down at Abigail's purse. She quickly grabbed it and flipped it open, her heart beginning to pound anxiously.

"Hello?" She answered, an obvious sense of urgency in her voice.

"Abigail, it's—"

"Sadusky!" Abigail cut him off. "Do you know anything? What did you find out? Have you figured out what happened to Ben? Was he in that cab? What happened? Who has him? Who called me?"

Sadusky sat semi-patiently on the other end, waiting for Abigail to finish firing off question after question to him. She was obviously very worried about Ben, which was understandable. He was missing, and with Ben that could mean just about anything.

"…Answer me!" She finally concluded and at last took a deep breath.

Sadusky resisted the urge to chuckle loud enough for her to hear. Not because the situation was at all funny—if it were different, he might have jokingly asked her at what point during her rapid-fire interrogation did she expect him to jump in and respond to her questions.

"Unfortunately at this point I can't answer most of those questions," Sadusky said ominously.

Abigail's heart sunk. "Do you know anything at all about what happened?"

"I know basically what I told you earlier. Officer Sullivan did not call you. I confirmed that with him, and he also assured me that that wasn't standard procedure even if Ben had been in that cab," Sadusky explained.

"If?" Abigail asked.

"There was no one in that cab, not even the driver," Sadusky reported.

"Well why would Ben—or anyone—be sitting in a cab without the driver?" Abigail wondered.

"Right. Even more curious, the driver was rushed off to get medical attention after being found passed out by his cab," Sadusky explained. "Routine tests that were conducted at the hospital revealed traces of chloroform in his system."

"Someone made him pass out," Abigail concluded, taking a quick nervous glance at Riley. "Did he see who did it beforehand?"

Sadusky sighed. "No. Whoever it was covered his bases pretty well—"

"Or her," Abigail interjected.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, do we know conclusively that it was a man?" She questioned. "Don't forget—it was a woman who called me. It could have been the same person, right?"

"Right…" Sadusky agreed, somewhat apprehensively, as though he didn't completely buy that idea. "But the driver seems to remember a man asking him if the cab belonged to him right before being attacked from behind."

"So, there could be more than one person involved," Abigail reasoned, catching Riley's eye as he looked up upon hearing her statement. Riley held up his cell phone and waved it from side to side to remind her of Ben's message. He wondered why she hadn't mentioned it to Sadusky yet.

"We're going to put out a missing person's alert in the Chicago area, and see if that brings in any information about Ben's potential whereabouts," Sadusky explained in business-like fashion. "I'll keep you updated if we get any leads, and likewise, if you or Riley hear anything from Ben--"

"We'll let you know if we do," Abigail replied, nervously biting her lower lip. Riley looked at her in confusion as she finished her conversation with Sadusky and closed her phone.

"Why didn't you tell him about Ben's message?" Riley asked.

Abigail quickly gathered up her purse and put her phone in the side pocket. "Come on, we have to go," she told him.

Riley followed behind as she walked quickly through the airport toward the car-rental offices. "Abigail?"

"Ben doesn't want them to know," she told him, glancing over her shoulder to make sure he was keeping up with her.

"He doesn't?" Riley asked, trying to figure out how she came to that conclusion. "How do you know?"

Abigail abruptly stopped walking, and Riley nearly ran right into her. She turned and faced him. "Ben sent that message to you, Riley," she told him in a hushed tone. "Not to the police, not to the FBI, not to Sadusky, not to me."

"Yeah…and…?" Riley still wasn't quite sure what her point was.

Abigail sighed exasperatedly. "He sent it to you and said he needs help. He wants your help, otherwise he could have just sent it to Sadusky or the police."

"Maybe he just wanted us to contact Sadusky," Riley suggested. "Maybe he couldn't remember his phone number. Maybe he—"

"Maybe," Abigail cut in. "And maybe not. What if whoever has him threatened him if he got the police involved? Threatened to hurt his family or you or…"

"You?" Riley finished when her words trailed off.

Abigail paled, fearful again as she considered what Ben had to be going through. "I just think we need to try to find him on our own first. We know how to get a hold of Sadusky if and when we need him."

Riley sighed heavily. "Why is it that both you and Ben always want to take matters into your own hands? It would be so much easier to just let the police do their thing…they at least have guns. We don't have anything!"

"Yes we do," Abigail replied, pushing her way through the crowd of people in front of a Hertz rental car desk. "We know how Ben's mind works."

"Ha!" Riley burst out, louder than he intended. Abigail shot him an angry glare. "No one knows how Ben's mind works…it's like one of those things that you only understand after the fact, even though you pretend you knew all along."

Abigail smiled, shaking her head in amusement. "We need a car." She had almost reached the counter for Avis Car Rental, which happened to have no customers waiting in line—Abigail's deciding factor for choosing a rental car company—when Riley grabbed her by the shoulder and halted her forward progress.

"Wait, wait, wait," Riley said. Abigail turned to him with an irritated scowl. "You're not supposed to be coming along."

Abigail huffed loudly, placing her hands on her hips. "Riley Poole, I am coming. I don't care what Ben says. He needs us both."

"Ben will kill me if I let you walk into some sort of dangerous situation!"

"And I'll kill you if you continue to insist that I'm not going!" Abigail retorted. "Trust me, Riley, your chances of getting let off the hook are far greater with Ben than with me."

Riley crossed his arms over his chest and frowned, contemplating her words. There was no way she was going to let him go without her.

"Besides," Abigail added, mirroring his stance, "do you know what his message means?"

"Of course," Riley lied, noticing by Abigail's arched eyebrows that she didn't believe him. "Ok fine, I don't know yet. But I suppose you do?"

Abigail smiled triumphantly, and patted his shoulder. "Looks like you need me after all."

....

The morning hours slowly crept by, burdened by the constant threat of the unknown. Would Riley understand his message? Would he find Ben in time? Or would Ian and the gang ship everyone out before Riley could get to him? Should he have sent a message to Sadusky instead? Was there something else he should have said?

Ben quickly shook his head, attempting to dispel the nagging questions that had him second-guessing just about every decision he'd made. He tried not to beat himself up too much over the message; after all, he'd only had a few minutes and one shot at getting something sent to someone who could help him. He was exhausted, physically and mentally, and another sleepless night didn't serve to improve his state of being whatsoever. Staying a step ahead of Ian's group without them realizing it was going to get more complicated. Ben knew he needed to be sharp and focused, or they'd eat him alive.

Part of the reason he didn't get any rest was that he had worked through the remainder of the night to come up with a convincing, albeit false, solution to the Beale ciphers. Now that he knew the real truth behind the ciphers, there was no way he was about to lead those greedy scoundrels straight to it. He just wanted to be prepared in case Riley was unable to get to him in time.

Tearing a page from the journal that held the key to one of the most elusive and sought after national treasures proved to be a vexing task for Ben. He agonized for a good twenty minutes over the decision to intentionally mar this generations-old journal, his thumb and forefinger gripping the top right-hand corner of the page, just waiting for his heart and mind to give approval. But he knew he had no choice. He had hoped to be able to use one of the pages of Savage's translations instead, but the linguist had used every inch of white space on those papers including the margins, where he had scrolled his own notes.

He found a page near the end of the journal that had less text on it than some of the others and carefully tore it out. Once it was removed, Ben feverishly copied the cipher and solution of the real location for the treasure, folded it several times and tucked it away in his pocket.

Now all Ben could do was wait. For the last couple days his mind has been consumed almost entirely with solving Beale's codes and trying to figure out a way to get himself out of this situation. But he welcomed those things that kept his mind occupied rather than the alternative. When his mind found a moment to wander, it always drifted to thoughts of Abigail. God, how he missed her. He tortured himself by reliving memories of times together and pondering dreams for the future – a future that was now so very uncertain.

When he closed his eyes, he could see her face; those piercing blue eyes that always held a playful sparkle with just a hint of curiosity and her warm, inviting smile that could make even his worst day instantly better. He could almost breathe in her scent, soft and feminine yet so intoxicating, always stirring in him an insatiable desire for her. He imagined those times when she'd come home from work exhausted and stressed or upset, ranting like she'd lost her marbles, hastily brushing by him as she paced back and forth while he waited to get a word in to try to make her feel better. He probably would have been rewarded with a fierce slap if he had taken any of those moments to let her know how downright adorable she was when she was all fired up (at least when the cause of that conflagration wasn't him), but he couldn't help the grin that spread across his lips in those moments.

Ben wasn't able to grin very long without Abigail noticing, and her reaction was always completely predictable. Predictable wasn't a word that Abigail would like as a descriptor for her behavior, but often times it was just that. Not that he'd be letting her know that anytime soon, though. That would only lead to an even more predictable lecture on him always thinking he was right.

"Ben!" She exclaimed, stopping her pacing abruptly and crossing her arms over her chest. "I had a horrible day and here you are - standing there with that cocky grin, laughing at me. Just what is so funny about what I'm telling you?"

When Ben's only reaction was to laugh even harder, she let out an exasperated huff and mumbled something angrily under her breath before predictably stomping past him on her way out of the room.

Ben grabbed her wrist as she attempted to rush off, and gently pulled her back, meeting some resistance from her as his arms embraced her.

"Come here," he coaxed, rubbing her back soothingly.

"Oh don't you dare start trying to comfort me now," Abigail objected, trying unsuccessfully to squirm out of his arms. "Ben! Let me go!"

"Uhn uh," Ben said, placing a lingering kiss on her forehead, then letting his lips travel over her skin until they reached her ear. "I'm never letting you go."

Abigail sighed in defeat; her willpower was never strong enough to overcome the emotions he stirred in her when he did things like that. She relaxed in his arms and he held her even tighter.

"I missed you today," Ben whispered softly. "I'm sorry you had a rough day, but now that you're home with me, I think I can come up with a few ways to make you forget all about it..."

Abigail raised her head and looked up into his eyes, sparkling with mischief. She couldn't help giggling; his expression was just too cute. How that man was able to thoroughly infuriate her one minute, only to have her melting in his arms not five minutes later was completely bewildering to her. She had no intention of letting him know he had that kind of power over her, though she suspected he already knew it anyway. With another dreamy sigh, she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned forward to place a soft kiss on his lips.

As she rested her forehead against his, their eyes met and no other words needed to be spoken in order to understand the dialogue between them. For Abigail, the day's disappointments were already forgotten. None of those things mattered. This was what mattered.

Ben's thoughts and memories were only a temporary escape, however, and each time his eyes would snap open and reality set back in, his heart was left physically aching from his mind's bitter-sweet diversion. He leaned back in his chair and raked his hands through his hair.

You can have your treasure, Ian. Just give me back my life.