"Eleanor Roosevelt Gates."

I turned around from what I was doing to come face to face with my older brother.

"Ben!"

I basically jumped on him. I haven't seen him since two years ago.

"I missed you! What are you doing here? How are you? Is this about the treasure? Who's that behind you?"

He laughed at my excitement. I did tend to get over excited. And when that happened I usually started talking really fast.

"Still as hyper as you used to be. I missed you too kid."

He went to ruffle my shoulder length brown hair but I swat his hand away from my head. I glared up at him with my emerald green eyes.

"No touchy. It took me an hour to get it to look like this."

"Fine. We both remember what you look like before this. Scary."

I smacked his arm. I heard a laugh come from behind Ben and saw that it was his companion. When I looked at him all thought and air left my body. He was the most gorgeous man I had ever laid eyes on. And let me tell you. I've seen some nice looking men. I shook my head to rid myself of those thoughts and turned back to Ben.

"Explain to me why you just randomly show up at my job after two years of no calls, no visits and no letters."

"Okay, I will. But let's go out to lunch. When's your lunch break?"

"I get off in a half hour. And you promise you'll explain?"

"Promise."

I smiled at him.

"I really missed you Ben."

"I missed you too."

With that I turned back to my work. I was one of the curators, tour guides and historians that worked at the Smithsonian. My major had been history. But I generally focused on Ancient Egypt. So I minored in Hieroglyphics. I was back in school for a degree in archaeology too. I finished my work and in a half hour I found Ben and the mysterious partner standing outside of the museum.

"So where to?"

"Where ever you want little sister. You're the D.C. native."

"You live here too Ben."

I stopped in my tracks to look back at Ben. Poor guy next to him was getting a frightful glare from my older brother.

"Did I just hear him correctly? Did he just say that you live here?"

Ben sheepishly rubbed the back of his head.

"Yes. I bought an apartment here a few months back."

I glared. That hurts.

"You've been living here for a few months and you couldn't make time to see your sister?! What is wrong with you?!"

"I'm sorry Ellie. I've just been so caught up with this treasure."

I turned around away from him so he couldn't see the tears welling up in my eyes.

"That's no excuse. I could have helped."

Ben could always tell when I was crying. No matter what.

"Oh Ellie, please don't cry. I know I hurt you. I didn't mean to."

I just huffed and rubbed at those blasted tears that wouldn't go away. He walked around and in front of me, wrapping his arms around me in one of those nice brotherly hugs.

"Please Ellie. You know I love you. You're my baby sister. I'm sorry."

I sighed into his chest.

"Fine Ben. But I won't let you off so easy next time. That really wasn't nice of you."

He hugged me tighter.

"I know kid. It won't happen again."

He let me go and I wiped away the last tears from my eyes. Ben turned to look back at his partner only to see him standing there awkwardly. Ben chuckled.

"Come on Riley. We're going to go eat now."

"So that's your name. Riley."

I stuck my hand out to him.

"Nice to meet you Riley."

"You too Eleanor."

"Ellie please. Eleanor reminds me of an old lady."

Both men gave a laugh and Ben draped his arm across my shoulder, leading me towards a local diner. Once we sat down for lunch and then ordered, Ben finally started explaining.

"So. Ellie. I met a man who is willing to help finance our search. His name is Ian Howe. Not only that, but I found the Charlotte."

"Wait. From the clue? Charlotte was ship?"

"Yes."

"Amazing. All these years. And how do you plan to find said ship? Are we going to ask the leprechauns?"

He gave me a look.

"No. Riley here is good with computers. He's going to help us locate her. And Ian is buying fancy equipment to help."

"Oh, fancy equipment, how lovely."

"If you don't play nice, you can't come."

My eyes widened.

"Seriously? I can come?"

"Like I said, you have to be nice."

"I promise I will be nice."

"Good girl."

"You know Ben; I thought she was your sister, not your dog."

We both looked at Riley. Ben glared and I laughed and we gave each other a high five.

"Riley, I think this is going to be the beginning of a good friendship."

"I think so too."

We smiled at each other for a moment and then went back to discussing the trip.

-Ben POV-

When the two of them smiled at each other, I thought I saw something. I don't know what, but something was there. I can't help but get the feeling something will happen between the two of them. But that might just be protective older brother speaking. I'll have to watch this.

-Ellie POV-

Two weeks later, I found myself bundled up in a heavy parka, snow pants, and snow boots, complete with gloves, hat and scarf, in the back of this crazy machine thing. I don't know or care what it's called. Next to me, equally bundled up was Riley. In the front were Ben and Ian. When I first met Ian, I was creeped out. Something about him was just off. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. I do have a small case of paranoia, so it's possible. I looked over at Riley and his computer. I was fascinated. And very confused.

"So where is this ship?"

"Well, judging by the coordinates Ben gave me, and a topographical map of the area, we should be close. But don't go by me, I broke a shoelace this morning."

We all looked at him like he was nuts.

"What? It's a bad omen."

"Should we stop and throw him out here?"

Ben laughed.

"Riley, you're not missing that windowless cubical we found you in are you?"

"No sir."

All of a sudden, his computer started beeping.

"We're here."

We all clambered out of the giant snow tank. That is what I'm going to call it. I was going to jump out, but Riley offered his hand to help me, so why would I pass something like that up?

"Thanks Riley."

"Anytime Ellie."

This big buff guy, who's name I don't care to remember walked past us.

"How did a ship wind up all the way out here?"

"Well I'm no expert but, it could be that the hydrothermic properties of this region produce hurricane-force ice storms that cause the ocean to freeze and then melt and then refreeze, resulting in a semisolid migrating land mass that would land a ship right around here."

I stared at Riley for a second, trying to figure out how he knew that, before shaking my head and walking behind him.

"Computer nerd."

He looked back at me. I just smiled sweetly at him and kept walking.

"History geek."

This time I looked back at him. He stuck his tongue out at me and walked ahead. When he turned around, I stuck mine out behind his back. Ben had been watching the entire time.

"Okay, enough you two."

We grabbed our metal detectors and started working our way through the snow. After what seemed ages, it was really only like ten minutes, Ben's detector started beeping furiously. I ran over to him and he and I dug through the snow to reach the ship. We hit metal and he tried to brush most of the ice off of the name, but was failing, so I took a bottle of water and squirted it on the cleared piece. I saw the name and gasped.

"The Charlotte. Ben, we found her."

He hugged me tight and spun me around. When he put me down he turned towards the other guys.

"We found it! Over here!"