Author's note: This is based on the movie National Treasure, and is to a great deal dedicated to the more than worthy performance of Sean Bean. I enjoyed the movie very much, but I thought that since Ben and Ian often used similar methods to reach the same goal, I did not see one of them as more evil than the other. I also thought that the hints of the friendship we saw between them should be explored more. I began doing that in 'Who Did You Say Stole the Declaration,' this story takes up a short time after that one ended, and is my version of what happened next. I hope you all shall like it.
Big thanks to LadyDeb1970 who have been going over this for me, and helped me with plot and story ideas. Also to Celebrion for being my beta.
Disclaimer: I do not own National Treasure. I just borrowed it because I like Sean Bean as an actor. I will return all characters in good and whole order, completely undamaged, if covered with a slight glue residue from having been put together again. I also swear I will not make any serious attempt at stealing Ian. More than I already have that is…
The name of Thomas McDowell have been stolen from LadyDeb1970, with her kind permission, as well as one or two other details.
/Elenhin
The Biggest Treasure
Is it silver or gold?
1
Ian looked around himself in the museum. He supposed that he had done well in an odd way. Mayhap he did not earn too much money, in fact he was paid a rather low salary as he was not considered to credible. That did not matter though as he was well set financially since before. There was no need for Ian to really work to earn a living, it had been years since he was dependant on work to get food, no Ian needed to work for very different reasons, he needed to feel that he was doing something, no matter what it was he was doing.
Working in a museum as it was, was still far better than prison. At least he was not a janitor to clean up after the school visits, and nor was he really a tour guide. Granted, he had been the guide on a vast number of tours, but only on the special tours, not on any of the school fieldtrips.
Ian's knowledge about the relics was valuable, he had a vast knowledge of history, and he was also very intelligent. In short he easily made an asset for any museum that appreciated him.
He had already detected a scam where some phoney had tried to sell false artefacts to the museum. It had not been hard, rather too easy. The loser had not known the first things about pulling off a scam.
Ian had heard him speak and had blown his story to pieces then and there.
The board had been grateful, very grateful indeed, but they really did not care much for Ian.
They took him on Ben's word, but they were not fond of it, nor of Ian. They took Ian because Ben had asked them too, and everyone was now fawning over Ben, and they would do anything for his gratitude, including having Ian there.
They paid him the minimum wage they could get away with and Ian, since he did not need the money at all, did not complain. He was grateful to Ben in a way, because Ben was willing to take the trouble to convince people to take him. Even if they did not do so willingly and rather mistrusted him.
At least since he detected the scam they did not watch everything he did. He was allowed some freedom now, such as walking around there on his own without a guard following his heels.
Ian had also improved the security a great deal. He had pointed out a few weak points, and they had now been taken care of. It was amazing really the kind of things that they had missed when they had installed the alarms and such. Ian could have gone in and out with no trouble at all.
Someone very skilled could still get in now, but it was much harder to do so. The amateurs would get caught, and it was not really possible to stop the elite.
"We have an excellent alarm." The head of the board had claimed stubbornly.
"Sir, anyone who is skilled and confident enough to target a museum does not have to worry about an alarm." Ian had pointed out. "Amateurs does not target a place like this, and even if they are bold enough to do it, they get caught even before they set off the alarm. Now the big ones are the ones that have resources, those are the ones that you really need to worry about, and those are the ones that your alarm won't stop."
"What do you suggest that we do then?" They had asked him.
So he had dealt with it, he had gone over their security inch by inch and scrutinized every detail, and he had improved it greatly for a very low cost. No one had mentioned how it came that he knew to recognize all the weaknesses and how they could be used. Instead they had accepted that he had that knowledge and had acted upon it, again because of Ben.
It was interesting really, how Ben became the great hero in shining armour and he the villain all dressed in the black of sin, so easily. Ben had after all used him for some of the more criminal acts. That was the difference between them, the main difference. Ian always did everything that needed to be done himself, or he did not do it. Ben could see using someone else to accomplish what he could not.
As things stood now Ian was in a no man's land. He was used, but not fully trusted. If something went wrong he would be blamed and arrested within seconds.
He was aware of that, even if they claimed that they trusted him when they spoke with him. Ian knew all about trust.
These people did not trust him, but they fawned over Ben, and they were willing to put up with Ian in the hopes of gaining Ben's favour.
He straightened his coat, then stuffed his hands into his pockets, undoing the straightening. He was waiting for a group to show up, a group of rich snobs that had donated money to the museum.
The board would never stop so low as to be playing tour guides, and these people were too important for the regular guides.
That meant that they fell to Ian to deal with, and they were late. It was twenty-nine minutes past appointed time already.
He was quite positive that none of them would be willing to apologise for it. They never felt the need to be even the slightest polite to a minion, and even less should they discover who he was. No, they were all secure in their belief that they were richer and more important than him, and that apparently gave them the right to treat him however they wanted. In truth he doubted that any given one of them was really more wealthy than him, though it was possible that one or two of them had once lost some wealth that had somehow wound up in Ian's possession, quite possible indeed.
Finally they came, all of them looking very important. Men in fancy and expensive looking suits, and women in blouse and skirts, wearing pearls and sparkling gems, that spoke of more money than taste.
"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, most welcome. "He greeted them.
To Ian's great surprise one of the women stepped forward. She was more tastefully dressed than the others. Her only visible jewellery was a small blue stone in a silver necklace. It was in fact quite tasteful and went in fact well with her eyes.
"I am sorry that we are late. I am afraid that we were not as good at finding our way here as we had believed we would be."
"Well, since you are all here now, shall we begin the tour?" He smiled at her, it was one of them who had thought to apologise. That was more than he had expected, a lot more.
The woman who had apologised also actually paid attention to what he said during the tour. She even appeared interested and asked questions every now and again. Every time there was something she wanted to know more about.
Ian rather liked that, other times he gave the memorised speech that they wanted, they wanted to hear as little as possible, but for once he was allowed to draw upon his deeper knowledge.
Then they came to the rooms that held the treasure of the Freemasons. He had never seen the magnificence of the whole treasure. When they moved it all out he had been in custody. He had in fact not seen much more than what this museum had. Ben had shown him a few certain things, but Ben seemed to think that he would rather not hear about it. Not so, Ian was very interested in the treasure.
He had heard of it before, he had studied the Freemasons, he had not gone after the treasure because of the money, but because of what treasure it was. It was the biggest treasure that had ever been heard of, and it fascinated Ian, and he had studied it. Ian had just never had the fortune of getting that first clue, and that was the reason he had never been able to go after it before he met Ben, and that was the reason he did not back off when they needed the Declaration of Independence.
Now he told them of how Ben Gates had searched for the treasure, and how he had also found it. He left out the parts where Ben had broken the law though, the board did not like any mentioning that suggested Ben had ever done anything illegal in his search for the treasure.
"Was there not a second party involved?" One man asked. "One that tried to steal it and murder Gates."
"Gate's group split into two groups due to a disagreement." Ian explained, unwilling to go into details.
"And the leader of that other group sought to murder Gates." The man pressed on.
"Not to murder Gates. To find the treasure before him certainly, but never to murder Gates." Ian said, it was easy to control his temper under the accusation that he should have sought to slay Gates, he had had a lot of practise doing it. The words did not even hurt as much anymore, but it was very wearing to always hear them. Why was it so easy for them to believe him capable of such an act, and yet so hard for them to listen. No matter what he said they held firm to their belief that he had tried to shoot Gates in cold blood, was it not obvious that he had not since he would never have escaped prison if he had done that?
At the end of the tour Ian rubbed a tired hand over his eyes. They were all like that. So fast to judge him, and so fast to forgive Ben for the same deed.
"A very interesting tour Mr. Howe, my compliments to you as the guide."
He spun around to see the woman who had apologised for them being late. She was standing there and smiling at him.
Then he realised the significance of the fact that she knew his name. She knew that he had been the leader of that 'second group.'
"I am glad that you think so, for I fear that the others were less impressed." He would make no comment about it. He would see if she was willing to make her knowledge plain, and what she would do with it. What her intentions were, for why would she come up to him like this and declare that she knew who he was unless she wanted to get somewhere with it?
"They are only ever impressed by themselves." She chuckled. "Pay no heed to the fools. I for one was very impressed, you truly know what you speak of."
"A guide who did not know what he spoke of would be a very poor guide now, don't you think?" Ian said dryly.
"You seem to resent me Mr Howe." She noted.
"No, I don't resent you." He said more politely. What else could he say?
"Given their kind words I would not blame you." She said with the hint of a smile, and with a glint of understanding in her eyes.
"Them, I do resent." He admitted grudgingly. "It seems that I shall always be known as the villain." He shrugged as if he could convince himself that it did not matter.
"It is easy to cast a mark on people you do not know." She agreed. "Yet I do not think that you are a villain Mr Howe."
"Then you certainly are the only one. Have you never heard what the evil Mr Howe did to the poor Ben Gates?" He could not keep the sarcasm fully out of his voice.
"I do not think that Ben Gates would have you here if he truly believed you were evil." She stated. "Still I must say that I do not understand why you do this. Why do you put up with those arrogant bastards?"
"I am the villain mainly because Ben Gates succeeded and I did not." He sighed. "Yet he was willing to give me a second chance. The way I see it I owe him to do my best. It can not have been easy to get a museum to put me here, to convince them to hire me. Oh, they are all too happy to do whatever Mr Gates might happen to request. But they also hold him responsible for me."
She nodded thoughtfully. It seemed wrong to her. Gates should not put him somewhere where he was so obviously scorned and mocked.
"You are a very interesting man Mr Howe." She said with a smile. "Would you do me the honour of allowing me to buy you a drink."
He regarded her suspiciously. Why would she want to do that? What was it she wanted from him? Also, why did she use one of the oldest clichés in the books for it.
"I would want to speak with you." She said with a smile. "I would like to learn more about the artefacts here. What else you told me would be your choice, but buying you a drink would only be fair, and the least I could do after those arrogant bastards there."
"I am used to their kind." He stated. "Though I think that maybe I should accept your offer." He wanted to get to know her better. Learn why she had approached him, there really had to be something more to it than she had shown this far.
"Then there is something that we both agree on." She smiled. "When are you free to go?"
"After work would be the most reasonable." He stated. "I can meet you after I am finished here." That would give her a chance to regret her decision and clear off. He rather supposed that she would regret it and not come.
"Good, I will come by here, what time?"
She seemed determined enough though, Ian was not really used to women like that. They were most often like Abigail.
Abigail were nice enough to him he supposed, she was actually quite civilised with him, as long as he knew that Ben was so much better than him. If he should forget that, then Abigail would be sure to remind him.
"About six should do." He said, had he just agreed to go on a date or something?
No, surely not, and she would not show up for that matter, this was polite talk, and she would change her mind after the first good looking guy she saw pass on the street.
When she had gone Ian went back to the artefacts in the museum, he enjoyed the relics, they were a palpable piece of history. Like the old castle he had played in when he was a child. Hunting dragons in the cellar, and how many times had he not searched for hidden treasures there? Allowed to stay with an older relative until she died. It had been one of the best times of his life as the old woman had enjoyed having an lively and enthusiastic child around.
Once he had been on a treasure hunt there, he had packed food and a sleeping bag and had searched in the light of an electric torch. He had slept in an old wine cellar, and it had been one of the greatest adventures of his life.
The castle stood empty now as it did not really have an owner. It had been left in a will, to Ian, but only if he could supply the answer to a riddle, and thus far Ian had not been able to do that. He had however paid the lawyers a sum of money to ensure that it did not fall into neglect. That castle had meant too much to him for that.
He guessed that the main reason Abigail disliked him to some extent was that she could not understand him. She could not understand why anyone as smart as Ian would ever turn to criminality when he could have earned just as much in legal business. One did not need to steal to make a lot of money and Abigail thought he should have been concentrating on other businesses.
What Abigail did not understand was that Ian had not started with any money at all in reality. He had been at the fork in the road where there were the choice of social assistance, going to some social worker every day to beg for food, and that was not tempting to him. Then there had been the choice of bending the rules and that was what he had done.
Ian had not been doing hold ups or shop lifting, no, he had pulled of grander schemes from the start. He had used his intellect and he had been good at it.
Abigail thought that he was a mere petty thief, and she judged him by that. It would be interesting to see what would happen if she realised that his name was not in full truth Howe. He had a family name that he could claim by right, and that name would hold more meaning to Abigail than Gates had.
Abigail had demanded to know if the Gates family were the lunatics with the conspiracy theory, well, his name was more well known and for better reasons, no shame on it ever, but he did not want to draw that kind of attention to himself. No one thought very much on the name of Howe, and he liked it that way.
Shaw had been one of the few people who knew his full and real name, and Shaw had never told anyone else, and now Shaw was gone.
Shaw had meant a lot to him, they had been very close. Shaw had relied on Ian and looked up to him, and in Shaw Ian had found the support that he sometimes needed. Shaw was one who always believed in Ian, and because of that he had died. Since Shaw had been lost Ian had not taken up the contact with his old gang anymore.
He did not want to see the blame in their eyes for Shaw's death when they looked at him, and he did not want to be the death of any more of them. So he had made sure that they got out of jail okay, made sure they were set for life, and then avoided them.
It had not been all that hard, not many knew where he was now.
Later Ian went outside, not because he believed that she would come, but because he wanted to prove to himself that she would not. He wanted to prove to himself that she would not bother to keep her promise to a criminal, and yet there she was, already waiting.
"Surprised I showed up?" She asked, and she would have had to read his mind, for he did not let his surprise show. He was much too skilled for that.
"Not for showing up in itself." He said, for he already knew she was a woman who stood for her words. "But surprised that you would think me worth showing up for. You have not yet told me your name, and yet here you are to meet with me."
"My name is Charlotte." She grinned. "And I think that you are a very interesting man Mr Howe. I think that you might have been treated unjustly as it seems to me that neither of you did anything that was worse than what the other did. I find you intriguing, and I do not blame you if you would rather not deal with it for it, but I have offered you a drink and you have accepted. So let us leave of the discussion until then."
She had a very interesting style he thought. She was very straight forward, very blunt in an amusing way.
"You might as well lay of the Mr Howe then, I am Ian." He stated. "And being the man I think that it should be me buying the drinks."
He studied her out of the corner of his eye to see her reaction to that.
"The first one is to make up for those arrogant asses." She stated firmly. "So that one I will be buying, should you care enough to remain and listen after that first one you may do as you please."
Ian nodded thoughtfully, he had rather taken a fancy to her. It was very easy to appreciate her and the way she regarded him. She would have to say something very bad for him to flee after the first drink.
So he allowed her to buy him an ale, he really did not feel comfortable with a woman buying him a drink, but he supposed that this was a time where he could make an exception. It was not normal circumstances as she was certainly not a normal woman.
She had ordered some pink concoction for herself, a drink called the Pink Panther, and despite the colour it did not look too bad.
"So, I shall ask you again. Why do you put up with those morons, please do not tell me that you do not have a choice. You must have a choice." She said almost pleadingly.
"I do and I do not." He said. "I could turn my back on it, I do not need the museum any more than they need me, but I need to know that Ben does not regret what he did. I enjoy being near history, and I could not have done that in prison, not like I do know."
"So you do it out of a sense of gratitude." Charlotte noted. "You are indeed a remarkable man Ian, for no mere thief would have that honour. It seems to me that you are unfairly treated."
"Who shall be the judge of that?" Ian snorted. "All I ever hear is how Ben showed too much mercy. He is the knight in shining armour who found the greatest treasure in the world. There are no one who will care a wit about me compared to that, except for those who think I should be locked into a prison cell, and that the key should be thrown away."
She laughed at this, laughed merrily. "Ah, but the world is full of ignorant fools. They read in the papers that Ian Howe was the criminal, and so they believed it. I however try not to judge before I have met someone."
"A very wise rule." Ian nodded as he sipped his ale. "Difficult though as you can not always meet everyone." He decided to take a chance. "Mind telling me how you even knew that it was me? There have to be more people by the name of Howe, and not even one of those other jerks even bothered to find out my name."
"A fair question." She nodded and stirred her drink with the straw in it. "And one you are wise to ask." She pondered her words a moment before speaking. "All of them think that they are very important because they own a lot of money. They also want every one to know that they have a lot of money. Therefore they donate to museums to get their name on a shiny brass plate, because they are pompous enough to think that everyone who goes to the museum will ogle that brass plate and think that they are so wealthy, and so generous."
Ian nodded, he was well familiar with that.
"My father taught archaeology at a university, and was very interested in antique relics. He is also fairly wealthy. He donates money because he wants more ancient relics to be available for the public instead of being bought up by collectors. Rich bastards that does not care about the piece but only wants to brag about how much they cost. My father is also very well thought of in certain archaeologists associations, and therefore was invited to a very fancy dinner where Ben Gates made appearance. My father took me along and thus I have met Gates, without being overly impressed I might add." She said the last part with a smile.
"I did some research on the whole thing, and decided that I wanted to meet you as well. When my father received the invitation here I convinced him to let me go in his stead. And here I am, does that answer your question?"
Ian ignored his ale on the table, this was a very interesting woman, secure and confident, and a bit wild, and yet she appeared to think things over before she acted.
"It answers my question very well." He agreed. "Shall you ask yours now?" He added to tease her, because he knew there was more she wanted to learn from him.
"I am afraid that one question would not be enough. I want to understand you, and there is not one single question who can cover something so big."
Ian tilted his head to the side and raised his eyebrows while he smiled, slightly challenging and cocky, and yet he knew it gave him a teasing look.
"Actually there is one question that would give you that understanding if it was given the right answer." He teased her.
"And what would that be?"
Oh, she knew how to play the same game he was playing, she crossed her arms over her chest threateningly, and that grin was a pure challenge over who could do worst.
He took a long draught of his ale, just to stall and to tease her into becoming impatient, and she was, he could tell that she was, even if she did not let it show. Deciding on mercy he put down his now near empty glass.
"May I see you again?" He said. "If answered with a yes it would allow you to get to know me more." He leaned forward slightly. "There shall be two alternative answers, yes and no, which do you think I will give you if you were to ask that question?"
"You would say yes." Charlotte decided confidently.
"How can you be so certain?" He challenged, oh, but it was so fun to bait her a little.
"First of all you showed up, which means that you want to learn more about me, secondly, you would not have dared me to ask it had you not wanted an yes. " She gave him a Han Solo lopsided grin, were women supposed to do that?
"I could have, but I did not. Your victory Charlotte." He grinned, then he drained the last in his glass. "You said that after the first drink it was up to me, so I shall just assume that you want another one of the same kind."
She smiled and handed him her glass.
When he returned she sat with her elbows on the table, she had folded her hands beneath her chin and was giving him a puppy love expression. The fray of her brown hair was just spilling down on her forehead and hiding her eyebrows. Making her blue eyes sparkle in a light shadow.
"You have already gotten me interested, and indeed my answer is yes." He grinned. "And I would ask you that you did not go to such trouble to bait your snare."
"Why, is it something that is not becoming for a woman?" She sat up straight and her hands came down on the table, the edge in her voice was enough to make most men reconsider what they had just been foolish enough to say.
"No, but I fear that you would put poor Cupid out of work if you were to do it too often." He gave her the most innocent look he could pull of, and Ian was not bad at that.
She laughed and at the same time gave him another puppy love look.
Ian raised his glass. "To poor little Cupid who now needs to find himself a new profession."
It was a delightful thing to speak like this to a woman. To be allowed to use all his wit and not need fearing to insult her. Oh, Ian could be refined, Abigail did not believe it of him, but Ian knew to mind his manners. He could be far more well mannered than Ben, he could carry himself better than most of Abigail's fancy acquaintances.
He could fool the rich snobs that he was one of them, and he could lighten their wallets while doing so. Ian also knew how to appear as ill bred as Abigail believed him to be, but this was far better. A woman who could take a joke, Ben did not know what he was missing.
"You are a smooth talker if there ever was one." She touched the brim of her glass to his. "Any other talent I should know about?"
"Probably, and since I have given the answer of yes I suppose that you shall get to know them." He said.
"It is a shame then that I have not yet asked the question." She winked at him.
Ian ran a hand through his hair. She was something special, she certainly was.
"I'll drop by and pick you up some day." She said in farewell.
"You are not giving me the chance to do the same then?" He asked teasingly.
"If I were I would have given you my address." She quipped back, he had known she would come with some quip. "Since I have not you shall just have to wait."
He rose and extended his hand to her before she left. "It was a true pleasure." He said.
"The same, I will drop by some day." She smiled and shook his hand, then she left and Ian headed back to the apartment where he lived. It was nothing fancy, he had not bothered about that this time. He had moved from his other place because of the museum, and Ian had never bothered to get anything to fancy. Expensive apartments and too much furniture was just too much of a bother when you had to relocate quickly, old habits died hard.
Even when Ian was only involved in legal business he still lived by the old rules. Should he want to lie low at some point, disappear for some reason he could grab one bag and be gone, that was all he needed. He could do without the rest.
His apartment was also rather bare for much the same reason, oh, he had furniture, and comfortable furniture at that, but why bother with paintings and such for the walls? To take some of the bareness away from the walls he had stuck some posters on them. Not the kind of posters that one would expect from him.
There was the wrinkled and a little torn actual size copy of the Declaration of Independence, the one Ben had bought and then tricked him with, it was not there as a reminder that he had been tricked, it was there because it might as well.
It had been lying in the van in a crumbled ball when they cleared out everything out, making sure that nothing could be traced back to them. He had taken it because that was something that could not be allowed to remain there, and then he had pinned it on the wall.
Then there was the Donald Duck family tree poster, the kind of poster that you sometimes got if you bought the comic book.
It was amusing to see how far back the McDuck family went. Not many families could claim that kind of history. Ian also rather liked Uncle Scrooge, he was a much deeper character than most people thought, greedy and shrewd certainly, but there was also the part of him that had memories connected to every penny in his bin, and that memory was worth more to him than the money value, and that was something Ian could understand.
Every single penny represented a victory he had won.
Then there was the X-men poster for no other reason than that it was a cool movie.
He considered getting something more serious to hang on the wall as well. It would be worth it to have a Michelangelo painting next to the Duck family tree, if ever he let anyone in into his apartment something like that would drive most people insane.
Not many understood that a Michelangelo painting was worth so much money merely because some pompous art expert said it was. There was the value because it was old, but it was not so old as to be priceless.
Ian however was not one to complain, he had made good money because of what those so called experts thought something was worth.
You could make a lot of money when you dealt with art, because there was always someone who was fool enough to pay up the sum for it.
So yes, he was considering putting something there that would rock them around.
Maybe something of those things that looked like the masters, that was certainly just as good but that was considered worthless because no art expert had yet said it was worth a fortune.
Tricking those experts was a lot of fun, but often too easy, they were so caught up in appearing important that you could easily fool them just by playing along.
The guy who had tried to pull of the scam at the museum had counted on them wanting to appear too important to use any common sense, and they had played right into his hands, until Ian had heard him speak and had asked the questions that he could not answer.
That was something Ian had never done, fooled a museum.
He ordered Chinese delivery for dinner, it was becoming pathetic at a rapid pace, but Ian found that he did not want to go out all that much, and he was not really a very good cook. The times when they needed to feed themselves someone in the gang who was more skilled with a skillet than him would usually take that chore, leaving Ian to take care of the things he did best.
Planning the operation.
That was one of the things that was wearing on him, there was no challenge in anything anymore. There was nothing for him to beat his intellect or his skill against, there was nothing he had to struggle to accomplish.
Even improving the museum's security system had been welcome, and that had been one of the most simple things in his career.
The food came and he flicked on the telly, no challenge there, was there ever?
Quite the opposite for watching the telly took no brain at all.
The fellows who ran the TV station must think that no man possessed even half a brain, considering the crap they sent. He wound up watching the cartoons because at least they were funny.
This is the end of this chapter, I shall update again in two weeks, and keep the updates up every second week.
I want to thank everyone who read my earlier National Treasure story, thank you, all of you.
Here are review responses from my first story, again thank you, all of you:
sz2000: I am very glad that you liked it. I have tried to keep the characters as I saw them in the movie, but also to explore them and what they can be. Ben and Ian are trying to be the friends that they started out to be, but there have been difficulties that neither of them expected. I still hope that you shall like this.
LadyDeb1970: There are indeed some times when Ben does things that makes him no better than Ian, but most often those seems to be covered up rather quickly, then again, we have already discussed that. Thank you so much again for all the help, I hope you like to see this up now.
Kat: I am glad that you found it interesting. Perhaps I should have been more clear, and I have tried to be now. Ian does not take the offer because he needs the money, he does it because he feels that he owes it to Ben for giving him that chance. Ian here is a bit devastated over losing Shaw, and so even if he has the money to do what he wishes, he feels very strongly that he has to repent his mistakes. One way of doing that is taking Ben's offer.
Elvenrarehunter: I am happy to hear that you liked it, and that my characters were enough like they were in the movie. I beg pardon for all and any mistakes, but being dyslexic I fear I sometimes gives my beta a lot to do. Hopefully there shall not be to many mistakes.
Legolas's Girl 9: As always I am very glad to hear that you liked it. It is a pleasure to write when I know you will be reading it.
hornofgondor2: I take it that you to love our dear Sean Bean, I hope that you shall enjoy what I have involved him in this time. I have tried to make Ian justice, and I hope I have not portrayed him in a negative way. Hopefully you shall enjoy this.
weirdo librarian: I am very glad that you enjoyed it. I was also thinking how it was not black and white, good and evil the first time I saw it, now, the more I watch it, the more I see all the grey scales in it. I will try to avoid all grammar errors, and I have gotten better at it with time, but I fear that there are times when the dyslexia makes it difficult. I am sorry for those times.
Celebwen Telcontar: Thank you, thank you very much. I am glad to have caught the interest of fellow Ian fan. Unfortunately since he died it is difficult to write Shaw into this, but he is not forgotten. Ian have not forgotten him, nor have the others, so I hope that you shall be able to enjoy this as well.
Earendil Eldar: Yeah, you did read it, and I am ever so grateful to you for it, your opinion means a lot to me. Now, maybe I should include going to the theatre once in a while into the plot to stop you working to much and enjoy yourself once in a while, what do you think of that suggestion? I know that the Island will be screening soon, and since it has our dear Sean Bean on the role list, how could one not enjoy it, eh? I for one will be in the first line. For now, I hope you were able to enjoy this.