Hi all. So, I decided to completely rewrite the second chapter to add in Ian's scene, so the fight flashback is going to have to wait. Don't worry, you'll get it eventually. Sorry for the wait.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Claire rested her head in her hands as she leaned up against the passenger door of Riley's black Jaguar, the air conditioner blasting blissfully in her face.

Riley cast a concerned look over to her from his position at the steering wheel. She hadn't spoken much since he'd told her the news, and she hadn't cried at all. He supposed that he should be infinitely thankful, but it worried him more than anything else. Claire wasn't a watering pot or anything, but she wasn't they the type to bottle up like she had for the last hour or so. Something was clearly wrong.

But, he reminded himself, gripping the steering wheel tightly, it wasn't his job to make sure Claire was healthy and happy. He had given up that responsibility two years ago, so Gary or whatever that ponce's name was could make sure she was alright.

Claire twisted her head in her hands to stare up at him, letting the AC run through her pulled-back hair. She could see Riley's jaw tighten as he noticed her gaze on him and kept his eyes firmly on the road to her house.

"What happened to you?" she asked quietly.

Riley wouldn't look at her. "What are you talking about?"

Claire sat up, shrugging her seatbelt off her shoulders so she could face him completely. "Riley, you're wearing a suit, a real suit, with a collared shirt, both of which are worn in, so you've worn them before."

"So are you." he shot back defensively. Claire ignored him and continued.

"Your hair is combed, you're wearing your glasses, which you hate-"

"My contacts dried up!"

"-And you're wearing dress shoes, which you despise. From the minute you walked into my office you've put on this completely formal Type A miscreant front, which I know is not you-"

"-No, you don't know that, Claire." Riley snapped. "You haven't known me for two years."

"I know you wouldn't turn into some spokesperson for Corporate America. You haven't smiled once, made any kind of inane comment-"

"-Sorry, I didn't really feel like cracking any jokes, given the situation." he retorted.

"I barely even recognized you when you walked through the door. You own a Jaguar, Riley. We're driving in a car that you once said was only owned by 'syndicated bloodsuckers who needed to compensate for their lack of-"

"Yeah, I know what I said." Riley interrupted, irritated. "That was a really long time ago."

"So what happened to you?"

Riley turned and glared at her straight in the eyes, blatantly ignoring the road and pinning her back to her seat.

"I grew up, Claire. I stopped acting like a child with no responsibility or sense of duty. Now put your seatbelt back on."

The fighting gleam that had shone in Claire's eyes during the last few moments was extinguished as Riley threw the very words that she had screamed at him two years ago back in her face. She leaned all the way back against her black leather seat, sullenly dragging her seatbelt back across her chest and despising the car with every pore in her being.

"I happened." she answered, looking out the window. "You did this because of us."

Riley snorted. "Don't be so melodramatic, Claire. We don't all change our lifestyles because once upon a time, you wanted us to. I did this to myself because I needed to change. I realized that I couldn't act like a joyriding undergraduate forever."

Claire was silent for a block or two.

"I didn't mean it," she finally spoke, keeping her eyes on the moving scenery outside the tinted window. "When I told you that two years ago. I didn't mean it."

Riley shook his head and smiled ruefully. "Yes you did." he replied, guiding the Jaguar through a sharp turn with a little more force than necessary.

"No, I didn't." Claire argued through gritted teeth. "I was angry…incredibly angry. I was hurt, and-I knew it was a low blow, but I wanted to make you mad. I didn't mean it."

By the time she finished, Claire realized that her tone had turned pleading rather than adamant and looked down at the purse clutched in her lap.

Riley cleared his throat. "It doesn't matter." he said, in a tone that was suspiciously steady. Claire waited for him to continue, but he kept silent until she started to fiddle with the dashboard.

"Don't touch that." he snapped, and Claire drew her hand away, lips quirking in a stunted smile at the first sign of her Riley since he had arrived.

"It's the yellow house on your right." she instructed, pointing as Riley rolled down her street. They didn't speak as Riley pulled into her driveway. Grant's car was already there.

"Nice house."

"Thanks."

As Claire sat in the passenger's seat, staring at her house, she opened her mouth, gathering strength to get out what she was about to say.

A door slammed next to her. Claire looked over and saw that Riley was already out of the car and striding up into her house, leaving her alone in the car.

She let out a ragged breath, watching him enter her house without looking back at her once. She couldn't recognize him now, wouldn't have been able to pick him out in the street as man she was once desperately in love with.

Tilting her head back slightly to make the tears retreat into her eyes, Claire took a deep breath and exited the car, hoping that Riley hadn't managed to pick a fight with her boyfriend for the two minutes she'd left him alone.

Grant looked up as her heard her slam the front door, already waiting in the kitchen with a black duffel bag on the floor at his side.

"I already brought my stuff from my place." he said by way of greeting. "Do you need any help packing?"

"Wait." Riley interjected, who was leaning on the opposite corner of the kitchen. "Who said that you were coming?"

"Of course I'm coming." Grant barked. "I'm not sending her off to you people by herself."

"We just happen to be her friends!"

"Friends she hasn't spoken to in two years!"

Claire finally stepped in. "Enough, both of you." she said wearily. "Riley, Grant's my boyfriend. He has a right to come with us."

Riley's face didn't move a tick, but his eyes flinched as the word 'boyfriend' came out of Claire's mouth.

She turned to a pleased-looking Grant. "Grant, Ben and Abbie and…..yes, Riley, are my friends. And I do keep in touch with Abbie, you knew that. Now if you both excuse me, I'm going to pack."

Riley stood, perplexed for a moment, hearing Claire's feet pound up the staircase before bolting after her. Grant made a noise of protest and followed.

"What do you mean, you and Abbie keep in touch?" Riley demanded as he bounded up the last few steps and entered Claire's room as she threw clothes haphazardly into a dusty suitcase. "You haven't contacted any of us in two years. I would have known if you did." He actually would know, right to the moment Claire had contacted any of them. He had taps on all Ben's and Abbie's phones and email accounts just in case Claire had ever felt the need to drop a line to the other two members of her estranged team.

Claire shrugged, but the look on her face suggested that she knew exactly what Riley had done. "I write, occasionally. Abbie always wanted to know if I as okay."

Riley looked flummoxed. "You write letters? Like, regular mail? Does anyone actually do that anymore?"

"It's slow." She admitted. "But it's personal. People don't bother with personal things anymore."

Riley leaned up against the door, processing this information. "Abbie never told me."

Claire gave him another shrug, the kind of shrug that she always gave when she simply didn't want to answer. "She probably had her reasons."

Riley furrowed his eyebrows. "What….plausible reason could she have for keeping that information from me?" he asked indignantly, trailing Claire as she dragged her suitcase into the bathroom and began to sweep her shower contents into it.

Claire paused, kneeling by her bathroom tub. "Maybe because she knew that it was none of your business." she hinted, her hard stare at him softening at his obvious confusion. "Really Riley, do you think you'd have wanted to know what was going on in my life months ago?"

"Yes!" he protested, handing her the toothbrush lying by the sink. "I would've liked to know that you were…..okay, and…..happy, and…..woah, what's in here?"

He poked at a crack behind her bathroom mirror.

"That's none of your business either." Claire said too quickly to sound offhand.

Riley raised his eyebrows in her direction and pushed back the mirror on its hinge to reveal the cabinet behind it.

Riley's eyes widened in shock as he took in the dozens of orange pill containers perilously stacked in every spare inch of the cabinet. He grabbed a few from the top row, eyes scanning the labels in disbelief. "Rozerem, Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata…." He slammed the down on the bathroom counter. "Claire, these are all sleeping pills."

She swallowed hard. "I work weird hours" she offered weakly, her immediate excuse to any doctor who questioned giving her a prescription.

"Don't even try that with me." Riley argued, raising his voice. "There aren't enough late hours in the world to require that many pills."

"What's going on?" Grant questioned, appearing at the door. He flinched as he saw the medicine cabinet. "Woah, Claire, what's that for?"

"Nothing" she reassured him quickly. "Riley's overreacting."

"Overreacting?" Riley exploded, advancing on her in a matter of seconds. "Do you have any idea how dangerous these things are? Hundreds of people die every year from overdosing on sleeping pills, and I bet none of them have as many as you do. What the hell were you thinking?"

"Will you stop that?" she hissed. "Stop swearing! It's a completely filthy habit, and God knows where you've picked it up-"

"You want to talk about habits?" Riley raged. "Let's talk about how you've become a junkie over the last two years!"

"I am not a junkie!" she protested violently, shooting up to her feet with her hands on her hips. "I have a completely valid prescription for every single one of those bottles!"

"From how many doctors?" Riley bit in. "How many different people did you have to persuade to give you a prescription for just a few bottles? Do you have any idea about how may laws you've broken?"

"Laws I've broken? Ha!" Claire spat, her face red. "I'm pretty sure you've got me beat on that one!"

"Don't change the subject!"

"What are you going to do?" she asked, defense turning her tone bitter, "call the police on me? Have me arrested before we even get on the plane?"

"Of course not." he snapped. "I'm just going to get rid of all of these." Sweeping his hand across the cabinet, all the bottles fell in a wave onto the counter, bouncing on the granite as Riley began to rip off the caps and dump their continents into the toilet.

"Riley, don't!" Claire shouted in alarm as pills began to dissolve in her toilet bowl.

"Try and stop me" he shot back, without even looking up from his work.

Knowing full well that Riley was a great deal stronger than her, and that Grant wasn't going to break out of his stupor and fly to her rescue anytime soon, she let out a small scream of frustration and barreled out of the bathroom, her suitcase in one hand as she knocked Grant out of the way with the other.

After her angry footsteps had echoed down the hall into her bedroom, Riley turned to Grant, flushing the toilet as the last of the pills swirled down into the safety of the pipes. Grant noticed that the man's face was white, and his hands trembled slightly as he braced himself on the counter.

"If you knew anything……anything about this." he said menacingly, his eyes locked on the floor, "I swear I'll-"

"-No! Of course not!" Grant protested, rubbing his forehead in weariness. "Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I really do care about Claire. If I knew…what she was doing, I would have stopped it a long time ago."

Riley sighed, turning to sit down on the toilet seat. "Do you have any idea why she would do this?" he asked, his voice slightly hoarse from shouting.

Grant shrugged. "I haven't spent a lot of time here. I've never…..well, we've never.…" he stopped, coloring slightly. "Claire doesn't like people coming to her house. She's always been extremely private. The only thing I noticed was that when I first arrived here, she always looked really haggard in the mornings, like she'd been working all night. Eventually it stopped, and she looked fine. I just thought that she'd finally…..come to terms with her problems back in the states."

Claire appeared back in the doorway, her suitcase full. "Are you two ready?" she asked coldly.

Riley nodded. "Let's go" he answered in the same tone, brushing past her out the door.

-------------------------------------------------------------

The car ride to the tarmac had been one long awkward silence. Claire had sat in the front to avoid Grant's questions, who had ended up in the back with luggage piled mercilessly around him. Claire had turned as far to the window as she could go, her back almost completely to Riley as she pretended to be immersed in a book, absorbing nothing as she dully flipped the pages. Riley was driving with a violence not seen outside the NASCAR track, going a least ten miles over the speed limit and cutting passerby's off with ruthless pleasure.

The sight of the jet seemed to bring a sigh of relief to all three parties. Grant fairly dove out of the car, running around to the back to get his suitcase from the expansive trunk that curiously was holding almost none of the luggage.

Riley's hand was on the door handle when Claire grabbed his arm. "Riley, wait." she said with a carefully controlled voice, the voice she used when negating deals with scientists from around the globe.

He turned back into the car, startled by the touch. Claire kept her hand on his arm.

"Look, we're going to have to work together for I don't know how long. This…assignment….we can't mess this up."

"I know." Riley replied tonelessly, wishing Claire would remove her hand. It was incredibly distracting.

She pursued, her hand still clamped to his elbow as if he was going to make a run for it if given half a chance. "I'm just saying that what we're doing right now-this isn't going to work. We need to be a team again, for however long this takes if we want to get Ian and Patrick back. As soon as that happens, I promise I'll come back here and you can continue to despise me."

Riley's jaw tightened, and he gave a forced nod. "Works for me."

Claire nodded back. "Okay." she said softly, then released him quickly and exited.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Abigail Gates fiddled with the tassels on her living room couch cushion. The entire house had already been whipped into perfect cleanliness, the refrigerator stocked, Claire's guest room furnished, and with 48 hours since her son's disappearance, she had run out of things to do.

Checking out the front window for the sixth time in the past hour, she stood up and walked briskly to the library, where her husband sat pouring over a mountain of old texts.

The youth and vigor that was always shining on Benjamin Gates' face was wiped clean, leaving him looking his age for the first time in his life. Lines sprouted on his forehead where they had been lying dormant, falling down his forehead in the direction of eyebrows that seemed permanently pulled together like two magnets. He ruffled violently through hundreds of books, turning each page with a new aggression he was unable to take out on the men who took his son.

"They should be here by now." Abbie said softly as she sat across from her husband, barely able to see him over the pile of books.

"I know." Ben answered, slamming his book down on the table. "But we can't sit around doing nothing. We don't even know if Claire's home. We don't even know if she'll come."

"She will." Abbie said sincerely. "Even if it wasn't Ian as well. She knows how important this is."

A car motor roared loudly from the front of the house in concurrence of her statement. Both of them leapt from their seats, running to the door.

Riley's black car tore down the driveway, whipping into a park only feet from the lawn. Abbie and Ben watched as Riley stepped out of the car, slamming the door behind him with feeling. They both let out a sigh as Claire jumped out of the other side, her door swinging open behind her as she ran up to the house. The smile that was fighting the corners of Abbie's mouth surrendered as a third person climbed out of the backseat, shutting his door with careful politeness as if to make up for Riley's.

"Who's that?" Ben asked her as the new man and Riley walked up the driveway, keeping as far away from each other as humanly possible.

"That would be Grant." she answered with a frown. "This is going to complicate things a little."

As Claire finally reached the front steps, she and Abbie, threw their arms around each other, both holding back tears.

"Thank you." she said softly as they both stepped back.

Claire nodded and smiled slightly, wiping her eyes. "We're going to get them back." she reassured her, taking a deep breath. "It's great to see both of you again." she added, turning to hug Ben as well. "It's been a while." She looked at his face and frowned. "You look like crap."

Ben managed a genuine smile, looking loads better than he had five minutes previously. "So do you."

"It's been a crazy few hours." she agreed.

Benn looked down at his feet, shifting uncomfortably. "I'm sorry about sending…" he trailed off, shooting a look at an approaching Riley.

Claire shrugged smiling sadly. "It's fine. We needed to get it over with anyway. The gang's all here now, that's what's important."

Abigail nudged her discreetly in the shoulder. "Is that Grant?" she asked quietly.

Claire nodded.

"What's he doing here?" she asked, trying to sound as un-irritated as possible.

"He insisted on coming. You can thank Riley for that one."

Abigail winced. "How bad was it?"

Claire sighed as Riley and Grant came marching up the house steps, Grant looking like a soldier behind enemy lines and Riley looking like a thundercloud.

"Whatever you were imagining, it was worse." she muttered under her breath.

-----------------------------------------------------------

His head was killing him.

Ian kept his eyes clamped shut, warding off any ray of sunshine that would catalyze a fresh explosion of pain inside his head. As his thought process slowly began to de-fog, he began to realize that he simply wasn't hungover, as he couldn't remember touching a beer in over a week. He'd been working with the Feds on a heist case in the Capitol, a really high-profile business with stolen files that had kept him slaving thirty hours a day. There was no way he had gotten drunk in the last twenty-four hours.

He gritted his teeth as another wave of pain rushed over his head. Even if he had gotten thoroughly skunked, alcohol would never dole him a headache this bad. This kind of thing meant only drugs. Lots of them.

Obviously, since Ian hadn't done drugs in twenty-odd years, someone else had drugged him. He wasn't duly concerned. In his past and present jobs, being drugged wasn't nearly so foreign to him as his sister would like to believe. He knew to keep his eyes closed until he assimilated his senses and began to figure out where he was.

The first thing he realized was that he was lying on a cot, which, obviously, wasn't his. The blanket was scratchy and stiff, but there were no bindings on his arms and legs. Good.

Calling on his ears, he could discern the sound of pipes around and above him. He was probably underground. But to his left, muffling the gurgle of transported water, was the sound of someone crying. Whoever they were, they were doing it discreetly, but the snuffling was beginning to become annoying to his sensitive ears.

It was then Ian opened his eyes, to tell whomever it was to kindly cry somewhere out of his hearing distance.

He opened his eyes to darkness and bare walls. There were institutional lighting strips across the ceiling, but they were mercifully turned off. In the dimness, Ian could only discern that the room was small, with concrete walls and floor and a plated door that screamed 'hostage'.

The weeping person was on the other side of the tiny room. Ian sat up slowly, one hand pressed to his inauspiciously wet forehead. Apparently drugs weren't the only thing that had knocked him out. He felt himself getting slightly irritated at his attacker's thoroughness, along with the fact that someone had actually managed to take him out. He must be getting old.

By the time he was fully up, most of the pain had receded with the dizziness, and Ian could see better.

The figure in the corner was crouched on a cot identical to his own, cured up in a ball. Ian gave an inward groan as he realized it was a kid. He was being held hostage, as he could see no other reason for his present situation, because of the FBI case, and that was probably some senator's kid.

In his past less-than-law-abiding days, Ian had learned that the cardinal rule of hostages was never to take kids. It was out of any moral misgivings of his, just that they made horrible prisoners. They whined, sniveled, were constantly hungry, always bored, never stopped talking, and usually produced loud, noisy tears like the one on the cot next to him was working towards.

Ian cursed his bad luck. This one, being most likely a politician's kid, would constantly whine and cry and be a general brat.

The child's sniffling was beginning to die down, and Ian generously decided to cut him some slack this one time, having been freshly kidnapped.

"Hey kid," he called softly across the room, "do you know where we are?"

The crying stopped immediately as the ball unfurled enough for Ian to see that it was a boy, probably five or six, with messy blonde hair.

"No." he said with a shaky voice. "I just woke up. Who're you?"

There was another thing. They were constantly asking questions. Another reason why he never saw fit to help populate the earth.

"I'm with the FBI" he said in what he thought was an assuring tone.

The boy sat up a little. "You're British."

"Yes, well spotted." he replied crossly, abandoning the reassuring tone.

"D'you know my parents?"

Yep, that settled it. He was a politician's kid.

"Probably not." he answered. "I was working a case at the Capitol. Your dad works there, yeah?"

The boys shook his head. "They study history." he said miserably, his eyes tearing up.

Ian's sluggish mind finally caught up to speed. The blonde hair had looked strangely familiar.

"You're Ben's son, aren't you?"

The boy's face lit up. "Yeah! You're Ian, right?"

Ian was flummoxed. He had met the kid, Patrick, only three times, all more than a year ago. Most of the six year olds he knew couldn't remember what they had for lunch yesterday.

"You're the only British person I've ever met." Patrick explained earnestly. "And Mom and Dad and Uncle Riley tell stories about you. Did you really blow up that boat?"

Ian blinked. Were six year olds supposed to be able to talk that fast? When Claire was six she barely spoke ten words to anybody in a week. Then again, by the time she was fifteen that hadn't changed much, so his sister wasn't exactly the best model of child development.

"Do you know why were here?"

Patrick looked like he was going to cry again. "A lady came in about an hour ago. She checked your pulse and gave me a sandwich. We have to stay here because they need my Dad to do something for them, and then we can go home."

Things were beginning to fit together. He wasn't here because of the FBI case at all, but as a hostage for his sister. He slumped down with an irritated huff.

"What's wrong?" Patrick asked with wide eyes.

Ian crossed his arms over his chest in annoyance. " If you must know, I don't think I've ever been kidnapped for something I didn't do." he said angrily. "It's beginning to piss me off."

-----------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading! Coming up in Chapter Three: History riddles, Imprisonaters, and Fistfights galore! Ian has to deal with kids! Claire explains her drug-addicted ways! Tune in next week-ish!