A/N: Hey again! Miss me? I certainly missed you! I've got another chapter for you folks. I hope you'll like it. Thank you for reading!

Peter slumped down in the sand, letting Neal drop beside him. The moon had made a reappearance, and he was now staring at a large expanse of waving blue dunes, all belittled by the Dune of Beyond, which rose behind them. There was no trace of vegetation, no birds, no sign of life. He brought both his hands to his forehead, and let out a long slow breath. Then he turned to Neal.

They were on a flat portion of a large dune, a step of sorts, and Neal was lying down on his back, eyes only half open. Peter opened his duffel bag and brought out a large plastic sheet they'd been planning on using to wrap up the more delicate archaeological parts. He laid it out on the sand, weighing it at the corners, and then he stood over Neal.

"Just roll over here," he said, pushing him towards the plastic. Neal obliged without a word. Once he was there, Peter searched Neal's pockets and found the lighter he'd used to smoke Simon's cigar. He had to cover it with both his hands to keep the icy wind from blowing out the flame, but it was all the light he needed. "Neal," he said, with a light shake on his shoulder. "I'm going to check your head, okay? Can you sit?"

Neal blinked and nodded, but Peter could tell it took an effort to make the move. Peter held him in that position, and brought the light to the back of Neal's head. There was sand stuck to it. He tried to clear it, but it was sticky. It stained his fingers with blood.

"Oh my God…" he whispered, and wished he had enough water with him to clean and see the source of bleeding, but he knew he couldn't waste what little remained in the bottle he'd taken. He grabbed Neal's arm and felt his skin cold and clammy.

"Bet I'm looking pretty pathetic here... aren't I?" Neal muttered. Peter shook his head.

"Why didn't you say anything? I didn't know it was this bad…"

Neal looked away. "Didn't hurt at first… That… that sorry excuse of a human being had me pinned down and I couldn't do a thing to stop it, I couldn't take his gun, couldn't throw him off..."

"Neal..."

Neal turned his eyes to Peter. "If we had just left Simon at the crash when I said... then we'd be by the sea already... but you had to do the righteous thing, didn't you? Now how did that work out for you Peter?"

Peter had to swallow hard and squeeze his fists to keep himself from joining in with his own recriminations.

"Neal, you've got a concussion. Please stop talking."

"I thought sleeping was the big no-no."

"Don't do that either."

"Come on Peter. What's the point? Personally I'd rather bleed into my brain than die of thirst."

"Stop it. Just... Don't go there. It's hardly been a day, Diana must've been travelling. Tomorrow they will be looking for us, I can promise you that. They will find us."

Neal wrinkled his dark canvas jacket and laid it under his cheek, using it as a pillow. He saw Peter beside him removing his own jacket, but he began to tear it in strips, with the help of a pocket knife. It took him several minutes to have the job done, and then he leaned towards Neal. He didn't bother asking him to move or telling him what he was going to do. Neal just felt a tug and then he found the canvas wrapped tight around his forehead, looping to the back of his head, and leaving tufts of hair sticking out from the top and the front. Neal kept quiet, he let him work. He remained lying down over the plastic sheet, lifting the edges to cover himself from the wind, while Peter checked through the contents of his duffel bag. He began to feel guilty then. Guilty because he knew this wasn't Peter's fault, not really, but still a part of him refused to let go of the accusations he'd thrown against him. He felt guilty, and ashamed, because he had not been able to control himself, and even now he retained very little control, and that was something alien to him. He didn't know how to handle it.

"We should try and move for the ocean while it's dark," he muttered. He raised himself on his elbows and tried to look stable. Peter stopped what he was doing to look up. "Come morning, the heat here will dry us out fast. If… If our wait for rescue will be a long one, then we won't last long the ocean, we can cool down."

Peter sighed, and shook his head.

"I hurt my foot in the crash. It's enough of an effort for me to walk by myself - I can't carry you."

"You won't have to," said Neal. "I'll walk. I can walk. Just give me a moment to rest, and I'll do it."

"I don't believe you."

"Well, suit yourself then."

Neal placed both his hands firmly in the ground, then he turned to put his weight on his knees, and he slowly but steadily rose up. He put on his jacket again, buttoning it up to his neck to keep the wind out, and he began to hobble away from Peter.

"What are you doing?" Peter asked. He watched with alarm as Neal staggered and then regained his balance.

"I'm going to the ocean. I don't want a dusty grave."

"Neal, it's not-how do you even know where the ocean is?"

Neal pointed up to the sky full of stars. Peter had not looked up before, and only now he saw how clear the night had become. He could not remember ever seeing so many starts.

"That's the Cross," said Neal, pointing to a low and irregular set of stars to their left. "It points south. Right now we're heading west. The sea lies in the west."

Peter nodded, and he stood as well. He'd only been lying down a short time, but it was enough to make his foot and lower leg stiffen, and now that he pressed his weight on it again it hurt much more. He limped behind Neal, the bag again on his shoulder and the plastic sheet trailing out of it.

"How about you wait for me, Marco Polo?"

Dawn found them still walking. They had long stopped harbouring thoughts of rescue or death, they hardly even thought at all, except to will themselves to keep putting one foot in front of the other. They were still surrounded by dunes but now they walked through hard grit and stone, and with the stars no longer visible they could only hope that they were still headed West. The air was ice cold, but the sun was rising yellow over the line of the horizon, and it was no longer dark. Neal had been concentrated on moving forwards, on keeping his balance and swallowing back the nausea, and he almost missed it. But then a rock of quartz reflected the yellow sunrays into his eyes and he stopped. He stared up at the beautiful sunrise, at the clouds and dunes still blue but softly changing. Then he saw the tyre marks in the ground, just as Peter kept on walking straight into his back, and they both got knocked down.

Neal was the first to untangle himself and crawl out, running his hands over the pebbles that had settled over the track. It wasn't recent, but he could still make out the grooves of the tyre in the ground, so it wasn't old either.

"Should we follow it?" He said. He had not spoken in a while and it surprised him how hoarse his voice sounded. Already his lips were cracked and his skin was so badly sunburnt it had swollen and become purplish. Every wrinkle in his clothes burned when it brushed against it.

"What?" Peter asked. He had sat up but his legs remained outstretched.

"The tyre tracks. Look," Neal pointed down.

"You said you saw several tracks from the plane. That they crisscrossed the desert, never lead anywhere."

"But this one might."

"Neal..."

"You've got a better idea? 'Cause I'd love to hear it."

"It's just that it might just lead us in circles! If we don't reach the ocean before it starts to get hot, then-"

"Okay, okay. We'll follow it, as long as it heads west. All right?"

"There are no stars anymore, how do you know where west is?"

Neal turned his back to the rising sun, and he pointed to the still darkened horizon in front of him.

"That's west."

Neal began to feel the heat in the back of his neck after almost an hour of walking over the tyre tracks. The wind was still cool and it didn't blow as hard as the day before, but it was only morning, probably not even seven yet. Slowly the ground around them would heat up, until the air above it trembled and silver lakes lured them in the distance. The ground was now both rock and sand, not as flat as before, and every now and then Neal had to wait for Peter to catch up in his odd limp, dragging his injured foot over the ground. It had swollen to almost twice its size, and Neal was worried Peter would not be able to walk all the way to the sea. What he'd do then? He couldn't carry him. He had managed to ignore the pain in his head and the growing dizziness, but he was only a misstep away from needing to be carried himself.

"Do you see that?" said Peter in a rough, husky voice. He had to swallow before speaking again, pointing at a far off dark spot. Neal squinted his eyes, but saw nothing.

"No. There's nothing."

"Yes there is." Peter dropped his bag on the ground and began to ruffle through it, picking out a pair of pocket binoculars. His smile was so wide his lips cracked some more. "Green. There's a green patch over there. Bushes, I think there's a cactus… It's got to be an oasis!"

"An oasis?" Neal was skeptical. "That small? And so close to the sea? We were four hundred metres above the sea level at landing, there's got to be at least half a mile of sand under us before the next aquifer."

Peter stared at him, frowning. "No idea what you've just said, but see for yourself." He gave Neal the binoculars, while pointing at the dark patch. Neal took a moment to locate the spot, but when he did he nodded.

"Yeah, that's some vegetation for sure. Though I don't see water."

"Let's find out then."

They didn't run, but they hobbled faster. They were both smiling when they reached the spot of vegetation, but no pool of blue water awaited them. A large prickly-pear cactus grew surrounded by smaller dry shrubs, grasses, and a thorny acacia tree in bloom. There was no water but the ground under the cactus was moist, as if it had just been irrigated, and half covered by the greenery was a grey stone plaque. In front of the plaque, someone had left a red plastic container, like those used to store fuel, half-filled with water still retaining a faint taste of gasoline. Peter was quick to refill his bottle, and after drinking some he passed it on to Neal.

"Please take it easy with this one. Hold it with both hands or something."

"How very like you to mock me in my worst moments." Neal muttered before he drunk.

"Ah, come on," said Peter. "That wasn't your worst moment."

"I was half passed out and lying over the water I was trying to drink, if that isn't downright pathetic I don't know what is."

Neal drunk the water, carefully. He didn't mind the taste at all, and he didn't spill, but he had to let the bottle rest in the sand beside him right after drinking, afraid he couldn't hold the shaking in his hands for much longer. When he turned to look at Peter he found him serious again, his forehead wrinkled and his eyes set on the trembling line of the horizon.

"This gives us a couple of days," he said. "Three, if we stretch it. But I don't know how I'll be able to walk over one more dune, let alone 20 miles to the north."

"Didn't you say Diana was tracking us? That she'd follow my anklet signal and come for us?" said Neal. Peter shook his head.

"Something must've gone wrong. Maybe the local authorities withrew their support, I don't know…"

"If they see the plane, all they'll find is Simon."

"They have your anklet, they'll know we're not there. But I do think we should head for the sea, like you said. Now that we have some more water… But we should walk at night. Not in this sun."

They both rested their backs and huddled under the refreshing shade of the acacia. Neal closed his eyes and began to fall asleep, but Peter kicked his foot and cast him a glance.

"No sleeping for you," he said. But Peter's eyes were also closing, and after a few minutes he was too far gone to pay attention or say anything. Neal slept. He heard in his ears the loud hissing of the plane just before the crash, the alarms sounding and the roar and the screams. He felt the seatbelt tearing, his shoulder burning, his head hitting the glass—

"Neal!"

He opened his eyes, gasping. Peter was holding him by the shirt, as if about to shake him, and behind him Neal saw the sky turning pink.

"I said no sleeping," said Peter, and he released his shirt. Neal smiled a nervous smile, and slowly sat up. The throbbing in his head was diminished, but it was still there, and the lag in his vision had gotten worse.

"Is it so late already?" he muttered. He felt his stomach grumbling and he remembered he had not eaten in more than a day. Peter had gathered a mound of dry twigs, and he flicked Neal's lighter on. Neal reached for his pocket, where he'd last put the silver zippo Charlie had given him. "How did you—?"

"I took it after I dragged you away from Simon. You were pretty out of it, then, scared me for a moment there…"

"Aww, Peter, I'm touched."

Peter scoffed, but he was smiling. The scorching heat of the day had passed, and now the sand beyond the shade was starting to cool. The sky was a red-pink hue he'd never seen in New York.

"I suppose you can appreciate the beauty of a place like this…" Peter murmured. It was Neal's turn to scoff.

"It's lifeless. Empty. That's not the sort of beauty I'm inclined towards."

"You're inclined to the sort of beauty that gets you in trouble, that is…"

"You're at it again? It wasn't even me who suggested this case, it was—"

"I'm not talking about this case. I'm talking about you in general. I think that if you'd learned to appreciate a barren, lifeless landscape that can give you dunes so tall and perfect, that is so empty you can see for miles, that probably no one has looked upon the way you have, that can give you a sky like that… I think that if you had learned to see beauty in simple things earlier on, your life would've been different."

Neal looked away. He shivered, suddenly uncomfortable.

"Don't you think that's simplifying it a little too much?" he said in a soft voice. Peter shrugged.

"Beauty is in the simplest things, in the wonders of nature… It's free for all and only takes a minute."

"That's easy for you to say, Peter, but sunsets didn't pay for food when I was growing up, and they sure don't pay for food now. Art is different. Art is human expression."

"Human expression inspired in nature, nature you are staring at right now."

"Never saw any artist that found the desert inspiring."

"I'm not just talking about the desert, why do you keep hanging on specifics? And I'll have you know, Richard Dadd painted the desert, and no one would say his paintings aren't beautiful."

Neal raised his eyebrows. "Peter. I'm impressed."

"You underestimate me. And you know what? There is enjoyment and fulfillment of that sort in all kinds of things."

"Is that right?"

"Yes. You know what does it for me?"

"What does it for you, Peter? Chasing after me?"

"Nope. When I'm driving… You know, when I'm taking a turn at some speed, I love the way the wheel slides under my fingers to realign itself."

Neal turned, gaping.

"You're serious?"

Peter nodded.

"You find fulfillment in your life by the sensation of making a fast turn?"

"No, see, it's not that the turn is fast, it's the wheel…—"

"Now, who's hanging on specifics?"

"Try to understand the bigger picture, Neal. There are small things in life that are worth enjoying. If you live waiting for the next big thing, you'll miss all that's in the middle."

"Hmm…" Neal got to his knees, and proceeded to stand. The fire was burning now. "I'll bear that in mind."

"Do so. And while you're at it, check the cactus for fruit and tender parts. We can cook it in the fire."

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this. I ended on a high note but be prepared to take a dive into darkness before it's over (who doesn't enjoy a little drama). I will update soon, now that I am back home and settled. I hope you're all doing well, and any comment or review, you can leave below! It's been too long since I'd last heart from you guys.