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


Chapter 8, Is This a Morningstar?

Phil was holding back, remaining where he was not seen, but he was glaring. He was indeed glaring at Ben Gates.

Gates was standing on the sidewalk outside the house where Ian had his apartment, and it was an inner battle to hold back and not take everything out on him. He had Abigail with him, and they both stood there looking.

Ben looked apprehensively at the door, he was not really certain of how to do this, but he had told Charlotte or whatever her name was that he would come by to see how Ian was doing, and he intended to do that.

It was just hard to move inside and actually do it.

"Come on, let's just do it." Abigail tugged on his arm as she moved to the door. She had been thinking a little more about Ian since they had taken him and Charlotte home, and to her it seemed that Ian had been punished enough. She had seen how dejected he was when they took him home. It had made her want to step inside with Charlotte and give her a hand, but she had decided that her presence were more likely to do more harm than any good. Still she had wanted to.

The Ian whom she had helped to a bench to sit down was so very different from the Ian who had been chasing them, and she was beginning to see that there were more than one side to Ian Howe, just as it was to Ben Gates if one were to be honest.

Ben had also been desperate enough to steal the declaration, and she had not gone willingly at first, she had tried to run for it, and he had stopped her. She found it harder to trust Ian, because he did have a criminal background, but maybe he was not as bad as she would have thought.

They found the door to his apartment and rang the bell. It was Charlotte who opened, and Ben did not know what to say. He could have greeted Ian, but he did not know how to greet her, he did not even know what she was to Ian.

"How is he doing?" Abigail asked.

"Better." Charlotte answered, not a very warm welcome but she did not care. She did however step aside grudgingly so that they could step inside.

Ben glanced around the hallway and what he could see of the rest. It was neat and tidy although a bit bare. He would have thought that Ian could have gotten more furniture if he had wanted. He had thought that Ian would have a different style in the apartment, it had seemed like that before they went on the quest, but here there was not a single thing that was not needed it seemed.

Charlotte stepped back into the living room and they followed. Ben smiled slightly as he saw the poster of the declaration on the wall, he could not be certain, but is seemed like the one he had bought, it was amusing that Ian still had it. He frowned a bit over the poster with Donald Duck on it, really, Ian was a grown man.

Ian was sitting on the sofa, and had apparently been watching cartoons, perhaps he was not as grown a man as Ben had thought. The cartoons really were for children. Ian still wore his hair just as long as he had before, and now it fell over his eyes, yet Ben could tell that he was watching them. He was however doing nothing more, he just sat there and watched them. A peculiar expression on his face, because Ben could not read it at all.

When they played poker Ben had been so easy to read, and Ian impossible, his face had always been full of emotion, but it had never reflected his cards. Ian could laugh and joke while he sat with the worst cards possible, and Ben never knew. Now however there was nothing there, neither joy nor anger, and it was disconcerting. His eyes were watching them, but Ben could not guess what he thought about seeing them.

Charlotte took a seat next to Ian, and for some reason she seemed to be protecting him. Ben could not understand why, there was no danger near them, and if either one of them could take care of himself it would be Ian.

Abigail however could see that Charlotte was in love with him, and it was the protectiveness of a lover that made her sit close to him in that way. She hoped that they would be happy together.

"How are you doing Ian?" Ben asked carefully at a lack for better phrasing.

"Well enough." Ian shrugged. "You're doing well?" He still regarded them in that strange way, but now he gave a small nod towards the armchairs. A permission to sit down if nothing else.

Ben took a deep breath and tried to gather his thoughts. "I never meant for you to be treated badly there Ian." He began, looking away from Ian as he spoke. Hoping that Ian would not be able to read his confusion that he was sure was on his face. "I thought that they would appreciate someone with your knowledge, I mean they should. It would be logical. I never thought that they might not be seeing it that way, and I'm sorry for not noticing, I guess that I was so caught up in everything, but I should have noticed."

"We only see what we want to see Ben." Ian said slowly. "And we only let others see what we want them to see. It is very hard to get a full picture of things."

Abigail looked at him surprised, when he began that sentence she had thought that it was directed at Ben, and she was on the verge of being angry with him for blaming it all on Ben, but he were not doing that. He was saying that he had not wanted Ben to see it, and it was that combined with Ben not looking that had made him miss it.

He was taking a part of the blame on himself, and she had not though Ian would do that. She had underestimated him she guessed. She had gotten Ian the Dangerous Villain so firmly in her mind that she had not seen that there was another Ian.

Ben shook his head. "I'm still sorry Ian, it was not supposed to be that way. I was not supposed to be so caught up in every thing that I did not notice. I meant for it to be more like before."

"Ah, Ben. We both know that things rarely go like we imagine they will." Ian said and he sounded sad. "No matter how good our intentions are, it seldom works out like we want them."

Abigail agreed, life kept throwing things you never wanted at you, and she had gotten caught up in the treasure hunt. She had not wanted that, and yet it had turned out to be one of the best things that had ever happened to her. She had met Ben, and that would never have happened if not for Ian's plan to do whatever it took. She, Ben and Riley had all gotten so much good things out of it, and even if she still did not trust Ian fully, she owed that to him.

"My good intentions certainly did not hold out as good as I hoped that they would." Ben noted. "We seem to just keep failing." He shook his head.

"Failing Ben?" For the first time since they had entered Abigail saw Ian sit up a little straighter. There was some emotion to be read on his face even if she could not tell what he was thinking. "Did you ever really fail? I would not say that. I think that you got more than you know."

Abigail blinked, the look Ian gave her as he said that, a look of appreciation, he did not ogle her like some guys did. He just looked at her in a way that made her feel that he took in everything that she was. Ian was good at estimating a situation, he had just estimated how much Abigail and Ben meant to each other, and he counted it as something good that had come out of that mad treasure hunt.

"Failure to some extent yeah." Ben had not noticed that Ian had taken all that in. He was not looking at Ian for the moment, he was looking on his hands that he had clasped in front of himself. "I really, really did not mean to get so caught up in everything that I forgot to make sure my friends were okay."

"We all make mistakes in life Ben. All of us." Ian sounded rather tired, he also felt very tired. Too tired to listen to Ben's self pity over what had occurred. He just wanted to move on. "I've made too many mistakes of my own to hold another man's against him."

"How manybad mistakes can you have made?" Ben looked up at him baffled. When had Ian ever made the kind of mistakes he was talking about. It was not taking the wrong tin out of the pantry he was talking about, not something like returning the wrong book to the library.

Ian took a deep breath and smiled sadly. "It is said that before you ask a question you should always think about whether you want to hear the answer or not." He said carefully. "I will let you off easy this time Ben, but the next time you ask that question I will answer it."

Charlotte was torn between the want to do several different things. Top of the list was strangling Ben, and tearing him apart, for asking that when Ian thought that he had made the biggest mistake of all times in going after the treasure. She also wanted to kick Ben out of the apartment where Phil would deal with him, and she wanted to talk some sense into Ian. It was not the time for that however, so instead she laid her hand protectively on his arm. Let him know that he had her support.

Ben did not fully understand what Ian meant, so he cleared his throat and spoke again. "Anyway I spoke with them at the museum, and you won't be doing any more tours Ian, you'll be doing completely different things." He gave Ian a questioning look. "I also found out that you had helped them improve security, and stopped a scam, that is very well done, but why didn't you tell me about that."

"Was no point to it." Ian shrugged. "There were some flaws, and I told them about it, nothing more than that."

"Has to be more than that." Ben pressed on, he was eager to talk about something good, and there was no denying that Ian had done the museum a big favour. He deserved to know that they appreciated it. "What about the one who tried to trick them?"

"He was a fool." Ian said quietly. "They wanted to sound important and he used it to try and convince them to buy some crap he claimed was an artefact. He did not know how to come up with a convincing story though, so it was easy to prove he was lying."

"Not everyone would be able to do that." Ben encouraged.

Ian said nothing, he ran his hand through his hair, not entirely certain what Ben was getting at. There was no need to praise him like that, there was no need to tell Ian how good he had been, he knew how bad he had screwed up.

"Really Ian, it was very well done." Ben said eagerly.

Ian shook his head slowly. It was just praise designed to make him feel better. It did not really work too well.

Ben opened his mouth to speak again, not wanting to hear more of the same Ian spoke before him.

"Anyone bothering to listen would have caught on to it Ben. It is no feather in my cap to have done so, it does not serve to make up for what else I did. It is just something that I did, and for once it was not a bad thing."

Ben opened his mouth again and again Ian spoke before he could. "We both know what I mean Ben."

Charlotte clenched her teeth shut. It was not the right time to tell Ian of for talking down on himself, but she wanted to do that.

"It is in the past, Ian." Ben said, and it was the first thing he had said that Charlotte liked to hear.

"And I am trying to move on, it's not easy Ben." Ian said ruefully.

"I guess not." Ben muttered, not knowing what to say.

"But then again nothing is ever easy, we just do the best that we can." Ian shrugged and grinned, but it was a smile that touched no other part of his face than his lips. It was not a true smile.

"We do." Ben agreed.

"I'll do my best Ben." Ian said solemnly

"I know that you will, Ian." Ben said warmly, there was not much more to say and do then, so he stood. "I'll come back later again, okay?"

Ian nodded slowly.

When Ben and Abigail had said their farewells and left Charlotte bit back on what she wanted to say, instead she scooted over and held Ian close, for that was what he needed. He needed some silent comfort.

She held him for a long time, until he began nodding and she discretely steered him off to bed. For once he did not make a single objection to her. He just drew her down and held her close as he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.


Ian was not really sure how he felt about being back at the museum, in a way he enjoyed it, it was something to do again, and he needed that. He needed to feel that he was doing something, for he could never enjoy being idle. For a week or two maybe, but then he needed to be doing things. Shaw claimed that he needed the excitement, and that was why he always involved himself in the affairs he did.

The high stakes ones. He had went so far as jokingly suggest that they should take him to Las Vegas and let him loose on the casinos there, to see how many he would put into bankruptcy. Phil had objected that Ian was not that good at gambling, and Shaw had announced that Ian would take them on in a completely different way.

Actually a casino was an interesting idea, and Ian had made sure to keep it in mind. It was certainly a high stakes game. Though now he had to be really legal, so it was best not to think about it.

For the moment he was stashed away in the back room, cataloguing objects from Ben's treasure, the ones that did not seem all that important but had been found with the treasure. All the museums who had received a part of the treasure had been asked to help with this.

The board had thought that Ian was the perfect man for doing this, and for once Ian agreed. One thing that made it better than before was that now Charlotte was with him almost every day. She would sit there and keep him company, and Ian would be teaching her things.

Charlotte had been in very fine schools paid for by her dad, and she had studied enough to get rather good grades, but she did not remember all that much about certain things, and there were not courses for everything that she wanted to learn.

Ian had never gone to college, but he had learnt by books. It had happened once or twice that someone had frowned at his lack of college degree, but on the other hand it could not be denied that Ian knew what he was talking about, he really knew that. Eventually people realised that.

So at the same time as he was going over the artefacts he was teaching Charlotte certain things, he might not be an expert on Latin, but he knew it well enough. He knew it probably as well as Ben did, Latin however was rather difficult to learn yourself, and Ian knew some things that he guessed that Ben did not. He knew Welsh and Gaelic as well, not much but enough for what he needed.

"Is this a morning star?" Charlotte held up a very heavy object, it was not even a foot long, but it was solid silver, and it was made of a stick with a chain, and attached to the chain was a spiked ball.

"No." Ian shook his head. "It's a mace. A morning star is stick and head, it has no chain. Sometimes a mace also have two chains and two heads, they are rather impressive, and they can do a lot of damage."

He took it from her and hefted it. "Though this one is purely ornamental." He noted. "The balance is wrong for use, and silver would take to much damage."

Charlotte whistled. "You know a lot about these kinds of weapons." She noted, the way he held it made her think that he could use it as well. She had just picked it up and held it, Ian handled it more like an expert and took a ready stance while he did it."

For once Ian blushed. "I found one in the armoury at my aunt's place once when I was a kid. It was still in usable condition, so I would swing it around a little. Then in school I made one."

"You made a mace?" She asked baffled.

He nodded. "We told the teacher that it was for a history project, so he allowed it. It was a very crude one though. We cast a solid metal ball and welded on the spikes, and then the we put it on a chain, the tricky part was attaching the chain on the stick in a so that it would not come off."

"Do you mean to say that you used it?" Charlotte asked baffled, or maybe considering Ian it was not so strange, he would want to make sure that it worked.

Ian nodded. "We used it, and we punched a hole right through a pot. We used the lid as a shield at first, and tried to block it. But it turned out that it was not a very good idea to hold it, and since the lid was ruined by then we thought that we might as well see what damage it could do. So I struck it down as hard as I could on the upturned pot. It punched a hole right through. I don't think that the school cafeteria ever found out what had happened to that pot." He grinned sheepishly. It had been quite a lot of suspicion when the pot had been found, and Ian had been on the top of the list of suspects. Because Ian was usually suspected for these things, but as always they did not know.

Charlotte laughed. "Ah, Ian, you've got to be the most crazy one I ever knew. I do not know anyone else who'd do that."

Ian shrugged as he laid down the mace. "I just did what most kids wants to do but never had the guts to try."

"Or to much brain to try." Charlotte teased. "What if you had been caught?"

Ian shrugged. "They would not have been able to do much, maybe I would have had to pay for the pot, but I sort of had an understanding with the principal, he could never catch me, but I never did anything bad, and I kept other kids from doing worse stuff. I don't think he even tried to catch me very hard, at least not more than once."

"What did you do that time?" She asked intrigued.

"I helped some kids to cheat." He looked a light bit guilty at that. "They were failing and so I helped them cheat on the exam, for a small fee of course. Only one of them was stupid enough to brag about having cheated, and a teacher heard him. The principal wanted to know who had been involved and the coward told him it was me."

"Cowardly." Charlotte agreed. "Not that I approve of cheating though."

"They paid me." Ian stated. "I never bothered much about the moral of it. I'm sorry Charlotte, but I never cared much about that. I did care about honour though, and I do not approve of people trying to save their skin by putting someone else on the grill." He sounded more sad then.

Charlotte thought about it, that was after all what Ben had done, he had told them where Ian would be. Actually she thought it was impressive how Ian did not hold these things against Ian. He was a much bigger man than Ben.

"However they could not prove it was me." Ian went on. "I got away with a warning, though I had to get my parents signature on it, to ensure that they knew what had been going on. It was no problem, they thought that as long as I was prepared to take responsibility for my actions they would not lecture me on it." He turned away from her, using the excuse of putting the mace away.

"My father thought that it was just a boyish prank, something I would grow out of. He was not sure whether I had done it or not, and he did not ask. He knew of other things I did, and he thought that it was harmless." He was still busying himself so that he was turned away from her, but his voice was thick and betrayed his emotions. "I guess he did not guess what I would do later. He thought that I would shape up."

"Ian, don't go there." Charlotte said softly as she stepped up to him and embraced him. "It does not do any good."

Ian composed himself again, drew himself together and swallowed down the lump in his throat. Then he turned away from her to pick up the next item, avoiding eye-contact with Charlotte.

She swore softly under her breath. Men could just be so damn stupid, thinking that the problem would go away if they did not talk about them. She would give him the benefit of that belief for now, because he had been good and opened up a little, and then she would take him to task a little later.

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:

Lady Elbereth Tealrose: I am not quite sure, hmm, Marvin the Marvelous Balloon, eh? Well we shall see about what we can do there my dear padawan, we shall see what we can do about it.

Silveni: Ah, yes, the most action here is that of words, but there is a bit more actual action to come. This is quite different from the movie, and I am not sure if it could be the same here. Also, your reviews are very helpful, and it is a pleasure to read them. Very much so, lets me know that my writing is actually appreciated. Thank you.

Earendil Eldar: Ah, and here we have now just reached chapter eight. Ieee, riding horse on the beach, I wanna do that, I love riding. Massage also sounds nice, I hate it how my back aches, dancing I am not so sure about, but the Irish pub sounds very nice. Ian is used to take care of himself, but I think he is mostly used to do it for others, he takes care of himself so he can take care of them. Without them, he does not quite know what to do. He is being cared for though, and sleeping and eating a bit more, so he should be alright.

Jen Lennon: Charlotte can be very subtle in her means to get him where she wants, and she can be very straight forward. Ah, I'm very sorry, but I do not know how to answer the question. I want to, but I am just not quite sure. This is not like the movie, with that kind of swift action, even if there is more action to come, some of it is verbal, and some is more direct action. However, there is need for Charlotte and Ian to have more time together before that happens, and I did not want to just jump a few months ahead, so I tried to make use of that time to develop the characters. I hope that you can still enjoy it.