Disclaimer: I don't own National Treasure but Jess is my own idea

A/N: From Iceland, to New York and now the Caribbean- where are they going to end up next?

Chapter 09

"So what happens now, Dad?" Jess asked her father, knowing that Ian Howe was watching and listening to their conversation. "Do we really go to the Bermuda triangle right away?"

Ben wondered whether it was worth encouraging his daughter to embark on a journey that there may be no return from. The city of Atlantis was something no one had found yet, but if his daughter was keen on being part of a treasure hunter team, then that was surely something worth following up on.

"Maybe – it depends what they've got planned for us to be honest," Ben started before squeezing his daughter's hand. "It's going to be alright… You know, I'm really proud of you."

"Thanks Dad." Jess looked over at Abbie and Riley whispering over an enlarged page from the Shepherd's journal.

There was a moment where Riley looked back at her, making her look away, overcome with nerves and the giggles. It was something she had experienced once before with James, she felt a knot in her stomach that would make her awkwardly laugh, or become a little flirty too.

"Right, I agree with Ella's presumption…" Abbie nodded. "But, as usual, it will be most likely a journey full of treachery- treachery worse than that of the last adventure we went on, Ian." She raised her eyebrows at Ian, warning him of how honest she was being.

"Don't worry, Abigail. I've made sure that Ella is aware of this." Ian folded his arms, and wandered about the room. "Besides, I have sent for some equipment that will prepare us far more than the 'last time' as you call it. All we'll need is our helicopter ride and we'll be sorted. Lucky I invested some money into a helicopter license so all we really just need is a helicopter."

Jess was a little surprised of the preparation, but at the same time, she had heard what had happened on the first adventure with Ian Howe. She swallowed hard in complete surprise.

On the helicopter, Jess was sat at the back beside Riley under the watchful eye of Ella sitting opposite them. It made her feel nervous and awkward knowing that the pair had a relationship together, especially when she couldn't tell if she was crushing on Riley, or whether they were just really good friends. But with Ella around, she couldn't decipher if Riley was beginning to fall for his ex again. The way this guy looked at her was like a look of longing – a look that Jess had seen her father give her mother after she kicked him out.

"Have you deciphered the message yet?" Jess asked him, picking something that meant only she and Riley could talk about. A mutual interest.

"Well, kind of… Write me another message and I'll say if I do or not," Riley said, smiling across the helicopter at her. He too wasn't sure how he felt about his fellow adventurer's daughter. "You know you want to," he added suggestively, making Jess laugh nervously.

"Okay, here goes… "

Jess scribbled down a series of sentences, not knowing if Riley would actually understand the message. "Here we are. Ivory tusks have indescribably new kinks that harness a true influence like ivory knows everything you only understood and look over there. If cranes could imagine ejecting beaks using tsars."

Riley repeated the sentences and jotted down some of his ideas, all of which seemed to have issues. The page was left a gigantic mess as he ended up destroying his ideas.

"You do know it's much easier than you think…" Jess taunted her companion. "Would you like a clue?"

"No!" Riley groaned. "I did not give up the first time I came across a difficult problem and I'm not going to now."

"But it's so easy!" Jess' feet bobbed up and down from the floor of the helicopter that was soaring over the Atlantic Ocean. "Please?"

"No."

"It's all about the numbers and the sentences."

Ella snatched the paper from Riley ruthlessly, thus terrifying Jess over the message she had just written. "Is this your pathetic way of flirting?" she asked, rolling her eyes and throwing the paper out of the tiny slit that was the open window. "You really need to grow up Jess."

"Just you wait until we're in the Bermuda triangle…" Jess snarled, gritting her teeth.

"Be quiet, Ella." Ian turned to look at her over his shoulder. "The kid has a point. I've seen one expedition and I'm ready for the second – you have no idea what you are getting yourself in for."

Ella folded her arms and looked out the window. "Estimated time of arrival?"

"Less than ten minutes until the exact co ordinates…" Ian shouted harshly.

Jess subtly undid the buckle of her seat belt, because she could not decide if it was a good idea or not. She felt that if the seatbelt were to lock and the helicopter were to crash, it would be the death of her, but she might have a nasty accident having undone her belt. When Riley realised what Jess had done, he went silently ballistic. Without saying I word, he silently gestured that she was crazy and should do her seatbelt back up again.

"What's going on back there, you two?" Ben shouted over the thundering sound of the propeller.

"Nothing!" Jess called back, trying to appear relaxed and covering up where her seatbelt would be.

"Hang on!" Ian shouted, seeing the visibility drastically drop in front of the helicopter's windscreen.

There was a click and metallic clang as the engines suddenly cut out. For a moment, the helicopter remained airborne, but the slightest gust of wind caught the side of the flying vehicle, tilting it down towards the ocean below. Jess braced herself, pressing her feet into the floor and attempting to wedge herself in the seat.

"Jess!" her father screamed, seeing that her seat belt strap rippling about the air so loosely.

"You have to do it too! You know you do!"

There was a moment where Abbie and Ben looked at each other in a way that said, 'do you think she's right?' Ben nodded and they instantly locked hands, unclipping their seatbelts.

Jess could hear Ian trying to shout something to them, but she couldn't make out the words. As she looked out the window of the door to her side, she braced herself for the impact of hitting the rough waters below. Her ears were bursting as they plummeted into the water and water buffeted in through the open window.

Ella was screaming in panic and was already yanking at the window and the door handle. The other side's door gave way quicker but she was still the first one out the door, followed by Ian and then Abbie.

"Wait!" Riley called out to Ben and Jess, just as the water was at his chin.

The father and daughter stopped and only had a moment to suck in a mouthful of air. Through blurred vision, Ben and Jess swam towards a struggling Riley who had been the only one to refuse removing his seatbelt. As Ben tugged at the belt, Riley tried to push him away, to force him to go on with the others and forget about Riley. Ben denied this as an option. Jess, on the other hand, was far more resourceful and pulled out a penknife, even though her chest was beginning to ache from holding her breath for so long. Dragging the knife's blade through the belt was agony, but with a sharp yank from Ben on the belt, it snagged.

Jess took Riley's hand and pushed off the side of the helicopter into the deep blue ocean. Deep in both depth and colour. Just as Jess reached for her father's hand, the current grabbed her and Riley. She grazed Ben's fingers before being pulled away in a riptide, but made the mistake of screaming out and being engulfed in the wave of darkness.

"Jess! Jess- come on, Jess, wake up. Please? Ah, Ben is going to kill me if you die on me. Jess?" Riley's voice was panicky, but Jess was so grateful to hear it.

"Riley!" Jess opened her eyes and grinned at the man who was kneeling beside her. Overcome with joy, she sat up and threw her arms around him. "I thought we were going to die…" Awkwardly, and feeling a little embarrassed, Jess pulled away, saying the first thing that came to mind. "Where are- No! Are we on the island of Atlantis?" She looked around, taking in the bay that they had been washed up upon. It soon dawned on her that they were alone. "Riley, where's my dad- and Abbie?"

He looked down at his lap. "I don't know – you held on so tightly to my hand that we ended up being washed up together… I don't know where Ben and Abbie are- let alone Ian or Ella."

Jess felt the worse and started to cry on Riley. "What if he's dead?"

"No- he won't be dead. You're talking about Benjamin Gates – the man who found countless treasures and ancient artefacts, he wouldn't give up so easily. He's probably on the island with the others…" Riley sighed, looking around. "Not that I have a clue where we go next."

Jess got up and walked away from Riley without saying a thing. She surveyed the area around her, picking up a handful of the sand. The sand was peculiar, it wasn't like normal sand. Insanity took her and she licked it, recoiling at the unusual but salty taste. Where they were wasn't exactly a bay when she had a closer look at her surroundings. Further out, across the water, she could see another island – an island that seemed to curve with the bay, making her speculate a few things. Behind her, was a sharp cliff face. In front of her, the other island. The water in between started sandy, and then rocks, but there was no way that Riley and herself could swim across o the other island which was mountainous as far as the eye could see. Something clinked against Jess' foot as she began to walk back towards Riley.

He was just waiting for her.

He watched her drop to her knees.

He saw her dig about the sand and unearth a murky looking bottle.

"Riley – it's a message in a bottle."

But it isn't a normal message in a bottle… Jess thought to herself. She looked at the cork in the bottle and saw two faint letters, made out with a dying marker pen.

S.L.G

"Mum?"

Sarah Louise Gates.

It was her initials, and it was her writing – Jess had seen her mother's initials enough times to know when it was hers. Plus, whenever her mother went on an adventure, she always had a black sharpie with her.

"Why have you left this?" Jess inspected the bottle, trying to decipher why there was a disc shaped object in there with a crystal rock attached to it. Water swished about the bottle as well.

For hours, she sat on the sand with Riley beside her and played with the bottle, tipping it back and forth. She knew her mother had left it for Ben or someone to find, but she didn't understand it.

"I give up!" she growled. "You try solve it!" Jess thrusted the bottled into Riley's hands and folded her own.

"Done it." Riley grinned at her, holding the bottle up for her to see. "Don't you get it?"

"What? That makes no sense. It's just the water in the bottom of the bottle so that the disc makes the rock salt sit in the water… I don't get it."

"Come on, it's the easiest solution imaginable…Even easier than your code!" Riley couldn't resist making a joke at Jess' expense. "So you can see that this is like an island within an island where the outer island is more of a moat… And if you imagine the rock is the underside of the island you're standing on then…?" He tilted his head and waited for Jess to try and understand his concept.

"Are we standing on Atlantis or not?"

"Kind of- but we have one more journey before we are there for sure…"

"Quite being so cryptic!" Jess punched Riley in the arm in a playful manner, but quite aggressively.

"You're just the same!" Riley taunted, holding her hand where it was so that she couldn't hit him again. "Still… Do you trust me?"

"Riley – what are you on about? That's what you say to someone when you're about to ask them to jump off a cliff, or something as equally dangerous…" Jess' nervous and panicky mode set in as he took her hand and pulled her towards the water, barely giving her enough time to put the other strap of her rucksack on.

Riley no longer had his own rucksack, it was assumed that it was ripped away in the riptide and fast currents. Fortunately, there was nothing of great value in it that Riley would want back. He pulled Jess into the water, and whilst she was hesitant, she allowed it.

The pair walked out to the rockier beach floor, and for Riley to make his point, he pushed Jess gently ahead. She lost her footing and ducked under the water. When she resurfaced, she shouted at Riley for being so irresponsible.

Easily, Riley grew tired and inhaled deeply before disappearing underneath the water, swimming down. Jess obligingly followed him, still not so sure what was really happening. She managed to follow her father's friend under the island she had been standing on not moments before. Knowledge and the laws of physics and gravity or all things science were only confusing Jess more because it made no sense.

Until she noticed the cave like entrance that Riley had disappeared into. Jess assumed this was this case due to the fuzzy nature of opening her eyes underwater. Feeling her way along the rocky pathway, Jess shut her eyes and hoped that she would end up following him.

She reached the surface in less than a minute, so when the Gates' girl managed to take another breath, she frantically flailed about the surface until Riley shouted out to her, putting his hands on either side of her face.

"How did you know?" Jess gasped, unable to keep the grin off her face.

"Just a thought… I know the solution to your little code now." Riley winked at her.

An angry shout surprised the pair and the turned to see a tall, tanned man watching them with a sharp spear in his hands.

"What do we do now, Riley?" Jess whispered, feeling he water drip off her face and hair. "Riley?"

Riley didn't say anything, because he had no clue what to do, but he knew he wanted to keep Jess safe.

Thoughts from AspiringWriterGirl = Long time no write or read, eh? Hope you enjoyed this story and we're finally one step closer to Atlantis – but how will it all tie together?