So here's Chapter Nine, which includes NO Andrea scenes, only mentions of her. There is a little bit of fluff, though, with Riley talking about her...not physical fluff, sorry. :)

But Chapter Ten will definetely make up for this chapter! And guess what! - thanks to you wonderful reviewers' pleas, Chapter Ten is chock-full of fluff! - both physical fluff and mental fluff! Mental fluff, being in my opinion, a person talking of someone in a romantic way.

You will all get the things you've been asking for! And I will hopefully post Chap. Ten soon, to make up for your long wait!

And without further ado, here is the lame Chapter Nine, lol.

Chapter Nine: Without Andrea

Breathlessly, Ben trailed tiredly down the road. He had just narrowly gotten out of a chase with Phil, one of Ian's men – he had been after Ben, completely unaware of the bifocals Ben carried.

The first few notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony sounded; Ben yanked out his cell phone and pressed TALK for his incoming call. Pressing the phone to his ear, he began, "Riley. What happened? You guys okay?"

Riley's voice appeared nervous. "Well…we're in one piece, but, you see…I did two things that'll make me lose my job for sure."

Ben stopped in his tracks. "Oh?"

"Well…one, we lost it," Riley said in a rushed tone. "Ian's got the document."

Ben grimaced, but did his best to hide the frustration in his voice. "Um…okay…that does make me a little mad."

"You'll want to save your energy yelling at me for this next thing," Riley replied, his voice trembling. "You see…when Ian stole the Declaration, Andrea – bloody, bruised, and probably near unconsciousness – kinda went after him and –"

Ben's eyes grew wide and his heartbeat fastened. "She's been captured by him, hasn't she?"

Riley hesitated, but then continued, "Yeah, kinda." He paused once more. "I swear, Ben, we tried to follow her when she ran away, but…" His voice trailed off. "…I was really the one who tried to follow her, you see…and when I saw her disappear around a corner, I felt all weird inside…like Andrea would be okay, as if she had to prove herself or something…but now, I'm totally regretting not going after her."

"Riley, I think you've been watching too much Star Wars," Ben shot at him. But he did not feel the sarcasm intended in his comment – Ian had her, and ironically, right after the biggest quarrel they had ever had. Trying to retain all the calmness left in his body, he said, "Meet me at the car. There, we'll try to track Ian down."

"Gotcha, chief."

Ben clicked off the phone. Andrea had been kidnapped…his niece was gone…she was in the presence of Ian. No matter how he put it, each form sent chills up Ben's spine. He had failed at his job of being a guardian to Andrea – she was being held hostage. And then he remembered – Andrea's birthday. It was the thirty-first of July, and today was the twenty-eighth. Some eighteenth birthday present this is, he thought, as he turned the corner…

As Riley got off the phone with Ben, Abigail peered sideways at him. "Is what you said true? About getting this odd feeling about Andrea?"

Riley sighed heavily. "You know what? I really have no idea…everything has changed this summer between her and I…" He stopped, and glanced at Abigail with annoyance. "Why am I telling you this? You're the one that made Andrea all pissed at Ben, which led her to run right into Ian's trap."

"Riley," Abigail looked at him gently. "Don't be ashamed of all this. You're pretending that Andrea is only Ben's niece to you, but you know she means more than that to you. I can tell by the way you look at her."

Riley scowled, although his face was bright red. "Since when are you an expert on relationships – particularly mine, when I have known you for only a few days?"

"I'm not an expert, but I'm something like that," Abigail said as the two approached another street corner. "I grew up with five older siblings – I saw how they acted around their special someones."

"Andrea is not my special someone!" Riley protested. He sheepishly added, "…Yet."

"Exactly! Truthfully, I believe Andrea has the same feelings for you as you do for her. It's blatantly obvious by the way she teases you."

Riley shook his head in disbelief. "I don't know…for most of the time, that's always been the way we connected – she treated me like an older brother, I treated her like a little sister. It seems that we're too much of friends to have romance between us."

"When did you first show feelings for her?" Abigail placed a finger to her lip in question, and quickly added, "Sorry if I'm sounding too much like a guidance counselor."

Riley ignored her last comment, and looked away, appearing frustrated. "I don't care about how you're acting…now about telling you when I showed feelings for Andrea…" He groaned. "I have no idea…in the past year, probably. She was in her last year of high school and it finally occurred to me that she was old enough to be someone I'd date." He bit his lip. "And worse, even if I do happen to like her that way, I can't do it – I can't tell her how I feel."

"Yes, you can," Abigail proclaimed. "All you need is a boost of confidence."

"You don't understand, Abigail," Riley eyed her timidly. "It's not only Andrea I'm worried about telling – it's her whole family! There's Ben, and his parents, and a couple of cousins from Andrea's father's side. They're all so…professional…and smart. I mean, I've only met Ben's dad, of course, but I've heard of what the other Gates and Morrisons can do. I've never been the person who can blend in with intelligent people…it's just not what Pooles do. Those smart alecks just won't accept me." He stopped walking, and sighed once again. "This is getting ridiculous. I sound like a guy with no life rambling to you, don't I?"

"No…but all of this 'I'm-not-smart-enough' stuff is really coming from the man who hacked into the National Archives' security system?" Abigail said dryly. "Unbelievable."

Riley smiled uneasily. "How did you know that?"

"Ben told me."

Abigail and Riley rounded the corner, to face an astonishing sight. Riley gaped, "Funny you should mention Ben…"

For there he was, being pinned against his father's car, several FBI surrounding him, preparing to take him in for interrogation.

Ben caught side of the two from the corner of his eye, and gave them a quick, nodding gesture – a sign that said, "Get the hell out of here, and fast." Obediently, Abigail and Riley left the scene; leaving Ben in one of the two traps they had been avoiding this whole time.

About an hour later, Ben found himself in a Philadelphia police station, where the FBI agents had taken him for questioning. He had just finished telling the head agent, Sedusky, his story; when the agent withdrew from his pocket a photocopy of a snapshot.

"What's that?" Ben asked him.

Agent Sedusky snickered, "Something you'll be surprised to see…at the end of the interview."

Ben tilted his head in question, but did not go any further.

Sedusky leaned back in his chair. "Now, that's quite a story you've got there, Gates."

"It's the same story I tried to tell you before the Declaration was stolen."

"By you?"

"No, by Ian Howe," Ben said. "I stole it to stop him – Dr. Abigail Chase was not involved, Riley Poole only did it because he is my longtime intern and is a very loyal person…but Ian still ended up with the Declaration." He shook his head embarrassedly.

"There was a third person in this act, was there not?" Sedusky traced the outline of the photo he had laid on the table he and Ben were sitting at.

Ben fidgeted in his seat. "Yes - my seventeen-year-old niece, Andrea Morrison. And I fully understand that it was an irresponsible and foolish act to get her involved, with her technically still being a child."

"Ah…and where exactly are these three people known to have visited your father with you and come into Philly with you?"

Ben bit his lip, but bravely continued, "I don't know where Dr. Chase and Mr. Poole are. However…Andrea has been kidnapped by Ian."

Sedusky's eyebrows rose in concern. "Ah…so it appears as if Ian will be going into jail with you as well, for kidnapping and "supposedly" stealing the Declaration." He placed air quotes around supposedly in a sarcastic way.

"Jail?" Ben's voice cracked. "Agent Sedusky, there must be another option…"

Sedusky shook his head. "Sorry, Ben. There are only two doors for you to go through in this situation. Door number one – " He held up his ring finger. " – You go to prison for a very long time. Door number two – " A second finger was raised. " – We help you find the Declaration, Ian, and your niece, but you still go to prison for a very long time."

"There are no doors not leading to prison?"

"No."

"Oh," Ben's shoulders slumped, but then he smiled lightly. "You can't blame me for trying."

"Cute," Sedusky's face wrinkled. "Now, what about these?" He motioned towards the bifocals, which had been placed on the tabletop. "What do they do?"

"They help reveal a clue on the back of the document," Ben explained. "My partners and I discovered the clue just before we separated – heere at the wall, here spelt with two e's."

"That's it?"

"Yes, sir," Ben sighed heavily. "No more, no less. Just another clue."

"All right…and you said that you have not uncovered the clue's meaning yet."

Ben slightly flinched. That was a lie – on the ride to the police station, he had pondered over the clue and had solved the hidden meaning – Wall Street, in New York. But he really didn't know whether or not to tell the FBI, for he had a feeling that if he had figured out the clue, Abigail and Riley had too. He didn't want the FBI to trail after his friends, that was for sure.

"No," Ben fibbed. "I don't know what it means."

"Very good, Gates," Sedusky nodded. "You made it through the questioning process of this interview. And your prize –" He glanced at Ben in an odd way and motioned toward the photocopied snapshot he had taken out of his pocket. " – A glimpse at a little trinket I have here." He reached out and flipped over the photo, to reveal the picture Ben had taken himself almost eighteen years ago. It showed his sister and brother-in-law with an infant Andrea in Abigail Gates Morrison's lap.

Ben's breath quickened. "You raided my apartment."

"Yes."

"And stole the photo?"

"No, I found it, left it at your place, but then came back to take it to get photocopied. I then returned the original photo."

"And you did this because…?"

Sedusky reached back into his pocket and pulled out a frayed and yellowed photograph. In the picture, two teenagers – one an attractive, smiling, blonde girl, the other a scruffy-faced, brown-haired boy – were laughing with a smaller boy, a lake in the background of the picture. A date was scrawled in the corner of the photograph – June 20th, 1971.

Ben's eyebrows rose in realization. The teenaged girl in the photo was his sister Abigail, the younger boy himself at age nine. And the older boy was none other than Abigail's old childhood sweetheart…

"Pete Sedusky?" Ben queried in shock. "Old Peter Sedusky? Abigail's longtime boyfriend?"

"The one and only," Sedusky claimed. "I found this picture of Abigail and her child, and it made me remember her and make a connection to you." He snickered. "You could have been my brother-in-law."

Ben was quiet for a moment, but then spoke, "Is that you saying that you're letting me off easy?"

"Heck, no. It's me saying that the FBI is going to help you, me especially, but only because you're Abby's brother, and it's her daughter that's been kidnapped." Sedusky leaned back in his chair. "And if – if and only if – you prove that this Howe man was behind both of these crimes – kidnapping Andrea Morrison and stealing the Declaration of Independence – you will not go to jail."

Ben's eyes grew wide with gratefulness. "Thanks, Pete."

Sedusky scowled. "It's Agent Sedusky, Gates. We're not kids anymore."

"Right."

Just then, Ben's cell phone, which laid on the tabletop, rang and one of the nearby agents quickly hooked it up to a speakerphone. Sedusky pressed the TALK button on the cell phone, and Ian's voice then filled the room.

"Hello, Ben. How are you?"

"I'm chained to a desk," Ben said through gritted teeth. "Listen, Ian, if you've done anything to Andrea – "

"Calm down, Ben. She's fine – all of the bruises she's got were because of her own blunders. The girl's unconscious now…" Ian stopped to let out a snicker. "…But she'll eventually come to."

Ben bit his lip nervously, while Ian continued.

"Listen, meet me tomorrow at ten a.m. on the flight deck of the U.S.S Intrepid. It's in New York. And bring the glasses you found at Independence Hall – yeah, I know about them. We'll take a look at the Declaration, and you'll be on your way. You can keep the glasses when we're done, and I'll throw in the pipe from the Charlotte." Ian laughed. "Remember how that dimwit Poole lost it in the Artic airport? Shaw was there, undercover, and stole it while he was using the lavatory. Anyways, to all those FBI agents listening in…"

Sedusky and his team strained their ears to hear every word.

"…If you want the document back, I'd better find Ben at the dock alone. See you then."

And with a click coming from the other line, Ian was gone.

I don't know if that counts as a cliffhanger, but if it does, I apologize for giving you guys so much lately!

Be prepared for the future! Chapter Ten will blow you away! ...Hopefully, hehe. I can't wait to see your reactions to it!

Please leave a review, and it'd really mean a lot to me if you visited my profile page and voted in the poll I have there, asking for story ideas. And feel free to check out my other stories, to see if anything interests you!

Thank you all again!