August

Neal sighed, fidgeting with his hat in Peter's car. The driver side door opened, and Peter got in, holding two large paper bags. He put one in the back seat, and held the other out to Neal, "your uniform."

Neal took it, cautiously, and looked inside. A puff of dry sediment immediately hit his nose, and he sneezed, "Peter, these are filthy."

"Yeah, well, show me a field archeologist whose clothes aren't."

Neal wrinkled his nose, and put the bag in the back next to Peter's, "are you sure we can't wait until it's at the lab."

"By then it may be too late, the tip said the theft was due to happen when they move it."

Neal rolled his eyes and looked out the window. He drew himself in a bit. He already felt like shit today, his body was more sore than usual, he felt winded from just the stairs, and he had a headache. He was not looking forward to a day of digging and getting his hands literally dirty.

They left after lunch, swapping Peter's sedan for a beaten up station wagon. Peter was highly amused when Neal came out of the rest room in worn jeans and a sweat stained, dirty t-shirt. Neal did not find the mission nearly as funny. He was extremely slow following Peter to the previously impounded car.

They got in, and drove to the site. Their contact, a 50-something year old woman far dirtier than either of them met them in the parking lot. She handed them both buckets of tools, "now, you're volunteers from the community college. So just do what anyone else tells you, and you'll be fine."

Peter took the tools and beamed at Neal, "I always wanted to do this."

The Professor they were working with winked at him, "we do need real volunteers, so consider this an audition."

Peter laughed and followed her to the site. Neal lagged behind, hauling the bucket along.


They ended up each standing next to a square hole in the ground, shoveling dirt and lifting it into a screen. It was bright, hot, humid, dirty, sweaty, hard work. Neal must have had too much coffee, because he had a headache and his heart was racing. He paused for a minute to catch his breath, leaning hard on the rough wood handle of his well used shovel.

A hand clapped onto his shoulder, "here. See anything yet?"

Neal raised his head and looked at Peter. The agent was holding out a bottle of water, chunks of ice floating in it. Neal's dry mouth went drier at the sight of it. Peter handed him the bottle, not taking his hand from Neal's shoulder.

Neal chugged the water, for once utterly disregarding appearances and aloofness.

"Whoa, hey, slow down. If you're that thirsty you need to be keeping up more."

Neal nodded, which made him feel sicker than the cold water hitting his empty stomach already had.

"Are you okay? You're pale."

"Yeah. Just, you're right, shouldn't have chugged it."

Neal leaned heavily on the shovel, and handed Burke back the now roughly quarter full bottle. Peter still hadn't taken his hand away, and he now slid it to rest at the center of Neal's upper back, "why don't you sit down, and keep an eye on everyone for a bit. Maybe closer in to the actual vault."

Neal nodded again, and dropped the shovel. He started to shuffle away, and a voice yelled, "hey! Turn that shovel over."

He turned back around, one of the real archeologists was yelling at him. He leaned down to pick up the shovel and turn it so the point faced down instead of up. Blood rushed to his head, the water he had chugged rushed into his throat. He caught himself with a hand on the ground, flipped the shovel, and stood back up. The light-headedness only got worse, and he stumbled.

Peter grabbed his arm, put his other arm around Neal's back, "hey, easy. Sit down, I'll get you some more water, you're probably dehydrated."

Neal nodded, and let Peter manhandle him into sitting on an upturned 5 gallon bucket. Peter stayed next to him for a moment after he was seated, hands on Neal's shoulder and upper arm.

Neal raised his head and gave Peter a small smile, "sorry. Didn't realize how much I was sweating I guess."

Peter squeezed Neal's arm, and went off to refill the water bottle.

Neal put his sweaty, dusty face in his filthy, aching, soon-to-be-blistered hands, blocking out the bright sun.

Peter returned after a few minutes with a full bottle of water, but only a few chunks of ice, "here."

Neal looked up, the sun glinted off the water into his eyes. He closed them in pain, and turned his head away. Peter steadied him, holding him by both shoulders.

"Neal, are you okay? Do we need to abort?"

"No, I'm sorry, I'm okay. I'll be fine in a minute."

"Okay. I'm going to go check on the vault, I'll be back in a little bit. Keep drinking water. Slowly."

"Thanks."

Peter handed him the water bottle, and walked off.

Neal sat in place, trying to keep his shit together. He hadn't been feeling great earlier, but this was straight up miserable.


Maybe twenty minutes later, Peter returned. Neal had gotten back up and was shoveling half-heartedly, taking big swigs of water every few shovelfuls.

"Hey, doing better?"

Neal grinned, "yeah, won't do that again."

Peter nodded, seeming gratified to see Neal up and working and smiling, "cool. Come see this with me."

Neal put his shovel down the right way, and followed Peter to the vault, a copper-encased structure still half buried in the dirt. The head archeologist was working on it, using a trowel, brush, and dustpan to clear away dirt.

Neal leaned in, hand on Peter's back, in shared excitement, and…if he was being honest with himself, also because he was still feeling unsteady.


Near lunch time, Peter came up to Neal, who was sitting on the bucket again but near the vault. Neal looked up at him, grinning.

Peter put his hand on Neal's shoulder. He frowned, realizing how tense Neal was, and rubbed the back of Neal's neck just a little.

"The archeologists are going to the college cafeteria. Apparently there is a Navy officer's meeting with free alcohol, hopefully it will loosen any would be thief's tongue. I'm going to go with them. Are you good to stay here? Jones is in the parking lot, he'll be here in seconds if you call."

Neal nodded, "yeah sounds like a plan."

Peter hesitated, "you're sure you're alright?"

"It's a bunch of broke grad students. One of them tried to sell me weed so he could pay his rent. I think I can handle it."