Chapter 2

Nash gets them a two-bedroom suite at the hotel. Pricier than the one room dives Nash is used to, but he can afford it and he wants to make sure Maya feels safe. So that means a shared living area, separate bedrooms and bathrooms, and a lock on her door if that's something she feels she needs at night.

Maya's scared of her cousin, there's no doubt about it. But she's afraid of her aunt too, from what Nash has picked up.

She'll never have to go back to either one of them again, though. And Nash intends to make sure her next home is a better place. A safer place.

For now, though, she's with him. His 'apprentice' which sounds better to both of them than 'temporary ward'.

With Maya's passport squared away and the guardianship papers taken care of, Nash focuses Maya on plotting out their travel decisions on how to reach a modern city nearest the ancient city they're looking for while he gets to work on using the scans he took of the map to virtually restore faded ink and details long lost that might make their expedition easier. As well as figuring out which country's historical preservation teams he'll most likely need to get in contact with in case they really do find something.

They make a good team. Maya takes care of getting their flight information squared away - all Nash has to do is double check the ticket info and then pay - and takes to cataloguing their supplies next. The girl's got next to nothing as far as her own clothing goes - and at thirteen it's entirely likely she's going to need sanitary pads at some point too, he remembers that much from sex ed back in the day. So before they have dinner, Nash takes Maya shopping.

"I can't afford any new clothes," she argued.

"I'm responsible for your apprenticeship," Nash replied, somehow quite certain she'd react badly to him pointing out he's her guardian now. "In a traditional apprenticeship," which haven't been practiced since the popularization of vocational schools and universities, but whatever, "the person you're apprenticed to should be a master of their craft - which I am," he grins when she rolls her eyes at him, "and they're to be responsible for feeding and clothing their apprentice. So, pick out some clothes you like and that fit and I'll buy them. No pre-ripped jeans, you'll regret it in the much colder climes we're headed for, and you'll want sturdy fabric for your shirts. If we're lucky the terrain won't require too much actual climbing, but we'll be up in the mountains so you'll want something that won't tear the first time a tree branch gets caught on your sleeve. And a good, heavy coat that you can still get good movement out of. Sturdy pair of boots, too.

"Also if you've already got your period then we'll want to stock up in case for that too. It's not an issue I have to deal with myself, but I know from my uterus-having colleagues that there's nothing more annoying that not having enough supplies for that in the middle of a trek up a mountain or through a jungle or anywhere, really." He states that matter-of-factly and while Maya blushes brightly, she nods and mutters something about needing to stop by a drug store to pick up those supplies.

He also gets her a nice piece of duffel bag to pack her new clothing and gear in. It's purple camouflage print and Maya looks pretty pleased with it, given the way she runs her fingers over the fabric.

Nash watches her and wonders what Tess would have thought of Maya. If she'd think Nash was handling things alright. He hasn't missed his wife this fiercely in years, but suddenly he's wishing she could be there with him. He feels like he's got no idea what he's doing without her.

Patagonia is not its own country, but a name for the region furthest south in the South American continent. It covers parts of both Chile and Argentina, though the map they've found places their destination not far from the Cerro Penitentes in Argentina. So they fly in as close as they can and then start rent a car in order to start driving the rest of the way. They stay in a hole in the wall motel in a small town that evening and then, once they've gotten as close as they can by car, they're on foot.

It's currently January, which is the warm time of the year for this side of the equator, but up in the mountains it's still cold and Nash knows they'll both appreciate having warm coats on hand as they go higher in elevation. The average temperature for the Patagonia region of Argentina is about sixty degrees Fahrenheit, which is a twenty degree drop from what the temperatures in Peru had been.

Nash's imaging of the map has uncovered some markers in nature intended to direct the refugees headed from Cusco to the right place. Depending how much has changed over the centuries, those same markers might help Nash and Maya find Elelín over the next few days. Or they might just become the next in a long line of people who've chased the legend and failed.

Day one is a bust and Nash isn't surprised. Maya is clearly disappointed, but she perks back up that evening when they set up camp while Nash tells her stories of his past expeditions. "It's never easy, finding the truth behind a myth. But if it were easy, it wouldn't be worth doing."

Day two is also a bust and it in the afternoon, which makes setting up their next camp miserable and muddy.

Day three they find a giant tree next to a dried out creek bed that might be one of those directional markers they've been looking for. From what they can tell, a little southeast from the tree should be a cave system. Going through the caves should exit out to the location of Elelín. Or at least very close to it, as the final marker is a small lake. And that's assuming they don't take a wrong turn in the caves and get lost for a week.

Let's just say Nash has been there, done that, would prefer not to experience the sequel with a teenaged girl in tow.

Day four they find the cave. Before entering the cave, Nash plants a transport beacon and then checks their supplies very carefully. They've got enough supplies for several more days so, theoretically they're good to go. The transport markers can get the out of the caves and then back to the car when they start running low.

"You okay with doing some spelunking?" Nash asked.

Maya's grin is fierce and excited. She's taken extremely well to all the hiking and climbing they've been doing and Nash has been getting the impression that she's been genuinely enjoying herself. "Can't wait."

So into the cave they go.

Caves are generally dark, damp, and full of gorgeous rocks of all kinds. Makes Nash's inner geologist go 'ooooooh, pretty'.

He starts info-dumping to her about the differences between stalactites and stalagmites, the different kinds of quartz in the walls, how he can tell the glittery golden vein in one wall they pass is pyrite and not real gold, and pretty much anything else that comes to mind as he makes sure the kid doesn't have time to let her brain get scared over the number of times they disturb bats or have to backtrack after hitting dead ends. Nash gets a pretty good map of the cave system out of it, though, and by evening they do find their way out of an exit that isn't the way they came in.

"I was hoping the city would just... be here," Maya admitted as she helped set up camp just outside the cave entrance.

"Me too," Nash replied with a grin. "It's always nice when expeditions don't take a lot of time and I don't have to use a lot of transporter energy restocking supplies. Lucky we weren't stuck in the caves for days, though I've geo tagged this exit in case we need to go back in to try again. But comparing our location according to the satellite geo mapping and our treasure map," Nash pulled up and overlaid one atop the other using his comm's holographic interface, "it's not a perfect one to one match, but it looks like the next place we need to head is a little north east."

He let her have that to look over while he set up the portable wood burning heater inside their tent, which vented its smoke stack outside the tent. It would keep them warm while temperatures dropped that night, though it did mean sharing a tent. Maya hadn't seem to mind the last few nights, though, and Nash wasn't comfortable with having a thirteen year old alone with a potential carbon monoxide hazard either. Which was why he'd packed his bigger tent for this trip instead of the small one and the spare. There was plenty of space for them to have two bedrolls set up with a little pop up privacy divider between the two spaces. And since the stove was one he'd picked up on a more advanced Earth, it collapsed down into an easy to carry, lightweight disk when not in use.

Once the heat was going and Nash had piled up enough sticks and things to augment the pellets he'd brought with him, he started warming up their dinner over the the top of the lightweight little stove. "Hope more soup sounds good," he said.

"It does. Though... I think we'll need to go more north than north east in the morning," Maya said, settling down beside Nash to watch the fire. She handed him back his comm. "There's a little lake that way, according to satellite imagery, and I think that's what we're lookin for."

"And, depending on how time has shifted the lake and any water sources leading into it, the city we're looking for could easily be under water," Nash noted. "Or the water could be further away from the city than it used to be."

"Or it could still be right there by the lake shore," Maya countered. "I've got a good feeling about this, Nash."

"So, I've been meaning to ask. When you ran away, why come all the way from Canada to Peru. That is a long way to travel without having a specific destination in mind and at some point you clearly learned about that temple's connection to Elelín..." Nash trailed off.

"I read about you," Maya admitted. "You're the guy who found the real Camelot; not the English fairytale but the Welsh kingdom that inspired it."

"Technically, Camelot never existed. It was a made up place meant to further distance the stories from their Welsh and Celtic roots," Nash demurred. "And there are a number of sources for the legend - what little remains of fact in those myths likely refers to several different men. I just found ruins connected to one of those men."

"Still, it was impressive. And then I read about some of your other adventures and... I didn't know you were at that temple," she said. "I wasn't there trying to meet you. I just... I wanted to prove something everyone else thought was myth to be true. I wanted to find something real. When I read about Paititi being discovered last year... I started researching other lost cities of legend. And the City of Caesars caught my eye. In part, I guess, because you'd published a few papers discussing it. So when I ran away, I figured why not try to find it myself. I'd obsessed over the known information on the Inca Empire enough to know that when Cusco was besieged by the conquistadores for the last time, they snuck a number of people out of the city to send to other parts of the Empire for safety and that temple was thought to be one of the departure points. I wanted to see if i could find proof of that myself. See if there was a link to the lost city... and there you were, doing the exact same thing I wanted to be doing."

"I hope meeting me hasn't been too big of a disappointment," he said, half joking.

"It's been amazing," Maya countered. "Most adults would have shipped me right back home and instead you're... letting me have my adventure. And while you have a worrying inability to tell the difference between a teenager and a toddler -"

"I maintain there is no difference," Nash muttered, a smirk tugging at his mouth.

"- you're a lot kinder than you think you are."

Nash shrugged and looked away. "I just ask myself what Tess would have done," he admitted. "She was good with people. Me... not so much."

"She was your wife, right?" Maya asked, voice gentle.

"Yeah. We were married for four years before..." before cancer took her away from him. Even now, he didn't know how to talk about losing her. About how her diagnosis stole from them the chance to have the child they'd planned to have together and then stole her life too when it spread too fast and too far. She'd been the brightest part of Nash's life and he'd never quite figured out how to move on without her. There was always this... empty place in his life where she ought to be, but wasn't. "Before she passed away."

His grief was easier to bear now than it used to be, though. Time had given him that gift, at least.

"I'm sorry." Maya patted his shoulder. "My parents divorced when I was a year old. I don't even remember my dad. He walked out on us and signed away all his parental rights to me shortly afterwards. I don't even know if he's still alive or not, but it doesn't matter. He didn't want me and I don't want him. Mom tried to be a good parent on her, own, though. And losing her..." Maya hesitated. "It still hurts."

"Time doesn't really heal all wounds," Nash told her. "It just gives you the tools to bear the loss better. If you're willing to accept the help, anyway." It took pushing away a lot of people who might have helped him heal to make Nash realize just what he'd squandered, running away after Tess' death.

But for Maya, the situation was quite different.

"My aunt blamed me," Maya said, not specifying what for. Tears ran down her cheeks. "So do I."

"But would your mother?" Nash asked softly.

Maya started to cry in earnest, not answering either way. So, carefully, Nash slid an arm around her shoulders, just so she'd know she wasn't alone. That someone was there for her, even if it was someone as clueless about the situation as he was.

They don't talk about Maya's mother or Tess again after that. But Maya seems a little lighter and Nash feels like... he did something right after all.

It takes them another two days to reach the lake and as the sun rose above the tree line right as they made it to the clearing before the waters edge, the lake shimmered to greet them. And there, on the far side - and with a few of the buildings unlucky enough to be submerged due to the lake's waterline encroaching upon the formerly dry land - was a beautiful city, rising into the crisp, cold air. Unmistakably Inca in design.

It might not be glittering in gold and who knew if there was any actual treasure anywhere, but this... this was still an absolutely amazing find. The find of a lifetime, for adventurers who weren't Nash Wells anyway. But it was still every bit as exciting for him, though the truest delight was the awe on Maya's face as she realized what they were looking at.

"Holy shit," Maya breathed, turning to Nash with wide eyes. "We found it. We actually found Elelín!"

"That right there? That is paying for your college tuition," Nash told her, grinning when she laughed.

They camp out in the middle of the city that night, after having spent the day walking streets and looking into buildings that no living human had ventured through in generations.

The researchers and preservationists and hoards of anthropologists show up pretty quickly once Nash comm calls the appropriate authorities and relays the geo-tagged teleport coordinates, all of them appearing in puffs of smoke that had those unused to the device's smoke screen type tech coughing in surprise. Nash sticks around as long as he can, but once the call comes in that it's time to take Maya back home, well...

Maya looks like she's headed for a funeral as they board the plan back to the North American continent. There really isn't anything Nash can do to cheer her up, either. And, truth be told, he's... down about this too.

If having Maya around is even remotely what having a daughter is like, then Nash doesn't really want to give her up.

So while Maya is busy sulking and trying to pretend she isn't, Nash pulls out his comm and starts texting.

"So it turns out you've got your choice of two placements," Ms. Grinnell tells Maya. "The first is with the Hemphill family. They've got a foster son about a year older than you already, a steady income, live in a very nice, gated community, and the school you'd be attending isn't far from your old school so you could reconnect with your friends." She hands Maya a folder no doubt full of glowing reviews and pictures of a cookie cutter home with a nice, safe looking married couple living there.

Maya barely glances at it. "The other option?"

"We could make my temporary guardianship permanent," Nash cuts in quickly, before Ms. Grinnell can make him sound as boring as the other family. "We'd be on the go a lot and you'd have to be partially home schooled in order to come with me, but..." he doesn't get to finish, because Maya shoved the folder away, jumped up, and practically tackled him with a hug.

He hugged her back just as fiercely. "You reminded me of what it was like to have family," Nash told her, ruffling her hair and grinning when she huffed at him. "And good assistants are hard to find."

"Apprentice," she corrected.

"Apprentice," he agreed. "I've got a condo in a different province, though, so..."

"I don't have anyone I want to keep in touch with here," Maya interrupted. "I want to go with you."

"Then that's where you'll go, though Dr. Wells..." Grinnell waited for Nash to nod at her in acknowledgement, "you'll need to keep the caseworker who will be assigned to Maya's case informed of your whereabouts, especially if you're taking Maya with you on an expedition somewhere. And no inter-dimensional traveling until she's fifteen. That's a nation wide policy." There were other travel restrictions noted, but Nash would make it work out.

It was worth the teary grin on Maya's face. Maybe it was time to make that condo finally feel lived in anyway.

Notes: And they live happily ever after because canon doesn't own me. Maya's there with Nash when he goes to Earth-1 and it gets really weird for her and Allegra.