A/N: Been putting this off for a while. So many fics to update. :'( Should I focus on completing one first or what? Okay, maybe I could work with two at the same time. Fine. Three fics at a time it is. Okay, now tell me, which fics do you want to see to update in a fixed manner? Give me three. :)

Cold, tired, hungry.

The pain caused by the arrow bloomed from his shoulders downwards, effectively numbing his arm. His right foot was grotesquely twisted. His lungs hurt. And each time he breathed, it felt like someone was squeezing his throat, slowly leading him to his death. Sometimes, he thought that if he stopped breathing, all the pain would stop as well.

Tired hazel eyes glanced downwards.

His clothes were tattered, filthy, and ragged. The blood that seeped from his wound caused his shirt to be drenched from it, making it sticky, filling his senses with the smell of salt and rust, and overall, making him nauseous. His tanned skin darkened further. Small cuts, scratches, burns, and grazes filled his once flawless skin. A combination of dirt and dried blood clung to him, mapping his body like some sort of dark, gruesome story.

One that didn't have a happy ending.

He felt light, as if he was floating in the sky. Was he? Was he floating in the sky? He opened his eyes. When did he close them? Everything was spinning out of control. All he could see were blurs of colors: green, gray, blue, red, again and again and again. It was a never ending kaleidoscope. It made him dizzy. Gently, he rested his head against the cold, hard wall, ignoring the uneven, sharp surface. The slight snap he felt his neck make riled the churning of his stomach more.

His stomach wanted to push its content upwards. It wanted to make him vomit. But the problem was, he simply didn't have anything to hurl out. When was the last time he ate? When was the last time he had anything to drink? When was the last time he had properly gotten any sleep? Because once he closed his eyes, all he could ever think about was the fact that he wasn't complete. He could only think about the pain, the loneliness, the regret, and worse of all, the yearning. It pained him physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Blaine's head began to throb. Every single inch of him ached.

Cold, tired, hungry.

Lonely.

He wanted to close his eyes. He really wanted to.

He wanted to let go.

But he couldn't. Wouldn't. He shook himself awake, paying no heed to his current condition, forgetting himself, as usual. It was a bad habit of his; after all, he was always reminded by...

Blaine's tears began to fall. It hurt to cry. It really did.

But what hurt him more was the fact that he was...That his other half was...

Letting out a pathetic whimper, Blaine's heart squeezed excruciatingly. Yes, yes, his whole body hurt. His chest ached. His face was a mess of blood, tears, and snot. His clothes were an even bigger of a mess. But he didn't care.

There was only one thing—one person he cared about. He lived for.

And so, he sat there, so close to breaking, teetering between sanity and insanity, clinging to hope, despite cynically doubting of its existence. After all they've been through, he didn't believe in such things anymore. Did he have any reason to? Would he still be allowed to?

Blaine sat there, waiting.

Just waiting.

"They're beautiful", Quinn murmured in awe as she stepped closer to the rather frail figure that was in front of her. Absentmindedly grabbing the torch from Sam, she reached out to shed some light to the object she was staring at with so much attention.

Sam approached her and let out a impressed whistle. "Wow. And on our first try, we hit a jackpot!"

The skeleton was almost ancient. It was in the same condition as the previous couple Quinn had discovered with her professor. And it certainly was beautiful. It was almost merging with the cave; the outline was half-solid and already half-engraved. The body was seated, or accurately stated, slumped backwards, as if it had no energy or whatsoever. The blonde archaeologist crouched down, lighting the body from head till foot, immediately stepping into her field of expertise.

"How old do you think it is?" Sam asked, as he watched Quinn fondly. He knew he was being...unprofessional at the moment. But he promised to himself that he would be serious if their team leader would stop being so adorable. "Because based from the height, I'd say the owner of the body, whoever it was, was just a kid. Or a teenager. Look how short it is."

She snorted, mentally chastising herself for being...unprofessional and unladylike at the same time. "Are you serious? What year are you in College again?"

"Hey!" the tall blond frowned, offended. "I'm already in my last year. I'm just gathering up more facts and research and experience. Once I fly back, then it would be for my dissertation."

Honey amber eyes critically surveyed him, clearly unimpressed. "Really? You're going to be an archaeologist with that level of knowledge? Are you serious? Because if you are, I'm going to drop you off the team right this instant. I cannot believe that you couldn't identify a fully matured skeleton from a child's skeleton! Look at its pelvic bone, Sam, look at the size of its skull, did you learn that or were you just absent when the professor taught it to class?"

Sam raised his hands in surrender. "Geeze woman, take a chill pill. I was just kidding around."

"Does it look like I'm kidding around, Sam? In case you haven't noticed, we're actually working right now."

"I know that we're working", he rolled his eyes at Quinn's disbelieving glance, "what's got that to do with you having no sense of humor or whatsoever?"

Quinn turned around to fully glare at him. "I'm just putting you back in place. You were being unprofessional."

"It was me being unprofessional?" Sam scoffed. "Who was it snorting and working herself up to hysteria a few seconds ago?"

Mike quickly intervened, silently not wanting to add any more corpses than possible. "Okay, okay", he stepped in between the two blondes. "Right now, you're both being unprofessional. Let's get back to the task at hand. Now, Miss Fabray, are you still thinking of ratting us to the higher ups or are we going to have...an extensive field of work on this...privately?"

Slipping back to her work mode, she scanned the rest of the cave. There were a few scattered things on the floor: a tattered blanket, some broken ceramics, what seemed to be the charred remains of a plate, and a wrapped object in one corner. Curiosity piqued, she slowly walked towards it. "Mike, come here." Playing oblivious to Sam's annoyed grunt, Quinn instructed Mike to carefully untangle the knot that was holding the covers together.

She needed to know what was inside.

A gasp left her pretty lips as the Asian was successful doing her bidding. Once the thin, moth-eaten blanket fell apart, it uncovered to be far from Quinn's expectations of what was inside. It was yet another body.

This time, it was a child's.

The waves were gently splashing against the rocks. It was as if it was caressing it, as a lover would, before it slipped back into the ocean. The sky was clear and blue, no clouds lingering behind, warming of an ominous happening.

All in all, it was one of Blaine's better days.

He neatly tied back the bundle that was given to him just a few hours ago. He had already budgeted on his daily ratio of reliefs so that it would last a week. He didn't know when he could get a fresh set of clothes, food, water, and some salve and herbs for his wounds. It wouldn't hurt to become prepared.

Pushing the bundle aside, he walked a few steps towards the mouth of the cave, and sat down. Hugging his knees, bright, warm, hopeful hazel eyes glanced up the sky. It really was a beautiful day. Closing his eyes, he listened to the soft sounds of the sea, the chirping of the sea gulls, and his own heartbeat. Everything was so peaceful. And as his mind dangerously fleeted on unnecessary memories, he tried to reminisce what his life was before he got himself tangled into this quandary.

The sound of the joyful music made the musicians and the jesters of the court in the palace, the soft feeling of silk against his skin, the scent of mouth-watering feasts, the feeling of falling asleep on his soft and comfortable bed—It was all but a dream now. It seemed so...surreal.

And as he began to feel homesick, he remembered the people who had betrayed him. Worst of all, the face of the evil, sneaky, cruel bastard who caused all of this haunted his dreams every night. And who exactly was the one responsible? It was none other than Blaine's cousin, no matter how vaguely related they were. They were still family. Weren't families supposed to trust each other? Feelings of resentment and hate curling in his gut, Blaine decided to not waste time remembering the unpleasant memories.

He closed his eyes, his mind automatically working with his heart. Thoughts about chestnut brown hair, of beautiful diamond eyes which seemed to change from blue to green to gray, porcelain skin, and pretty lips filled his mind. And then it progressed further to his memories, from awkward confessions, to stolen kisses in the hallway, to jealousy, to forbidden relationships to breaking laws to fighting for their love-fighting for each other.

A frown formed unto his lips.

Did all of those really happen just a year ago? Not too soon after, he felt the familiar gut-wrenching, heartbreaking pain crawl underneath his skin, slowly consuming his strength, weakening him to a mindless, numb, yearning human being. Goosebumps rose in his skin. And there it was, the familiar ache in his chest, the one that made him feel that living was not an option if...if...Blaine shook his head. He couldn't even think about him! Couldn't even mention his name without—! Without—!

Sinking to his knees, fresh tears stained his cheeks. A sob wrenched out from him, ignoring the dull throb coming from his shoulder.

This was getting ridiculous. He couldn't stay there anymore. It was going to push him over the edge.

And he didn't have to—not yet. Not when he already had a reason to wake up every morning. Not when he finally had something to look forward to.

But it hurt. The pain increased every single day they were...they were...Blaine shook his head.

Tired hazel eyes glanced upward. The sky was clear. The sun was bright. The birds were chirping. Yes, yes, everything was lovely.

It was such a beautiful day.

Dragging himself up, he forced himself to do the inevitable. Grabbing one of the blankets left for them—him, him, because he was alone now, he approached the lifeless figure huddled into the corner. Forcing himself to look at the delicate, innocent, defenseless figure, it reminded Blaine of his own failures. Of his failure to protect his people. Of his failure to protect himself. Of his failure to even protect this child. And most certainly of all, his inability to protect—

Squeezing his eyes shut, he bit his lip to stop himself from crying, from making any more noise, from feeling.

Lightly, he covered the body, unable to look at it himself.

Weak. Pathetic. Coward.

That's what he was.

Agonized hazel eyes glanced outside the cave.

It was such a beautiful day for a funeral.

"They're all the same age, the same as the couple from before, somewhere around 511 A.D.", Quinn subconsciously explained as her eyes hungrily took in every faded form, every intricate detail, mentally taking notes and planning actions. "This is incredible. Look at all these things. Archaeologists would commit suicide to get a big discovery as this one. Imagine the history we could unravel if we could only get more facts."

Mike and Sam slyly glanced at each other.

They had this in the bag.

"So does that mean that you know...We're going to do a bit more snooping around...Without permission?" Mike innocently asked.

"In a way that we'd be sneaking behind the council's backs and taking credit for doing something illegal?" Sam grinned.

Quinn remained oblivious for a few moments, taking out her magnifying glass to inspect the body of the child, to see if there was any further information they could get before they officially begin the investigation. "Quinn?" Sam called.

With a sigh, the young team leader turned to face them. "Yes, we're going to do an extensive yet unwarranted digging in this location. And possibly, we need to do some landscaping, some exploring so we could see how further we could stretch or possibilities and determine the limitations of our range." She huffed annoyingly at the duo's Cheshire smirks on their stupid faces. "Since we're breaking the rules now anyway, why don't we do it thoroughly."

"Hey, hey. We're not judging", Sam raised his hands again in peace. "We're actually proud that our team leader's going to bend some rules for the sake of progressing her research-for the sake of discovery. It's the same with art right? Art's about pushing boundaries. I find archeology to be a mixture between science and art."

Delighted at this somewhat helpful insight, Quinn relaxed a bit. And then as she finished going over her next step she approached the two and told them about her plan.

"Seeing as this operation would be done confidentially, I'm afraid that I would have to use a separate team." Quinn sighed, knowing that that would be the most troublesome of all. "The two of you would be the crossing members of both fields then, and should I need to remind you that if either of you accidentally slip about this illicit act that we're doing, I'm not the only one who would be in trouble, all the members of the team would be involved, and that means the two of you. So you should know better than to be reckless about this, alright?"

They nodded solemnly, obviously knowing the weight of seriousness of the whole situation.

"Good", she nodded. "Now as for the research department, I want you to ring up Professor Montgomery from Yale. He's one of my friends, tell him that we need him as soon as possible. He'll be able to dig up a few more volunteers for our case. And Mike? I understand that your girlfriend's related to our field?"

Mike looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "Yes. She's a Paleontologist."

"Fantastic. Pull her in."

"What about the other 'explorers'?"

"I'm going to call in a favor from some people from my previous expeditions."

"Great. Mike and I would start venturing to the forest a boat ride away from here. Do you need anything else?"

"I'll need to have some of the equipment in here tomorrow. Not to mention the question of when are we going to creep in here."

Sam thought about it for a bit. "You only assigned two to three people tomorrow since you've announced that it's generally a day-off. They're no doubt going to enjoy their selves in the city, by then. We have the whole day to ourselves. We only have to go back during a prescribed time—or randomly, to be much better but at regular intervals to avoid suspicion from the others."

"When are your friends going to chip in, Miss Fabray?"

"Around three to five days, tops. We have plenty of time to spare by then." Quinn cupped her chin as the gears in her brain started to work faster. "We could begin now and take pictures of these, see what we could find, send some early information to the other team. Then we could head down to the city library tonight to start deciphering the mystery behind these."

The boys grinned at her. "We knew why we picked you as our leader for a reason."

"Of course you did. If you didn't, then you're still stuck playing in the sandbox for now."

Quinn went back to the adult skeleton, immersing herself to the tiny details, seeing if she could make out any more information without needing the use of the right tools or equipment. Apparently, the body was of an average height (during that era), whoever it was died when he was around his 20s, and the left shoulder—

"Quinn?"

"What?" she snapped furiously, hating that she was interrupted.

"Aren't you going to say something to us?"

". . . "

"Quinn."

"Fine", she rolled her eyes. "Great job, guys."

A/N: Sorry if this sucked and I took long. I got stuck on the part on how to insert flashbacks. Oh well. It's 4:10 AM in here and I need to sleep. I apologize for any mistakes. Next to be updated: Those Summer Nights, Welcome to Burlesque, then Through Persistence, Determination and Stalking.

Livejournal account: frogprince27 . livejournal . com

So yeah. Review.