And we've reached the final chapter of this beautiful arc. As mentioned in the chapter, answers to questions we didn't think were important when asked will be answered … and spark more questions.

Chapter 177: The Honeymoon Part Seven

Bora Bora - 18:42 PM

After the SHIELD extraction team cleaned up the mess at the volcano, they all returned to the resort where Keith and Naomi retrieved the decrypting diamond that they hid in the maid's cart underneath some towels before fleeing their room. It was untouched the whole time since Emily, Keith, and Naomi cleaned their room so well and left an enormous tip that the maid assigned to their floor happily let them hide their work in her cart without any further questions.

"That … worked," Daniel says in disbelieved amazement. "That really worked."

"At least nobody took the free towels that were covering it, although I don't think they would've since I spilled coffee on them," Naomi states. "If someone stole the diamond, then we'd really be screwed."

Emily smiles at her husband as he helps Keith and Naomi set up their makeshift lab again in their room. She can't help but think about how weird marriage is. Although she and Daniel are mostly the same people they've been, the same couple for years, they're now husband and wife. It's different but it's not. It's new but it's old.

A wedding is a day. A honeymoon for a bit longer. A marriage is a lifetime.

That's all that really matters.

Once they're finished, Emily and Daniel head to the elevator to return to their overwater bungalow. He calls for the elevator and they wait, heading faint sounds of a party coming from the beach.

"Thank you," Emily says, holding his hand and locking him close to her.

"For what?" Daniel asks.

"Making marriage so easy."

He laughs a little. "Em, it's barely been a week."

"Barely a week and we were at the edge of a volcano with people wanting to shoot us."

Daniel kisses the side of her head. "I love you."

"I love you…" her voice trails off as she looks up at him expectantly, batting her lashes.

"I love you, my wife."

"Better." She reaches up to kiss him.

-o-

The ongoing days of their honeymoon went by in a blur of sand and sangrias in the sun. Constant days of walks on the beach and swimming in the ocean. Never leaving the other's side as a prelude to their many years together to come. It was true honeymoon bliss under the palms trees and feeling the ocean breeze pass by them at every turn. The chaotic mission with the diamond almost felt like a dream to Emily and Daniel until Keith and Naomi approached them on the beach with smiles that can only radiate good news but seem too plastered to be true.

"The diamond is decoded," Naomi states excitedly as she sits on the end of Emily's beach chair.

Emily sits up and straightens her sunglasses. "Wait, really?"

"We were wrong," Keith tells them. "It wasn't coordinates but a message."

"But the NSFW - NSEW, I mean," Emily corrects.

Keith grins. "Get this, it did start out as coordinates because it was supposed to be a set of coordinates. You were right about the carbon atoms and their bonds, each having a letter or number and then needing to possibly scramble them to get a location. That's what it was looking like but it changed on us last minute, in a blink of an eye. It wasted so much of our time for nothing."

"Wait, what?"

"It started decrypting as we intended but whoever worked on it before us set a program that would shuffle the carbon bonds if anyone, like us, tried to decrypt it. This diamond invalidated the rules of geophysics and encryption. It's beyond genius."

Daniel tries to wrap his head around that information and Keith's amazement, ignoring Naomi glaring at Keith. "But you said it had to be coordinates for that weapons shipment that was seized earlier in the week."

"Because that's what SHIELD told us. They weren't wrong. They just didn't know that the diamond was tampered with - and it's not like they could really call a motion for destruction of evidence since diamonds are the most stable. In essence, the diamond has been tampered with."

"They failed to mention one thing," Naomi says, her tone petty and annoyed, "you know the person who had the diamond before us? So they couldn't solve it, right? Or at least that's what they said and I now believe them. SHIELD said that the person who had it before us was getting death threats to the point where they had no choice but to pass it over to us." Her lips twinge into a smile she tries to hide but fails. "Allegedly, they're in hiding but I don't think it'll last for long. For all we know, their hiding place was already compromised since we got the diamond a while ago."

"So whoever had the diamond before you didn't solve it but changed up the code?" Daniel asks to clarify.

"That might not be the case, given who had it before us." Naomi crosses her arms. "I wholeheartedly believe she solved it and changed the code, and lied to SHIELD about it to fuck us all over. And then she died in a ditch which is karma well-deserved, if anyone asked me."

"I doubt that," Keith says.

Naomi glares at him again. "Don't defend her."

"Who was it?" Emily asks, kind of scared to find out after everything they've been through for a diamond that didn't even have the answers they thought they were looking for.

"Everything about this message reveals answers to questions we didn't think were important when we asked." Naomi laughs a little as she basks in the sun. "Remember when this all started and Daniel brought up who's the geophysics and encryption expert and asking where she is, Emily saying this mission was catered to her, and then joking that this was like our little research team back in the Academy? It all makes sense now. She's haunting us from her ditch."

But at the same time, it doesn't. They piece together the mastermind who had the diamond before them and realize that their work here was essentially a waste. They didn't solve anything and we're still chased and cornered at a volcano for nothing.

They didn't even have to work hard to figure out who had the diamond before them and reconfigured it because she told them herself on the message she left for them to discover:

"Diamonds truly are a girl's best friend. Gen says hi."

Sing it with me: "It was Genevieve all along!"

The story behind Gen will be in the next arc and if she's dead in a ditch! Lucky for you, weekly updates will continue right into the new year.