AN: Well, my dudes. I finally did it. In the name of science? and writing research—I ate two whole dill pickles slathered in peanut butter. OH BOY it was...it sure was something. I can't say it was bad and it certainly wasn't good. It just tasted like the way a lucid dream feels. And salt. Lots of salt. That's about the best I can sum it up.

(Also, sorry this chapter is so long - it kind of ran away with me.)

Onward to the feels!


"I can't believe it," Riley declares, though he does look vaguely impressed after hearing the pickle-panic story. "Fooled by the least likely among us."

Ben shrugs, still uneasy. "I suppose this makes us even."

It takes Sadusky a second to get the joke, still lost in the memory of he and Abigail's conversation, and when he does, he throws Ben a dry look that says, 'really?' Jumping into the Hudson to escape FBI custody is one thing but tricking two intelligent men into going swimming? That's quite another.

"It's an intervention-type ruse," Peter says. "Like when you trick a kid into eating their vegetables."

"Not a relevant metaphor." Riley points to Eleanor and her, as usual, interested eyes. She watches the proceedings with studied curiosity. "This tortie eats like a rabbit. She loves vegetables."

Riley follows this up with a disappointed face, as if his niece is a fiend for having the gall not to like unhealthy snacks. He isn't fooling anybody, especially when she reaches for him with grabby hands and Riley rolls his eyes but obliges, her floaties squeaking against his side.

Sadusky notes that, like always, Riley is careful to hold her weight in his right hand and not his left. It's hardly a new trend, and Ben has tried to hoodwink him on more than one occasion into using his left. But Riley, despite all reassurances from both family and doctors, doesn't trust that arm yet.

"No self respect," Riley berates, while setting her on his right hip. "You can't even pretend to be cool like a normal person. Now say my name: Riiillleeeyyy."

"Ahp!" says Ellie.

Riley grumbles. "We have got to work on that."

"Statistically speaking," Ben begins, sitting down on a towel splayed across the sand, "it's a little early for her to be making words yet. Most children say their father's name first anyway. Dad, Ellie. That's the word we're going for."

"No influencing the child!" Riley pretends to cover her ear, bucket hat and all.

"That's cheating, Ri."

"Is it cheating if your daughter likes my bed time stories better than yours?"

"You just retell her old Star Trek episodes!"

Peter laughs at this tidbit of information, though Riley doesn't seem embarrassed. Sadusky knows he shouldn't be surprised by now and yet somehow he always is. They never cease to keep him on his toes.

Riley sets his other hand on his hip. "Better than you, Mr. Historical-re-enactment-of-bloody-wars. Seriously. Everyone knows you don't tell scary things to kids before bed."

"It's educational."

"So are tribbles!"

Ellie—also as usual—keeps her eyes on Riley's lips while he talks, mimicking the up and down tongue, the cheeky, youthful pull of his mouth when he's trying not to smile.

Peter obeys the grabby hands too and walks over so the baby can clutch at his index finger. "She's going to be an academic or researcher like her parents, me thinks."

"Ick." Riley twists so Ellie is out of reach. "That is not a helpful tree thing to say, Peter. Talk about a curse and not a blessing. Don't listen to him, Ellie."

"Are you calling us nerds?" Ben challenges.

Riley doesn't even hesitate. "Uh, yeah."

Abigail sighs but flips her page without protest. "He's got us pegged, Ben. Secret's out. Say, Riley…this is Ellie's first time at the beach."

Riley glances between them. "Great. Mazel tov. I'll build a sand castle with her. What's your point?"

Abigail purses her lips in a thinking motion, though Sadusky can tell by her static eyes that she's not really reading or deliberating. "It's a hot day out. I put the water proof sun screen on her. All that work shouldn't be wasted, right?"

Another of those skeptical, disappointed expressions steals over Riley's face. "You know you're about as subtle as a brick to the face, right? I'm sun bathing and that's that."

Abigail smiles, tranquil. "Worth a shot and since Peter and I's plan backfired, do what you like. I'll just be here but you have fun with your sandcastle!"

One of the kids, about twenty feet or so down the beach, takes a running leap into the water and splashes around. While Ben and Riley visibly jump, Ellie's eyes track this movement and she lights up.

"Yga! Pffww!"

"No," Riley argues, in a completely normal tone of voice. "We are not doing that."

"Yggrrrdd!"

"You are an insistent little creature."

Ellie grins up at Riley and bats his nose.

"And your wife is the worst," says Riley, walking by Ben. "Alright, Smelly Ellie. Let's get this over with to make Mom happy."

Peter forgoes the lawn chair he brought and takes the spot next to Ben on the beach towel. Together, they watch Riley edge along the water, an old quarry that got turned into a lake for recreational purposes, before finding a sandy spot his bare feet apparently don't mind the feel of. He crouches down, plunking Ellie right at shallows where the water laps gently at her knees, and hands her a plastic shovel to play with. Thus freed, Riley keeps his arms folded. They're tight, revealing how vulnerable and exposed he probably feels right now, alone near the water.

Ben, for his part, hardly blinks. His back is pillar straight and there's a hitch in his breathing, however quiet, that's hard to miss. Sadusky suspects that the only reason they've stayed so calm thus far is because this is a lake—

No running water.

It's placid until someone stirs it up, an intentional choice on his part that he'd recommended to Abigail instead of the indoor pool idea, with its gushing slide and reverberating sounds.

"Are we really messed up that badly?" Ben asks. The words are small and flinty at the same time, like he's dropping river pebbles one by one onto Peter's head.

Sadusky hums in thought. "It's more how worried Abigail and I are, how much it's affecting your ability to live life."

"I knew I should have been helping with bath time."

"Ben." Sadusky shifts closer to catch and keep the man's eye. "This isn't about Ellie. This is about you. This is us seeing a chain wrapped around your throat. Doesn't matter what the fear is. If it's crippling you to this extent, then its wearing you down, little by little. We just want to stop that before there's nothing of you both left."

Ben's eyes follow Riley when he stands and steps away from the water, so his feet are back on hot sand.

"Abigail told me about that story with the dog…" Ben's voice is quiet, fragile with emotion from watching the two youngest members of this strange family interact. "The agent was you, wasn't it?"

Peter smiles. "If it makes you feel better, I still freeze up when a dog sniffs at me in the park sometimes. Even a wiener dog."

Riley's back in the water now, just his toes, so that he can supervise Ellie's crawling forays around the shoreline. Their keen eyes track Riley's halting motions, the way he stops and grabs Ellie back once he's up to his shins. Even Abigail has given up pretense of reading and set down the magazine so she can watch.

"I can't say I'm not angry about this scheme you and Abigail cooked up." Ben shakes his head. "But seeing how my flashbacks influenced Riley…I get it. I'm hurt but I get it. The whole fever episode was a wake up call."

Now that Ben says it, Sadusky spies the lingering paleness around Riley's features, how tired he looks. A lesser version is mirrored on Ben, amplified by the sun screen in places where it hasn't been rubbed in properly. Combined with sickness, it's clear they haven't been sleeping properly.

"Sometimes family means helping someone even when they don't want it." Peter swallows down that burning sensation when it threatens to make a reappearance. "Sometimes the best way to save someone is to show them they need saving at all."

Ben cants his head, considering Sadusky in a new light, but just nods. He seems more interested in the words themselves, and Sadusky catches him mouthing 'family' to himself a few times with amusement curling in vivid shades at his mouth.

Some ducks float in the reeds near the shaded, tree-lined side of the lake, about ten yards in the other direction. Their quacking bounces across the water on this windless day, right to Ellie's ears. Her face stretches into a gasping, elated smile.

"Grrrrraahh!" she squeals and treads into the water.

"No…" Riley realizes what she's about to do a hair too late. His eyes widen. "No! Hey!"

He scrabbles forward only to do a baseball-worthy slide and tumble in…

Flat on his stomach, up to his ears. He levers himself up on his elbows and coughs out a mouthful of water.

Ellie is fine, of course, floaties around her waist and arms, along with a natural infant survival sense, keeping her arms moving in a windmill pattern through the water. She's trying desperately to get to the ducks, which only serves to force her into a gawky circular motion. Abigail snickers at the sight, a huge gesture of trust in and of itself, that she's not worried one bit for her child so long as Riley is present.

Ben, on the other hand—

"Riley! Riley!" He's in motion before Abigail finishes laughing. He rockets off his spot so fast that it sprays sand into Sadusky's lap. "I'm coming!"

This might not be the exact truth. He does come—right up until the water touches his ankles. Then he stops, panting. The water, warm as it is, is still cold enough to freeze him in place through memory alone. His eyes dilate out, a faint judder of air leaving his lungs in a terrified gasp. Ben shakes and shakes.

Abigail is about to rush off her spot too when Sadusky holds out his arm. He snaps his fingers urgently to get her attention and then shakes his head emphatically once he has it.

"Wait," Sadusky breathes. "Just wait…"

Abigail jumps to standing but doesn't budge any farther.

Sadusky would be right beside her, ready to contain Ben's obvious fear, if he hadn't quickly spotted Riley:

Who now has Ellie propped high on his bad shoulder.

Riley looks…startled more than anything. He's not even deep enough for the need to tread water since his feet touch the bottom, knees slightly bent so the water laps at his stomach, and it's a good thing he'd taken off his glasses before entering, since Ellie's previous escape attempt and subsequent fall has left his face drenched. He blinks at the lake water, clearly nervous, but with a burgeoning hint of something that takes a moment to mature into a certain emotion.

"Ben?" he prompts.

Nothing. Ben just stares at him, then the water.

"I'm okay, Ben," says Riley, in a velvet soft tone Sadusky has never heard him use before. "See? We're both fine."

Ben again makes no reply other than a quick nod, though he's breathing fast and trembling hard enough to cause small ripples in the surrounding water.

Riley cants his head. "I'm not scared if you're not."

And there's the crux of it, really, the fact that Riley is only scared of the water due to his already dubious track record with swimming and the fact that he's a canyon echo of Ben's feelings. If Ben laughs, Riley is usually right there along with him. If Ben gets nervous about something, so is Riley.

Riley makes sure to keep his head—and Ellie—above water at all times, but he bobs up and down, creating bubble sized waves that keep the smile on Ellie's face. Sparing her only a glance, Riley's eyes stay locked on Ben. With his free hand, he undulates his fingers back and forth along the water's surface tension, just testing it out, trying to gauge how both he and Ben feel about it.

Sadusky finally identifies the emotion written in smooth folds across Riley's skin—

Curiosity.

"I haven't been submerged in water since I was sixteen years old," Riley confesses quietly, so quiet, in fact, that Sadusky almost doesn't hear it. "How 'bout that? And no, almost drowning under a mythical city totally does not count."

Ben has apparently chosen to become mute, shoulders still heaving in that wordless spiral, but he's at just the right angle that Sadusky can see his face and the moment his brows draw back, leveling out. His pupils shrink just a hair, enough for his eyes to flick to Riley's chest and watch it breathe normally, no choking or distress.

He doesn't check the bullet wound like he's prone to, which Peter finds endlessly fascinating.

Terrorized by a different memory, then.

"A bunch of friends and I snuck out at night," Riley goes on, spinning the scene for Ben to appreciate, to ground him in the here and now. "There was this party at someone's cottage and it was a lake, just like this. The water was still warm from the summer day. Also just like this."

Ellie burbles and Riley lifts her down, holding her out so she can waddle and flap her way over to Ben. Ben reawakens long enough to bend down and assist his daughter in her usual, meandering crawl back to shore. Abigail comes forward and scoops her up. She whispers to Ellie so as not to disturb the very careful, wet hand Riley reaches out to Ben.

Ben, who hasn't run back himself because he's worried about Riley. Because he doesn't want a repeat of past experiences.

Ben swallows and croaks out, sounding almost inhuman. "That's enough. Come on. Please, Riley, let's go."

"I was cool in my high school days, if you can believe that." Riley continues his story in an upbeat voice, as if this is any other boring, lazy day Saturday and Ben's behaviour is totally normal. "But it was mainly because I hacked the school's lunch menu and helped everybody pass computer science. They weren't really friends, I learned, when they proceeded to dunk me in the lake, knowing full well I'm not a strong swimmer because I never had lessons. That was fun."

Ben twitches. Some ingrained justice meter sounds an alarm at just this shadowed ghost of mistreatment against Riley. Like he can personally vanquish the unique brand of threat only high school bullying provides, with all its scars and brush offs.

Riley shrugs, stirring the water further. "I lived Ben, both times. Some random kid, trained as a lifeguard, dove down and saved me that night, just like I got you in the tunnel. Just like we're going to be okay right now."

He wriggles the fingers on his still-stretched-out left hand. It's at once apparent that this is an intentional choice, since Riley hardly ever trusts anyone to touch it. Even Abigail won't pat the limb if he's not expecting it or can't see her coming. Only Ben is allowed close enough to bump or stroke or examine it.

Riley's voice drops, not quite a whisper but gentle enough that it matches the faith token of his offered hand. "Ben, you've asked me to trust you in situations that I had no idea how we'd get out of. And you always kept us safe, every time."

Ben exhales, hard, through his nose, lips so pinched they're barely visible. He runs a hand down his face.

"It's my turn, Ben." There's a dip around the edges of Riley's eyes, earnest and sad. "Just trust me, okay?"

Because Ben does trust Riley, heart, mind, and soul and partly, Sadusky suspects, because Ben can never deny his friend anything when his eyes look like that—Ben reciprocates. His hand stretches out, slow at first and then gaining momentum.

Their palms touch before their fingers do, Ben's big enough to eclipse Riley's, especially when he closes his fingers.

A minnow fast, darting smile changes Riley's whole demeanor for a breath. Then he's back to serious. "Feel that? The water's not even cold, especially near the surface here."

Ben nods again, jilted. "Riles…"

Riley quickly talks over him. "And you love scuba diving, right? You used to promise me lessons, way back in the day. You were worried about me getting stuck somewhere with a current. You used to lecture on and on about undertows whenever we got near the ocean."

"You listened to that?" Ben can't seem to help but ask.

"Of course. Just because you're a one-man lecture tour, doesn't mean some of it isn't interesting."

Ben breathes out a strange sound, not even in the same zip code as a laugh but cathartic none the less. Emotion charged with something foggy, like Ben can't decide how he feels about all this either.

"You can lecture," Ben's quipped argument doesn't match his fretting eyes, fixated on the water surrounding Riley. "Don't think I'm ignorant of the fact that all the History Channel's sudden influx of alien 'documentaries' are your doing."

The grin is back, sly and puerile. "I have connections too, young padawan. You never listen to my coding rhetoric, so at least we're even."

"Yes, I do." Ben's hand squeezes, knuckles white. "You taught me some Javascript last year."

The water splashes again when Riley reaches up to scratch his nose. Ben starts at the sound. "Uh-huh. And how much of that do you remember?"

"Enough to change all the fonts on your browser to hot pink."

"Ha!" Riley keeps his right hand in the water, still tracing Mobius strips next to his ribs. "You wish."

Suddenly Ben's arm resists, so strong and unexpected that Riley sloshes towards him. "Wait."

"Ben—"

Though the shakes don't return full force, his wide eyes do. "I can't, Riley. I have to get out, please."

Riley's back goes taut, straight in a flash, out of sheer surprise. His hand stops moving. "Did Ben Gates just tell me there's something impossible, outside of his purview?"

The pieces of Riley's face twist before arranging themselves into a portrait of swift decision.

"Ben—is there a current?"

The man blinks, his hand in a strangle hold now. If it hurts, Riley doesn't show the pain on his face. "What?"

Riley stands his ground. "Are you in danger of being swept away?"

"Of course not. This is a lake."

"And is it cold?"

"Not…" Ben swallows. "Not really."

"And it's sunny, right? We're not underground or surrounded by weird little golden statues."

Ben sighs, suddenly looking a decade older. "We're not under the city, Riles. I know where we are."

"Great! Because I need you to stand there."

"Why? What are you—"

Without warning, Riley flips on his back so he's truly weightless, and a small cry of alarm pierces through the thick cotton in Ben's throat. He struggles forward, his other hand joining the first around Riley's left arm. Riley doesn't lose his smile, but he allows Ben's considerable, adrenaline fueled strength to pull him back and upright. He has no hope of resistance or putting up a fight anyway, as Sadusky has personally seen Ben lift Riley off his feet in a one-armed hug when on dry land, let alone water, though he seems to have expected this outcome.

"Riley!" Ben's voice is harsh out of distress. "What are you doing? You don't know how to swim!"

Riley looks him dead in the eye, and though his hair, already drying, is sprouting up in a million directions from the splash and he's wearing aloha red Hawaiian swim trunks and his skinny torso is dotted with a bullseye bullet scar—that thousand watt stare is enough to send a shiver down Peter's back and it's not even directed at him.

"So teach me."

Ben draws back as if slapped, still possessively clutching Riley's arm. "Are you kidding me?"

"Ben. Look down."

The response is immediate, and when he does, Ben isn't the only one struck dumb: Riley is weightless even at this close distance, feet floating off the bottom.

Sadusky finally sees that Riley has been creeping steadily backwards from the moment Ben took his hand. They've traversed a significant distance, in context, almost four feet. The water's higher now, at Ben's ribs and nearly up to the tips of Riley's clavicle. Ben, of course, has the luxury of height and his feet still touch, now dug deep into the sediment out of opposition to this sneaky ruse.

"You…" Ben looks closely at his friend, then at his own hands around the now red limb. "Your feet…"

Riley's smile turns fond. "Ben—I've been free floating for ten minutes now, ever since you grabbed my hand. The water's too deep for my height. You've held me up, all this time."

Ben goes mute again.

"I figured it out, see." Riley grabs a handful of Ben's rash guard to pull himself closer, still counting on Ben to carry him. "You're only ever afraid of water when it's me near it. Am I getting warmer?"

Either that splash episode has dampened Ben's face or he's having a full break because his cheeks glisten in the sun. His face is peanut brittle, snapping under the heat of a truth he's been avoiding for over a year.

"It's not running water you don't trust." Riley drives his point home with a pat to the hand plastered around his forearm. "It's you around water you don't trust, like you're going to get me killed or some such noble bull crap."

Ben side eyes him, still keeping keen tabs on Riley's feet and the fact that he's bent them tighter so Ben can feel the pull of his body weight under his hands. That he's the only thing keeping Riley afloat.

"You almost died that day, Riley. When you dove down for me…I saw the way you struggled, how you had to hold my shoulder to keep your head above water once we got on the other side of the door."

This ox kick to the sternum admission has Sadusky leaning forward, breathless with the details that he's only ever heard allusions to. Their Cibola statements didn't cover gritty details like this, the agony of knowing someone might die and the guilt that it might be your fault. The blanks begin to fill in, their standoffish behaviour with federal personnel that day, even while they gushed about the discovery. Their mouths excited but their eyes mistrustful. How Riley hadn't let go of Ben's jacket for a solid two hours after they came out and Ben had insisted on having them all in his eye line at all times.

Riley slips a thumb under Ben's. That velvety tone is back, something old and musty and achingly familiar, from a time in their history Sadusky and Abigail have never gotten to see. "But I didn't. And neither did you. Know why?"

This time Ben's release of air is most definitely a sob, no matter what he'll try to pass it off as later. "No. I really don't."

"Because we trust each other. It's obvious and it's a cliché—but it's true. We're not going to leave each other behind just because things get hard, even if we have to trick each other into a lake."

He inclines his head to Sadusky, who tips his hat with that crackling, crème brulee sizzle in his chest.

"You're not going to get me killed, Ben."

"I know that."

"I really don't think you do." Riley shakes his head. "But that's going to change, starting today. Starting right here at this kiddy pool of a lake that we were both somehow fooled into arriving at."

Ben flicks a piece of loose grass off Riley's chin. "You blame Abigail, but I think you pulled the wool over my eyes the most today."

Riley squeezes their hands once, Ben's fingers tight as a bowstring. "So…will you teach me? Because you're the best swimmer I know, the only person who's ever promised to keep me safe and followed through. I know you won't stop now."

Ben meets his gaze to have one of those classic, silent conversations.

Riley quirks his brow and says out loud, "Just ten minutes. Ten minutes in the water, Ben. Abigail and Peter are right there if something goes wrong."

A hush ensues after this proposed bargain, both in the children playing down the beach, Ellie's burbled chatting with Abigail, and the ducks quacking while Ben thinks this over. He watches light dance over the lake's pristine surface. It sheens off Riley's dark cloud of hair, highlighting the even, easy breathing of his chest.

"Ten minutes."

Riley lights up at Ben's words. "Yes!"

If Ben, or Sadusky for that matter, had any hesitation about letting this experiment go forward, it's banished by the fastidious way Riley guides his friend deeper into the water. Ben doesn't let go of the youth for a second, but the minute he gets deep enough that he has to tread with his legs, something of his usual confidence pops to the surface. His muscles relax, remembering what to do.

For the first few minutes, Ben guides Riley through the motions of how to kick with his legs, how to tread with correct form. He gets overwhelmed at one point, when Riley accidentally sprays water over his face, so Peter changes spots, sitting in the shallows of the lake, elbows propped on his knees. Ben sees that he's closer and his anxiety loses steam.

"Thank you for this."

Abigail slides down next to Peter, Ellie in the hollow of her crossed legs. She's got a foam starfish to play with this time. When one of the ducks swims by, she quacks in reply.

Peter smooths a hand over the baby's thicket of curls. "You never have to thank me. I'm grateful that you let me do this."

"It wouldn't be possible without you." Abigail's own tears flow freely, despite the relief in her voice. "I haven't seen Ben this comfortable around water since I met him. Thank you, Peter."

He keeps his eyes on Riley's frolicking while reaching over and slipping an arm around Abigail's shoulders.

Once the sun starts to touch the treetops—they end up swimming for over thirty minutes—Ben front crawls back to shore one armed, tugging Riley along behind him like a freighter. They're hand in hand now, shifted upwards to keep Riley from swallowing water, and Riley only lets go once he's at ankle height, collapsing in the sand. Sadusky flips his panama onto Riley's head since he's starting to sunburn.

"Swimming is tiring."

Ben stands over Riley, dripping. "I keep telling you to exercise more."

"Exercise, as in cardio? Please. Blasphemy will not be tolerated in this family."

Ellie spots her father. "Huppaa!"

It's Ben's turn to light up, shaky and tired as he still is. "That was almost my name!"

"Yeah right." Riley sits up. He claps to catch Ellie's attention. "I hope you saw the impressive swimming your uncle Riley did. Riiill—"

The starfish socks him squarely in the stomach. "Hey!"

Abigail smirks at him. "What if I want her to say 'Mom' first?"

"The soft 'o' is phonetically more difficult to form wit her soft palate at this age," Ben points out. "Not to mention the lip curl needed for an 'm' consonant."

Abigail deflects the star that Riley throws back at her scowling face. Nobody buys it, especially with the way she's still faintly crying. "Way to steal my fun."

During all this, Sadusky has been baffled by the way Ellie stares up at him. He tickles her under the chin and this earns him a hiccuping giggle. Then, because she's already got the meditative Gates genome, she looks between her parents, her uncle-brother, and this old agent who worries over them all late into the night with something calculating.

Her very first puzzle.

And something alights in those periwinkle eyes that can't be stopped, a forest fire, a runaway train. Fortitude personified in a familiar, hybrid look.

Ellie breaks into a huge smile and opens her mouth wide—

" 'Appy!" She shrieks. "H…appy!"

The other three halt a petty, half baked scientific argument to stare at their child. Ellie can't seem to stop laughing and their shocked expressions only fuel her mirth, like she's just pulled her very own trick.

In a way, she has.

For some esoteric reason, the trio looks to Peter for help. He shrugs. "Nobody said her first word had to be a name."

Ellie seconds this with a squirm of delight. "Happy! 'Appy 'appy 'appy!"

It's probably just a random vocalization, not really a word, but she's imitating the sounds Abigail and Ben have taught her, including 'sad' and 'happy.' Certainly her enjoyment is very real.

Riley is the first to crack, his lips quivering and then he's off giggling too, which keeps Ellie going in a vicious cycle.

The ash behind Peter's eyes returns with a vengeance, scalding up through his sinuses and cauterizing all the unstable pieces clattering around inside his throat. This time, instead of tears, the love surges up into a breathless peace. He isn't sure he's breathed this freely since before Katherine died.

He pulls Ellie into his own lap, pressing a kiss over her forehead. "Me too, Ellie. Me too."


AN: Thanks for reading! :D