Disclaimer: The normal storyline ain't mine and neither are any of the characters I use. If they were there would be no way that National Treasure would be suitable for under-15s at best.

A/N: Personally I thought there were too many times that they set up Riley for getting hurt or for there to be Riley/Ben friendship angst and they just chickened out of each one so this is an idea I got that keeps the same storyline but is just a short continuation of the last scene at Mount Rushmore. Now please don't get the wrong idea about my approach to Riley, I love the guy but it just wouldn't work any way. Also, a short heads up that this will only be a three-shot (was originally gonna be a one-shot but one just wasn't enough).

Three Sides: Side One

Riley

Riley looked mournfully at his milkshake in one hand and his bag of Mount Rushmore souvenirs in the other as he strolled through the crowd of history enthusiasts gathered to celebrate the discovery of Cibola who mingled with the normal Rushmore tourists. They'd found the city of gold and they were all still alive; he should have been happy but he knew that whatever new discovery they'd made, things would just end up going back to the way they were, he'd revert back to the unrecognised 'assistant' of the 'glorious' Benjamin Gates.

"Excuse me." A red-haired girl gently pulled on his arm as he passed and turned him round until they were facing each other. "Hey, you're that guy… The treasure hunter guy right?"

Her face was filled with excitement and Riley sighed. Another one of Ben's fangirls.

"No, actually, the guy you're thinking of is somewhere over there." He turned and indicated over towards where he knew Ben and Abigail were. What he wouldn't give for one of these girls to be after him for once.

"No." She smiled and shook her head while Riley watched dumbfounded as she pulled out a copy of The Templar Treasure. "You're him. Riley Poole. I recognise you from your book." He looked up at her. Was this girl for real? "Will you sign it?"

Riley's souvenirs instantly crashed to the floor in his surprise. Was this really happening? Something inside the bag smashed upon impact with the ground but he didn't care.

"Okay." she smiled shyly at him and he couldn't help but return it. "Who's it for?"

"I'm Candice."

"Candice." Signing on the front page was amazing and he took pride in the action. There was no knowing when he'd be asked to do this again. "That's a lovely name." she giggled timidly and peered up at him through her hair. "Here." Their hands touched for a moment as he handed back her book and after a small awkward moment she stuttered her thanks before moving on.

Looking after her and picking up his bag of souvenirs, Riley truly felt that he might have been wrong earlier. Maybe, just maybe, he could be more than he had been before this whole Cibola thing.

"Oh no." the Rushmore mug he'd bought was now in two large and one small piece after its sudden meeting with the ground. "That's seven dollars I'll never see again.

"My heart bleeds for you."

The souvenirs fell to the floor again as Riley spun round and found himself face to face with the blond guy the British voice matched.

"Ian?" Not good. So not good. "Fancy seeing you here. Shouldn't you be-"

"In prison?" he wasn't smiling and neither was Riley.

"Yeah." He swallowed.

Ian had made more than clear during their search for the Charlotte that he didn't much care for Riley's methods, or his humour, or his appearance, or his general existence. Thinking about it, Riley would probably have been dead a hundred times over during the search if not for Ben's high recommendations and protection.

"So…how ya been?"

"In prison."

There wasn't any way this could end well, Riley knew this, but this guy had threatened to kill him ten times before the Charlotte betrayal and then actually pointed a gun at him at least two more times during the actual hunt for the treasure; besides Ben was the one who thought on his feet and got him out of situations like this.

"And yourself?" Ian's face didn't change as he spoke, stuck, seemingly permanently, in a scowl.

"Not bad." Nodding nervously, he saw Ben and Abigail in the distance over Ian's shoulder. If he could somehow signal them without Ian noticing.

"How'd my treasure work out for you?"

"Well…" Riley debated internally whether or not there was an answer to that question which wouldn't get him severely beaten up. "Actually…"

"I hear you have a book. What's it called? How to be useless?" Riley slowly backed away, panicking slightly as Ian stepped forward to keep the distance the same. "How to be taken for granted?"

"Ben!" His voice cracked as he yelled. He didn't expect Ben to hear he was so far away. Ian's taunting was as much a smack in the gut as he remembered; just like old times. "BEN!"

"How to be a second rate sidekick?"

"BE-!" the cry was stopped as Ian smashed his jaw with a left hook.

The floor rushed up to meet Riley and he smacked into it with a deafening CRACK! At least it was deafening for him, reverberating around his head which was bursting with pain. People were scattering away from him; he watched their feet momentarily as they ran from the fight that was surely escalating. Screams filled the air as they escaped and every fibre of Riley's being ached to be able to join them but he could only lay there on his stomach, winded and unable, or was it unwilling, to move. His left cheek was stinging like crazy and although he couldn't see figured it was probably grazed, not too badly but enough to hurt.

There was blood in his mouth; his blood. It tasted bitter and metallic and all sorts of wrong. He spat it out onto the floor beside him and pushed himself up onto his knees.

"Get up!" The scruff of his neck was seized and he was dragged up until he was standing. Ian turned him so they were facing each other again. The smile growing on the blond's face was not spelling happy times ahead for Mr. Poole. "You were always weak."

Smack!

Contact with Ian's right fist was more painful than the first one as it smashed into his already grazed cheek and opened a fresh wound by his ear. More pain exploded and his head began to swim. The people around him were starting to blur slightly and thinking straight was becoming a bit more difficult than he believed was healthy, but he still had enough wits about him to know he wasn't out of the woods yet.

Air was forced out of his lungs as he landed flat on his back which he managed to translate into a cry of pain.

Blood started to accumulate in his mouth and he began choking as it followed the rule of gravity, dripping to the back of his throat.

Choking on his own blood was not something he wanted to do, it would result it pain and death. So he started to panic which just made him choke more which made him panic more. It was a vicious circle and Riley wished someone would break it.

Almost instantly he regretted that thought as a boot made contact with his jaw knocking him onto his side. He spat the blood out onto the floor again and heard a nearby woman gasp in horror.

"What's the matter, Riley? Nothing clever to say?" each word was laden with smugness. Each of them was saying 'where's Ben now?' "No insulting jibes? No witty comebacks?"

"I knew if you worked on those people skills…" he croaked but couldn't finish the sarcastic comment; his jaw was aching and telling him he shouldn't even be thinking about trying to talk but he refused to be silent just because Mr Blond British Moron punched and kicked him a couple of times.

Alright, he was in a fairly large amount of pain and this was the closest he'd come to being beaten up by someone since High School but he wasn't the naïve, weak, dorky, geeky kid that Ian and Ben had found in that blocked off, windowless, solitary cubicle however long ago it was now. He'd changed; not always for the better, he didn't use to shoot his mouth off so much which meant he got into less trouble back then, but Ian still thought of him as the kid who had jumped at the corpse and flinched from the gun all that time ago on the Charlotte.

Truthfully, he would probably be freaked out by the nasty remains now, and he certainly didn't disagree with someone who held him at gunpoint, but the point was Riley had grown. Well, emotionally at any rate; he still had the physique of a naïve, weak, dorky, geeky kid who spent too much time in front of the computer screen and not enough in the real world.

There was an onimous click and Riley tried not to give away the increasing fear that was building up in his chest. Of course he had a gun. He couldn't just leave it at a humiliating pummelling and be done with it; no he had to go and point a gun at him. He swore it was Ian's favourite past time. 'I say, chaps, I'm a bit bored what. How about I point a gun at that young Mr. Poole to pass the time? Why yes, I feel infinitely more interested and not a bit bored what.' Bloody British idiot!

"I told Ben you were a waste of time."

"You were wrong."

Afraid to open his eyes, Riley peered through his lashes and glimpsed Ben stood a short way away from them. Upon seeing his friend, his eyes widened and confidence soared. Ben was stood with the confidence that he always seemed to have when things started going wrong. Hell, it was the same determination that had convinced him that stealing the Declaration of Independence was not only possible but necessary for the good of the country.

"Hello Ben." Ian's smugness was undeterred by Ben's arrival which bashed down Riley's confidence somewhat.

"Ian." There was an awful tension in the air which caused an uneasy feeling to take root in Riley's stomach. "You okay Riley?"

As he opened his mouth to respond, a foot kicked Riley hard in the small of his back forcing his words to be lost in a cry of pain.

"Goddamit Ian!" Ben shouted.

"Heard you found a new treasure." Riley groaned.

Breathing was laboured, his lungs kept constricting when he tried to take anything that vaguely resembled an attempt to take a deep refreshing breath. Trouble was all his organs and muscles and slowly developing wounds were screaming for oxygen as he lay there. Muscles that he didn't know he had were aching horribly. One thing was for sure; he'd have loads of fun getting out of bed tomorrow.

Overall, he concluded, it could be a hell of a lot worse. There weren't any injuries that wouldn't heal after a few days, maybe weeks, of rest and recuperation; and he was still alive, wasn't he? He would have signalled this to Ben if he could but knew that if he let out so much as a squeak that could be interpreted as 'I'm fine', Ian would feel more than obliged to 'correct' that fact.

His shirt was grabbed again and he was hoisted to his feet. Thankfully his legs weren't really damaged and he was able to hold himself up, not that he had much choice about falling down with Ian holding him up by the scruff of his neck.

"And what's to stop me from shooting him?" Ian's gun was roughly force into Riley's temple as he realised that while doing his injury assessment Ben and Ian had continued talking…discussing…arguing? Whatever it was they were doing. "What's to stop me putting a bullet through his head right here?"

"Leave Riley out of this."

"Why, Ben? You're the one who brought him into this. You the reason he's here today." Riley watched as everything about Ben changed before his eyes.

Ben was scared. Everything about him started screaming it, his voice, his manner, his posture; he stopped standing up straight looking to the world to be filled with confidence and bravado, and began to hunch up and reach out pleadingly with his arms.

"Just let him go, Ian."

"What you gonna do Ben?" Ian's tease hissed into Riley's ear and the boy flinched.

Seeing Ben looking so helpless was discomforting. Before, he hadn't looked like this because he'd been able to do something to stop something like this escalating.

When Patrick had been kidnapped, Ben could do as he was told to ensure his father's safety.

When Ian had threatened to kill them all, Ben had given him a fake clue to get him out of the way.

When Mitch had attacked Abigail in Cibola, Ben had agreed to be left behind in order for everyone to get out safe.

Riley groaned and bent double as Ian slammed him in the stomach with his gun.

"Riley!" He heard Ben's cry as if through a window; vague, misty and distant.

He wanted this to be over. He wanted to curl up on the floor and just let the pain wash over him. He wanted Ben to end this but Ben didn't know what to do. The thought kept going round and round in his head, taking every bit of fight he had left in him.

It means if there's something wrong those with the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action.

Ben's words from all that time ago pushed forward to the forefront of his memory. His own reasoning escaped him but at this memory Riley knew what he had to do.

Riley snapped straight up, hoping against all odds that he'd hit the smarmy git's nose as he threw all his force behind it. There was a crunch and a curse as he found his target causing Ian to lose his grip. Ben reached out to Riley and beckoned to him to run towards him. Of course, Riley was all too happy to oblige.

A shot went off and pain exploded in Riley's gut.

Immediately his legs gave way and the floor rushed up to greet him for the third time. Two arms reached out to catch him too late as he fell forward onto the floor with a painful thud. Instantly the arms were wrapped around his torso, turned him over and lifted him partially from the ground. He couldn't see who they belonged to, his vision was swimming with the combination of sudden blood loss, possible concussion and the tears rapidly forming at the corners of his eyes.

"Aah!" His hands had shot to where the pain was amassing and his cry was more from the amount of blood he could feel gushing over his hands than the increase of pain that ran through his torso at the touch.

He'd been shot.

"No, Riley!" Ben sounded like he was going to cry as he grabbed Riley's wrists and twisted them away from the wound. "Leave it! You'll just make it worse!"

Riley struggled against Ben's grip, desperate to get the blood off his hands, or to grasp at his side or do something; anything. His panic was growing.

He'd been shot.

He'd been shot. From behind.

But his hands were dripping with blood, too much blood, and he'd grasped at his front.

"The bullet…" he gasped, feeling the onset of a panic attack as he realised what had happened. "Bullet went through…"

"You're gonna be fine."

"Such…" he laughed weakly, "a bad liar, Ben."

Ian had shot him.

"Aah!" his breaths were coming in gasps now, his lungs somewhat unwilling to function properly. "Ben!"

"I'm here! I'm right here."

The pain wasn't going away; of course it wasn't going away he'd been shot. Great, he was already starting to lose rational thought processes and the pain was getting worse. This would have to happen to him.

"Look at me, Riley!" It was an order and as Riley looked up he could see the blurry outline of what he presumed was Ben above him. "You're gonna be fine."

"Yeah." he croaked. "And there isn't really a map on the back of the Declaration of Independence."

There was a lot of screaming and shuffling about going on around him but Riley couldn't discern anything anymore; the pain was all he felt. Ben's blurry outline was beginning to get even blurrier; all that was really visible now was some sort of shape above him.

"Ben." He didn't have the energy to shout or scream anymore, didn't even have the energy to fight Ben, didn't know what to say or think; there was just the unbearable pain and the growing exhaustion in his entire body.

"Riley!" someone tapped quite harshly on his grazed cheek but he just couldn't muster the energy to keep his eyes open. "Stay with me! Come on, Riley!"

His legs, which he hadn't even realised were flailing, were the first to stop moving. Then his arms slowly lost their strength, which Ben obviously noticed as he released Riley's wrists. One by one, every muscle in his body was starting to relax as he continued to bleed and he felt Ben's grip tighten round his chest in panic.

"Come on! Stay with me buddy!"

"Ben…"

"You just gotta stay awake." Ben was pleading with him, his voice strained but however much he wanted to, Riley was too far gone to be able to try; still Ben kept saying it over and over again. Each repetition of it caused Riley emotional pain on top of the physical. He'd never heard Ben sound so desperate or helpless ever, not when even when him and Abigail had lost the Declaration of Independence to Ian.

"Open your eyes, Riley! Look at me!"

Ben's order was the last thing Riley heard before he finally lost consciousness.