To Be Shown the Way (a Mummy 1999 fanfiction)

Bored

Evelyn Carnahan surveyed the room with satisfaction. It had taken her a month to finish coding and cataloguing the library, which had been quite a mess before she arrived, but it was finally complete. Every book was in its place, every book was noted down in the ledger properly ...

And she was bored to tears.

Yes. All this time working, learning, begging people to let her have a position, finally all but blackmailing her way into this job at the museum with reminders of how much money her parents had given to it, not to mention how many artifacts they had donated ... and she was tired of it already. Deep down, she knew she had made her way to Egypt not to live among books, although she loved it; not to keep an eye on her brother, although Heaven knew he needed it; but because she burned to be out there exploring, finding the hidden bits of mythology that lay buried beneath the sands.

What could she do, she thought in despair, looking around her. It had taken so much effort just to get this position, what else was there? No one would let a woman join a dig, particularly not a single woman—and that burned her, too, because Jonathan had no trouble getting accepted on digs, and he had nowhere near the focus or the passion for it that she did. All he wanted was to find a shortcut, purloin some fabulous find and sell it. For what, she wasn't sure, since their parents' fortune was still largely intact. Although his was only so because the terms of the will were so tightly written that he was kept to a yearly income that fell far short of what Evelyn suspected his expenditures must be.

Whatever Evelyn did, she needed to be here, in Egypt, to look after Jonathan. She was the only stable influence in his life, the only person who truly cared for him. Remembering those dark days after their parents had disappeared, the way that Jonathan had taken charge and looked after her, she knew what she owed him. Smiling, she had to admit that she found him charming, as well, and that just maybe he was a stabilizing influence for her as well.

So whatever she did, she had to remain here. Not that she wanted to leave. Everything about Egypt suited her. She was, at heart, still and always, a librarian. But somewhere in her, there was an adventurer, as well, something that wanted to follow in her parents' footsteps and live what she had read so much about.

"I have it," she said out loud to the stillness of the library. "The Bembridge Scholars." She had studied Egyptology her whole life. She knew the language, the history, the people. Surely she was exactly what the Bembridge Scholars were looking for.

Hurrying to the little desk she called her own, she dipped a pen in the inkwell and began to compose a letter.

Rick O'Connell tossed off the last of his whiskey and signaled for another one. He was drinking too much, he knew that. But he was also incredibly, incredibly bored, and at least drinking was something to do. As was passing out from drinking too much.

For as long as he could remember, he'd been drifting. He'd run away in his early teens from the Egyptian orphanage where he'd been raised, already a head and more taller than everyone else there, already restless and searching for something he still had never found, already in trouble with the stern and judgemental nun who ran it basically all the time. The last time she'd tried to take a cane to him, he'd broken it over his knee and walked out the door, never to return.

And that had been the story of his life. Drifting on the streets, he'd learned survival skills—how to fight, how to watch his own back, how to know who to trust to watch it for him when needed. How to charm the ladies ... a skill that had come more or less naturally.

Eventually, he'd joined the French Foreign Legion. On the face of it, to get out of jail time, but the truth was he had leaped at the opportunity as a way to get out of Egypt and maybe find some purpose to a life that up till then had seemed pretty pointless.

Of course, that had gone all to hell when most of his company had been slaughtered in some ruins in the desert, leaving Rick to stagger across the sands and back to civilization with nothing but the clothes on his back. And not many of those by the time he got there.

He still wondered what had been out there. Something had been there, buried under those sands. Something that hadn't wanted him there.

Thinking of it now, he tossed back another drink and got to his feet, the room swimming around him. Not too badly, though. Hours yet to go before he passed out.

"Hey, O'Connell, where you going?" one of the other regulars called out.

He stopped in the doorway and looked back, thinking what a good question that was. Where was he going?

"Guess I'm just looking for a good time," he said at last, and stepped out into the sand and heat of the Egyptian night.