What if... Walt made a different choice?

Scratch that, Anubis does the talking

"Walt, stay with me," Anubis urged. "We have business to finish."

"Business to finish?" I cried. I'm not sure what came over me, but I felt as if I'd just been Photoshopped out of my own book cover. And if there was one thing I wasn't used to, it was being ignored. "Anubis, what are you doing here? What is going on with you two? And what bloody business?"

Anubis frowned at me, as if he'd forgot my presence. That didn't do much to help my mood. "Sadie—"

"I tried to tell her," Walt groaned. Anubis helped him sit up, though Walt still looked awful. The lake of questions expanded.

"I see," Anubis said. "Couldn't get a word in edgewise, I guess?"

Walt managed a weak smile. "You should've seen her talking to Neith about Jelly Babies. She was like...I don't know, a verbal freight train. The goddess never stood a chance."

"Yes, I saw," Anubis said. "It was endearing, in an annoying sort of way."

"I beg your pardon?" I wasn't sure which of them to slap first.

"And when she turns red like that," Anubis added as if I were some interesting specimen.

"Cute," Walt agreed. 

"So have you decided?" Anubis asked him. "This is our last chance."

"Not yet. I'll have to ask her."

"Right," Anubis said.

Walt turned to me. "Sadie Kane, You know we've both felt something the first time we met. I was scared of hurting you if I... died... But now Anubis might have found a crossroads." He groaned.

"What?"

"I want to know if I still have something I left latched in this world. I was destined to die, I knew. King Tut's line had been frail after him, anyway. I need you to decide for me, Sadie Kane, if it would hollow you out if I died."

"What?"

Anubis tried to interject, maybe to clear things up, but Walt seemed determined.

"Tell me... if we came out of this together, would you... would you go out with me?"

"Oh." That wasn't an answer.

Walt was paling now, his breath steadily slowing down, his blood flowing slow. In a few moments, his body will... He was in so much pain, that every breath was lung-splitting... 

Still, he held on, waiting for me to say, even if it broke him. He needed to know.

I gave him that.

"We've gone through so much and you're asking me if I... Well, tell you what? I do! But I've seen you look at Jaz and the way you looked at Anubis and I, and I knew it would never happen. You've always been a brother—WALT!" I screamed the last word, as he nodded to Anubis and he went slack in Anubis's arms. 

Silence.

In my mind, the clink of the copper-brown trinkets and amulets and all the random things that used to unknowingly resound in my mind just kind of became... muted.

"Why did you say that?" Anubis said in a deathly whisper as he set him down.

"It," I said, just as quiet. "was the truth."

"I see."

"Walt, I'm so, so sorry. I didn't... You were my friend. But I never..." I faltered. Tears gathered in my eyes. I forced them down. It was no use now.

Anubis just pressed a hand onto Walt's forehead and muttered a chant. Both of us looked at Walt, finally at rest, free from pain and the curse he bore over his head.

Our friend.