| THE ADVENTURES OF THE O'CONNELL FAMILY Page 20 |
| blinding light and took a few seconds to let his eyes adjust. The sun had just risen to greet the new day and there were only a few people scattered throughout the area. Jonathan took a moment to admire the beauty of it from his high viewpoint. He took it all in�The sun with all it�s oranges and reds�the sand glittering from the suns rays�the clean and kept up palace and it�s surroundings�the woman from his dreams� Jonathan�s heart fluttered, and his head immediately turned back to the direction of his last observation. He put a hand over his eyes to take a bit of the glare off and tried focusing on the figure in the distance, but it was too far of a distance to make out any exact features. The woman was apparently either a thief or hiding from someone, judging by the way she kept her back to walls and was using various carts and shaded areas to move about. It seemed she was heading for the palace. Rick, Evie, and Ardeth had also been taking in their new surrounds. Rick noticed that something had captured Jonathan�s attention. He placed his hand on Jonathan�s shoulder. �What is it Jonathan? Did you find one of them?� Rick was, of course, referring to Bonnie, Seth, or his son. Jonathan shook his head to clear it. �No, sorry chap. I�ve never seen any of these people before.� When this is over, I definitely need to go on holiday, Jonathan thought to himself. He shook his head and mumbled to himself. �The woman from my dreams�� he gave a little snort and continued mumbling to himself. �You�re losing your last bit of sanity ol� boy.� ~*~*~*~*~ Gabrielle was slowly making her way towards the palace. Olympus was keeping watch and would give her a signal if he spotted anything. She knew that Seth and Bonnie were hiding in the palace with Alex in their claws. She had to be careful because Bonnie and Seth knew she would be trying to free Alex once again. She was just about to duck out from under the shade of a building when she felt eyes on her. She froze and with her keen senses, located the person observing her. It was quite a distance away, but she made out the figure of five people high up on the mountain. �That�s odd,� she thought to herself. �How did they get way up there and why would they want to be way up there?� She then remembered Alex telling her about the tunnel that he, Seth, and Bonnie had come through. Surely that must be his parents and a small army of helpers. Her gaze locked on the figure she felt watching her and her stomach fluttered. �I must have eaten something funny,� she mumbled. Now she had a dilemma. Should she try and sneak her way to the group and have backup, but risk getting caught, or should she go on her own to the palace, which was not too far ahead of her now, and risk trying to get Alex alive and most likely fighting Bonnie, Seth, and any followers they may have? She decided she�d have better luck joining Alex�s parents and their small army of five, so she used simple hand gesture signals to tell Olympus of her new plan. Milo ([email protected]) March 25, 2002 Rick nodded as he studied Jonathan's face, squinting his eyes as he tried to think of what the look was Jonathan was wearing. He knew he recognized the gleam in Jonathan's eyes from somewhere, but he couldn't place it. Brushing it aside, he tried to think of the problem at hand, rather than worry with Jonathan's facial expressions. He looked at Evelyn, who was obviously taken by the beautiful past that surrounded her and smiled a bit, glad she'd gotten her mind off of Alex for at least a second. He looked out at the Egyptian sunset and then felt his wife's hand around his arm. "Rick do you know where we are?" "I'm guessing Egypt." Rick answered, trying to make her smile. And she did smile, that cute little smile he loved so much and poked him in the ribs a bit, "Well of course Egypt...but I think that we are in the past!" Evelyn said, that giddy girlish tone in her voice. "So where do you think they kept prisoners or children in Ancient Egypt?" Rick mused. And surprisingly enough she took him seriously, tilting her chin up and looking at him from down her nose, "Well I don't think that-" Suddenly, Jonathan's bit-of-high-pitched scream was heard behind them and Rick and Evelyn spun around to see what was going on. "Cripes! Bloody hell!!" Jonathan was spinning around as Gabrielle and Olympus stood behind him with raised eyebrow expressions glued on their faces. Pressing a hand to his chest and trying franticly to catch his breath, Jonathan pointed at Gabrielle and breathed at her loudly, showing off how petrified he was, "What...are you trying to do to me! Who are y-" It was then Jonathan recognized her...the girl he'd been dreaming of for years. This of course didn't help his breathing/heart attack problems and he started coughing as he blushed like crazy. Gabrielle was trying her hardest to ignore the fact that just weeks earlier she'd had a long conversation with Olympus about this very man from her dreams, and was turning to the very next alternative. Being incredibly hostile. She watched Jonathan with a bit of a sneer as Rick shoved him aside and looked her over. "Who are you?" Rick asked, folding his arms across his chest. "Gabrielle, I've been helping your son, Alex." She replied, trying to make her small self taller than she was, so she'd at least meet Rick's eyes. Evelyn was at Rick's side in an instant, leaving Jonathan in the dust where she was helping him control himself, "Alex? You know about Alex?" ~*~*~*~*~ Gabrielle and Olympus lead the five others to Olympus' hole in the ground home where they filled them in on the situation and fed them what they could spare (and steal). And after going over their plans and assuring Evelyn that Alex was fine when they'd been with him, Rick, Evelyn, Olympus, and Ardeth and Nefret (who'd stayed quiet and on guard) all fell asleep in various places around the house. Jonathan and Gabrielle stayed awake, sneaking glances at each other frequently. Jonathan had also grown hostile to Gabrielle, and looked at her with a glare from the other side of the room, "I wanted to thank you for scaring the bloody hell out of me, by the way." |