Title: When the Past Comes to Life
Subject: I know the title may seem a little misleading, but this isn't really about Egypt.  Anywho, O'Connell questions Evie about her past and what really happened to her parents.  This is just my little twist on what might have happened to our favorite brother and sister's mum and dad.
Disclaimer: Even after all the legal battles I don't get to keep Brendan Fraser!
Rating: G
Warning: There will be a couple flash backs, I'll try and make it known to the reader when they happen.
Now on to the story…



Evelyn sat in the library of her father's old mansion, looking around in awe about the whole situation.  She and daring legionnaire Rick O'Connell were to be married in three days time, yet she wasn't quite sure how they had become so compatible.  Meeting about a month before, at the Cairo prison, she had seen him as nothing but a lowly officer who bit off more than he could chew, but their meeting at the Giza Port was all together a different notion.  
Seeing him as the type of man that wouldn't take her seriously, she drug her brother Jonathan along for the ride, and so the story was played out.  O'Connell showed up dashing as ever and her heart pulled flips down the Nile.  Until they were attacked, then he proved to be dashing AND advantageous, not to forget handsome yet a complete scoundrel.
Sighing, she stood and looked at a pile of books having yet to be categorized.
"All in a days work."  She mumbled to herself as she set to the task at hand when Jonathan and O'Connell walked into the room.
"Morning baby sister."  Evie looked up from her writings as she heard Jonathan's muffled voice and O'Connell's grunt.
Sporting a black eye and a severely bleeding nose, Jonathan sat down at the chair in front of her desk.  O'Connell looking very much the same with a large bruise starting to show on his cheekbone and another along his jaw-line, the two made a nice match.
"For goodness sakes you two."  She growled, standing up and fumbling in her purse for a handkerchief to hold to her brother nose as she glared up at Rick.  "I trust that since he's trying to staunch the flow of blood you'd take it upon yourself to tell me exactly what happened?"  she questioned, hands akimbo and a small smirk on her face.
"Well, good mate here Jonny boy decided that with me around he could pick a fight with anyone he wanted.  So he accused a man about three times my size that he was cheating.  Next thing I know I'm tackling him while he has brother dearest in a choke hold bigger than life.  Then from this starts a huge pub fight, which we're in the middle of by the way, thanks to your ever so daring brother."  Rick snarled in Jonathan's direction as Evie looked at a gash above his temple.
"How on earth did you get this?"
"Oh, that would be when Jonathan picked up a chair and threw it, intending to hit the man strangling me and missing by…oh…about ten feet!"  he shouted as she did her famous sigh.  "It's not that big of a deal Evie, we're both fine."  He mumbled, looking over at his fiancee with his American smile.
Evie took him by the hand and lead him from the room, leaving Jonathan to take care of his own nose.  Which she knew he was accustomed to do.  "I still can't believe that you two got into a fight, for goodness sakes O'Connell, we've been here for…"
"Rick."  He corrected as she helped him sit at the kitchen table.  Taking a cloth and going to the icebox she pulled out some large pieces.  Swaddling them up she placed it into his head with a thump and a cry.
"Sorry, I do try not to call you O'Connell, but it's very difficult.  I'll get it I promise."  She smiled, leaving the room to fetch some iodine.
"I don't need it."
"Yes you do, and if you hold still it won't hurt as much."  She lied as she dabbed the liquid over his wound making him squeak.  "You're extremely manly, but you can be a baby when you wish can't you?"
"I prefer to call it acting."  He laughed, pulling her to sit next to him.  "Let's talk Evelyn, we really don't do much of that lately, and well, getting married in three days is really big.  I mean, a big step and I just want to make sure that you're, you know, ready to deal with the whole…thing.  And I'm rambling, I know."  He laughed, looking down at his hands as she smiled, crossing one knee over the other.
"I know that it's a big step, but I feel that everything will pan out just fine."  She winked over at him.  "So, what was your childhood like O'Con…Rick?"
"Well, it started out like any other, a mum and a dad, but not quite the kind I would have wished for.  By the time I was ten my father had just gotten back from the foreign legion.  Persuading my brother to join, he went off and got himself killed, then it was my turn.  Of course I was always my mother's favored child, and she talked him into letting me stay home until I was a bit older, and that was when he was back into action.  We were living in Cairo at the time, and this made it difficult to stay out of trouble.  Dad never came home and my mom couldn't take care of me and my little sister, so we were taken to an orphanage.  Of course by the time I'd been there three years I had to leave.  No one wanted a thirteen-year-old boy to raise, he's already grown up.  My sister was adopted and I never saw her again, and then I decided that I should try and make something of myself."  He sighed, leaning back in his chair as he remembered the day that Elizabeth had been adopted.  (Buckle up folks, here we go.)
~~~Cairo-1909~~~
"Come on O'Connell, do it."  Beni encouraged in his Hungarian accent as he and Rick stood on the other side of the headmistress' office door.
"I don't know, what if I get kicked out?"
"Of an orphanage, you're complaining?"  retorted Beni, handing him the frog.  "You can do it!"  he cheered in a whisper as Rick opened the door, finding her currently out of her office.
Tip-toeing around the back side of the desk, he found her desk drawer wide open, sliding the amphibian into the drawer and closing it, he turned to leave when he heard her voice coming down the hallway.  Panicking, and filled with wonder why Beni didn't tell him that she was coming, he dove under her desk and tucked himself into a ball in the corner, hoping she wouldn't have to sit down and write anything down.  Unfortunately, she walked around her desk as a young man and woman followed her into the office.  Picking up his feet and pushing himself above them he followed the conversation.
"She's a wonderful young girl, four years old this spring.  A fine choice if I do say so myself."  She rambled, and he wondered who was leaving.
"We thought that she was lovely, especially when we introduced ourselves and she riddled off her entire name.  Elizabeth Francine O'Connell, who on earth named that child."  The snotty voice merely chuckled, looking at the papers that were in front of her.  "It is an awful lot of money for one little child.  Are you sure that this is a good deal?"
Rick nearly fell on top of Mistress Hafez's feet at the mention of his little sister as she soon-to-be-deported.  
"Don't worry any, she's a good worker, perfect for the type of business that you run, but because you aren't taking the child as any personal affect of your own I'm going to have to charge you extra.  I'm afraid that I'm not legally allowed to sell children for any purpose other than being taken into a warm family, but I'm sure we can work out a deal."
An hour later, the transaction had been delt with and she walked them out of the room.  Flopping to the ground, Rick began to cry.  They were selling his baby sister for cheap labor, and it disgusted him.  A familiar voice called his name.
"O'Connell, come on!  She just walked down the hallway, let's go!"  he grabbed him and hauled the boy from the room.
~~~Back to 1923~~~
"As I looked down the hallway to see that rich couple take Libby's hand and lead her from the building, and I never saw her again.  I raised her while dad was away, mom never really cared anything about us so I got to take care of her."
"Oh Rick, I'm so sorry."  Evie mumbled, scooting her chair closer and laying her head on his shoulder.
"Well, after that I started working at the cazbah with a guy named Ari, and I began training for fights, being that I was the only kid there that could hold my own against the others, and I made some money.  And I got really neat muscles."  He grinned down at her, kissing her forehead.  "Then I set off to see the world.  Got all the way up to Paris by the time I was nineteen and ran out of money, the only way that I could have survived is by joining the French Foreign Legion, and so I joined.  Then we went to Hamunaptra, went to join for abandoning my legion, met you and well, here I am now."  He explained and sighed.
"You've had it tough haven't you?"  she asked, looking up at him.  "How's your head?  We've forgotten about that."  Laughing, she stood and took the ice pack away.  "I think you'll be fine, you don't need stitches but I'm sure you'll feel it in the morning."
"Evie, tell me about when you were a kid."  Rick asked as she began to warm up some tea.
"Well, it's not quite as eventful as yours, but I think it'll do just fine."  Getting her tea ready, she handed him a strong glass of coffee and sat next to him at the table.
"Jonathan was ten when I was born, and he always said that I looked exactly like my mother, I heard that she was very beautiful, and Egyptian.  My father was an explorer, so she taught him the ancient language, as well as my brother.  After I was born she began to continually get these flashes, where she would collapse onto the floor and run a high fever.  And then there was the coughing.  When I was two she died of the consumption, and I don't really remember anything about her.  I try, but I can't even see images.  That's when my father gave me this locket, to always remember what my mum looked like.  He really wasn't ever the same after she died, Jonathan began to take care of me more and more each day, and by the time I was for it was constant.  My father would go on any expedition that he could get his hands on, leaving Jonathan in charge of everything.  Living in Cairo at the time it wasn't too difficult.  When I was ten my father was leaving for another dig, but he still wouldn't let me go with him.  I wished to see the ancient part of Egypt for years, but I was always staying at home with Jonathan.  Who loved to take care of me, but was twenty years old.  Anyway, my father left me a picture of himself as a reminder, and he put it into my locket.  When I asked him what the picture was for, he just nodded and said, 'My dearest Evelyn when I'm gone I'll know I have a place close to your heart'.  I dismissed it as being an act of fatherly love, but he never came back from the dig.  His partners said that he accidentally triggered the collapse of a tunnel, but I didn't believe that it was an accident.  My father knew the language too well, he read up on every place that he went.  I didn't believe that it was suicide either, but who am I to judge.  I was only ten at the time.
Later we found that he'd been murdered,  My father's partner, Lord Cunningham decided that he didn't want to have only half of the take on that particular dig, so killed my father and took the artifacts for himself.  Lamely told, Jonathan still had the job to tell me that my father hadn't dies in an accident.  (Again, yet another cheap suspenseful flash back.)
~~~Cairo 1910~~~
"Evie, sit down I want to tell you something."  Jonathan ushered hi baby sister into their father's library.  "I know you think that daddy was killed in an mishap, but that's not how it happened."
"I don't want to talk about it Jon, I want to read my book."  She growled, tears forming in her eyes at the mention of their late father.
"Please listen, Mr. Cunningham killed him, he wanted the money, so he killed daddy because of the things that they found in Edfu."  He continued to explain the story to a sobbing Evelyn.  After a while he walked her up to her room, helped her get ready for bed and read her a story.
"Jon, what will we do now without daddy around?  Are you going to be the new daddy?"  Laying in bed with her porcelain doll, she looked up at her older brother with wonder in her eyes.
"I'll be what ever you want me to be baby sister."  He smiled, kissing her forehead and turning down the light.  He walked across the hall to his bedroom and stripped down to his boxers.  Debating on whether or not to drink himself into a stupor, he decided against it as she climbed into the cold bed.
After drifting off for about an hour, he heard a small shuffling noise next to his bed.  Sitting up he reached for the small gun he had sitting on the nightstand, he saw the silhouette of Evelyn at the door, porcelain doll in hand.
"Jon, may I sleep with you tonight?  I can't sleep well."  She begged, a slight whimper to her voice.  Learning all the tricks of the trade to get Jonathan's permission to do just about everything and anything, she saw him smile.
Patting the covers, he helped her up next to him.  "Sleep sweet baby sister."  He smirked and pulled her against him.
"Sleep sweet Jon."  She sighed, drifting into slumber on his shoulder.
~~~Back to 1923~~~
"I never thought about it too hard, and goodness knows I'd never say it straight to him, but I do believe that Jonathan is my hero."  She sighed, looking up from her long since cold tea into her soon to be husband's face.  
"Wow, I never thought that Jonathan and I had so much in common.  I suppose I didn't give him enough of a chance did I?"
"No, I suppose neither of us did."  Looking at the clock on the counter she noticed the time.  "Well, we'd better get to bed, it's awfully late."  Standing and pushing in her chair she helped Rick up and turned off the lights.
Later that night Rick lay in bed thinking about everything he'd learned about the Carnahan's, deciding that he and Jonathan were more alike than any two people he'd known.  Evelyn's life held more stories, happier ones, as did his own.  Hearing a small knock on his door, he grunted in response.  Evie appeared there, a small candle in her hands as she looked sheepishly down at it.
"May…may I sleep in here tonight?"  she asked lightly, hoping that he wouldn't reject her until after they were married.
"There's always room for one soon to be Mrs. O'Connell."  He smiled gently up at her, pulling the blankets back on one side.  With her settled next to him, her head against his shoulder, he lightly kissed her cheek.
"Sleep sweet Evie."
"Sleep sweet Rick."


The End

Authors note: yes, I did use the cheap writing effect known at flashbacks, but hey, I had fun doing it.  This was a mix of several different movies, Moulin Rouge, Far and Away, and…well I probably have a couple more in there but I really can't think of too many more being that it's one o'clock in the morning.  I just had the urge to write and well…here it is.  Feel free to comment on the story, my address is JeanO'[email protected], and I'd love to hear some feedback from people.  Thanks a bunch!

Jean