I meant to continue this story, but that wasn't working, so I wrapped it up like I'd always intended. Bit cheesy, but like a really good, expensive cheese that you buy in those little tubs. Ha ha:)~ Also, I completely made up the legend about Ra and the moon. No basis in fact whatsoever :) Merci to all :)

6: Ghosts

What exactly does one wear to seduce one's husband?

Not that I have any specific plans or anything. But I can't sleep, and the thought of being away from him for one moment longer is very distressing. The discovery that I've loved him all along has brought so many more questions to mind about him and his life, and our life together, that I feel I may burst if I don't get to ask some of them soon. I will also admit that the memory of his kiss made it very hard to concentrate on anything else, much less sleep.

I sneak down the hallway in the dark to the guest room he's been sleeping in and push open the door before I can change my mind. It's dark, but eventually my eyes adjust to the moonlight coming in the window. I remember what Rick said about the lunar eclipse and I hope it's not too late to see it. Rick is asleep, and I take a moment to study him, too. Moonlight casts shadow and light across his face, and it strikes me how vulnerable he looks, asleep.

The book he's been reading lately catches my eye from its perch on the dresser. Upon closer inspection I discover that it's not really a book, rather, it's an unfinished manuscript of some sort. The margins are dotted with notes and corrections in what I assume to be his handwriting, and sometimes mine. They almost form little conversations on some of the pages, arguments over whether a direction was north or south, or a name or a date, the occasional "I love you" on a random page. Eventually my handwriting stops completely near the end. I must have been reading it, too, before the accident. I look at the first page and am surprised to see my name--

Ghosts of Hamunaptra, Evelyn Carnahan-O'Connell.

I wrote this book, or am at least in the process. Jonathan mentioned something about Hamunaptra, and I it surprises me to realize I haven't thought to ask again.

Rick wakes as if from a nightmare, sitting upright in bed so suddenly it startles me. He sees me and the fact of my sitting there takes him a second to process. "Hello," he says, sounding as if he's not sure he's awake yet.

"Are you all right?"

He smiles wanly. "Nightmare."

"What was it about?"

Again he smiles, avoiding a real answer. "Nothing important. It's not real."

Most dreams are drawn from life, especially nightmares. Is this part of what he won't tell me? Of what happened in that desert? "Could it have been?"

His smile fades. "Very nearly."

"Are you ever going to tell me?"

"Come here." He gathers me into his arms and kisses the top of my head. "There was a man who tried to...kill us all, basically."

That now familiar chill passes through me. Is he after us again, then? "Is he still...I mean, where--"

"He's dead, honey, don't worry." His grip on me tightens, and I can almost see the remnants of his nightmare in my own imagination.

"What did we do to him...to make him...?"

Rick smiles for real now. For some reason this part is amusing. "We read a book. It's not important, you wouldn't believe it all anyway. You don't have to worry about him ever again. Okay?"

He's right; I can barely believe the little he tells me now. I think of the strange notes I've been receiving--what are the odds of two murdering maniacs coming after you in a space of months? "What happened to him?"

He doesn't want to say it, I can tell. I can read this so easily in his eyes that it scares me a little bit. He sighs. "I killed him."

This knowledge doesn't disconcert me as it might have earlier. Instead I feel oddly comforted, because although I have just begun to discover who Rick is, my mind somehow already accepts the fact that he would die for me and almost did. I think I almost died, too, which doesn't bother me as much as the thought of his death does. "I love you," I tell him, without even having to think about it.

"I love you, too," he whispers back. Moments later I think he has fallen asleep again, his breathing steady, his arms still tight around me. It is the most wonderful feeling in the world, to feel so safe in his arms. Nothing will hurt me in my sleep, not here. Not even murdering maniacs with bad penmanship.

For once I have no nightmares, but am woken by what very well could be a real one. My eyes snap open at some barely imperceptible sound from downstairs, maybe footsteps? "Rick?" I whisper, but am met with silence and an empty bed. I get up and tiptoe to the door, which has been left open.

I hear a shot.

Although my heart has stopped my legs have suddenly found motion. I sprint into the hallway and to the stairway, but am halted there by someone tackling me to the ground.

I attempt to scream but there's a hand over my mouth and a voice in my ear. "Evy, it's me. It's Rick."

"Jesus, you scared me half to death!" I hiss. "Was that necessary?"

"Someone just went down the Goddamn stairs and fired a shot at me as he went, I think it was entirely necessary."

Okay. Now it's real. It's all real. There's someone in the house, and he just tried to kill my husband. I feel anger edging in on my terror. "What's going on?" I ask, though I probably have a better idea than Rick does.

"I need you to think. There was someone in the building that night, with you. What did he want?"

"I don't know!"

"What were you doing at the museum that night?"

My mind has never felt more blank; I have never wanted knowledge more. "I can't remember!"

"When you went back to work, what was on your desk? Could you tell what you were working on before the break-in?"

"They, uh, they'd already finished everything, while I was gone--it was an exhibit...an exhibit on Ra, the sun god."

"Sun god." Rick looks up, where a skylight frames the edge of the moon. "Eclipse."

"But it's a lunar eclipse, what does that have to do....." A trickle of little facts...

"What? What?"

"There's a story about Ra and the moon... He wanted to rule the night, as well..."

"So what did he do about that?"

And the floodgates are open. "He devised a plan, to knock the moon out of the sky. He was going to throw stones at it, that didn't work... Then he tried wrestling it to Earth--"

"Short version, honey."

I look up at the moon in the skylight and see a sliver of darkness eat slowly into the edge of it. "He was going to lasso it. But at the last moment Horus flew over the moon and obscured it from view, ruining Ra's plan. Supposedly everything was sealed inside this rock altar--the stones, the twine... Oh, God..."

"What?"

"I brought it home." The darkness suddenly seems doubly dangerous, the shadows seem to grow. "I brought it home to clean it. It's in the den."

"What would someone use it for?"

I shrug. "Oh, I don't know. Obtaining control of the moon, or some such thing."

"Right. We don't have anything to worry about then, right?" He looks to me for rationale that he knows will not hold up. "That would be impossible."

"Please, Rick. We've seen what we've seen and this is impossible?"

He does an actual double take. "What did you say?"

"Nothing is impossible."

"No, you..." I can see a glimmer of something else in his face--something unrelated to the intruder and Ra and everything else--hope? "You remember something?"

"About what?"

He shakes his head. "Never mind. You get on the phone and--"

The terror springs up again. "And where will you be? You're staying right here, you're not going down there!"

"Shh," he says. "Call the police."

Just like that he disappears down the staircase. He must have a gun, but in the chaos I did not notice. Like Hell I'm calling the police. Someone has to have heard the shot already. I don't have time to call the damn police.

I hurry softly down the stairs, and it occurs to me that I have no gun, no weapon at all. I can still see the skylight from the first floor, and the moon is nearly halfway in shadow now, where it had been full just a little while before.

I hear another shot, and my steps quicken. I head for the den and push open the door.

The light nearly blinds me. After a moment I see the stone altar sitting on my desk, and it seems to be cracked open. Standing over it is the man from the party, face alight with impossible sunlight. He looks up, sees me, and blinks. "Damn," he says. "You're resilient."

"Where's my husband?"

"I can't be bothered with you right now," the man sighs, and looks again into the altar. "The eclipse is almost complete."

He seems to have stopped paying attention to me. I look down and see Rick on the floor, and my insides flip and liquefy at the same moment. His eyes are closed, and I see blood. I can't discern much more through the tears in my eyes, but the gun in his hand is perfectly in focus.

I reach down and take the gun, wondering vaguely if Rick ever taught me to use it. The man looks up at me but does not feel threatened, apparently.

"Silly girl," he says, and his voice seems to come from somewhere else. "You can't kill me now. I am becoming the Sun God."

"Good thing for me," I reply. "It's night."

My finger squeezes the trigger. The bullet hits the altar, and there is another shower of light that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere. Rather than illuminating the man's face, he is cast in shadow, a deeper, darker lack of light than I have ever seen. I think I hear him scream, but intense light coming from the altar mutes all my senses, and I fall through the night as darkness claims me once again.

My thoughts float into my head in orderly succession, as if each waiting their turn. This room is not white, it is a soft coral color. Am I in the same hospital? I feel all right, just a bit sore. I can feel my baby, too, and he or she is perfectly fine. Relief flows gently through my thoughts until I come to the next one. What am I missing?

Rick.

Violent flickers of last night slam into my throat. Blood, Rick on the floor, a shot. I throw back the covers on the hospital bed and stand too quickly. Blood rushes to my head, fogging my vision and my memories. Was it Rick's blood that I saw? How much was there? He can't be dead, life doesn't work that way. It can't, or...

Or nothing. There's nothing else.

The nurse stops me as I emerge into the hallway. "Where is he?" I ask over her gentle protests. "Where's my husband? You have to tell me. Tell me where he is."

Either she is badly informed on the subject, or bad news is not her job. "Mrs. O'Connell, you have to get back into your room--"

"No!" I push past her and look into the next room, the panic in my chest threatening to take over my entire being. "Tell me where the Hell my husband is--"

In the third room I find what I am looking for. My first thought is that they wouldn't put a body in its own hospital room. I count three of his breaths before I move, terrified that his breathing will halt right in front of my eyes. His shoulder is bandaged, a touch of blood peeks through, but he is breathing. The nurse follows me into the room but apparently decides to leave me alone. I force my feet to move.

"Rick?" I try, knowing he won't answer right now, but needing to speak his name. I realize dumbly that I am shaking, and as if watching a film, I see my hand take his. I feel a terrible loneliness well up inside me. All the things he wouldn't tell me, all the awful memories he tried to protect me from, when at the same time he wanted so terribly for me to remember. I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself for leaving him alone like that.

His eyes flutter, then focus dazedly on me. "What the Hell?" he asks. His voice is weak, unguarded, but his hand holds mine tightly. "Are you okay?"

I nod, not quite strong enough to speak yet. I take a few deep breaths, and he waits for me. "I have no idea what happened," I finally manage, "and I'm fine. Both of us are fine. What about you?"

His eyes flit to his shoulder. "I've been worse. Who was that..."

I shrug. "Don't know. Some crazy man who wanted to be a god. Run of the mill for us."

That hope flares in his eyes again, matched by an expectation of disappointment. "Evy..."

"Would you like to hear the long version?"

"Of what?"

Words come from somewhere I had lost, somewhere that suddenly resides in the back of mind like it has been there all along. "The long version of how we met. Cairo Prison. I was only interested in the box Jonathan stole from you. You were a filthy, rude scoundrel, and I hated you. And you saved my life and... and you loved me. I never hated you. I loved you the whole time."

He stares at me for a long moment, taking it in. His other hand reaches up to touch my face, though he flinches at the effort. "Likewise."

A moment passes. "Hey, sorry we missed the eclipse. Bet it was beautiful, out at the park."

He smiles now, and kisses my hand. "I think, Evy, that we could live for a very long time without ever seeing another eclipse."

~*~*~*~

fin