Short little oneshot regarding the first Mummy movie and b/c I haven't seen many fics centering on Daniels as of yet. -loves him- XD Mr. Daniels does a little brooding on his current situation; takes place in the room scene before Henderson is killed.

EDIT: Went back and revised this a little.

Daniels/The Mummy: (c) Stephen Sommers

A Fool's Regret

What's life without a lil'adventure? It can be one hell of a ride if you want it to be. I'm always lookin' for a good ride. Life's too short not to take a risk here an' there. That's why I came out here. I coulda had it all, you know; I was lookin' at the opportunity of a lifetime. You could say that I was reckless, too reckless for my own good.

Hell, I was. I'll admit it, I was. And now I'm payin' for it. An' that payment would be my life. Goddamnit, if only I hadn't opened that stupid chest...

Musta been a rush. It was exciting! What can I say? It's Hamunaptra we're talkin' about! The supposedly fabled city of the dead. I'll admit, I'm a superstitious bastard; I don' tbelieve in curses anymore'an I believe a hooker who claims propriety. All that malarkey surroundin' it, didn't believe a word of it. Even after gettin' to the city, seein' that it really existed, I still wasn't a believer. An' I sure as hell didn't believe in curses. I didn't care about the message on the chest that Dr. Chamberlin read. All I cared about was the canopic jar I plucked outta that ancient toy box. I was a perfectly content cowboy with his share of the Hamunaptra expedition.

I ain't so content anymore though. Burns is gone, Chamberlin is gone, and now me an' Henderson are the only two left. We're next in line on the hit list…Damn that chest and the canopic jar I had to have.

I can't say I have a right to complain about my predicament. I brought it upon myself, me, Burns an' Henderson. We all did. I'm tryin' to remain fearless and keep my head in all this, but it's pretty damn hard when you have an ancient walking corpse hell-bent on killin' ya on your tail. But I ain't gonna crack. I jus' gotta be diligent, know what's goin' on around me. Yet I look at the jar with the jackal head screwed onto it an' think to myself, was it really worth all the trouble I'm in right now? Had I known that this was where my hide would end up, I never would've taken the Goddamn thing!

But like I said, I was foolish. I was so concerned with gettin' me some of that gold buried under the sand that I didn't see a thing comin' to me. My heart was set elsewhere, and boy, did it land me in a lot a' trouble. I'm cursin' myself for being so damn stupid, an' I'm sure Henderson is doin' the same for himself. All we have is each other now, and God help me if I lose him…

I'll be the last on that thing's list.

Now Henderson and I are holed up in a hotel room where O'Connell left us with his insubordinate girlfriend, some self-righteous broad he calls Evelyn. A lot of the blame belongs to her; if she hadn't read from that Goddamn black book, that thing wouldn't be alive. She's asleep of course, so she hasn't been no trouble to us for a while. I'm gettin' restless though, tappin' my knuckles on the window pane and looking down absentmindedly at my feet. My mouth's a little dry and my heart's dancin' a nervous jig in my chest, but I keep my cool. But I can't help but wonder: There has to be a way out of this, there has to be!

Didn't think my relatively short life would hit a snag like this. No matter how much I tell myself I'm gonna be alright, it's always knocked back into my head that it's inevitable that I'll get what's comin' to me. I just shouldn't have helped open that damn chest; that's all I tell myself. I can kick myself in the ass for it all I want, but it ain't gonna solve anythin'. All I know is that I'm gettin' what I deserve, even though I don't think I deserve it. It's fate, I s'pose. A mighty undesirable fate though.

I stop my nervous tapping and move away from the window. I need me a drink, somethin' to steady my nerves.

"The hell with this."