A/N: So my roommate and I were watching The Mummy Returns last night. This of course inspired some writing today

This will be slightly AU as the movies never really tell us (or if they did I missed it) much about Jonathan and Evy's family, and I'm taking a few liberties with Ardeth Bay's history….and well, probably with history in general in a few places!

DISCLAIMER: I own only Nettie. If I owned Ardeth he would never leave my bedroom…

"Mom, Dad, I can explain everything!"

Nettie chuckled, half coughing from the water she hadn't meant to swallow, at her nephew's words. The look of panic on his face was priceless. "Relax, kid, I think it was your mum's fault this time." She grinned, getting to her feet and roughing the child's blond hair.

Nineteen year old Amunet, just Nettie to her family and friends, was still amazed at her older sister's life…loving husband, adorable child, traveling the world, respected by scholars. Sometimes it all made Nettie feel out of place. Then Evy would break something, or create a disaster area in a store…confirming that in their lack of physical grace, they were, indeed, sisters. Even Jonathan seemed to have a knack for trouble, though his tended to involve angry husbands and gamblers more than knocked over canned goods.

Nettie wished she had known her older siblings better as they grew up, but their grandmother had been determined that at least one of the children be raised 'properly'. She had swept young Nettie away after her parents' funeral. The child had been only five years old. An uncle had taken custody of Jon and Evy, as their father had written asking him to do years before. He had tried to keep the children together, but their grandmother—his stepmother—had pointed out (through her solicitor as she herself would never set foot in such a heathen land as Egypt) that the letter had not named young Nettie. This was no oversight, deliberate or accidental, on her father's part, as Nettie had not yet been conceived at the time the letter was written.

Off to gloomy old England the child had gone, away from her beloved home. After awhile it had seemed like it had all been a dream. The warm sands, the clear blue skies…running and playing with her siblings and the neighborhood children. The love and laughter of her mother and father. All a fading dream, a wisp of memory.

She had seen her brother and sister only twice between then and her eighteenth birthday. Once at the funeral of her grandfather's brother, where she had been forbidden to speak to them, and once when Evy turned 18.

Evy and Jon had shown up at the manor that day, demanding that their baby sister be returned to them. Excited, Nettie had run up the stairs, ignoring her tutor's admonition of such behavior. She had packed the few things she thought she would need and was waiting in the foyer, her small bag in hand, just in time to see her siblings 'escorted out the door without her. Her grandmother's cold eyes had burned as the girl's shoulders had slumped and she fled back up the stairs.

After that there had been nothing, not so much as a holiday greeting from the elder siblings. Nettie learned later that the letters had come...letters, cards, gifts…all tossed away as they arrived, destroyed before she saw them.

The day she turned eighteen, Nettie packed her small bag once more. Not knowing where she was going, she walked away…out the door and down the tree-lined drive, without a backwards glance. Jonathan, Evy, Rick, and Alex were standing beside Rick's car just outside the gate. All had welcomed her with open arms.

This was her first trip back to Egypt since her parents' funeral. For the first time in fourteen years she felt at home, healthy even. She had been rather sickly growing up. The cold, damp weather of England had played havoc on her lungs, leaving her weak, almost frail. The deep tan she had worn as a child had long since faded, leaving her pale enough that at first glance one could deny her half-Egyptian heritage. A closer look at her raven hair and dark eyes set into the features of her kin were enough to mark her as 'exotic'. She was an alabaster copy of their mother.

Shaking her head as Rick and Evy surveyed the damage to the temple, Nettie stepped outside. As soon as the sun hit her, she fell into what her grandmother had always referred to as her 'fits'…

The hot sun was still beating down on her and the young woman lifted her face to the warmth. A sharp voice nearby snapped her eyes open and sent her scurrying on her errand. The temple complex was bustling with people, the buildings clean and new. The girl darted through the crowd deftly, carefully clutching a small package.

She narrowly avoided being pushed to the ground by a group of men haggling over a horse, and she turned, ready to give them a piece of her mind. She froze when she realized they were the Pharaoh's own guards. She bowed, blushing, finding herself apologizing for bumping into them! She heard a familiar voice excusing her, encouraging her on her errand, and looked up with a small, shy smile to the guard captain. Her heart fluttered when he returned her smile. Without another word she darted off again.

"Aunt Nettie? Aunt Nettie…are you alright?" Nettie blinked, startled as she looked up to Alex.

"I…I'm fine. Just a bit tired I guess." She found she was sprawled on the ground outside the temple. Evy and Rick stepped out just then, Rick quirking a brow at his sister in law's position, Evy rushing over to fuss over her.

"Evelyn, stop, I'm fine! It must have been because I was cold from the water and then came out here…shocked my system with the sudden heat..."

"She told me she was just tired" Alex blurted out. "And before she was waking up she was saying something…sounded like 'our death bay'…creepy stuff, that."

Evy and Rick exchanged a look. "Um…Alex….was it more run together, like a name, Ardeth Bay maybe?" Evy asked. Alex just shrugged.

Rick let out a single laugh "Our death…Ardeth…yeah that sounds about right I could see him being involved there…" Evy glared at him, and Rick knew he'd get a lecture. The Med'jai was a good friend but it did seem that they only saw him when there was danger involved.

"Did you hear that name from Jonathan, Nettie?" her sister asked. Evy couldn't remember ever mentioning Ardeth in front of Nettie and she couldn't think of a time he might have come up in conversation with Rick. Besides, she and rick were seldom apart so surely she would know if he had told her little sister.

Nettie shook her head no, then shrugged. "I...I don't know, maybe? I don't even remember saying it…." She hugged her knees to her chest, ignoring the sand coating her damp skirt. She had not yet told any of them about the visions during her fits, not after what had happened the first time she remembered having one. Her grandmother had first threatened to have her locked away, called her crazy, and then declared her possessed and called for a priest. The 'exorcism' had nearly killed the six year old. After that when she fell into the fits she told her grandmother she wasn't feeling well and no, of course she hadn't seen anything.

Evy still knelt beside her, smiling gently as she reached for her little sister's chin, tilting the girls face to look at her. "Tell me what's happening, I know something's wrong…." Nettie bit her lower lip and tried to look away, shaking a little even in the heat. Rick quietly convinced Alex to help him begin loading the camels for their return to the city.

"You saw it too, didn't you?" Even whispered, leaning close. "You saw the temple as it was!" Evy was clearly excited.

"T-to? You see things like that too?"

"Recently more than ever, though there were a few times in the past. Mostly for me it comes in dreams. Jonathan likes to think he has the gift of future site instead of past, which is why he gambles so much."
"But doesn't he usually lose?"

"Like I said…he likes to think he can see things…" Evy giggled.

Nettie smiled a little, starting to relax. "Grandmother said I was evil for having visions…"

"You're not evil, just very special. Our mother could see things you know, past and future. She knew we would be a family again…she knew grandmother would take one of us too, but she thought it was me. She didn't realize at the time there was a second daughter. That was why father wrote to Uncle William to take us. He wrote another letter after you were born, I remember him telling us, but William never received it. Now….tell me why you were calling for Ardeth Bay…Rick and I have a friend by that name..."

"I don't know the name…honestly! I've never heard any of you speak of him. Maybe Alex misheard me….after all, if he's your friend in this day, I couldn't have seen him in ancient times, right?" In her confused state, that logic sounded right to Nettie. Not quite so much to Evy.

"I know you now and you saw yourself in ancient times…"

"But I wasn't me. I was …well…I don't know who I was. One of them said my name but now I cannot recall it." Nettie stood, with Evy's assistance, letting her big sister steer her into the shade inside the temple.

"Well, why don't you tell me what you do remember and we'll go from there." Evy smiled gently and settled in to listen to her sister's tale.