AN: A short little something after seeing the second movie. I thought they were both really great. And, for some reason, I'm on this deathfic kick. I can't seem to stop myself. But at least I've stopped labeling them "The Death of..." So here it is, short and sweet.
Filling His Shoes
Nick Daley ties the final knot in his left shoe, standing from the locker room bench and scrutinizing himself in the full-length mirror. He'd never admit it aloud, but at the age of thirty, he is starting to look more and more like his father. The museum night watchman uniform only accentuates this fact, and he sighs, shaking his head and heading out with one last check of his flashlight.
His first night as the watchman. He patrols the halls early, reveling in the quiet that will soon be broken by the curse of Ra's tablet.
It's not a curse, he has to remind himself—his father's words. It's a gift. You gotta remember that, Nicky. Otherwise...there's just no point.
Lawrence C. Daley, who saved not only the museum but the world several times over, who gave everything he had to this place...who died three days ago.
Despite the power he acquired from the tablet, as his predecessors had, Larry was killed protecting the artifacts—and friends—he held so dear. It had been teenagers, just a couple of punk kids, trying to fulfill a dare. They'd broken in, and Larry had found them in the safari exhibit, poking at the sleeping lions that they thought looked very real. The night watchman told them to leave, that he wouldn't call the police if they just stepped away from the awakening lions and left the museum. They rewarded his kindness and concern with a knife to the gut, running from the museum with lions and various other creatures at their heels.
Nick remembers the call.
"Nicky, you have to get to the hospital."
"Teddy? What's going on?" Nick sits up in bed, his girlfriend rolling over and groaning with annoyance.
"It's your dad, Kiddo," Teddy's voice is uncharacteristically solemn, quiet. "Something's happened. An ambulance came and took him. You should hurry."
Larry died before he reached the hospital. Nick attended the funeral and applied for the job as night watchman that same day.
Tonight, the museum will hold its own ceremony, its own tribute to Larry Daley, the night watchman who did so much to keep them safe, who went beyond the call of duty. Tonight, they will mourn. Because tomorrow things must return to normal. Tomorrow, Teddy must sit proudly on his horse and smile into the unknown, Attila and the Huns and the cavemen must strike their various violent or stupefied poses, Ra must lie in his sarcophagus as a long-dead pharaoh mummy, and Jed and Octavius must round up their cowboys and soldiers and be small but not insignificant replicas of the past.
Tomorrow, things will be the same, just as they always have.
But when the night is over, and the sun is creeping over the trees, when things are back in place and a familiar stoicism befalls the museum, Nick notices that everyone looks just a bit sadder than they did the day before.
AN: Later, Gators! Catch you on the flip side.