The Blessing

Post-sunset, Jonathan engineers a misunderstanding in a Bedouin settlement that leads to the accidental marriage of Rick and Evelyn. 2500 words worth of fun fluffy froth with no nutritional value. Full of excessive italics-use and quickie writing, but perhaps amusing in its own right :)

Funny, how life is. You start out thinking you're going to conquer the world. You'll have your successful career, vaulting past all the others in your field by the time you're twenty-five. You'll marry a wonderful man, in a beautiful cathedral with stained glass windows, surrounded by loads of white flowers and adoring relatives. You'll have a few darling children, well-behaved and brilliant, of course. All this while maintaining your fabulous career until you retire, happy and rich. This is what my plan was.

When I married my husband, I hadn't quite hit twenty-five but my career was nowhere near fabulousness of any sort. In terms of success I suppose I was a downright failure. I couldn't check anything off my life's-plan-checklist at all. And to top it off, our meeting wasn't exactly a cute story. For a while, all we knew was living in a nightmare, and it was a surprise we both emerged from the experience alive.

We were, however, ridiculously in love by the end of it. I say ridiculously because that's exactly what it was--we knew nothing about each other, and still we were in love. I didn't bother to wonder, at first, whether this was ridiculous, but there's no denying that it was.

Nearly two days had passed since that first quixotic sunset, and our high spirits had faded a little around the edges. Hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, we rode on and on, hardly stopping. If we did, we might not make it to civilization alive.

Jonathan was sound asleep, leaving Rick and I free to talk about anything we wanted. Mostly we whispered--the night around us seemed to require whispering, for fear we might wake something else up. We learned each other's favorite colors and foods and little bits of our pasts that we were willing to share in what was our first real conversation. I don't remember half of it--we were exhausted, after all--but I do remember just talking, talking, talking, watching the hours pass by and not minding in the least.

"Tell me something interesting," Rick would say, and I would rack my brain for something interesting to say. Usually it would be something like, "when I was little I had a dog named Ramses," or "last year I flooded my kitchen trying to fix a loose pipe," but he seemed to find everything I had to say intensely interesting. His stories were no less fascinating, as mundane as they might have seemed to someone else. By the time we stumbled upon the Bedoin camp, I could honestly say my love was becoming a little less ridiculous with each word we spoke.

Then things began to go a little bit wrong. Rick was the one who spotted the Bedouin settlement in the distance. We started to argue. By then Jonathan was awake and added his two cents as well. Rick thought we should bypass the settlement and continue straight on to the docks, which couldn't have been more than a few hours away (he said). I thought that we should at least beg a little food and water. Jonathan sorely wanted to stop for the night, but he agreed with Rick in that it was dangerous, especially with the treasure we carried.

But then some of the people on the edge of the settlement saw us. They brought us some water, and I made a decision for us. I asked, would they mind if we stayed the night?

They would be happy to find us a bed, they said, and there was nothing we could do but accept. We got down off the camels, Jonathan clutching the treasure to his chest like it was his firstborn child. Rick wouldn't look at me.

"Is there something wrong?" I asked him.

"Nothing," he growled, still refusing to look at me.

"Tell me," I pressed. "Are you okay?"

"Jonathan," he said, "I need to talk to your sister for a minute. Would you straighten everything out, please?"

Rick took my arm and we walked a little ways off, where we could talk in private. "What is it?" I asked again.

"We shouldn't have stopped."

"We haven't eaten anything in three days, we're all exhausted, and we need water!" I protested. "It would have been stupid not to stop."

"It's dangerous, Evy. We don't know anything about these people." At the look on my face, he amended, "I'm sure they're very nice, but it's dark and we don't know where we are, and we're carrying a whole lot of gold. There's not very many people I would trust right now."

"You don't trust anyone, do you?"

He gave me a look that plainly said 'no,' but before he could answer, some of the Bedouin approached us. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but they seemed nice enough--they gave me a shawl to put around my shoulders and offered some beads. I continued the conversation with Rick while the women fussed around us. "Answer my question, O'Connell."

"I don't trust many people, no." Someone gave him a shawl, as well, but he was too angry with me to refuse it. "Especially when it comes to treasure."

"Who cares about the treasure if we die in the desert? I think you don't trust anyone ever, do you?"

Rick took a minute to answer this one, clearly debating what and how much to say. An old man began to wave some incense around us, but we didn't really notice. "That's not true," Rick said finally. "I trust some people. I trust Jonathan not to let his eyes off that treasure."

"Stop it with the treasure!" I cried, trying to speak above the people around us, who had begun to chant. "What about relationships? You know, with actual human beings?"

"Most human beings can't be trusted," he shot back. "Not in my experience, anyway."

"Maybe you just think that because you've never let yourself trust someone before! What about me? Are you telling me you don't trust me?"

Rick didn't answer my question at all that time. Really, what did I expect him to say? The people around us began to shepherd us across the sand toward the settlement-proper, preventing any more discussion. Then they pushed us inside a tent and left us alone.

"What was that all about?" asked Rick, noticing for the first time the shawl and other accoutrements that the Bedouin had bestowed upon him. "Where are we?"

"I have no idea." The tent was nicely furnished, trimmed in gold and complete with bed, washbasin, and a couple of lanterns. "Where did Jonathan go?"

At that moment my brother (still with a firm grip on the saddlebag of treasure) burst through the tent opening, nearly tumbling to the ground. "I'm sorry," he gasped, clutching a stitch in his side. "I'm sorry, Evy, I didn't mean to..."

Foreboding settled into the pit of my stomach, as it so often does where my brother is concerned. It wouldn't be a Tuesday evening if he hadn't gotten into some sort of trouble. "Jonathan, what did you do?"

He clearly didn't want to answer. "Erm, well, nothing big. It's just that--"

"Jonathan, what did you do?" repeated Rick, and this did the trick.

"I didn't mean to!" my brother cried again. "My language skills aren't what they used to be! So sue me! I was just trying to secure us a place to stay for the night, and maybe some food and water--"

"And what did you do instead?"

"Well..." Jonathan looks at the ground. "I sort of... Look, I think I may have told them you wanted... I think they... I mean, it's entirely possible that they just...married the two of you."

Rick and I both started yelling at the same time, managing to make Jonathan jump in fright. "I'm sorry!" he shrieked. "I'll get it straightened out, don't worry! Here, uh, you keep the treasure here, and I'll, uh, go see that all this takes care of itself, all right?!"

Jonathan ducked out of the tent and the yelling stopped abruptly. Neither Rick nor I said anything or looked at each other for a while.

"Well," Rick said finally. "That's an interesting development."

"Interesting? This is terrible!"

This time he sounded a little hurt. "Terrible? Gee, thanks."

"I didn't mean..." I ripped off the beads and shawl and tried to find a way to explain. "I didn't mean terrible..."

"You meant what you said." Rick sat down on the bed, looking defeated. "You meant that the thought of being married to me is terrible."

"No! That's not what I meant! Besides, this isn't how it's supposed to happen, anyway!"

"I didn't say this situation was a good thing. Jonathan will get it straightened out. I hope."

It surprised me how much words like that did hurt. "So you think marriage to me would be terrible, too?"

"Did I say that?"

"Well, no."

Rick sighs, looking at the beads rather sadly. "I knew it. I knew that as soon as the subject came up, this would happen."

"What would happen?"

"I'm not the sort of guy women want to marry. For a while there I thought you might be..." He trailed off, finishing quietly, "different."

"You mean you were..." I had trouble getting the words out, my voice suppressed suddenly by terror and joy, all at once. "You were thinking about marriage? To me?"

He winces. "Well...sort of. I've never really thought about it before. But now that it turns out you think the idea is terrible..."

"I didn't say the general idea was terrible. I meant this is terrible. This misunderstanding." I sat next to him, feeling rather defeated myself. The past few days had certainly been hell. "Think about it. If Jonathan's translation skills are correct--"

"I'm not really trusting in Jonathan's translation skills right now."

"--then we could be married right now. It's a funny idea."

Rick did indeed begin to laugh. "Probably because I'm so tired. I literally don't think I've ever been this exhausted."

"You got pretty beat up, too." In the light of the lanterns I could better see the evidence of this underneath his bloody, torn shirt. "Are you okay?"

He shrugged, dismissing whatever pain he probably was in. "Mostly."

"Oh, please." I went over to the wash basin and found a cloth. "Take off your shirt."

"Excuse me?"

"Sand isn't the best thing for wounds. You have to clean them."

He looked like he doubted the wisdom of this (or maybe he was still processing the shirt comment), but obeyed. "I'm fine, honestly," he insisted, unbuttoning his shirt. "I've been beat-up worse."

"But never by a walking, talking corpse," I muttered, which made him laugh. He was not okay--no matter what he said. I began to clean the numerous cuts while trying not to think about how fantastic he looked shirtless. I searched for a topic of conversation. "These would have gotten infected, you know. I didn't think it was this bad."

He still chooses to ignore the severity of his injuries. "Have you ever come close?"

"To what?"

"To marriage. Ever been engaged?"

It isn't as hard to admit to him as I'd thought it would be. "No. Men don't exactly think I'm marriage material, either."

"Why not? Something I should know?"

Why are we still talking about this? I wondered, trying to decide if it was a good thing or not. "Men want quiet, conventional wives. They don't want self-sufficient, educated individuals who speak their minds."

"But that's what's so great about you!" he blurted, then looked quite embarrassed.

I concentrated on cleaning the wounds and said quietly, "I could never be what someone else wanted me to be."

Both of us were silent for a while, until I finished. "All done," I said, returning the water and cloth to the basin. When I sat back down beside him he'd wrapped the shawl around himself. "You should go to a doctor when you get back to Cairo."

"What if someone liked you just the way you are?" he asked.

I had no idea what to say. "Well, I suppose if he did, he might ask me to marry him. If he didn't think the idea was entirely terrible. Eventually. No rush."

"But darling, we're already married," he said, and we had another good laugh over that. "I suppose we'd have to have an actual ceremony, one that we actually realized was happening," he continued. "It would probably be best, in terms of legality."

"Yes, that would be smart. A civil ceremony, perhaps. Something small."

"Have any relatives besides Jonathan?"

"Not on this continent. You?"

"Nope." He turned toward me. "Did we just decide..."

"...to get married?" I finished. "I think we did."

"Interesting, indeed," he said, and got down on one knee. I think my heart may have literally stopped when he took my hand. "But I haven't asked you properly. Evelyn Isabel Carnahan--it is Isabel, isn't it?"

I could barely nod, much less say "yes."

"Evelyn Isabel Carnahan," Rick started again, "will you marry me?"

This time I managed to get "yes" out, but he didn't react for a moment. "Yes!" I said again, not sure that he'd heard me.

"I know," he said, "but I can't believe it."

"Yes," I said for emphasis, "I will marry you."

This time we both seemed to believe it, as if it was suddenly realer now than it had been a minute ago. "I'm glad we stopped for the night," said Rick. "Turns out it was a very, very good idea."

I meant to respond, but was distracted by the fact that he kissed me right then.

A moment later Jonathan burst into the tent again with more breathless news. "Hey, you two," he said. "Hold off on the honeymoon just yet. I got it all worked out. They didn't marry you, as it turns out. They just gave you a blessing. You know, sort of as a good luck charm. Isn't that wonderful? You're not married, after all!"

"Damn," said Rick. "Now we really do have to have another ceremony. Are you free Thursday, Jonathan? We'd like you to come."

"Yes, Jonathan, please do," I added, enjoying the confusion on my brother's face. "It would mean so much."

"Oh, forget you two." He picked up the saddlebag protectively. "You're impossible. You deserve each other, you know that? See you in the morning," he said, exiting the tent.

As soon as he was gone Rick said, "I love you, you know. I think I forgot to tell you that."

"I know," I replied. "I love you, too. I just can't believe it."

~*~*~*~

la fin