SPOILER ALERT - critical TMB (culprit revealed, albeit indirectly) and minor MED (culprit not revealed)

This story takes place after Road Whose Course Does Not Turn Back, so I probably shouldn't be posting it until I've posted the rest of that story, but ah, screw it. No horrible spoilers here. I'm obsessed with Jamylan (sometimes more than Nancy/Sonny) and am glad to finally be getting this up. About three-quarters of it has been written since November, so I just slapped on some finishing touches. Please review and say what you think!

The first time she sees him in a while is different than the last time she did. Of course, it's always that way. Sonny had wanted Dylan for a case recently, and since she was in London and he wasn't, she got enlisted to go talk to him. It had ended in a great deal of Dylan feeling sorry for himself because he was so poor he couldn't pay the bill.

And then for some reason he was thrilled when Jamila showed up to help with the case. Promised flowers. Dinner.

She runs into him in Notting Hill one day, where he pretends it's by surprise just to switch things up a bit. Maybe to come off as less interested than he really is. Jamila never got to talk with her mother about men, but after finding Nefertari she had pretty much figured it out. His tone gives him away. "Jamila," he says as if he expected it all along. His smile is wide and welcoming and damn it, she still isn't impervious to his charms.

She wants some sort of distraction, for it to start raining. But London betrays her today. The sky shines a pretty pale blue that looks as soft as flannel. "Dylan," she says. "I guess this means you're in-between tour locations then?"

"Yep! On my way to Sydney after this. I've had a good run. Left on good terms, made good contacts. I think I've whetted my appetite for working in a cave."

"So you're not going to stay and reap your success there?" Jamila said. "Shame."

"I get restless." Dylan falls into step next to her, one arm holding the single strap of his rucksack to his shoulder. As his eyes dart around, taking in London and its changes, away from her, she gets to catch a glimpse without him noticing. They're green. Striking. "What have you been doing with your life?"

"Oh, still running S.P.I.E.D while Sonny finishes his doctorate. Nothing new."

"You think you couldn't be doing anything more productive with your time?"

"Than repaying a life debt and helping out a friend? No, I don't think so."

"O-kay." Dylan raises his hands. "Point taken."

She looks at him. "Good."

"So how's that going?"

Jamila remembers her upbringing, years of being drilled with the habit of not talking to anyone. Today she decides to go for broke.

It's nice to have someone to talk to.

"Could be better; could be worse. I suppose that goes for most days, though. Since Jin died we lack direction. We have to decide whether we want to go in the exact same direction, since now is the time to mention changes. And so there are some readjustment suggestions on the table, but nobody agrees on which ones we should take and actually if we need any. There have been some other problems keeping things consistent among the chapters, too. Lots of problems with communicating across time zones and people who don't want to put in as much work."

Dylan glances up and nods slowly, trying to understand.

"Jin is Sonny's grandfather," Jamila explained. "He died a few months ago. Sonny was prepared to return and rustle through the paperwork. I told him not to."

"You did?" he asks in surprise.

"He didn't come right out and say it, but I knew that he was thinking about finishing school. If he doesn't do it now, he might never get the chance." She casts her eyes forward. "Obviously he was head of S.P.I.E.D. before and he's great at it already—Jin had been leading it until his death, but Sonny took on his work as Jin's health declined. But this shouldn't be his life just because it's the family business. He came into it, he lived his life, but he needs to tie up loose ends."

"And what is your life?" His green eyes fall on her somehow. Maybe he means it. Maybe he's being serious right now.

"I don't know," she answers honestly. "Nefertari was my life. And that was big. That was a legacy. Thousands of years in waiting. Done before I'm a quarter of a century old myself." She laughs. "So I don't know."

"You'll find it somewhere. You're still only a quarter of a century old."

She bites back a smile. "Yeah. I think I've found it, maybe. I want what Sonny wants, just not in the same way. And I never told him that I didn't know what my life was. I think he knew it, though. He wouldn't have let me join S.P.I.E.D. otherwise." Her laugh this time is genuine. "I still remember how that phone conversation went." She looks up at him.

His eyes are clear and receptive.

She likes the way he listens. He actually does. It isn't that Sonny means to tune people out so much as he doesn't know how to shut off his ideas and he asks them twice or sometimes three times to repeat themselves. Dylan isn't like that. He's less… exhausting.

More comfortable.

"Phone conversations are odd no matter what. You can't see the other person's face. It's like some sort of dark magic."

She smiles. Her heart grows unclouded when he's around.

"Honestly, it's nice getting away from all that in the more remote locations," he says thoughtfully. "Egypt. Mexico."

"Where are you headed?" she asks.

"My flat for a few things, then Sydney."

"And after Sydney?" They pause at a crosswalk with a red light.

He turns to her. "What do you mean, after Sydney?"

"I, er, it just doesn't seem your style." She backtracks quickly and is angry at herself for it. Just like a schoolgirl. Now is the worst time to stop being assertive. "The cities. More crowded places."

"Ah," he says, understanding. I have to work on getting proper credentials there—actual ones—and then scope out some sites. So I'll be in Sydney for a bit."

Just like the schoolgirl she'd been in Egypt, forcing herself to move past the pretty-boy eyes.

"I never really believed him," Nancy had said once to her.

"I did," she'd replied. "Never trust the cute ones. They know what they can get away with."

They walk for a while in silence, but not an awkward silence. Each both know the other is thinking, Jamila tells herself. Even though they don't speak, Jamila feels his sturdy presence beside her. Her arm tingles. She doesn't need to see him to know where he is, or who he is.

Which is odd, considering that she's never really trusted him before.

They've reached the train station. She turns to him. "Can I ask why you want to talk to me now? In Egypt I think we said ten words to each other."

"Ah," he begins, and that utterance tells her that the question makes him uncomfortable. He curls a hand around the side of his neck. "Aliens?" he chuckles and looks down. "I didn't really think you were approachable. I didn't think we could talk about interesting things."

Considering Dylan's smarmy nature, Jamila is surprised at his honesty, although she appreciates it. Still she vies for devil's advocate. "Interesting to you?" she asks.

"Your returning Nefertari… that was amazing. When I read that, I said to myself, 'I know that girl!' And I wish I'd talked to you sooner."

This is almost good enough for her. Still something doesn't seem right. "What if I told you I believed in aliens?" she asks suddenly.

"You don't," he laughs.

"Are you sure?"

"I know you. You don't."

He looks like he won't budge on that, so she moves on. "But what if I told you I believed in aliens, and you believed me?"

"If I knew all of the other stuff about Nefertari, I'd want to talk about that."

Perhaps this answer should satisfied her to some capacity, but it doesn't. Jamila always suspected that she wasn't Nefertari. Jamila is Jamila.

Yet the first twenty-four years of her life taught her differently. Why would she devote her life so fully to someone else dead, unless that other someone was an extension of herself?

Or she was the extension?

This… this is just rubbing it in.

"I don't think you know me," she says gelidly.

"I don't think you know you," he replies, unfazed.

She leaves the station without saying goodbye. He doesn't call after her. Maybe he knows it's better not to. She has nothing else to say to him.

It would honestly be better if she were still the alien girl to him. Already she's turned a page on a queen's legacy, and for the next seventy years she'll be stripped of anything a fraction as significant. Now that she has accomplished so much and will spend the rest of her life accomplishing so little in comparison, life is a little like being a speck of dirt on the gold sarcophagus. Which is worse than believing in aliens.

Yet she doesn't believe in aliens, so that isn't she.

She does believe in Nefertari, but somehow it seems a little that she isn't the speck of dirt, either.

Sometimes she thinks about him when he's gone.

Not often, but sometimes. It brings her a frustrated joy.

But she has no reason to like him. To keep talking to him. Not that he's bad, but… there's no use for it. He said things, she said things, he left. That's how things always went. Even if she feels her heart lighten and grow unclouded for those few minutes, it's always just for those few minutes. Then he leaves, and she continues with S.P.I.E.D. work.

That's the way it always was. That's the way it'll always be.

After all, she can still only count time in lifetimes and eternities. Being an un-legacy no longer bothers her, but it still exhausts her terribly.

In fact, she's so tired after working today that she almost doesn't hear her phone ring.

Quickly she picks up.

"Jamila," says a familiar cheery voice.

She breaks into a smile she's glad he can't see. "You're back? In London?"

"Yep. Want to meet up?"

"Yeah. Give me an hour."

That hour they met and they agreed to meet again the next day. Then two days after that. So on and so forth. Today they are at a park. A picnic table.

They're quizzing each other about life experiences.

"Shoplifting?"

Dylan is affronted. "Why would you think—N—That's so tacky—no. No."

"All right."

Taking this opportunity to even the playing board, Dylan asks, "Companionship?"

Jamila stiffens. He knows. He knows she doesn't make friends. Just because she asked him something mildly insulting—

He continues to look at her, expecting an answer.

"No," she says, eager to be the bigger person in the scenario and move on.

"And…" Dylan drums his fingers against the table "Love?"

She's still too angry to be shocked. "No one."

"No one now?"

"No one ever."

This time it's Dylan's turn to be shocked, and he doesn't miss his cue.

Scoffing at his expression, Jamila continues. "For heaven's sak—what did you expect?"

"Somebody. Somebody somewhere. Maybe once that Sonny fellow—"

Immediately Jamila shakes her head. "No. No, absolutely not. Never."

"I mean, now he has someone, but—"

"He's like family. Why won't you leave it alone?"

"Well," Dylan looks down briefly, "because you sounded just a bit angry when you said you didn't date."

"Because your questions are too personal."

"You're right." He bows his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude."

Jamila bites back a scowl. Oh, for goodness' sake, she thinks, I've driven myself nearly crazy with no one to talk to. "I always mother him. I can't get in it with him," she says abruptly. "He was really the first guy to care whether I lived or died, and believe me, I remember that. He's always been a friend to me, even sooner than I would ever consider extending my friendship to others, giving me the means to ending my lifelong search after half an hour of knowing me. I've thought about that a lot, how ridiculous it was for it to end, for the solution to present itself that fast. After it really felt like forever. For him to jump in my life and help me finish it, 30 minutes. I honestly think I owe my life to Sonny, but he won't ever let me tell him that. But he doesn't love me."

"And you don't love him?"

"I used to," Jamila admits, "or at least I thought I did. He was the first man to care about me in one way or another; of course I did. That was short, though. I found out just how crazy he drove me. I could no more love him than he could love me." She's astonished then to find she had told Dylan more than she ever tells anyone, more than she ever told Sonny, and even more astonished to find she didn't care once she did. If this is what love is—and she's still figuring it out—if this is love, and he doesn't run away…

Long ago, Jamila spun the image of being surrounded by children. At first it was only in moments of great peril. Then they returned when she was dozing, as froth-rimmed personal guesses at a future family.

Each one she'd nurse until rosy-cheeked. Then she'd let them play in the sands, skin growing darker from the sun. And her strong Egyptian husband would smile at her back, and the whole room would glow warm.

And the day then would start anew so she could see them all again.

These were just consolatory visions to accompany her in the minutes before death. No one real, not even an inspiration from people who were real, comprised them.

She had never dared hope for this.

Now it will be possible, as long as she doesn't get hit by an automobile…

She trails off in her mind, stricken.

What do statistics say about how many die from those sorts of accidents every hour?

Those people met death in impossible places. How has she avoided death when looking for it?

Finally, Jamila fears the day that she will die.

"Jamila," Dylan says, noticing her distress.

She blinks. "Yes?"

He speaks to her in a language she doesn't think she understands.

She excuses herself. "I have to go home."

"Are you ill?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

Dylan grabs her elbow, helping her up.

"I'm fine, really," she protests. "Just… remembering."

"Then you might not be fine."

"I'm fine if I say I am," Jamila replies crossly.

"All right," Dylan says quickly. "I said 'might,' didn't I?"

Under normal circumstances, Jamila would be happier. They've just eliminated a quarrel.

"What were you saying before?" Dylan asks.

"I don't love him. I mistook familial affection for something else. He's a wonderful person, a tremendous friend, and working with him has added a lot to my life." She laughs slightly. "You'd think I did love him, owing so much to him, but I don't."

"It's good of you to run S.P.I.E.D. while Sonny finishes school."

Jamila shrugs. She doesn't have any words, and says none.

"I wonder if sometimes you work too hard," Dylan says as they start off toward her flat. "You seem very… duty-driven."

"I'd do it even if I weren't. Sonny's a good guy. He deserves a break."

"So do you, Jamila."

"I've been taking a break. Every moment I don't know what my life is for I'm taking a break."

"That isn't true," he says softly. "Most people spend their whole lives figuring out what life's for. In fact, that's kind of the point."

"Not the destination, but the journey, yeah? But the journey has to end," she adds, remembering Nefertari. "If it doesn't, nothing gets accomplished."

"Well," he smiles, "maybe there's more than one journey."

Jamila doesn't reply.

"I mean, that's the way I like to think of it," Dylan continues thoughtfully. "I've screwed up a lot. If life were just counted as one journey, I'd flunk. But everything I learn and make a habit… it'd just be great if all that counted."

It sounds far too lenient to Jamila. But stating the obvious will only upset him. There's more sense in holding her tongue.

Then Dylan smiles so suddenly that she knows he's got to be thinking about something else. Dealing with Sonny on a regular basis had made her an expert on reading thought processes. He's looking forever at the spot she'll step next, and it's so palpably close and visibly far. "Would you like to go out on a date with me?" he finally asks.

Jamila hesitates for a long time. "I have never gone out on a date," she reminds him, meeting his eyes. She isn't ashamed. But she is a bit confused.

His eyebrows shoot up, and his mouth goes in an o. "That's right. Pressure's on me," he says, scratching the skin at the nape of his neck.

"On the contrary. There's no standard. There's no pressure. I have nothing and no one against which to compare you," Jamila says matter-of-factly.

"That's a consolation," he laughs. "A small one, anyway." He clears his throat. "When? That is, assuming by all that you meant yes."

"I did. And maybe Wednesday? Dinner?"

"Dinner meaning…"

"Seven."

"That isn't too late for you?"

"Evening prayer is around six. And I want a little time after that."

"Works for me."

"Great." Jamila rummages around in her purse for her planner. "Where should I meet you?"

"I thought I'd pick you up."

"Is that what people do?" she asks not warily but curiously.

"Wow. You really have never gone out on a date."

"Is that a problem?"

"No. I'll be a gentleman." He takes out his phone and records the date there. "Oh, and it's at the Ritz."

"You can finally afford it? Good for you."

Dylan sighs, then laughs. "I know you didn't really care, but it was important to me. I know I play it off easy, but lately I don't like to mooch." He grins self-consciously.

She echoes his sigh then looks abruptly sidelong at him. "Well, I'm looking forward to this."

"So am I." He smiles.

This smile is perfectly symmetrical, she sees, and it sets his eyes alight. It is honest.

So she allows it.

"Sonny?" Jamila twists side to side a little apprehensively as she talks into the phone.

"Yeah?" he sounds preoccupied.

Why should today be different?

"Have you ever been out on a date?" she says quickly.

"What kind of a question is that?" he snaps in response, feigning indignation. "You think I can't score? Of course I've been out on a date."

She giggles.

Silence.

"You giggled." Sonny points out with some perplexity to his tone. "The Jamila I know doesn't giggle."

"I can't help," she continues on a chuckle, "it if you're funny."

"You never laugh even when I am. And when you do," he says in sing-song, "it's not like that."

"Well, I needed to. Laugh. I needed to laugh."

"So you're going out on a date?"

She jerks her head up and down with a stupid grin on her face. It doesn't matter if Sonny sees her being silly. It's Sonny, after all. Then, remembering abruptly he can't see her—even though most of their conversations are over the phone, this one feels more palpable, face-to-face—she laughs again and answers the affirmative.

"Do I know the guy?"

"Yes," she says it so obviously before remembering it might not be so obvious to Sonny. "It's Dylan."

"Oh. Should've seen that one coming."

"Really?"

"That's what Nancy says."

"What do you mean, that's what Nancy says?"

"He was asking a lot about you when we were in Mexico. Nancy says that. Nancy didn't say I should've expected it. I came to that conclusion myself."

"I see," says Jamila, though she's far more excited than that.

"I know your dad's in Egypt, so I can make the phone call to Dylan that if he treats you wrong, I'll try to beat him up. Can't promise I'll be able to. But I'll try."

"Thanks, Sonny. Don't think that will be necessary."

"No, thank you. I've never beaten anybody up before."

Well, then again, I've never been on a date before, so it might be necessary."

"Ohhhh no," he replies. "You can take him right? Because I can jump pretty far, but I can't jump across an ocean. Although apparently the Sumerians could. Hmmm. I wonder if I have Sumerian ancestors."

"Don't worry," she cuts in before his thoughts derail. "I've got a handle on things."

"I know you do. And I also want you to know I've always got your back."

"Thanks, Sonny."

"No problem," he inflects. "You think you're set? Because speaking of dates, I've finally got Nancy on one. All our other plans got waylaid. So basically we consider our trips as a long, continuous date. But it's high time we've been on an actual one."

"Well, I was wondering… I have a few questions."

"And I still have a few minutes," he replies warmly. "Shoot."

For the next few minutes she's seventeen again, learning about all of the things she would have learned before she learned of her part in the Order. Friends. Boys.

After hanging up to go on his date, his mood lingers on her for a few minutes. Then in the minutes following that, Jamila feels its direct absence after it leaves. She misses him. But he's thousands of miles away with his own life. She knows they can't talk that often. Not until he comes back to S.P.I.E.D.

If he comes back to S.P.I.E.D.

Then she is startled to realize that she's felt this before about Dylan. Except usually in those cases the lingering period is hours, and the wound is days. Her life isn't bad. She can't even say she's unhappy when it happens. But it's like eating bread after eating cake. She supposes it is, anyway—she hasn't really eaten cake in a while. Their companionship is still a little new, but Dylan fills her with the glow of Ramadan, the feeling of spare, simple joy. Days without him are the days outside Ramadan where she is alone in her human appetites.

Yes. That's a better analogy.

For Les Miserables sang the truest line she'd ever heard: "To love another person is to see the face of God." That was the only show she'd ever seen on the West End. It was the only one she ever needed to see. She hadn't been since.

Jamila has always considered herself an honest person, even in Egypt when she pretended to be an alien believer. Honesty to Jamila is the bigger truth, not the lies she sometimes tells to get there.

If she's honest with herself now, she likes the few conversations they've had after Egypt.

If she's even more honest with herself, she likes his face.

She knows that the second one probably will not go away, which is fine on the condition she doesn't act solely on that.

All this she realizes on her way home from the Ritz. And it's a bit too many revelations for such a short time space. Walking back only took fifteen minutes.

"What are you thinking about?" Dylan asks.

"Ethical questions."

"Ah." He says.

The topic still makes him uncomfortable. Jamila meets his eyes. "I think you know the answers to more of them than you think."

He gives a short laugh. "You're far too generous."

Pausing, Jamila wonders what the best way is to approach this. "It is not my place to forgive you," she begins slowly, "but I will point out that there were few consequences to your actions. You didn't become involved in the black market."

"But I would have. I wanted to at one point."

"Now you don't want to. Look, you can't return to your past. There's no way that you'll go back and somehow release that former Dylan who wanted it and enable him to try until he got it—not as long as you've really changed."

This doesn't mollify him. She tries again. "Dylan, I have no grudge against you for what happened when we were in Egypt. There is a former Jamila who did, once," she adds haltingly, "but much like your former Dylan, she's gone for good."

They reach the outer door of her flat. Dylan looks at her a long time and smiles. "Had a great time," he says.

"This was good," Jamila replies. "Fun. Informative."

"Again sometime?" he asks, hopeful although Jamila can see it's gone so well he thinks he knows.

"Yes. Sounds good."

He sways slowly forward, closer to her ear as if to whisper. But instead he turns his head and she feels warm, heart-shaped skin on her cheek. Then he steps back and she can see him again. "Great time," he says again.

Then he's gone, and unlike all of the other times, this time she can't remember him leaving.

But she's never been kissed before, not even by family.

"You know, you really oughtn't be cross with me," Dylan tells Jamila on another of their walks. "I forget things."

"Three times in a row?" Jamila asks incredulously. "I lent you the book so you could read it and thereupon return it."

"I'll bring it to you next time!"

"You've said that twice."

"I'll—make it up to you?"

Jamila ignores him as she looks up at the new grey clouds apprehensively.

Then the sky hurls rain at her like spittle.

"I can't believe this," she mutters darkly.

"Ought to enjoy it," Dylan says, unaffected. "I haven't an umbrella, so there's no choice."

"And why haven't you an umbrella?" Jamila asks, trying very hard to be patient. "This is London. You know it rains."

"I spend most of my time outside London. I forget."

Walking sans umbrella seems almost possible for a few minutes. Then the rain starts pouring harder.

"Great idea, going for a walk," Jamila shouts over a clap of thunder.

Dylan takes off his jacket and held it over her. Jamila has to lean against his forearm to stay under it. "My flat's about a block away from here," he says. "You can come in and wait out the storm."

"I have to get back."

"You'll get soaked."

"I already am! Your jacket isn't—" Dylan slips, and she stumbles into his side. "—isn't waterproof!"

"Nothing I own is waterproof. I'm not used to this weather."

Jamila ducks out from under the jacket and goes to stand under a nearby tree. "This is easier!"

He follows her. "I question your idea of easier." The tree doesn't provide much shelter, and they stand close. He offers her a small smile.

Jamila looks away.

There's little else to see as the rain blots everything opaque. Jamila's hijab sticks to her forehead, and Dylan can almost see the outline of her hair. Jamila's eyes dart up to his every so often. On one occasion they linger.

Dylan's breath catches. After weeks of being away he's forgotten just how beautiful she was. And judging by her expression she seems to be finally—finally—thinking along the lines he is.

After realizing she had been staring Jamila's mouth opens slightly in surprise, and her eyes dart down to his chest.

He nods and pats her forearm, looking past to the bark.

"Wait," she said.

He refocuses on her. She looks up.

He touches her other arm and rocks a little ways forward. "Yeah?" he asked softly.

She bites her lip. "Yeah."

Slowly he moves closer, giving her time to change her mind. She doesn't. Their lips meet softly, and stay for a second or two.

Dylan pulls back. "Was that all right?"

"Yes." She nods. "It was nice."

"Do you still like me?"

"No," she replies with a wry curl of the lip.

Some months later they're together again at King's Cross.

Dylan meets her eyes. "Would you consider coming with me this time?"

His voice takes on the mildly flirtatious whine it sometimes does. But the smile is in earnest. Eager earnest. "Sonny finishes his PhD in a few months. It might be fun."

Jamila casts him a look of surprise. "How do you know he's graduating?"

"Called him."

"You kept his number?"

"I am exceptionally bad at cleaning off my contacts list."

"Actually I was thinking about going home," she replies, walking slightly ahead of him as her step quickens in anticipation.

"Home?" he asks bashfully, looking down at his feet. "Say, Cairo?"

She stops. "Is that where you're going?"

"Yes. I've wanted to go back for a while, wait until there was enough distance. I've paid my dues, and I don't want to go back with a sense of shame."

"Good," says Jamila. She's glad he isn't asking for her assurance. It isn't her place.

Dylan leans closer to her side. "I'm here until the 19th. If you do want to come with, come find me."

"You're ready," says Jamila. "I'm happy for you. I think I'm not ready."

"Have you been back since finding Nefertari?" he asks.

"No," she replies quietly.

"I don't want to take you away from anything," he says deliberately, "but I like you. I like talking to you. And I don't want that to be once every few months."

"I like it, too," Jamila replies. Because she is honest.

His eyes sparkle at this.

"What exactly are you asking?" Jamila looks up at him with firm lips. She knows she always tends to ask the hard questions, but they're fair questions. She isn't sorry for them.

"You in any capacity," he replies immediately, unfazed, not shy or self-conscious.

This is honesty. And it pleases her. "I don't know what capacity I can promise," she says thoughtfully. "At least, not right away. I think I like you enough to the point where I could live with you, though."

"Flatmates and friends?"

She nods. "Flatmates and friends."

At sixteen Jamila knew the man she wanted to marry. His olive skin might have been crafted by sand, his eyes and hair by the soil. Now she knows it was more Egypt she had loved. She didn't think about bed, but she thought about children. After her mother's letter she thought about daughters.

The first time she saw Dylan she thought about bed without thinking about children at all.

It hadn't ashamed her as much as it annoyed her. There never seems to be much point griping over what one can't help, but it had made the discovery of his lies slightly more difficult.

When the rocks fell on him, that made it easier. That she had been ashamed of. But her reaction to harm coming to him proved that she cared about him as a person, not as a body. Also factoring in was that she destroyed the water supply. Even though she had nothing to do with the cave-in, her dark hands became darker with dirt. The scant lighting in the tomb had only made it even more pronounced. How anyone could tamper with architecture so beautiful, she knew she'd live forever without understanding. But everything was money to Abdullah. Maybe at one time he cared, but she doubted it. He just seemed like a pretentious ass who enjoyed talking above others. What he was talking about didn't matter.

Now, in the desert again, she remembers all of this. The desert doesn't change, she thinks, looking around. Dylan is doing one of his tours, and she promised that she'd visit.

Jamila sees him almost immediately and heads over, weaving through a crowd of about fifteen people.

He smiles. "Just in time," he says privately to her. "We're about to start off."

She realizes now that she's never seen what he does for his living. What she knows he loves doing more than any hobby.

And when the tour's in progress she loses time watching him, watching the way his hands move and the way he communicates with the tourists.

By the time it's over, she only remembers one or two sentences.

Right now Dylan's talking to a couple of university girls about something. But his eyes keep going behind them, and he ends the conversation quickly and walks over to Jamila.

Wow, she thinks, pleasantly amazed. He really has changed.

"How do you think it went?" she asks.

"Went well," Dylan answers. "Was glad to have you there."

"Glad to be there," she returns.

Then they're silent, and Jamila is suddenly afraid that this is boring. It's always the way these things go. And while she likes routine, Dylan distances himself enough from it to travel the world.

Does she have any reason to be here? Any good reason?

It's boring even for her, she realizes. She's grown up in this desert. For the past few years she's been swapping years with Dylan.

She aches to kiss him again. It's going toward that, anyway. It has to be, since words aren't particularly useful here. She wonders what Sonny would do in this situation. Surely he'd just go for it. Fighting the temptation to reach for her phone, Jamila places her hands in the pockets of her jeans. Sonny called her when things went bad. She called him when she hit dead ends. Very probably they are too dependent on one another.

It still feels odd to Jamila, wrong, to need someone at all. Not until she found Nefertari did she admit she needed the map Sonny gave her. Most of the time she doesn't let herself think about how badly she needs the advice he gives her most of the time as she continues to try to reacclimate to the way normal people live their lives. He thinks he needs her for things he can figure out himself, only he thinks he doesn't have the time to do so. While she has a special place in her heart for Sonny, the boy is needy. There's no doubt about that.

So yes, Sonny would go for it, but that's not something Jamila would do, so she strains her mind to think of what he'd tell her to do if she could call him right now.

Then while she's trying to remember the annoying thought of "But he's crazy," keeps popping into her head. It's probably the fourth or fifth time before she figures out that this is probably her way of telling herself "Sod what he thinks." She moves closer and looks up into his face.

Dylan's eyebrows rise.

"So," Jamila swallows and licks her lips, which have become dry. "I think I might be ready to explore some of those other capacities now."

For a second he looks charmingly confused. Just then the clouds finish moving across the sun, which is blinding. She holds a hand over her eyes. "I quite like you," she continues. "But I don't really know how these things go."

"So what will you be doing?" Sonny asks, startling Jamila with the characteristic volume of his voice.

"Dylan's doing tours in Keny—"

"No."

Jamila blinks. "What?"

"Nonononononononono," he says. "You're not doing Dylan's thing. Dylan's life. You're doing your own."

"I don't understand. Didn't he call you?"

"He called and asked me one question. Then asked about you. Then hung up."

"What do you mean?" she asks, though she already thinks she knows.

"Dylan's a great guy, but you need to find your own purpose. Maybe you love him, but that doesn't mean you should go following him around the globe."

"Why, Sonny? What is wrong with loving somebody?"

"Loving's fine as long as you know who you are before you do. You have to find yourself to lose yourself."

She bites back a tart remark, knowing he means well.

"Jamila, I consider you family, and I'm asking you to please think about this."

"Why is it okay for you to go around the globe?"

"What?"

"Why is it okay for you to go around the globe, but you freak when I want to?"

"First of all, I was alone. It really was about me."

"Second of all?"

He pauses briefly. "I don't remember."

Jamila continues. "And that's how you found yourself. I still need to find myself."

"Jamila, that really concerns me."

"Why?" she scoffs. "I'm not going to get 'lost,' all right?"

"But you're focusing on the needs of someone else and not what you need—"

"He'll help me find what I want! He knows he's already a part of that. And I'm going to find the rest of it. I'm not going to lose myself in what he wants. I won't let that happen, and he doesn't want that."

"It might happen even if neither of you try."

She forces herself to take a deep breath. "You trust my judgment. Trust me on this."

Sonny sighs heavily and exaggeratedly. "I feel like I'm the father of the bride here."

"That's impossible," she jests. "For I'm the mother of the terrible toddler."

"I'm not a toddler!" he protests, "am I Nancy?" he calls away from the speaker. There's a pause before he returns to the phone. "She says I am."

"I told you."

Sonny doesn't hear her, though. Instead he's laughing. Jamila hears him say "I love you" off the line.

She smiles.

"I have to go," he says. "Call me and tell me how this thing goes."

"I will. Goodbye."

"Bye."

Jamila is twenty-nine when she decides she does not want to be alone anymore. She recognizes the connection she shares with Dylan beyond the love of his face. She knows he is lonely, and he seems less lonely with her around. She knows her life looks drained and insipid when she works too hard, but with him around, she never works too hard.

"Where to today?" she asks, grinning freely.

Dylan lays a hand on her cheek. "A little place. I know I have some money, but I'd better not spend it."

"Agreed."

When they get to the approximate street, Jamila's eyes narrow on one of the signs. "It seems familiar."

Dylan also looks. "It does, doesn't it?"

Jamila hums gently through her lips, thinking.

He figures it out before she does.

"You've got it, then." Jamila chuckles. "What?"

Smiling, he says, "Guess."

"I… uh…"

"Mmm-hmmm?" His eyebrows rise. He's egging her on.

"Er, erm…" Jamila honestly has no idea, but maybe it's obvious enough to guess. "... the place where we first talked after Egypt?"

"Yep." He shakes his head. "Can't believe it. Well, let's eat here."

The nature of their company and their casual playoff from this coincidence are almost enough to consider it ordinary, but Jamila feels a spike of happiness jolt through her.

The day he proposes on a London pavement is excessively ordinary. Ironically extraordinary. And somehow even the topic is ordinary to them, even though they've never discussed it prior to now. They walk out into the afternoon and in the blinding blond light, somehow the concrete looks like sand.

They're holding hands.

He chuckles, almost nervously. "We're an odd pair, aren't we?"

Jamila shrugs. "I don't see why."

He throws her a semi-incredulous look. "Really?"

She has to admit the label is appropriate. As it is, both are extraordinarily old. Dylan bursts with history in his tours every day, and Jamila… well, she's history incarnate, sprung fresh off the papyrus. She feels it. Most days she still can't believe modern society is real. And Dylan doesn't see it quite that way, but he sees how she could.

Yet she doesn't consider them an odd pair, really, so she thinks it shouldn't count.

Hearing this puts Dylan at ease. Leaning forward, he eagerly begins to talk. "I want a companion, and I love making you happy. I love talking to you. Making you laugh. Living alone is well enough, I guess, but living with you is better. You know me. I'm not all that romantic. But I do love you, Jamila. Maybe I'm not the greatest with grand gestures. But I'll always be by your side, if you'll have me."

A long time passes before she replies, but she is not considering. For the past few years she has been considering. Now she simply plays out their life together, what'll be the same, what'll be different. Double-checks her choice.

For a while they were just friendly visits. Both of them lived in London. They checked up on one another.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, she realized she loved him.

It didn't start off to be the blazing love it was for many women, or at least what how many women thought it went. They either weren't in love or they were in love long before they knew it, not noticing it until it was blaringly obvious.

But Jamila does know the day she loved him first.

Money had been tight again. It reached the point where Dylan stopped whistling every day and slumped a little bit and walked a little more slowly. Sonny came to visit them. And try to loan them money when he saw their flat, as it turned out. Both Jamila and Dylan steadfastly refused. Sonny hid the check under their rug and booked the next flight out of the country. By the time he texted Jamila from LaGuardia in regards to its location, it was too late for her. She'd called him and threatened to destroy it, only to be told that he'd hidden more where that came from, and he wouldn't tell her where they were unless she cashed the one she had.

Jamila had been furious.

Dylan tried to be.

And she found that she wasn't cross with him for falling short.

She should've been. It wasn't her way, even if it was his.

With shock, she'd realized for the first time in her life that her way wasn't the only way. It had had to be while she searched for Nefertari. Make no friends, the Order had told her. Trust no one.

The next time Jamila looked at her reflection, Nefertari was gone from it.

This marked the first time that they, she and Dylan, were truly in something together. Neither pitying the other for individual struggles.

And she saw Dylan more clearly that day than she ever had. He'd changed. She trusted him to the point of thinking he couldn't do anything that she wouldn't tolerate. He would not hurt her. She would not hurt him. They respected one another too much for that.

She'd not doubted her decision to stay with him at all, and that day she found she doubted it even less. Every attempt to live her life after Nefertari was a brittling experience.

Until she got to know Dylan.

Never with him did she want for anything.

Now that Jamila and Nefertari were disassociated, she had no sense of forever. But if it was used in the manner others used it, as synonymous to "lifelong," Jamila knew she preferred this warm forever to the cold, fatalistic one that lasted three thousand years.

She knew then that she could spend that time with him.

Their love is unlike the rose. It is more the papyrus flower—exuding stability and informative quality in paper form, with myriad didactic tendencies in each of their pasts. She loves him with the love that didn't lead to comedies or tragedies, but histories. Simple statements of fact, yet no less resounding, no less emotional, no less real or comforting. Even as they continue into the future, neither needs something new, but instead prefers something old.

Knowing this, and having known it the past thousand years or so, Jamila says, "I will."

The use of "pavement" with an indefinite article might sound a bit weird. I know it does to me. However, I looked it up, and the British use of the word-meaning "sidewalk"-is countable. So I think that's right...?

Also, Jamila is Muslim. I am not. I know that Muslim women (especially from a conservative area like Egypt, where most women wear hijab) are pretty reserved, so I tried to develop the romance in a way I thought was realistic to her culture. Despite being reserved, Jamila also knows her own mind, which does give the narration a little more "oomph," to quote Joanna Riggs. (I love onomatopoeias. Don't you?)

Speaking of Jamila, try writing a story about her while burning Egyptian Goddess incense. It's an awesome experience.

If this pairing were a musical piece, it'd definitely be Mahler's Symphony No. 5 Movement 4. Gorgeous and understated. And for far too long I was listening to a setting of Burns' "A Red Red Rose" while writing when the story explicitly says their love is not a rose! Bad author. Bad.