A/N: So despite the fact that I have almost none of this written I have decided to post it anyway. Why? Honestly I have no idea, but I am.
Title: False Idols
More In-depth-yet-still-short Summary: While working as an archaeologist with her father's company in Egypt, Danica Graham gets swept up in the chaos of World War II and Ronald Speirs. Its gunna be a kind of an Indiana Jones meets Band of Brothers meets Serena-the-Muse's-Idea-with-a-dash-of-historical-accuracy-thrown-in-the-good-measure fic.
Love Interest: Speirs obviously…..even though I think he gets far too much (though well written) love on this site.
Disclaimer: So, here's the deal, I mean no disrespect to anyone whatsoever and this is based on the miniseries. I own nothing. And please keep in mind that there are going to be made up "facts" in this story because I am most certainly not an expert on Egyptology or anything really and while I'll do my best to stay as accurate as possible, I am also going to more than likely have to mess around with history to make some things work. This is fiction after all.
August, 1927
the Harbor of Sidi Barrani
Sidi Barrani, Egypt
"Come along Danica." The seven year old brunette in question was firmly attached to the railing of the boat and shook her head.
"No." Her parents shared a look before Henrietta, the reluctant child's mother, motioned for her husband, Rodger, to handle the situation.
"Nicky," Rodger knelt down, giving his daughter a smile, "What's wrong?"
"I want to go back to New York."
"But we've just arrived in Sidi Barrani."
"I don't care. I want to go home."
"I thought that you wanted to live in a place that had camels."
"I changed my mind." Danica replied grumpily.
"Nicky—"Rodger sighed and ran a hand through his sandy blonde hair.
"I have an idea." Danica interrupted before he could continue. "You and mommy can stay here with the camels and I'll go back to New York. We can visit each other at Christmas. It's a compromise."
"While I'm thrilled that you understand the concept of compromise, that isn't going to happen." Danica frowned.
"Why not?"
"Because you're seven and can't take care of yourself." Rodger stood back up and took his daughter firmly by the hand. "Now let's go." Danica had no choice but to follow.
"Well when I'm a big girl I'm leaving you with the camels and going back to New York."
"When you're an adult you'll be free to make that decision."
"You won't be able to tell me what to do anymore either."
"No, we certainly won't."
"And I'm going to never come back here-not even if you beg." Adding a moody 'humph' to the end of her sentence, Danica crossed her arms over her chest and clamped her mouth tightly shut. Her parents shared another look.
"Just remember dear," Henrietta leaned over to mumble in her husband's ear, "It was your decision to move here."
August, 1934
Sidi Barrani, Egypt
Since Sidi Barrani was really just a pit stop for those on their way further into Egypt, there wasn't much in the way of formal schooling. As far as the Bedouin's were concerned, education was passed from the older generation to the younger. This was the view that the Graham parents took when it came to their daughter's education, though it also came with a definite Western edge. While most of the men employed by Rodger Graham were native Egyptians, there were a few of his colleagues from New York who would stay for long stretches of time. These were the men who, along with her Oxford-educated tutor Professor Derrick Wheeler, would shape Danica's mind for the rest of her life. And they couldn't find a more willing student than the ever-curious fourteen year old.
"Just one more story Professor Wheeler." Danica begged as she followed him out of his tent. Professor Wheeler had met Rodger Graham while attending a conference on the importance of artifact preservation at the University of New York and had jumped at the chance to spend his summers in Egypt with his colleague.
"I have to get back to work on the dig Danica." Wheeler said even as the fourteen year old scrambled down after him into the pit they were currently working on.
"Mr. Klein says that you aren't going to find anything here anyway so I'm sure you can spare another five minutes." Wheeler scowled.
"Jan Klein knows as much about Egypt as I do about botany." Danica frowned.
"But you don't know anything about Botany." Wheeler sent her a look.
"Exactly."
"Oh." She shoved her hands into her pockets as she watched Wheeler kneel down to speak with one of the Bedouin workers who had apparently found something.
"Come here Danica." Wheeler ordered, motioning her forward. Danica moved forward to kneel down next to him and he placed a shard of pottery in her hand. "Do you see this?"
"Yes."
"This is something, is it not?"
"Well…" Danica scrunched up her face, "It's just a broken piece of pottery." Wheeler shook his head.
"Look closer." Rolling her eyes, Danica nonetheless did as he requested and took a closer look at the shard in her grasp. After a second she realized what she had missed-a faded hieroglyph.
"Oh wow." Danica breathed, her eyes lighting up. "Is that a cobra?" She asked; Wheeler nodded.
"Indeed it is. Which is what in translation?"
"Goddess or queen." Danica answered, earning a satisfactory nod from the professor.
"Maybe next time you'll take what Mr. Klein says with a grain of salt, hmm?" Wheeler clapped the Bedouin's shoulder before standing and moving to the other side of the pit. Danica followed.
"You don't like him, do you?"
"Who?" Wheeler asked distractedly as he looked over the papers he'd brought with him from his tent.
"Mr. Klein."
"No," Wheeler admitted, "I don't."
"Why not?" He shot her a disapproving look.
"It's rude to pry Danica."
"Sorry Professor." She mumbled abashedly.
"But I'll tell you all the same. Do you remember when Mr. Hendricks taught you about World War I?" Danica nodded. "Did he ever tell you that I fought in the war?" Her mouth dropped and Wheeler chuckled. "I'll take that as a no. Well I did and it was a horrible experience, one I'd like desperately to forget."
"Where did you fight?"
"All over Europe." Wheeler replied. "Or at least that's what it felt like, but mostly France until I was captured."
"Oh." Danica bit at her lower lip. "But what does that have to do with Mr. Klein?"
"He fought alongside the Germans." Wheeler replied, sending Danica a small smile. "And while it's rather immature of me, I'm afraid that I am unable to separate Klein from my German captors. He's very similar to them you see." Danica nodded as though she understood, but she didn't. Suddenly wanting to diffuse the awkward feeling in the air, Danica allowed a mischievous smile to spread over her face.
"So does that mean that I don't have to listen to his lectures on math anymore?" Wheeler chuckled as he reached over to mess up her hair.
"No it does not." He sent her an indulgent smile. It was no secret that the two were fond of each other, but such relationships were common between a tutor and his pupil. "Silly girl." Danica's grin only widened. "If I tell you one more story will you go and bother your father instead of me?" She nodded. "Very well. What do you know about Sekhmet?"
"The Goddess of War?" Wheeler nodded. "Not much beyond the fact that she's a woman with a lion for a head and that she's one of the oldest deities."
"Well besides being the goddess of war, Sekhmet is also associated with disease and plagues, as well as the adverse side of healers and physicians. While she would avert disease for those in her favor, it was told that she would unleash plagues against those who angered her. At the beginning of the fifth dynasty—"Wheeler glanced at Danica expectantly. "And who began the fifth dynasty?"
"Userkef?" Danica replied hesitantly.
"Are you asking me or telling me?" She thought for a moment.
"Telling you."
"Very good. Anyway, Pharaoh Userkef had a dream in which Sekhmet came to him and told him of a great army which was coming to destroy his people. When Userkef asked her how this destruction could be avoided, the goddess replied that he was to make a staff of gold with her likeness at the top, complete with eyes made of rubies, and then point the staff at the invading army. They would instantly be struck down with a disease so fierce that no one would be left standing. Userkef did as she told as soon as he awoke. Just in time too since the Nubians attacked shortly thereafter. " When Wheeler didn't continue, Danica frowned.
"And…?
"And what?"
"Did the staff work? Did it make the Nubian army succumb to disease?"
"It's just a story Danica and like nearly all Egyptian stories, full of myth and magic. And while beautiful, it is still just a story, though there are several writings that hint to the existence of the Staff of Sekhmet."
"Do you believe that the Staff exists?" Wheeler shrugged.
"It's hard to say. Egypt is quite vast and without more concrete evidence, such as directions to where it is, it would be hard to prove the Staff exists."
"I bet it's beautiful."
"All Egyptian artifacts are beautiful." Wheeler reminded her. Danica giggled.
"You would say that."
"I would and I do. Now go find your father." She nodded and began to walk towards the ladder, only to remember the pottery shard that was still clasped in her hand. Danica turned back to Wheeler.
"What do you want me to do with this?"
"Give it here." Danica retraced her steps and placed the shard in his outstretched hand. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Oh! I just remembered, mother wants to know if you're coming for dinner tonight." "It's meatloaf night." Wheeler chuckled.
"How your mother manages to get beef out here I'll never know." Danica shrugged.
"It's a mystery to us all."
"That's just how she likes it, I'm sure. I wouldn't miss your mother's meatloaf for the world." Danica smiled.
"I'll tell her you're coming then."
"Please do. Now go. Shoo." He waved her away and this time Danica completed the journey out of the sandpit. Her father's tent was located at the other end of the dig site, but it took her only a few minutes to walk. Her camel, Azhaar, was tied up out front with her father's camel, Diana. Diana was Henrietta's mother and therefore Rodger's mother-in-law and Danica's grandmother. She had been furious when Rodger had decided to move to Egypt, dragging his wife and child along, and made no effort to hide her opinions. Since his camel was ill-tempered, Rodger thought the name apt.
"Good afternoon Azhaar." Danica stroked the muzzle of her camel lovingly, placing a kiss to the same area when the female camel snorted. Another snort came from behind her and Danica turned to find Diana staring at her expectantly. "And good afternoon to you as well Diana." She pat the "ill-tempered' camel's neck carefully. When she didn't spit, Danica was incredibly grateful.
"She got it all out of her system when I stepped out earlier." Rodger Graham grumbled as he came out of his tent. He shot his camel a glare. "Pack mule."
"Maybe if you didn't call her things like that she'd like you more." Danica suggested. Rodger snorted.
"Doubtful. How was your lesson with Professor Wheeler?"
"Insightful as usual. He ended it with a story about the Staff of Sekhmet."
"Filling your head with nonsense again is he?" A voice said from inside the tent. Danica glanced past her father and saw Jan Klein reclining on the sofa within the tent.
"Hello Mr. Klein, and it isn't nonsense, it's a myth." Klein got to his feet to join the two at the tent opening.
"I wasn't aware there was a difference." He smiled. "But math will soon replace those illusory images flashing through your head. We're working on Geometry today." Danica groaned; Klein frowned. "Nice to see that you're excited."
"It's hard to get excited about math." Danica quipped. Rodger sent her a disapproving glare.
"Danica."
"Sorry." She grumbled before saying the same to Klein, who shrugged.
"I'm well aware that not everyone loves math, but I promise that I'll do my best to make it interesting."
"If anyone could make math interesting, it'd be you Jan." Rodger clapped the man on his back before turning back to Danica. "I have to go back to town for a little while. Will you be alright here with Mr. Klein and the others?" Danica nodded.
"Of course."
"Good. Alright you nasty beast, ready to work again?" Rodger barely jumped out of the way in time when Diana spit. Rodger scowled. "I need to get a horse." Klein placed his hand on Danica's lower back and she glanced up at him.
"Let's leave your father alone with his transport, shall we?" Danica nodded, a small smile on her face. Despite Wheeler's reservations about the German, she did like Klein. Granted, it did help that Jan Klein resembled Rudolph Valentino only with blonde hair. Klein caught her furtive glance and gave her a smile; Danica quickly averted her gaze as her cheeks flushed. "Is the heat getting to you, Miss Graham?" She shook her head.
"No."
"I should think not, since you have grown up in it." Danica nodded. It was true. With her tan skin and dark hair, she looked more like a Bedouin than an American. "When was the last time you were in New York?"
"Two years ago." She replied. "And it was a short visit, only a week. My grandfather had passed."
"Ah, yes, right." By now they'd reached his tent and Klein held aside the tent flap for her to pass.
"Thank you." He nodded and motioned for her to take her usual seat at the side of his desk. Danica did so, grabbing her work pad from the drawer he'd assigned her.
"So Geometry." She couldn't stop a grimace from coming over her face and it wasn't lost on Klein. "Did you know, Danica, that the Egyptians used Geometry?"
"Did they?"
"Mmhmm. Look at the pyramids of Giza. " Klein laughed at the blank look that came over Danica's face. "Alright, perhaps it's best we start at the beginning. Geometry is the branch of mathematics that is concerned with the properties and relationships of points, lines, angles, curves, surfaces and solids."
"What does that have to do with the pyramids of Giza?"
"The pyramids," Klein grabbed a picture of said pyramids that was hanging on the wall of his tent and placed it before her, "Are almost perfect, physical, geometric shapes." Klein leaned forward. "If you remember nothing else I teach you Danica, remember this: all of life is a pyramid. No matter how many sides it has, all sides share a common vortex. Such is your life. There are many changes, many people and many places, but they will all have one thing in common-you."
A/N: Thus completes the introduction. I do not know when the next chapter, aka chapter one, will be up, but I'll try not to make it too long of a wait. There is no guarantee of this because I've suddenly become way into the idea of writing a Sid Phillips Pacific fic and I have no idea where that particular obsession came from so I'm a wee bit distracted. Also I am still adjusting to living once again in Florida and all that goes with a recent move. Anywho, hope someone's interested and thanks for reading; I look forward to reading any and all reviews…unless they're mean reviews 'cause no one likes reading mean reviews.