Disclaimer: I own neither the concept nor the characters.

Summary: An opportunity for the museum takes rips its inhabitants apart. What happens when Larry realizes his feelings for the one leaving? Larry/Ahk, with some Jed/Octi. M/M slash.

The Sun Will Set For You
Chapter 2

It was only after Larry's footsteps faded down the hall did Ahkmenrah look up. Biting his lip, the young Pharaoh headed out the burial chamber and into the main tomb to view the items on display. The items that would leave the museum and travel with him. Gold statues and precious stones from his original tomb. Clay jars that held his organs. Furniture, jewelry, clothing.

Some of the larger items would most likely be staying - larger stone walls with hieroglyphics and the jackal-headed guard statues. Items too big or fragile to travel with him.

Slowly, the young Pharaoh wandered out of his tomb and into the hallways. Most of the human figures would be in the atrium, but the animals tended to roam the halls. As he walked, his thoughts drifted to the other museum residents. With him and the tablet gone, they would not wake for 2 years... that was a long time, especially when your life was only lived from sunset to sunrise. And he himself would go back to the way he spent most of the past 3300 or so years - bound and trapped, waking every night in darkness, unable to move or see, unable to escape.

Stopping his wandering, Ahkmenrah leaned against a wall, hand covering his eyes. Breath in... breath out... slowly... The panic was rising again, that extreme feeling of being trapped and hopeless; endlessly trapped in darkness as everything around him came to life. Running his hand through his hair, he paused; his crown was missing. Thinking back, he realized he must have left it on the bench when Larry had taken it from him. Sighing, he went back to his problem.

If the tablet left with him, then everyone in this museum would remain asleep. And Ahkmenrah would wake every night, once again trapped in his sarcophagus. Every night for 2 years. Other than Larry, the only time he had ever been freed from that awful coffin was when he was at Cambridge University. One of the archaeologists studying him discovered him alive one night and freed him. He taught him English and in return, Ahkmenrah had shared much about Egyptian life. Then, without warning, he had been bundled off to this museum and been left, night after night, once again trapped by those evil night guards for another 50 years. Then Larry had come and in a fit of desperation freed him once again. But this was more than the gentleman at Cambridge did. Larry actually let him OUT, helped him dress in his normal clothes and, for the first time in 3300 years, feel like himself. Every night. And even when Larry was gone, Teddy and Sacajawea had taken his place.

How could he take the tablet from them? Even ignoring his own fear of once again being trapped in that world of darkness, how could he take everything, this LIFE away from his friends for two whole years?

He paused in his thoughts again. His friends. Ahkmenrah had never actually had friends before. He was a Pharaoh; he had had servants, subjects, and members of the royal court. But no friends. The closest he might have had was the gentleman at Cambridge, but he left a bitter taste on the Pharaoh's tongue. Ahkmenrah did hold some resentment for not being warned of his move, having gone into his sarcophagus one morning and awoken the next evening in a crate. Whether the man had known or not was not the issue. Now, Larry had told him the smallest amount of details as he learned them. Now, he could count Larry among his first friends. Probably even the first.

Ahkmenrah stopped walking. His wanderings had brought him through a less-used hall and he now stood on the upper balcony looking over the atrium. Standing in the shadow near a column, he watched over the museum occupants, his new kingdom. They seemed to be having fun. It did not look as if Larry had broken the news to them yet. They would take it hard, he knew. They would feel as if he were abandoning them and taking their life as well. He felt that way already.

A few slow steps drew him closer to the railing, but he remained in shadow, not wanting to face any of them. Not yet. But Larry had seemed to grow a sixth sense regarding the museum's residents - or at the very least, the resident Pharaoh. As if he knew Ahkmenrah was there, he turned to see him up on the balcony. As not to draw attention to the fact, Larry casually turned back to Teddy, made his excuses to the President, and headed up the stairs. Ahkmenrah had already fled down the corridor.