Author's Notes: I'd like to say I'm sorry for that last section, especially the last line... but I'm not, so I won't. Mwaha. I'm equally not sorry for stealing the amnesia gag from Elizabeth Peters, since I'm using it for good and not evil... well, not much evil, anyhow.
4. Nous Sommes Mariés!
"What?" she whispered, taking a step back.
"I don't think we've been properly introduced." He grinned. "I'd remember meeting a girl in her underwear. Trust me."
"Rick, stop teasing." She folded her arms across her chest and fixed him with her very sternest look.
He looked blankly at her a moment, then dropped his gaze, canting his head to one side. Someone with less reason to trust him might have wondered whether he wasn't trying to peek down the front of her slip.
"I said stop it!" She reached out and smacked him on the chest. He immediately straightened up and looked her in the eye, his expression suspiciously ingenuous. "It isn't funny. You're scaring me!"
Rick shook his head, slowly.
"You--you can't mean... you've really forgotten who I am?" She paled visibly.
His broad shoulders rippled in a shrug. "Sorry." It was that awful, callous indifference that convinced her, more than anything. He frowned for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "Istanbul, right? You were the girl I bumped into in the bazaar, I knocked over your..." Seeing her crestfallen expression, he pressed on with, "Um... Marrakesh? The girl in the bar, with the... no, huh?"
Evelyn felt cold all over.
"Hmm. Gimme a minute, it'll come back..."
She clamped down on her emotions before they could explode into riotous panic. "You'd better stay here," she told him.
He nodded, puzzled.
Closing the room-dividing curtain, she dressed quickly, hands fumbling with the buttons. It was the only thing she could think of to do, and the familiarity of the action calmed her. It also gave her time to figure out what she was to do next. Common sense dictated that she ought to take him to a doctor--or have a doctor come to him; but how could she possibly explain what she had done? And what could a doctor do to help? The entire situation was simply wretched. She'd just wait and see... perhaps his memory of her would return after he'd had a few minutes to recover from the blow.
"You may come out now," she announced, emerging from behind the curtain.
He was engaged in examining his own reflection in the mirror when she called. It had been a while since he'd seen himself looking quite so smart--short hair, clean-shaven, new clothes, the whole nine yards. Apart from the shirt buttons, he was quite the swell.
He stepped over the ruined door without giving it a second glance, and came face to face with the girl. He looked her over, disappointed by her rather conservative attire, then shrugged. If she wanted to hide what Mother Nature had given her, well, that was her business.
She looked at him expectantly, but after a moment her face fell. "You've no idea at all?" she asked, in that clipped little British accent of hers.
He shook his head. "Nope." Rick felt bad that he hadn't tried harder to remember where they'd met, but names just weren't his strong point. Especially when there were so many girls, in so many places... "If it helps, lady, last night I was so drunk I probably had trouble remembering my name." He looked around him, wondering exactly where he was. He'd seen the inside of a few of the nicer hotels in Cairo, and this didn't remind him of anywhere he'd been before.
"Do you... do you know your own name?" she asked, hesitantly. Her eyes were large, liquid, deep enough to drown in.
"Sure."
"Well?" she prompted.
"You used it in there." He jerked a thumb in the direction of the bathroom. "You know, when you said you were gonna help me feel better?" He grinned at her. "How 'bout it?"
"Your name," she said.
He rolled his eyes, but indulged her anyhow. "Rick. Rick O'Connell."
"And... what's the last thing you remember?"
"Jeez. I kinda had a rough night. You know how it is."
He winked at her. She wrinkled her nose. Okay, so maybe she didn't know how it was. Which begged the question of how she had ended up next to him on the floor in her underwear.
"I think there was a bar... I'm pretty sure there was a bottle..." He touched the back of his head gingerly, wincing. Felt like he'd been hit with a hammer. "I'm guessing there must have been a fight at some point. Okay, so I give up. How'd I get here? And is your husband gonna turn up any time soon?" he asked, casually inspecting the room. He figured he'd save questions about his hair and clothes for later.
"My husband?" she squeaked.
"Yeah." He pointed to her left hand. "You know, the guy whose ring you're wearing?"
She just looked at him for a moment, stricken, fiddling with her locket. She sure was nervous. Real high-strung. Not the type he usually went for--although she was pretty cute... but she was married, and that wasn't really his style. Pissed-off husbands tended to be a lot more trouble than he went looking for, most days. Especially wealthy pissed-off husbands. They could afford to just hire guys to do nasty things to you. Rick wasn't particularly interested in the view from the bottom of the Nile river.
"It's your ring," she blurted.
He did a double-take. There was no way he could have heard that correctly.
"I'm your wife," she continued, more steadily now. "We--we're married."
"What?!"
Silently, she pointed to his own ring finger, and he was startled to discover that there did seem to be a ring there. How drunk had he been last night?
"We've been married for three days. We're in Nice, on our honeymoon trip. You suggested it. I'd never been here. And so far, it's been a raging bloody success." She made the last statement through gritted teeth.
"No."
"No?"
"Uh-uh. No way, lady. Not a chance in hell." He took the ring off and placed it on the table nearby. "No offense, sweetheart--I'm sure you're a great girl, and not a total loss in the looks department if you'd learn to dress properly--but I'm not marriage material. Trust me." He started making his way towards the door. The sooner he made it out of this whole weird situation, the sooner he could get back to drinking his way across Egypt. "Now, unless you want to renew your offer to, uh, make me feel better, I'm outta here."
"You are not going anywhere," she told him primly.
He turned to regard her skeptically. How in hell did a little thing like her propose to stop him, exactly?
"We have to get a doctor," she continued. "We need to find out what's wrong with you." She pointed to a nearby chair. "Now you--you just sit down over there while I make the call."
Now that sounded distinctly like an order. And Rick did not take orders from girls--especially crazy girls. This little English broad, cute or not, was as bughouse as they came. "'Scuse me?" he murmured, in the low rumble that was more ominous than his shouts. "We don't need to find out anything. The only thing wrong with me is a hangover, and I can cure that real quick. With or without your help."
"Sit. Down. Now." It was definitely an order, all right.
"Who the hell are you to order me around?"
"I'm your wife. Whether you know it or not."
"Well, have a nice life, Mrs. O'Connell."
"You can't just leave!"
"Oh yeah? Watch me!"
She positioned herself between him and the door, her posture making it clear that the only way he was going to get past her was with physical force. He'd never hit a girl, and he wasn't about to start now. He momentarily considered throwing her over his shoulder and locking her in a closet or something, but instead tried an appeal to reason, beginning with, "Look, lady--"
"Stop calling me that!" she snapped.
"Well, until I know your goddamn name, I don't know what else to call you!"
"Don't you dare curse at me, Richard O'Connell!"
Yikes. No one had called him Richard since he was a kid. He hadn't liked it then, either. "I don't know what you're trying to pull here, but--"
"I'm not trying to pull anything!"
"Then why the hell won't you just tell me your name?!"
Whereupon Evelyn, having reached the end of her rope, burst into tears.
Rick hated it when they cried.
"C'mon, don't do that..." He thought at first that it might be a put-on, to keep him from walking out. If so, she deserved a standing ovation for her performance. But as she cried on, steadily, quietly, he started to get nervous. "Okay. Okay! I won't leave, all right?" He took a couple of steps away from the door, as a gesture of good faith. Even that didn't put a stop to the waterworks.
He looked down at his now-bare ring finger, wondering if it might just be possible... no. Not even if hell froze over and the devil himself started giving free sleigh rides. Someone was trying to mess with him, for whatever reason. But maybe--just maybe--that same someone was messing with her, too. Maybe she really and truly believed she was married to Rick, the poor kid. He figured he had nothing to lose by playing along. The beauty about your life going nowhere is that an unexpected change of course isn't an inconvenience.
He moved closer to her, but instead of looking up at him, trying to appeal to his sympathy, like most girls he knew would have done, she hid her face in her hands. "Okay, c'mere," he said gruffly, and yanked her forward, awkwardly putting his arms around her. "Shh. Look, we'll figure this out together, okay? Everything's going to be fine." He said it with a confidence he didn't feel. It didn't seem to help anyway, as she sobbed into his broad shoulder. He stroked her hair with one hand, tentatively at first, then with more assurance when she didn't object. It was so soft, and smelled so good... she stopped crying, but he could still feel her shudder with each intake of breath, and so he kept her close. For one crazy moment, he wished he were the man she so desperately wanted him to be. But she was a nice, smart, spirited girl, and that type of girl just didn't truck with guys like Rick O'Connell. It had to be a mistake, or a con.
After what seemed like hours, she drew away from him. Part of him, a small part, actually regretted this; he'd liked the feel of her in his arms. Like she fit there. "Will you stay?" she asked softly. "Will you let me call a doctor to examine you?"
"Okay." He hated to ask again, since it seemed to upset her so much, but he had to know. "So... what do I call you, honey?"
Her lower lip trembled, but when she spoke, her voice was firm. "Evelyn." The name was like its owner: undeniably pretty and unmistakably British. "You--you sometimes call me Evie," she added, uncertainly.
"Evie."
"You don't have to..."
"No, it's cute. Suits you." He smiled. "So, Evie, what's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" he quipped.
She groaned feelingly.
"What?"
"You--I just--never mind." She sank down into the nearest chair. "You'd better rest," she told him. "Perhaps that will help."
"Can't hurt," he replied, rubbing the back of his head. It was really swelling up. He hoped the other guy was hurting where it counted.
He glanced around the room. There was just the one bed, and a very small couch off in the corner. He didn't expect her to share the bed, or want her to, really--the whole situation was just too strange. And he was afraid of what he might do, how he might react to her once the lights were out and both of them could pretend he was a better person.
When he began to walk towards the couch, though, she indicated the curtained area where the bed stood. "You'll sleep in there," she told him. Rick bristled at the imperious tone; but he knew, somehow, that she only used it to hide her hurt. "Once I've found a doctor, I have to put a call through to Cairo. I'm not sure how long it will take."
"Who's in Cairo?"
"Jonathan." She looked at him like he was supposed to have a hot clue who that was. After a very disappointing pause, she added, "My brother. If he's still there, and if he even bothers to answer the telephone... I don't suppose I'll sleep much tonight."
"Well, you probably weren't expecting to anyhow," he replied, before he had a chance to think. "Being on your honeymoon and all."
She didn't smile. "Good night, Rick."
"Night."
Behind the curtain, he sat on the bed to remove his shoes. He could hear Evelyn speaking to the exchange in a low voice. What a mess. He stretched out on the bed, lacing his hands behind his head. It had been a long time since he'd had a real, comfortable bed to sleep in--at least, as far as he knew.
And what if--somehow--she was telling the truth? What if he really had married this girl, and somehow managed to forget ever even meeting her? What if his memory never came back? He quickly discarded this line of thought. It just wasn't possible. It couldn't be. It wasn't. Maybe they'd figure everything out in the morning...
Jonathan Carnahan had been out all night, drinking the health of his sister and her new husband. He'd been celebrating their marriage since about a week before the happy event, and would continue to celebrate it until he'd been the rounds of all the half-decent bars in Cairo. It was a fine life, really; all a fellow had to do was announce that his baby sister had just been married, and immediately all the chaps far and wide were lining up to buy him drinks.
He had stumbled home sometime before dawn--at any rate, after it was done being dark, but before it could be properly said to have been morning. The hour at which decent people are either asleep, or just getting up. He was in the process of shucking off his shirt, shoes, and tie when the telephone began to ring.
Ordinarily, Jonathan would have cursed the infernal instrument, and whoever was on the other end, to an eternity of brimstone and torment. But on this particular almost-morning, he was expecting, and indeed hoping for, a call from a very nubile young woman he'd encountered on his nocturnal travels. Pinching and slapping himself to an acceptable degree of consciousness and sobriety, he ambled over to the telephone and picked up the receiver.
"Hallo-allo-allo!" he trilled cheerfully.
There was a long pause, and then someone began to speak. The voice on the other end was tinny, indistinct, and overlaid by a veneer of static. But it was undoubtedly a female voice.
"I'm sorry? The line's not good, you'll have to speak up."
The voice on the other end began to shout. His enthusiasm was quickly dampened as he realized that its owner was not the luscious young woman of his acquaintance, but only his sister.
"Evie, you brat, what on earth do you want?" he bellowed, not bothering to listen to her reply. "I've only just got home, can't this wait?"
"It's Rick," she said.
Jonathan smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. "What about him?" Good heavens, he thought. Not married a week and they've had a falling-out.
"Something's happened, Jonathan--there's been an accident. You've got to come straight away."
Jonathan was instantly alert. "Accident? Is he very badly hurt?"
"No, not much, only..." There was a funny, muffled sound on the line, and it took Jonathan a moment to realize that his sister was crying. "Jon, it's awful!"
"I--I'll book passage as quickly as I can, old mum. Chin up."
She gave him the address of the hotel, thanked him, and rang off. Jonathan quickly dressed, called for a car, then got down on all fours and began hunting about for his passport.