Last chapter! We're finally here. Which is kinda sad, because I've just had so much fun writing this. It was my first story on this archive, but everybody's been so welcoming that it's been wonderful from start to finish.
Not to be giving some Oscar acceptance speak here, but I just want to thank a few people who deserve thanking:
Kittiko-Blues (Bootsy)- thanks for your reviews, and for being the very first person to follow this story! You're great. And I love that you love Daniels.
Brunette- for just being generally awesome and reviewing from the first chapter to the last. Your criticisms are always helpful, and you kept this story from going to the dogs. Plus, you're funny as hell. Your stories are always entertaining, and your advice is endlessly helpful.
Lyrical Ballads- For taking a chance on an Ardeth/OC story! Your reviews are always lovely, and you've raised important questions that helped me fill in some gaps. You're kind and funny. (And your obsession with Beni may or may not have kept him alive, here.)
SkeletonPinata (Kim)- My very good tumblr friend, you've been very kind and your reviews are always appreciated. :) Our conversations put the world to rights, too!
Also-
princesskitty68, Angelhaggis, Plague's Vengeance, DavyJoneslover, Ravenclaw Slytherin, JulietBurke007, oXxgeorgiaxXo, Larissa-Hunter, FeliciaFelicis, Mikado X Goddess, and absolutely everyone and anyone else who has reviewed, followed or favourited this story!
OH, and Jamie, who patiently sat by whilst I re-watched the movie a million times. (And only complained a little.)
Okay, that was probably the longest author's note in history. Sorry. But thank you everyone, and here ya go!
CHAPTER 28
Fort Brydon, Cairo. 1926.
Three months later.
Marina Quatermain stared down at Cairo and touched her stomach, as she had found herself unconsciously doing for the past several weeks, trying to feel some flutter of the life she knew was rooting there.
The view from her balcony had changed. Not physically, of course, despite the constant ebb and flow of the rivers of working people that shifted and churned differently each day.
Mentally. Mentally she was seeing Cairo through new eyes, because this place— this place that she had avoided like the plague for a decade or so— was where she was stuck.
Her fingers dragged across the skin of her womb, against the gentle swell of her lower abdomen.
People had started to notice, now. Their eyes would fall to that unnatural-looking lump beneath the fabric of her dress, and then it would click, and they would beam and whisper, "Congratulations".
Congratulations. Funny, how people didn't know what exactly they were congratulating.
The bump may not have been huge just yet, but there was no denying it anymore.
Word would reach her father soon enough. He may have been in Zimbabwe right now, but his Egyptian connections would spread the rumour like carrier pigeons.
And then the Quatermain fortune would be torn from her grasp as quick as their family ties were cut.
What would her late mother have said? She imagined the woman now, drunk as a skunk on the balcony, all fur-coat no-knickers, telling her what a tramp she was.
Congratulations.
And of course the second place people looked after the baby bump was the ring finger. But her left hand bore no gold, no wedding ring.
Then the congratulations were always exchanged for disapproving eyes and upturned noses.
Marina drifted back indoors and shut the drapes that hung over the veranda's entrance. The heat was getting to her. Or maybe it was the light. Either way, she felt nauseous and her headache was threatening to turn into a migraine.
The clock's hands were just past six; her guest would be here soon. Prayer time was at quarter-to, so she had expected a fashionably late arrival.
Sighing out of habit, Marina seated herself at her desk and absent-mindedly brushed through the papers that lay in neat piles on its top.
When she had chosen this flat to serve as her temporary lodgings the desk had been of little use to her. Now, since she would be staying here for a much longer time than originally planned, it was the most important thing in the room. From this desk she could make money, without anybody knowing how big that baby bump actually was.
A knock at the door made her ocean-blue eyes dart to its place at the other end of the suite, and she made a mental note to hire a butler of some sort to start answering it for her.
"Who is it?" she called.
She wasn't getting up. She might have been pregnant, but Marina Quatermain did not traipse all the way across a room to turn a handle out of politeness.
"It's Pyrrah," came the soft, accented reply. The slight roll of the R's was even audible from here.
"Come in, darling."
The door creaked open, and the hijab-adorned face of an Egyptian woman peered gingerly inside the suite. Marina smiled.
"Marhaba."
"Marhaba."
Soon after she gestured to the seat at the other side of her desk, Pyrrah Ananka was sat opposite her, smiling politely and waiting to hear why she had been summoned to Fort Brydon.
"How are you, love?" Marina asked her.
The woman was dressed in a traditional black tunic and hijab, and (unlike the case in their first meeting) her clothes were not covered in blood.
The deep cut on her face that had been present in their first encounter had since healed, leaving a pale scar along her cheekbone.
"Fine, thank you. Yourself?"
Marina smiled bitterly. Knocked up, actually, she thought.
"Great. Smashing."
There was a pause as the blonde woman stole a glance at the liquor cabinet. She needed a drink. But that was yet another privilege that her femininity had robbed her of, and so she cleared her throat and continued with the conversation.
"I heard Jonathan's headed back across the pond?" she asked, praying she didn't sound as on-edge as she felt.
Perry nodded, smile turning half-hearted.
"Yes. He and Evelyn left just last week."
The words were like a slap in the face. A slap in the face she had not been expecting.
It was like time had just turned anticlockwise; karma was promoting the fashion of her bad luck, it seemed.
He's already gone.
Marina swallowed. Her throat was suddenly dry.
"I didn't realise he had left," she said, trying to keep herself composed with heavy breaths. "I was hoping to talk to him about something... Something rather important."
'Important' was an understatement. She was pregnant with a child that might have been his, and now her chance to tell him had vanished.
Perry gave a little shrug at the desk.
"Well, Evelyn is engaged to Rick O'Connell, so I think they are going to be having the wedding in Britain. I don't know if you know the man, but he was the one who accompanied us on our trip to Hamunaptra. They fell right in love..."
She began to tell her all about how happy Rick and Evelyn were, how he had wasted no time proposing to her and how delightfully joy-filled everybody's lives apparently were.
But Marina listened to none of it. That sentence kept throbbing in her head: He and Evelyn left just last week.
Tiredness swept through her, and she fought to keep her eyes from glazing over in weary disbelief.
"Yes, I heard all about the Hamunaptra trip," she input when the City of the Dead was mentioned somewhere amidst Perry's rambling.
Perry fell silent, becoming tight-lipped when she noticed the other lady's far-off look of displeasure.
"Sad to hear of all those lost lives," Marina went on. "Even of those who had darker intentions..."
Beni Gabor's death had taken a toll on the Quatermain woman. She had last seen him in such a bad state, and they had left each other on unfriendly terms. Little had she known she would never see him again in her entire life.
He may have been a disloyal, thieving, whining bastard, but she still felt things for him. That interesting Hungarian man had been a spark in her otherwise dull life for a long time. Dynamic and flawed as he was, Beni had even brought a sort of simplicity to the constant state of turbulence her mind was kept in. Whereas she had been so disappointed with life and so unsure of herself, he had seen opportunities in the darkest places, and he knew absolutely who he was in this world.
Knowing that he was gone felt... unreal.
She caught Perry's eyes shifting guiltily away from her face, but chalked it up to awkwardness at the mention of death.
The pace of their conversation had just depleted entirely. Marina sucked in a breath and put on a bright smile.
"But it has brought you lot a bit of recognition, hasn't it?" she asked.
Perry nodded.
"Oh, yes. Evelyn has received a variety of career offers, from the Bembridge Scholars and the British Museum and countless other places."
Marina pressed her fingertips together and pursed her lips. This conversation was heading exactly where she wanted it to.
In all of this mess, she supposed she was fortunate. She had resources, and intelligence, freedom and money. It would be easier for her to have this child than, say, Perry, who would be hopeless in her position.
And a dire position it was.
Not only was she pregnant and unwed— not only was she unaware of which of two men was the father of her child— but one of the men was dead, and the other two thousand miles away.
"What about you, darling? How come Jonathan didn't take you back to England with him?" she asked, sweetly.
Perry smirked, surprisingly unfazed by the edgy question.
"I don't have a passport," she chuckled. "And I doubt Jonathan will be doing anything in England that requires my assistance. Besides— Egypt is my home. I don't want to leave it at the moment."
Marina placed her palms flat on the desk.
"And what about offers regarding your career?" she asked, more serious now.
A frown tugged at Perry's brow. She watched the Englishwoman drum her manicured fingertips on the mahogany.
"I was considering taking a job at the Museum of Antiquities."
Marina fell back in her chair and blew a short raspberry with her lips, like that idea was simply ridiculous.
"Poppycock. You're practically famous, darling, even if you were just the archaeologist's assistant," she stated, shaking her head at the ceiling. "People are going to want to get their claws on you. Which is why I'm approaching you first."
Perry blinked.
"Are you making me some sort of offer, Ms. Quatermain?"
With all the sorrow-eyed thoughtfulness of a movie star, Marina ran her fingers through her waterfall of blonde hair and swept the locks over her shoulder.
A lazy flick of her wrist punctuated the start of her next sentence.
"Yes," she said, decisively. "That would be the short answer. You see, Pyrrah, in the wake of recent events, the archaeological industry is booming— especially in Egypt. Have you heard of William Flinders Petrie?"
Perry raised her eyebrows in surprise, and then nodded.
Anybody in the archaeological field who didn't know who Flinders Petrie was certainly should have known, and so Marina was glad of the woman's knowledge so far.
"Well, Egypt is modernising. Sites are shrinking. And Petrie sees it his mission in life to retrieve as much information as possible from this area. But you already know that, don't you?"
Perry nodded again.
Marina went on.
"In my absence from the field, it seems Petrie has gone and snatched up my team of excavators," she droned with distaste. "So, as I am presently resuming my job of setting up digs on behalf of England's Egyptian Excavation Society, I need to assemble a new team of Egyptologists."
The dark eyes of the woman opposite her gleamed. She tilted her head in hopeful question.
"And... I am one of those Egyptologists?"
Marina shifted in her seat, as if her discomfort was due to her dislike of the forthcoming answer.
"Well, you don't have a formal education, darling," she said. "So I can't officially put you in charge of any projects. That being said, I would very much like to have you serve as a leading member of my team of excavationists."
Clearly not able to care less about the high-ranking position she would never receive, Perry beamed. A little laugh left her smile.
"This is an incredible opportunity," she said.
Marina smiled crookedly.
"I trust that you'd be able to point me in the direction of some of Cairo's places of interest? As a local, I assume you'll provide some valuable insights that I mightn't find elsewhere."
Perry began to nod frantically. She had her hooked.
"Absolutely! There are countless locations I've been dying to—"
"Great! You're hired."
Marina clasped her hands together and waited for the reaction. The Egyptian woman sat, lips parted in wait of words, face set in a smile, eyes bright with glee. She took a breath.
"Thank you!" she gushed. "I am very, very grateful for this, Ms. Quatermain."
The clock hands were drawing closer to half past six. Marina glanced at the time, and then shook her head at Perry.
"No, thank you. Under your guidance, I hope to impress the E.E.S," she told her, and then sighed. "And I also have another favour to ask of you."
Perry raised her eyebrows, leaning forward eagerly in her chair to hear it.
"Since the wealthy enthusiasts who previously funded my projects have turned their attentions to other things, I've had to search for new sources of income," she explained. "It was just my luck that a young woman approached me last week claiming that she'll fund absolutely everything as long as she can be involved in the digs themselves."
Perry looked surprised.
"That's..."
"Amazing, I know," Marina finished. "She popped up out of the blue, really. I was hoping that you could show her the ropes when the time comes, pass on whatever Jonathan has taught you."
She swore she saw Perry pull a face at the mention of Jonathan's 'imparted wisdom', but another knock at the front door distracted them both.
Marina nodded in its direction.
"This'll be her."
The door opened in a swift movement, and into the flat stepped the lady who was to unknowingly ensure a comfortable life for Marina's unborn child.
Who needs Jonathan? she thought, offering her new guest a smile. Or Beni? I have a business, and it's going to make me lots of money.
The gorgeous young millionaire that strode towards the desk made Perry shrink into her seat out of intimidation.
The black lace of this woman's dress decorated her olive skin like an intricate tattoo, and a sheer netted veil elegantly shadowed her cat-like eyes and prim smile.
Marina wasn't intimidated, by her beauty or her stare or the overwhelming scent of her perfume: she saw pound coins instead of jewellery, bank notes instead of high heels, her son in a Rolls Royce, her daughter in a mansion.
She grinned.
"Pyrrah, I'd like to introduce you to your new colleague, Ms. Meela Nais."
