The Wooing of Evelyn Carnahan


Disclaimer: I don't own The Mummy or its characters. They're owned by Stephen Sommers, Universal Pictures, and no doubt several other people. In fact, all I own is my own little plot idea, and even that's not quite mine, considering Rick and Evelyn had to get together somehow – I'm just putting my own little twist on how it might have happened. That said, don't sue me; I have no money.

Author's Note: There's not a lot to say, save that this is intended to be cute and mildly humorous. It's set after the events in The Mummy, but not too long after, so it's quite a while before The Mummy Returns. If Rick seems out of character, just look at it the way I do – one of them had to do it, and I don't see it being Evelyn 'I'm-a-Librarian!' Carnahan. ;) This is dedicated to NotQuiteShakespeare, Moonlit Aria, and She's a Star, for varied reasons. Now, on to the story!



Chapter One
The Smile



His first clue something was wrong should have been the smile.

Oh, it shouldn't seem like an unnatural thing at all to smile.

He smiled all the time.

In fact, he smiled so often and in so many different ways, there were names for them.

The charming smile, the sarcastic smile, the heroic smile (close kin of the charming smile) . . .

But this, the 'I am a love struck idiot' smile, was completely new.

And disturbing.

After that, there was the way he listened. Oh, yes, he smiled and listened – while his jaw muscles ached from smiling like some sort of idiot, he sat there attentively listening to whatever it was Evelyn had to say, no matter how boring. And, well – she was prone to talking about some particularly boring topics. Ancient Egypt, the lineage of the pharaohs, mummification . . . all right, maybe all those weren't exactly boring, but they didn't interest him in the least.

But the girl talking about them, on the other hand . . . she interested him quite a bit.

Then, suddenly and without warning, it struck him – he, Rick O'Connell, dashing adventurer and ex-legionnaire . . . was in love.

It was a revelation that nearly made him drop the crate of priceless artifacts he was carrying, and as he fumbled it back into an upright position, the near-miss earned him a patented Look from Evelyn. Right, not the best way to earn her affections, that.

"O'Connell, do be careful with that – those are quite fragile," she called over to him.

O'Connell. Right. He'd saved her from the mummy that wanted to make her a human sacrifice, and all she'd done was give him a single kiss of gratitude before everything went back to normal – and he went back to being O'Connell.

Maybe Rick's logic was messed up, but he thought if someone saved his life, he'd want to kiss them repeatedly.

Actually, Evelyn had saved his life, and he knew for a fact that he wanted to kiss her. Repeatedly.

This was not good.

This was not good at all.



So, after carefully helping to unload the rest of the new shipment, Rick had made some hasty excuse to Evelyn about an appointment he was late for, and quickly went to seek the closest thing he had to an expert on the situation.

Of course, calling Jonathan Carnahan an expert at anything was like asking Ardeth Bay which shade of black was the best suited for a spring soirée in the Sahara.

On the plus side, however, it wasn't hard to find Evelyn's lay-about of a brother, as all one had to do was go to the seediest dive in the underbelly of Cairo and seek out the boisterous – and intoxicated – voice regaling tales of mummy-slaying.

"And then I finished off the creature with a flourish – even though by that time he was begging for mercy! – and stole his golden scepter," Jonathan was bragging, waving about a staff – likely made of pure gold – that he had chosen for part of his share of the treasure.

Rick wondered offhandedly how much of the treasure Jonathan had left besides that staff, but found it within himself not to care with stunning speed, instead stepping up to the bar and resting a firm hand on the Englishman's shoulder.

"Ah, O'Connell!" Jonathan exclaimed, gesturing with a distinct lack of precision to the stool on his left. "Sit down, sit down. Bartender, let's have one for my friend, shall we?"

"On the contrary, Jonathan," Rick said – with unusual amiability – as he sat down at the proffered seat, "I'm buying this round."

"Oh, well, I'll certainly not object to that," Jonathan responded, lifting the rest of his drink and downing it with the promise of another soon to come.

Rick, on the other hand, didn't touch the drink the surly-looking Egyptian man behind the bar set down in front of him, he simply fingered the rim of the glass, attempting to remain casual. It shouldn't be hard, as Jonathan wasn't the most perceptive person even when he was sober, but the subject Rick wanted to bring up wasn't exactly an every day topic of conversation, either.

"So, uh, Jonathan . . ." Rick said slowly. "Your sister –"

"What about her?" Jonathan asked, lifting a brow at the American man.

"Does she, uh . . . ever say anything about me?"

"Oh, yeah, all the time," Jonathan said, waving his hand around so that Rick had to duck back a couple of times to avoid being hit by the scepter. "It's 'O'Connell this,' 'O'Connell that' . . ."

Rick blinked, turning to stare at Jonathan. "All the time, huh?"

". . . Though," the other man clarified, "I suppose complains might be a better word."

Alright, definitely not what Rick was hoping to hear. The smile vanished completely, then – for the first time in several days – and he rose from his seat at the bar, paying the 'tender and turning to go.

He didn't even pay attention when Jonathan called back at him, "Say, are you going to drink that?"



So, Evelyn complained about him. She probably thought he was a filthy, rude, obnoxious American scoundrel, uncouth and with no manners. But when you'd spent most of your life hanging out with people who most often weren't far up the rung from the likes of Beni Gabor, it wasn't exactly to be expected you would behave like a cultured gentleman.

When Rick thought about what Evelyn probably liked in a man, though, he got an unsettling mental picture of some stuffy British guy in a tweed suit, with little round wire-rimmed glasses and a perfect part in his hair. And he'd come accessorized with a book in one hand and a cup of Earl Grey tea in the other.

Pacing up and down the length of his hotel room, Rick thought about what he had to offer Evelyn. He might not have been a great intellectual, but he was witty, charming, dashing. He'd survived death and danger! He stood for all-American fortitude!

So, putting all-American fortitude up against British stuffiness, which would Evelyn choose?

. . .

Probably British stuffiness.

Oh, no, this was not good at all.



Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Rick lifted an eyebrow at the volume of Shakespeare's sonnets, then promptly stuffed it back in its place on the shelf. He could just see himself going to Evelyn like some kind of nance, getting down on bended knee, and reciting poetry. She would probably laugh him right out of Cairo; in fact, he could hear her incredulous tone now –

"Rick O'Connell, reading Shakespeare?"

Damn.

There at the opposite end of the row stood one Evelyn Carnahan, looking beautiful as ever, her hair pulled up into a bun, but carelessly so, with a few spiraling tendrils falling in that way that they framed her face in such a lovely –

Damn. Again.

She also looked rather amused, he noted as soon as he cleared his mind of the 'Rick loves Evelyn!' thoughts, arms folded across her chest and lips quirked up in a little smile. She had such nice lips, soft and –

Concentrate. Say something. Cover your tracks!

"Er," he said weakly.

Oh, yeah, she's putty in your hands.

Evelyn looked at him momentarily as if she thought he was crazy, then slowly stated, "I was actually looking for you."

Rick immediately brightened, though he had no idea why she might be looking for him, it didn't really matter. Even if 'to profess her love' wasn't in the least near the top of the list, he was still happy.

"Yeah?" he asked, trying to force the obedient puppy tone out of his voice.

"Yes," she said, eyeing him somewhat dubiously. "One of the drawers on my desk seems to be jammed, and I need your help opening it."

"Oh," he responded disappointedly, though Disappointed Rick was quickly enough shoved off into a corner of his mind with all the other Nancy Ricks, as Tough Guy O'Connell instead stepped up to the plate. "Right."

So what if she didn't love him?

He didn't care.

He didn't care at all.

Nope.

Not at all.

Which was why he had to do something right away.



Her first clue something was wrong should have been the smile. The way O'Connell kept smiling at her like that was most disconcerting. It tended to distract her from her work, cause her to drop things – when, admittedly, she wasn't the most graceful person to ever grace the Land of the Pharaohs – and, worst of all, she had started smiling stupidly as well.

But that was something that most certainly needed to be stopped.

Richard O'Connell was not her type.

Oh, he was fine for anyone who liked the tall, dashing, handsome, heroic type, with that carelessly windswept hair, or those strong, muscular arms that were so gentle when they held you, or brilliant blue eyes you could just drown yourself in . . .

But honestly, who liked that type?

Not her.

Certainly not.

No, no, and no.

Besides, it wasn't as if she should have thought O'Connell was the least bit interested in her anyway. So what if she had caught him reading Shakespeare in the library today? He probably saw her as another conquest – a challenge, because she was the modest librarian who seemed to be playing hard to get. Well, she was not going to be another notch on his bedpost!

. . .

Now, if only she could stop blushing at the thought of O'Connell's bedpost.

And besides!

She wasn't even really his type. He probably went for the blonde type with little brains and long legs and big . . .

Well.

Suffice it to say, Evelyn was not quite what she considered O'Connell's type to be.

She might have had a momentary infatuation with the man, but that was it. Why, it had to be common behavior, wanting to give someone a kiss of gratitude when they saved your life, which she had done, and that was well enough the end of it.

Even still, she could do with a little reassurance.

So that night, having actually talked Jonathan into staying home with the pretense of having dinner with her, she decided to put her brother to at least some use.

"You know, old mum," Jonathan was saying, "When you actually put your mind to it, you're not that bad of a cook after all."

Promptly biting her tongue to keep from ruining all her careful preparations, Evelyn set her voice into a sweet tone. "Well, we spend so little time together these days, with my having to be at the museum, working . . ."

"Ah, yes," Jonathan said, looking up from cutting his meat. "Pretty well smashed up after Imhotep's mob came through, wasn't it?"

Crinkling her nose mildly at the mention of Imhotep, Evelyn nevertheless nodded, and saw this as her opportunity to casually bring up the topic of discussion she had been looking forward to. "Oh, yes, but O'Connell's been a great help in putting it back together . . ."

Anyone else might have found this suspicious, as Evelyn was nearly as subtle as she was graceful, but Jonathan failed that perception test. "Yes, O'Connell. He was asking me about you just today."

Evelyn quickly quashed the feeling of her heart skipping a beat. "Was he?" she asked, with attempted neutrality.

"Yes, something or other about whether he ever came up in conversation – like now, I suppose," Jonathan responded blithely.

Oops.

"What did you tell him?" she demanded, a bit more sharply than she had intended.

"I told him you talked about him all the time. You do, of course, you know," her brother pointed out, waving his fork around for emphasis. "Most of it's complaining . . . if I didn't know any better, though, I'd say you fancied him."

Evelyn laughed nervously. "What makes you think something like that? Me, fancy O'Connell?"

. . . Oops.