Finally! An update to this story! I know, I know, it has taken me forever… you can blame that on my professors for loading me up with homework! Anyways, I have finally, FINALLY gotten my beautiful Dell laptop to take with me while I am away at college, so look for chapters to come a little more quickly than this one did!
As always, many thanks go out to my reviewers. I have five regular readers and reviewers, and I am so grateful to you guys, because if you didn't keep bugging me about updating my story, it would never get done! So thank you, Empathy Is Me, Lea, Marlee, Cindy, and of course, Lilylynn, my mummy mate. I'm glad you all like this story… for some reason all of you think it's some great piece of literature… and while I'm not sure I agree with that, I'm still happy that I can entertain you all. So, without further ado, present to all you an all-new chapter of We Are Family.
Chapter 10 'Till Death Do Us PartTrue to his word, Izzy had made the necessary repairs to his aircraft, and in two hours' time, Leah's rescue crew was ready to go.
"Will you meet us there?" Rick asked as he and his wife stood by the tiny three-seater plane.
"Of course," Evelyn told Rick, helping him shrug off his backpack so he could crawl into the plane.
Rick nodded, more to assure himself than to acknowledge Evelyn. He couldn't quite believe that he had to leave his family behind, at least for now, but he had to. His sister's life depended on it. Only he didn't know just how much it really did.
Ardeth went by just then, his arms full of different caliber guns.
"There's no room for all of these on here!" Izzy protested from the nose of the plane as he watched Ardeth deposit his cargo in the very last seat. "This craft can barely hold the three of us, let alone an entire magazine of guns and bullets!"
"So why don't you stay here?" Rick asked Izzy.
"But it's my plane!" Izzy shouted. "And how do you propose to fly it without me? The last I knew, O'Connell, you didn't know a propeller from a horse's ass!"
Rick glared at his old friend, then decided to ignore him and instead stepped up onto the runner surrounding the length of the airplane to get into the middle seat. He rubbed his hand across the silver steel of the machine's shell. His mind was filled with memories of Winston, his dear old friend who had actually given up his life in order to help Rick the first time they had battled Imhotep. "I will not lose anyone else to that bandaged bastard," Rick vowed. "I won't." He dropped his bag into the seat, then jumped down and came to rest by Evelyn. "Is everyone ready?"
"Yes, my friend," Ardeth said, appearing from the plane's tail. His arms held two large guns. "I am ready to rescue my beautiful Leah."
Evelyn glanced at Ardeth, surprised at his public confession of his thoughts, and then smiled happily. "You must be on your way," she said, laying her hand on Ardeth's arm. "Leah needs you right now."
Rick looked at Ardeth strangely, never before having realized that the Medjai warrior had been developing feelings for his beloved sister. He was bothered by this new fact, as every big brother is when a man likes his sister. However he knew that he needed Ardeth's help, and so he decided to deal with the situation later. "Let's go," he said stiffly as Evelyn's hand fell from Ardeth's arm. "Leah needed us yesterday."
Ardeth and Izzy jumped up into their seats while Rick gathered Evelyn in his arms. "You'll be okay, won't you?" he whispered as he nuzzled the top of Evelyn's head with his lips.
"When am I not?" Evelyn countered.
Suddenly, the pair was interrupted by a large crash from the direction of the camels a dozen yards away.
"Bloody animal!" Jonathan screeched.
Izzy, Ardeth, Rick, and Evelyn looked up to see Jonathan dangling in the air from the rope tied around his camel's neck.
"Uncle Jon!" Alex shouted from next to the camel. "Are you all right?"
"Bloody, atrocious ani—mal!" Jonathan shrieked out the last syllable two octaves higher than his normal voice as he tumbled to the ground and hit with a thud.
Rick shook his head in disgust at his brother-in-law. "Are you sure you'll be--"
"We'll be perfectly fine," Evie said, stepping back from their cozy embrace and placing her fingers to Rick's lips. "I love you. Now go find Leah and bring her back to us, safe and sound."
Rick nodded determinedly and placed a kiss on his wife's lips. "Take care of Alex. And… if anything should happen to me… tell him--"
"That you love him. And me. I know. But you'll be just fine, and so that won't be needed." Evelyn glanced up at Izzy and Ardeth waiting impatiently in their seats, Ardeth fiddling with a pair of flying goggles, attempting to determine exactly how to wear them. "You had better get going."
"Okay." Rick planed one last kiss on Evelyn's lips, waved towards Alex, and crawled up onto the runner. He settled into his seat as Evelyn stepped back. "Let's get going, Izzy!" he hollered up towards the pilot.
The engine started, the propellers whirred to life, and the plane lurched forward.
The quest for Leah's life had begun.
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Dusk had finally settled over the campsite. Everyone sat around a bonfire, drinking beer and telling stories. Everyone, that is, but Imhotep.
Imhotep had not left Leah's side since the late afternoon. He sat next to her, his knees pulled to his chest as he watched her life slowly fading away.
"I lost you once… I cannot lose you again," Imhotep whispered as he watched her still form. "Please, Samir-hi, I cannot bear to see you die again."
There was a stirring from the blanket as Leah's arm moved ever so slightly, as if reaching up to touch Imhotep's face. Then it stopped abruptly. She had succumbed to heat exhaustion, falling unconscious as fever raged through her body.
Imhotep drew in a breath at this one sign of life, waiting to see if she was going to come to. Then he let out a sigh, realizing that Leah's movement had probably been just a reflex. He pulled his knees from his chest and sat Indian-style on the rapidly cooling sand beneath him. He reached for Leah's wrist and held it as tightly as he could, as if by holding onto her, he could keep her from being dragged into death. "Sam, please. I need you."
Still no sound from Leah.
Imhotep took her hand and placed it on his heart. "Take life from me," he said slowly, almost chanting as he spoke these Egyptian words. "Allow my life to give life to you, Samir-hi." He waited impatiently as he looked for some type of sign that his spell was working. However, Leah still did not move, and Imhotep began to be filled with heavy, aching melancholy as he realized that his spells that resurrected broken souls from Hades did not work on mortals.
Imhotep watched her for a few minutes, saying nothing, just taking in the slow, shallow rising of Leah's chest as she breathed. Then he shook his head, and if there had been anyone who wasn't attending the ugly men's alcohol social, that person would have seen a faint glistening of tears in Imhotep's eyes.
Silently, Imhotep positioned himself so that he was lying on his side next to Leah in the sand. He wrapped his arm around her abdomen and pulled her close to him. "Please don't leave me, Samir-hi. You've got to survive long enough for us to reach Rathshad so I can remove your soul from this body and place it in your own body! Please, Samir-hi, you've got to hold on. I never got to be your father in our past lives, but I want to be your father now."
Imhotep caressed Leah's long red locks and chuckled a little to himself. "I remember when you were just a baby. When you were born, you had dark hair, and everybody thought that you were going to look just like your mother. Until you turned six months old." (A/N: I don't know if they actually had months back in the ancient times… I don't think they did, I think they used some form of moon phases to keep track of time. Moon phases generally run in one month cycles, so we're going to pretend that those moon cycles were called months, for sanity's sake!)
Imhotep continued. "You're hair turned bright red then. As red as that fire over there." The mummy motioned with his head to his drunken followers having the time of their lives as they danced around the campfire. "As red as it is now. And nobody understood why your hair was of that color. Red hair was not common in our society, and the few people who had it, under the rule of Seti I, were condemned to lives as slaves, because they were thought to have been possessed by Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Hades, sent to Earth by the god Pluto to tempt people to become evil-doers. But you were different. For some reason, the nation adored you. They all knew that you were special. Your red hair may have been different, but you, Samir-hi, had the heart of a lion, the demeanor of a lamb. You fought for what was right. You were kind to everyone, the poor, the lonely, the sick… you had all of the traits that many people fall short of having. You were you. My daughter, though you didn't know it then, and precious in not only the country's, but in my eyes as well." (Another A/N: The whole red haired people becoming slaves thing is made up… I don't believe that anything like that existed in ancient Egypt, but this fit in the story and explains a lot about why Samir-hi was so different from other princesses. Also, the whole Cerberus/Hades/Pluto thing is based on some type fact… however, all three belong to Greek mythology, and have nothing to do with Egyptians! Please don't hate me for combining a little Greek with Egyptian! This all fits very well into the story, and so I added it in.).
Leah was still silent, her mind swirling in unconsciousness.
"You're very special, Samir-hi… you mean so much to me, and to your people… and if you come back to me, I promise you that we will be happy together, the way we should have been all those years ago."
When he still received no response from the young lady lying still on the desert sand, Imhotep gave in. From the undead's eyes poured real tears, tears from deep within his immortal spirit, salt water that bared his entire soul, for all to see.
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Leah was aware of somebody talking to her in a foreign tongue. The sound was very loud and very muffled, and it was giving her a headache.
"Shut-up already!" she growled. "Please, please, just shut your mouth before I shut it for you!" She reached her hand towards the sound, ready to punch the lights out of whoever it was that was driving her crazy. Then she stopped quickly, realizing that she couldn't see.
"Hey! What's the deal?" she asked out loud. "Who turned out the lights?" Leah moved her head around wildly, trying to figure out what was going on. Then the mumbling started up again so loud that Leah thought she was going to go deaf in two seconds flat. "Dear God!" she screamed over the din. "Please, make it STOP!"
And suddenly, it did. However, while it was completely silent where Leah was, it was still pitch black. Am I blind or something? Leah asked herself. Who knows about that? But I do know that I've got to get out of here. And so Leah began to walk, not knowing where she was going, just hoping that she wasn't going to fall over a cliff.
Slowly, in the distance, Leah began to see a faint light flickering ahead of her. Oh, thank God, at least I'm not blind, Leah thought. But what is that? Where the heck am I? Then she had a scary thought. Am I dead? Leah remembered that if you weren't sure you were dreaming or dead, that you should pinch yourself, and if you feel it, then you are alive and conscious. So, she stopped walking, and pinched the skin on her right forearm. "Oh, crap," she said as she felt no nerves responding to the pressure. "I really am dead! Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!" She began to cry, afraid, and buried her face in her hands.
Suddenly, the light ahead of Leah began to grow larger and larger until the black void that she was in was filled to overflowing with luminosity. Leah could no longer pout as she felt an incredible warmth envelope her. She lifted her eyes and blinked several times, amazed at what was in front of her. Then she dropped her knees and began to worship the creature in front of her.
"No. Do not worship me," the being commanded. "Do not worship me!"
Leah looked up abruptly. "I-I'm sorry," she stuttered, her heart pounding in fear.
"Do not be afraid. I am going to help you, Leah. Take my hand. I am going to prepare you for what is to come."
Leah hesitated for a second, then took the outstretched hand of the white robed, radiant creature. "Are you an angel?" she asked as they began to walk.
"I am, and I am not," was the only answer Leah got.
As the pair walked, Leah no longer felt afraid. She suddenly began to feel happy with anticipation, as a young child anticipates a trip to the ice cream parlor. Something big was about to come, and Leah couldn't wait.
The angel led Leah deeper into the brightness until she could no longer see anything but white. She squinted her eyes shut, and just as she was about to cry out, the being at her side spoke.
"Be," was all it said.
When Leah opened her eyes, she found that she was alone again. Alone, surrounded by the color of tan. Lots of tan, moving quickly around her, until suddenly, it stopped.
In front of her were several camels and some weary travelers. Two of them were huddled together, deep in conversation. Leah took a closer look and realized that it was Evelyn and Ardeth.
"Evie! Ardeth! Hey!" Leah shouted excitedly. "Hey, I'm right here! Evelyn? Ardeth?" she asked, as they seemed to not hear her. She was quiet as she began to listen to their conversation.
"Ardeth, I've been meaning to ask you… how do you feel about Leah?"
Ardeth jerked his head up and looked at Evelyn suspiciously. "What do you mean, how do I feel about her?"
Evelyn reached out and patted Ardeth's hand. "You can tell me, Ardeth."
"Leah is a good girl. She is kind, she is strong, and she is beauti--" Ardeth stopped, mid-word.
"You think she's beautiful?" asked Evelyn, a smile forming on her lips.
Ardeth looked down, then back up at Evelyn. "Yes," he admitted. "Leah is quite beautiful."
Leah's heart skipped a beat as the scene faded out. Oh, Ardeth, I miss you so! she thought. I really do! You're beautiful yourself! (A/N: Leah is absolutely right!).
Off in the distance, Leah spied a figure walking towards her. As it got closer, she recognized a beautiful young woman with flowing red curls. Leah's face glowed as she approached, and Leah uttered just one word. "Mom!"
Leah had never met her mother since her parents had died in a boating accident when she was just a baby. But she had seen pictures, and she had always felt that she was missing something in her life until that moment. She stepped forward and reached out a hand to touch her mother. "Oh, Mom," she said, until she felt her hand hit something hard. It was as if she had hit a wall of glass. Moving her hand again, she found that she was still barricaded, separated from her mother. "Mom, what's happening?" Leah asked, frightened, as she began to feel pressure on her shoulders, as if she was diving in the deep waters of the ocean and was feeling the surface pressure changing around her. She tried once again to reach Mrs. O'Connell, and as she hit the glass, it shattered to pieces.
Ari O'Connell spoke. "Leah. My baby. Go back. It is not your time. Go back."
"No! I don't want to go! I want to stay here! With you!" Leah said.
"You cannot stay. He needs you. He loves you," Ari said. She turned and gestured behind. "He cannot live without you."
Leah watched what her mother was pointing too. It was a grave. A freshly filled-in grave, with a large headstone reading Leah O'Connell. And kneeling over it was Ardeth, grieving.
"Oh, Ardeth," Leah said. "Ardeth, don't cry over me!"
"He loves you, Leah. And he needs you," Leah's mother said. "You must go back to him."
"B-but—Mom, I want to stay with you!"
Ari shook her head. "No, Leah, your place is on Earth. With him. With your brother and his family." Ari gestured again behind her, and Leah saw Rick, Evelyn, Alex, and Jonathan joining Ardeth by the grave, all of them crying.
Leah's heart was torn. She had lived so many years without her mother, that all she wanted now was to be with her. Just as she was about to make her decision, Ari O'Connell faded from Leah's sight, and Leah was surrounded by darkness.
Before she even had time to react, her life flashed before her eyes. There she was at the orphanage in Cairo. There she was on the ship to America. There she was with her aunt in New York City. There she was on a ship back to Egypt. There she was running into Rick's arms, hugging him, meeting his family. And there she was, with Ardeth. Where she belonged. They had lived many, many lives together. And Leah knew that her mother was right. Her place was with Ardeth. She watched as she and Ardeth, she dressed all in white and Ardeth dressed in his velvet black robes, standing in a large church in London, cathedral bells ringing, took their sacred wedding vows.
"Do you, Ardeth, take this woman, Leah, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to honor her and love her, 'till death do you part, as long as you both shall live?" asked the minister.
"I do," Ardeth said, looking deep into Leah's eyes.
"I do, too!" Leah cried out in her void. "I do, I do! I love him! I really do! Oh, Ardeth, I'm coming! Wait for me! I'll hold on for you!"
Leah felt herself falling, falling into a void. Then suddenly, she was moving upward, at a speed so great that Leah thought that her body was going to fly into pieces. Just as she thought that she couldn't take the pressure any more, she was shoved back into the darkness that was her earthly, unconscious body.
She was back. Now all she had to do was hold on, until Ardeth could find her.
