Thanks to eris, Nhya,JewelBlossom & lilylynn for your lovely reviews. It is because of you that I'm posting this shorter chapter now rather than waiting for my attention span to increase beyond that of a daffodil (a difficult task this week apparently) so as I can write one of normal length. Enjoy!

Interlude: Pit stop (or ' What a difference an hour makes')

Around ten o'clock in the morning, the bus pulled into a quiet little town somewhere between Hamunaptra and Cairo. It was a place of no consequence unless you happened to live there, and the main source of income for their economy was the trade brought in by travellers and the busses that passed through en route to more prominent locales. It was the voice of the driver announcing over the loudspeaker that they would be stopping for one hour, no more, no less, so that they could stretch their legs that pulled Evelyn from a rather pleasant dream where she had been fed chocolates by someone she couldn't see.

Evelyn groaned as she floated back to consciousness, or she would have, had her mouth not felt like it was filled with sand. If there was one thing she hated about waking up, it was morning breath. Along with her usual dislike of this part of the day, she was further put out by the fact that her skin felt tight and dry from too much exposure to air conditioning (though she was aware that complaining about an air conditioned bus would be rather ludicrous given the Egyptian heat), her neck ached, and her pillow felt sticky against her cheek.

Blinking to force the remaining sleep from her eyes allowed Evelyn's vision to clear enough for her to realise that her pillow was actually the shoulder of a man she had been acquainted with for less than twenty-four hours. Knowing that said man had already developed a tendency for teasing her, she silently prayed that a) he was asleep himself and thus had no idea the position she'd awoken in and b) that her cheek felt sticky for some reason other than her having drooled on him in her sleep.

Thinking that the latter wish was unlikely to be fulfilled, Evelyn gently lifted herself into an upright position and turned to inspect the damage. Maybe if it wasn't too bad she could clean it up before he realised what she had done. The first thing that she noticed was that he was indeed asleep, a situation quickly rectified when her second observation caused her to gasp loudly, her hand flying to her mouth.

Rick was a light sleeper, a habit he'd developed through necessity, and as he heard Evelyn's distressed exclamation he shot upright in his seat. Evelyn watched as his eyes, at first confused and disoriented, flew from one place to another as he took in his surroundings. She saw calmness filter into stormy blue as he adjusted to being awake, and something else was written there too – relief. Had he been having a bad dream? If she hadn't still been struggling with her earlier shock, she would have been equally stunned to find that she could read him so easily after such a short time.

When he turned to face her, Rick let out his own gasp, though his seemed to be much more subdued than her own. "What happened?" he asked, reaching towards her only for Evelyn to flinch away from him reflexively. If Rick was offended, he didn't let it show. His arm dropped back to his side and he continued to peer at her.

Evelyn was puzzled by the apparent concern in his voice until she realised what his gaze was fixed upon. Bringing her hand to her cheek, she touched the warm, tacky skin, lifting away fingers stained red. Blood. "Nothing happened." She breathed, staring at the digits, still not quite able to believe what she was seeing was real. "Nothing happened to me."

"But you're covered in…" Rick trailed off, seeing her eyes flick to his shoulder. He didn't need to look to see what had her so startled, but he did anyway. Of course, looking at the patch of angry crimson, which seemed to be slowly spreading across his shirtsleeve reminded him just how painful it was and he winced, drawing in a sharp breath. "Damn that hurts." He muttered under his breath.

Evelyn, slowly beginning to regain her composure, wiped at the patch on her cheek with her sleeve. "Are…are you alright? What happened?"

The excuse was halfway to Rick's lips before he remembered his little speech about honesty from the night before. She'd told him the truth; it was only fair that he return the favour. Besides, she seemed like a smart girl, she'd probably figure it out for herself eventually. "Got grazed by a bullet the other night." He offered in the same off-hand manner he used whenever confronted with what he perceived as his own weakness. "It's no big deal. Must have just reopened the wound somehow."

"No big deal!" Evelyn repeated incredulously. "You've been shot!"

"Shhh." Rick hissed, not wanting to alert the other passengers filing past them and have them start asking questions for which he had no answer, for example, what exactly he'd been doing to get shot at in the first place. "It's not the first time and knowing my luck it wont be the last. It's nothing, really. I'll deal with it later."

Evelyn was about to protest that it most certainly was something, but thought better of it. She suspected that his blasé attitude had something to do with that 'male pride' issue Jonathan had been so determined to lecture her about on various occasions when she had inadvertently injured his. He wouldn't thank her for her interference and she was quite sure that it shouldn't matter to her in the slightest anyway. Even so, despite her resolve, she heard herself asking, "Is there something I can do."

"Dammit Evelyn." He snapped, eyes blazing with anger that seemed to come out of nowhere "I said I'm fine!"

He regretted it the instant she reared back, her mouth falling open and a hurt bewilderment filling her eyes. Before he could say or do anything to repair the damage however, she turned away form him abruptly and grabbed her bag. "Evelyn…" Rick began, but she was clearly uninterested in hearing whatever he might have had to say (not that he'd really had any idea what it would have been anyway) and simply pushed past him to file off the bus with the other passengers.

Rick closed his eyes and began to bang the back of his head against his seat. "Good going O'Connell." He berated himself. The poor girl was only trying to help and he goes and yells at her, but he couldn't help it. It was instinct to lash out when he was hurting – physically or otherwise, it was his way of dealing with things, his way of showing that he wasn't beaten. He'd been protecting himself this way for so long now that he didn't know anything else.

Whatever hesitant truce had existed between them last night had certainly been blown out of the water by that little performance, and if he'd found it hard to convince her to do something before, he figured it was likely to be nigh on impossible if they carried on like this. He could apologise he supposed, though he wasn't sure how gracious she would be about accepting it.

Well he'd deal with her later.

Right now he had a gushing shoulder wound to deal with.

…………

Evelyn fumed as she made her way out of the tiny bus station, ignoring the disapproving looks and murmurs of those she bumped into on the way. How dare he do that? How dare he speak to her like that? If she'd wanted to be yelled at and treated like a child she could have stayed at home where she could hire and fire people like that… scoundrel… on a whim.

It wouldn't be so bad, she realised, if she was angry. Being angry was fine; it was justified. Instead, she was hurt. She'd really thought they were beginning to understand one another, at least enough to stop the constant bickering at any rate, but he'd proven that he wasn't interested in making friends. Had she not been all too aware of her own inexperience with such matters, she would have carried on to Cairo alone.

She contemplated calling Imhotep and letting him know her intentions in the hope that he'd find some way to assist her journey; that way she could tell Mr O'Connell his services were no longer required. Unfortunately, it was unlikely that Jonathan was still ignorant of her disappearance, and he was intelligent enough to assume she would make her way to her fiancé. In the event that Jonathan got to Imhotep before she did, it would be safer if he had no idea what she had planned.

The sad fact was that she needed O'Connell more than he needed her. He already had his freedom and a ticket out of Hamunaptra. No one outside of the city would know who he was or what he had done, and neither were they likely to care. No, he was still with her by good will alone, and sooner or later he'd realise that and leave her to fend for herself.

She let out a sigh as her harried thoughts led her to the inevitable conclusion that she could not afford to be offended by every little slight O'Connell sent her way. But as of this moment, she didn't care if he bled to death, or got some horrible infection. Nope, not at all. He was on his own. She would be civil and nothing more, and once they reached Cairo she'd never have to see him again. Thank heaven.

Ducking out of sight so she wouldn't be tempted to make peace – it was hit turn she'd decided - when she saw him coming out of the building, a tired expression on his face and a jacket covering the bloody patch on his arm, Evelyn began to wonder just how her life had become so complicated all of a sudden.

…………

Rick, shoulder freshly bandaged, felt an odd sense of déjà vu as he waited for Izzy to answer his phone, and when he received the same sleepy response as the last time he called, he idly wondered how the wild haired little man ever got anything done at all if all he ever did was sleep.

"Hey Izzy." Rick could hear the tiredness in his own voice, but he still half expected Izzy to slam the phone down on him again.

"O'Connell, where the hell have you been!" Izzy cried, recognising his friend's voice. "I waited at the airport for an hour."

"Something came up." Rick O'Connell – master of understatements he thought, vaguely amused by the notion.

"Lock's pissed as hell, says you better have a damn good excuse for not showing." Izzy continued with the bad news and Rick closed his eyes, rubbing at the bridge of his nose where a headache was beginning to form.

"I got arrested." He explained.

"Erm…why are you wasting your phone call on me instead of a lawyer?"

Rick rolled his eyes "I'm not in jail Izzy, I'm still making my way to Cairo, it's just gonna take longer than I expected…"

Izzy, though sometimes gullible and invariably silly, was by no means stupid and so he was as fooled by Rick's flippant attitude as Evelyn had been earlier. "What aren't you telling me O'Connell?"

Rick sighed, feeling his headache grow steadily worse. "I lost the money." He mumbled, hoping Izzy wouldn't hear him properly.

"WHAT?" Izzy shouted.

"Relax." Rick soothed "I'll think of something, I always do."

"I hope so," stated Izzy "for your sake."

Rick couldn't help, but agree.

…………

As Evelyn ran breathlessly back to the bus terminal, carrier bag in hand, the first thing she noticed was that the bus had indeed gone and she was too late. The second was that O'Connell was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, and with a look of fury to make the one of an hour earlier pale in comparison, directed squarely at her. Lastly, she saw he had somehow managed to find a change of clothes and was now dressed in black pants and a crisp white shirt under what was presumably a new leather jacket. He looked like he had just stepped out of the pages of a catalogue, not a trace of blood in sight, and she found herself momentarily forgetting that she had decided not to be nice to him.

This temporary lapse was remedied when he opened his mouth.

"Where the hell have you been?" he snapped, but continued before she could answer. "The bus left ten minutes ago."

"I didn't realise it was so late." Evelyn tried to defend herself, her tone brisk in response to his ire. "Does it really matter? We can always catch the next one."

"Have you looked around any?" he yelled at the naive young woman, drawing the attention of several other people milling around the otherwise deserted station. "We're in the middle of the desert. There wont be another bus until tomorrow!"

Usually Evelyn would have tried to avoid making a scene in public, especially given their precarious situation. Now however all sense of decorum flew out of the window. "If it bothers you that much, why didn't you get on the bloody thing?" she demanded, her voice rising to match his. "There was nothing stopping you."

O'Connell's mouth opened and closed several times, but nothing came out. Whatever he had been expecting her to say; that apparently was not it. Heartened by this small victory, Evelyn continued. "I'm not your employee Mr O'Connell, nor are you mine. You can't order me around and you're free to do as you please. We've missed the bus and since there's nothing to be done about it, there's no point getting annoyed – it won't change anything. I intend to find a hotel for the night, you can do whatever the hell you like."

Satisfied with his dumbfounded expression Evelyn began to walk away, but turned back. She had one last thing to say. "And for your information, this -" she flung the plastic bag she carried at him and he caught it, never taking his eyes off her face. "- is why I was late."

With that, she turned on her heel and walked away. Rick stared after her confusedly for a moment before opening the bag she'd given him. Inside were various medical supplies; bandages, gauze, antiseptic, painkillers etc. All things he probably needed but would never bother to get for himself.

"Okay," he exclaimed, "now I feel like an idiot." Then with a shake of his head, took off running after Evelyn.

…………

TBC…

And that's all this time folks, hopefully this will keep you going until the fog clears – promise not to leave you hanging any longer than is necessary. The next chapter is already written; I just have to find a way of getting it out of my head and onto my computer!

Please review and let me know what you think, I'm fairly certain it will improve my concentration. Thank you again for reading, it is much appreciated.

KT x