A/N: This is my contribution to the cssns, it is a re-adaptation/reworking of the 1999 version of the Mummy. This fic has been a labor of love for me, and I truly hope that I have done the movie a justice with my CS transmog.

Beta'd by the ever lovely ilovemesomekillianjones. Fabulous art by abeylin1982 over on tumblr.

Chapter One

"I am Warden Blackbeard, I heard you were coming." Staring at the pair in front of him impatiently as they continue to linger on the other side of the prison entrance, he calls out again. "Come, come! Step over the threshold." The warden turns and starts walking away from them as he continues, "Welcome to Cairo Prison, my humble home." Brandishing his arms as if to emphasize the gloriousness of the squalor around them, Blackbeard turns back to face them, to make sure they're following him.

Stepping into the courtyard, following behind their gracious host, Emma turns to August noticing his skittish behavior, and she levels him with a disappointed gaze as realization dawns on her. Emma edges closer to him as the warden continues to lead the way. "August! You told me you got it on a dig down in Thebes." Emma notes that the warden is leading them towards a cell along the far wall.

August looks anxious, but not remorseful in the slightest, as he replies, "Well, I was mistaken."

Narrowing her eyes, Emma retorts, "Mistaken my foot. You lied to me."

August just shrugs as he quips, "I lie to everybody, Emma, what makes you so special?"

Responding with indignance, Emma has to be mindful of how loud she is speaking as she snaps, "I am your sister."

"That just makes you more gullible."

August says it so blithely that Emma's annoyance with him rises all the higher. She quickly and forcefully pinches August's bicep where her hand rests, as she accuses, "You stole it from a drunk at the local casbah."

August starts turning them to head back towards the entrance so they can leave. "Picked his pocket, actually. So I don't think it's a very good idea-"

Emma cuts him off, yanking them back towards the cell the warden is leading them towards. "Stop being so ridiculous." Emma pulls August firmly back to her side with the arm she still has looped through his.

"What exactly is this man in prison for?" Emma asks the warden.

"This I do not know. But when I heard that you were coming, I asked him that myself."

"And what did he say?" Her curiosity is definitely piqued regarding the man August stole the map to Hamunaptra from.

Raising his hand in the air and flicking his wrist with a flourish, he answers, "He said he was just looking for a good time."

CS~CS~CS

After her small mishap in the museums' library earlier, she'd gotten a right scolding from Curator Nemo about her constant clumsiness. He had demanded that she put the library back to rights, however long it might take. He had taken her pride down a few notches with his verbal lashing, making her feel even worse about the rejection she had received from the Bembridge Scholars earlier that day.

As Emma was contemplating how to go about fixing the mess, she heard a noise in the storage room just off of the library, so she decided to go see what it was. What Emma discovered was August disrespecting the dead by lying with a skeleton in an open sarcophagus. He was clearly drunk... again. He claimed his career was on a high note (ha!), and that he had finally found something of value to present to the curator. She had been wary after all the junk he had asked her to present to Nemo over the years, until she saw what it was that he'd found. It looked like her older brother had actually found something legitimate from his dig down in Thebes.

Emma had excitedly presented the map to Nemo with August beside her; she had even gone so far as to prepare her presentation before bringing it to his attention. She'd dated the map, amongst other things, based on the cartouche in the corner, signifying that it had belonged to Seti the first. Nemo had been skeptical during her presentation of the map that depicted the location of the ancient burial site Hamunaptra. As she had been explaining the significance of the map to August, the map had accidentally caught fire on the corner depicting Hamunaptra's exact location, causing the way to be lost.

After leaving Nemo's office, August confessed to knowing someone who might be able to help them. Thus, how they had ended up at Cairo Prison, with another of August's fallacies having been brought to light.

CS~CS~CS

Emma is snapped out of her retrospection by the loud thud emanating from a disheveled man landing against the bars of the cell in front of them. "This is the man that you stole it from?" Emma asks her brother. She watches with unease while the two guards in the cell force the man to his knees with their batons.

"Yes, exactly. So why don't we just go sniff out a spot of tiffin-" August has become noticeably nervous now that the man is in front of them.

If Emma didn't know any better, she would say that her brother is scared of this man, and with good reason, based on her quick glance at him. He is tall, taller than August by almost a head, broad shouldered, very solidly built, but he still looks to be very agile.

The man they are here to see finally speaks after giving them a brief appraising look. "Who are you, and... who's the broad?"

Emma is stunned by the coarse greeting tossed out by the man in the cage. "Broad?" she scoffs with a hint of disdain. This man truly is a heathen, she thinks to herself.

August almost squeaks as he startles and stutters out a response, "I- I'm just a local sort of missionary chap, spreading the good word." August is now fidgeting in full, and is perspiring harder the longer this man looks at him. "And this, this is my sister Emma," he introduces her as he pulls her toward the cell.

Emma gives a polite yet stiff, "How do you do?"

"Oh, well…" Emma watches him give her another appraising look before he looks in her eyes, and says, "I guess she's not a total loss."

"I beg your pardon?" Emma asks offendedly. She is quite done with his continued barbs.

"I'll be back in a moment." Blackbeard tosses out over his shoulder as he walks away to deal with something else across the courtyard.

"Ask him about the box," August mumbles into her ear as he nudges Emma forward.

"Um, we have found... Uh, hello. Excuse me." Catching the man's attention again as he looks back at her from whatever Blackbeard was dealing with. "We both found your… your puzzle box… and we've come to ask you about it."

"No."

The abrupt no is enough to make Emma's head spin. How dare this filthy heathen refuse her, not even an explanation, just… no. Does he not realize what he looks like in this moment? His time in a cell has certainly taken its toll. He hasn't bathed, his clothes are dirty, but then again, maybe he is used to getting by on those good looks of his. Because underneath the grime and the muck... he is attractive, undeniably so, but it doesn't matter though. He has been nothing but rude and condescending, and there is absolutely nothing to like about him, she tells herself. Emma eyes his disheveled, black hair, and thick black beard with flecks of red throughout, then looks back to his startlingly too blue eyes, eyes that haven't stopped appraising her face.

Determined to get an answer, Emma turns the man's word back at him, and questions, "No?"

His immediate response to her question is an infuriating smirk slowly crawling across his too handsome face. Handsome? No, absolutely not! She will not be attracted to this barbarian if it is the last thing she does. How is this man, in a cage, inside a prison, so frustrating? One would think he'd be more accommodating!

He finally responds to her inquiry after a long moment of apparent self satisfaction. "No. You came to ask me about Hamunaptra."

Emma was not expecting that answer from him, it appears he is more intelligent than his pretty face would convey. "H-How do you know the box pertains to Hamunaptra?"

"Because that's where I was when I found it. I was there." The way his eyebrows climb up his forehead with his smirk still in place, Emma can only describe his expression as condescending.

August makes his way almost flush to the bars, stoops over to be eye level with the kneeling man that has been subtly taunting them, and finally speaks up to ask, "And how do we know that's not a load of pigs wallow?"

The stranger in the cage squints up at August now that he is closer, pointing at him with a pensive look on his face as he asks, "Do I know you?"

"What? No, no, no. I've just got one of those faces." August tries his best to sell his answer, but his nervousness is plain as day.

Emma almost feels bad for her brother, but she also feels a bit satisfied that something about this man, this stranger, this brute, has her typically unflappable brother nervous. Before Emma really gets a chance to contemplate that too much, the man's fist shoots out from between the bars, in a short but powerful punch, landing squarely along August's jaw, effectively knocking him out cold. That'll probably leave a bruise, she muses.

As the brute is retracting his arm back into his cage, something on his wrist catches her attention. Is that a tattoo? That almost looks like an ancient hieroglyph, but it can't be, can it? Does that mean he appreciates the dead language, as I do? Before she can even blink, the two guards in the cell are raining blows down on the prisoner for the punch he just landed on her brother. Their tirade is over almost as quickly as it had begun. The man is still hunched over trying to compose himself, clinging to the bars to keep himself upright for a few moments. Emma catches a glimpse of something dark on his wrist again. It does indeed look to be a hieroglyph.

Putting thoughts of his tattoo out of her mind for the moment, Emma finally manages to ask, "You were actually at Hamunaptra?"

A shit eating grin breaks out across his face before he answers, "Yeah, I was there." He does look good when he smiles, even if he is being an ass. Wait, what? Emma, no! I need to stop thinking this foolishness.

"You swear?"

"Every damn day." His smile just grows wider, ass.

He may have looks, but now I'm starting to doubt his intelligence, or does he just enjoy taunting me so? "I didn't mean that-"

"I know. I know what you meant." Seeming to sense her frustration with his continued dancing around a straight answer, he moves both hands in an almost placating motion as he continues, "I was there. Seti's place. City of the Dead."

"Could you tell me how to get there? I mean, the exact location."

The man's eyes widen as he does a double take, almost as though he is certain he did not hear her correctly. For a moment he stares at her like she has lost her mind, even though he's the one in prison, and has no room to judge her, but the next second his mask is back in place. This is the first genuine expression he's offered since he was brought before her and August. Emma is intrigued by the man beneath the surface. She has seen the crack in his blasé façade, now Emma just has to figure out how to go about convincing him to help her.

He now wears an expression of seriousness as he asks, "You want to know?"

"W-Well, yes," she states, stepping over her brother's limp form. As she gets closer she notices the tattoo on his wrist again. She is fascinated by it, and wonders if it is indeed an actual hieroglyph.

"Do you really want to know?" Her eyes snap back to his face at his question.

"Yes," she answers again as he beckons her closer.

He firmly places his hand on her chin and pulls her in the last inch, then presses his lips to hers briefly. In a hurried grumble, as the guards are ripping him away from the bars, he says, "Then get me the hell out of here!"

Emma stares in shock as the guards continue to pull him back and begin beating him again, this time he puts up a fight, getting some hits of his own in as the guards have to bodily lift and drag him back inside the prison walls.

Right before they slam the door she hears his final yell, "Do it, lady!"

"Where are they taking him?" Emma demands of the warden.

"To be hanged. Apparently, he had a very good time."

CS~CS~CS

The warden has brought her up to his private observation balcony to watch the hanging, and she is desperately scrambling to figure out a way to stop these horrendous proceedings. Emma calls out the first thing that comes to her mind.

"I will give you 100 pounds to save this man's life."

"Madame, I would pay 100 pounds just to see him hang." Emma hears the hangman call out in Arabic that the prisoner's last request is that they loosen the knot and let him go. The warden yells out from his seat next to her, "Ya Hmar! Of course we don't let him go!"

If not for the dire circumstance, Emma might have giggled at the stupidity of the hangman's question and the warden calling him a donkey. She jumps in her seat as the hangman lands a solid slap to the back of her prisoner's head, and then proceeds to tighten the noose around his neck. My prisoner? No, that's not right. She chastises herself for the loss of her sensibilities, she needs to be more concerned about saving this man's life, she still doesn't even know his name, not trying to stake some kind of claim to him, even though he did kiss her.

"Five! Five hundred pounds!" She doesn't want to contemplate why her sense of panic is so high at the prospect of this man's death. It has to be because he's her only way to find Hamunaptra. That's it, nothing else could be the cause, no, not at all.

"And what else? I'm a very lonely man."

Emma is thoroughly repulsed by the way he sets his hand on her knee and attempts to slide it towards her thigh. She gives his a hand a sharp smack from her clutch, causing the entire prison population to break out into raucous laughter, much to the warden's humiliation.

In retaliation to her spurning his advances, he yells out, "Yalla tlak!"

Emma yells an impassioned, No!, as the hangman pulls the lever, dropping the hatch. She is forced to her feet by the full force of her fear for this man, and indignation at the warden for proceeding.

Emma wants to punch Blackbeard for his level of glee as he calls out, "Ha ha! His neck did not break! Oh, I'm so sorry. Now we must watch him strangle to death."

Retaking her seat, she knows that she must keep a level head, the man sat to her left is the only chance for the prisoner to be saved, so she goes for a last ditch effort.

"He knows the location to Hamunaptra."

"You lie."

"I would never!"

"Are you telling me this filthy, godless son of a pig knows where to find the City of the Dead?"

"Yes!"

"Truly?"

"Yes! And if you cut him down, we will give you…" Emma chews her bottom lip contemplatively for a moment before calling out, "Ten percent."

"Fifty percent."

"Twenty."

"Forty."

"Thirty!"

"Twenty-five."

Jumping on the fact that he came down lower, Emma enthusiastically yells out, "Ha! Deal." It is still more than she wants to give the cretin of a man, but it's not astronomical in the grand scheme of things.

A look of realization crosses his face as he realizes that he has just shorted himself out of the possibility of more, but a deal is a deal. "Ahh!" he whines in annoyance, "cut him down!"

Emma stands from her seat feeling rather proud of herself as she looks down at the man lying curled up and coughing on the ground beneath the gallows. "Now warden, if you would be so kind as to pass along a message to our friend down there when he is no longer seeing stars?"

Blackbeard nods his head in ascent letting her know she can proceed.

"He is to meet my brother and I at Giza Port, day after tomorrow. We'll be on the boat that leaves at eleven in the morning. That should be enough time to give him, my brother, and myself time to make the necessary arrangements."

"I will pass along your message to Mr. Jones madame, I bid you good day."

"I really must go attend to my brother. Day after tomorrow warden, I expect to see Mr. Jones at eleven."

"My word is my bond Miss Nolan, I will give him the message."

A/N: Tiffin is an Indian English word for a type of meal. It can refer to the midday luncheon or, in some regions of the Indian subcontinent, a between meal snack, or in South Indian usage, a light breakfast. When used in place of the word "lunch", it does not necessarily mean a light meal.

Ya Hmar means donkey/jackass in Arabic.

Yalla tlak means hurry up/now in Arabic.

Reviews feed the muse. Please let me know what you thought.
See you in two weeks with chapter 2