A/N: I own nothing. I would like to say that any of the techno-babble in this chapter is not mine it comes directly from the show and if it is wrong don't to blame me.

Hermione got out of her rental, swinging her laptop case over her shoulder and yawning widely. Almost dropping her mug of tea, she fumbled with her supplies before they could crash to the ground. She made her way into the archaeology building and down the corridor to her assigned office. She reached the door, carefully balancing her possessions as she searched for the key. Liberating it from her briefcase, Hermione brought it forward and froze.

The door was ajar. With a feeling of dread, she gently pushed it open further. The door swung open, its hinges protesting, the noise seeming to echo through the empty hallway. She stepped into the room, her heart pounding. Her office was in chaos.

Her desk had evidently been searched, the drawers open, contents spilling onto the floor, her books had been haphazardly scattered across the shelves, and the file cabinets emptied. Slowly moving forward, she ignored the mess and made her way to the computer. It was on, and after a quick search she found that the system had been wiped and her disks were missing. Fear shot through her, sending icy fingers running up her spine. Without bothering to investigate further, Hermione rushed out of the room, not stopping even after she had exited the building.

Finding herself pacing the quad a few minutes later, she tried to calm down. What was going on? Who could have broken into her office? Thinking back, she tried to remember if she had locked the door on her way out the night before.

She knew she had.

Think, Hermione, just think.

Ever since she had arrived to observe the collection, it had been one thing after another. Dr. Jorden's death, the curator's accident, the mysterious Daniel Jackson, Steven's annoying interest, and now a break-in. The papers kept saying it was a curse, but Hermione knew that could not be the case. She almost wished the cause was magic - it would make everything easier, but she had examined everything. Even with her wand snapped and having been force-fed a magical inhibitor, she could still feel magical signatures, an unforeseen side-effect of the spell she'd participated in at Hogwarts.

With the amount of raw power that had coursed through her body during the spell, it was a wonder she was still breathing, let alone left unchanged. It was part of the reason the Ministry had seen her as such a threat and done their best to strip away her magic. She couldn't access her powers, but she was far from being left a helpless Muggle, as they had hoped. She still retained the ability to pass through magical barriers like the one at the Leaky Caldron, normally inaccessible to Muggles, and a few other benefits. It was what allowed her to enter magically sealed areas when exploring tombs back in Egypt. It also allowed her to know there was no trace of magic on anything she had examined in the collection.

Jerking to a halt, Hermione suddenly remembered that she hadn't examined everything.

The amulet.

The one Sarah couldn't find and which she knew Steven was hiding. She had only ever seen photocopied pictures of the amulet; she had never had an opportunity to examine it in person. Looking through her notes, she couldn't find reports on it anywhere. Had anyone done any testing on it? It was a long shot, but sometimes cursed objects held a trace of a potion solution to prevent the oxidation of the metal and the eventual destruction of the object, which could be picked up in chemical testing. It was usually labeled as anointment oil because the magical elements would not show up on those chemical tests.

Throwing her research back into her bag, she quickly made her way across the campus to the testing labs. If the object was cursed she needed to know before someone else was hurt.

It wouldn't be the first time she had come across something magical in her career. Normally she would just call up one of the local cursebreakers from Gringotts, who would then stop by and either remove the curse or duplicate the object and take the real one. It was this relationship that had helped her to gain access to many obscure writings of Ancient Egypt over the years. As long as she helped the local cursebreakers keep dangerous objects away from Muggles, and assisted with the occasional translation, they would let her gather information not normally available to Muggles. With access to magically sealed tombs and temples, she had been able to take pictures of the inscriptions on the walls for her private research, since her colleagues could not know where the information was coming from. Hermione had also been gifted over the years with several scrolls and tablets of hieroglyphs, by various cursebreakers in the area. It was mainly because Gringotts could not find any monetary value in them, considering them junk to be destroyed, and let her collect what she wanted. It had helped her to become better acquainted with the early dynastic writings mostly ignored by the majority of Egyptologists.

It was that research that helped her to partially translate the inscriptions on the temple walls. How did Daniel know how to read that language? Did he take the other canopic jar to test for the anointment oil? Did he know about the wizarding world? He knew more than he was saying, that was for sure. Speeding up her pace, she finally reached the entrance. It was time to get some answers.

The lab was empty and Hermione began to call out. "Hello, is anyone in?" No response. Stepping further into the room, she called again. "Is anyone in here? I need- Oh God." Looking down at the body of the lab technician, Hermione stumbled back in shock.

She looked around fearfully to see if anyone was there before she bent down to check for a pulse. The body was cold. Carefully moving around the remains, Hermione made her way to the main computer in the back office. With shaking hands she quickly pulled up the lab results for the amulet and looked for those on the destroyed canopic jar. She printed out a copy and fled the lab.

Oh God, oh God. What was going on?

She once again found herself outside, pacing the quad area. Who had searched through her office? Glancing around, she could see that students were beginning to take notice of her weird behavior. Grabbing her abandoned supplies, she relocated to the food court and took over a table. Making sure no one was watching, she pulled out the results she had printed out from the testing lab. She could find no mention in any of the documents of anointment oil being found on the objects. She almost sighed with relief that magic could be ruled out. Then what was going on? Why did everyone seem to be dying? Her confusion was answered as she turned to the final page of the report. The carbon dating placed the jar as being 10,000 years old, predating Egyptian civilization by several millennia.

This could literally cause the academic community to descend into chaos. It would be the find of the century, a guaranteed way to make a name for yourself. Hermione could only think of two people who would crave that kind of success: Daniel and Steven. The one had built his career on the theory that Egyptian civilization was older than anyone knew. What would he do to vindicate himself to the academic community? Then there was Steven, who was hiding things and was the very definition of ambition.

Was last night with Daniel a distraction to keep her from her office? Could they be working together? Daniel obviously knew more about the language than he was letting on; he had taken the second jar to be tested. Why? Steven seemed to be deliberately trying to keep the amulet from her. He also had been pressuring her for information on the translations she had been working on. Was he the one that had searched her office?

She felt so lost, tears of stress started to make their way down her face. She was confused and scared. Trying to keep herself from panicking more, Hermione took a deep breath to calm down.

The key had to be in the text; both men had taken a keen interest in her research. What was so important about the story she had found? Taking out her notes, she re-examined the story. It finally clicked. Something was still hidden in the temple and staring at the images, she could see an indentation in the altar that the missing amulet could fit in.

Inspired into action, she made her way back to her rental car and quickly pulled out of the school lot. She called the airline on her mobile and quickly booked a flight back to Cairo. She didn't feel safe waiting for a direct flight, so her trip ended up having a couple layovers. Weaving through the traffic, she tried not to speed, but fear pushed her on. She parked the rental and walked into the hotel and sped up the stairs, not bothering to wait for the lift. She threw her clothes into her bag, not bothering to fold, and was walking out the door a few minutes later. She checked out, got back into the car and headed to O'Hara airport, where she dropped off the rental and made her way back to the terminal to pick up her ticket at the counter. Walking through security, she drew some concerned looks at her frazzled state. To avoid attracting further attention, she pulled out her laptop and began to send some emails to friends back in Cairo, informing them of her early return. The distraction worked to calm her, and kept others from staring at her with concern.

It wasn't until the plane began to level out that the adrenaline driving her began to abate and Hermione finally crashed. Her sleep was anything but peaceful and the flight attendant had to wake her several times during the flight, as nightmares troubled her.

"The police said that the museum curator suffered a fatal blunt trauma to the skull," commented Daniel, seeing the look of concern Sarah was giving him. The two had been working to finish the collection's catalogue and Daniel had been filling her in on the previous night's events.

"They don't think that you had anything to do with her death?" she enquired.

Daniel interrupted before she had even finished her sentence. "No, they don't think that. Of course, Steven certainly didn't do anything to dissuade them from suspecting me, but fortunately I know a few people. Anyway, uh, they found some bricks at the bottom of the freight elevator shaft and they think that they came from the wall above; that it was just a freak accident."

"You know the papers are saying the curse of the mummy strikes again."

Trying to steer the conversation away from any mention of a curse, Daniel asked, "Do you have any pictures of the Osiris Jar, the one that was destroyed in the explosion?"

Sarah opened a desk drawer and riffled through the files, finally pulling out some pictures. "Yeah. Here."

Carefully studying the image, Daniel took his glasses off, cleaned the lenses and put them back on. Squinting, he said, "I can't make out the inscription around the collar."

Taking the photo from him, Sarah pointed to the lip of the jar. "We were unable to identify the symbols, but Dr. Jorden copied them into his notebook. Those markings are unlike anything we've ever seen before. They're not Egyptian. Dr. Granger has been studying them along with the pictures that she brought with her from the temple walls."

Daniel nodded. "Yeah, she mentioned that last night. Do you know when she's coming in? She offered to show me the images." Daniel tried to keep the urgency out of his voice, hoping he succeeded. After seeing the small sample Hermione had given him the night before, he was even more curious about her research and felt that the key to finding out about the Isis Jars purpose could be found amongst the ruins. It also worried him that she was well on her way to figuring out a workable translation. He even suspected she was further along then she had let on.

Sarah frowned in thought. "No, I haven't seen her. Normally she's in by now. She has been working some pretty long hours lately." Shrugging, she changed the subject, "Do you have any ideas what kind of symbols they are?"

"No, they're not Egyptian." Daniel said, agreeing with her earlier statement. They were Goa'uld symbols, but he couldn't tell her that.

"So what are they?"

Slightly surprised she had caught onto the fact that he recognized the writing, Daniel tried to remain evasive. "What are they?"

Staring at him, Sarah asked, "You know. How?"

Daniel hedged. "Let's just say I can't really get into it right now, but this is very important. Did Dr. Jorden do any kind of preliminary tests on the jar?"

Daniel could tell Sarah was getting frustrated with his non-answers. After giving him a piercing look, she replied, "Not that I know of, but he kept all his lab results in the computer." Sitting down at the computer, Sarah began to search for the information. Pausing, she began to punch in some more keys and then more with increasing frustration. "Something's wrong."

Daniel leaned over her shoulder to get a closer look at the screen. "What?"

"Dr. Jorden's files are gone. Everything's been wiped clean. Including his email account."

"Do you keep back-ups?"

Sarah gave a slight scowl at the computer as she continued to search. "Yeah, but they're not here."

"What're you doing?" He watched as she pulled up several new windows on the screen.

Sarah explained as she continued to type. "The system marks file space that's been deleted as tombstone. At regular intervals it scours the database looking for tombstone values and marks them as being ready to be overwritten. There's usually a window of about thirty days before that happens so I might be able to retrieve the files before the tombstone values replicate through the network... I've got something. The professor received one message on the night he died. But I'm guessing he never got around to reading it."

Reading the information, Daniel confirmed, "That's the results of the carbon-dating analysis done on the ebony portion of item fourteen."

"The missing gold amulet," confirmed Sarah. "Oh my God! Daniel. It's over ten thousand years old!" she cried. "This means you were right all along!"

"Yeah, I know." Daniel agreed, far less enthusiastically.

Clearly not paying attention to his tone, she went on. "Egyptian civilization must be thousands of years older than we've ever assumed."

Trying to gently break her out of her excitement, Daniel said, "Sarah, you can't tell anyone about this."

She stared at him in shock. "What are you talking about? This is exactly the evidence you've been looking for! It completely validates your theories."

Seeing the expression on her face, Daniel wished he could tell her the truth, but it was too dangerous. He tried to appear as the voice of reason. "Look, all we've got is the result of one carbon-dating analysis done on a missing artifact."

Seeing his point, she quickly agreed. "So we can contact the technician who performed the analysis."

She had blind-sided him. "What?"

Finishing up his phone call, Daniel turned at the sound of the door opening.

Rushing into the room, Sarah began to speak. "Daniel. There you are. I've been looking all over for you. Dr. Jorden wasn't the only one to get these results. Steven received them too."

Brushing off her concern, he replied, "Yeah, I was just doing a little extra research."

Not paying attention to his explanation, Sarah continued to babble on. "I went by Steven's place and he's gone. He's just packed up everything and left."

"I know." Daniel had already checked Stevens office, hoping to question him about the missing amulet, and seen the same thing. A call to admissions confirmed that Dr. Rayner had called into to cancel his classes for the rest of the week.

"You think he stole the amulet, don't you?" asked Sarah, disbelief in her voice.

"Yes." It wasn't the whole truth, but it would do.

"To stop your theories from being proven correct?"

Daniel decided not to disagree with her inaccurate conclusion. "Uh, it's possible. Anyway, I have to find him."

Grabbing her bag, Sarah announced, "I'll come with you."

"No... No, it's too dangerous," he quickly protested.

"Were talking about Steven here," dismissed Sarah.

Trying to reason with her, Daniel justified his claim. "Sarah, there have been three deaths already."

Clearly startled, she turned to look at him with shock. "Three?"

He knew she would not believe him. How could he explain that one of her oldest friends was had very probably been possessed by an alien and had most likely killed several people? "They just found the body of the technician who did the carbon-dating on the amulet."

Sarah shook her head in denial. "Daniel, I know Steven. He maybe capable of a lot of things, but he's no murderer."

"Well you may not know him as well as you think you do. At least, not anymore." He knew the argument was weak, but he had to try.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she replied, outraged, then mocked, "Oh let me guess. You can't explain, right?"

"Sarah,' Daniel pleaded.

"Well what do you expect, Daniel? You show up after five years, but you can't say where you've been. You've got this mysterious ability to be able to read an ancient language which nobody's ever seen before, but you can't explain how. And when we finally find the evidence that will be able to vindicate you in front of the entire archaeological community you want to cover it up. What is going on?" Giving him a heartbreaking look, she pleaded, "This is me, Daniel."

Futilely, he replied, "I know."

"Then why can't you trust me? What have you been doing for the past five years?"

"I want to tell you, Sarah. I do, believe me. I wish you could see some of the things I've seen. But the world is not ready to know. Not yet."

"I'm not asking you to tell the world. I'm asking you to tell me. This is my life's work, too, Daniel. So you're working for the government." Daniel just looked away. He could explain his work for the Air Force but he knew that their cover story wouldn't stand up against her. "What? Daniel."

"I'm sorry." He really was. He had dreamed of this moment for years: finding proof that he wasn't a crackpot, but he knew that it couldn't be released.

"You're just going to disappear again, aren't you?" He could see that she was resigned to his silence and holding back tears.

"Yes," he said sadly.

Sniffling she walked away. "I think Steven was right. You never should've come back."