A/N: Thank you for the review, pepermint patty! As promised, if we get reviews, we won't make you wait a whole week for the next batch! :)

Emilee - January 11, 2003
Five years. For five years he'd spent every day knowing that when he got home she would be there. For five years he'd woken up every morning with Gabrielle sprawled out next to him, using his chest as a pillow. She'd become a part of his life so easily that it was strange now without her there.

Jonathan didn't depend on many things. Rick, Evie and Alex were one, his room in the East wing of the O'Connell manor was another, and then there were a few others...Scotch, Glenlivet, his whiskey flask always being full and tucked away in his jacket pocket...let's see...Chap's Bar on the corner of Cole Street next to Barney's...

All right, so Jonathan depended on quite a few things, but one thing he'd always swore never to depend on, was a woman.

Sighing for what must have been the umpteenth time as he sat at Alex's bedside watching over the boy, Jonathan slumped about as far as one can slump in the chair. His hand found his father's ring and he twirled it absently on his finger.

The only problem about swearing never to depend on a woman, was what to do after you fell in love with one.

Jon hadn't been all too eager for Gabrielle to go home for a while, but the move didn't seem to affect her much. She was sad, yes, told him she was going to miss him, definitely, but all in all she immediately agreed when Nefret asked her to do it.

"Why on earth did she do that for?" Jonathan asked out loud.

And much to Jon's surprise, Alex rolled over, "What?" he asked, looking at his uncle.

Jonathan winced, "I thought you were asleep."

"You woke me up!"

Jonathan sighed again.

"So what were you saying?" Alex asked, adjusting his position so his elbow was on the pillow and he was propping up his head with his hand.

"Nothing Alex, go back to sleep." Jonathan pleaded.

"Oooh, I get it. You're thinking about her." Alex said after a few moments.

"I thought I told you to go to sleep." Jonathan moaned.

Alex gave his uncle a look, and Jonathan gave him the exact same look back, but with many more years of experience. Alex shook his head and gave Jon a pitiful look, "I think I know what you're going through Uncle Jon."

"Oh you do?"

Alex nodded, "You're wishing you would have just married her."

"Bloody hell, Alex, that's quite an assump...an assumpt...that's quite a thing to say Alex!"

"Assumption?"

Jonathan glared.

"Why didn't you marry her by the way?"

Jonathan sighed and put his hands over his face.

"I mean, she would have said yes..." Alex said offhandedly.

The hands dropped immediately. "Wh...wh...wh...?"

"Are you okay Uncle Jon?"

"Did she tell you she'd say yes?"

Alex shrugged, "She might have mentioned it."

Jonathan looked ecstatic, and sat up a little straighter in his chair. "She did?"

Frowning, Alex shrugged again and rolled over, pulling the covers over his shoulder, "...well maybe not."

"Alex!"

"What? I'm going to sleep like you told me."

"I told you no such thing." Jonathan replied sitting forward and looking at his nephew.

"..." Alex snored.

"Oh come on Alex! Tell me what she said!"

Penny - January 13, 2003
"What am I? Fly paper for freaks?" Kit moaned, putting his head down on his knees when Rick came back in the hold, with a plate in one hand and a glass of milk in another. "Don't you have a house to haunt?"

"Charming to the end, huh?" Rick frowned, taking in the kid who sat bunched up on the blanket. He looked pathetic in Jon's clothes. They hung on his skinny frame, like wet laundry on a clothes line, but bless Evie's heart, she had found him something to wear besides the blanket. At least she had thought of it, Rick thought with a twinge of guilt. It was more than he had done.

"Look. Evie fixed you a sandwich and a glass of milk. Said if you wanted more, just ask. She put a couple sugar cookies on there, for you, too."

Kit ignored him, keeping his head inside his folded arms. Rick shook his head and sat the plate and glass down next to the pallet. "It's there when you are ready to eat," he told him, sitting down in the chair next to the door. "But get this straight, I'm not leaving till you talk to me, Kit."

"Oh goody!" he mumbled into his arms. "Why don't you make like horse shit and hit the trail, Lone Ranger?"

"You know what? I'm not getting into a battle of wills, with some kid who hasn't got sense enough to pour piss out of a boot, with the directions written on the heel! Now you can make this hard or you can make it easy on yourself! I don't care! But either way, you're gonna talk to me! UNDERSTAND?"

"Go figure," he mumbled flatly. "One hundred thousand sperm and you were the fastest! Who would have thought it!"

"Did Carrie Anne let you cuss like a sailor?" Kit's head shot up. "BASTARD! My Mom was a saint! You ain't fit to wipe her shoes, let alone say her name!"

Rick's expression never changed, but his heart sped up. "Tell me about her."

"Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up the fastest, O'Connell."

"Look you little stinkweed, I have had just about enough from your smart damn mouth to last me a lifetime!", Rick snapped back.

"Oh, ya dyin'? HELL, DON'T LET ME BE THE ONE TO KEEP YA! JUST GO DROP DEAD!" he shouted , then dropped his head back in his arms. "Everybody else does," he barely said.

Now we're getting somewhere, Rick thought. Now it was plain why there was so much anger. So much distrust, so much hatred. His mother and father were gone. His grandfather was gone. He thought he had no one. Well, he was wrong about that one, and whether Kit wanted to hear it or not, he was going to listen to what Rick had to say, if he had to pound it into his nephew's head.

"Who killed Carrie Anne and your dad and your grandpa, Kit?" Rick asked feeling his own hatred rise for the person responsible for his sister's death.

"Was it the same person that took a knife to your arm?"

Kit's head shot up, his hand instinctively wrapping around the back of his right forearm. Accusing eyes shot daggers at the man sitting by the door.

"Found it when we took your wet clothes off. Ardeth put some kinda herb mixture on it. Said it was getting infected. A couple more days and you'd have been in trouble. He probably saved your arm."

"I can take care of myself. I don t need you or your friends. When we get to Egypt, I'm outta here!"

"You're not leaving this yacht till I say you do. In fact, you're not leaving my sight! Get that in your head right now. Somebody tried to kill you and I'm bettin' it was the same sonuvabitch that killed my sister and your dad and your grandpa! So from now on, till I find out who it is, I'm stickin' to you like shit on an eggshell, Buddy."

"You really wanna know? You wanna know about my Mom? My Dad? Papere? The bastard that killed them all? Fine. I'll tell ya, but you gotta do something first for me, O'Connell. I want you to try this. Go up on deck. Take, oh say, fifty to sixty paces backwards. Run forward at full speed, then do a triple somersault through the air, and disappear up your own ass!"

"DAMMIT! YOU JUST DON'T GET IT DO YOU? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? DID THEY SHOOT YOU THROUGH THE STUPID FOREST AND YOU HIT YOUR HEAD ON EVERY GODDAMN TREE ON YOUR WAY OUT?"

"Do you eat with that mouth?"

Two heads turned to look at Evie standing in the doorway.

Good. Now Kit was gonna get it. His pretty little wife had "The Look" all over her face. Evie was gonna skin him alive and he'd wind up being the ugliest throw rug in Egypt. Yes sir! Busted now, Buddy!

"Kit, I suggest if you want to enjoy the same privileges, as the rest of us while you're on board, you watch your tongue, young man."

"Yes Ma'am", he answered quietly.

What the hell? That was it? He turned to Evie who had turned "The Look" in his direction. Oh Hell.

"Mr. O'Connell? We can hear you clear up in the wheel house. There's no reason to scream at the boy like that. He's really not the enemy here. I'm sure if you ask him with a modicum of civility, he'll answer your questions."

"Won't you Kit?"

Yeah, right, Rick thought looking at the sullen face, sitting on the pallet. And pigs will sprout wings and fly to the moon.

Evie's eyebrow danced to attention. "KIT?"

The teenager sighed.

Evie knew then one of the battles had been won, but the war was another thing. It would take a lot for Kit to trust anyone. And the only way that could even start was for it to begin here, in this hold, right now. "Would you mind if I stayed?"

"Kay", Kit answered flatly, shrugging his shoulder. "It's your boat. I'm just the prisoner here."

"You wouldn't be, if you talk to Rick, you know. He just wants to know about Carrie Anne. That's all. See, they told him when he was in the orphanage, that she died from pneumonia. I guess they didn't think your grandparents would adopt a second child, even if it was her brother. I imagine they didn't know about Rick. Your Grandfather seemed like a nice man. He didn't seem like someone to purposefully separate a brother and his sister."

"When my Mom told them she had a brother," Kit started quietly, "they asked about him. The orphanage said he was dead."

Evie nodded. "I thought as much." She walked over to him and smiled.

"Can I sit down? Will that be alright?"

"I guess so."

"Can I ask you some things about your mom? I d like to know about her. She was Alex's aunt too." Evie said softly.

Kit sighed deeply. He didn't want to remember. It hurt too much to think about Mom and Pop. It hurt too much to think about Papere. He fought for a little over a year, to put the sight of his mother and father's body on the living room floor out of his mind. Now these people wanted him to sit there and ...

He shoved a hand through his hair, pushing it back out of his eyes. It was a sign of frustration, Evie had witnessed a thousand times, from her husband. "Yeah, well, she's nobody's aunt or mother or sister now, since that bastard cut her throat!"

Evie gasped and Rick sat up straight in the chair.

"Who did it, Kit? Tell me? I'll make sure the sonuvabitch pays!"

"Well you best not think on that, too long, O'Connell. I'm gonna kill Alan Skarzinski, myself!"

Calla Lancaster - January 14, 2003
The man walked through the streets of Cairo, not knowing where he was going. He knew only that those damned O'Connells were coming after him. His British informant, Nac-et-bieh, had written him that the Carnahan's son and daughter, as well as her husband, had left for Egypt, and had acquired two small boys on the way. According to the informant, one was their own, stowed away on-board. But the other, also stowed away, the grandson of his now deceased enemy, could tell everything about the man to the O'Connells. Everything.

As the sun set, the man walked down to the river. There he spotted a caravan, surrounded by men in long black robes, with black tattoos on their foreheads and cheeks and decided to find out where they were going. After all, he was a wanted man. "Hamunaptra. The city of riches," was the reply that he got. Hamunaptra. The City of the Dead. Who would think to look for him there? What was his name? The men asked. "Habi-tu-maruk." This was the name he had been given at his birth. The name he had been given at his reincarnation was Alan Skarzinski, but he had committed many a crime under that alias. The men were talking again. Why was he going? They asked. "To escape the truth." That answer seemed to sit well with the men, and the man was given a camel and supplies and told to meet at this very spot, at sunup.

Sheri L (pen name Lucky Fannah) January 14, 2003
Jonathan was sitting with Alex in his cabin next to the hold where Kit was being held. Jonathan held a glass to the wall and pressed his ear to the glass. Occasionally his expression would change and he would whisper something to Alex.

Alex was tucked back in bed orders of his uncle Jon. In return, Jonathan promised a play by play of the action in the next room.

Jonathan laughed at something filthy Kit had said to Rick. "Uncle Jooon! What are they saying?"

"Oh, Kit is being very nice to your father, very polite, actually", Jonathan lied.

"Yeah? and you can eat my shorts! I'm not a KID, Uncle Jon." Alex said with a sigh.

"Yes, you most certainly are a KID, now hush so I can listen!"

"Then whose the one holding the glass to the wall, huh?"

"Alex! Shush!"

"But who's winning the fight?" Suddenly, Jonathan spun around on his heels and glared at Alex. "They most certainly are NOT fighting."

He tried to look stern, but it just wasn't possible. Not after what he had heard going on next door, that was for certain!

Suddenly Jonathan looked as if he would cry, but then the corners of his mouth turned upwards and he grinned. Then he laughed and looked at Alex. "Well, actually, they ARE fighting and Kit is holding his own!"

Alex and Jon then started laughing and giggling, enjoying each other's company and having fun eavesdropping to boot.

Jonathan waved Alex over to the wall and picked up another glass off the cabinet. "Your mum will skin me alive if she catches you, but go on and place the glass here, like this. Now press your ear to the glass and you can hear EVERYTHING!"

Alex was impressed at how clearly he could hear what was being said next door. He felt sorry for Kit, and he wanted to tell him so next chance he had to…

"Uncle Jon? What are you doing?"

There was Jonathan toeing off his shoes and climbing onto the bed and then the end table. Rick was standing up now, evidently, and Jonathan needed a better vantage point to hear him.

In his sock feet Jonathan balanced on the end table being careful not to send the lamp crashing to the floor. He pressed the glass up to the wall again and stood there with his ear glued to it wearing a satisfied smile.

"Ah! Oh no, poor boy. The lad has had a rough go, I'll say." Jon said with a frown.

Then Alex stood from where he was squatting listening just like his uncle, when he bumped into the end table sending Jonathan and the lamp tumbling to the floor!

"Uncle Jon! Look out….!"

"Arrgh!" There sat Jon sprawled out on his backside with the lampshade sitting on top of his head, the fringe swinging back and forth from the movement.

"Bloody hell, Alex! Can't you look where you are going?"

"Well you shouldn't have been up there in the first place!"

Alex giggled, holding his hand over his mouth. Then he pointed to his uncle. "You should see yourself, it's hilarious!"

"Don't just stand there, I COULD USE SOME HELP IF IT'S NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE!"

Suddenly, the door to Jon's cabin swung open wide.

There was Evie standing with her hands on her hips and "The Look" in her eyes. Her eyes shot to the floor where she saw the lamp laying in several pieces.

"Jonathan? Alex? What have you managed to destroy THIS time?"

Then, without missing a beat, Jon pointed to Alex and Alex pointed to Jon and they both said at the same time, "HE did it!"

An hour passed and Evie went to the pilothouse to check on Ardeth who had been steering the boat for them during all of the commotion.

She plopped herself right down on the sofa up against the wall and looked up at Ardeth.

"So, how much further do we have?"

Ardeth shifted uneasily on his feet. Then he began to fumble with some charts and maps. "Yes, well, I have been looking over these maps and charts and … well, I… um you see…. Evelyn, I do not know where in Allah's name we are! I think we are off course." Ardeth blushed and Evie had to smile.

"Oh, that's alright Ardeth, I guess you know very little of navigating on the water, so please, don't worry. I'll go get Jonathan and he will figure out where we are and get us back on course in no time."

Evie forced a smile and turned around to walk out of the pilothouse. Then it hit her.

She turned back around and walked right up to poor Ardeth again and said in a matter of fact way, her tone not too harsh, "You know, this trip to Egypt hasn't even BEGUN and we already have a CHILD stowaway being held captive until he tells the interrogator everything he knows, two MORE CHILDREN in the galley doing dishes and mopping for breaking a lamp, AND, now, Ardeth my dear, we are LOST!"

"And who said no harm ever came from bringing your family and a smart-mouthed stowaway all the way to Egypt?"

A/N: Please remember to review! :)