I know! It's been so long since I made an update and I'm so sorry! Better late than never, right? Word of thanks: I finally found the inspiration to move forward with this story. I still don't know where this is going yet in terms of the relationship with Aaliyah and Ardeth, I'm basically just writing down whatever pops into my brain and let the story take it's own direction, after all, there is another movie. Reading the reviews again really made me push myself forward to continue this. It also made me realize that I honestly don't have many more scenes left in the movie and I can end this story and finally be able to say that I have a completed a story all the way through on this site! And I won't be able to say that without you guys!

Kat: Your review really made a huge impact in my decision just to push through and not follow so close to the movie script.

KoreanMusicFan: I know, I'll try to put more effort in that, and will probably see more towards the end, but this saga isn't ending any time soon! So there will be more when this story ends. Just because the story's coming to an end, doesn't mean that that is it.

Chapter 10

Day 6: Part 1:

We ended up traveling most of the night. For the most part, we were all quiet which left me alone in silence to gather my thoughts together.

'Baba' I thought, 'If only you could see me right now, what in the world would you say?' I sighed inwardly. I missed my father, more than I had ever thought before, sure, I was only a child, but I missed the simplicity of being a kid in the tribe, and I missed the way my father kept me safe, never putting me in harm's way. I had even made him check outside the tents and around the corners of my sleeping areas to make sure that there were no monsters around—in fact—I demanded this of him, refusing to sleep until he did so. Baba, amused, did all of these, and after reassuring me that it was indeed safe, put me to sleep with old stories of a time long ago, before I was born, before he was born even, of our people.

I often did find myself wondering what would've happened if my father had still lived. Would my mom still have left? Would she have left me? I quickly shook those thoughts away. 'No, she only left because baba died. She truly did love him, she said she only stayed in the tribe for him.'

I silently studied Ardeth. Now, surely I would have been married to him if my father had never been killed. And to be quite honest, I'm not sure how I felt about that. I'm sure that he was a great guy and everything, I mean, I've known him since we were both children, and he wasn't bad looking in my opinion, which was a plus. But I'm not sure I could be as brave as my mother was, and stay somewhere I didn't want to be for a man.

Sure, my fondest and earliest memories was of the tribe, so much has changed since I was a child, I wasn't willing to be cooped up somewhere like that, and I barely practiced their religion anymore, not really, with the head coverings of the teenage girls and adult women, and much like my brother, I didn't really like being told what to do, I was my mother's daughter after all, but I was also my father's daughter, which meant, I did have pride over where I come from and of my heritage, or the values and the traditions that was instilled in me since before I could even talk.

Even though those things ran through my blood, I still valued my independence, so I don't think that I could ever settle down like my mother had once decided to, even if I did have feelings for Ardeth. It wouldn't happen.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by my brother's voice. "Alright, we need to find a car, and we need to visit a friend of mine." Jonathan was nowhere in sight.

I eyed my brother, warily. Usually, he only mentioned said friends when he needed something out of them. "Really? What are you dragging us into this time?"

I knew my brother, the only time that he ever drug me with him to see his friends if he was dragging me on yet another adventure. I thought it was supposed to be the younger sibling who was supposed to annoy the hell out of the older, not the other way around?

He shrugged. "Oh, nothing much." I rolled my eyes and decided not to press that any further. Truthfully, I really didn't want to know.

"Is he always like this?" Ardeth asked me, in a whisper.

I nodded slowly. "Welcome to my world."

It wasn't long before my cousin came back, driving a car. "Okay fellas, hop in." I didn't even ask where in the world my cousin got the car, I figured it best that I didn't know anything about it. We all piled in, Rick getting in the passenger's seat and started directing Jonathan on where to go. We eventually started slowing down.

"Down that road." Rick instructed, and Jonathan nodded, turning, we drove down a long—well, sandy—road with a building, some tents and an airplane hangar just sitting about, and a 6 passenger airplane sitting off to the side. I just sighed, knowing what my brother was thinking. Figures.

We got out of the car and followed my brother up a path, where an older man was sitting wearing some kind of uniform, listening to music, sipping what appeared to be tea, and an Arab guy was standing next to him, holding a large umbrella.

"Morning Winston. A word?" Rick asked, walking up as we followed him. He explained our little problem with Evy and Imhotep and everything, but as usual, Rick didn't prefer to go into much detail.

"So what's your little problem got to do with His Majesty's Royal Air Corp?" The older man asked.

"Not a damn thing."

Winston started looking really interested. "Is it dangerous?" I raised an eyebrow at that, I let my eyes flicker to my brother, questioningly, but I didn't expect an answer.

"You probably won't live through it."

"By Jove, do you really think so?"

"Everyone else we've bumped into has died. Why not you?" That little pleasant statement had come from Jonathan, so I nudged him in the side, and he shot me a look that I ignored.

"What's the.." Winston stood up then. "What's the challenge then?"

"To save the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, and save the world." My brother said. Well, that was one way of putting it.

The other man laughed. "Winston Havlock at your service, sir."

We followed Winston to the plane, and I had a bad feeling about this. The plane wasn't your average plan. Not like where you walk in and sit down, no, you had to slide in. It was the pilots seat in the very front, and then two seats behind that, and finally, two seats behind those, and it was a very tight squeeze, but I hardly weighed anything, and it wasn't hard to get both myself and my bag in the seat.

Jonathan was in beside me, and my brother and Ardeth was in front of us. "We'll get her back Jon; you know we will." I looked over at my cousin, who still looked very worried, as Winston started up the plane and took us into the air.

"I sure hope so." He murmured. At first, we were doing good until I happened to look back, catching sight of a big glob of sand—no, it was coming towards us—"Oh my god." I muttered.

"What?" Jon asked, looking panicked as he looked over at me. "What, what is it?"

"Look behind us." My cousin's eyes grew wide as he was looking at what I was looking, he started hitting my brother's shoulder.

"What is it Jona-" His words got cut off as Jon pointed at to what we were seeing. "Winston!" He yelled over the soaring, loud wind. "Pedal faster!"

"Hang on!" Winston laughed. I came to the conclusion that this man was absolutely insane. He put the plane into a dive, where a cliff was under us. Then he put us in straight again, but the sand kept right on coming, not skipping a beat. We could see Imhotep's face form a shape in the sand.

"Duck!" Rick yelled at us, and neither me nor Jon asked questions, we ducked. And my brother fired a machine gun, presumably at Imhotep's face.

Suddenly, I heard a roar and felt sand all around me, so I didn't dare lift my head up, I grabbed my scarf around my neck and covered my face with it.

"Here I come Laddies!" Winston laughed. I heard the engine stop, and then felt us crash. I was able to get out fairly quickly, and grabbed my bag, throwing it over my shoulder, noticing the others were struggling to get up.

"Excuse me?" Jonathan started. "A little help would be useful, if it's not too much trouble!"

"Yeah, yeah, alright." Rick said, and helped Jonathan out, whom apparently had been stuck, meanwhile, I went to check on the old man. I found that he was dead, and the dead man had a smile on his face.

"Uh, Rick?"

"Yes, Aaliyah?"

"I'm afraid your friend didn't make it."

Rick came over and looked over at his friend sadly, but I quickly realized something when I saw the sand moving before I even felt it, I quickly backed away, and my brother gave me a strange look.

"Quicksand!" I yelled to them. "Get off!" All four of us ran back, and watched the plane sink into the sand, lost forever. Rick gave a quick salute as his friend's body sunk below the dune.

"C'mon." He murmured to us, walking off, and I was the first to follow my brother, with the other two men behind me.

We ended up having to walk the rest of the way to Hamunaptra. I could tell my brother didn't want to talk at all, so I didn't press him into any conversations or anything. But eventually, Ardeth and I fell in side by side.

"So, when your mother took you away, you weren't very far were you?"

I shook my head. "No, we pretty much stayed in Cairo, where she homeschooled me." I said. "I often saw my brother when he wasn't in trouble, and occasionally, mom and I went to America to visit her family." I told him.

"What made your mother decide to move out here, and ended up marrying Kahlil?" He asked, looking over at him.

I shrugged a bit. "According to my mom, after her first husband—Rick's father—died, when Rick was 4, she moved him from America to Egypt to get a fresh start." She said. "So, she moved to Cairo, and she soon met my father, and she fell for him, so she married him and joined the tribe."

I shook my head. "She tried to take Rick with her, but he refused and ended up running away. I mean, Rick's really not that much older than me. He's like 30, and I'm 24." I shrugged, leaving it at that.