Content warnings: canon events within the media covered in this chapter, uncensored cussing, canon triggers of all media covered and referenced
Media: Moon Knight Season 1 Episode 2 "Summon The Suit"; reference to Primeval Series 3 Episode 1
Word count: 6,939
Sarah woke up sore and stiff in her bed the next morning, in the exact same position she'd fallen asleep in. After crying her eyes dry, she'd taken the briefest of cursory showers and gone straight to bed.
She pried herself off the mattress and made a light breakfast, still queasy from the night before. After forcing it down, she applied enough makeup to mask her exhaustion and dressed in a white blouse, knit vest, jeans, boots, and her beloved caramel leather jacket. Her feet felt like lead as she biked away from her flat.
She was late arriving at the museum, and strangely enough she felt that she didn't care. Black and yellow striped tape blocked off the Egyptian section- and the destroyed loo- from public access. Feigning ignorance, she strolled as nonchalantly as possible up to one of the security guards- mercifully, not the same one that had helped Arthur Harrow corner Steven yesterday. "What happened? Was there a robbery?"
"We're not sure yet." He told her. "One of the toilets got pretty wrecked- some pipes burst and it was really bloody bad, or so I'm told. But a bunch of the Egypt exhibit is screwed up too- like somebody ran around shoving things over or something. And the hallway between it and the toilet is a mess too, racks knocked over and stuff."
"Weird." Said Sarah with false casualness. "Hope they find out what happened." She quickly moved away, turning her head as she scanned for Steven/the mummy dude or Harrow. To her relief, she spotted the former across the way, and they hurried toward each other.
He threw his arms around her immediately. "Thank God you're okay." He said, voice muffled. "I woke up alone in my flat and I didn't know if you'd made it out alright."
Okay, so Steven definitely wasn't secretly a superpowered American with a magic mummy suit and glowing eyes. "I'm fine. I met him- the other bloke. He saved us and sent me home."
He pulled back and nodded, then scanned her with his eyes. "Are you hurt? Did anything happen?"
She shook her head. "Scratches at the worst. He took care of the jackal pretty quickly. I sort of just… hid under the sink." She averted her gaze, directing it to her hands as she picked at a hangnail. "I hope it's not cowardly to say that. I didn't have anything to defend myself with, and I thought that if I tried to fight it I could get torn into pieces by a monster I can't see."
"It's not cowardly, Sarah. For what it's worth, I'm glad you didn't try to fight it. If you had died- if you'd been killed by something sent after me- Sarah, I never would've forgiven myself."
Her eyes watered. "It wouldn't have been your fault, Steven, but I appreciate the sentiment."
Worry flooded his face again. "Sarah, I watched the security tape. The jackal's not on it. It's just us running around looking like bloody lunatics. And then there's me carrying you out, but I've got this really mean look on my face."
"He insisted on carrying me so I wouldn't get in trouble for wrecking the toilet." Sarah revealed. "I mean, I couldn't see the jackal, so I guess it makes sense that the cameras couldn't either. But why could you? And why could he- whoever he is- see it and kill it so easily? It doesn't make any sense."
"Yeah, well, unfortunately I haven't got a bloody clue myself either. Just 'cause I could see the bloody thing doesn't mean I know why I could, or what it was."
"But we know who sent it." Sarah reminded darkly. "Arthur fucking Harrow. Whatever shit he's spreading about his and/or Ammit's version of a good person is exactly that- shit. A good person wouldn't unleash an invisible magic hell jackal on two innocent people who may or may not have a random scarab. Not that I want to talk to him personally, or have him be anywhere near you again, but he could've asked in person for us to hand it over. Instead he went straight to murder."
"It did seem like a bit much." Steven agreed in his Steven way.
At that moment, another one of the security guards- Kat, Sarah thought her name was- approached them and informed them that the museum director wanted to see them both in his office. She wished them luck before dashing off to stop a human tower of unattended small children from scaling a display.
A haze of stress and memory descended on Sarah, and she walked and sat robotically. She didn't snap back into the present until the museum director set two plain white mugs of steaming coffee on his desk. "I should tell you the museum has no wish to press charges."
"Okay." Steven replied jitterily, quickly taking a mug. After a moment, he offered it to Sarah, who took it with a tiny twitching smile of gratitude. He returned it, taking the other cup for himself.
"But, Mr. Grant, Ms. Page-"
"-'Doctor Page'-" she corrected lowly, a habit she'd formed over the years since receiving the title. For a moment, she remembered when she had corrected Lester upon their first meeting, but shook her head to banish it.
"-Dr. Page," the man corrected himself annoyedly, "we've spoken to your colleagues."
"Yeah?" Steven's nerves were almost tangible, infecting Sarah with a stress more heightened than the one already threatening to empty her stomach.
"It's all been a bit of a struggle for you recently, hey, Mr. Grant?" The man continued, sitting down into his chair. Sarah wasn't even the one he was speaking to, but her jaw clenched at the painfully 'sympathetic' tone of his voice.
Steven didn't seem to notice how truly condescending it was, dropping his head with something akin to a sigh. "Yeah." He admitted, sounding ashamed and close to tears. Sarah wanted to throttle the man behind the desk. "A bit, a bit."
"This particular group of doctors has a long-standing relationship with us." She man continued, and Sarah drew in a deep breath and let it out through her nose to calm herself. It didn't work, so she obnoxiously slurped her coffee instead, glaring at him over the rim. The beverage tasted awful- the creamer was probably either gone off or some artificial non-dairy substitute, and there was next to no sugar in it. The roast itself tasted cheap and almost stale.
"Doctors?" Steven questioned. The man slid a pamphlet across the glass top of the desk, and Steven nodded as he understood. "Oh." He reached out and picked it up.
"They're wonderful." The man continued.
"Yeah?" Steven's voice was timid but hopeful, and Sarah's murderous desires surged. He didn't deserve this.
"I could arrange an appointment."
"Okay, yeah." Steven was nodding. "It looks… it actually looks quite posh." He chuckled. "Looks like they're very good listeners, right?" He opened up the brochure and showed Sarah one of the artfully-structured 'inviting' pictures of an employee supposedly offering advice and a sympathetic ear, then held it up for the man to see.
"They really are." The man agreed. "I know this is classic HR to say, but… but you're not alone."
Sarah was sure the man had good intentions, but his demeanor made her skin crawl. Not in a creepy way, but in that condescending, patronizing way she was so sick of receiving.
"Yeah? That's like, part of the problem, innit?" Steven took a drink of his coffee as the self-spiteful words left his lips.
"Before you leave us, I'm sorry for the protocol of it, but… any museum property on your person?"
"No, I-I haven't nicked anything, I swear. I…" He set down his coffee mug to rifle through his pockets, briefly producing a small folding mobile and a square-tagged key before tucking them away again. "No, nothing."
The man cleared his throat and indicated, and Steven looked down at his nametag on the left breast pocket of his jacket. "Yeah." Steven forced out after a moment, and Sarah could see how he struggled with losing literally every piece of something he'd worked so hard for and loved so much. He took off the tag, glanced down at it in his hands for a moment, and set it on the desk.
"Thank you, Mr. Grant, that will be all. You, Miss Page, are not being terminated. We've reviewed the security footage, and we've decided that although you were part of the incident, you weren't the main culprit of the incident, and therefore you will also not be penalized in any way."
For a moment, her heart jumped. She loved working Museum, and being in such a familiar place was almost like she hadn't been torn out of her old life and universe and injected into this one. She could stay, without having to fight for it.
But in the few seconds that she straightened eagerly in her chair, lowering the cup from her lips, she made her decision.
"Actually, I'm quitting." She declared, eyes hard and cutting as she glared at the man behind the desk. "I don't want to work in a place that bullies and shames someone into feeling like he's less than everybody else." She chugged the rest of her coffee- gross as it was, she was going to need it- and reached up to unclip her own nametag from the white blouse she wore. She slammed it down on the desk, a tiny bitter part of her hoping it left a scratch on the glass top, and shoved to her feet. Linking her arm through a bewildered Steven's, she marched for the door, tossing one last sharp-tongued remark over her shoulder:
"And it's Doctor Page."
Ten minutes later, what little they both owned that had been left at the museum was collected, and they had left the museum for the last time. Sarah was too angry to feel sad about it.
And now they were sitting on the edge of a fountain next to the living statue of a man Steven called Crowley. He was wearing a suit and monocle, pained gold with one arm outstretched. Blue eyes, nearly the same shade as Nick Cutter's, were the only exterior sign that he was a living human and not an incredibly realistic art piece.
"Well, that's it. I got the sack. I don't blame 'em- I'm a vandal, I should've been arrested."
"You're not a vandal." Sarah sneered- not at him, at the museum HR, at the chaos and injustice of it all. "You- him- whatever- saved both our lives, killing that… that thing, whatever it was. So what if you smashed up the sinks to do it? They can well afford to repair everything, with how much they make and how little they pay- paid- us."
"I did- I did find things, hidden in my flat, I swear. I'm not joking." Steven continued, still worked up over everything. He tilted his head, staring intently at Crowley. "That's worth exploring, isn't it? Like if I could find that storage locker, that might be my one chance to prove to myself that I'm not… mad." His voice had changed, going from frustrated to hopeful. "Oh, mate, thank you." Abruptly, he leaned forward and hugged Crowley, who startled and blinked at the unexpected physical contact. "Thanks, cheers." Steven patted him on the back before standing up.
He was striding off before Sarah could blink, and she scrambled to pull a pair of tenners out of her wallet to drop into the gold-painted man's hat. "Sorry about him, keep up the good work." She rushed out before hurrying after her friend.
Steven produced the key from his pocket again, staring down at the maroon plastic intently. Reaching his side, Sarah peeked at it around his arm. "Do you recognize the logo?" She asked.
"Hmm? No, I don't, but I reckon if I walk around enough I'll find it somewhere. Wonder what the 'J' stands for."
Sarah mentally groaned at the thought of the two of them traversing every street in the greater London area looking for this symbol. That was if it was even in London and not somewhere else. But she didn't voice those thoughts. "We'll find it twice as quick if we split up. Let me take a picture of that, and we'll split up. If I find it, I'll ring you, yeah?"
"You'd do that for me?" Steven looked at her in wonder, and her heart melted.
"Of course, Steven. You're my friend."
Thirty minutes later, Steven rang her, excitedly telling her he'd found the place. She asked him to wait outside, then ran down the sidewalks until she reached the address he'd given her. Soon enough, they were together again, and Sarah controlled her breathing and smoothed her hair as they walked into the building.
It wasn't the right one, irritatingly, and they tried four more before they had any luck.
"Hiya. You alright?" Steven greeted the receptionist (if that was the word).
"Yeah."
"Yeah, um, look, man, this is like, the fifth branch we've been to." He began. "I'm looking for my storage locker. It's under 'Steven Grant'. If it's not under 'Steven Grant', it might be under 'Marc'… I don't have a surname, just 'Marc'. Would you have a look for me, if that's alright? I know it sounds-"
"Of course." The man cut him off, not rudely. "I know you. Number 43, right? I never forget a face."
Sarah and Steven exchanged looks. "Must be it, then."
The man led them to #43, down corridors formed from the corrugated steel sides of the surrounding lockers. Fluorescent lights came on overhead noisily as they entered their corresponding sections, bathing them in an odd greenish color. After unlocking and removing the padlock, the man left them, and Steven pulled the door open.
They stepped inside, Sarah finding a lightswitch and flicking it on. The door shut behind them as that same color flooded her vision, the light illuminating the contents of the room. Several rugged-looking plastic storage bins were stacked in places, a few others alone scattered about. A rack of shoes and other items stood beside the door, with what looked like some sort of pop-up clothes rack on another wall, a few shirts and pairs of trousers occupying its bar. A single military or camping cot had been set up, with a pillow on one end and a neatly-folded blanket or two on the other. Becker would've been all over it in a second, Sarah was sure.
"Whoa." Sarah breathed. "Whoever the other bloke in your head is, he's… blimey, I don't even know what."
Steven didn't reply, slowly walking deeper into the room. He eventually crouched beside the cot, opening the military shoulder bag set atop a couple storage bins next to it. Sarah came up behind him, observing over his shoulder.
"Oh my God." Steven said upon seeing the topmost of its contents- a shiny silver handgun with a black grip. He picked it up by the end of the grip, looking more weary than wary. He deposited it on the cot, and Sarah eyed it for a moment, wondering why Marc had it. It wasn't common for Brits to have guns unless they were military or police, but Marc was American- sounded it, anyway.
Steven delved deeper into the bag, producing several thick wads of foreign banknotes belonging to multiple currencies. He let go of them in favor of a passport, opening it to find Steven's face on the American interior. "'Marc Spector'." Sarah read the name attached to the picture. Well, now they had a surname.
Steven sighed and put the passport down. He moved a map out of his way, fishing something out from underneath it. "No way." He breathed, producing… a golden metal Egyptian scarab? "It's real, it's totally real." He touched it with his other hand, and two small but intricate wings popped out of its sides.
"This is what was in your pocket in the Alps?" Sarah asked, eyes tracing over every line of the object in awe.
Before Steven could answer, the scarab started flying, lifting off of his hand and leaving a small, flat piece behind. Sarah straightened, stepping backward away from it as it largely hovered a few inches above Steven's palm. "Whoa." He breathed, slowly getting to his feet. "I'd say you're a compass, but you're not pointing north." He remarked, more or less following it as it moved.
"South, I'd say." Sarah agreed. "Southeast?"
Abruptly, Steven's posture changed, and the scarab dropped back into his hand. Sarah frowned. "What is it?"
"Marc?"
She drew in a breath, glancing between Steven and his blurry reflection on one of the room's walls. "Is he talking to you again?"
Steven nodded. "There he is, here he comes." He waved at his reflection. "Hello, man in the mirror. I was wondering if you'd pop up again."
"Me too. I've got some questions for him." Sarah stated, crossing her arms and glaring at the wall.
"A bit, yeah." Steven replied to something Marc had apparently said. A moment later, he gestured about to room. "No? Well, a bit late for that innit? So what, what- am I, like, meant to be some sort of mad secret agent or something?"
Sarah had seen some strange things in her time… prehistoric creatures mistaken for pagan gods… time portals… monsters from the future… mad scientists… clones. She doubted the truth behind Steven and Marc would be much madder than that.
"More complicated?!" Steven suddenly demanded. "What, am I possessed? Are you like, a- a demon? Or-"
He cut himself off, or maybe Marc did, and Sarah's eyes flicked between the two versions of her friend- though to her perception his mirrored image was merely that- as she waited for answers with bated breath. After a few moments, Steven glanced over his shoulder at the cot, then looked back at the wall. "Are you joking?" He spluttered. "Sleep- I'm never gonna got to sleep again! You hear me?! Look, I don't care how bloody handsome you are-" Sarah snorted at the sheer insanity of that comment "-tell me what it is you are. What are you?"
Steven's voice was rising, and it scared Sarah. Not because he was frightening, but because nothing worked up Steven Grant enough to make him raise his voice, and now his reflection was freaking him out more than literally having his life threatened had seemed to.
"Yes, bloody- yes." All was silent for a few moments, but the next word out of Steven's mouth made Sarah's blood run cold. "Khonshu?" A moment later, he followed it up with "The Egyptian god of the moon?"
"Great, first we've got Ammit, now Khonshu as well. Steven, please tell me there's not a freaky cult of Khonshu out there like Harrow and Ammit's thing and you- Marc, whatever- are part of it."
"Oh my God, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Steven suddenly said, turning his back to his reflection. Sarah's coal-black eyebrows shot up. "Not you, Sarah, him, what he said."
"Well, what did he say? I'm only getting your half of this bizarre conversation."
"Erm- well, he says that he's Khonshu's Avatar, or something, and he, like, protects the vulnerable and delivers Khonshu's justice to those that hurt them." He scoffed, clearly not believing it. "I eat one piece of steak, and then bam, I go bonkers."
Sarah frowned, considering, as Steven sat down on the cot. She thought back to that awful night six months ago- Marc clad in the grey super-mummy outfit, a metallic crescent moon on his chest matching the one he'd killed the predator with. Marc, or whatever his name really was, carrying her bleeding form to a hospital.
"Wait… Steven, he might have a point."
"What?! Sarah, you can't possibly be buying into this- this rubbish."
"Maybe it's not rubbish." She replied, meeting his eyes. "Steven, six months ago, I was living in another universe, and the year 2009. Something awful happened to me- this horrible creature that had to do with my work nearly killed me, and I crawled through a portal and wound up in a bloody alleyway here in London in the middle of night. I was hurt, and it was going to kill me. But then Marc showed up- you know, in the outfit, all mummy-ish and stuff. He saved my life and killed the creature, and he brought me to the hospital. He never told me his name, but his voice- it's the same voice you were speaking with last night when that suit popped out of nowhere in the loo and you killed the jackal." Sarah took a breath, struggling to wrap her head around it all. "Mythologically, Khonshu is called upon to protect people from wild animals, or to help heal people and cattle. That night, I was vulnerable, and he saved me and killed that thing with some sort of crescent moon… throwing star… thing. Steven… it makes sense. It all adds up- the mythology, what he just told me, him saving me that night."
Steven tore his gaze from hers and redirected it to the pistol beside him. "You want my body?" He demanded. "Right, yeah. Marc, how about this for a deal?" He shoved to his feet and grabbed the bag he'd found the scarab and gun in. "I'm gonna take this bag full of illegal shit, yeah, and I'm gonna go straight to the authorities, and I'll tell them I threatened Sarah into helping me if they go after her, and they're gonna put me away so I don't hurt anyone else, and hopefully NHS will fill me with enough pills so that you get out of my head!"
As he had rambled this incredibly ridiculous plan, he zipped up the bag and began backing toward the door, and the overhead lights began flickering again. "Steven!" Sarah called, chasing after him. She paused, then darted back to grab the gun and tuck it into the waistband of her trousers, concealed by her leather jacket. "Steven, stay with me!"
Steven slammed the storage locker door and the flickering stopped. Down the hall from them, a light went out, and then one came on on their opposite side. "Steven, I don't like this, what if it's Harrow again?" Sarah worried. "What if there's another jackal?"
God, she'd do anything for an anomaly to be the problem right now, even if it spat her back into the exact hellhole she'd crawled out of six months ago.
The second light began going on and off rapidly, its speed ominously ever increasing. "Oh God, oh God." Steven muttered under his breath as the lights began switching on and off as if illuminating something moving rapidly toward them. Suddenly, Steven screamed and bolted in the opposite direction, pulling Sarah after him with a yank on her arm. The lights were flickering and flashing, and all around them the storage lockers were shaking. "Is it another jackal?" Sarah panted out, right on his heels.
"It's Birdy again!" He replied in terror, confusing her for a moment before she remembered what he'd told her about the looming person with the giant bird skull head in the lift of his flat building. With this new context, Sarah realized that since he was apparently sharing a body with Khonshu's Avatar (if this story was to be believed, which Sarah was starting to), he was probably seeing Khonshu in some form or other.
They began hooking corners, Steven looking over his shoulder repeatedly and still shouting and screaming. Turning yet another corner, Steven came to an abrupt halt, and Sarah skidded into his back, both of them unbalancing but somehow managing to stay upright. "What?" Sarah hissed. Steven didn't reply, staring up toward the ceiling in terror. After a moment, she chanced: "Khonshu?"
Steven screamed again as a storage locker's door banged open behind them, and Sarah grabbed at the collar of his jacket and yanked him backward. Spurred into motion again, Steven took off running once more, and the two finally escaped the maze and came into the brightly-daylit exterior sections of the building that the storage facility shared. Steven careened into the street, tripped and fell, and flung his arms up to shield his head as a motorcyclist screeched to a stop less than a foot away. Sarah stopped at his feet, hurriedly squatting with the intention to get him upright again.
The motorcyclist leaned over and peered down at Steven. "Marc?" She questioned with an American accent. "Where have you been?" Her gaze traveled to Sarah. "And who's this?"
Steven looked up at the woman cautiously. "Layla?"
Sarah raised her eyebrows. "This is Layla?"
'Layla' cocked her head. "Yep. And I still don't know who you are."
Sarah opened her mouth to answer, but stopped herself. "We're kind of being chased right now- second time in twenty-four hours, might I add, getting real sick of this- so if you don't mind, can we save the introductions and explanations for when we're not possibly about to die?"
Layla eyed her for a moment, then gave a half-shrug and canted her head. "Alright. But I definitely can't take you both on this." She indicated the motorbike she was riding.
Sarah nodded. "Right, well, I can take the bus, since you two seem to know each other." She wasn't sure how much Steven and Layla had spoken on what was apparently Marc's phone, but she knew that they had talked, and Steven knew Layla enough to recognize her. "We'll meet up at your flat, and I'll take the bus, yeah?" She pulled Steven to his feet.
"Right, yeah, cheers, I'll… sounds good."
Layla thrust a second motorcycle helmet into Steven's chest, and Sarah nodded her head in a decisive farewell before she turned and sprinted down the street the way Layla had come. As soon as she could, she climbed up onto the outside of a double-decker bus and rode holding its rail until they reached a street near their flats, and from there she walked. Well, jogged.
Sarah got there before Steven and Layla, and she paced nervously for a few minutes before resolving to make herself a cup of tea. Steven wouldn't mind, and she made a mental note to buy him an extra box of it even though she hadn't taken the last teabag.
She was sipping the hot beverage and leaning up against his kitchen counter when the door opened, Steven leading Layla through. Seeing Sarah, his nervous expression relaxed slightly. "Oh good, you're here. You make it alright?"
Sarah nodded. "No trouble on my end. You?" She asked, watching Layla- who she could now see was both really pretty and not white now that the helmet was gone and her eyes had adjusted and they weren't in a tense situation- as she slowly meandered into the flat.
"No, no, we were good."
Layla bent down to look at Gus the goldfish, tapping on the glass as she observed him. There was something strangely magnetic about fish- young or old, people loved to stare at them and watch them, in tanks or in the ocean, in real life or in videos or films.
"I just want my life back." Steven said quietly after a long few moments.
"Yeah, I'm getting that." Layla remarked acidly, standing straight again.
"No, sorry, I- I wasn't talking to you, just talking to myself, sort of." Steven rushed to apologize.
Layla took notice of the bedroom area. "Uh, this is your flat, Marc?"
"Uh, I'm Steven." He corrected.
She didn't seem to care. "Are you living here with someone else?" She demanded, piercing him with her gaze that quickly flicked to Sarah. "Her, maybe?"
"'Her' has a name, which I'm happy to tell you now." Sarah responded. "It's 'Sarah', by the way. Doctor Sarah Page. And no, Steven and I aren't like that- we're just friends, that all, and until we got sacked this morning we were colleagues."
"Yeah, no, exactly, Sarah's right. This is my mum's flat." Steven agreed.
"Okay, so you guys are- are talking again?"
Steven made a humming noise of confirmation, surprising Sarah. She didn't know Mrs. Grant (or 'Ms.') had started returning her son's twice-daily messages.
Layla picked up a book off one of Steven's many bookcases. "Marceline Desbordes-Valmore?" She questioned, her pronunciation of the French name flawless.
"Yep." Steven confirmed, then surprised all both women as he began reciting one of the poems in French:
"N'écris pas. Je suis triste, et je voudrais m'éteindre.
Les beaux étés-"
Surprising Steven and Sarah alike, Layla joined in:
"-sans toi, c'est la nuit sans flambeau."
"Oui, oui." Steven half-joked. "Yeah, she's my favorite poet."
Layla frowned. "Um, no, she's my favorite."
Sarah sipped her tea. "Can't two people have the same favorite poet? My mother and father met trying to grab the same copy of one of Phyllis Wheatley's Poems."
"He knows she's my favorite, and I know he knows that, so it's stupid for him to act like he doesn't know that and she's his." Layla told Sarah, only slightly clarifying things. She wandered across the flat, gesturing with the book to the heaping piles of Egyptian books on Steven's desk. "So you're learning French and hieroglyphics?" She prodded.
"Yeah, well, that's not that impressive, really. It's not like hieroglyphs are a whole language." Steven told her, strolling over to the desk as well. "It's more like a-"
"-Like an alphabet." Layla completed shortly.
"Yeah, and… well, you still have to know ancient Egyptian to read it."
"Sure."
Steven opened a book and pointed to the text on its page. "For example, like this one here, right?"
"Funeral rites." Layla cut to the chase.
"You're Egyptian, aren't you?" Sarah guessed, drawing their attention to her. "Whether you were born there or not, it's in your blood, right? I was trying to figure out what your ethnicity could be. Like, my mother's from India and my father's from Morocco, even though they both live here in England and I was born here, so I learned Arabic and Hindi from them, but I was fluent in English first. If you've got ties to Egypt, it'd make sense for you to know some form of the language."
Layla eyed Sarah rather critically. After a moment, she spoke. "You know, I thought I wasn't gonna, but I like you. You're smart, and you're not mean about it." Sarah offered her a small smile, unexpectedly touched by those words. "And I'm just- I'm not buying this, Marc. Use whatever accent you want, yeah, let's just get this over with." She strode across the flat and picked up a bag, from which she produced a document envelope. "You sent these papers but you never signed them."
"Did I? Uh…."
Layla presented them to him matter-of-factly. "This is what you wanted."
Steven fished in his breast pocket for his glasses. "Have a look here…." He said, taking the papers to read over them.
"After everything, you told me that we needed to move on." Layla said.
"Alright... divor- divorce?" He looked up at Layla in surprise.
"Yeah, we doing this or not?" She demanded, nodding at the papers.
He glanced back down at the documents. "I would never divorce you."
Sarah tilted her head as everything clicked into place. "You're not just angry, you're hurt. You don't want to divorce Marc, but you think that he'll never let you be with him, so you're going along with it, and you're not even willing to hear Steven out about him not being Marc."
Layla shot a look at her, but otherwise ignored her. "What are you doing?" She demanded incredulously of Steven.
He removed his glasses, his face earnest and his voice soft. "Look, you seem absolutely lovely. This Marc, on the other hand, is a right twit, yeah?" He looked over at a small mirror on his wall as Sarah chuckled at the description. He stammered a moment as he looked back at Layla. "I don't know how to explain what's been happening. I don't expect you to believe me; I honestly don't really believe myself. All I can do is try to- try to show you what I found, yeah." As he spoke, he went over to the bag he'd taken from Marc's storage locker, putting the divorce papers down.
Sarah threw back the last of her tea and headed over to them, standing about a meter behind Layla with her arms crossed. "I found this bag in the storage locker." He continued. "Well, Sarah and I found it." He opened it, rifling through the monies. "And inside of it is all sorts of things, most interestingly-" He paused abruptly, and Sarah frowned.
"'Most interestingly' is what?" Layla pressed.
Steven looked back down at the bag, a myriad of emotions on his face. "Nothing."
What had Marc said to him to make him stop? Sarah added another bullet point to her ever-growing mental to-do list: smack Marc next time he was controlling Steven's body.
"Nothing?" Layla repeated disbelievingly.
"Nothing, never mind."
"What's in there?" Demanded Layla, going for the bag even as Steven tried to stop her.
"Nothing. Wait, wait-" He was cut off as Layla shoved him aside and delved into the bag. "Bloody hell."
Layla ceased her search, pulling the golden scarab out of the bag with a combination of betrayal, anger, and wonder on her pretty face. "The scarab pointing to Ammit's ushabti- what we fought side by side for."
"No-" Steven tried to interject, but Sarah was still processing the new information Layla had casually blurted out. An ushabti was a small representative figurine used in Ancient Egyptian funeral practices, one of the many items that was put into someone's tomb. So, apparently Ammit had a tomb and an ushabti- possibly separated from each other, given that Layla had said that the scarab led to the figurine instead of just Ammit's tomb- and the scarab was indeed a compass of sorts, but drawn to a specific object or location instead of the magnetism of the North Pole. Thirdly, Ammit's tomb and/or ushabti was likely located somewhere in Egypt, as it was to the southeast- the direction the scarab had floated in- and a reasonable place for a tomb of an Egyptian demon deity to be located.
"This whole one-man show is just- what, so that you can keep it for yourself?" Layla demanded, cutting off Steven and returning Sarah's attention to her.
"No no no, I swear-" Steven again tried, but Layla wasn't done yet.
"Why? After all that we've been through? No, just stop! Stop! I'm supposed to believe anything you say with this shoved in- what, a gym bag?"
"Take it! Take it, you can have it." Steven told her, clearly taking the woman by surprise. "Take it, take it, I don't want it. I swear. Have it." By his voice, he was close to tears, so very worked up over the stress of the last few days and this massive burden that had descended upon him. "I am not Marc Spector. I'm Steven Grant. I work in a gift shop- well, I used to work in a gift shop- and I think I'm in real danger. Me and Sarah both are, and I think maybe that you might be the only person that can help us. Please."
At the Egyptologist's name, Layla looked over at her. "He's telling the truth, Layla. This Marc bloke's only been speaking to him for a couple days- through mirrors, apparently- and he somehow got ahold of that scarab, but now there's this Ammit-worshipping cult creeper guy who set an invisible Egyptian jackal on us last night trying to get it back. Steven could see it, I couldn't, but it very nearly killed both of us, and then Marc took over his body or something and grew some fancy mummy armor and killed it."
Layla's face had softened, the anger draining out of it and giving way to sadness. No- heartbreak. "You really don't remember why we've been looking for this?" She questioned Steven, now sounding like she herself was fighting back tears as she held up the scarab. "Our adventures… or our life together?"
"Oh, God, I wish I could." Steven told her, and Sarah knew he meant it.
Abruptly, there was knocking on the door. "Steven Grant? Can we have a word?" A feminine voice asked through it.
"See?!" Steven hissed, pointing at it. "Oh, God, they've come for me."
"Why?" Layla queried.
"I vandalized the toilet."
Sarah rolled her eyes, shaking her head fondly. "You did not. Marc did, when he was killing that bloody jackal thing. Besides, the museum's not pressing charges, remember?"
The woman knocked again. "Yeah, just a minute." Steven called.
She knocked more. "Steven Grant?"
"Yeah?"
"DC Fitzgerald and DC Kennedy here." The woman replied as Layla pocketed the scarab.
"Yeah, one- one second." He opened the door and peered through the opening. Layla raised a finger to her lips to signal Sarah not to speak. "Hello, officers."
"Steven Grant?"
He nodded, and Layla made a silent beeline for one of the windows. "I think so, yeah. I mean- yeah, yep, yes. That's me- 100% Steven Grant." Sarah shook her head at the absolutely overkill confirmation, then frowned. Why was this woman so insistent about his name? "Sorry, I was just having a bit of a day." He apologized.
"Mind if we come in, Mr. Grant?"
"Oh, um, actually, right now isn't-" he looked over his shoulder back into the flat, but his protests were cut off.
"Appreciate it." A man said, thrusting the door open and strolling in. Sarah narrowed her eyes at his behavior- surely that wasn't legal.
"Anyone else here with you?" The female DC asked, her eyes lighting on Sarah a moment later.
"Just me." Sarah smiled. "What seems to be the problem, officers?"
They didn't answer, both of them walking deeply into the flat, more intrusively than Layla had. "So, um… yeah. Is this about the toilet?" He asked nervously. "'Cause it's been dealt with, yeah. I've been sacked, and uh, yeah, that's…." he trailed off, seeing the female DC standing by his ringed-with-sand bed, holding the singular ankle restraint. "I have a sleeping disorder." She dropped it and walked away. "And, yeah, well- the museum said that they, uh, wouldn't press charges as long as, uh-" The sound of his shower curtain being yanked back cut him off briefly. "-as long as I do it in installments. They- They uh, they said that I could."
Steven turned abruptly to see the male DC standing quite close to him, holding a small pyramid. "What's this?"
"It's a paperweight." Steven answered.
"Where'd you get it?"
"Paperweight shop."
The sound of pealing bells reached their ears, and the female DC strode toward the window Layla had been heading for- and apparently snuck out of, since she was missing and the window was open. Sarah cursed her failure to notice that.
"You're in possession of a stolen item." The man told Steven as he sat down.
"Oh, yeah… no, I don't have it." He told him as the DC went into the bag the scarab had been in. Sarah subtly tugged her jeans higher up on her hips and the back of her jacket further down to better conceal the gun that had also been in that bag. Without him being able to produce a legitimate firearms license, he'd've gotten into a world of trouble for having it in the flat. "I don't, no. It's not here."
The male DC took Marc's passport out of the bag, and Sarah sucked in a breath quietly. "'Marc Spector'?" He read, and Sarah finally realized something very suspicious about him- he was American.
So were Marc and Layla. And Arthur Harrow.
And this American DC, who clearly held no regard for at least some laws (Danny had been very emphatic in teaching the team their rights in case they ever had trouble with police, whether it was anomaly-related or not), was very intently searching for something. Sarah was willing to bet it was the scarab, and that these coppers weren't actually coppers, but cultists of Ammit. She casually put one hand on her hip, readying it to whip out the pistol.
"That's not mine." Steven told the man.
"Funny that." He sneered, sauntering up to Steven and lowering himself to Steven's height, holding the passport up and open. "Fella looks just like you."
"Twin brother adopted at birth." Sarah deadpanned.
"Fake passport and a thief?" The woman said, and Sarah felt the pit of dread in her stomach worsen as she realized where this was going. The man clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "I think you best come with us, son."
"And her." The man jutted his chin indicatively at Sarah. "Aiding and abetting, accessory after the fact."
Sarah rolled her eyes, not even bothering to defend herself. Both fake cops- she was sure of it now- produced handcuffs, and when Steven tried to back away, the man shoved him down face-first on the floor and cuffed his hands behind his back. Fearing the gun would be discovered, Sarah presented her hands to the woman with a calm façade. They were 'escorted' to the car and put into the backseat without so much as a mention of their rights. Steven seemed too upset and distressed to notice that error in their disguises.
One of Sarah's lines is a slight variation of one of Amy Pond's lines from Doctor Who, specifically "Vincent and The Doctor".