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belphegor1982 · 4 years

Note

How about the first chapter Tommy appears?

[Pick any passage from any fanfic I’ve written, and stick that selection in my ask/fan mail/submission box. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet!]

Thanks a lot!! (Also I answered this kind of ask about a passage from chapter 2, if you want to take a look - it’s all spoiler-free!)

Here’s Thomas Sean Ferguson’s grand introduction, then :D Oh god, it’s kind of awkward, because like with Blake there’s a certain amount of early installment weirdness. Also I go on and oooooooon (sorry about that). But let’s go!

_________

Quite lost in his thoughts this time, [Jonathan] barely registered that he was walking past the Museum (where Evy is, right now, negotiating the Cairo Museum “lending” the Diamond of Ahm Shere to the British government - which kickstarts the plot) before somebody knocked into him, hard enough for both of them to crumple, breathless, on the ground. It took Jonathan thirty seconds to get his lungs in working order again and, instinctively, check his pockets for anything missing.

A lot of this commentary risks being “this used to be [thing] before I tweaked it in the rewrites”, and a lot of it is because I’ve gained some insight in the past twelve years. Jonathan’s first thought being checking his pockets (which - and I made it explicit in the second or third paragraph of the story :D - comes from his being a skilled pickpocket himself and knowing how it works), however, was there from the very beginning.

“So sorry I bumped into you, mate, didn’t mean to,” came the voice of the attacker. Jonathan’s eyes widened at the sound of this voice and he squinted up at its owner.

And cue Tom Ferguson :D He wasn’t my first OC, far from it (that dubious honour would probably belong to the buttload of OCs I created for my Marauder era story which died when Order of the Phoenix came out), but he was the first I got to really explore and develop, and he ended up one of my favourites ever. Em, I answered an ask of yours way back in 2015, “introduce us to two of your OCs” :o) The first was him, the second was Marguerite LeBeau.

“Tommy? Is that you? Tommy Ferguson?”

The diamond is the reason the O’Connell-Carnahan gang goes to Egypt, but without Tommy, there’d be no plot. Hamilton would probably still find a way to “retrieve” the diamond from the museum, only without Evy and her family getting personally involved and then having to go back to the UK saying she failed her mission. and then cue the end of the world about a week and a half from there, but shhh - spoilers!

The fellow shook his head, still looking a bit dazed; then his own eyes, round and brown, (so he’s the opposite of Jon in almost every way, physically speaking. Like I said in the aforementioned OC ask, I designed him as a foil for Jon, fundamentally different in some ways but very similar in others. Physically speaking he’s basically Sean Astin (with some James Corden thrown in) with brown eyes, blond hair, and a Liverpool accent.) went even rounder as he stared at Jonathan. “Jon! What the hell are you doing ‘ere?”

For the longest time Tommy used to call Jonathan by his last name here (and Jon’s earlier line used to be “Ferguson? Is that you? Tommy Ferguson?”). I changed it quite recently. I think I wanted to convey the idea that school friends at the time often called each other by their last names; but since he calls Jonathan “Jon” 100% of the time - and is the only one to do so, which I have Feelings about - I went back to correct it.

“Glad to see you too, old chap,” laughed Jonathan, standing up and dusting himself off before offering a hand at the man on the ground, who accepted it gladly.

Heh. Look, one of the staples of Mummy fanfiction was and still is the old school friend of Evy’s who follows either the siblings (TM time) or the whole family (TMR/post-TMR time) to Egypt and falls in love with Ardeth Bay. I’m not throwing stones here; I’ve read a couple I really liked. There’s the odd Jonathan/OFC romance, too. What I set out to do as a baby writer (I was 21 at the time!) and unsuspecting ace was to write something completely devoid of romance (except the odd Evy/Rick snuggle and, of course, all-encompassing love for each other). And then, as I reread the story for rewrites a decade and a half later, I became more and more convinced that Jonathan and Tommy used to be more than friends, and then when Elizabeth came along the three of them got together as a thruple and very happy for a while. (For some reason I couldn’t work this explicitly into FTaH, though - it felt too much like hinting at this huge story I was never going to write and might have made FTaH much too crowded. So it’s up to the reader to decide, really. Personally, I like both options.) So here’s 37 year old me shipping Jon with a female OC and a male OC, and quite enthusiastically, at that. *chuckles* Wonder what my 21 y-o self would think of it…

He hadn’t seen Thomas Ferguson since some time after the end of the war, what felt like ages ago. They’d made quite a pair at Oxford, the two of them – the scrawny, foppish Southerner with the quiet grin and the sticky fingers, and the broad-shouldered, round-faced Scouser with the laughing eyes and the deceptively innocent face. They’d rowed for the Dark Blues for a bit, got properly pickled on Boat Race Nights, and helped each other out of many a tight spot. Oh, for the halcyon days of youth.

One of the reasons I picked up FTaH again is because the second half of 2019 was very, very British for me. I saw (and read) Good Omens for the first time in early June and my feelings exploded; July was very much about discovering the delights of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster (TV show and books). Halfway through that month I remembered my everlasting fondness for the characters of The Mummy and realised the protagonists and Bertie were the same generation, more or less, and I started imagining a crossover. By the time August rolled in I was fully into TM/TMR again, reading fic and my fingers itching to at least correct some iffy parts of FTaH. This last sentence, about Jon’s and Tom’s Oxford days, would never have come out that way if I hadn’t read Wodehouse.

As soon as Tommy was on his feet he was wringing Jonathan’s hand with all the energy he’d been famous for as a boy. “Sorry, Jon, mate, I was a bit stunned –” After all these years, he still retained some of that accent, too! “– En’t everyday you bump into a pal from Oxford in the middle of Cairo! How’d you get here, for starters?”

…Tommy’s accent. *sighs* I’m not a fan of writing accents phonetically in the first place. When I write Newkirk (Hogan’s Heroes) and his Cockney accent, there isn’t much except the odd “me” for “my” or things like “d’you”. I did have to make it obvious Tommy had an accent, though, if only because later Jonathan is surprised when he tones it down to speak with the curator. (This is something his 18 year old self found incredibly difficult, btw.) @thisstableground oversaw the first chapter and gave me very valuable tips, including “en’t” (// “ain’t), which was super helpful in giving Tommy’s accent its own specificity and meant that I didn’t need him to drop “h”s and “g”s all over the place. (which he does do, but hopefully not in a way that takes you away from the story.)

As for why he’s from Liverpool as opposed to, say, Manchester or the East End of London, the answer is very simple. I’d discovered the Beatles a year or two prior and they remain one of my favourite bands in the whole world ♥

“Well, I followed my sister,” Jonathan replied, grinning. In fifteen years or so, he had not realised how much he had actually missed this accent. “She’s giving a hand to the curator of the Museum of Antiquities – she’s something of an authority now, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh aye? That’s fantastic. I en’t forgotten how you’d talk about her, y’know. On and on and on. I’m curious to see what she looks like.”

Somethingthat didn’t change after rewrites is the idea that Jon was verysecretive about his Oxford years. Tom and Evy never met before this,and Evy hadn’t even heard about Tom before.

Jonathan stole a glance at the entrance steps of the Museum, and turned to Tommy with a smirk. “Really? Well, if you really want to, I suppose I could…”

His sister had just appeared on the stairs, accompanied by the curator, an elderly man with greying hair and whiskers. The curator, Dr Fahad Hakim, has a somewhat larger role later on, but this is just a cameo to let you know he exists :o) There’s another mention earlier, too. Tommy followed Jonathan’s gaze and looked at them, goggling at Evy in particular.

“Jon – are my eyes mistaken, or is this gorgeous woman Doctor Evelyn O’Connell? I’ve read about her, she’s famous in my line of work… According to what I’ve read, she was one of the first people to make it out of the City of the Dead alive –”

He doesn’t say what his “line of work” is, but we (and Jonathan) can infer it has something to do with archaeology or Egyptology. And, incidentally, I’m setting up the first alarm bells here because, as Evy points out in the following chapter, at the time her name was “Carnahan”, so how come Tommy didn’t seem to make the connection between Jon’s bookish sister and this English librarian with the same name? The answer is: because he’s nervous (because he’s in Cairo on secret Chamber of Horus business) and as delighted as he is to see Jon again after so many years his brain went “YOU KNOW NOTHING” then backpedalled and went “…OKAY, YOU KNOW SOME THINGS.”

Jonathan’s grin widened as he nodded. “Yes, that’d be her.”

Tommy rambled on as they walked closer to the stairs, “That’s bloody amazing! I thought she’d look, you know, like in the pictures in the paper, the bookish type with glasses – your typical Southern spinster,” he added with a wink. They waited for the curator to bid her goodbye, and Jonathan, greatly enjoying the situation, crept up on his sister to kiss her on the cheek.

“Hey there, old mum – how’s your day been?”

Evy started, then her expression shifted from slightly irked to a smile at her brother’s laugh. She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Jonathan, the things that amuse you…”

SIBS!!! I love writing siblings, and those two in particular. One of the things that I find amusing/endearing is how comfortable they are with each other, physically (and emotionally) speaking. It’s all gentle touch here, light slap there, running hand in hand, lots of things you wouldn’t expect from two Very English siblings from the first half of the 20th century.

“You’re just miffed that I startled you. C’mon, I’d like you to meet someone – an admirer,” he added with a grin to Tommy, who stood there, his eyes wide. “Thomas Ferguson, an old school friend of mine. Tommy – Evelyn Carnahan O’Connell, my famous baby sister.”

There’s a couple of instances where someone introduces Tom as “Thomas”, or Tom introducing himself as such. Most of the time, though, he’s “Tommy” - until chapter 9, where we spend some time in his head for the first time and see he thinks of himself as “Tom”, and when we go back to Jon’s PoV in chapter 11 Jonathan made the mental switch to “Tom”, as well, to separate the boy from his youth from the man he’s become. I actually spell it out in chapter 17: “A lot had happened since that late afternoon in Giza when his friend had pointed a gun at him and stopped being ‘Tommy’. ‘Tommy’ was a warm memory of loud laughter, daring escapes, bright eyes over pints clinking in the comfortable darkness of a well-loved pub. Tom, on the other hand, was a fairly decent man chucked into a complex situation, who had a wife he loved dearly but lied to about his job, who had not wanted to bring harm to an old friend but had done so anyway.”

Evy held out her hand, which Tommy grabbed and shook heartily. “So you’re the old scoundrel’s sister? No wonder he talked about you – though you don’t quite fit the description now…”

“What exactly did you tell your ‘school friends’ about me?” asked Evy, warning in her voice, though the twinkle in her eye did not quite disappear. Nevertheless, Jonathan preferred to ignore her question, earning a hard nudge in the ribs.

He bragged, actually. A lot. Since he thought Tommy and Lizzie would never meet Evy, Jonathan considered himself free to speak quite enthusiastically of his baby sister’s achievements and how bright she was. Of course, he also complained a good deal, because even at 12 Evy had a penchant for being bossy that came out even in letters.

“So, what did you say your ‘line of work’ was?” he asked Tommy.

“Well – don’t laugh. I work at the British Consulate in Cairo, specialising in antique stuff. Oh, I’m sorry, Dr O’Connell,” he stammered with a glance at Evy who had an eyebrow raised, “I mean I’m one of the chief agents in the British Antique Research Department.”

No he’s not! He’s actually a secret agent, kinda :D And not remotely close to a “chief agent”, at that. Tom Ferguson is deeply in love with his wife and nothing will ever change that state of affairs, but he might have a little intellectual crush on Evy, which leads him to… wanting to impress her a little bit.

“I’ve heard of you!” exclaimed Evy. “At least of that Research Department. They’re gradually cutting off public funds – encouraging individual financing – but that won’t do any good for scientific research! Such a stupid decision is only going to –”

“So you lot are the ones she kept fuming about for half a year!” Jonathan snorted. The infamous Ferguson rotten luck struck again.

I still regret I didn’t find more opportunities to showcase how ridiculously unlucky Tommy could get sometimes. Ah well.

Tommy looked dejected. Evy must have seen this, because she bit her lip and said, in softer tones, “Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you. But as my brother said, I’ve been… rather upset over this. There’s been some pressure on the British Museum lately by private patrons who threatened to pull out their funding on some… sensitive collections. Without the Crown to back us up, we might have to cave in to their ridiculous demands.”

Before the rewrites, Evy’s speech used to be a lot more “private funding is bad” without much nuance or justification. I changed it to something that hopefully makes sense and justifies her previous outburst.

“I’ll – I’ll tell my superiors about it,” said Tommy, still looking unsure. “See what I can do. I’m sure it won’t be much, but… Well. I’ll have tried.”

“That’s nice,” Evy said cheerfully, taking Jonathan’s arm and starting to walk. See what I mean about physicality? She doesn’t even ask him with a look, just takes his arm and that’s that. And he lets her, because he’d do the same thing. “Look, the two of you – I’ve had something of a rough day, so I’ll go home, if you don’t mind. You can –”

“Brilliant idea!” said Jonathan, flashing a grin at his sister. “I thought of going to the Sultan’s Casbah, but you might find it a tad – let’s say – dingy, my good friend.”

The Sultan’s Casbah, in the novelisation of the film and my personal headcanon, was the bar Jonathan patronised the night before the first time we see Evy and where he stole a valuable-looking puzzle box from an unsuspecting drunk American.

“Worse than the Turf?” Seeing Evy’s puzzled look, Tommy explained, “Sorry, private joke. I mean the Turf Tavern, that’s where I saw him for the first time. Me family didn’t ‘ave much money, so I used to work there to pay for my studies. Very nice pub, didn’t deserve the reputation.”

The Best Beloved and I took a trip to Oxford in the spring of 2003 (by bus - 20 hours to get there, same to come back home) and while we were so broke we had to settle for a soup and some rice in a lovely Thai restaurant we did go for a drink at the Turf. I remember a dimly-lit room with dark wood, and I think either they changed a lot of it or my memory isn’t that good because it doesn’t really look like that on the Google Maps pics. Still, I liked it, and when I needed an Oxford pub for the story it’s the one I worked in. Incidentally, there was a lot of illegal gambling going on in there in the 19th century, hence Tommy’s mention of the pub’s bad reputation.

“I’m sure you did indeed see a lot of my brother there,” Evy slipped in slyly. Jonathan threw a mock glare at her.

“To think you are almost my only family. What a shame.” Then, as Tommy looked uncertain, he added, “Carry on, Tom.”

“All right. So I was one of the only students who needed a job, and there were some others who thought that it was – how’d they put it? – a ‘disgrace’ to our university.”

“Preposterous,” said Evy sternly. “As if money could take you further than talent.”

Jonathan bit back on the cynical comment that crossed his mind. Sometimes Evy’s naïveté baffled him.

“Right,” said Tommy uncertainly, glancing at Jonathan. “So, one day, a little bunch of lads come in, and Jon here was sometimes hanging with ‘em at the time –”

Because Jonathan likes to gamble with people with deep pockets :P

Evy glared at Jonathan in advance, and he threw his hands in the air. “Don’t look at me like that! I haven’t done anything!” Evy’s gaze softened, and Jonathan finished, “…Yet.”

That earned him a playful slap on the arm, and a laugh from Tommy, who went on, “Anyway, one of the blokes orders somethin’ or other, and starts to poke fun at me. Well, I was used to it, so I let them be. Then they continued, and I finally noticed that skinny lad in the corner who was makin’ fun of them for making fun of me. Didn’t quite understand what the hell was going on – oh, sorry, Dr O’Connell – what was happening.”

While John Hannah is not “skinny” by any stretch, he is rather svelte, and one of my unimpeachable headcanons for Jonathan is that he was skinny as a rake in his youth - until he went through basic training (then WW1) and his shoulders filled out a little. It’s more or less what happened to the Best Beloved, so I feel quite secure in this headcanon’s plausibility. Plus, picturing 18 year old Jonathan as a mix of awkward gangliness and skinny limbs and aristocratic poise is just funny. (and I find the comparison with Tommy - who at that point was soft and a little chubby but already had broad shoulders - rather endearing.)

Evy smiled. “You’ll have to watch your mouth in front of my son, but otherwise it’s fine. And please, call me Evelyn.”

Tommy beamed. “Right, uh, Evelyn. So, uh –”

“What he didn’t know at that point,” interrupted Jonathan, “was that I had my eye on that fellow – what’s his name – Farbow. He owed me quite a bit of money, but wouldn’t repay me. So I was looking for a way to get him back for it.”

“And get the rest of his wallet in the process, of course.”

“Evy, he owed me seventeen pounds. (Which used to be £70 until I did some research and saw that £17 was A Bloody Fortune a the time.) And he was not what I’d call a ‘decent bloke’ – nasty, disdainful piece of work he was, and his little friends with him. Always a dirty word about the Scouser who worked at the Turf Tavern, just because he didn’t belong to his snobby little world. I did the community a favour, really.”

What he doesn’t say is that Edwin Farbow also had a lot to say about “half-Egyptian mongrels” who thought they belonged in those ancient walls. Too bad I couldn’t find a way to work it in this particular fic. If I ever manage to finish at least Tommy’s part of One-Step, Two-Step, Waltz, the first chapter of Pirouette features the whole scene.

“Don’t push it, Jonathan,” warned Evy.

Tommy carried on. “Well, I was glad there was at least one person who didn’t think like Edwin Farbow – nice change. Then Farbow said something – I don’t remember what it was about, I just remember it made me really angry, really. An’ it’s not a pretty sight when I’m really angry at someone.”

It’s always the quiet, genial ones, isn’t it.

Jonathan remembered, but thought it wise to keep his mouth shut.

Both because what Farbow said was pretty damn offensive to Tommy’s character, background, and lineage, and also because Farbow’s rant included “It’s bad enough they let inpeople like Carnahan, who only exists because a glorifiedgrave-robber shagged some darkey and didn’t even have the decencyto pretend otherwise –” and he really doesn’t want to bring this up in front of Evy, who’s had to deal with her own share of this kind of racist bullshit and doesn’t need a reminder.

“An’ – an’ I just lost it, y’know? I dropped his tea over his ‘ead –”

“I say, that one was pretty funny,” Jonathan said, smiling widely at the memory. The strangled yelp that had followed had definitely been one of the best parts.

“So they all leaped for me, obviously – began to punch me, the five or six of them – hey, I still managed to get back at them!” Tommy added quickly, as if defending his honour. Evy hid a smile, and it occurred to Jonathan that that last sentence had something very Rick-like about it. “But I en’t a fool. I know a losing fight when I’m in one.”

“Don’t tell me. Jonathan bravely threw himself into the fight to take on as many attackers as possible.” There was mischievous laughter in Evy’s voice, and her eyes were twinkling. If anyone other than her had quipped that way about him, Jonathan would probably have taken offence, or at least pretended to. But they knew each other enough not to cross the line.

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Well, that wasn’t quite Jon’s style – I don’ know, might’ve changed since then. But yeah, he did. One moment I was squashed under five or six, the next I found out we were two on the floor.”

This was perhaps the biggest suspension of disbelief I’m asking the reader to make - which, in a story where governments have secret agencies to keep an eye on magical ancient artefacts and a diamond has magic powers, is saying something. Jonathan throwing himself into a fight because someone he loves (ie. four people in the whole world that we know of) is in danger? Yep, that checks out, that’s what he does both in TM and TMR. But an (almost) complete stranger? I needed one hell of a justification. Which ended up… 60% Farbow’s money and 40% Farbow being a giant arsehole who had no business making decent bartenders look like that.

Evy began to laugh. “Why, Jonathan? My Jonathan, in a fight, for someone he barely knew?”

At that Jonathan cleared his throat, a mite embarrassed. “I told you, I was looking for Farbow’s wallet. That was the perfect diversion – you should’ve seen that twit looking in every corner for his lost wallet afterwards. It was three months before he gave up.” And it’s lucky you didn’t see me then. I was a bloody mess. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing.” Evy smiled. “You never told me that.”

To be fair, there’s a LOT of things he never told you, old girl ;o)

“Should I have?”

“I don’t know, it’s – it was nice of you to do that, even for the wrong reasons. I’m proud of you.”

Jonathan felt an unexpected lump rise in his throat. Not a very big one, but enough to keep him from talking for a few seconds. It was always like this whenever she said something really nice to him. It caught him off guard each and every time.

Look, it took me years to realise it, but I’m a sucker for validation. Sometimes it bleeds out on characters I write.

After a little while, Evy stopped in front of a door and announced, “Well, we’re home.”

“Nice house,” commented Tommy, taking in the sand-coloured neat front and the curtains at the windows.

“Our ‘old haunt’ since the family moved to Egypt,” Jonathan said, opening the door and stepping aside to let his sister in. “Evy wasn’t even walking then.”

In the first film, Evy, Rick, Jonathan and the remainder of the American party go straight to Fort Brydon, and the next thing we see is Evy emptying her suitcase while Rick tries to fill it. Since both Carnahan siblings actually live in Cairo, I thought they would live in an actual house, and from there I extrapolated that the family had one house in England (the manor we see in TMR) and a smaller pied-à-terre in Cairo.

“I do believe I was,” Evy protested.

Jonathan snorted. “Oh, you weren’t. You crawled.”

si b l i n gssss ♥♥ And like, you can always count on a big sib to remind you that you could be ridiculous as a kid. I should know, I’m the big sister :D

Evy seemed to resist the urge to slap her brother and walked into the living room, her nose in the air. She was greeted by two simultaneous voices:

“Mum!”

“Hey, hon.”

Rick’s first words in this story, and it’s greeting his wife ^^ I didn’t do it on purpose, but it’s. Y’know. There.

Jonathan waited a few seconds, then walked into the room in turn, and grinned at the sight of his nephew looking genuinely eager to see him. He was not fooled, however – as soon as Evy wasn’t looking, Alex mouthed the words “Got one?” and frowned as his uncle shook his head. No, he still had no present for Mum’s birthday.

Evy’s birthday mainly originated as a device to get characters (especially Jonathan) moving. It’s the reason he’s roaming the streets of Cairo just before he bumps into Tommy, and why he and Alex go to the bazaar in chapter 5. It also pops up further on in the story, but I’m not saying anything because spoilers.

“Uncle Jon? Who’s that?”

“Who, him?” Jonathan pointed at Tommy behind him, looking uncomfortable at the family reunion, and Alex rolled his eyes. “Tom Ferguson, he was in class with me at Oxford. I ran into him by chance today.”

Tommy stepped past Jonathan and held out his hand to Alex, nearest to him. “Hi – glad to meet you. Jon’s nephew, eh?”

“Yeah,” said Alex, eyeing him with all the suspicion of a ten-year-old who’d seen what he had seen. Behind him, Rick’s eyes spoke loads about his own distrust. But mistrust towards Jonathan and everything related was par for the course on his part, and, admittedly, reasonable.

Alex has Seen Things. This may sound tongue-in-cheek, but it’s true. After what happened in TMR, he’s 100% entitled to being suspicious of strangers. As for Rick, I took my cue from one of his first lines to Jon in TMR being “What did you do this time?” implying that the weird shit happening right now, with the men in red and the sexy lady waving snakes around isn’t exactly unheard of. Hence the “and, admittedly, reasonable”, which I added in the rewrites.

“Thomas Ferguson, British Antique Research Department,” said Tommy, holding out a hand towards Rick, who shook it slowly, still reluctant.

“Rick O’Connell.”

“So you’re Dr O’Connell’s husband? Pleasure to meet you, sir. I’m impressed, you’ve no idea.”

Rick raised an eyebrow. “Impressed?”

“It seems I’m rather famous in the Research Department,” said Evy, laughing.

“Make that infamous,” quipped Jonathan.

“The Department owes your wife a great deal. She was the one who uncovered a huge amount of our information about some obscure periods of Egyptian history, as well as the major part of serious knowledge we’ve got on Hamunaptra,” Tommy pointed out, and Evy blushed. “She’s a legend – one of the original three who managed to go to Hamunaptra and live to tell the tale! But… I assume you’re another one?”

Oh, Tommy. MATE. You’re saying you know three people made it out of Hamunaptra alive, one of whom a woman with the exact same first and last name as your best friend’s sister who had a passion for ancient history, but you had no idea he was one of them as well?

Incidentally, the early installment weirdness I mentioned earlier mostly consists in Tommy being a lot more energetic and innocent-looking than he later proves to be (which is a little more grounded and pragmatic than Jon). In fact, he and Jonathan’s first couple of scenes together give the impression that he’s the red and Jon’s the blue in the “Bue oni, red oni” trope, when later chapters show Jon as a little bit more of a disaster while Tom struggles to make better choices and be more sensible. Which in the end would make them shades of purple, really.

“Yeah,” said Rick, looking a bit nonplussed. Jonathan definitely didn’t regret bringing Tommy in. Seeing Rick O’Connell confused was a very rare occurrence, too rare to be missed.

“I never knew – who was the third one?”

Jonathan was now struggling to keep a straight face. Rick blinked, and pointed at his brother-in-law. “That was him.”

“You!?” God, the look on his face was priceless. “You were at Hamunaptra?”

“Yes,” risked Jonathan, laughter rising in his voice. “And believe me, it wasn’t exactly a picnic. Oh, by the way, there were four of us, not three.”

Meaning Ardeth, of course. My take is that Tommy - and by extension the Chamber of Horus - know about as much about the Medjai as Evy knew about the Book of Amun-Ra prior to the events of TM: a non-negligible amount of information, but all of it second-hand and some of it a bit dicey.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Rick roll his eyes and grinned, undaunted. This was proving to be a fun evening.

Make the most of it, people, because it’s all going to go downhill fast…

Thank you ♥♥♥

#thatsoneginger #ask reply #fic commentary #Fairy Tales and Hokum

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