Work Text:
"I am sorry," Rick says, apropos of nothing, when they’re a few dozen kilometers outside of Cairo.
The sun has almost finished setting, and Jonathan is already snoozing away atop his own camel, but he and Evy are still awake, spurred on by their closeness to civilization. They haven’t spoken much in the last few hours, so his surprising apology pulls her out of daydreams of a warm bath and clean clothing.
She tilts her head back to ask him what he’s sorry for, but he continues on before she gets the chance. "About that kiss. The one in the prison, I mean. I shouldn't have forced you."
Evelyn is struck -- not for the first time -- by just how different Rick O'Connell is from many of the other men she's known. Too many of them would have considered themselves well within their rights to have kissed her without her permission, even before having saved her life and the world along with it. At the very least, most of them would have carried on like it had never happened, happy to never discuss the matter again. Yet here was this large, strong, often brash man, looking distinctly uncomfortable and yet somehow determined as he offered an apology for something that seemed so far behind them now.
No, the kiss hadn't exactly been pleasant -- unlike the few, extremely pleasant kisses they had shared since -- but she thinks she can understand the impulse. Especially now that she has stood nose-to-nose with death, herself. Especially now that she knows that he’d had no one, that he had been about to die alone and unmourned. She can understand, now, wanting the comfort of contact with another person, wanting to leave some sort of impression for someone, anyone, to remember him by; hopefully a big enough impression that someone would fight for him.
"You were about to be hanged," she reminds him gently after a moment, reaching out to cover his hand where it was gripping just a bit too tightly to the reins. Somehow she wasn’t able to summon the same ire she had felt when he had first used that as his justification.
"That's not an excuse,” he says, grimacing at the sound of his own words said back to him. “I had no right. I’m not…” He pauses for a moment, and she feels his weighty sigh ruffle through her hair. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, and that it won’t happen again. Not like that.”
"I know it won’t. I think you’ve proven yourself a better man than that by now," she says, meeting his gaze steadily so he knows she means it. Then, not because she thinks there's something to forgive, but because he seems to need to hear it: "I forgive you, Rick. Truly. If it brought you some comfort when you thought you were about to die, I don't regret it."
He relaxes against her, a small smile tugging up the corners of his mouth, and the softness that’s suddenly in his eyes makes her heart skip a beat. "I do regret how I went about it, Evelyn, but I could never regret my last kiss being from you."
"Well," she says, her cheeks growing a little warm from the sincerity in his voice. "Considering how often we both almost die, you had better kiss me regularly."
"Well," he drawls in return, that small smile turning into a full-blown grin as he leans in to fulfil her request. "Since you asked…"