Author's Note. So maybe it's weird to just keeping beating the horse that is this universe, but I've really enjoyed Jemima, I've been looking for an opportunity to write more of the Americans, and I'm kind of into this whole secret "you are NOT the father" situation going on between Jemima and Daniels. So this is a little 5-part segue from Amour Fou. Each part is kind of a short story unto itself, so they're each pretty long, and they cover a span of 25 years, I think. That's what I'm planning right now. Enjoy!

Disclaimer. The characters of The Mummy are the property of Universal Studios. The title and chapter titles are taken from the song "It Ain't Me, Babe" by Johnny Cash (because what could be more fitting than a Johnny Cash song for the Americans?), originally written by Bob Dylan. The ranch and setting take a heavy cue from the film Giant. As far as I know, Blackbird, Texas is a town of my own invention. PROVE ME WRONG, GOOGLE MAPS.

IT AIN'T ME, BABE

someone to open each and every door.

The Daniels' Ranch: Blackbird, Texas, 1925

"Oh, darling, it's simply marvelous!"

Marvelous. The word had been perpetually on Jemima's lips, lacuqered on like the lipstick and false smile she'd worn for longer than she could recall at this point. Marvelous. It wasn't marvelous. It was a Victorian monstrosity rising up out of the dust like a mirage, and a sickened feeling churned in her stomach just to look at it.

She was fairly certain it wasn't just the morning sickness.

More like all day sickness, she thought much too frequently to herself, her teeth clenching irritably against her nausea. Leave it to Beni. She hadn't even noticed she was pregnant with Lionel until her clothes started getting tight; she hadn't felt remotely different and even sort of enjoyed the experience, despite her distorted body. She liked feeling him move...but it was too early to feel this child move. It was too early for everything except nausea and exhaustion and soreness.

Leave it to Beni. Leave it to Beni's child to make her feel so dreadful.

But she smiled even though her face was green, and willfully ignored the dismal feelings creeping inside her as they pulled the auto up to the front of the house. The big, lonely, house...it reminded her of a proud old hermit, stooping in the wind. Jemima could handle many things - perhaps about anything - but she'd simply die of boredom out here.

"But darling, don't we have any neighbors? Any at all?"

She fought to keep her face from falling as Daniels listed off this family that lived five miles that way and another family that lived seven the other, and she slipped out a sigh. Her arm tightened around Lionel, and she shielded his face from the dusty wind.

It wasn't so unlike the desert out here, but living out in the midst of nothing was much more depressing than living in Cairo. If she was going to live in the dust, she might as well have people living with her. People made anything bearable.

Daniels helped her out of the car and took Lionel from her arms, letting out a whistle that brought a couple shepherd dogs loping from somewhere around back. He leaned down and greeted the dogs affectionately, and Lionel giggled and reached for them.

Jemima smiled genuinely now.

Maybe it wasn't the pregnancy that was making her so sick. Maybe it was herself.

David Daniels was so good - so very good - to Lionel. He'd been happy to have the baby on their honeymoon, even when Jemima's nursemaid refused to follow them out of Egypt and on the winding road to Texas. She wanted to stay in a Muslim country, she said. And Jemima had sighed tersely, but let her on her way. She wanted to shake the woman; must everyone abandon her son? There was no one for him in the world but Jemima now.

But she was wrong about that. Daniels was more than happy to be there for him. More than happy. He was tickled pink with Lionel, and it made Jemima's heart swell, even as it made her stomach clench guiltily. He was going to be such a good father. He was already good to Lionel. He was going to make such a good, good father to a child that wasn't even his.

It swept over her again - the overwhelming guilt - and she grasped onto the car to maintain her balance. She could feel him looking at her, cautious and worried the way first-time fathers do. The way Ollie used to.

Would Beni have ever looked at her that way?

Had he looked at Evelyn that way, for the short time she'd been pregnant?

Jemima took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and pushed thoughts of him out of her head. She didn't want to wonder about those things. She didn't want to think about those things. She wasn't there anymore.

She was in Texas. She was David Daniels' wife. She was having a child.

Beni Gabor's child.

A wave of nausea overtook her again, and she doubled over for a moment. She felt David's hand on her shoulder.

"Let's get you inside. It's too damn hot for this."

She nodded weakly and let him lead her inside. She was too tired and sick to pay any attention to the decor, but later she would notice with a subdued chuckle how terribly, unabashedly Western the whole place was, as if she'd stepped onto the set of a play about Americans. She was surrounded by animal heads and paintings of cowboys, and a cowhide on the floor. It felt strangely dark despite the wide windows and the curtains pulled back; she realized later that was because everything was dark and maroon and leather. The house had a distinct feeling of heaviness, as if the dark furniture might root the house to the ground there in the midst of the insufferable wind.

Daniels yelled for some water, and a moment later a black maid brought an icy cup, already dripping with perspiration in the lukewarm room. Jemima sipped at it and listened to the fans whir desperately overhead.

She was used to the heat. Texas wasn't so different from Egypt in that regard. But the darkness of the room made her feel close and uncomfortable despite the massiveness of the parlor. She closed her eyes and sucked in the cool, calming water.

"Where's Naomi?"

As if on cue, before the maid could even finish telling him that his sister had gone out for a ride, Naomi Daniels burst through the front door. She had a bright, congenially pretty face and was covered from the top of her had down to her boots in dust. She wore a blouse and a pair of men's trousers that made Jemima wonder how she ever managed to find a pair to suit her tough little frame. She pulled a floppy-brimmed hat from her head and wiped away her sweat with the sleeve of her blouse. Her dark hair hung in a dirty and wind-ratted braid down her back.

Daniels handed Lionel off to Jemima before taking his sister in a tight hug. She giggled about getting his fresh suit all dirty, and her gaze turned curiously to her new sister-in-law.

"Is this her?" she asked in a cheery drawl that was simultaneously energetic and comfortable.

"It certainly is," Jemima said with a polite smile.

Naomi looked her over with eyes as sharp and blue as her brother's. "Well, aren't you even prettier than he said! I just love your hair. I think bobs are so glamorous on the right face, and honey, you got the face for it."

"Thank you. That's so kind of you to say."

"Me, I think I'd look like a boy," said Naomi in her men's trousers.

Jemima shook her head. "Oh, you wouldn't look like a boy. Some do, but you wouldn't."

"Why, you're just as sweet as they come!" she said. Her brow furrowed suddenly. "You know you got one brown eye and the other blue?"

Jemima chuckled. "Yes, I noticed."

"Well, 'a course you did. I just mean I noticed it just now." Her gaze turned to the baby in her lap, and a bright, wide smile lit up her face. "And who is this?"

"This is my son Lionel."

Naomi grinned, her hands hovering just above him. "Well ain't you just a honey? Ohh, I wanna hold him so bad, but I can't right now. But you just wait there, Lionel. I'm gonna get cleaned up and there'll be no gettin' rid 'a me." Her gaze darted up to Jemima again. "Couldn't look more like you if he tried."

But Jemima shook his head. "That's only because you've never seen his father. After we get unpacked, I'll dig out a picture and show you. They might as well have been twins."

Naomi raised her eyebrows incredulously, smiling at Lionel again. "I don't know about that. He looks like his mama's boy to me."

"He's quickly becoming David's boy, I'm afraid."

Naomi nodded her head, flashing a wink at her brother. "Well 'a course he is. Dave always was good with kids. I'm awful pleased he's gonna be a daddy." She glanced up at Jemima seriously. "And you oughtta be, too. Don't pay no attention to whatever ugly thing folks say about it. Ya'll made a mistake, and you done the right thing gettin' married. And it's every bit a blessing it is for anybody else. You got nothin' to be ashamed of."

Jemima shifted her weight uncomfortably, her gaze fleeing to the back of Lionel's chubby little neck. She was barely able to murmur something like "thank you." She heard her sister-in-law let out a sigh and straighten, glancing at David again.

"Well, you know I can't abide rudeness, but I might just die if I have to sit another minute in a room with a baby I can't hold, so I'm gonna go clean up."

Daniels let out a snort. "What'd you go for a ride for when you knew we was comin'?"

Naomi put her hands on her hips and huffed a sigh, but her eyes were smiling. "Dave, when have you ever known me to pass up a good mornin' to ride?"

Jemima smiled and put in, "Me too."

Her husband turned and stared at her in confusion. "You like to ride?"

"Of course I do."

"I tried once, I tried a million times to get you and Oliver out to ride with me."

Jemima chuckled. "Well, darling, that's because Ollie was deathly afraid of horses. But of course he didn't want anyone to know he was afraid of them, so I always pretended like it was me. But I adore them."

Daniels shook his head in perplexity. "Who's afraid of horses?"

She gave him an easy shrug. "Ollie, apparently. I haven't any idea why. When I asked him about it, he told me 'an auto has an off switch.' No one was so glad for the invention of the auto as Ollie."

But Daniels' eyes remained wide and befuddled. "I don't get how he made it not ridin' a horse. That's all there was most of his life."

Jemima held up her hands innocently. "Darling, I don't know how he managed. Perhaps he always took carriages. I just know you couldn't pay the man to get on a horse."

Naomi let out a loud sigh, drawing both of their attention. With a polite smile, she told them she was going off to take her bath now. Her boots rang against the hardwood floor with every stride she took, across the room and on up the stairs. Jemima smiled quietly after her, at last turning her attention back to Daniels.

"She's lovely," she told him. "She lives here with you?"

Daniels nodded. "Only til June, though. You know she's marryin' Bernard."

Jemima's smile flattened a little, but she nodded her head. It was difficult to imagine quiet, spectacled Bernard Burns marrying a woman who wore trousers, but she supposed stranger things had happened. Most people probably thought David Daniels bringing home an English bride was much more of an oddity.

"How're you feelin'?" he asked after a moment.

She shrugged stiffly. "Alright, I suppose. Just a bit tired."

"You wanna go rest up some before supper?"

She started to refuse, but instantly found the notion silly. She'd barely nodded her head and Daniels was waving the maid over.

"Edie, take Lionel in the kitchen and fix 'im a bottle or somethin'."

Jemima reluctantly handed her son off to the maid. She watched nervously as she whisked him out of the room cooing little meaningless words to him all the time.

"He'll be fine," Daniels told her briskly. "Edie's ma was my mammy. Now she'll be Lionel's and our babies'."

Jemima let out a little sigh. "He was so very attached to his nursemaid in Egypt..."

Daniels snorted dismissively. "Ah, hell. He's a baby. He probably don't even remember her."

"Perhaps not."

His knees popped as he stood up out of his seat and offered her his hand. He told her to come on, and she did. She took his hand and let him lead her out of the room and up the stairs to the master bedroom. In comparison to the living room below, it was considerably cheerier, with a big, colorful quilt spread over the bed and white walls. She smiled gratefully at the invitingly soft pillows, and ran a hand through her hair.

She felt his hand suddenly tighten on hers, and she turned and looked into his watching eyes.

"So you ride horses," he said, an amused smirk on his face.

Jemima smiled. "Well, yes, but not the way you do, darling. There probably isn't an English saddle for fifty miles, is there?"

Daniels' mouth twisted thoughtfully, and he glanced at the ceiling. "We don't have one. Somebody else might..." He shrugged. "You could learn Western. It's easy enough."

"I don't know that I'd like riding with a horn between my legs."

He snickered and pulled her into his arms. "I don't know about that. You seem to like it just fine."

She swatted his arm, but a devilish smile lurked in the corner of her mouth. "You wicked thing!"

He stopped her with a kiss, and even though she was exhausted from the hot, dusty ride from the train station - even though her days had become a constant battle with nausea and guilt - she gave into his hands and the urgency of his kiss. She gasped back a breath and focused on the touch of his hands in an effort to drown out the strange and dirty feeling that crept within her.

Just as horrible as the guilt of lying to David was the griminess of knowing she was making love to one man while carrying the child of another. She felt Beni there within her - perpetually within her - even though she couldn't yet feel the first fluttery movements of life. He was there, and even if he was a dreadful man (and she knew he was) she couldn't help but feel that he was the one who belonged there. It was his child, and David Daniels was the intruder.

How had she done such a thing?

But she'd done so many things. So very many ill-intentioned things. She'd married Oliver even though the thought of his aged, veiny hands on her body made her ill. But then she married him, and he was so kind and loving to her. And she stopped worrying over his lined face and white hair and sagging frame. She stopped worrying, because he was good.

And David - he was good, too. She hadn't known at the time; she was just desperate to hide the pregnancy, and she knew he had money. She supposed she'd lucked out with both Oliver and David; as recklessly as she'd thrown herself into their beds, she might have found herself in much messier situations than she had, with much messier men.

Men like Beni Gabor.

She couldn't always be lucky. And perhaps she should be grateful that she'd only managed to snag one Beni and not three of him. Beni was cruel and selfish and nerve-gratingly whiny, but he'd fascinated her. He'd been so very fascinating, with his sordid past and funny accent. And after about a year of sleeping with a man whose body sometimes failed him, Beni seemed relentlessly vigorous. There were no weary attempts and embarrassed apologies. There was only his demanding hands and urgent, breathless kisses. And she liked the way he'd shoved her about and did as he pleased. She liked that he didn't treat her so delicately as Oliver did, like at any moment she might break. Ollie was the one who'd been on the verge of breaking, not her.

She realized that now. Ollie was being cautious with his own body, not with hers. Beni wasn't cautious with either of their bodies, and sometimes he'd hurt her; up against a wall or on the floor, he'd bruise her shoulders and back and hips. Sometimes he'd hurt himself. She once bit down so hard on his arm, it festered into a round purple-and-yellow bruise, and he'd had to tell Evelyn he'd gotten it from a man he was interrogating. Those were the sort of things that happened with Beni. She'd hated and liked it at the same time. She hated and liked him at the same time.

David was neither of those things. He was an urgent, passionate person by nature, but he cared about whether he hurt her or not. He wanted her and he took her and he didn't waste any time. He didn't ask for permission. But he touched her face and held her. And she didn't have bruises anymore. If her body trembled afterwards, it was from breathless enjoyment, not because she was sore.

Beni really didn't hurt her most of the time.

But she was acutely aware, from those times that he did, how very little she meant to him. She hadn't mattered to him - not at all. At least not until he figured out she was sleeping with David Daniels. Then she mattered. Because Beni Gabor didn't like sharing his things.

Even when they first started fooling around - when it was nothing but harmless fun, as far as David knew - she'd never gotten the impression that she didn't matter. He might not have married her if she was pregnant. He probably wouldn't have, even. But she could tell that she mattered to him. As someone he was sleeping with. As a fellow member of the human race. She mattered. But Beni didn't have that kind of regard. Not for her, and not for anyone else.

Not for their child.

It's every bit a blessing it is for anybody else, Naomi had said. A blessing for whom? For Jemima of course, now that she had someone to call its father. And a blessing for Lionel and even the child, having a strong and capable man in their lives. But it wasn't any blessing for David, and Jemima knew. She knew all the time that it was nothing but a mean little jabbing joke. Beni was there inside her, snickering to himself. You don't have a child, Daniels. You let an outrageous slut like Jemima Willoughby pull the wool over your eyes.

She wasn't Jemima Willoughby anymore. That time was done. Exhaustively trying to impress those people was a thing of the past. She'd belonged to that world and grown up in it, but she'd properly shamed herself there, and she was happy to be rid of it. She was in America, the land of new money and vibrant dreams. She was surrounded by people with no breeding who wouldn't even notice if she lost some of hers, as well.

That's where she found herself, after David kissed her forehead and told her to take a nap while he dressed. That's where she found herself after spending the warm afternoon dozing: amongst these people who would make her in-laws' mouths twitch. She sat at a table and laughed because they were laughing, giddy with a few beers and their colorful words and rumbling, knee-slapping merriment.

"So what is it? A girl or a boy?" Naomi asked after a roar had died down.

Jemima stole a coquettish glance at David. "Now, darling, you're liable to start a war."

More laughter. More beer.

"I take it ya'll don't exactly agree?" Henderson asked, working a tun of chewing tobacco out of his pocket.

Jemima grinned. "Well, I think it's a girl, but David isn't a bit pleased by the notion - "

"Dave!" Naomi exclaimed good-naturedly.

He held up his hands, shooting his wife a joking and scolding eye. "Now that's not what's gettin' me, and you know it. You tell 'em the whole truth about it."

Jemima crossed her arms over her chest primly. "Why, that is the whole truth, darling."

"It ain't!" he retorted, turning animatedly to his friends and sister. "It's not that she thinks it's a girl, it's that she wants it to be a girl. And I says to her, 'Honey, it ain't fair to go wishin' for a girl. Every man on earth's entitled to a firstborn son.'"

Naomi blew a raspberry. "Oh, horse shit, David Daniels."

He turned and gazed at her with wild eyes. "Beg your pardon?"

"I said that's horse shit," she told him without batting an eye. "Jem's already got a son. She got a right to want a daughter."

"Well, okay, but I don't got a son or a daughter, and since it's the first one, I want it to be a boy."

Naomi snorted, turning her attention to Jemima. "You been real sick?"

She nodded her head.

"Then it's a girl," Naomi said, leaning back in her chair with an air of finality. "Havin' a girl makes you sick. Don't everybody know."

David wagged a finger at her, his face tightening with irritation. "You stop tryin' to get on my nerves about it."

Her eyes widened. "Honey, it's the gospel truth."

"I said stop tryin' to get on my nerves."

"Well, fine. But I didn't make the rules. You eat like a fieldhand with boys and girls make you sick. Ask anybody."

"Naomi - "

She held up her hands in surrender. "Okay, Dave. Ah'right."

Her fiance Mr. Burns eyed Daniels cautiously before clearing his throat and changing the subject. "So have you picked out the names?"

Jemima glanced at her husband, pinning back an amused smile. "Mr. Burns, if you were trying to find a more diplomatic topic, you have utterly failed."

Naomi leaned forward in interest. "So what's the spat about the names, then?"

David looked at Jemima, and she looked back at him and raised her eyebrows. He offered her the floor with a wave of his hand, and she turned her glittering eyes and bright smile around the table.

"Well, darlings, if it's a boy - not that it matters, of course, since it's a girl - "

David shot her a little glare that she returned with an infectious smile, and despite his irritation, his expression softened a little. All the while, Naomi and Burns and Henderson laughed.

"But if it's a boy, I want to name him Sebastian - "

Henderson couldn't hold back a laugh, and Naomi's shoulders shook, even as she was trying to manage, "Well, I reckon it's...you know..."

"Queer as a three-dollar bill?" Daniels supplied readily.

Jemima swatted his arm. Naomi giggled, but said, "I was goin' to say refined."

"Thank you!" Jemima said triumphantly. "I think so, as well. But David says you can't name an American Sebastian. So I said to him, 'Darling, what do you name an American?' And he said to me, 'Cole.'"

Henderson nodded his head. "I like Cole."

Jemima stared at him. "You do? You like Cole?"

"It's solid, you know. Strong. Manly."

Jemima let out an exasperated sigh. "And there I thought he was kidding me. I said, 'Darling, you burn coal. Let's give our child a name.'"

"What if it's a girl?" Naomi asked, adding with a ribbing smile, "Since it is, anyways."

David rolled his eyes.

"Oh, darling, you must hear this," Jemima said, sitting up in her seat and catching every listening face in her strange gaze. "He said to me, 'I want to name it after my mother if it's a girl.' And I said to him, 'Darling, that's a marvelous idea. What's your mother's name?' And he tells me, 'Betsy.' And I say, 'Oh, that's just lovely. I adore Elizabeth.'"

Naomi chuckled, her eyes dancing in amusement. "Ma's name wasn't Elizabeth. Just Betsy."

Jemima giggled. "Yes! That's what he said to me! Here I am thinking, 'By God, Elizabeth. We have it.' We'd been arguing and arguing over silly boys' names, and the first girl name he says, I positively love. I think, 'Elizabeth, what a good strong English name.' And he said to me, 'No. It's just Betsy.' Just Betsy! Darling, who names a child just Betsy?"

Naomi glanced at her brother and shrugged. "Well, Gram and Gramps, I guess."

Jemima let out a sigh, glancing up at them sheepishly. "I suppose this would be a point of cultural confusion. No one in England would name a child just Betsy."

The Americans around her shrugged their shoulders and sipped at their drinks, and for an uncomfortable moment, it was quiet. Jemima got the distinct feeling that she'd said something wrong, and she hated that, since they'd been having such a good time a moment ago. She gave them a thin smile and took a big gulp of beer.

She had her own reasons for hoping it was a girl. For one thing, she was relieved by the idea that girls almost always changed their last name at some point. What difference did it make if she had her father's name or not? She'd get married and that would be all of it. But a son was tasked with carrying on a name, spreading it out like a blanket over his wife and sons. A man's name was an eternal thing, while a girl's was fickle. Didn't she know it as well as anyone? In less than twenty-two years, she'd been a Hartley, a Willoughby, and now a Daniels. But a man was his own until the day he died. He was his own, and his father's own. She felt sick and uneasy at the thought of Beni's child being entrusted with the Daniels name. He wasn't a Daniels. She didn't want to lie and tell him he was a Daniels. A daughter would be her own - her very own - and it wouldn't matter at all if she was a Gabor or Daniels or anything else. She'd get married and change her name and that would be the end of it. She'd belong to Jemima and it simply wouldn't matter.

Jemima supposed she could lie to a girl about being a Daniels. It didn't matter. It didn't matter at all. It never mattered what a woman was. She was a means to a family. She wasn't a family herself.

So she hoped and prayed, as nights turned into weeks. She hoped that Naomi was right about morning sickness. She compared every last detail of this pregnancy to Lionel's. It's a girl, she told herself. I can feel it. It's a girl. And she tried not to fret. It would be a girl and she would belong to Jemima. She would be all Jemima's. And then after she had Beni Gabor's daughter, she could set to having as many sons as David Daniels thought he required. She prayed - how she prayed - God, make all the rest boys, but please, please make this one a girl.

As the months dragged on into fall, and into winter, she held her breath and started praying different prayers. Please let her come late, God. Please. She knew when to expect Beni's child. And she knew that was two or three weeks earlier than she ought to expect David's. Please let her come late.

Time dragged past her final week. It dragged past a second, too. And then she stopped caring whether the baby came on time or not. Her back ached and her hips were sore. Just come already, she'd tell her belly. I don't care when you come anymore. I just can't take you being inside me any longer.

It happened on Christmas. And even though she was at once relieved to feel the gush of water between her legs, she started weeping. I'm going to miss Christmas with Lionel! she'd cried. He'll never forgive me. I know he won't...

It happened on Christmas. Under ether and twilight. It was late on Christmas evening when she woke up and noticed a white-dressed nurse in her room. She squinted through bleary eyes.

"Where is she?" Jemima asked.

The nurse frowned. "Where's who, honey?"

"The baby. Where is she?"

The nurse left and came back with a warm little bundle, and handed him over.

Him. It was a boy.

Jemima stared blankly into his round, puckered face. He frowned in his sleep and she held him while he breathed, and breathed, and breathed.

"Big boy," the nurse had said, giving her a proud nudge. "I can't believe a little thing like you carried a ten pound baby."

Jemima scoffed quietly. Beni Gabor's son, a ten pound baby. Well, of course he was. He was probably two weeks late; maybe more. But just the same. She stared at his face and wondered if they brought her the wrong baby. Surely she and Beni hadn't made a ten pound baby. Surely not...

"Was your first this big?"

Jemima blinked, glancing up at the nurse in confusion. "He was early..."

Her eyes wandered back to the baby in her arms again. She stared hard into his little face, barely aware of the nurse twittering next to her in a warm drawl.

"Well, this one's a nice, big healthy boy. You'll be glad for it, too. He'll sleep so sound, you won't even notice you had a baby. And he's just handsome as can be. Got the biggest set 'a blue eyes I ever seen in my life. They're big and sad, you'll just never put him down - 'course you'll have to, seein' as how he's already ten pounds..."

Jemima nodded her head numbly. She stared at the baby. She stared at him and waited for his eyes to open, and some point later - after the nurse left to "let ya'll get acquainted" - he did. He opened his eyes, and Jemima's breath caught in the back of her throat. They hadn't brought her the wrong baby. Not at all.

She knew the eyes staring back at her. She knew the brow and ears, and the shape of th head. She knew him already.

"Not to worry, darling," she told that reborn image of a Hungarian thief. "I won't let him name you Cole."