All the students Abner had brought along on the dig were sitting at the table, clamoring for his attention with their theories and questions and ideas, except Jones, who was leaning away from the table, his arms folded across his chest and his eyes on her as she sat on one of the trunks in the corner of the tent. Eventually they all filed out, headed out to sleep or drink or whatever it was they did at night after they'd retired, complaining under their breath about Abner having had enough of them for the day. Marion, as usual, ignored them all - stupid teenagers who wanted to be archeologists because it sounded glamorous - until the long shadow crept up over the edge of her book and blocked her light.

"You're in the way."

"You're Abner's daughter, right? Marion?"

His voice had a hint of laughter in it, like he knew something she didn't, and it set her nerves on edge. Not bothering to look up from the book she nodded once. "Yeah. And you're still in the way."

"I'm Indy."

"No." She looked up at him and met his gaze levelly. He was handsome, more handsome than she thought anyone had the right to be, but she didn't let it change anything. Abner had told her more than once that beauty isn't in the face or the body, it's in the history you leave behind. "You're in my way."

Abner sent her back to the east coast a week later and she finished up her schooling there. She hated classes and did her best to avoid them, only showing up on days testing was done and haunting the museums after her Uncle Marcus thought she'd gone to class. Her father's name was on half the plaques as donator of the pieces that hid behind glass cases and velvet ropes, and Marion wondered why he did it, because she knew that Abner believed history needed to be touched, felt, lived.

"Shouldn't you be in school?"

She didn't have to turn around. She recognized the voice. "Shouldn't you be in Pompeii?"

"Abner asked me to come back with a shipment. There were a few things he didn't trust left alone." He came up beside her and she looked at him from the corner of her eye, noting that he looked completely different in his suit. It was too big for him, probably bought second-hand or handed down from his father, and the fedora on his head was clearly new. "You clean up well."

"So do you."

The corner of his mouth curved up slightly as he adjusted his hat. "So, why aren't you in school?"

"You're not my father."

"No. But I work for him."

"So that probably means you can't take me out for dinner, doesn't it?" She turned and looked at him, her arms crossed over her chest. His smile curved up even more and he laughed softly. "Are you laughing at me?"

"I wouldn't dare."

"I don't believe you." She turned on her heel and started to walk away, her heart pounding hard and loud in her chest.

"I'll pick you up at Marcus's at seven. Wear something nice." She kept walking, refusing to give him the pleasure of seeing her turn around. "And tell Marcus not to worry, Marion. I'll have you home early. I know it's a school night."

She went to class from then on after he told her he'd meet her afterward and stayed true to his word. He took her to libraries and museums with him, guiding her to the out of the way places where there were crates piled ceiling high, all of them labeled in black stenciled paint. He led her into back rooms of libraries that required full rings of keys to get through all the doors securing them from the public. She had to wear gloves to turn the pages, and he explained tall tales and legends, mythologies and religions to her. She watched him, watched the way he lit up when he discussed them all as though they were real.

"You're a lot like him, you know."

Indy looked up from the map he was studying, the cartography book taking up nearly all the table, the paper the color of tea save for the brilliant splashes of ink in the shape of dragons and mermaids, gods and demons. "Who?"

"Abner." She rested her chin on her hand and looked at him through the tendrils of hair falling down around her face. "You remind me of Abner."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Neither. Both." She shrugged and ran a gloved finger along the edge of the map, tracing the legend. "He isn't much of a father." She frowned at the map then shook her head. "That's not true. He's a wonderful father to everyone that shares his passion. His letters are full of you, you know. Even when you're not there. Sometimes I think he writes just to talk about you."

"He writes you?"

"No." Marion pushed away from the table and walked along the sturdy metal racks in the windowless room. "He writes Marcus and Marcus reads them at dinner sometimes. It's really got nothing to do with me."

"You were all he talked about to me. He's proud of you." He watched her as she moved around the room, restless with something resembling anger. "He talks about how smart you are. How you spoke five languages before you were seven, two of them almost lost to the world. That you'd traveled with him and seen the world by the time you were sixteen and knew more about archeology than half the experts he worked with."

"There's plenty about me that Abner doesn't know, doesn't have a clue about." She shrugged and moved back to the table, surprised when his fingers encircled her wrist and pulled her closer to him, shifting on his stool so that she was near his knees as he spread his legs before tugging her even closer. "There's plenty you don't know either."

"And you know everything there is to know about me?"

"You want to follow in my father's footsteps. You want to find antiquities to put in museums so people can marvel at them for years. You want to teach impressionable kids that their future is in the past." His other fingers closed around her free wrist and he held her loosely. "You want adventure. Abner wanted adventure and he gave it up for my mother, and when she died, he took it all back again, not worrying about what it might cost me."

"Do you wish you'd stayed in one city for your entire life? That you didn't know all the things you know? That you hadn't seen all the things you've seen - things other people might never see?" His fingers loosened and he slid his hands slowly up her forearms to her elbows, pausing there and watching her face. "A normal life?"

"Is that such a bad thing?" She felt younger suddenly, like a child he was lecturing, like she was pouting for no reason at all.

"No." He shook his head and let his hands slide up to her shoulders and then to her neck, his thumbs brushing along her jaw as he guided her head down to his. He feathered soft kisses across her cheeks and eyelids, nuzzling her nose before moving down, chaste kisses on either side of her mouth before his lips met hers. Marion made a soft noise and opened her lips to his, surprised by the heat of his breath, by the brush of his tongue. He pulled back slightly, looking at her questioningly.

"Indy?" Her voice shook and her fingers trembled as she lifted her hand to touch his lower lip.

"I should take you home," he whispered, though there was no one else in the room with them. "You're just a kid."

"I'm seventeen."

"And I'm ten years older. I know better." He shook his head and kisses her fingertip as she pressed it to his lips to silence him. "Marion."

"Please?"

"You want a normal life. I'm not that."

Marion turned her head and kissed the roughness of his fingertips, of his palm. "I want you, Indiana Jones."

"You're going to regret this."

She shook her head again and leaned in, kissing him warming, murmuring against his skin. "I won't regret you."

Marcus never said a word, even though Marion suspected he knew she wasn't spending every night at his house, that Indy wasn't going home after conversation they lingered over after dinner. Still, she was a guest in his house, so she did her best to be discreet. She finished school and sat in on the classes Indy helped teach at the University, confused when the students called him "Dr. Jones", teasing him at night and in bed when she would bat her eyes at him, pretending to be one of the sudden influx of female students interested in archeology.

"You know, Marcus told me that there's never been such a big demand for archeology classes before you started teaching." She straddled him, her fingers playing over his bare chest as she smiled down at him. "Should I be jealous, Dr. Jones?"

His hands skimmed up her sides, thumbs stroking the undersides of her breasts. "Are you jealous?"

"Some of them are very pretty." She closed her eyes as his hands moved over her, her body moving on instinct over his as his thumbs and forefingers closed around her nipples, teasing them to tight peaks. "I-Indy."

"Why do I need pretty when I have beautiful."

"I'm not…"

"Yes, you are." One hand eases away from her breast, tracing a slow trail down her stomach to the dark hair shielding where her body was wrapped around him, and then beyond to the hard nub of her of her clit. "You are."

"I-Indy…oh…"

"Marion!" The rough knock on the door interrupted them and Marion did her best to scramble off of Indy and tug the sheets up around her before the door opened and her father came in. "Marion! My God." Abner's face was flushed with rage and his eyes flashed at both of them. "I sent you here to learn and better yourself and this is what you do?"

"I'm going to school. Taking classes." Her defense seemed weak in the wake of Abner's anger.

"And you." He turned his attention to Indy, Marion seemingly forgotten. "You…I asked you to look after her, not defile her."

"Abner…"

"I trusted you, Jones. I trusted you with the most valuable thing I possess, and you…you treated her worse than the government treats all the treasures we find." Abner's hands, always so steady and careful during his digs were shaking, moving with emotion instead of purpose. "How dare you?"

"I love her, Abner."

"Get out. Get out of this house. Get out of…" He grabbed Marion's robe and shoved it at her as he grabbed one of her arms and yanked her from the bed. "Get dressed. We're leaving."

"Abner. No." She was surprised by the strength in her voice, in her arm as she jerked it free of her father's grip. "He loves me."

"Loves you." Abner shook his head. "What do you know about love?" He turned to Indy, ignoring Marion as if she were no longer there. "Get out. Stay away from my daughter. Stay away."

He got out of the bed, tugging on his clothes with his back to Abner and Marion. He stood up and looked at Marion, his eyes stormy beneath the shock of hair that fell over his forehead. "I'll be back, Marion."

"No, Marion," Abner assured her as Indy walked out the door. "He won't."

She waited two weeks before she realized he wasn't going to show up. Two long weeks of Abner planning their next adventure, two weeks of him explaining to Marcus how he had to leave the University, two weeks of staring out her window and wondering. He didn't answer his phone when she rang, and he never opened the door when she knocked, and when she finally went to his classes, she was told he'd gone off on a dig and left no forwarding address, no expected return date.

She dressed in slacks and a thick jacket, pulling a hat down over her head as Abner hustled her to the airport and secured her and all his supplies in a small airplane. She stared out the window as they flew away, imagining tea-colored maps spread out beneath her and wondering if there was anything left worth finding.