A/N: This is a late birthday present for one of the kick-ass Indy/Marion authors on this website, Battered Notebook of Stories. Happy Belated Birthday Notebook! (and sorry for the lateness of this gift, hon. You know how writer's block can be.)

Being an archaeologist, I've met and known a lot of people. When you go to as many conferences and classes and parties as I have, you get used to meeting people. It's simply one of the perks of being me, I guess; meeting a lot of people. Half of them, I never want to meet again, while the majority of the other half somehow end up in my bed at one point or another.

It's a fairly simply life, I tell you.

I've come to discover several things about people. By now I've even managed to sort everyone in the world into two different groups. You'd think it would be challenging and/or judgemental, but let me tell you I have no problem with sizing anyone up. It's saved my ass plenty of times.

They (the groups) are as follows:

First there's your boring stuffy scholar type. Brains. Dull, languid smart people who spend all their days in libraries with no bloody ADVENTURE. Most people over thirty five can be classified into this group. These types are pretty easy to spot in a crowd, are usually bearing a haughty expression and are droning on and on about some useless object that hasn't been seen for over a hundred years.

Next, you have your superficial airheads. Idiots. They may be attractive, and funny, and not as boring as the last group I talked about, but there's no sense about them. They're not the kind of people I 'd want to be trapped on a desert island with. Most women, I'm sad to say, fit into this group. The types of women that never think for themselves and revolve around bedding the younger, much more.....attractive archaeologists.

And then there's HER.

God forbid that I would ever create a third classification of human for HER. But it's necessary, because she would easily get kicked out of the first two groups. As would I. The brains would call her too rambunctious while the airheads would call her a disgrace to her own sex.

Well, there's no surprise there, that's Marion Ravenwood for you. If she knew I was giving her her own classification group, she'd probably laugh out loud in my face, call me an unintelligible idiot and promptly skip away, knowing that I won't dare insult her back.

Lord have mercy on my soul for falling for the bloody vixen.

I repeat, that's Marion Ravenwood for you.

She's probably one of the main reasons I nearly went crazy these past few months. With her possibly bi-polar moods and attitude, her brash words and sweet smiles, they were all irksome to the point were I considered both suicide and homicide.

Anyway, getting back to my previous discussion, the brains are only engaging when you want to engage, and the idiots engage so much that you just want them to go the hell away.

But when it comes to her, it's a come-and-go-as-you-please environment.

Except I never really want to leave.

Upon meeting her, it was the first time I'd ever come upon anyone who couldn't be placed into one of my universal two categories. She wasn't a mystery, but neither was she an open book. Like a wound up time bomb, but also like a patient breeze on a summer day. That bizarre combination of innocence and mischievousness made me notice her seconds after I entered the Ravenwood Household.

"OI!" She had shouted as I stumbled over her. She was lying sprawled out across the rug in the hallway. "Watch where you're walking!"

I glanced down at her, not sure whether to scowl or laugh at this tiny girl glaring up at me. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" She snapped.

"It looks like you're napping."

"Nice job, Sherlock." She grunted, before laying back down.

"But why?" I bent down beside her and looked closely at her rather small face.

She cracked open one green eye at me. "Have you ever slept on a Persian rug, young chap?"

Not bothering to point out that she was indeed younger than I was, I just shook my head.

"What are you, anyway?" She asked, sitting up and abandoning her napping. "A new servant?" '

"I'm the new pupil." I held my hand out. "Indiana Jones."

I don't think she was expecting that answer. She shook my hand and stared at me blankly. It was clear Abner doesn't get that many new pupils.

"So, Jones, you interested in experiencing the Persian rug?" She asked jovially, manners all but forgotten as she lay back down again.

I smiled and lay down beside her. It was, in fact, a comfortable rug. The most comfortable I've ever lain on. A week later, Marion and I both begged Abner to let us move it to the library, where we could nap on it and not get trampled by house guests and staff.

There's just something about her. This kind of charisma that sticks like cement. I'm not sure how she even started being so damn like able. I'm not even sure where she got it from, seeing as both her parents were and are stuffy (though brilliant) archaeologists. Maybe the gene pool went awry, or maybe they dropped her on her head as an infant. But regardless of the source of her unique personality, when I met her, I knew it would be nigh impossible to sort her into one of the two previous groups of people. And that's because she was smart, and funny, and (extremely) attractive and had a rather adhesive feel about her. She isn't normal. I knew it immediately.

Normal people don't throw another person's books in the fire when said person is too busy to talk to them. Normal people don't tap their foot on the tile floor during dinner because they are 'bored', meanwhile driving the other people seated at the table insane. Normal people don't stay up late into the night stomping on their bedroom floor so the one sleeping on the floor below them might never get sleep.

Infuriating in every way, she is.

And therefore, she gets her own group.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot about Marion's lack of utter normalcy that I adore. Like I said, she has a charisma, a honey-sweet layer mixed with zesty cinnamon that begs you to get to know her.

She was just so.....approachable. Like those bowls of candy in the front of stores that my friends and I kept coming back to to take more and more from.

When she smiles at me and asks, "Indy, what are you doing?", that daring and almost secretive smile on her face, I'd give anything to know what's going through her head.

And then the next minute, when she's mad at me, glaring, hissing and spitting for all she's worth, I'm still fascinated.

She has one of those faces that I could pick out in a crowd. The wide, childish green eyes, the sharply contrasting black hair that reminds me of some of those beautiful women you see in the movies, exotic and innocent at once. But this girl is better than any movie star by far.

Courage, pigheadedness, moxie--call it what you will. But I know she has no way to make me hate her fully.

Constantly klutzy, so funny that she often times makes me snort whatever I'm drinking out my nose, quirky, and beautiful. It's a wonder she's not already in love with some guy her own age.

Which sucks for me, being way older.

But I'm not in love with her, no sirree. I just....happen to have feelings for the little bugger.

I'm not even sure where it started, my gradual affection for her. It started in small rushes, rushes that would come when she would grin mischievously at me, or lean over my shoulder. Something about her scent, that vanilla mint mixed with something that reminded me of being home, turned me on in way too many ways.

I wouldn't even dream of making a move on her. We're close enough now that she's my kid sister. And me liking her and making a move on her when she might not like me back, well, it could end badly.

I tried to avoid her. I tried to throw myself into my studies. I tried to even find another girl. I could NOT be attracted in any way to my professor's daughter.

And yet, it was happening, faster than I could stop it. My eyes were lingering longer on her small frame, my hands defied my own will and would often reach for her, whether it was to muss her hair or give her a pat on the back, and my thoughts lingered and wandered farther than any other part of me, recreating an image of her face in my mind.

But it wasn't just the physical attraction that was starting to irk me. No, I was already linking with her emotionally. Which, by my standards, is in no way appropriate for a student-professor's daughter relationship.

We meet each other on an intellectual level. Our verbal sparring sessions could last hours on end, if the house staff would quit yelling at us to keep quiet and stop bickering. Everyone seems to find it annoying. But it's fun. And intriguing.

"You're stupid." She'll usually start an argument just like that, with a small but easily poisonous comment.

"I believe it was you, not me, that failed the last history test." I'll parry her blow flawlessly, but so will she. We're both practiced.

She'll smile, because we're both enjoying ourselves and we know it. "I don't need history for anything. As long as I can take care of myself, that's all I need." Then she'll smirk, as if she has back-up ammo to throw at me. "At least I don't need personal sponge bath from the maids."

I'll blush only lightly. "They did that as a favor."

We'll be standing face to face now, and I'll be able to see the lights dancing in her eyes. I'll be able to smell her smell. I'll be able to feel the heat radiating off of her flushed cheeks.

And then the cook will come bustling up to us and shout, "Keep it down, you hooligans!"

The 'arguement' will end easily. She'll sneak a smile at me, and I'll grin back, completely magnetized.

I am the one she comes to when she was upset about something. I am the one who's shirt she buries her teary face into when she wants to do nothing else but cry. I actually feel sympathy for her, anger for her, everything. I was in too deep at first. I still am.

But I'm not in love with her. Honestly.

I'm pissed at this. Once when I was young I fell into a pond and nearly drowned before realizing that I could stand in the water. It's a similar situation, the one I'm in now. I should have realized that this girl was not healthy to be around before I drowned in her. It's too late. My feet can't touch the bottom of this particular pond. I'm in way over my head.

What's worse, I have the scariest feeling that she knows it, too.

I'm not exactly sure how. Maybe it's some sixth sense thing I've just developed, but there's something in the way she acts around me now. Like she can get away with teasing me and boxing me around and she knows it.

Like right now, for example. We're sitting in the library. She's lying on that Persian rug we've come to love, staring at the crackling fire. I'm five feet away, in a chair, studying the slope of her neck and how it builds into that messy entanglement of dark hair.

It's ridiculous. I'm a madman for thinking about her this way. I'm going to stop.

I want to stop.

But then she turns around, her freckled nose crinkling slightly as she smiles at me.

"Watcha looking at, Indy?"

I don't want to stop.

I shrug. "Nothing, nothing."

She rolls her eyes with a smug grin, and turns back to the fire. Her green eyes flick back to me every few seconds or so, pointing out by themselves that I am still staring at her.

To say the kid has grown on me would be a slight understatement.

She smiles again, a gentler and sweeter smile that makes something in my stomach shift.

I turn back to my text book with a huffy sigh, swearing to myself that I will not look up again.

"Indy?"

I look up, internally wincing as she asks me what I'm reading about.

Damn that gutsy little spitfire and her charisma.

A/N: I posted some stuff on fictionpress. If you'd like to read it, there's a link on my profile. Also, if you have not voted on my current poll, please do that. This was unexpected of me to write this, but I'm happy I was able to get rid of some nasty writer's block. Oh, and if any of you feel inspired, reviews are appreciated. :)