A/N: Well, guys, it's been a while. Post KotCS I felt the need for some Indy/Marion, and though I liked a lot of what I saw, I did not see my version what happed. This lead me to suck it up and write it for myself. How far this will go I really have no idea. It been two years since I left Han and Leia on Ord Mantell. I have a better handle on plot here, but laziness could always ensue.

Enjoy, I know that despite my best efforts, I own no part of Indiana Jones.

Chicago, June 1926

He hadn't for a moment considered that after two years Marion would be unrecognizable. She had been a pretty kid, sure, a curly-haired freckle face with eyes so big they swallowed most of the rest of her. But on top of the prettiness had been the constant sun-burn, the skinned knees and the dust stained dresses. She had been a kid.

This Marion was different, Indy realized, as the slim brunette at the end of the room grinned, and started towards him. The smile was the same, the eyes and the freckles too. But that was about it. Her hair was longer than fashion dictated, a concession Indy attributed Abner, but pinned elegantly back from her face and a far cry from the girlish braids of old. And despite the boyish cut of her green blouse, he could see her figure had changed.

They were in the sunlit workroom of the University's archaeology department. The large space was filled with students and professors alike, all in possession of one artefact or another, studying, cleaning, or, as Marion had been, cataloguing. He had arrived, having been told by Abner's housekeeper of the girl's whereabouts, only to discover he could not find the girl. He had stood by the door, searching for several minutes, before a secretary Indy thought looked vaguely familiar had tapped the shoulder of what Indy had assumed to be a student and pointed his way. His eyes widened as he took in the changes.

She crossed the room before he had moved a foot. "Indiana Jones," she said, hands on her hips, "I really oughta be mad at you right now."

Her mouth certainly hadn't changed. One corner of his lips lifted in a half-grin. "Really, Miss Ravenwood? And why is that?"

"First, you abandon me for Paris and Sorbonne, leaving me to suffer through the painful boredom of two summers' worth of excavation without any amusement whatsoever. And now, on the very day of your return to you old alma mater, you're three hours late. I gave up waiting, you know, and came here. A new shipment of artefacts arrived from Cairo this morning."

"Anything exciting?" Kid though she was, Indy had to admit she knew her stuff. The years of being dragged around the world had amounted to a pretty fair expert, even in a seventeen-year-old.

Marion shrugged. "Not really. But then Dad never sends back the best stuff, and hardly ever writes to say he's found it." She took a look round the work room, then turned back to him. "Let's get back to the house. It's not like I'm needed here, and Ester has all the tickets and things."

Indy followed her back to her workstation, silently appraising the items as she packed them up. Marion's assessment has been good. A few nice pieces, Middle Kingdom mostly, but nothing that would lead them to Tanis or the Ark. "I see you've been promoted up from errand girl," he said noting the complexity of the records she had been making.

Marion scoffed. "Ha. Barely. I've been on more digs than most grad students and yet I'm still doing work a second year could do." She stacked the crate of catalogued artefacts, picked her records and headed towards the filing cabinet, Indy in tow. "Still," she mused as she put away the records, "it certainly beats the hell outta school."

Indy remembered Marion's passionate loathing of her uppercurst boarding school. "It gets better."

Marion rolled her eyes. "You wanna bet? Dad's threatening to keep me with him when I finish. No university for me. Just a life of unpaid secretarial work for a man that is never gonna find what he's looking for."

The left the workroom and navigated the twisting corridors of the old building, Indy considering the resentment in Marion's voice. Despite the crack about never finding the Ark, Indy understood how she felt. Like him at that age, Marion had no mother, an obsessed father, and a burning desire to prove herself. Unlike him, she had no war to escape to and the dismal luck of being female. And, Indy couldn't help but think, she certainly was female.

They had met five years before, in the spring of 1921, back when Indy had been a lowly undergrad and Marion a twelve-year-old kid. It was at a dinner party of Abner's, the first Indy had been invited to in his progress from everyday student to valued protégé. Marion was sitting on the staircase, dejected as only a twelve-year-old at an adult dinner can be. He was one of the last to arrive though not the very last, Marcus Brody taking that dubious honour. The housekeeper had opened the door to his knock, and Marion had watched as he walked into the foyer like he owned it and everything else. She noticed him instantly, the only person at the party within fifteen years of her age. She noticed him, but did not expect him to notice her.

He did, in fact, notice the lonely-looking girl on the stairs, a waved at her with a friendly grin. Her eyes became huge and after a second she smiled back. Abner had entered then, and after a brief introduction he swept Jones, still just Mr. Jones, in to meet the other guests.

They traveled together that year, Abner, Marion, Indy and the rest of the UofC team, from the States to the dig in Jerusalem. It had been the last of Marion's outbound voyages with her father. After ten years of following Abner in the company of a governess, Marion was sent to Ferry Hall School and thereafter only joined her father for July and August. She had been angry about the decision, and spent the four month excavation alternately ignoring and clinging to Abner.

Indy had paid little attention to her that year, which was more than most of the rest of the team could claim. He had been far more interested in Mabel, Marion's red-haired governess, but had enough ship-board chess games against the girl to know she was a smart little thing. They were, over the next three summers, not quite friends. There was, however, camaraderie of sorts. Jones, it was widely acknowledged, was the only one who could keep up with Abner's little girl in wit, energy and sheer audacity. Marion was cheeky, Indy was impudent, and it was considered a blessing by all that he had not been stuck with them at her age.

Now, over five years since their first meeting, and nearly three years since their last, Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood were once again travelling together. Having spent May and June teaching a spring course at Connecticut's Marshall, the newly Ph.Ded Indy had missed the beginning of Abner's lasted dig. Not one to pass up working with the most gifted bum he'd ever trained, Abner had been ecstatic to have his student back and named the inconvenience a blessing in disguise. Why, Marion was in school till the end of June too. If Indy could 

accompany her to Cairo, Abner would be most grateful. Indy, remembering the tomboy, had agreed. Perhaps unthinkingly, he had not expected to find a young woman in her place.

She was still feisty, Indy concluded during the fifteen-minute walk back to Abner's nearby house. Indy told of his most daring exploits since their last meeting and Marion regaled him with tales of some of her more vapid classmates as the made there way down the suitably colligate tree-lined street. Indy was clad much like he had been the night of their first meeting, something Marion had rarely seen since. The hat was there, of course it was, but he wore a suit that shone with respectability, not the sweat stained kakis she was used to.

As they made their way up the path to the house she considered this. "Paris turn you into a dandy, Jones?" Marion asked, opening the door.

Indy stopped just inside the door frame. His brow furrowed and he looked himself up and down. "What's wrong with the suit, sister?"

She smiled to herself. "It's not the Indiana Jones I remember. You know, stained, unshaven and generally dirty. "

He didn't reply. She turned back to face him, and was suddenly very aware of him looking her up and down. He grinned that stupid lop-sided grin of his.

"Sweetheart, you're not the Marion Ravenwood I remember."