Ok. I sat down to write a fluffy, hurt/comfort story involving injured!Mutt and protective!Indy. I had in mind jungles and an arrow and maybe a pit. This is what came out. Snow, gunshots, and caves. Never ask an author how their brain works, they just might break into uncontrollable laughter. Writing is something that just happens, and this time I'm REALLY not sure where this one came from or if I even like it, but it's what I came up with so I'll go ahead and post it…I think it'll grow on me.

Don't own either of the Jones boys. Love them both. (all three, I guess is the better term. lol)

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Indiana Jones was used to good luck. It sounded arrogant to say that, but he knew it was true. Nothing serious ever really happened to him. Even the times he'd been captured, he'd always been able to escape. Even when escape initially seemed impossible. The more time passed, the more a person got used to something like that until the thought of serious injury or death gradually faded from his mind, and he stopped thinking about certain things.

Things like the time his father was shot by Donovan in the canyon of the crescent moon. There was real terror associated with that, but since things like that didn't happen often, he had forgotten how the fear felt. How real it was, how blood that he actually cared about looked on his hands. Things like holding Marion's hands, looking at the destruction caused by the Ark and knowing it was by the grace of God, literally, that they were still alive.

Those were the facts, the ones he didn't think about much until today, about 10 minutes ago, give or take a few seconds. He was in remote Canada, in a complex of snow and ice filled caves and caverns, and the one he was in at the moment he had fallen into when a snow bank in the one above had given way. Right after he had seen his son shot by a treasure hunter whose name he didn't know but that he had every intention of finding out. Later. Once he was out of here. Once they were out of here.

But the problem, the one that had his mind more numb than his hands, lie in the fact that he was down here and Mutt was up there, bleeding into the snow. Alone. Possibly dying. Likely dying. Alone. There is a certain silence to caves like those, and in it he had more than enough space to think as he made his way in a direction he hoped led to a tunnel up. They shouldn't have come on this trip. They had come for an idol, a raven. They had thought they were close this morning. It seemed weirdly not so long ago and yet buried in the past all the same.

"Come on old man, I've been up a half hour already. Found some more cave drawings, just up ahead. I know we're close, gotta be. Coulda gone on and found the raven on my own, but I didn't want to leave you out."

Indy laughed, sat up slowly, one hand rubbing the back of his sore neck. Sleeping on the ground had been easier before. "Yeah, Junior, just keep telling yourself that. You and I both know without me you'd have been lost a week ago."

Mutt sat down beside him, smiling as he pulled off his gloves and held his hands to the warmth of the fire he had started while Indy slept. "And we both know that without me, you wouldn't even be here Pops. Mom would have never let you come up here alone. So I'd say I'm the important one."

"Keep dreaming, Junior. And get our stuff together, I'll be ready to move out in 10 minutes, tops."

They were right, they must have been close. Then again, so were their rivals. Rivals they hadn't even known about until today, when they came up on them in one of the larger rooms. Indy hadn't been looking to start a fight, but when one seemed imminent he'd taken out the nearest guy with a chunk of ice to the head, whipped the gun away from the one who seemed to be the leader. If that 

had been his only gun, there wouldn't have been a problem. If Mutt wasn't a damn hotheaded fool, there also wouldn't have been a problem. A third accomplice had come down from a tunnel to the left, idol in hand. Mutt had yelled something eerily familiar that it hurt to remember now about how the idol belonged in a museum rather than being sold off to the highest bidder. Indy had told him to watch it, he'd lunged at the guy, taken a bullet to the shoulder from the Leader who apparently packed a second pistol inside his coat. That happened in slow motion. The rest happened happened at once. Mutt full back, right hand to his left shoulder, blood seeping into the snow. Indy ran to him, or tried to. Until the floor gave way and he found himself down here, unhurt due to the amount of snow but successfully blocked off from above.

Marion would have been crying. He wasn't, he wasn't even really panicking. He found that as long as he didn't think about it, he could just keep moving forward. That was the problem, though. Not thinking about it. A little bit impossible, considering he couldn't seem to think of anything else, could hardly see anything except images of Mutt bleeding to death on the floor above him, images occasionally interspersed with images of his father bleeding in the desert dust. Snow and dust. Mutt. There was no grail, this time, no Holy Water. No miracles. Of course, his injury wasn't as severe either. If it had been himself shot, he'd have said it was no big deal. He'd been shot before.

But it wasn't him, and it wasn't alright, and at that moment if anyone had asked him he probably would have sworn off archeology forever because it just wasn't worth this.

He was in a daze, and that explained why it was awhile before he realized the ground beneath him was rising. This tunnel went up. It took him so long to realize it that by the time he did, he was almost at the top. He scrambled harder for the last few feet, eyes sweeping the room. There. He wanted to call for him but his throat wouldn't cooperate. The tightness probably had something to do with fear that he wouldn't answer. The men had just left him here, but that was a mercy. At least they hadn't killed him. They probably thought the shock and blood loss would do it for them. He reached the boy's side and fell to his knees in the snow, his voice barely louder than a whisper. "Mutt…come on, kid…" He ripped his glove off with his teeth, pressed the fingers of his right hand to the vein in his neck and counted. He could feel the soft pump underneath the skin. Slow, but there. At least it was there. He looked pale, too pale but that was to be expected. His right hand still rested on his shoulder and Indy pulled it back, trying not to study just how covered it was in blood. He was used to blood, but this was different. This blood was his. It had congealed, mostly, due to the cold. Only a little seeped out. He couldn't tell from this angle if it had gone clean through or not, could only hope that it had. "Come on, kid…" He just wanted an answer. Something.

Mutt's eyes fluttered, cracked open. His lips moved, something that looked like 'dad' but it could have been his healthy imagination. The same one that had been imagining finding a body during the whole climb back up.

"It's alright, I've got you. It's alright. Everything's gonna be alright." Alright. He couldn't stop saying it. Everything had to be alright now, or it never would be again. He knew the way they had come. He could make it out. Pride told him he could carry his son, told him it was his duty. First aid told him that he shouldn't move that shoulder. Knowledge of the country told him that if he didn't get back before it got any colder, he might as well not come back at all. He wished Marion was here. He had told her to stay home, just to be safe. If she had been here, she could have stayed with him. At least then he wouldn't be alone. He leaned forward, left a ghost of a kiss on a forehead that was too cold. "It's alright. I'll be back."

He left before he could second guess his decision. He second guessed everything else. He had almost said 'I love you', but at the time it seemed too final and he didn't want to say anything final. In hindsight, he told himself that he should have said it anyway. His father never said it until before he died. It would have been nice to hear it more often. He couldn't be sure Mutt felt the same way, 

but if he did then he had wasted time. Rationality told him it didn't matter, the boy probably wouldn't have heard him anyway.

Please, God… After the Ark, even after the Grail, he had never been a praying man. He believed, but it was never personal. Despite that, he hoped this one went through.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Mutt's eyes opened slowly, focused first blearily on white walls, then on a familiar hat. That helped clear his head a little, and he blinked to clear it faster, ignoring a dull headache. "Hey."

The older man smiled widely, scooted his chair closer to the hospital bed. His eyes looked tired. Exhausted. A look Mutt had never seen on him, not even out in the field at 3 AM. "Hey, kid. How you feeling?"

"Like I've been run over by a truck. Shoulder hurts like all hell." His voice was rougher, scratchier than he expected and he coughed to clear it, wincing when that hurt even more. There was a hand on the back of his head then, another guiding him to take a sip of wonderfully cold water. "Thanks." He settled back, head falling against the pillow. The lights were blinding. He remembered all of it. The assholes who took the idol. Being shot. Indiana…. His eyes widened. "You fell, in the cave, are you-"

Indy waved his hand, shook his head. "It's nothing. I'm fine."

"Didn't even lose your hat, huh?"

"Course not." He was smiling, a real one now rather than the worried one he'd been smiling when Mutt woke up. It looked more natural.

"Well, that's the important thing. That and the idol." He had failed to recover it. He couldn't count the times over the past couple of years he'd heard Indy tell the story of the cross of Coronado…how he went back for it after all those years. Maybe this was his cross. Maybe he'd get it back someday. This first time, though, he had failed and that's just what he felt like. A failure. Not suitable to follow in his father's footsteps. He felt certain, more than certain that a had it been a young Indiana in his place, they'd have not been going home empty handed. Mutt looked down, twisted the fingers of his good arm into the sheets. "I'm sorry I let you down."

"No." His voice was stronger than he expected, stern like it had been all those times he'd told him he was going to finish college but there wasn't the same angry edge to it. Mutt still couldn't look up at him. "No, you didn't let me down. They got away, it happens. It's not important. What is important…" He trailed off and Mutt felt the pull of his gaze, gave in and looked up at him. "Look, I'm sorry I was never around, and I should have said this before. But…I love you. I just…thought you should know that."

Mutt swallowed hard, shut his eyes against tears that he was too old for. When he was younger, this was everything he had wanted. He had seen other boys out with their dads, baseball and things like that. He had seen them at his high school graduation, hugging their sons, proud of their accomplishments. He had hugged Ox, pretended it was the same. It wasn't. "…Yeah…thanks." He looked away, wiped at his eye roughly with his hand. He couldn't cry. Damn lights were just too bright. "Love you too." He said it as roughly as he could, eyes still hidden by his hand which was now aggressively swiping his hair back. He had never wished more that he had his comb.

He felt Indy's hand on his shoulder, warm. Comforting. The only thing he remembered after the shooting and that indeterminate amount of time in the snow had been those gentle hands and a familiar voice, though he couldn't remember the words. "I'm gonna go call your mother, alright?"



He nodded. Yeah, alright. He'd like to see her. Course, she'd freak when she heard he'd been shot but she was his mother, he expected that. Indy looked, for a moment, on the verge of hugging him but seemed to decide against it, instead squeezed his good shoulder once pretty hard before turning and walking away. The effect was the same. It didn't matter what had happened, how bad his arm was aching. He felt like a burden he had forgotten he carried had grown lighter. It was a nice feeling.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

I'd love to know what you think!

Not so sure about this one myself…I think I might like it better when I re-read it, but it's really late and I've got to go to bed. (because of that, if there's typos I'm sorry…I'll go back and fix them later, promise).