"Henry Walton Jones, Junior! Get your ass down here, right now!"
Indiana Jones was pulled violently out of peaceful slumber by a very loud, very angry female voice. He groaned at the sharp pain that immediately presented itself somewhere behind his eyes. The voice, he soon deduced, was that of his wife, Marion, and the reason for her consternation, he was sure had a lot to do with his activities the previous night.
As he began to regain consciousness, his memories very slowly began to come back. What he had intended to be one drink and a game of pool with his son after classes on a Friday night soon turned into the unintentional hustling of two very large men and the unfortunate phone call to Charlie Stanforth at 4 AM, begging him to drive them home.
Moaning more than necessary, he began to move and his aching muscles protested. He managed to roll over, wincing when he bumped his tender left eye with his hand. Then, with much effort, he stood shakily.
"Indy! Get down here!"
At Marion's shrill tone his hands went to his head, trying to dampen the sharp pain the loud noise caused. As he took two nauseating steps toward the door, he pledged to his body to henceforth abstain from alcohol. And billiards. And any sort of hand-to-hand combat.
As his head swam and his stomach roiled, Marion hollered again, stopping only upon seeing him exit the bedroom door at the top of the stairs.
His wife stood at the bottom of the stairs, arms folded over her chest, framing the now-visible swelling of her abdomen which contained their soon-to-be-born second child.
Marion, at 48, had been surprised and apprehensive on discovering her condition. Indy had had initial reservations, but upon seeing the changes in Marion's body in response to her pregnancy, he'd forgotten them all. Even now, as terrible as he felt, he wished fervently that he'd been around for her first pregnancy, to see her body softened and changed by the presence of their son within her.
"Good morning." It was not a greeting; merely a formality. She stood stolidly still, arms crossed, and her expression changed little.
As he descended the stairs gingerly, he first wondered, and then hoped she'd just punch him in the jaw again. Jaw pain got better, eventually. Scorn from Marion took a long time to fade. It always had. It was a big part of the reason he'd left. Both times.
"Good morning, dear," he'd said, as lucidly as possible, as he kissed her on the cheek, slipping his hand around the small of her back to cup her belly. She did not yield to his touch; standing very still and sighing despairingly.
"You smell like liquor, Indy." She turned to look at him, brushing the hair off his face, "and you have a black eye." She sighed again, pulling away from him, walking into the living room and stopping behind the sofa.
He began formulating a response as he followed her, but, thankfully, she spoke first.
"How do you explain this?" She gestured towards the couch, her expression losing none of its edge.
Indy glanced at said sofa, and regretfully noted that the results of Marion's first pregnancy lay on the couch, splayed out like a drunken bum. Upon closer inspection, he found that there was a small puddle of vomit on the rug beneath Mutt, which explained quite succinctly her dismay.
Mentally calling his son a lightweight, he studied Marion's face for the right answer to the question. Sadly, he could only see the hurt in her eyes that only he seemed to be able to produce.
"I'm sorry, Marion," he started, his foggy brain struggling to work out what he wanted to say, "we were just going to play one game of pool, and then things sort of ... got out of hand. It was Mutt's fault."
At the mention of his name, the boy stirred and groaned, but much to his father's dismay did not wake up. Indy glanced back up at Marion, seeing that his remark had not helped his situation any. Marion's brow was, if possible, even more furrowed.
She sighed, exasperated. "No matter what that boy did, you are his father! I trust that when the two of you go out, you'll be the voice of reason. I don't want to have to check my son's pulse the next morning to make sure he hasn't choked on his own vomit!"
At this, Indiana bowed his head guiltily, only raising it when Marion hooked her finger under his chin and lifted his face up. "What is up with you lately? You know you're not as young as you used to be."
Indy sighed heavily, trying to avoid Marion's steely guilt-inducing gaze. He stepped over to his wife, enveloping her in his embrace and waiting until she responded and laid her head on his chest before he spoke. "I know, and I'm sorry, Marion, but ever since I found out about this baby I've been going nuts. I'm almost 60, and I'm just starting to accept the fact that I'm a father to a nearly adult son, and now I've got to do it all over again?"
"So you're saying you don't want to have a baby?" Marion's blue eyes were nearly fearful as she gazed up at him from his embrace.
"No. No way. That's not what I mean." At this, his hand went to her abdomen, pressing the firm rounding and feeling the tiny flutters of life within, "I just don't think you realize how this has affected me. I suppose I feel like I should still be able to beat a 20-year-old in a drinking contest and take a few punches if I'm going to be rocking a baby in four months."
Marion allowed a small laugh, and Indy breathed a small sigh of relief. "Three months," she corrected him, eliciting a wince.
"Don't remind me." The two lovers locked eyes, Indiana relieved by the small smile that graced his wife's lips. He leaned down and kissed her, smiling at the movement he felt against his hand as he did so. He imagined that the baby was protesting their embrace, much like its older brother.
Breaking apart, he pulled Marion to him as tightly as he could, remembering their years together and how merely seven months before, he'd thought he'd never see her again. Now they were married and three months away from being the parents of two children.
"Could you two knock it off? I feel sick enough already." The gravelly, tired voice of their son startled the two out of their reverie. Both glanced down distastefully at the young man, a blue-black bruise to rival his father's blooming on his right cheekbone. Marion pulled away from her husband, sighing in a put-upon fashion.
"Oh, god, I hope this one's a girl." Marion's hand went to her belly, as if to shield her unborn child from the iniquity of its father and brother. With that, she sauntered off, leaving her two men to eye each other malevolently.
"You think that'll make a difference, Marion? You sure used to knock 'em back when you were younger!" At his father's remark, Mutt's eyes widened, giving his father a look of disbelief. Indy nodded at his son discreetly and the two shared a grin at Marion's expense.
The woman in question stepped back into view, not at all amused by the remark. "You two better clean up that puke, because after that there's a whole bunch of jobs I've got for you!" Both men winced at her holler, the smirks wiped off their faces.