A/N: OK, you have to read my little story first. WE just got back from California, and we went to Disneyland where we rode the Indiana Jones ride. Then the next day I watched Raiders. Needless to day, my spark in Indiana Jones fandom was ignighted again, and today I tried to find a decent fic. Not to smash anyone's feelings, I didn't look that hard, but my sampling was extremely poor. So I decided to write a decent fic for everyone to enjoy. This is a one shot with no follow up planned unless, as per usual, I get a large enough following for it. Now, I pounded this out in, oh, five hours or so,so dig in and enjoy!
Millennium was being chased by the undead, and for some reason they were wearing tutus and screaming at her that she hadn't finished the math assignment. Then she was in her Utah high school, kissing the freckle-face that had been her history tutor. Then she was back at the dig site in Saudi Arabia, outside old Dedan with a bunch of hairy diggers she'd dragged across the continent following a hundred different red herrings. And she really needed to pee.
Groaning, she groped out of the old pup tent she had refused to share with anyone. It was October, and the nights were chilly to say the least, but as the only woman on the site, she was bound and determined to keep her moral integrity, even if she froze to death. Since no one was up, she made no secrecy about hiding the roll of toilet paper when she got back; it was her last roll, and no one was going to use it up, so help her God. Lenny didn't actually believe in God, but she didn't reject the idea. Her religion was archeology, as Belloq had so eloquently put it years ago. What had happened to him, she wondered. Had he ever actually found something of great importance, or was he really reduced to stealing other people's finds, like she heard a while back?
"Holy hell! Who the…" She trailed off when she realized what she'd stumbled on. "EVERYBODY UP! START DIGGING! UP, UP, UP!" She screamed and beat on a pan until Sallah, the foreman was sleepily rubbing his eyes in front of her.
He muttered several curses, which she pretended not to understand. "What in the name of Allah has gotten into you, child?" He was the only one she permitted to call her that. Curse her baby face, it was frustratingly misleading.
She pointed at the object she'd tripped on. His eyes got real big. "We've been sleeping on it."
Two months later she'd sent Sallah had gotten her a ride to the Mediterranean Sea with various friends of his. One day she'd be riding in an original Model T Ford, the next she was clutching the plates to her chest. Eventually she got to Jerusalem where she decided to throw caution to the wind and just ship the stupid plates back to her office in the states, and travel home in comfort. She had no end to difficulty convincing the postmaster that if the parcel was opened for customs or stolen, there was a good chance civilization would come to an end. Failing to sell that story, she broke down in tears, told him it was her grandmother's fragile china, and he pacified her with several fragile markings on the package and a bottle of bourbon.
Lenny didn't drink unless she'd recently been broken up with or fired, so she sold the bourbon for a tidy little sum and got herself a room in a bad hotel with the little pocket money she did have. There was another American staying next to her, and she considered striking up a conversation until she heard him snoring that night. The snoring was terrible; she wondered what could have caused such a congestion of the nasal passage. Perhaps his nose had been broken and the sinuses were misshapen from the healing. Or maybe he was having a terrible reaction to the dust in the room. It could be symptom of food poisoning. Maybe he had a growth on his nose that crushed the airways. Finally she decided that maybe she wasn't going to get to sleep if she was spending this much time wondering why her neighbor was snoring, and dressed her self. Slacks and a blouse didn't really give her a place to conceal her pistol, but she was in crowded city, if by some odds she were shot at, she could disappear in the crowd easily.
She wandered the streets for a few hours, and watched the sunrise in a quaint rooftop garden she'd snuck into, patting her plane ticket every few minutes to make sure it was still there. Finally she began to make her way to the hotel, smelling the cooking and pausing to play with a boy and his adorable pet monkey. The monkey was sitting on her head, making screeching noises at the boy when a very large explosion rocked the neighborhood.
"Holy hell." She sprinted to where the explosion came from and found that her hotel was no longer there. It was then that she noticed the monk, and bolted.
Indiana hadn't slept particularly well last night. Some woman had been in the room next to him and she'd been rearranging the furniture for a couple of hours, even though there was a bed, a crate, and a chair in there she managed to make a hell of a racket. When she finally settled down he couldn't sleep, so he amused himself with making loud snoring noises and listened to her toss and turn behind the thin walls. She'd left at about four in the morning, and he'd finally drifted off when his stomach woke him. He hadn't eaten anything decent, he didn't really trust the food, so he satisfied himself with a loaf of fresh bread at a stall just outside the hotel. Until it blew up.
"What the hell?" All the sudden a short woman with brownish-blackish hair that looked like something had been sitting in it and a filthy face ran into the clearing, and then bolted. Local justice wasn't really in his interest, but he had a nice bottle of bourbon in that room he'd been overcharged for, so if she was going to blow up his hotel, he at least wanted to know why.
He could find her, she'd run off too fast, but he was struck by the number of monks he was running into. Jerusalem wasn't Catholic in the slightest, and with the British calling the shots, he was surprised that the brethren hadn't been jumped. Around lunch he'd given up his search and was walking through a market when a woman in a white dress collided with him. He caught her, and was shocked to see that it was the same woman he'd been trying to catch. She was breathless; she'd been running hard, and he could see that she was struggling to conceal some absolute terror.
But she surprised him again, and slid her arm around his waist and pulled his across her shoulders. Smiling, she whispered, "You won't believe me, but I'm being followed. No, don't turn around. Just pretend like you know me, and walk towards the airport for a couple of blocks, and I'll make sure you'll get paid when I get back to the states."
He smiled too, and then hugged her close to add to the act. He noticed that their step fell in synchronization after a few feet, as if they knew each other. "Why'd you blow the hotel up?"
Her façade dropped for a moment, but the smile was back, and she kissed his cheek. "They did that to scare me. I'm sorry if you got hurt."
He grinned wider. He liked this game. "Blowing up buildings are the least dangerous thing about my job." He was trying to calm her down, her eyes were darting everywhere and she jumped whenever someone brushed her. She didn't take the bait. "What's got you so on edge?"
Her eyes snapped to his face, and she watched him for a while, letting him guide her through the busy market. "What's your name?"
"Indiana Jones"
"Millennium Cage."
"Nice to meet you, Millennium."
"Most people call me Lenny."
"Friends call me Indy."
"Indy." He like the pet name coming from her. She didn't say it because it sounded cutesy, or because it took the edge off a name like Indiana, but because it somehow enhanced the feeling that they knew each other.
"So, Lenny, why are you being chased."
She looked around, and satisfied that there were no pursuers around, pulled him to a wall. He placed his arms next to her hips. Keeping up the act, he told himself. She didn't move them. "Ever heard of the Plates of Solomon?"
"Nooooooooooooooo. Wait, yes. Aren't those the plates that are supposed to end the world?"
She smiled. "No, you've got your religious lore mixed up. They're thirty-six brass plates and who knows how many scrolls citing every problem the wise King Solomon solved and how he solved it."
"Like saying he was going to cut the baby in half to find out who the mother was."
"Exactly. The important cases he put on the plates, like the baby, which was also his first." The fear had dissipated as she explained something she was so passionate about. "The last case he wrote about on the plates was concerning an antichrist that was spreading his own doctrine. Solomon took the scroll this man was preaching from and shipped it off, and he says where he shipped it off to on the plates. That scroll is the one that's supposed to bring the apocalypse down to earth."
"And you found the apocalyptic scroll?"
"No, I found the plates that describe where it went, and now someone is trying to get them back."
This was beginning to sound like something he would have gotten mixed up in. In fact, he was surprised he hadn't… until now. "And what are you going to do with these plates?"
"I'm going to translate them and blow a huge hole in the stupidest myth ever suppressed by the Catholic Church." That was shocker.
"Why? Wait, you don't believe that this scroll could end the world?" Just a few months ago he would have laughed at the idea of a scroll that could end the world, but after having seen the Nazis blown away like so many dust motes in a breeze, magic and the power of God was definitely a possibility, and most certainly not something to be trifled with.
"Don't be silly." She leaned forward and pecked him on the lips, and then ducked under his arm and was off again, pulling another stolen dress of a wash line and ducking into a corner. It was strange, watching her walk out like she belonged there, and feeling like he was watching someone he knew walk off. He decided a week later when he flew back to New York that he'd look her up as soon as he got the chance.
"Touch that and I'll carve your balls off and feed them to you." The schoolboy jumped back and crashed into the unflinching Lenny. She was taking her enthusiastic but dangerously curious nephew to the Museum of Antiquities. She was rather impressed with the new early Incan pieces they'd gotten since she'd visited last, but she didn't have time to examine them while she was trying to keep Peter out of the sarcophagus. He'd gotten under the rope this time, and had half of it open.
"Excuse me, but that is rather delicate." Marcus Brody, the museum director and dean of the adjacent university was standing behind them, more amused then concerned.
Lenny pulled the boy out. "Peter Allen Smith, tell Dr. Brody how sorry you are."
He scuffed his shoes on the floor and muttered, "Sorry."
Brody put on a paternal face. "Just don't do it again, young man." Peter made a dive to get away from his aunt, but she slipped a finger under his collar and kept him still.
Brody looked up and scrutinized her face. "Do I know you, miss?"
She blinked and then smiled. Of course he didn't remember her. She'd broken her nose shortly after her small stint here, lessening the look of youth she still had. "I'm Dr. Millennium Cage; I worked her for a month or so when I first got my doctorate."
Recognition dawned across his face and he heartily shook her hand. "My God, it's been years! How did that… what was it? That religious dig go?"
Peter, released from his aunt's finger by the handshake, slipped off into another room. "Fantastic, actually. It took me a couple years and an ungodly variation of sponsors and the like, but I actually found them last November. It took me about a month and half to get back, I'm afraid."
"Yes, well at least you're home in time for Christmas!" He blushed. "What was it you were looking for?"
She laughed. "The Plates of Solomon."
He clapped his hands. "Of course! You know, I should introduce you to our archeology professor, Dr. Jones."
Great, another stuff professor who'd want to trade dull dig stories with her, and tell her how he found something that was totally and completely pointless. "Well, I'm here with my nephew and – Oh dear, where'd he go? Well, I'll stop by some other time and it really has been nice to see you." And as she was so good at doing, Lenny bolted after her nephew.
He was in the next room, caught with his hand in a priceless Egyptian funeral urn, the one that held the brain. He was frozen in place by the glare of a man in a brown tweed suit, most likely mortified and incensed. She contemplated leaving Peter there to weather the rage of the suit, but then she realized his hand was stuck and he was on the verge of well-fought tears. She clicked forward importantly, past the speechless professor and under the rope to where Peter was tugging at the jar franticly now that he saw his aunt.
"Relax your hand," she ordered and slipped the jar off with ease. She gingerly replaced the top; she heard Peter sputter and earnest apology and the professor's mutter rebuke. That voice sounded vaguely familiar, she thought as placed the urn back on its pedestal. She turned around, ready to help peter make his escape, and looked right into the wide blue eyes of Indiana.
"H-hello," she stammered.
He opened and closed his mouth in shock, words not coming. He looked like a big fish, an impression strongly augmented by his large glasses. "Hello," he whispered.
Lenny was attacked by a multitude of uncommon emotions… so she ran, Peter struggling to keep up.
Brody wandered into the room, only to have his doors blown off by the retreating Lenny and co. Indiana began to pursue, but thought better of it. "Ah, I see you met Dr. Cage. I was going to introduce you to her, but she was here with her nephew."
Indiana's gaze followed her out the front door, then he turned to Marcus, eyes wide and shining, the way they looked when he was excited or riled up. "You know her?"
Marcus was taken aback by Indiana's eagerness. "Why, yes. That's Dr. Millennium Cage, she worked here about a month before you were hired. She was stolen away for some religious dig the past few years."
"The Plates of Solomon," he corrected absently.
"Yes. How did you know?" Brody followed Indiana to his boiler-room office, where he pulled out his phone from a pile of ungraded papers the substitute had neglected.
"I met her in Jerusalem. Operator, can you get me an address for a Dr. Millennium Cage? Which one? How many can there be? You don't have a home address… what about a work place?" he listened intently as the operator filed off an address and scrawled it down. "Thank you very much. Yes, that would be nice." He waited a bit more, and Marcus assumed he'd been connected.
"Hello?" A girl with a snotty Bronx accent answered.
"Yes, is this the office of a Dr. Millennium Cage?"
"Are you Catholic?" He blinked.
"Not a practicing one, why?"
"You carry a gun?"
"Only when I leave the country. What does that have to do with whose office this is?"
There was a pause and he could hear the girl shout. "She's not in right now, can I take a message?"
Ah ha, he'd found her! "I was wondering when a good time to stop by would be."
"Anytime, this the first time in ages she's left the office. Just pop in, if she's in a good mood she might actually open the door before she tell you to piss off." There was a click and the line went dead.
Marcus examined his fingernails. "I have a feeling this is more than professional interest."
Indiana swiveled in his chair and pretended to be looking for something. "Don't be ridiculous, Marcus. I'm an expert on the occult; what about the Plates of Solomon doesn't sound occult-ish to you?"
Brody chuckled. As he walked out he muttered just loud enough for Indiana to hear him but still make it sound like he were talking to himself, "She isn't going to sleep with you."
Indiana threw a wad of paper out the door in response.
Next week Indiana took the subway and a bus to the address he'd gotten. He was a little irked that it was the office buildings of a rival and superior museum, but was undeterred for long. He had some difficulty finding the office, because it wasn't an office. Seemed she'd invaded the library, which was also very impressive, and had set a small little desk outside with the phone and a "do not disturb – visitors unwelcome" sign on it. Various letters and a large package sat on it as well. The desk was unoccupied, and the doors to the library were wide cracked open, allowing him to peek in to eavesdrop on the conversation.
Millennium was bouncing all over the room, which was actually two stories. A steel spiral staircase in the middle allowed the patron access to the top level… or would have if it hadn't been piled with books. She was looking for something, and a young lady with a short skirt and high heels was attempting to put the books back as they were discarded, the care of which they were tossed dependant on the age of the tome.
"Damn it, Sara, where'd you put it?"
Sara dodged a new volume, young enough to get across the room. "I didn't touch it! I've never even SEEN it!"
"Well, then where is it?" Lenny slid down the outside of the staircase and began rifling through the library log. She grew suddenly still. "Oh."
"We don't even have it, do we?" Sara was smug as she began working on the staircase.
"No… But I'll bet I can get it!" She picked up the phone, but found she'd disconnected the cord with a pair of scissors.
Sara had cleared the first step already. "What about that museum across town? They've got that Dr. Jones who's a bigwig in the occult studies."
She sucked her cheek for a second. "Yeah… he might. I'll give him a call."
Sara perked up. "I'll pick it up! A friend of mine takes one of his classes. She says he's such a stud!" Sara faked swooning while Indiana almost choked.
Lenny's laughter covered up his coughing fit. "I've met him."
Sara gasped. "What's he look like!" she almost screamed.
"He's not…"
"Sexy?" offered Sara. Again with the coughing.
"No. Not at all, actually." He frowned. He though he was at least a little attractive.
"Well, why not?"
"I don't know, he just isn't. He's ordinary."
Sara looked exasperated. "Describe him, sister, or I'm letting in the director next time he comes by."
Lenny glared, then began her description. "Well… He's got brown hair-" She was cut off by a nasty look from Sara. "Why do you want to know so badly? He's got brown hair, lighter than mine, that he probably brushes once in the morning on a good day. And he wasn't clean-shaven when I met him; in fact, he was filthier than I was. He's got this beat up hat that looks like he took it to hell and back, and then he's got a leather jacket that went along for the ride. Oh, and he's got a bullwhip of all things on his belt, right next to his gun. He didn't really have his shirt buttoned up," Sara looked like she was drooling, "and he wasn't all that appealing in that regard either. I think it's his eyes that get the girls all… well, like you. They're very expressive, and they're this gorgeous blue that lights up when he's surprised or excited or smiling." She was silent.
Sara started picking up books. "So call him."
"What?"
"You're 35, hun. Call him."
Lenny blushed, but spoke like she was irritated. "You're being paid $5.50 an hour to take calls and get my mail."
Sara rolled her eyes, but dropped the books and headed for the door. Indiana ducked behind the corner and then came out when she was settled to make it appear he'd just arrived.
"Is Dr. Cage in?"
"You wanna see her?" Sara was uninterested in him for all the excitement she'd had moments prior.
"I'd like to." Sara sighed and stuck her head in the door.
"Someone wants to see you."
"No." Came the definite answer from inside.
Sara pulled her head out. "She wants to know who it is."
"Dr. Indiana Jones. We met in Jerusalem; I don't know if she remembers me." Of course she remembered him.
Sara blushed and stuck her head in the door. "You're going to want to take this one." And she slammed it before Lenny could respond.
Sara handed him the parcel, which opened turned out to be several expensive and old volumes. "Take these in and she won't hurt you. But just in case you might want to say the Lord 's Prayer or something." Then she shoved him through the door and slammed – and it sounded like she locked – the door behind him.
Lenny was on the upper level, her slacks and blouse present again. "I'm too busy to take visitors right now, but if you come back later I might be able to see you."
He swallowed, suddenly nervous. "Your assistant asked me to bring some books in."
The words were a catalyst, and she slid down the banister again. He wondered how she got up there in the first place. She froze when she saw his face… and then smiled. "Well, we meet again, Dr. Jones."
"So we do." He handed her the books. "I thought perhaps you'd let me take a good look at the plates."
She cradled the books longingly, and then placed them gently on her desk. "Of course. Small payment for your help in Jerusalem." She ducked under her desk and pulled out something large and cloth covered and placed it on the desk – after knocking everything off, including her new books. "Look away. Oh, wait." She handed him a pair of thin linen gloves.
He slipped them on and opened the cloth. "Are they that fragile?"
"No, but I said they were so I could keep them out of the museum as long as I have. And with a league of insane monks on my tail, I want no one's fingerprints on it but mine."
He was shocked by the plates. They were an astounding piece of work, and beautifully preserved. They almost looked new. "These are amazing."
"They are." She ran her finger over the first line lovingly. "And they're in pristine condition. You won't believe it, but this is how I found them. I just had to wipe a little dust off, they haven't tarnished or oxidized at all. See, the gold and the brass are perfect, and the handwriting is so neat, translating them was a cakewalk."
He turned the pages carefully. He noticed that each page had a raven engraved at the top. "You've got them fully translated?"
"Yeah, the transcript is right there." She pointed to a folder. She was silent for a moment while she watched him examine the plates. He ran his hand over one of the ravens. "You noticed them fast."
He looked up, his hair beginning to fall in his face. "What do they mean?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out. I had a feeling these books might help me." She motioned to the new books, and to her surprise he began paging through one instantly.
A couple hours later, they both lay on the floor, exhausted. Indiana had several books on his chest, while Lenny had constructed herself a virtual throne of volumes. "You know," said Indiana, the first to break the silence in ages, "I still have no idea what the back story of these plates are."
"You want me to tell you, I'm guessing." Lenny rubbed her eyes.
"Yes please."
Lenny sprawled next to him, brushing aside several books. He slid his arm under her head and shifted to accommodate her. "Well, Solomon kept these plates as a record, like told you, but he also had hundreds of scrolls detailing the lesser cases. The last case to be written in the plates was that of Akmal, the local antichrist. This was right around the time of Solomon's bad decision-making, and when the surrounding countries were making war, not love, with him, so it isn't mentioned in the Bible. It was thought to just be a myth or a legend, like Christ's humanity instead of divinity, until some scrolls from Solomon's records were found a couple of years ago. They made reference to the plates, and one entry even made a reference to Akmal's scroll. That triggered a hole slew of questions, but most of it died down when most of the Christian churches head denounced the existence of such an item as this scroll. But the plates were a different story, they existed, apparently, and everyone wanted them. That died down too. Right after I got my doctorate I was hired by a wealthy collector named Walter Donovan to find them. But after eighteen months he dropped the funding. From there I bounced around from sponsor to sponsor; at one point I was even funded by the Nazis in Germany, but as true patriot I didn't make much progress." He squeezed her a little closer. "So, three years and lots of dead ends later, I found it. I actually tripped over it at night and woke the hole team up. It was in an underground library that a whole colony or something of snakes had taken up residence." Indiana shuddered. "I hate them too.
"But I digress. Akmal was preaching false doctrine, and Solomon took his sweet time on getting to him. But when he finally was called on it, the plates make it seem like they didn't do much. He was put to death, and his followers who didn't renounce him were exiled. ButSolomon just gave the scroll to his friend Hiram, the king of Tyre, and said, 'Here, dump this in the ocean if you don't mind.' Then the plates have a follow up, like an epilogue or something, in different handwriting that says that, surprise of all surprises, Hiram didn't dump it in the sea, he held onto it, and eventually it was lost in the library and now we can't find it." She was picking at his sleeve, which he'd rolled up hours ago.
"Are you going to go looking for it?" He playfully flicked her arm every time she pulled at a stray thread. They played for a good five minutes before the thread snapped.
She curled up closer, the library beginning to get cold. "I don't know. I'd have to get a partner; three years by yourself looking for something you're not sure you want to find gets lonely. And I don't think it's survived. Tyre was destroyed eons ago, the scroll would be impossible to trace from there; it was probably looted or burnt."
Indiana caught his fingers in her hair. "Why didn't you want to find it?"
She shook her head, grinding it painfully into his shoulder. "At first I had no interest in it, but as I researched it more it became my obsession. It was the only constant in my dangerous and mobile life, if I found it and removed it as an element of my immediate future I had no idea what would happen."
Lenny's head was directly on his chest now, and her hand was laying on his stomach. He swallowed. "And what happened?"
"I almost got blown up, I was followed around the Middle East by a sect of crazy monks the Catholic church had excommunicated for their extreme violence, I had no home to come back to, and I met my history tutor again after who knows how many years who grew into himself very much and is now laying on my library floor."
Indiana looked at Lenny like she was crazy. But then he recognized her. He blushed terribly. "Oh my lord."
She laughed. "I didn't figure it out until I saw you with you glasses on, and it scared me so bad I ran."
He covered his face with his hands and laughed. "Well, that ruins my chances."
It was her turn to look at him funny. "Why do you say that?" He held his hands up to his face like glasses and screwed his face up, looking wholly like the nerd that had tutored her. She laughed again. "Alright, good point. I think your chances could be save by dinner, though."
He leapt up and pulled his coat on. "Where to?" He held her coat out for her as she rose slowly.
Lenny raised up on tiptoes and kissed him full in the mouth. He dropped the coat. "Surprise me."
He grinned. "I think I can do that." They walked out of the library arm in arm, much to the surprise of Sara. "You know, we never did figure out what those ravens mean."
She shrugged. "I've got time, there's always tomorrow."
He smiled wide and kissed her again. They were so wrapped up in each other in the snow, they didn't notice that the bare trees outside were full of ravens.
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