Bridges of Faith

He remembered getting up and walking from the room, leaving the bead and the woman in it, and not looking back. He remembered it like it was yesterday, except it wasn't. Twenty years had gone by, and though he hadn't looked back at the time, he'd spent the last two decades doing so. It haunted and it hurt him and he thought about it every damn day of his life after it had happened. He had sent her one letter, a year after, on what should've been his first anniversary. He had penned so many more; all of them signed Missing you, Indy. But he never sent them.

Some days here memory was kind and gentle, just like her (sometimes), he would imagine her with him and he would be happy – she was that warm feeling that brought a smile to his face. Other days her memory was murder, killing him on the inside, intense – she was his pain. And sometimes he wondered if he didn't feel her pain as well as his own. She was that much a part of him that he felt what she felt. He couldn't say if he believed it, but he'd also walked across a bridge of faith, things were possible.

He dreamed of her nightly, each dream a representation of his feelings – if he saw their wedding he was overwhelmed with guilt. The fight in Nepal was a memory from the good old days – he was strong, she was his 'goddamn partner'. And when he dreamed of his leaving her he knew there would be trouble. That action had brought nothing but trouble and strife, and it was an oracle of actions yet to come that would bring about the same result.

Riding in the trunk of an army car turned out to be the trouble that Marion predicted. After he got out of that fiasco he went home and stared at the picture he kept of her, wondering for a time uncountable what his life would be like if he had acted in another way. He'd be a husband, probably a father. The tenure would've come about earlier too, he imagined, because he wouldn't have run nearly as much. Or maybe he would've, but she would've run with him. She did run with him, he'd replaced his lucky charm over the years, he still had his lighter, but he also had her. Her picture and her spirit. Again, there were some things he couldn't understand or explain, little bridges of faith. Her voice was his in his head, and she was in his heart, and when good things came to him it was from Marion looking out for him, when other things happened – when he looked dumb, when he fell down, those were also from her.

He had crafted his house as a fantasy, how he'd like to have lived with his wife and any children. The comforting, knowledgeable place for adventure and fun, a place he would want to go home to, and that would also draw his children back with him. The children that never became and the place still lacked the draw that he set out for. It lacked Marion. He learned to live with it.

When he packed up to leave he had said he was heading to London, but he wanted to go back to Nepal. He didn't think she'd returned, when he wrote her she'd still been in the US, New York to be exact. But he thought that maybe he'd open a bar and one day she'd walk in looking for something he had. Like maybe his love and devotion. He'd give those more willingly to her than she'd given the eye. He was giving them now, but she was not around to receive them. But he never made it to Nepal, or London, or even New York. A kid, named Mutt, who was living a stereotype came and got him. They had sat in a soda joint and the kid had talked tough. Talked about Oxley and a crystal skull. He had known about it, and had been interested in it. Then Mutt said his mom's name was Marion.

"I've known a lot of Marions." Was a flat lie, he'd only known one. He'd met a few others but never known them, he didn't want to. Every other woman in his life was already at a disadvantage because they were themselves and not Marion, he didn't think he could ever treat a woman named Marion well; the disappointment would be tenfold stronger than the others every time they met. That being said he still hoped against hope that Mutt wasn't HIS Marion's son. Marion's last name was Ravenwood, not Williams. And Mutt had said Marion Williams. His Marion had every right to get married and have a child without him but it killed him to think it, he couldn't do it. There was no reason to go on without the idea that Marion could still be his.

Mutt reminded him of his younger, dumber, indestructible self. The motorcycle was a nice touch; riding on it was a throw back to the good old days. As well as days he was happy to leave behind. The kid was a quick learner, despite his lack of schooling. Those tricks with the blade was like his tricks with his whip, the comb, however was annoying, but he would allow it, it was his generation's thing. He had every right to find it irritating; however, it was his generation's thing.

It'd been so long since he'd been kidnapped, he couldn't say he missed it. The exchange between captor and captee he conducted in his usual belligerent style, he'd been through this all before. No twists, nothing new; until he heard her in the tent. He had felt her, but confirmation with his true senses – Hearing, Sight, Taste, Touch, Smell, really put it into him. Suddenly his Marion was before him. Time had and hadn't changed her. Yes she was older looking – crows feet and other age lines, some weight gained, but her hair and personality were exactly the same. Emotions lapped at him like the surf at the sand. Shock, surprise, joy, sorrow, worry, love, concern, anger. And then Mutt said,

"Mom." He had to cover the only way he knew how, on the outside it was all arguments, bickering and bantering, just like they used to. On the inside he was longing and regretting. She had moved on, there was someone other than himself. Someone had made her happy, he hadn't. They forced him to do other things but his mind, even when 'controlled' was focused solely on her.

Running with Marion was a habit soon reverted back too, getting in over their heads also made an appearance. Flashing before him was the regret that if he died in the sand, he'd die with her, but she wouldn't know how much he still loved her. He would die with him, but not in his arms. And then, through his regret and minor hysteria she told him,

"His name is Henry. Henry Jones the Third." Or something like that, he didn't quite remember, the only words that rang through him were "He's your son." Son. He had a family and he never knew. There were so many thoughts running through his head. His dream of family was true and he had missed it, he should've married her, he was worse than his father – he had known senior. But what came out was the caboose on the train of thoughts.

"Why didn't you make him finish school?!" It was the dumbest thing to say but all his other thoughts and feelings were not of the expressible kind. The snake thrown at his face cleared all thought for a time. He hated snakes. Christ, he hated snakes.

However the numb mind brought about by fear came into focus as they were tied up in the back of the truck. Trying to figure out where all the time went through an argument was hard, but it also the way they used to communicate. But it worked out fine, he couldn't use his words to express himself, English didn't have words, or at least his anger blocked them from his mind. Colin Williams! Colin. Williams. He wanted to scream and he wanted to cry. Sure anger was a good substitute; lashing out made him feel better but it didn't get him anywhere. He could never win an argument but it was his youth that had sent him running. He was afraid, he was afraid of his emotions and his feet were chilled. He'd run off and it was the greatest blunder of his life. And now here he was a father for nineteen years and only aware of it for nineteen minutes. Marion didn't care; she verbally kicked his ass again and again. He was sure he deserved it, but the guilt was enough to kill him already.

"I'm sure there were plenty of others." She'd accused him. He remembered a few, a singer1, a Nazi, but,

"Sure, there were others, but they all had the same problem. None of them were you." It was the only way he could say it. That shut her up. He had some ass kicking to do.

After the three falls life had fallen back into pace, like he had never left. She fought, she argued, and she thought. He couldn't bear to loose her and yet he knew her well enough to let her go on her own. His methods worked until those damn stairs. He'd fallen all over both symbolically and literally. Marion back in his arms was heaven; he could taste all the kisses he missed. They would be better than his memories. And then Mutt handed him a skeleton. He had to hand it to his kid, he'd have done the same thing, but it still left him a little frustrated.

The Alien angle was crap, he still didn't like to think it was so, but he saw it with his own eyes. It reminded him of the time in Egypt, when he was with Marion.

"Marion, don't look at it. Shut your eyes, Marion, and don't look at it, no matter what happens.2" He said it once; he wanted to say it again, but he didn't. They simply ran. The ice burg of the north and her cronies were taken away and he, Oxley, Mutt, and Marion made it out. Stranded over the Amazon for a time. It was then that he could take her in his arms. It was then that he felt whole. Twenty years of looking for lost antiquities he was really looking for his heart. And he'd found it again after all these years. There was even a bonus, a family pre made, it was his all along, and now he was ready to be a part of it.

He married her, he did it twenty years to the day that he should've. The ceremony was small, but meaningful. It made him want to cry. Marion jumped into his arms like he'd dreamed so many times before. And he didn't drop her, in fact he held her tight. She'd flown over her own bridge of faith and he wouldn't let her down. His dreams had come true, his thoughts, his emotions, and his illogical feelings. His little bridges of faith were strengthened, when one finds their rock belief, religion can be founded. Marion was his rock, Marion was his soul, his treasure. He'd searched the world over and he'd found a lot, but he'd never found anything like his Marion. He walked down the aisle with her, Mutt holding his hat. He took the hat back and smiled.

"Good work Henry." Oxley had said, and by God Mutt thanked him just as he did. He had a junior. His father was dying laughing up in heaven, Rio, or wherever souls went. Hat on his head, wife on his arm, and child on his other, he was living his fantasies. His fantasies twenty years in the making. Leaps of faith onto unseen bridges of the heart had brought them together in the end.

1 I was going by the order of movies, not dates. Its Raiders, Temple of Doom, Crusade by the films. But it's Temple, Raiders, Crusade by years.
2 This is an exact quote because after I saw number 4 I just had to have a marathon, I was typing his while watching Raiders. Which is my absolute favorite of the series.