"Easy now," Indy says tightly, lifting me from the horse, "Just don't try and move it."

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" I grunt, walking beside him. More like limping because it turns out I twisted my ankle when I decided to go all heroic by jumping from the horse to the car.

"Okay, okay." He says.

It's somewhere around midnight, and despite my fatigue, I'm positive we'll be up for several more hours taking care of my arm, eating and cleaning ourselves up.

I see a tent in front of us and can't help but laugh.

"What?" He asks.

"I should have known you would have brought a tent." I shake my head.

"It gets cold at night, if you haven't noticed."

"Did you happen to bring an extra cot?" I question.

I realize the gravity of my question as I feel myself blushing furiously.

"Well...er...that slipped my mind." Indy mutters.

"It's fine," I assure him as we (well, fine, I) limp into the tent, "I'll sleep on the floor."

He glares. "You'll do no such thing. You just got shot, Marion, don't be ridiculous."

He sits me down and tells me to stay put. I lean against the scratchy canvas of the wall and let my eyes droop close; I'M SO TIRED.

Jones comes back moments later with a basin of water and a handful of dried meat. Using my free hand, I eat the meat ravenously as Indy takes the blanket off the cot and tears it into strips. I watch him warily.

"Marion?"

"Mmm?" My mouth is full of jerky.

"The wound is deep." For some reason, his face is turning red.

I raise an eyebrow. "And?"

"It's on your shoulder." He's getting redder. Why is he getting redder?!

I grab his collar frantically. "What is wrong? Am I going to die?"

"No." He gulps. "But you need stitches. This gash is deep."

Okay, stitches. I nod, taking this in and trying to be calm. I have an okay tolerance for pain, but I don't know about STITCHES.

"Alright." I manage to conjure up a smile. "I'll live."

"Well, that's the thing..." He blushes harder than ever. "In order for me to clean the gash and stitch it up--because it's so high on your arm--I need you to...remove your shirt."

"Oh." I know my face is now redder than his.

Is this the night of embarrassing conversations to last the rest of our lives????

"If you don't feel comfortable, you can put a blanket around yourself." He mumbles, running a nervous hand through his messy hair. "And you can also clean yourself up right now, since you're dirty and all."

"Okay." I say numbly. I feel suddenly very warm, and I'm not sure if it's a pleasant kind of warmth, either.

"I'll go stand outside and make sure the horse has water and then wash my own face." He tosses another blanket at me. "Let me know when you've changed."

I don't think he can sprint out of the tent any faster.

I sit there for a few minutes, staring at the blanket.

Quietly, and slowly because of the throbbing pain in my arm, I begin to lift my shirt up. It's got red splotches on it and I can't wait to toss it disdainfully on the floor. I don't know what I'm going to wear on the way back to the camp.

As I take special care to not rub my shirt against my highly sensitive shoulder, my cheeks remain startlingly red. It's just.....Indy and I have never seen each other without clothing on. We've never even discussed that subject. Not that I don't think about it sometimes....seeing Indiana Jones naked, I mean.

But it's clearly an unapproachable subject, which is why we're both a bunch of flustered idiots at the mention of me not wearing my shirt.

Leave it to the archaeologist and green eyed girl to be prudes.

Psh.

I walk over to the basin of water and do my best to wash all of the blood off of me. It feels so good to be clean, let me tell you that. Or as clean as you can get with nothing but a washcloth, a bar of soap and a basin of water. Using my good arm, I brush the majority of the tangled knots out of my hair. Unable to put it up because of the lack of ribbons inside the tent, I settle to leaving it down.

I throw the blanket over my chest and un-gashed shoulder, sitting daintily on the cot.

I wait five minutes and jump when Indy's muffled voice greets me from outside the closed tent.

"Are you covered and clean?"

"Yep." I try to sound as uncaring as possible, like the fact that he'll be touching a lot of my bare skin will be no big deal.

But it is a big deal. It is SUCH A BIG DEAL.

He takes a seat beside me, looking rather clean himself. I sit stock still as he grabs a needle and thread and then some strips of cloth. I close my eyes, preparing myself for more pain.

Ten seconds pass.

"Marion?"

I open one eye.

"I'm going to clean it with some alcohol." He pulls out a bottle from his bag. "It's going to sting, just don't move."

I try really hard to keep from looking scared, I really do. But obviously, my attempts are fruitless.

"It's okay," He says soothingly, "Just think about something else other than the pain."

It's not particularly the pain I'm concerned about. It's more the fact that he'll be touching me, and I won't be able to respond by kissing him.

He dabs a cloth with the alcohol, "Just hold still."

I grit my teeth and fix my gaze on him, concentrating on the curve of his jaw and memorizing it.

"Okay, I'm ready."

Burning, more burning, mind blowing fire is ripping through my shoulder. I stifle a small cry and Jones immediately apologizes. His presses cool fingers around the wound which help ease it, but it hurts just as much.

"Just hold still."

"Well Goddammit, it hurts!" I snap vehemently.

"I'm sorry, but you can't move, Marion!" He replies just as heatedly.

"It's fine." I grunt, feeling tears prick at my eyes. "Just distract me."

"Um...." He continues wiping at my shoulder. "What is the second amendment?"

"I'm pretty sure it's the--ow--right of speech." I squeak back.

"Who was our first president?"

I clench my teeth before answering. "George Washington."

He continues quizzing me like this for several more minutes and then pauses.

"I'm going to stitch it up now." He says conversationally, threading his needle. "And I don't think you'll want to be quizzed on history lessons, with the pain that you'll be in."

I nod. "I'll be fine."

He looks very apologetic as he nears the needle to my skin.

It isn't that bad. The first prick is hell, but they increase in dullness. I stare, focused, at the ground. Indy doesn't make a sound, and neither do I. I try focusing on the gentle brush his fingers occasionally give when they make contact with my skin. It's enough to take my mind off of the pain.

I feel a slightly hurtful tug as he ties a knot and cuts the thread. He bandages up my arm, looking thoughtful as he wraps the strips of cloth around it.

"You really surprised me back there with that stunt, you know that?" He asks quietly.

I don't answer, trying to keep the tears from coming out of my eyes. IT HURTS SO MUCH.

"You are always such a little spitfire." He laughs.

I manage to gain enough control of myself to whisper, "I try."

"Did you tell them where the Headpiece was?" He asks after a few minutes of silence.

"Of course not." I scoff. "I told them Abner sold it to a curator."

There's no mistaking the proud smile on Indy's face.

"Did they hurt you?" His voice gets an angry edge to it. "I was afraid that they might have..." He stops, too disgusted by the thought of what could have happened.

"Indy, didn't I once tell you that I can take care of myself?" I smile, grimacing as he tightens the bandage.

He doesn't answer, only staring at my shoulder as he ties the bandage.

"What's wrong?" I ask, looking at him.

"I'm just so surprised.." He continues to stare at my bandages shoulder. "You were captured, shot, and nearly killed. You JUMPED and attacked a grown man and knocked him out. Yet you're not phased at all."

"Should I be?"

He grins, "Most sane girls WOULD be."

I shrug, which hurts somewhat. "That was never in the job description. Sorry, but you should have told me to have a panic attack earlier."

He laughs quietly. "I'll remember that next time we have an adventure."

"We did have an adventure, didn't we?" I smile at the notion, falling into silent pondering. "When are we going home?"

"Tomorrow. I promised Abner I'd be back by then."

"Okay." I find myself rather disappointed, seeing as I had wanted to spend some more alone time with Indy, but whatever. Daddy dearest can't bear to wait, I guess.

"It's just that, you're wounded, and Abner will be panicking." Indy explains, still staring at my shoulder. I feel like asking him if somethings wrong with it.

"No, it's fine." I say. "I mean, not that I wouldn't mind spending time with you, but I see that we need to get back to the camp and assure everyone that I haven't died, or fallen off a cliff, or that you haven't died in the desert."

His lips twitch upward in a smaller smile than ever, his eyes reflecting it in that milky brown and green mixture that makes up his eyes. I look away, blushing, at the other side of the tent.

"Plus, heaven knows how nice it would be to sleep for hours on end and not worry about escaping from some maniac's tomb," I babble on, trying to calm myself down and not think about his eyes. "My legs are so sore, and not just my ankle because I sprained it or whatever, but I'm actually aching all over and--"

"I love you."

" I think that we both--" I freeze, turning towards him slower than the Earth rotates. I can do nothing but gape at him. Did he just say what I thought he said???

"W-what?" I rasp. "What did you just say?"

He keeps his gaze locked to mine, not answering me, his hazel eyes burning with multiple emotions that imprint in my mind. I'm drawn to them by some centripetal force and I can't bloody get away.

Oh My God, he loves me. Indiana Jones loves me. ME!!! MARION ELENA RAVENWOOD!!!

We're both sitting there, staring at each other. His hands are still on my shoulder, but gradually move up the slope of my neck, fingers caressing my skin and sending shivers down my back. His coarse and always gentle hands end up behind my head, pulling me into a kiss.

Bruising, desperate, something I never want to end. I'm left shocked and breathless, like I'm finally breathing oxygen after four days after not breathing at all. There's absolutely nothing I can do but kiss him back.

And that is exactly what I do.

I take both of my hands and cup his face, pressing kiss after kiss to his lips. The kiss gradually changes, becomes different. The emotions intertwined with it change. There's a urgency between us now, blatant and understandable.

At first, I don't get it. What exactly this feeling is. It takes a minute for me to think, because of other things going on at the very second, but I finally figure it out.

"I love you, too." I whisper into his lips.

I'm not sure if he hears me, or if he even wants to, but he pulls away and kiss my jaw, moving to my neck, my collarbone, and back up to my lips again.

There's seems to be no sound in the entire world at the moment other than our mingled breaths and the loud thunderous pulse of my heart. I don't care that we're in the middle of nowhere all alone, I don't care that my shoulder hurts like a bitch, I don't care that I'm going to probably going to die from lack of sleep and I don't care that Indy's hands in my hair are probably making it more tangled. I LOVE him. I want this, I want to be with him in every way possible.

Besides, I point out to myself, there's no point in resisting THIS; this inexplicable feeling that I conquer anything, as long as I have him.

And as we sink down into that rugged old cot, me practically overwhelmed by his lips and hands and eyes all in one, I figure that I wouldn't want this to end up any other way. Because in the end, it would always come down this simple fact:

I love him.

OH MY GOD!!!! Exciting isn't it? Me updating for two days in a row? Well, it would be all the more worthwhile if you would be so obliged as to drop me a review. And look for typos. Because really, that's all I need to live these days. :)