AN: Recently, I've been reading up on the Fifties. It was a fascinating time, especially after the McCarthy Era and the fear of communism and the teenagers defining themselves with slang and clothes and music – I love it all.

Disclaimer: I do not own.

--

Twenty minutes after trying to run for his life and being pulled back at the end of a bullwhip, Mutt found himself walking beside his father up the front steps of Marshall College. Indy was carrying a briefcase full of papers, hurrying up the stairs, but taking the time to open the door for several female students and teachers.

Mutt waited for the women to pass, sticking his hands into his pants' pockets. His right hand curled around his switchblade, the cold metal pressing into his fingers, and he shifted his weight to one foot.

"Come on," Indy held the door open for him. Indy wore the same look he had worn since Mutt had been dragged back to the car – a stern expression that promised no good: lips pressed together, brow slightly drawn, jaw tight, and fire in his blue-green eyes.

Mutt trudged along, dragging his feet as much as he dared. When Indy looked back, frustrated at his slow movement, Mutt pretended to be looking around at the hallway, like he was interested in the design of a college building.

"You'll have time to look later," Indiana told him. "Right now, we're going to my office so you can get the tongue-lashing you so richly deserve."

"Dad," Mutt gestured furiously to the milling students before hurrying up, "people can hear."

Indy gave him a look that said he did not care, but by then they had reached a door bearing the words Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. Associate Dean.

Indy unlocked it and held the door open. "Inside."

Mutt slouched into the room and went for the closest chair, flopping in it and crossing him arms, waiting for the inevitable lecture.

Indy shut the door, strode to the cluttered desk, and set his briefcase down. "Now, listen," he began stacking up papers on one corner of the desk to give him work to work, "I don't know what that little stunt out of the car was all about, but it's time to cut out the nonsense. This is a college campus, and you need to act like you belong here."

"But I don't," Mutt protested. "I didn't even finish high school."

"I'm well aware of that," Indy snapped, his hand gripping the papers so tight they began to crumple. "But I knew I'd never get you back to high school, not at your age. So it's college for you, young man."

"What is with you?" Mutt demanded, spreading his arms wide. "When we were being chased by the Russians, you were all tough guy and cool cat –"

"Cool cat?" Indy repeated, raising his eyebrows in disapproval.

"Yeah, I mean you're old and kind of a fream, but you weren't a total nosebleed. Now, all you do is yell at me and get all over my case."

"Let's just put the slang away for now," Indy heard his voice growing louder, but he pushed his temper down. "I don't yell at you."

"Yeah, you do," Mutt insisted. "'Go to school, go to bed, take a bath, come home on time.' Even Mom doesn't get on me as much as you do."

"I am trying to help you improve," Indy ground out. "That's my job as a father."

"I don't need your help," Mutt retorted. "I've done fine all these years on my own, by myself."

"Oh, yeah," Indy was sarcastic, "riding around on those motorcycles, worrying your mother half to death."

"Mom and I take care of ourselves," Mutt sat straight up. "She didn't need you all these years, and she don't need you now."

"Well, she's got me, and I'm seeing that you shape up," Indiana could feel his pulse beating in his forehead, and he did not understand why he felt so upset. He had survived a lifetime of people chasing him, torturing him, shooting at him, punching him, but none of them had ever made him as angry as he felt sometimes at the young man sprawled in his office chair. He loved the kid so much it hurt, but at times he wanted nothing more than to pound some sense into that stubborn head of him.

"Look, I'm old enough to do what I want," Mutt decided. "You chose to walk out on Mom, I'm choosing to leave college before I start. At least my decision won't leave a kid thinking his stepfather is his real father."

Mutt jerked himself out of the chair to head for the door. Indy grabbed him by the collar and pushed him back down in the chair.

"Move an inch from there and you won't sit for a week," Indy bellowed.

Mutt opened his mouth to retort that the old man was all talk, but before he could say anything, a tap sounded on the door.

"Come in!" Indy snapped in the same loud voice, before adding, "I'm mean, please come in," in a quieter voice.

"Good morning," Dean Stanforth stepped inside, looking very proud and dignified in his gray suit, his right hand clutching several papers. "Ah, a new quarter. I can feel the excitement in the air."

Mutt snorted, and Indy turned on him.

"Stand up! Stanforth, this is my son, Henry Jones, the III. Son, this is the Dean of the college, Charles Stanforth."

"It's Mutt," Mutt said as he shook the Dean's hand.

"Mutt?" Stanforth said uncertainly.

"It's just a nickname," Indiana tried to smile, but it came across more like a grimace. "One that he's not going to be using much longer."

"I like my name," Mutt insisted. "You got to keep yours."

"Mine is one of the United States," Indy pointed out. "Yours is what you call a junkyard dog. You might as well be called –"

"Mongrel?" Stanforth suggested.

Both father and son looked at him, not at all pleased, and the Dean took a half of a step backwards.

"My apologies, I was only trying to be helpful. I do hope Mr. Jones enjoys his studies here, seeing as how we made exceptions for him, ignoring the whole lack of the high school diploma, you know."

"Oh, trust me," Indy said darkly, "he's more than appreciative. He'll be at the top of his class."

"Every inch his father's son," Stanforth smiled, trying to lighten the mood. When neither Jones smiled, the Dean gave up. "Oh, do what you like. But we are having a faculty meeting this afternoon. Only an hour," he assured Indy before the man could grimace, "but you have to be there. You're the Associate Dean now and that honor comes with responsibilities."

"I know that," Indy protested. "I will be at the meetings."

"It's not that I don't trust you," Stanforth assured him. "It's just that you have a talent for disappearing in the middle of the quarter without informing anyone, and students' grades don't just assign themselves."

"That was years ago," Indy objected. "I have done a good job these last few years – turning grades in early, even."

"Yes, Jones, but that disappearing sort of thing remains on your Curriculum Vita for sometime."

Bored with all the school talk, Mutt wandered towards the open window. He was rather relieved that the Dean had come in at that moment. His father's lecturing got his blood boiling quicker than anything else. Mutt hated being treated like a kid, and Indy made it even worse with his condescending tone when he scolded. Everything became a lecture on how to do it better – from reading and studying to how to spend his free time to how to keep his room. The man had even criticized the way he mowed the lawn.

Mutt scowled as he put his hands on the window sill and leaned out to breathe the warm air. A week ago, he had thought he was doing a nice thing, pulling the manual lawn mower out of the tool shed. It was heavy and the kind you had to push at almost a run or it wouldn't cut any grass. For the next three hours, he struggled over the lawn, grunting as he shoved and yanked the machine back and forth, sweat running down his forehead.

Marion had come out and told him it was too hot, that he was going to get heatstroke and he should come in right now and have something to drink. He refused, determined to finish the yard himself and not leave it half done. Earlier in the morning, Indy had commented that Mutt never finished anything, that he just up and quit when he got bored, and Mutt was not stopping until the yard was finished. Marion finally marched out into the yard with a huge glass of lemonade and insisted he drink it all or she was making him go inside right then and there.

Mutt had gulped down the whole glass and got back to work. He finished the yard just as his father pulled up, and Mutt stood there, feeling stupid for wanting to show his dad what he had done, but needing to do it anyway, needing to hear a few words of encouragement. Indy had nodded over the yard, even gone as far as to clap Mutt on the shoulder for taking the initiative to clean up the yard. But then Indy began to point out the uneven rows the mower had left, the edges that still needed trimming, and the bushes that could use pruning. Mutt had lost his temper and jumped on his motorcycle. He had returned that night to find Indy waiting up for him with another scolding, this one about going off without telling them and worrying his mother.

Mutt gripped the window sill a little tighter, trying to block out the sound of the two professors talking behind him. It was completely unfair, the way Indy just waltzed right in and tried to take control of his life. Marion told him what to do every now and then, usually because she was worried about his safety or health, but she didn't point out every little wrong thing he did. Sometimes, his father seemed to be cramming eighteen years of scolding and lecturing and parenting into a handful of months.

"Are we going to discuss the rallies again?" Indy said to Stanforth. "They hate communism – let it go. The kids will have their rallies and we'll walk around them."

"It's not the simple," Stanforth insisted. "Sometimes they get to be quite loud, and we on the board must decide whether or not we will allow them on campus."

"Jeez, I'm a dictator now," Indy groaned.

"Shh," Stanforth warned. "You can't say things like that here."

"I fought the damn Nazis. Communism doesn't scare me."

"We don't need any witch hunts here," Stanforth whispered. "McCarthy may be dead, but suspicion still lingers."

Mutt rolled his eyes. It figured – a bunch of old guys sitting around in suits, panicking over the thought of someone accusing them of being a communist supporter. And here he was, going to college to learn to wear suits and panic over stupid worries. Suppress the alien-landings, but go crazy over communism. He hated college already.

Mutt leaned farther out the window. He considered just jumping out – his father's office was on the ground floor – but he knew he could not embarrass Indy in front of the Dean. Mutt was that considerate, though it seemed that his father was not – Indy never seemed to care who was around or watching when he started to lecture. Mutt even wondered if Indy liked an audience, someone to see that indeed he knew how to play the role of the stern father, could even do the finger-pointing and head-shaking to show just how serious he took his job as a father.

"Faker," Mutt muttered under his breath.

A sudden movement caught his eye, a tiny flicker barely noticeable. He leaned farther out the window.

Yes, there it was, barely perceptible. A small green garden snake curving through the grass.

It was late in the season for snakes to be out, but the unusually warm weather and the recent rain must have driven the small creature above ground.

Mutt glanced over his shoulder. The two men were involved in a heated debate over if Indiana should teach anything connected to the Russians and Indy was arguing that Russian history should be allowed while Stanforth disagreed.

Quick as he could, Mutt reached far out over the sill and scooped up the snake. It felt warm and rubbery in his hand as he cradled it to his chest. The snake was surprised at being lifted up and it squirmed against him until it realized that Mutt wasn't going to hurt it. Straightening back up, Mutt dropped the snake into his coat pocket and casually strolled to the shelves where several boxes were stacked up. The boxes were for sorting or cataloguing artifacts, Mutt guessed, but he found a small cardboard one and pulled it down.

He slipped the snake into the box and closed the lid – the lid was loose enough for the snake to breathe but not escape. Mutt kept the closed box in his hand as he headed back to the men.

"This is ridiculous," Indy was exploding. "In the 30's, we couldn't teach anything German because we were Nazis supporters if we did. Then we were bombed in '41, and everything Japanese went out the window. Now it's the Russians. How can I teach world archeology when I can't talk about half the world?"

"I hear you," Stanforth persisted, "but what can we do?"

"It's this bureaucratic nonsense that makes me wish I stayed on in the field," Indy growled. "Nothing is politically correct anymore – you can't talk about anything except television and this music they call Rock and Rolled."

"Rock and Roll," Mutt piped up. "Not 'rolled.' Just 'roll.' Rock and Roll."

"Whatever, we're going to class," Indy snatched up his briefcase. "Come on, Mutt – first class with me. What are you holding?"

"This box was on your desk," Mutt said innocently. "With a note addressed to you, but that must have fallen off. We could take it to class – you could open it after then."

"Fine," Indy said, still frowning at Stanforth. "Let's go. I swear, they get more and more controlling every year. Why can't they just let us teach and stay the hell out? I don't go to the capital and tell them how to run the country. Why should they tell me how to run my classroom?"

Mutt followed his complaining father down the hall. In one hand, Mutt held the closed box, and he tried not to smirk as he kept up with Indy's fast pace. Mutt could only wonder what the man would say when he realized that a live snake was only feet away from him.

Indy stopped at a closed door and opened it, going into a classroom. He headed for the front desk, and Mutt went into the classroom as well, setting the box on a corner of the desk and heading for a back seat.

"Front row," Indy told him, snatching up the eraser and applying it to the chalkboard in brisk strokes. "I want you where I can see you and you can't fall asleep."

"Sure," Mutt slid into one of the front seats as other students started coming in, "I wouldn't miss this for the world."