A/N Good news, story is assuredly still active. Bad news, ToD is not streaming anywhere I have access to and my copy is quite literally buried in a box in the attic right now because moving is happening. So bear with me, we're going off of a transcript, various youtube clips, and my own memory forged from watching it a million times as a teenager.

Short Round had a few words for Indy in Cantonese when he woke up before them and saw how they'd fallen asleep but left it at that. They rounded off the morning with a bite of dried mystery meat each to serve as breakfast and continued on their journey.

Along the way Shorty gazed up as bats filled the sky. "Woah! Those are big birds!"

"They're not birds Shorty, they're giant vampire bats." Indy explained.

On her elephant behind him Sophia snorted,having spent too much time watching Jeff Corwin growing up. "Or adorable fruit bats that are basically sky puppies." She loved bats, especially the big ones. Then again, with her luck living in a movie now, they very well could've been vampire bats. Maybe she'd keep her distance after all…

Indy looked over his shoulder at her and shook his head, leaving her comment to hang in the air without response.

They kept riding as they caught their first glimpse of the palace, right up until the guides halted with the one in the lead pointing to the jungle ahead. Indy got down while the two of them followed suit, and calmed the lead guide who was shaking with fear.

"Dr. Jones, what you look at?" Shorty called.

He walked ahead and pushed back the vines, his body hiding what he was looking at. "Don't come up here."

That was good enough instruction for Shorty, but she hadn't been studying archaeology for nothing and came up behind him. It wasn't as if she didn't already know what was there, but as far as he needed to know, it had all come from the research she'd done for a paper a few years back. She'd leave out the bit where it had actually criticized the very movie she was walking around in.

"So, an active Kali cult?" She mused dryly, less than enthused and wrinkling her nose at the old coppery smell of the blood on the shrine.

He looked down at her with a raised eyebrow. "You know what this shrine is?"

"I was halfway to my PhD in archaeology before I was dropped into this shit show." She grumbled, realizing all her credits were worthless now, then tapped her hand under his chin. "Close your mouth, you'll catch half the bugs in India."

"Hey!" Short Round yelled behind them. "No! No, stop!"

They turned to see the guides rushing the elephants back down the path and leaving their bags behind.

"Let them go, Shorty. We walk from here." He grabbed her arm as she started walking away and lowered his voice so Short Round wouldn't hear. "First you try to sell me on you being from the future, and now you're telling me you're trying to be an archaeologist. Any other surprises I should know about?"

Heart ripping cults, giant lava pits, confirmation of multiple magics and religions being entirely correct, and Nazis being a much bigger problem than he probably anticipated? "I mean you don't believe me when I tell you I'm from the future so does that really count as a surprise?"

"Sophia…" He droned.

She shrugged, walking backwards towards Shorty and the road. "I don't know what else to tell you." It'd be better for everyone if they just got on with the damn movie already.

The walk took another two hours and sweat dripped down her back as they came up to the main doors, met by creepy enemy #1.

"Hello! I should say you look rather lost. But then again I can't imagine anywhere in the world the three of you would look at home."

Seeing him in person and knowing what he did in his spare time made Sophia's skin crawl but she forced a fake smile anyway.

"We're not lost." Indy explained. "We're on our way to Delhi. This is Miss Sophia…" He trailed off and the three of them realized simultaneously she'd never fully introduced herself.

"Hetland." She answered quickly, trying to pretend she was just interrupting Indy and not let on that he didn't really know who she was.

He caught on and continued. "This is Mr. Round."

"Short Round." Shorty added clearly with a jab of his thumb to his chest.

"And I'm Indiana Jones."

"Dr. Jones? The eminent archaeologist?"

"Hard to believe, isn't it?"

"I first heard your name when I was up at Oxford. I'm Chattar Lai, prime minister to his highness, the Maharaja of Pankot."

He ushered them inside, calling to stone-faced, brainwashed servants who led them off away from the main hall and to rooms across from each other. When the door was shut behind her, looking far more solid and old than the one in the movie, she sighed. Of course it was the evil secret passageway bedroom. What else should she have expected?

No amount of jewelry made up for a chilled monkey brain and no soft pajamas made up for bug guts. She was starving and she wasn't willing to wait for fruit to show up whenever Indy got around to it so she set off for the kitchen.

As it turned out, she wouldn't have had to wait long because Indy and Short Round were already in the massive, deserted palace kitchen when she got there.

"Snakes not your thing either?" She said, nudging Shorty with her elbow while he munched on a bunch of grapes. He shuddered purposefully and she chuckled, stealing a few off the bunch.

Indy threw a napkin over a tray of fruit and pushed it across the table to Shorty. "Take that to our room." He said with little room for rebuttal.

Short Round looked at him conspiratorially and nodded. "Right. We talk later?"

He knew, and so did she, exactly what Indy was doing by sending Shorty away. For a kid who had been grossed out by Indy and Willie kissing, he sure was invested in Indy's love life.

As his feet shuffled out of the kitchen and down the hall, Indy snatched up an apple and with a smirk, shined it on his sleeve.

He stood next to her, close enough that she could smell his aftershave, and handed her the apple. It was firm and juicy, a bit tart, but it would take the place of dinner for the time being and that was what mattered. At least when she probably got kidnapped by the cult in the basement she wouldn't be completely starving.

Her stomach rolled for a second and she felt the blood drain from her face. Basement cult of heart stealing lava pit lowering bad guys and they were about to walk right into it. Not that the thought hadn't crossed her mind about ten other times since the village, but it seemed to be the first time Indy had been paying attention when it did.

"Hey now," He said, holding her chin between his thumb and index finger. "What's on your mind, doll?"

Cults. Human hearts. Her entire life potentially, literally up in flames by morning. Attractive, formarly fictional people asking her what was on her fucking mind while doing the sweet chin thing that Seeley Booth always did to Bones!

"You don't have enough time and neither do I."

He stepped closer, leaning over her slightly. "How about a distaction?" he offered it with a soft stroke of his thumb across her jaw.

The offer was only going to sound more and more appealing and longer he looked at her like that. "You try to seduce all the displaced women who join your quests, or just me?"

"Just you, sweetheart."

"Uhuh. Your reputation precedes you." The real question wasn't his motives, those were clear, it was whether she gave a shit.

His hands moved to her hips and he pulled her against him. "Does that mean I should stop?"

She sighed. Decidedly, she did not give a shit about the cliche. "I'd really rather you kept going."

"Whatever you say, doll." Taking that as his cue, he leaned down and kissed her.

Any concerns about ramifications got pushed aside. She'd make out with Indy first, and then deal with fighting the creepy cult later.