A/N Back home and things are getting real now. We never got a canon answer as to what happened with Short Round sooooo I made a decision that is definitely NOT in the canon instead.
Also I now know way more about the history of breakfast cereal than I did before writing this chapter.
Sophia highly doubted Indy had gone out to Shanghai all those months ago expecting to come back with a dysfunctional family. Left a single man, came back dating some time traveler and brought an orphan who wouldn't stop beating up the bullies at school.
He'd cleared out his old office by the back door that from the look of the desk in the living room, he never used anyway, and occasionally brought a pack of baseball cards home that Shorty used to decorate his new room.
Sophia had spent her first night there in Indy's room and never moved out, not that there was anyplace else in the house for her to go. It had barely been a conversation after they'd gotten back…gotten home.
Rumors circulated around the neighborhood after that. Come home from overseas with a kid and woman who moved in but didn't get married. People would've talked in her time too, but it was even more unusual in 1935. He didn't seem to care and went to work the same as always, morning classes, home for lunch most days, and then back for the afternoon. If his secretary Irene had said anything to him about his new living situation he'd kept it to himself.
She wandered downstairs with a yawn, knotting her satin robe around her waist. He'd given it to her as a gift, but she wasn't sure how that was different from everything else she owned, which he'd also bought her.
Offers of finding a job herself were shot down in various different ways, starting with the little things and culminating in her going and finishing college instead since his salary was enough to keep them all going. She liked that excuse better than the others, since one of the previous ones had been him coming home to find her crying over his typewriter with ink covered hands because she'd tried to change the ribbon and ended up tearing it. Wasn't a good look for someone who'd be looking for a secretarial job.
The percolator bubbled on the stove, another adversary in her daily life that she'd finally gotten the hang of. At the kitchen table, Shorty had his eyes glued to a comic book while a spoonful of cereal hung forgotten in his hand over the bowl. His hair stood up at all angles and Sophia smoothed it down as she walked by, drawing his attention back to breakfast.
Flipping on the radio as Indy came back in with the newspaper in hand she grabbed the eggs from the fridge. "Morning." She yawned again, setting the eggs to the side to pour a cup of coffee first instead.
The radio announcer prattled on about sports and the weather while she added cream and sugar and poured Indy a cup when he passed her a mug. She was just about to crack the first egg into the pan when the subject of the broadcast changed again.
"And in international news, the German Reichstag has passed what they're calling the Nuremberg Laws, which will prohibit the marriage of Germans and Jews."
Sophia tensed and cracked the egg against the pan so hard it broke completely in half and ran down the outside of the pan.
"It will also remove Jews as citizens of the Reich and instead grant them the status of state subjects which-" Sophia turned the radio off hurriedly and grabbed a towel off the oven handle with a snap to clean up her mess.
From the table Indy and Short Round looked at her warily.
"Sophia, why you turn it off?" Shorty asked.
She sighed and took a second to wipe away the egg and crack a couple new ones into the pan. The two at the table waited silently until she turned back around. She wasn't about to explain the Nazi regime and what they'd end up doing, to a twelve year old, six years before the US even entered the war. Or say that there would even be a war to begin with. So she settled for biting her tongue and succinctly saying, "I'm not in the mood to hear about Hitler before I've had my coffee. The man's a racist piece of shit."
They'd fight Nazis soon, Sophia knew. Temple of Doom was canonically the first movie as far as the timeline went which meant Raiders would be next. The more she heard on the radio and the more she read in the papers, the less she thought she could stay home when the chance came to fuck them up a little. If she couldn't go back in time and kill Hitler, she'd settle for screwing up some of his plans.
Shorty took her answer at face value and went back to his comic, but Indy's eyes lingered on her as she reached for her coffee. He still hadn't outright said he believed her about the future now, but as time had gone on with her trying and often failing at simple things like writing and making coffee, it seemed like his opinion was turning. So she could tell he was paying a little extra attention to how heated the broadcast had made her.
Should she tell him? Would he even believe her? It wasn't like they could do anything to stop it if he knew. Maybe it was better to just give him a few more years of peace, not knowing there was going to be another world war to worry about. Hell, she wished she didn't know so she might as well let him live in blissful ignorance of it.
He didn't ask any questions and went back to the paper, sipping at his coffee while she went back to making breakfast.
There was the slap of wood onto paper as she tossed her pen onto the yellow pad of paper to her right and groaned. Sophia's Harvard application was strewn over the coffee table, half finished. Taking the fountain pen back up she resigned herself to keep trying.
Lighter touch, different angle. That's all it was. She could do this.
The big changes weren't proving to be the problems she'd thought they'd be, the small ones were. Pens, music, driving, and shopping were all much harder because she'd never had to think about them back home. Who knew there was a trick to not writing like a five year old when it came to fountain pens? Who knew she was absolutely horrible at trying to drive a stick shift? She'd never anticipated the excruciating agony of getting a song stuck in her head that wouldn't be written for sixty years and also forgetting half the words.
And right now, the simple fountain pen was proving a worse enemy than the Thuggee.
The front door swung open as Indy came home and he kicked it shut behind him. "You're still doing that?" He asked as he pulled off his tie and tossed it onto a chair with his jacket. "It's been hours."
"Pens." she grumbled. "And making up a whole life. And remembering my new birthday."
Indy smirked sympathetically, poured two glasses of whiskey, and set one in her hand.
She sipped it as he leaned over the back of the couch and started rubbing her shoulders with his free hand.
"Honestly, who needs to go to Harvard? Really?" She said wryly. "They're probably not gonna let me in because I'm a woman anyway."
Indy scoffed. "If the sample work you did for my assignments means anything, Harvard needs you."
"Yeah well I'm pretty sure having sex with the professor probably adds a bias to their grading." After she'd continuously stood by her half finished doctorate with very little proof to back it up he'd issued a challenge that'd she'd spitefully accepted. When she turned the work in he immediately started suggesting which colleges to apply for and figuring out how to forge her previous credits so she wouldn't be starting from the beginning again.
As it turned out, it didn't take quite as long in 1935 to get her doctorate in archaeology and she could be done in a few years so long as they believed some fake papers and the word of the eminent Indiana Jones.
With no indication she was going anywhere, the prospect was one she couldn't ignore. Life was moving on whether she followed it or not, so she might as well take advantage of things.
"I grade everyone impartially. Even the one who's sleeping with me." He defended, dropping a kiss to her temple. "Speaking of that…you should take a break." He offered innocently.
"Smooth." She hummed as he followed up with a second kiss, this time to her neck. "This wouldn't be self motivated, would it?"
"Not at all." The smirk in his voice was all too obvious.
"This application has to be in by Wednesday."
"It's Monday. Take a break and we'll finish it later." His voice was slow and gravelly in her ear and his hand massaging her neck was intoxicating. "Besides, Shorty won't be home from school for a couple hours."
"Well if you're gonna twist my arm…" She sighed, leaning back to return his kiss.