Taking Chances

You could've bowed out gracefully
But you didn't
You knew enough to know
To leave well enough alone
But you wouldn't
I drive myself crazy
Tryin' to stay out of my own way
The messes that I make
But my secrets are so safe
The only one who gets me
You get me
It's amazing to me

Had he known, initially, that being Mary Shannon's partner would be a severe health risk three years ago, he probably still would have agreed to be her partner. Well, her "equal," anyways. She was biting and rude and brash and angry and irrational ninety-nine percent of the time. The remaining one percent was divided into two categories: the sublime, caring, emotional woman who connected on a higher level with her witnesses, especially the children, even if she denied it vehemently. And the other category was seen only once in a pretty blue moon. A sheer, single-minded, goal oriented desperation; the frantic need to save the one and only friend she had.

The latter category was fear. Mary Shannon was never afraid. But the near loss of her friend had never scared her so much in her life. High adrenaline, stress, and the fact that she'd been so angry about him quitting her, leaving her, that it almost hadn't mattered.

Petty arguments. That was how she got everywhere in life, it seemed. Small insignificant fights she provoked in even the best and most patient of people. Mary liked to fight. Not that she always cared about the winning part; she just liked to fight everything into the ground.

The partners were having such a fight. It had no real beginning, and neither saw an ending. They'd had a few moments like this since Marshall had been shot. He knew she blamed herself; if he'd heard her warning, if they hadn't been fighting about his potential job transfer, it wouldn't have happened. What she really meant was if she wasn't who she was, none of it would have ever transpired in the first place. She felt that if she apologized for her personality, he wouldn't leave her.

He didn't see it that way.

"Mary, you remember what we were talking about before, you know, about respect?" he asked when they'd hit a lull in their bickering. She'd been acting strange since his near death experience a few weeks back. She held her tongue around him, walked on egg shells, and every so often he'd catch her staring at this chest where the bullet had been. Always with a mix of sorrow and an expression that flashed "it should have been me" continuously.

She paused, the forkful of mashed potatoes frozen in her hand. "Interesting segue."

"I respect you. You know, if I were to ever leave, I would have the decency to tell you."

She closed her eyes, jabbing the fork down. "Jesus, not this again Marshall," she paused, staring him down. In a small voice she asked cautiously, "You're not…thinking of leaving…are you? Because if—"

He put up a hand to silence her. "No, I threw out the letter." She smiled slightly, looking down so he wouldn't see. "But you brought up a topic we never really touched before when you said that I didn't respect you."

"Look, I was mad! You say it yourself all the time, I like to fight!" she exclaimed.

"I know, I know. It's just that we're equals. And as equals, we should have knowledge that we respect each other. I'm still sorry you saw the letter, but sometimes you back me into these corners. You have a way of disobeying every rule without it coming back to haunt you. But it haunts me, and I'm the one that picks up the pieces."

"Yea, I'm a wild animal that can't be stopped. So you've made me aware," she said, in mocking of his grim speech in the diner in the middle of nowhere.

"It's not always a bad thing," he admitted quietly. "I don't think I'd be alive if you weren't who you are."

"I didn't do anything. I stuck a tube in your sucking chest wound, while you coached me in Latin between CPR sessions. This, by the way, makes you a serious geek. Who the hell actually knows ancient Latin?"

He laughed. "My family is the biggest clan of U.S. Marshall's out there. We could probably have our own baseball team. But sick sense of humor in regards to my first name, I did not always want to be part of the family legacy. I wanted to be everything."

"See, that doesn't surprise me at all. You were the kid that always carried a flashlight so he could read Webster's pocket dictionary when the bully on campus shoved you into the locker, huh?"

"No, it was because I knew, someday, I would have Miss Mary Sunshine as my partner. And occasionally, when we get trapped in a very crappy situation, I'd be able to tell you how to wire a phone so we could Morse code our way out of it," he finished with a smile.

"Oh please, I saw that movie Jeeves." Mary chewed on a bite of salad thoughtfully.

"Mary, why did you invite me over?" Marshall asked meaningfully. He wasn't hungry; had barely touched anything she'd put in front of him, and he knew she'd noticed.

She pushed around a cherry tomato with her fork. She shrugged. "Can't I have a friend over for dinner?"

He was silent, watching her fidget with her food while keeping her eyes on the table. "Mary, look at me." She glanced up, but didn't hold his gaze. "What's wrong?"

She laughed humorlessly. "Everything. Me. You. God, Raph is right, I do leave before things get personal. He proposed and I ran. He knows more about my sister than I ever will, which scares me because she likes him, and she doesn't want me to know she likes him. Jinx owes me 2500 from her attempted job that she doesn't know that I know already failed. And you wanted to, might still want to, leave me, because I am who I am," She was laughing harder now, and it scared him. "I don't want you to leave me. You're the only one I have who knows me, who doesn't expect money, doesn't pressure me, doesn't get on a plane and leave because I'm not ready to be married to a guy who cares more about his baseball career…and I thought you cared enough to know that."

Her maniacal laughing had turned into silent tears. "I told you that you didn't have my respect back at that police station. That you didn't do anything to deserve it. But you do, everyday, being my partner, watching my back…I'm the one that doesn't deserve the respect that you give me. Honestly, when I saw the letter, I knew it had been coming for awhile. No one stays long, not with a train wreck like me for a partner."

She pushed the tears away with her palms.

Marshall reached for one of her hands, feeling the wet tears that clung to it. "I'm staying, Mary."

She sighed, closing her eyes. "But for how long?"

"As long as you could ever want me. I don't make promises I can't keep. I promised I wouldn't die, for you."

She laughed, lighter this time. "Yea, because you knew I would kick your ass if you did."

"Of course. That, and who would fill your mind with endless, useless information for hours on end just to make an extra long car ride bearable?"

"Bearable? Okay, when I said I couldn't figure out why I put up with all that uselessness back at the police station, I was being honest," she teased. He put a hand over his heart.

"You wound me, Mary, really, that hurts," Marshall teased back. Mary rolled her eyes, before catching his gaze. The dinner she'd made—well, bought from the store and presented as if she'd spent awhile making it—sat untouched and had long gone cold since her minor breakdown.

She was becoming acutely aware that he still held her hand; as if on cue, his thumb brushed lightly over her knuckles. She tensed, ever so slightly, studying him a moment. It wasn't that she was uncomfortable, it was just….different. It wasn't them. It wasn't how they acted around each other…was it? She'd been oddly defensive when the stewardess—okay, the 'flight attendant'—had hit on Marshall. Who just went around assuming that a man and woman together on a plane wouldn't be together in the romantic sense of the word? And okay, they weren't, but she didn't know that.

And then there'd been the kiss in the stables, the one he'd played off simply as being a 'guy thing.' She would have called bull shit, but it had been awkward enough. And it had hurt a little, when he'd considered it as merely a guy thing. And little by little, Mary had a strange, confusing puzzle forming in her mind. She tried to recall everything from their conversation in that crappy, nowhere diner in the midst of him bleeding to death. The way he'd looked at her and his words for why he was resigning clashed now. They were hesitant. He knew he could have died, and still he had lied. Maybe she had blocked it that day, overlooked it so she could un-box it later. She had told him not die, not to quit, and he'd easily given in. She cocked her head to the side, mouth open while trying to form her question.

"You lied." She stated simply. He narrowed his eyes questioningly, surprised by the sudden conversational switch.

"I'm lost," he replied. She tilted her head the opposite direction, biting her lip.

"I ignored it, because of everything happening. I mean, one minute you're standing and we're arguing, and the next you're bleeding and I ignored it. How did I overlook that?"

He really was confused now. It was as if she was talking to another person; as if a third person was sitting at the table with them. "Mary, what—"

She stood abruptly, pulling her hand back, absently pacing. He stayed in his spot, afraid to interrupt her twisted thought process.

"You said, it was more about who you are than who I am, and maybe that's true, but it was a very loaded observation. Essentially I am some crazy, exotic animal of a person, but that wasn't the truth. At least, not the whole truth. So maybe it was a white lie, but if it that wasn't the whole truth, what aren't you telling me Marshall?"

She stopped pacing, facing the opposite direction from where he sat. He stood, desperately wanting to understand what was transpiring.

It was a mess, all of it. Everything that had happened since she'd read that stupid letter. Even now, nearly a month after the fact, they were careful around each other. She afraid the wrong thing said would make him leave; he simply afraid the real truth would make her want him to leave. They were at an impasse that neither knew they'd set themselves up for.

He walked tentatively up to her, his hand hovering above her shoulder before dropping it to his side. "I need to know where we stand, where this is coming from," he said to the side of her face. She'd yet to acknowledge his presence, stuck in her world. "Even though I had the letter, I already knew I wasn't going to take that job. I can say 'I'm sorry' a million times, but I know you hate the expression because it's as empty of a statement as can be. I could buy you flowers and cards but I know you hate kitschy ideas. All I can do is promise you that I won't leave you. But right now, I'm at a loss as to what you want from me…"

She turned to him then, turning so suddenly to find they were closer than either anticipated. "I just want to know what it was you didn't say that day. Marshall, you almost died in that backwater hell hole, and you still can't tell me the whole truth. I just…why did you lie?"

"Because you can't handle the truth," Marshall stated bluntly. "I can say I know you, more so than your mother, than your sister, than your baseball boyfriend ever will, and you know that. You say it all the time. We've been through a lot together, and that's an understatement at best. I rely on you for more than I should. Three years, Mary. We're partners and equals and best friends. But there just comes a point, where…"

"Where what? I can handle your damn truth! I don't need to be treated like a kid who'll throw a tantrum if she doesn't like what she hears!" He raised an eyebrow. "Okay, maybe I will," she resigned, "but just tell me dammit!"

He took her in for a moment, her eyes, her expression, her face, her hair. He sighed, breathing and hoping it wouldn't be the last time he stood in front of her like this. "Where one either cuts their losses and runs," he swallowed, bracing himself for the confession she thought she wanted to hear. "Or admits they've been carefully ignoring what they've felt, what they've wanted, what they'd do anything to have. I don't want to lose what I have…I just want more of it…"

She didn't move. Didn't breathe. Her eyes glittered with wetness once again. She stared fixedly at the imaginary bullet wound in his chest. He'd ditched his tie a long time ago, the collar of his white shirt gaping slightly with a few buttons undone as they'd relaxed earlier. She'd never seen the bullet wound. She watched him bleed through his undershirt, shoved the tube through the gap in the shirt, but never saw the scar.

Her hands worked curiously of their own accord. But exotic animals were curiosities in their own right, she thought, delicately unbuttoning his shirt. He didn't dare move for fear of startling her process. Whatever her actions, he wanted to see it through.

She gently pushed back his shirt. The skin where the bullet had been was marred by the scar where the slapdash doctors had cut in and pulled it out and stitched it back up. Her fingertips brushed over it reluctantly, like she'd hurt him. Stan was right, Marshall was tough. For all the crap she put him through, she could not find a reason in hell that he'd want her as anything more. She rested her palm fully over the scar.

He covered it then, with his own. She hooked her right arm around his neck, pulling him into a hug. She pulled back, for the first time really seeing him. "If…if that was the reason…why didn't you ever say anything…" she tried to ask.

He wanted to laugh, but it wasn't funny. "You never asked. And you're a hard one to get through to Mary. And you never give a solid answer."

This time she was the one to laugh, short and hollow. "I didn't know. At least, I didn't think I didn't know. But maybe I did, maybe I do. Now I don't know why you'd want me. Everything I do to you, you don't deserve..." she trailed off.

"I want you just the way you are. Wild horses will never be broken—I don't want you to apologize for the way you are because then you wouldn't be the partner, the best friend, the woman that I know. She is the one I want to be with." He had stopped short of saying he loved her. It was too soon; he already knew he loved her, for better, for worse, but she was Mary, and she was playing catch-up for the three years he'd already known. She smiled.

"That would be really, really cheesy coming out of anybody else, but for some reason, not you. Thank you," she whispered.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because you're the first person in my life that doesn't want to change me."

She moved the hand that rested on his chest slowly to his neck, her other hand following suit. She kissed his cheek, as she had in the dusty, condemned diner. Then the corner of his mouth. She pulled back, wanting to him to know her confirmation of his statement. He pulled her into him, kissing her like he'd wanted for years. Not for show in an attempt to fool a bunch of criminals, not because he was afraid he'd die not knowing.

But Because he was taking a chance on her, and she on him.

How every day
You save my life...

(Lyrics by Rascal Flatts. Hope it is up to par...this is one hell of a complicated show to write!)