Marshall wearily dropped his overnight bag in the hallway and trudged towards the kitchen, shrugging out of his long coat before tossing it on the couch as he passed. Exhaustion seeped into his very bones. Opening the fridge and bending over, he pushed a jug of orange juice out of the way and retrieved a bottle of Coors beer from behind a head of lettuce. Coors because Mary was fond of it. He preferred some of the offerings from the local microbreweries. Sinking down on the couch, he twisted off the cap and stared at the label before setting the bottle on the coffee table.
Stretching, he held his hands out in front of him and studied them. Long, slender fingers, neatly trimmed nails, supple wrists, a sprinkling of dark hair across the backs. He turned them over, inspecting his palms, the pink flesh smooth and relatively uncalloused, the life lines prominent. He smirked. When he was twenty-one a palm reader had smilingly told him he would have a long wait, but he would find his dream girl, the one who would complete him. Well, he had been waiting for twenty years. A frown crossed his face as noticed a small cut on the little finger of his right hand. How did he do that? It wasn't there this morning. Grimacing, he acknowledged that he had been off his game all day.
Spreading his fingers out, he stared at his empty ring finger. Slowly widening his field of vision, he took in all ten digits. Hands. He was starting to obsess. About hands. Her hands. He picked up his beer and took a long swig.
Her hands. When had he started paying so much attention? He had always been closely attuned to her, but there was something about her hands that drew his attention day after day. He would focus on her hands on those occasions when he couldn't look her in the face. They were strong, those hands. He had seen them bring down criminals. He had seen them steady as a rock holding her Glock trained on a threat to a witness. He had seen them throttling stupid witnesses. They could be gentle too, those hands. He had seen them calming frightened children. He had seen them comforting scared adults. He had felt them himself, cupping his face, begging him to live.
He noticed every scratch, every bruise. He knew she never painted her nails, that she frequently bit them to the quick. It was a good gauge of her emotional status; a quick furtive look to see if she had been biting her nails gave him advance warning. His hyper-awareness of her hands was the reason he had noticed the tan line on her ring finger. Had led to the tightening of his chest as the meaning of that thin, white line sank in. He glanced at her hands every morning, his eyes seeking out the gaudy ring, the flash of pain fresh every day. He really was a bit of a masochist to deliberately subject himself to that deep felt hurt so regularly.
This morning though, this morning had been different. When Mary had walked over and slapped down the two nickels on his desk, his gaze had settled on her hand as it did every morning. He froze, the ring was absent. He glanced up at her face. She was still in full rant. His eyes drifted back down. Definitely no ring. He mentally kick started his brain so he could respond to her, while running scenarios through his mind. Did she break up with Raph? Maybe she forgot to put the ring on this morning. Did she break up with him? Maybe the ring was at the jewelers for adjustment. Did she break up with him? Maybe it was soaking in cleaner. Did she break up with him?
All through the day, his thoughts returned to Mary's unadorned finger. Dealing with that asshole Faber, dealing with the clueless witness, dealing with Mrs. Clueless; always returning to worry at the puzzle of the ring. Until the car ride. He watched her rubbing at the spot her ring had occupied and felt something clench in his heart. She was distressed. Her pleas for him to spout useless trivia caught him by surprise. He choked. The only thought in his normally minutiae filled brain was 'why wasn't she wearing her engagement ring'. And the words had left his mouth. She reluctantly informed him she and Raph had broken up and his mind had totally flamed out and he had nothing.
She was begging him for mindless drivel, to save her from her own thoughts. Marshall suspected she found a certain comfort just from the sound of his voice and never actually listened to what he was saying. He would bet the timbre of his voice kept her own thoughts from overwhelming her. He felt a small flicker of warmth in his stomach at the thought she found comfort from his voice. He heaved a deep sighed. Not today though, not when she needed him. He blanked on her; honestly could not think of a single thing to say. His brain turned to jelly and wobbled around the thought that she was free; she was no longer pledged to Raph.
Mary had looked at him dumbfounded. Her exclamation that he was verbally impotent would have been funny, if it weren't true. Equally true was his feeble defense that this had never happened to him before.
After a long pull on his beer, Marshall's head dropped into his hands. He had literally only had a couple of hours with the wondrous knowledge that she was free before Faber was sniffing around her. He just couldn't catch a break. And he had to spell it out to her that Faber was asking her out. Mary really was naive in some ways. A mean little smile passed across his features. Well, he took care of that.
The slight flash of guilt over deleting the FBI agent's voice mail was quickly justified. His first obligation was to Mary's well being. And her well being was best served by no Agent Faber. He knew this because he knew her, knew her better than anybody else, even her own family. He knew her because he had taken the time to talk to her, to listen to her, to interpret the subtext of what she said. He knew her body language, the unspoken things she said with her expressions, with the way she held her body, with her hands. Always he came back to her hands.
The entire trip back to Albuquerque she had intermittently rubbed at that empty finger. He wished that she would let him hold her hand. He had wanted rather desperately to reach over and do just that, to still that forlorn rubbing. Mary didn't hold hands though. He rested his head back against the couch and considered that. Holding hands was an intimate gesture, or at least it could be, and Mary didn't do intimate.
Marshall enjoyed holding hands, he liked the connection it gave him with the other person. He enjoyed the sheer physical pleasure of the warmth of the other hand, the pressure of the clasp against his palm. He enjoyed the emotional pleasure of the implicit acknowledgment: I like you, I trust you. Holding hands could give so much comfort: I'm here, I care, let me help. He had nervously twitched with the suppression of his desire to reach over to her. She had looked sharply at him at one point on the drive back from the airport and Marshall had firmly planted his hand back on the steering wheel and kept it there until they arrived back at the office.
He startled at the rapping at his door. Mary. She was the only one who wouldn't use the doorbell. Marshall thought she enjoyed the physical act of hitting something. He cautiously opened the door, uncertain of her frame of mind and slightly apprehensive she may have discovered he had deleted Faber's call.
The pale light from his entryway light framed her tense face. She wasn't looking at him, instead focusing on the large planter of flowers he had in the corner of his porch.
"Mary, come on in." He stood aside and waited for her to walk past him, but she stood statue still on the doorstep.
"I didn't want to go home," she said softy, "it's too quiet." She ventured a quick glance at his face and then dropped her eyes to his feet and stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets.
Marshall gestured her inside, hoping maybe they could have their talk now.
"I can provide you a stream of mindless drivel if you like," he offered as she shuffled past him. "I can expand from ice cream to sherbet, gelatto, frozen yogurt." Pulling her jacket off and hooking it on the coat tree in the entry, she finally looked him in the face.
Smiling slowly she shook her head. "No, that's not what I need." They started walking down the hallway to the living room and Mary reached over and took Marshall's hand, intertwining their fingers. "I just need to be with my best friend, to know you're here for me."
Marshall looked down at their clasped hands, felt the pressure, her warmth and squeezed. She squeezed back.
The End