This story is SO Mary-muse's fault! She was kicking around in my head, demanding I let her run wild and have some action-packed fun and she came up with this. I was planning on my "Marshall-meets-Mary" story first, but apparently she is having none of it. And Marshall-muse knows it's better (and healthier) to give Mary-muse what she wants when she's in this mood. *Sigh*

And special thanks to AULLBERG for all the help and idea bouncing!

Fair WARNING: I have a very dismal view of Jinx, Raph, and Brandi to begin with (though Brandi is becoming tolerable to me at least) so it is rather difficult for me to maintain their characters canon-like, but I tried. I swear! But I apologize if they somehow seem OOC despite it.

This story will be Marshall x Mary, obviously, and feature fellow WITSEC Marshal's I created specifically for this because I don't think Stan and the wonder duo can manage all the witnesses in ABQ all on their own. Not physically possible. To those of you irking at the idea of lots of OC's, I promise you will like them if you found Marshall's family I created (see my Marshall's guide series) amusing and entertaining. Lots of Bobby D, gun fights, and danger in sight.

So full speed ahead! Enjoy! =)

~SRDempsey

Fury and Flames

Prologue

It all started with a joke.

La Carina Notte was a classy Italian restaurant in the better part of town and the type of place Mary Shannon didn't frequent. Ever. Unless the Marshal's Service was picking up the tab, then it was more like, 'Bring on the lobster, bitch, and hold the bib.'

USMS was not footing the bill that particularly fateful night, nor was it her best friend sitting across from her. These types of places were Marshall's kind of restaurant, after all – classy, but not ostentatious. Nice linen table clothes that could blind if you stared at them too long. Silverware without water stains. A god damn violinist going from table to table.

Mary felt like running despite the heels and the dress but it was her compromise – an attempt to soothe Raph's insecurities about their yet-to-be-decided wedding date. So what if the dim lit atmosphere and romantic setting made her want to puke? He'd been a relatively good sport about her job and the secrecy…sort of. And she felt bad for ditching all their other dates…even if it was for legitimate reasons.

Reasons he couldn't know, but had an idea about because he knew what she did for a living.

Sometimes, Mary regretted telling him. Raph had this face now – a tense, tight-lipped look of disapproval every time she got a call from work – since that fateful shooting. It didn't even have to be an emergency – just a lost form neither Marshall or Stan or Eleanor had been able to unearth from the systematic sloppiness that was her desk – and he got that look and it pissed her off. A lot. The one that she could just hear him thinking something like, 'This can't be happening when we have kids,' or something equally as agitating. And she didn't even know if she WANTED kids!

Something has to change. She knew this. Mary wasn't stupid. She was waiting for the change to happen so she could start seeing this wedding on the horizon, but short of quitting her job as a US Marshal she couldn't change anymore without becoming something she'd hate. She loved her job and everything about it – Stan and his often-times blind loyalty to her; Marshall and his off-the-wall trivia and general zaniness; even Eleanor and the antagonistic friendship of sorts that they had. She never told them this – because she was Mary and Mary did not ever admit to loving anything so it could not hurt her as much when it eventually had to leave her – and didn't ever plan to.

She needed Raph to compromise. He had to be the one to bend on this because she couldn't bend any farther. She needed him to stop jesting about her hiding mob bosses and gang-bangers out loud and to stop getting pissy every time she had to leave because she was tired of it. And she could not be emotionally tired while on the job. Mary needed him to understand and to let it go, so she was going to sit here if that's what it would take to make him happy, damn it, and wine would help push back her lunch into her stomach.

Dinner was a nice affair, if a little more classy then she was used to, and she didn't even mind paying for all the drinks she was downing at the end. Their server came back with her credit card and the receipt to sign in one of those long padded-leather things all the classy places gave you your check in with a brief, "Thank you for your patronage, Ms. Shannon," because of her bill that was over $50 in alcohol alone and she better damn well get a thank you for it. It went exceedingly well, considering, and the food was good, until her phone rang as they were getting their coats on and he froze, his eyes staring holes into her cell and loudly not-asking her to pick it up.

"I'll call you back in five," she told Marshall, because even if it was an emergency he could handle it, and hung up, meeting Raph's gaze.

"What mafia boss needs you now, Mary?" he uttered unhappily, not quite normal volume but still loud enough to be over heard. "Or wait, would that be convenience store clerk now?"

"Raph!" she hissed, once, annoyed even though she knew it was the alcohol. He'd drunk too much and he was a moody drunk, which was why she normally avoided him at all costs when he did choose to indulge. Mary glanced around, looking for any signs of acknowledgment to his words, found none, and dragged him rather quickly to the car, tense and seething, an uncomfortable feeling in her gut that had nothing to do with the inevitable fight once they got home…again. And the ridiculously hot make-up sex she knew they would have.

Mary Shannon did not know the man at the table next to them dressed in a nice business suit and drinking with his sister-in-law was the widow of one of Brian Donovan's victims – a LA gangbanger who turned traitor against the big-shots of his old gang in exchange for a fresh start under the protection of the ABQ branch. She did not know he'd sunk so low since his discharge from the Marine Corps and was now nothing but a drunken man swallowed by pain and the need for revenge for the brutal and vicious rape/murder of his wife and teenage daughter the day before he returned home from duty.

She didn't know anything about the rage that fueled him as he filed her name away that he remembered hearing in pieces – Mary Shannon – or the comprehensive digging he would do to gather all he could on the only clue he had as to the identity of at least one WITSEC Marshal. One step closer to that murderer.

No one knew anything about the information he gathered and sold to other angry families of victims who would never see their murderer's come to justice because of the witness protection program until a month later.

No one had a clue that anything was wrong until Albuquerque's Sunshine Building and the home of U.S. Marshal Mary Shannon exploded into pyres of flames that scorching hot day in July.

A/N: All Mary-muses fault. All her fault. Grr…lots of action coming up. And will I be mean? Someone die in the fires? Who's hurt? Who's not? Hmm…Who knows?

Reviews, as always, are kindly appreciated. It is already established, I think, that I'm a whore for them. XD!