Chapter 1 – Elephants

The engine had been off for a few minutes, she could still hear the ticking noise the engine made when it was cooling down – she remembered when she was little, how relieved she was to hear that noise when her mother had managed by some miracle to get them home in the car. Now she was nervous about the noise, because it meant the car ride was over. The car ride that had unwillingly ferried her from her empty home to work. The car ride that indicated her time to return to work was upon her and she had no choice – she had committed to this date, just as she had committed her baby to the Templetons.

And there it was again.

Them.

The people she had chosen for her then unborn child. The clan, the pack, the pride, the herd – whatever, she stopped to think she had been watching way too much nature television while at home. Marshall would have approved…will approve…if she'd ever tell him. Still, it gnawed at her the way the hyenas gnawed on that unfortunate old wildebeest on the African savannah – she had given up her baby. She didn't see lionesses saying: "Oh hey fuzzy, can't keep you, you're going to go with that other pride over there, yup, not near me at all and no I'm not keeping you. Skidaddle."

Skidaddle? She shook her head free of that one.

She had done the right thing, right? Those people, that nice perfect couple, with their business (was it landscaping? She couldn't remember…) and their extra truck – they were perfect for that little kid. She wasn't. That's what she told herself. But truly, with her family's track record, it wasn't like she'd suddenly be a perfect mom. She couldn't do it by herself anyway – well, she could, she did everything else by herself.

"Woah." She quietly spoke to her dependable old machine, which as ticking a little less, but still making noise from time to time. "I do everything by myself." This realization for her was the realization she saw on faces of new witnesses when they suddenly understand nothing will ever be the same.

This new realization left her with a lot of empty mental space to fill. So she did things by herself, was this bad? Was this good? Was it effective? And she supposed the most important question was – why? She quickly checked her reflection in the mirror to make sure it was the shrinky brunette who wasted her time.

"Nope. Still you."

She exhaled noisily through her nose. What was she going to do? Now that she wasn't carrying what felt like a blue whale in her uterus, she was left where she was before she was pregnant. She had no sense of direction then, and Mark hadn't helped matters at all, and now that the baby was no longer with her, she was direction-less again. Her mind spun – she was torn about the adoption, but more confused. Just go witness to witness – that's what. That determination didn't win when she realized it was going from someone else's old life transformation to another's and not ever examining her own.

That new realization smacked her as hard as she smacked her own forehead against the steering wheel. She had woken up this morning feeling apprehensive, but now she was feeling sick. Closing her eyes, she took in deep breaths, not as deep as when she was in labor, which just made her think about her baby yet again, but deep enough to calm her down a touch.

Of course, the well-intentioned knock on her car window made her jump to where she hit her head on the ceiling of her car and made her scramble for her weapon. But, she realized sooner rather than later that it was just Marshall. His face was skeptical and bemused, which brought her back down to a more pissed off state.

He backed up as she opened the car door and swung out her legs but approached when she didn't get out of the car. She knew he was concerned.

"Doing ok, Mare?" He asked softly. She didn't need to lie. She wasn't sure if she wanted to.

"Just ok." She mumbled, leaning sideways against her car seat and stretching her booted legs out in front of her. It was nice to have regular feet again. She might've given regular feet up to have her baby – wait, what the hell was that? "You know what?" She looked up at her tall partner who had been patiently waiting for this moment, although she didn't know it.

"What?"

"I'm not ok. I'm not fine, I'm not ok, and I'm certainly not good." She could feel everything rising in her, similar to how she stacked up her case of hatred against Ronnie – stupid con artist who she held responsible for ruining Squish's wedding. She had her elbows on her knees and was gesturing outwards from her car, as if all her grumpiness was in the car and it flowed out if she did that – well, if that's what was happening, it worked.

"I needed to be an elephant." She blurted this out and even Marshall, for all his patience, furrowed his eyebrows, raised his chin and opened his mouth slightly, in his classic: "I'm not following" face.

"You should know this, orgamiboy! Elephants are knocked up for twenty-two months. They get all this time to figure out what's going to happen next – that's nearly two years of decision time! Two years to know what the hell is going to happen next. There's no way they can make the wrong decision with that kind of time, even if all their family members are premium class A screw-ups! They can do the right thing and they have all the time they need! I didn't have enough time!"

She didn't know it, but this brought Marshall back to when she lay on the stairs repeating how it wasn't time, and he had mistakenly thought she was solely worried for the premature state of her child, although he had suspicions later.

"I mean, really," her eyes were wide and uncertain, also angry – much like when she was dealt with a surprise from a witness. But now she wanted to fight and wasn't sure how. Marshall was just keeping up with the flow of the tide and hated to see her like this. Admittedly, he was more concerned with the fact she knew something about elephants he didn't. Well, mildly concerned – the state of his partner was deeply fissured. "I didn't even know – I was so overwhelmed – it was stupid, but not, and now I can't go back on that – and once again, my fuck up family needs cleaning up and Brandi is-"

"Mare! Hold on. Just…rest. Elephants – how do they fit in?" He needed to distract her.

"They're pregnant for like…a fifth of a decade." She looked a bit miffed for being interrupted.

"Alright. Then what? Elephants live in herds with a matriarch and…their babies are their everything afterwards…" now he wasn't sure where he was going with this.

"I know they keep their babies." She waved that off. "I'm just saying, they have each other – there was this scene with them all together all the time, no matter what. They weren't…by themselves." She finished so quietly Marshall had to truly strain to hear what she said. She was rolling a piece of gravel from underneath her car beneath the sole of her right boot. Her hair had drifted in front of her as if she was already trying to cover up and forget what had just happened.

Marshall breathed out and then in a quick process of walking towards her, turning around and sliding down the car frame, so he sat to the left of his partner, and he began to speak.

"Mare, I know you wished you had more time, but…" he wanted to say this tactfully, "are you regretting what happened?"

"Regret?" She swung around to look at him scornfully, but found she didn't quite have the feeling behind it. "No, no way, not going there – 'sides, that kid is much better off with the Templetons than me – by far. I got plenty of my own immature nutjobs and asswipes to deal with without having a kid."

"But Mare…you're not alone." He made it sound obvious, because to him it was. He was there in the morning, and the afternoon, at night – sometimes at dawn, on those long road trips – always during meals. He felt a breeze come across the parking lot and it pushed her blonde hair back and he could better see how unsettled she was by this entire situation. It was only logical that he would miss her baby, he didn't think it was a full onset of post-partum depression, and he had put a good amount of time into being able to detect the symptoms. It had been the large amount of time that Stan forced on her to recover that these thoughts presented themselves, no doubt. So, she may miss the child, but it wasn't regret, but then she was lonely – how she lonely? The sun hit an angle that lit up the parking lot and it barely interrupted his thoughts, but it made Mary shift, slightly towards him.

"Marshall, am I going to just start cleaning up again? Jinx is barely staying off the bottle, I swear I'm gonna chain her to the wagon – and where the hell is Brandi? Peter is too…damn stoic about the whole thing and -" she had her face positioned towards him, and he knew there was more to it than she was saying. "You know, elephants have this huge range of sounds they can make, they never get lost or separated. They make one noise and they're all back together – no phones, no emails, no text messages – none of that crap!"

Again with the elephants. Marshall just shook his head.

"Then don't." He concluded, pushing himself off the ground and dusting off his jeans. Mare looked up at him like he had spouted nonsense. "Don't clean up, don't watch your mom, don't look for Brandi and do not worry about Peter, he can handle himself."

"Doofus!" She stood up really fast and was suddenly dizzy, and Marshall quickly came forward and grabbed her by the elbows, pulling her towards him so she wouldn't fall into the door. She instinctively put her hands out and they splayed across his chest, and his hands had moved to her back, to keep her from stumbling. The color of her hair lit up in the midmorning sun and suddenly she felt so warm against him. He wasn't sure why she hadn't pushed him away yet, but instead she too basked in the contact – was the last time she had touched someone like this her baby? The thought crossed his mind but he didn't wonder too much about it, he was holding her, she was letting herself be held, it was momentary but peaceful.

She had felt so alone in the car, in the drive, and wondered why she was and now she wasn't. Finally it was ok – she wasn't by herself for a minute, and the world wasn't ending because Marshall was holding her. Sure, she should be upset and should be cranky and offended by his mere closeness – but she couldn't be.

To be continued…