Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing but my imaginary friends. All characters, etc. belong to the writers and producers of In Plain Sight.
Spoilers: Up to and including "Trojan Horst".
Author's Note: A new obsession, and now a new fandom to christen - what fun!
If he had known…
He lied. When he told her why he was thinking about leaving the US Marshals Office, he lied.
He knew she knew it wasn't the truth. But she didn't know how to ask, and he didn't know how to tell.
He would have told her the truth, except for one small thing.
He thought he was going to live.
If he had known he was going to die, he would have told her the truth: the truth that burned through him in sudden gusts, like a firestorm racing through a wooded hillside.
It didn't happen every day. Not even on a regular basis. But every so often – when she was particularly cutting during one of their sniping battles, when she was helpless in the face of violence and angry with it, when her family would once again drag her into their twisting of the world to suit their purposes - that truth would flash through him, stealing his breath and leaving him shaking.
If he had known he was going to die, he would have told her the truth: that he loved her. Had loved her for months. Maybe for years.
That he knew her inside and out and loved even the parts of her that he hated. That he wanted her to be happy, but that he would prefer her to be happy with him.
If he had known he was going to die, he would have told her the truth: that he didn't know how to live another day without telling her the truth.
And that was why he had decided to leave the Marshals Service, the service that was so much a part of his family's history that he had been branded at birth: Marshall Mann, United States Marshal, son of a marshal, grandson of a marshal, back four generations to the first American Mann standing on the border between Mexico and the United States during Madero's revolution in 1910.
If he had known he was going to die, he could have told her the truth, because if he had died he wouldn't have to live with seeing the fear he knew his words would cause to flood her eyes, with the panic he knew would shorten her breath and send her careening away from him.
He knew her inside and out, and he loved even the parts of her he hated. Like her fear. Her lack of trust. Her belief that she was responsible for everyone and to no one. Her belief that she could only be loved by the unworthy.
If he had known he was going to die, he would have told her the truth, and trusted her to stand by him, her partner, until the bitter end, no matter how much she felt like running.
But he thought he was going to live.
And so he lied. And now he lay in his hospital bed and wondered what to do next.
Because he couldn't tell her the truth without losing her, but now he could not hold to the lie without losing himself.