The characters do not belong to me nor do I own any part of In Plain Sight. This is pure imagination. Adult language because it's Mary. This is my first story so reviews would be very welcome. More chapters to come. I'm just getting started! Please enjoy:)

Takes place after season 3 finale.

Even as I watch what I call mine

Become not mine

Even as I feel what I cannot lose

Float further away

I refuse to surrender what I have lost.

Marshal Marshall Mann sat at his desk in the Sunshine Building, searching the vast and seemingly uncontrolled amount of files his partner had left him while on vacation. And if this pile was overly large it was because it consisted of all the files Mary had decided didn't need her attention long before she took a break.

"Ah, well. Nothing unusual," Marshall said with a sigh, his deep and often husky voice echoing through the empty office. It was empty because it happened to be 11:00 on a Tuesday night. Stan, Charlie, and every other person who normally inhabited the U.S. Marshal's office were long gone. Home to families, friends, or just a bottle. Who knows? But they were not there to witness one of Marshall's rare melancholy moods. He sat with his back to the balcony overlooking Albuquerque and one by one, laid the files into a neat and alphabetized pile. Then he just as neatly slid them into a bottom drawer in Mary's filing cabinet with a slight nod, awaiting his partner's return the next morning. He knew she would never think to look in the most obvious place.

The office echoed the sound of his chair as it squeaked with the release of his weight. He walked over to the radio placed on top of his ordered file cabinet. Mary often called his fondness for order a symptom of OCD, which he responded to by reciting the medical textbook definition of the disorder. He switched the radio on to one of his favorite channels, a country station that drove Mary crazy. The sound of a slow song followed him out onto the balcony as he sat and watched the night go by. Tomorrow morning he would not be here. In fact, Marshall wouldn't be seeing this place for the next couple of weeks, if plans went accordingly.

"How many years has it been?" he asked himself. How long had he not taken advantage of those few days a year in which he was allowed freedom from his routine? At least as long as Mary had been his partner. He remembered the first year she had come to them. He had been called back not even days into his vacation to help sooth over one of Mary's indelicate attempts to deal with outside authority. Calling the leader of the FBI an ignorant fucking asshole had not seemed to impress the man who led hundreds of men and women everyday. Stan had handled him, Marshall had been left with Mary. And he had been able to calm her down and together they had found a more tactful resolution. In Marshall's mind, Mary was a sphinx, the head and breast of a woman, the strong and capable body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. She presented a riddle to the world and if you made a mistake with her she would eat you alive. It was a good thing Marshall knew so much trivia. So far he could answer all her riddles but one. What would it take to make her see? His musings passed over into dangerous territory before he came back around to his shortened vacation..

Ever since then he had used no more than three days to see his family, mostly an extra day off for each of the holidays. Mary had not used any of them which had led to her taking three weeks off just recently. He had thought about taking his full vacation then too, but couldn't afford to leave Stan that short. He knew that Stan relied on them as the best in WitSec. With all the cases they handled it would take four marshals to take their place. But with Mary coming back tomorrow, and the decidedly disagreeable mood he had been in since he found out she was with Mr. 'Kitten' Faber, he chose, with Stan's blessing, to take off for the next two weeks. He had taken the precaution of giving Stan his work phone and would later turn off his cell phone as a safeguard against Mary when she found out she would be having to do her own paperwork for two weeks. Especially when she couldn't find the ones she had already given him.

Marshall breathed in the cool summer night air before laughing to himself. He didn't want to think about why he felt so good for knowing she would have a difficult time while he wasn't there to lean on, but he had to admit, "It does feel good, for once I won't be there to clean up after you, Mary."