A/N: Thank-you so very much for the early reviews! You all excite me with your excitement! I was worried I wouldn't be able to make good on my usual timely updates this evening because we have been having Internet issues. Hopefully they stay in the past!

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The sight that met Mary's eyes when she walked through the door was not one she expected or wanted to see. Norah was sitting on the island mashing up Cheerios and dangerously close to falling into the sink. Brandi was at least nearby, but was pacing and seemingly paying no attention at all, hands where they often rested these days – on her lower back.

"Hey…" Mary tried not to flip-out right away and dumped her bag and sunglasses on or somewhat near the end table, walking into the kitchen to join.

"Hey…" Brandi's reply was half-hearted and her eyes didn't meet her sister's.

"How are things?" Mary asked, and then reached for her daughter, pulling her up and away from the slippery pit she was about to skate into. "Hi Bug…" she kissed her temple and fingered the strands of hair sprouting in tufts on the top of her head, still too early to tell if it was going to be dark or light.

Brandi attempted a smile that looked more like a wince at Mary's appearance and tried to answer her question, "We're fine…" she sighed and fingered the overalls Norah was wearing, along with the pale pink T-shirt that had definitely been her aunt's doing and not her mother's. "Missy here spilled all her apple juice at lunch so I had to change her. This pink shirt was the only thing that was clean…" she obviously felt she had to explain the attire her niece was in.

"Did you start laundry?" was Mary's first question, trying to keep Norah from plastering her with the bits of cereal stuck on her fingers.

"No…" Brandi exhaled, sweeping her bangs out of her eyes and looking ashamed. "I forgot…"

Mary bit her tongue, knowing her sister had not done this on purpose but it still irked her. How was she supposed to have something for Norah to wear if nobody washed anything? She was always spitting or smearing or staining some article of clothing at least once a day, if not more often.

"Take her…" Mary sighed in response, lifting her daughter to balance on Brandi's hip. "I'll get it going…"

But Brandi shook her head, perhaps for the first time pawing her niece away and Mary was perplexed.

"Put her on the counter or in the playpen…" even though she was really getting too big for the latter. "I can't hold her right now."

"What?" Mary crinkled her nose, trying to keep Norah from slipping to the floor since Brandi had rejected her. "Why not?" she remembered the pacing and the placement of her hands and took a wild guess. "Are you okay?"

Brandi shook her head, "My back is really bothering me."

"Squish, come on…" Mary slipped into disbelief quite quickly, but then checked herself. "Your back always hurts, and forgive me for saying so, but it's not exactly an uncommon ailment when you're carting around a bowling ball."

Brandi's only response was to feed her sister pitiful blue eyes, begging tolerance and hoping to be accommodated for, doted upon and maybe even pitied.

"Look…" Mary shook her head, just hoping to get Norah a better dinner and call it a night. "If you want to go lie down for awhile there's a hot water bottle under the sink in the bathroom."

Norah was beginning to whine, reaching in Mary's arms for the stray Cheerios still littering the counter but she was messy enough already. Besides that, she was concerned about giving her anything too hard since she was still teething and had been up a lot during the night.

"Sit tight Bug…" she murmured, swinging her daughter out of range of the food, but Brandi was speaking over her.

"Laying down makes it worse," she claimed. "I've been trying to walk it off but it's not working…"

Mary couldn't help feeling that Brandi was being a little overdramatic, or else that she didn't have the threshold for pain that Mary did. However, she wasn't looking especially well. Her cheeks were flushed and she was distinctly droopy, although she didn't find either of these things particularly exceptional for how late in the pregnancy she was.

Still, Mary hitched Norah onto her hip, hanging onto her with one arm and put three fingers to Brandi's forehead – just to make sure.

"You're good…" the older sister muttered. "Just checking…" but Brandi didn't look convinced and also a little worried, so Mary hurried to ease her mind so they could move on. "Try lying down for a bit anyway. Get your feet up, stretch out, you'll be fine."

Brandi shrugged, but stretched to run a hand over Norah's head before ultimately agreeing.

"Okay…" she whispered. "I'm probably just tired."

Mary was sure this was it and nodded to reinforce the point, "I'll check on you in a little while."

"Thanks," Brandi was grateful and made another brave attempt at a smile. And then, knowing how fiercely Mary was working at this open-minded thing, "I'm sorry about the laundry, Mare. I meant to put some in; I'll try to remember next time."

Mary shrugged, "Whatever," she muttered vaguely. "Just get yourself rested up so I can rob some more of your time before that rug-rat shows up…" she waggled her fingers in the region of Brandi's rounded belly.

Fortunately, this earned her a real grin but Brandi stayed silent as she made her way back to the guest room and out of Mary's sight. Once she was gone, Mary let out something of a theatrical sigh and lifted Norah up above her head to see just how messy she'd gotten.

"Look at you…" she clucked her tongue, and Norah seemed to enjoy the long fingers holding her up along with the funny noise. "How old are you gonna be before you learn to eat like a civilized being, huh?" she dug her fingers into her sides just enough to make her giggle, which she did at once, causing the right strap of her overall to slip when she twitched.

Laying another kiss on her cheek as she pulled her back into her chest, Mary went to the cabinets to see if she could find something else for her daughter to eat. But perusing her choices, her mother knew she'd just have a tantrum on her hands because Norah was rapidly getting sick of strained food. Per Brandi's request, her little one was back on the counter and Mary set about peeling a banana instead.

"Here Bug…" she didn't bother with a knife and instead just tore off bites with her fingers. "Have some of this…"

Norah took the piece of the fruit and smashed it in her pudgy fingers a few times before Mary guided a hand to her mouth and made her eat it. They went through this process twice before her cell started ringing and Mary fished it out of her pocket with smudgy, sticky fingers to answer.

"This is Mary…" she responded, not able to look at the ID what with trying to keep Norah from throwing all of her food and coating the counter with it.

"Hey, it's me," Mark's voice floated through. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing earth-shattering…" Mary didn't care for small talk. "Norah's having dinner. What do you need?"

"Norah," he replied simply. "Well, kind of. My mom was hoping we could have her for part of the holiday weekend. She wanted to take her to this fair they have in Cimarron. You can come too if you want."

"How generous of you…" Mary groused, marginally irritated he'd tried to finagle this without talking to her first, using her free hand to save chewed-up banana from landing on the floor. "Come on love, eat it…" she coached, poking it into her open mouth. "Where did you say it is again?" she hadn't been listening closely enough.

"Cimarron," Mark replied, being patient.

Mary calculated briefly, trying to make sure she was doing the math right because she'd only been to Cimarron once as far as she could remember. Marshall had an old witness stashed out there back when they'd still been allowed to place throughout the state.

"Mark…no…" she was short with him as she realized. "It's three hours from Albuquerque to Cimarron; you'd have to take her all day and I don't want her riding in the car for that long…"

"Mare, we'd stop along the way," he rationalized. "And besides, I said you could come too. I thought we'd make a day of it; it'll be fun."

"Yeah, my idea of 'fun' is not driving in the boiling sun for some hundred-and-eighty-miles just to go to some schmaltzy festival with fiddlers and accordion-players where I'm expected to belt out, 'My Country Tis of Thee,'" she snarked, and was so busy coming up with this rebuttal she forgot to keep an eye on Norah, who promptly squashed her fourth slice of banana right to the bib on her overalls.

Mary groaned and shut her eyes, "Come on, N…"

'N' was yet another moniker, and she wondered if she'd ever call her child by her real name one of these days.

"What's she doing?" Mark asked, perhaps trying to smooth over Mary's dismissal of his idea.

"Nothing," Mary wasn't going to let him get away with that and tried to undo the straps on the overalls, which is how she remembered the laundry she still hadn't begun. "It's not my kind of thing, Mark," she referred to his trip again.

"Well then, don't go," was his easy solution. "But I'd still like to take Norah."

Couldn't he see that she wasn't a fan of that idea either? She and Mark got along much better than they used to, it was true, but his need to spend so much time with Norah was weirdly annoying on some level. She'd been so concerned he wouldn't step up and now he was going above and beyond. But didn't he get that this was her kid too? He couldn't just grab her whenever he wanted.

Perhaps sensing where his ex's mind was headed, Mark tried again to sweeten the deal, "I really wish you'd come…"

She hadn't even said Norah could go yet.

"Mark, I really can't…" she insisted. "Honestly. Someone needs to stay here with Brandi," she fabricated somewhat off the top of her head, not knowing she felt as much until she'd said it aloud.

"What do you mean?" Mark questioned, sounding a little bothered. "What's wrong with Brandi?"

"Nothing's wrong with Brandi…" Mary corrected him. "Nothing in the realm of life-threatening or anything. But if I go, she's gonna be calling me every five minutes complaining about some knocked-up disorder," she assumed. "Better to just stay here and keep her from going off the deep end."

"Well, whatever…" Mark resolved to let that one go. "But why can't I take Norah out? Wouldn't you like some time to yourself?"

Mary's time to herself was indeed limited anymore now that Brandi was crashing at the house and she had a little girl who was almost a year old, but she hadn't been relishing a weekend by herself. A quiet weekend was not the same as a lonely one, and she found she became lonely much easier these days. She wasn't sure if it was because she'd gotten so used to having Norah around, or if it was something deeper. Something like James, maybe.

"I wanted to spend time with her too, Mark…" she admitted in a small voice, ignoring her daughter's ill-timed squeal as her mother unstrapped her overalls. "Isn't there something a little closer to home you could drag her to? You really have to go all the way out to the boondocks?"

Mark sighed, but was defeated, "I'll see what I can do. Are you good for the night?"

"Am I good for the night?"

"Well, I've gotta head out to Santa Fe for a deal I'm closing tomorrow morning…" he explained. "I wanted to make sure you had Norah covered."

"What are you, the happy traveler now?" Mary joked.

"It's an early thing; the guy's going to the lake with his family tomorrow afternoon," he went on. "I would've been back in plenty of time to hang out with the kid."

"Lovely…" Mary did not have a good response to that. "But yes, we're fine."

"All right," Mark agreed. "I'll give you a call tomorrow."

"Can't wait," she laced the phrase with sarcasm as she usually did and hung up without saying goodbye, sliding the phone onto the counter and working on getting Norah undressed the rest of the way.

However, it appeared her child was not a fan of having her clothes taken off right now and shrieked at the top of her lungs, batting Mary's hands away as tears sprung to her eyes.

"No…!" she voiced, one of the few words she could and did articulate on a regular basis. "No-no!"

"I know, I know…" Mary rushed to get the job done so she would not completely fall apart. "Give me half a second…"

Unfortunately, the chaos was going to continue to rein no matter how Mary tried to bring it to a halt because a second cry mingled with her baby's, one Mary did not want to deal with at the moment.

"Mary!"

What could Brandi possibly want? She'd only gone back to the guest room ten minutes ago. Surely she could wait and Mary reminded herself that her sister was not helpless. If she really needed something she could get it herself.

"Hang on!" the woman bellowed and she was swift as she swept off the rest of Norah's outfit, leaving her in just the T-shirt and her diaper. She was glad it was warm out.

Grabbing the little girl with one arm, she flung her dirty overalls into the laundry room and deposited her in her playpen in the living room.

"Be good…" Mary ordered, as though Norah might actually understand, but she was clearly happy to be left alone and un-prodded at this point. "I'm gonna see what your aunt's screeching about."

Mary jogged on back to the guest room, wondering with each passing stride why she was putting herself through all these motions, mind whirring with Doctor Finkel's words that she constantly needed someone to protect. It was in her blood. She didn't know how to change it.

"What?" was her less-than-happy greeting when she thrust the door open. "You become incapable of walking now?"

Brandi let that go for the most part, but Mary noticed she was looking fairly upset from where she was perched on her side on the bed. She was using one elbow to hold herself upright, and her face fell forward into her palm of the hand on that same arm. Mary saw the tears, but was really more interested in why she'd been summoned.

"What?" she repeated.

"I don't know what to do…" Brandi croaked.

"About what?" Mary walked in a little further, around the side of the bed by the end table.

"My back…" her voice was shaking and the tears presented themselves with the second sentence, reddening the younger sister's eyes. "I can't do anything. I can't walk, I can't lie down; it's killing me Mary…"

In the back of her mind, Mary still thought Brandi might be overdoing it on the pain, but she was certainly distressed at this point. She'd also lasted all day and was just now complaining this heartily. She supposed it was possible her sister was suffering some kind of hurt Mary had not experienced this much in excess.

"Is it really that bad?" she tried to sound gentle and not accusatory.

Mary was also lost for how to proceed and, for whatever reason reached over Brandi's stomach and placed what she hoped were temperate fingers to her spine. She didn't feel anything, although she didn't know what she expected to feel either.

"Where is it the worst?" she asked. "Upper back or lower?"

"Low…" she sniffled. "And across my middle…" she caressed her abdomen.

"Your middle?" Mary's ears perked up at this and she stepped back, fixing Brandi with a critical eye. "Are you having contractions?"

Brandi shook her head somewhat confidently, "No. I don't think so. It hurts all the time, not in bursts like when I'm having Braxton Hicks."

"Okay…" Mary breathed, trying to think. "I don't know what to tell you, Squish. Just…try to relax, I guess…" was her best advice. "If you're this bad off tomorrow, you should go in."

The last bit didn't improve Brandi's mood and even caused some more tears to leak out, but she didn't say anything. Mary considered calling Marshall to see if he'd ever heard about anything like this, if he knew what it might mean so she could ease Brandi's mind. But then she remembered Marshall had enough to be going on with and that she couldn't run to him with every little thing.

The three Shannon women could handle it just fine.

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A/N: Thank-you all, again, for reviewing! I say it a lot, but I really mean it!