*** Marshall sticks to his guns, and Mary's resolve is worn down. He knows just how to get to her, thank goodness ***


"The dance of battle is always played to the same impatient rhythm. What begins in a surge of violent motion is always reduced to the perfectly still." - Sun Tzu


The SUV pulled into Marshall's driveway and he let it idle for a minute before turning the key. Silence descended in the cab, and Marshall left his hands on the steering wheel as he tilted his head and shifted his eyes to regard his deceptively quiet partner.

"How long are you going to pretend you're asleep?" he asked slowly.

"As long as I have to in order to keep this conversation from happening?" Mary thought morosely as her forehead remained against the cool window. A few more breaths before she answered.

"What do you want me to say?" she replied, voice quiet and rough.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Simple, honest and straight to the point.

Mary's mind paraded reason after reason before her, each carrying no more legitimacy than the last. Because she needed more time, because she couldn't find the right words, because she was embarrassed, because, because…because. Rolling her head back onto the seat, she stared at the roof and listened to him breathe.

Marshall pursed his lips as he stared through the windshield. He didn't know if she was ignoring him or thinking up an excuse, but the searing anger from earlier had had time to simmer and now he felt confused and hurt.

"Didn't you think I should know about this?" His voice low and intense, "You don't tell me, you don't want me to read your statement…how long did you think it would be before I found out?"

"It shouldn't even be anyone's goddamn business!" Mary spat out, on the defensive now, "I only gave the statement because it's required. Otherwise, nobody would know."

He turned to look at her in confusion, "What good would that do you? How would anyone be able to help you then?"

"Help me do what?" Mary's brow was furrowed as she turned her head to see him, "Think about it? Talk about it? Relive it over and over again?" her voice was raised now as emotions began to bubble to the surface.

"Jesus, Marshall, I just want to move on. It's done, it's over. I got my ass kicked. Can we just forget about it now?"

There it was, Marshall realized. Watching her ramp up her defenses, he heard the words come out of her mouth that summed up the whole situation. I got my ass kicked.

"Is that why you didn't tell me? Because you came out on the losing end of the battle?" He tried to keep his voice calm and steady. Keep her talking.

"Yes!...No…Fuck, I don't know!" Mary threw her hands up, then reached over to unbuckle her seat belt as her own confusion grew while her eyes pricked with tears, "I don't want to have this conversation. I'm hungry and I'm tired and I'm going inside."

She threw open the door and levered out of the car, sucking in her breath with discomfort. Legs on the ground now, Mary tried to just focus on putting one foot in front of the other and ignore the multitude of aches and pains that threatened to derail her efforts. She felt worse than yesterday and her already strung out nerves just couldn't take the added stimulus of potential humiliation in front of her partner. She rounded the front of the SUV to find him standing in her path.

"Move," she uttered the soft command while staring at his chest.

Marshall knew he was taking his life in his hands, but when he saw the pain etched into her face and the tightness of her movements, all he wanted to do was comfort her. He knew she was wound up tight and on the edge of an emotional rollercoaster, but this was not an issue he could let her sweep under the rug. It would turn into the elephant in the room, ultimately weighing them both down until their partnership, and their friendship, suffered.

"We have to talk about this, Mare. It'll tear us up otherwise."

Mary pushed at him and Marshall moved aside, but followed right next to her as she limped up the sidewalk.

"You're my partner and my best friend," he was talking as he leaned forward slightly to try to see her face, "and I care about you…hell, I even try to take care of you. I can't sit back and let you go through this on your own, can't watch you suffer like this and not want to help you."

She stepped up onto the porch awkwardly then glared at him from under her lashes, "I'm not suffering, you moron."

"No?" he asked, concerned, "What I can see of you is black and blue and you can barely move. I can only imagine the injuries I can't see, and if thinking about those makes me sick to my stomach, then it has to be ten times worse for you. I've never seen you as angry as you were today, and I've never seen you lash out like that before."

He was right, Mary knew, but she did not want to allow him to comfort her. It would only bring her to her knees, and she was desperately clinging to tattered shreds of self respect.

"Open the damn door, Marshall," she demanded.

His eyes flashed at her, but he keyed the door and swung it open so she could enter the house. There were two options before him: let her retreat, or continue to pick and prod at the small cracks in the defensive walls to see if he could find a way in. He decided he couldn't watch her like this anymore.

"When were you going to tell me?" Picking.

Mary had walked into the kitchen and was now reaching into the cabinet to pull down the bottle of whiskey and grab a glass. She set them down on the counter, hard, and unscrewed the cap to pour a healthy dose of the amber liquid into the tumbler.

"Jesus, Marshall, I can't believe you're pushing me on this."

"I know what you were planning. You would have created excuse after excuse for not telling me in your own mind, and soon you'd have the whole event pushed down into some recess of your psyche where all it would do is fester, only to rear its ugly head again and again to make your life miserable." He was watching her, noticing the tremor in her hands as she handled the bottle and glass.

"I left you here alone today. I never would've done that if I had known what happened. I would've stayed, made sure you had what you needed." He was still aggravated at himself for that lapse.

She tossed a frustrated sigh his way as she leaned against the counter with the glass in her hand, "I don't need a goddamn babysitter, and I certainly don't need somebody telling me what the right and wrong reactions are in this situation. I've been beat up before…it's no different." The words were sheer bravado. She knew it. He knew it.

"Really?" Marshall tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, "Then why is it such a big secret?"

Mary tossed back the whiskey and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. The burn was welcome and she hoped the alcohol would dull her senses enough to make her partner's words less painful. He was right. She would've found a reason not to tell him everyday unless she had been forced to. A reason to continue to feel like she had somehow failed…failed him. She didn't want anyone to know she could be that vulnerable. Didn't want people to think of her stripped and abused. It was dark and twisted and made no sense. She poured two more fingers and Marshall deftly reached out to grab the glass before she picked it up again. It pissed her off.

"Dammit, asshole, I can barely think about it much less talk about it, and I certainly don't want to think about how people are going to look at me…how you're going to look at me, once the shit hits the fan. Why wouldn't I want to keep it under wraps?"

Marshall downed the glass and slid the empty across the counter back at her. Now he was getting somewhere. Mary refilled.

"Why would I look at you any differently, other than to be grateful that you're alive? Surely you give me more credit than that?" His accusatory tone carried the hurt.

Mary tossed back another shot and slammed the glass back down on the counter, anger written on her face.

"For Chrissake, I was overpowered, chained in a basement and eventually stripped half naked while people used me for their amusement. What the hell does that say about me? Where the hell did I go wrong? What enormous lapse in judgment occurred in order for me to find myself in that situation?" Her stare held the challenge of an answer.

Marshall was starting to understand her doubts were directed at herself, not at him. He poured himself another drink as he stood across the counter from her and tried to reassure her, "Mary, you didn't do anything wrong. You did everything you could, I'm sure."

"Are you? Because I'm not," her words were clipped as she pushed away from the counter to slowly pace the kitchen. The events were flickering through her mind like a badly placed slideshow and Mary was trying to order the images in such a way that she won…failing each time, but trying again and again.

"I keep thinking I missed something. Some clue or opportunity that slipped through my fingers. Something everyone else would've figured out, and I'm an idiot not to have seen it." She held her hands in front of her as if she was looking at a missing item in her grasp, shaking her head.

"I tried to reason with them, talk them down, you know? But once they knew I was a marshal…" she trailed off with a frustrated sigh, "That just set them off."

"Fucking O'Connor," Marshall hissed under his breath. Mary didn't seem to hear him. He was going to make sure the FBI agent not only knew of the error of his ways, but took some sort of physical reminder back to Jersey with him. Preferably something in black and blue. His violent musings were cut short as his partner spoke again.

"I knew what was going happen…knew it was coming, and I tried everything I could think of to hold them off." Mary had her hands in her hair now as her pacing and speech increased their rhythm, "They thought my efforts were funny for a little while, until I got a hold of one of them and broke his fucking nose. They didn't expect me to be quite so agile while chained up." She tossed Marshall a tight smile without humor.

"She's always been dangerous at close range," Marshall thought as he watched her pace, his own face showing anger now.

As she traveled back and forth, Mary felt the whiskey warming her veins, the effects swift due to the lack of food. It loosened her tongue and she let the words and anger flow, almost forgetting her partner was in the room.

"The stupid fucks figured it out after a while. Ranged me and found my blindspots. Then they came in one at a time until they wore me down. Jesus…if I could've just taken one out the other one would've tucked tail and run. I just needed one!" She yelled out the word and clenched her fists in front of her, then shifted her focus to her arms as she rubbed one wrist slowly.

"I'm surprised I didn't break my own wrists," she muttered quietly, lost in thought for a moment.

Marshall eyed the whiskey bottle, now convinced there wasn't enough of the amber liquid left to support him through the evening. The picture of desperation his partner painted made his chest hurt and his own hands fisted on the counter.

"It wasn't a fair fight, Mary," his voice was rough, "there was no way to win."

Mary continued to stand still and stare at her own hands, her partner's words finally sinking in, and she was forced to consider that there was no more that she could've done. She remembered the burning fatigue in her arms and body as she twisted and turned to ward off blows and kick out with her own attacks.

"I just couldn't keep my legs under me after a while. I couldn't block the punches with my arms stuck in the chains and they knew just how to hit to make you suck wind." Mary rested her hands on the table and stared blankly down at the surface, "Maybe if I could've lasted for ten more minutes they would've given up. I don't know."

Marshall rubbed his face as images of his trapped partner being stalked by the two men caused bile to rise in his throat, "They wouldn't have given up, Mare. Please don't torture yourself like this."

Her anger was beginning to fade with fatigue, and the alcohol was making her brain fuzzy. Her partner was right, her rational brain was cajoling her, she had no chance of outlasting them. They would have kept beating her until she had succumbed. The disjointed images floated through her mind more slowly and she hoarsely whispered a commentary as they drifted away.

"They took turns, you know. I just kept fighting them, so one would have to hold me still in order for the other to…" her voice caught and she paused for a moment, finally finishing in a rushed whisper, "They took their time."

He had seen the strength ebb out of her as she stood rooted in place, shoulders slumping and a slight sway to her stance while the words tumbled out. The details she revealed ripped at him, appalling and sickening, and he could no longer remain distant. Careful not to startle her, Marshall placed himself within reach and hoped she would accept his invitation.

"Hey," he called softly, standing a pace in front of her.

Mary allowed her gaze to slowly travel up to his face, and his eyes didn't hold pity or blame, just the same offer of friendship and acceptance she always saw. Nothing had changed, and some of the pain abated. She stepped forward to bump into him, letting her forehead fall onto his shoulder with a grunt that may have faded into a quiet whimper.

His hands grasped her arms, gently but firmly, and Marshall waited to see if she would stiffen or pull away. She was silent, and he slowly slid his arms around her back to shift her weight and draw her to him, eventually resting his cheek against her hair as she settled fully into his embrace. Even though she wasn't fighting him, he could feel the tension in her body and began to rub a slow circle on her back with one hand. He would've given her anything right then.

"I don't know how you did it…kept fighting until we got down there. You have a strength that I don't know if I possess, and I think you're one of the bravest people I know. I could never be anything but proud to stand beside you."

The whispered words mingled with the smell of his aftershave and the whiskey, and Mary put her efforts into consciously relaxing into the warm safety of her partner's embrace. The basement slowly faded away as the sensations of his rough jacket against her face and gentle hands on her back anchored her into the present. She had been this close to him many times, but the way he held her now was different than any other. Carefully. Tenderly.

The act of kindness triggered a wave of emotion, and Mary shakily sighed into his shoulder as her hands burrowed under his jacket to grip his shirt around his back. She tried to stop the tears from gathering, but Marshall pulled her a little closer, whispering, "It's okay," and the dam broke.

Her sobs became his tears, and the partners stood wrapped together to weather the storm.


*** Over one hurdle...so many more to go. Mary needs some rest, desperately. Thank you for all your REVIEWS!!...you are the best :) ***