Thanks for the reviews! I'm sorry I haven't been posting regularly. Just going through RL, I lost one of my dogs last week. It hasn't been easy because I had lost one a year ago. For those concerned, they were old and ready to go. That doesn't make it easy for a pet parent when it's baby dies. RIP Sneakers!
December 30, 2014…10am
"Mary, line 3 is on hold for you," Delia said as she walked over to pour herself a cup of coffee.
Mary looked at Delia and then back to the blinking light on her desk phone, she put the phone between ear and shoulder as she pushed the line 3 button and continued typing her report, "This is Mary"
"Hey Mary, its Abigail," came the timid voice over the speaker, Mary frowned and almost dropped the phone; she pulled her hands from the keyboard and sat back, grabbing the phone against her ear.
"What can I do for you Detective?" Mary wouldn't give her another opportunity to start placing blames or pointing accusatory fingers at her.
There was a moment of pause, "I was thinking…uh…can we get lunch together? Today?"
"No, I'm busy"
"Come on Mary, I really want to make it up to you."
"It's Inspector Shannon, remember? Look Detective, I don't know what you think you have to make up to me, but as far as I'm concerned you don't owe me anything," Mary turned to make sure to keep Delia in sight, the last thing she needed was the young inspector trying to grill her on the goings on of her personal problems with the detective.
"I was rude and inconsiderate after you were a grade A…" she was cut off.
"Bitch! Yeah, I know I am its part of my charm"
"No! Grade A friend, you're the best friend anyone would want in their lives and the things I said to you were offensive and out of bounds, I'm so sorry and…"
Mary cut her off again, "Stop…I…the only person you need to apologize is to your fiancé, now if you'll excuse me, I'm in the middle of something. Good bye"
She hung up and blew the frustrated breath out as she sat back again and looked for Delia, "Ahh!"
"What the hell's wrong with you?" Mary looked startled up at Delia, which had snuck up on her when she had been busy cutting the detective off.
"What's wrong with you? What did the detective want?" Delia asked as she leaned a hip against Mary's desk.
"Nothing, now if you'll excuse me," she turned back to her computer and continued typing her report. What the hell do these people want from me?
"Son?" Marshall turned at his father's voice.
"Hey Dad, you sleep okay?"
Seth Mann looked at his son and nodded, "As best as I could considering your mother wasn't there with me."
Marshall nodded and turned to look at his sleeping mother, she had woken up before he arrived at the hospital and the hospital had ran tests to determine what had caused her to collapsed and be unconscious for so long. They had found that her blood pressure had been up too high, causing her to faint, the concussion she had received when she had fallen had kept her unconscious.
"She'll be home in no time"
"Yeah, I know, I still miss her when she's not there," Seth walked over to his son and pat his shoulder; resting his hand there he looked his son in the eyes.
"How's Abigail? We didn't ask yesterday because you know," he nodded towards his wife.
"I…she's good," Marshall didn't want to discuss the possible break up until he spoke to Abigail, but his heart wasn't into the wedding anymore, he wasn't sure if it had ever been in it. Now, after seeing her true colors and her feelings towards Mary, he couldn't really think he could make a life with the real woman he had finally realized that Abigail was.
"Have I told you what a bad liar you are, son?" Seth looked Marshall in the eye and held his blue gaze. "I know my sons, even if I was too busy working to mind you and your brothers; I know when my boys are lying."
Marshall sighed and walked away from his father, sitting by his mother's bedside, he turned back, "I don't know what I'm doing anymore."
"Regarding your engagement?" the older man prompted.
"That and everything in between, a few months ago I had to make a decision that didn't sit well with me, but I thought it'd work itself out," Marshall laughed harshly, he looked back at his mother and found her cerulean eyes – so much like his own – staring up at him.
"Hi, sweetheart," Beth murmured towards her husband.
Seth swiftly moved over to the other side of the bed and took his wife's hand as he sat on the edge of the hospital bed, "Hey beautiful, how'd you sleep?"
"Like a bear, I'm sure," she winked at Marshall and he awarded her his signature smile.
"Did you know that bears wake for short periods during hibernation to eat and relieve themselves?" Marshall related a fact with his usual drawl.
Beth burst out laughing, causing both men to laugh with her, "So you're saying I only woke throughout the night to eat and relieve myself?"
Marshall blushed and shook his head, "No! It's just a fact. You said bear and it just….oh never mind."
He stopped explaining when he saw his parents smirk, now they were just teasing him.
"So, back to that little lie you were telling your father over there…" Beth Mann just stared at her son, she could guess and know she would be right. As much as she liked Abigail, the relationship always seemed forced for her son. Real love was never supposed to be forced, if the pieces didn't fit to perfection, it wouldn't work out in the end.
Marshall grew solemn and he knew he didn't have to explain, his mother would know, just like any mother would her child. He shrugged and ran his fingers through his already disheveled head, he hadn't been able to get to a hotel since he arrived, wanting to spend as much time as he could with his ill mother.
"Come on, son. Out with it," his father chimed in when his son wouldn't say what he wanted to say.
"Since when are you the sharing and caring type?" he grimaced and shrugged again, "Things are just getting difficult to deal with."
"Work? Being a chief tougher than you imagined?" always the stern one, Seth automatically assumed it would be work that was causing his son stress with his fiancée.
"Seth Mann, your career is not the end all of everything you know," Beth admonished.
"Mom, relax…to dad it has been the end of all," Marshall hated going there, but his father had been too busy making a career out of the Marshal service and now he knew the reasons why it was so hard to stay at home when the bad guys were still out there.
"No, my career was just a means…" he stared at Marshall trying to explain his reasoning for always being busy for them.
"Dad don't, you really don't have to explain, I know how hard it can be to be a Marshal, it's just…to me the Marshal service was my end of all, then something happened and now it's my career, but not my all," Marshall growled and walked away from his parents, stopping by the door, "I'll be back in a few, need coffee."
Seth nodded and turned to look at his wife, she was glaring up at him, "What? What'd I do now?"
"You need to go talk to our boy, he's hurting and I have a bad feeling I know what it is, I wish I could be wrong this time," she sniffed as a few tears escaped.
The doting husband leaned down and kissed her nose, "As soon as Andrew gets here I'll go track down our son and have a talk with him…"
"No, you bring him to me and leave us alone, I need to talk to him," she said tersely.
"I'm his father, I think I should talk to him," he said just as tersely.
"You don't even have an idea what is going on in his head," she argued as she tried to reign in her emotions.
Seth stood up and paced the small space in the hospital room, Beth had been moved to a regular room the previous night after she had undergone a few tests to determine what had caused her to lose consciousness.
"The fact that Abigail isn't here with him when they had been together on a holiday says a lot about where his head is at, I might not be the most sensitive person…okay fine, I'm not sensitive at all, but I know my son too," he admitted when his wife gave him a pointed look, he had only been sensitive when it came to her.
"Okay, as soon as Andrew gets here…" the younger Mann chose that moment to appear and frown at the tension in the room.
"What'd I miss?" he asked as he stared at his parents and then looked around for his older sibling, "Where's Marshall?"
"He went to get coffee and now your father will go get coffee too, right honey?" Beth arched an eyebrow in question and nodded him out of the room.
"Yeah yeah yeah, I'll be back in a few, I need coffee," he leaned down and pecked his wife's lips. "I love you"
"I love you more."
"Yuck you guys! Your child is still in the room," Andrew said as he mock puked all over the room.
Beth chuckled and Seth glared at their son. Andrew was a bit shorter than Marshall, but he resembled his older brother quite a bit except for his eyes, he had his father's steely gray eyes.
TBC...Hmm, was Mary being unreasonable? No, I don't think she was. I think she's respecting Marshall enough to keep a distance from the accusations her BF's fiancée through at her. I'm glad Seth is trying to be a father to Marshall, even when he doesn't understand him. Please review.
