It was already after nine when Mary opened her eyes, tired and disorientated. Hospital care was making her soft. She looked at the clock beside her bed and frowned as she looked at the untouched breakfast on the trolley over her bed. Marshall was definitely idiotic enough to let her sleep In, but there was no way in hell he'd leave her breakfast untouched. The toast would have been half eaten, the jam gone…which meant he hadn't been here yet.

Something was up.

She sat up in the bed, wincing as the dull ache in her abdomen sharpened, and called out to the guard she knew would be standing outside the door. "Hey, you out there, get your ass in here!"

The door opened a crack, and a uniformed police officer looked into the room nervously; Bobby had definitely been spreading her reputation around. "Yes, ma'am?" he asked.

Mary rolled her eyes. "Get in here, and close the door, you idiot."

"I'm not supposed to—"

"Just get in here, damn it!"

Cautiously, the officer slid into the room. "Is there something you need, ma'am?" he asked cautiously.

"No, I just called you in here for the hell of it," Mary said. "Of course there's something I need – I need to know what the hell is going on!"

"I'm sorry ma'am, but I'm not supposed to divulge any information that might upset the course of our investigation—"

"Yada, yada, yada," Mary grumbled. "Bobby got to you, didn't he?"

"He did say that you might be a bit…insistent."

Mary pulled a face. "Yeah, I'll just bet he did. What's your name?"

"Uh, Mike Richards, ma'am."

"Nice to meet you Mike, my name is Mary, not ma'am. Got that? "

"Yes, Ma…ry."

"Dude, you're hopeless," She waved him off. "Scram, before I eat you for breakfast."

Mary noted the alacrity with which he stepped out of the room; anyone would think he was afraid of her, or something. She waited to hear the door click before she pulled out Brandi's cell.

"I was just about to call you," Marshall said, when he answered. She could hear his car engine in the background.

"What have I told you about lying to me?" Mary asked, as she eyed the toast on the tray, and picked a slice up. It was cold, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"I know, but sometimes you have to try," he said.

"You're going to make me work for this, aren't you?" she said, as she took a bite. Yuck.

"You're not going to like it," he admitted.

"Yeah, I'm getting a lot of that, lately," Mary said, as she dropped the toast back onto the plate. "On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it? One being cold toast and ten being an earthquake hitting Albuquerque…?"

"Think a mountain of cold toast," he said. "Served with really stale coffee."

"Ugh," Mary said. "You're just trying to gross me out, aren't you?"

"And, from the sound of it, I think I may have succeeded." He sounded amused, but Mary could hear the tension underneath.

"You do know I won't be stuck in this bed forever, don't you," Mary asked. "Why didn't you come to visit, this morning?"

"You don't know?"

Mary's eyes narrowed as she heard the surprise in his voice. "Know what?"

"Damn it," Marshall said "I thought Stan would have filled you in, by now."

"Marshall," Mary said evenly. "If you don't tell me what's going on right now, I swear to God I will reach through this phone and throttle you."

"That's the partner I know and love."

"Marshall!"

He broke. "Apparently, there's a good chance your mystery guest from yesterday might be the hitman after my witnesses," Marshall said. "And, as Stan is not a great believer in coincidences, I've been warned off."

"Crap," Mary said, succinctly. "He must have heard about a Marshal getting shot on the news, and then did the rounds until he found me."

"He still doesn't know you're WitSec," Marshall pointed out.

"But he made an educated guess," Mary said. "When a wounded Marshal's name isn't released to the public, it's usually a good indication."

"Yeah," Marshall agreed. "So he tracked you down, through trial and error, and then what? Waited to see who turned up to visit you?" There was pause. "I don't like the sound of that," he said quietly.

"You know what else I don't like the sound of?" Mary drawled. "I know that Albuquerque sometimes feels like the centre of the universe, but something tells me this guy wasn't just happening by. He must have had a good idea the Butlers were here in the first place."

"And then he checked the recent news, and hunkered down when he heard about you getting shot," Marshall finished. "I've already checked the Butler's phone records, and checked their online traffic; they're not the leak."

"Why am I getting a real bad feeling about this?" Mary grumbled.

She heard the indrawn breath over the phone. "Yeah, well, I've got other news. Brace yourself, your day is about to get worse."

"Oh shit, Mom's sold the house, hasn't she?" Mary said, sinking back onto her pillows.

"No, the house is intact – or as intact as it can be, with half it's partition walls pocked marked with holes…"

"We're not discussing that," Mary told him firmly. "The FBI caused the damage, they can fix it, too."

"Mare, just fix the damage, and send them the bill."

"I'm not paying for something I didn't do, Marshall," Mary said. "And you're doing that tangent thing, again, I hate it when you do that."

"Fine," Marshall said. "I-found-Lauren-in-your-house-this-morning-having-breakfast-in-your-kitchen."

"Jeeze, Marshall," Mary said. "You couldn't have softened that up a little?"

"And be accused of going off on a tangent?" he drawled. "Heaven forbid."

"Jackass," Mary pronounced.

"Do you want to hear the story or not?"

"Well, duh," Mary said, "I'll need to have my facts straight, when I crucify my family with them."

"It's not as bad as it sounds," Marshall said. "I think she was genuinely worried about you, and came to see if you were okay."

"Oh yeah? And how did she know I wasn't okay to begin with?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?""

"You think Jinx lied when she said she didn't know how to contact her," Mary said flatly.

"I called the tech guys in, to check the house for bugs again, but... yeah, I think so," he said. "That's a conversation you should have with her, thought, not me."

"Coward." Just thinking about it made Mary feel tired. "Please tell me you've got a lead."

"She was driving a blue Camaro," Marshall said. "I've got Bobby D tracking down her license plate - which reminds me, you should be expecting a visit from him any moment now. He has a present for you."

"Does it come fully loaded?"

"And extra ammunition in the bag."

"You know how to say all the right things to a girl," Mary teased.

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "Now get off the damned phone before you hex somebody's life support."

Mary rolled his eyes. "Killjoy," she said.

"Whatever."

And then he was gone, and Mary could feel the worry settle back in her stomach, but there was nothing she could do about it. Even if she signed out of the hospital, there was no way in hell Stan would let her work on the case. It was official; she was slowly, but surely, going nuts, with nothing to distract her from the disaster zone that she called her family and her life.

There was a tentative knock on the door. "This better be good!" she called out.

Mike poked his head in the door. "Your sister is here to see you, Mary," he said.

Mary frowned; she hadn't been expecting that. She figured Brandi would give her a wide berth until she thought Mary had calmed down. "Send her in," she said.

The door widened, and Lauren stepped into the room. "Hi."

"Wow," Mary said, after a moment. "You've got some nerve."

"It must run in the family," Lauren joked nervously.

Mary gave her a long look. "Pull up a chair," she said.

It was, Marshall decided, like searching for an invisible needle, in a very large haystack, without a magnet.

The FBI investigation in Chicago weren't having any luck in tracking down the hitman's true identity, either, and the CCTV footage from the hospital hadn't helped. He'd already rung the Butlers and told them to get ready for yet another move and, as he didn't know how the assassin was getting his intel, Marshall couldn't rely on his usual supply of hotel and motel rooms.

Luckily, Eleanor had been able to secure a new bolt hole for him with a few phone calls - a small apartment on the other side of town, and no obvious money trail leading back to the Marshal's office. The department's accountant was going to hate him by the end of the month.

He eyed the security footage on his laptop. He didn't care how good this guy was, everyone made mistakes. A thought occurred to him, and he fast forwarded the footage and watched as the suspect stepped onto the bus. He had taken the crosstown bus, which meant he was probably staying somewhere in the north west of the city. Not many hotels out there, which only left the bed and breakfasts.

He stood up. "Eleanor, do we have CCTV footage from the crosstown bus yesterday?"

Eleanor didn't look away from her screen as she held up a disc. "Stan wants to see you when he gets in, by the way," she said. "Don't disappear before then."

"Who do you take me for, Eleanor?" Marshall asked, amused, as he crossed the room. "Mary?"

She looked up from her computer screen and pinned him with a look. "I'm not Stan, Marshall," she said. "I know that Mary is responsible for a lot of the crazy between you too, but I'm the one who gets to file all your reports, and I know that you can be just as single minded as she is, when it comes to your witnesses and your partner. Don't do anything stupid." She handed the disc to him, and Marshall opened his mouth. "Ah-ah," she said, stopping him. "Don't say anything unless it's the absolute and total truth."

Marshall kept his mouth closed. He felt it was safer that way.

TBC