Hidden from Sight by Betty Bokor
Mary/Marshall. Mary wakes up after the shooting and everything starts to change.
Spoilers: All episodes, including Second Season Finale.
Disclaimer: The In Plain Sight original characters belong to USA Network and Universal Media Studios (UMS). This was written strictly for the purpose of entertainment. No attempt at copyright infringement has been made.

Hidden from Sight

Chapter 9

A.N. I was having a hard time with English prepositions today. I apologize for the mistakes I surely made. I wish I knew this language as well as I know mine!

By the time Marshall finally made it to his house, he was really mad. It was not because Mary had lashed out at him for touching Raph's book on Witness Protection, or because she had mocked him for being a prude who had felt necessary to spend the night in his clothes to sleep in her bed, or because she had made fun of his date, especially after he had told her that it had been with Shelley. No, it was because he had not been expecting any of that. He should have. That was who Mary was and he usually did not let her hurt him. He had lowered his defenses just because she was sick, depressed, and hurt. He should have known that all of that would not change her in any way. If he was hurting, he was the only one to blame.

He walked to his room, took a quick shower, and then called Shelley.

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Mary was furious. She had seen the hurt in Marshall's eyes and it had made her very angry. Who the heck did he think he was? Did he imagine that just because he had taken her to the doctor ─against her will─ he had the right to lecture her about what she was doing wrong? And, come on, who in this day and time felt that it was required to sleep in his clothes to protect a lady's reputation? Moreover, why was he treating her like a lady? Hello! This was Mary. He knew her. He was her only best friend.

He had no right to be hurt by what she had said to him. Raph's book was none of his damn business and he should not have touched it. And if he did not want her to laugh at him, he should not have gone on a date with that woman.

That bothered her the most. She knew Shelley was a nice woman; a professional, educated, and pretty woman. But she thought that Marshall was looking for something different. Not a soft spoken kitty cat.

She went to her nightstand, opened the drawer and grabbed the notebook she had been using for mapping out her relationship with Marshall. She had been insane. There was nothing between them. She had misinterpreted Marshall's concern for her when she had been high on painkillers.

She was about to throw the notebook in the wastebasket, when something stopped her and, instead, she threw it inside one of the cluttered drawers of her home desk.

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By the end of the following week, after having endured three annoying sessions with Dr. Finkle and having received the okay from her doctors, Mary was allowed to go back to work, on desk duty for a while.

At least, she was not trapped in her house anymore. The days spent in captivity ─as she saw her convalescence─ had made her more aware of the state of destruction of her home and she had regretted stopping Raph's attempts to fix it.

What she had not regretted was the end of her relationship with him. Brandi had checked up on him several times during the week, because she was "worried about Chico". He seemed to have been doing fine, according to her.

Mary was doing fine, too. For the first time in a long time, she was not feeling the need to use sex to calm her anxieties and, without that need, Raph was not that indispensable. That revelation had surprised her, but perhaps it meant that she was growing up. That idea pleased her. Marshall was always stating how immature she was. Well, maybe not that much anymore. Maybe being shot had given her a new perspective.

Her relationship with Marshall, on the other hand, had gone back to its normal parameters. She felt comfortable in their old routine in spite of not being allowed to go in the field. The constant banter with Eleanor also helped her feel at home.

During the weekend, she allowed Peter to take her with Jinx and Brandi to dinner to celebrate her recovery and her return to work. Though she felt Marshall and Stan should have been there, she did not invite them to the outing. After all, she knew Marshall would excuse himself because he had another date with Shelley.

Mary would have liked to drink enough to forget that fact, but sharing the table with Jinx and Peter meant a night of sodas and water.

On Tuesday afternoon, after finishing the relocation of a problematic family, Stan gave his people the rest of the day off. Mary asked Marshall to drive her home because Brandi had dropped her at the office on her way to school and was not planning on picking her up until the end of the day. He agreed and they left the office together.

On their way to her house, Marshall got a call from Dr. Morris, a witness they had relocated in Albuquerque with his family the year before. Dr. Morris was concerned because he had found his front door unlocked when coming from work. He was certain nobody in the house would be that careless, especially after all they had gone through.

Marshall immediately started asking questions while he drove straight to their house. For a minute he was tempted to leave Mary behind ─she was not supposed to be in the field─ but the urgency of the matter made him reconsider. By the time they got to the house, the whole family was there. The father ─against Marshall's recommendations─ had entered the house and checked that there were no intruders inside.

Marshall asked everybody out of the house, so that he could check it himself. Lily yelled that she would get out as soon as she found their cat.

Marshall carefully searched the house. When he got to the den, he saw a plain cardboard box on top of the fireplace mantel. It looked out of place in the otherwise pristine house. He gently retrieved his phone and asked the family outside what the box contained. Nobody seemed to know what he was talking about. His heart rate accelerated. He asked everybody to move away from the house and started making his way back to the front door when he spotted Lily carrying the cat in a back room. He ran towards her and rushed her out of the house. They were barely out in the front porch when a loud explosion rocked the neighborhood.

Lily was ahead of Marshall and fell to the floor because of the blast. Marshall, still on the front steps, was thrown forward by the explosion. He crashed against the pavement with a loud knock, amidst a rain of debris.

Mary and the others run towards them. While Dr. Morris was checking his daughter, Mary gently turned Marshall, who was lying face down.

The first thing that worried her was a fast-growing red stain in his chest. Then, there was an angry red mark on his hairline that seemed to swell by the second. A few seconds later, the doctor was by her side. He ordered not to move Marshall any further and asked his wife to hold his head up. He swiftly checked the wound in the chest and dismissed it immediately as barely superficial. He checked his vital signs and he grew concerned.

"What?!" Mary asked as she noticed his demeanor. "Is it bad?"

"Iris already called 911. They're on their way. Just keep him awake; I'll see what I have in my car."

Mary looked at Marshall. He was conscious, but he had not said a word since the explosion. "Marshall? Can you hear me? What do you feel?" she tried.

He did not answer. He just stared at her and that was when she noticed it. There it was again, the look. Somehow she felt he was worried about her. She tried to say something, but his eyes kept her quiet. They were talking to her. He was trying to say something. She could feel he meant he loved her. He wanted her to know it, before anything happened. He had to have been thinking that something bad was going to happen because, without a doubt, what he was saying next, through his eyes and through the hand that was now squeezing hers tightly, was good-bye.