A/N: Thank-you again for continuing to read and review! The comments mean so much to me; they're always so kind!

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A gloomy, discouraging realization met Mary on Thursday morning. It was insight she had gathered long ago, around the time she'd reached twenty-four weeks gestation, but the progression had been gradual; she'd been able to live in denial. But now, that wasn't going to be the case – the comprehension was strong and it was as powerful as a speeding bullet.

It was only going to get worse from here.

In terms of her physical stature, her vigor, and her ability to function like an ordinary person, Mary was tanking and she was tanking fast. Until the twins showed their squealing, reddened, tiny faces, she was done for. She felt like Gretel in that she had no say in the matter. Nonetheless, she intended to battle against being bed-ridden as long as possible, if for no other reason than that stretching against her back all day was a misnomer. She figured this out during another protracted night, where she let Marshall snore to his heart's content and she tried every position possible in an attempt to get comfy.

The product was that she was bulbous, inflated, and majorly surly when she and Marshall headed to the Sunshine Building in the morning. The skin around her eyes was tender from lack of sleep, and she shuddered to think what she looked like in the clear light of day. Wearing her loosest jeans and a baggy, airy shirt the color of 'tumbleweed' as Marshall put it, was a very small comfort to Mary.

"Top of the morning to you, inspectors!" Stan bellowed gaily as he strolled out of his office, much as he had several days before when Marshall had been the walking robot. "We are over the hump! That much closer to the weekend! Exciting, huh?" he rubbed his hands together enthusiastically.

Mary could only stare, formulating what the best form of mockery would be for Stan's unprecedented jolliness. He had not chosen a good day to try and spread bliss like fairy dust. Apart from feeling like crap, Mary had Maureen to lie in wait for, not to mention fending off Jinx, Brandi, and their fixation on the nursery.

"You're in a chipper mood this A.M.," Marshall detected, giving the woman the side-eye as he said it. "Any particular reason?"

"As a matter of fact, there is," Stan pointed a flapping finger. Mary had the irresistible inclination to smack it out of the way, but refrained. "I have been working 'round the clock trying to figure out how we are going to run things around here when you two are off dealing with the babies…"

"The kids," Mary barked in, disturbing her boss' run-on. "Can't anyone remember that?" she interjected when all she received was an offhand look from Stan. "Its baby-this and baby-that…"

She cared very little about how trivial and sardonic she came off. This was not an essential factoid to correct, but she was quick-tempered due to so few hours of rest. She had a blanket excuse on her attitude until the twins were born, and probably after as well.

It seemed Stan's spirits were not to be dampened, however. He waved a blasé hand at Mary's interruption and blew onward.

"My mistake, yes…" his acknowledgement of his error was extremely brief. "Well, when the kids arrive, Delia is going to need a new partner, at least until you guys are able to come back…"

"We can come back though, can't we?" Marshall cut in, taking a leaf out of Mary's book with breaking up the flow of conversation. He wasn't worried, but Mary was looking murderous at the idea of new blood being inducted into WITSEC. "D.C. understands we're not leaving permanently – at least not both of us, right?"

"Yes-yes, I was able to smooth all that over…" Stan was clearly very pleased with whatever he had cooked up, but it made Mary nervous. She was typecast as not playing well with others for a reason, even if the 'new guy' was just temporary. "It took some doing though, I will grant you that. D.C. is still a little hesitant about how a couple of hopeless romantics can work so well together…"

"Hopeless romantics?" Mary squawked indignantly, feeling nothing but disgrace at hearing herself described as such. "Did you just step out of 'Pretty Woman' or something? The next time you call me a 'hopeless romantic' you can expect to be…"

"Within spitting distance of Mary's all-too-accurate aim," Marshall dove in heedlessly, giving Stan a look that clearly said he should cut back on the merriment if he wanted to keep all of his limbs intact. "Right, partner?" he tacked on the end to cover up that he was communicating silently with their boss, taking her hand and clutching it lightly.

"If you keep covering my fingers, you're next," Mary groused, wrenching free and glaring at Marshall now instead of Stan, who had to wonder how he'd become the offender all of a sudden. "I can't walk, I can't drive, I can't eat without becoming chums with the toilet…" evidently done with this discussion, she plodded in the direction of her desk, not up for hearing about inspector number four at the moment. "And you want to restrict the use of my hands too. Why don't you just strap me to a table for the next eight weeks?"

With a jolt that she sincerely hoped did not show on her face, Mary suddenly realized that as of tomorrow, it would only be seven weeks.

And as she haphazardly started to clear off her desk to find an empty space to work, she knew deep down she should not have made a mountain out of a molehill just because Marshall wanted to hold hands. Still, she was getting a little too grumpy about being looked upon as so fragile. Throw in that she had the sensation the world was closing in around her with her ever-expanding circumference and Marshall constricting her knuckles only made it worse.

Near the chief's darkened office, Stan leaned in to appeal to his male inspector, now that he was certain Mary would not be able to eavesdrop.

"Guess we'll discuss Delia's new associate another time…" he proposed under his breath. "Not that Mary will like him any better later in the day."

"Do not rile the beast," Marshall concurred, unable to stop his mouth running off, as he rarely spoke about Mary in such a way. It was nonetheless fitting this morning. "Sorry Stan; she's a little wound…" the taller of the two apologized on Mary's behalf, as if Stan hadn't noticed. "I'm not sure she slept very well last night."

"Don't make excuses," the older man advised, but there was no malice in his tone and he was quick to rectify what he meant. "I'm only saying…you don't have to make excuses. If I was feeling as off-kilter as she is, I'm sure I'd be crabby too."

They both eyed Mary covertly, ready to stop whispering at a moment's notice in case she looked their direction. At the moment, she was in danger of receiving a very bad paper cut, the way she was hurling documents aside, but didn't seem aware of their dialogue.

"Add on the anxiety, and I'm stunned she hasn't surrendered to spontaneous combustion yet," Marshall contributed, earning him a reckless laugh from Stan, one that was most definitely hazardous to his own health if Mary spotted him.

For his own benefit, he bit down on the chuckle quickly in favor of actually registering what Marshall had said.

"Anxiety? What anxiety?" Stan dug deeper, and though he had been aware of Mary's nerves when it came to her children, he thought it might've died down a little.

"She'll never bring it up around here, but she had a minor scare last night…"

"A scare?" Stan's apprehension about pregnancy suddenly returned in full force, voice quivering at the possibilities.

"Minor. A minor scare, chief," Marshall restated. "I will not go into the more gruesome of details," though there were none. "…Because I know you become quite the bundle of tension when it comes to birthing babies…"

"Kids, you mean."

Marshall ignored the jab, "But, the point is, it was kind of a red flag for Mary. She's getting down to the wire. It gets slower and trickier from here."

Stan gave a kind of low whistle. Even without the particulars, he could spot a minefield a mile away.

"No wonder she's snappy."

"Something like that, yes," Marshall saw eye to eye with the boss on this, but it was the last comeback that made it out his mouth.

Whether she could discern the actual phrases or not, Mary had picked up on their furtive chat, and she was too astute not to know they were talking about her.

"Listen ladies, get a water cooler!" she shouted callously from across the room, raising her nose from a file holder in her hands. "Aren't you supposed to wait for Delia before you start in on the locker room gossip? Next you'll be trading tips on how to shave your legs…"

Both men were smart enough not to retort in response to her insults. Stan only arched his eyebrows and signaled toward his office, bidding a hasty retreat. Marshall nodded and sent him a half-smile before venturing to his own desk, all the while having an eye on Mary. His instinct to shield her from all harm was begging her to sit down. The grey bags under her lids were visible even at a distance, and he deliberated on whether he dared imply she go home once lunch rolled around.

Auspiciously, she must've been able to read his innermost views on some level, because she did finally plunk down in her rolling chair and began thumbing through artifacts, though Marshall doubted she was taking much of it in.

A few minutes passed in an uneasy, if not self-conscious silence, and Marshall came across his 'to-do list' for the next day. He saw that he had the whole of Friday morning booked solid, a plan that had completely escaped his memory when he'd written out his schedule the day before. With increasing trepidation, he also recalled that Mary's thirty-three week doctor's appointment was tomorrow. It didn't look as though he would be accompanying her.

He looked up, trying to devise the best way to tell Mary about this when he heard her cell phone go off. Grateful for the opportunity to finesse, he listened to an irate groan escape her throat when she saw who was calling. On the other side of the room, Mary hit the talk button with more force than was necessary.

"What?" she bit harshly, not even bothering with anything in the vicinity of 'hello.'

"Uh…hi…" came Brandi's cautious tone from the other end, ringing of fear in just two words after hearing her sister sound so fuming. "It…its Brandi."

"Believe it or not, I got that from all those letters on my screen," Mary dripped with undeserved sarcasm. "What do you want?"

Though she didn't often display it, the younger wasn't a complete moron, "Is this a bad time?"

"I really don't think there's anything that qualifies as a 'good time' anymore, Squish," she did not lose her derision. "Is this important?" highly doubting it.

"Well…" Brandi's timbre sounded smaller still, obviously not wanting to anger Mary any further. "I mean, I don't know…"

"You don't know?" her eyebrows narrowed.

"Well, I…I called last night…"

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did," Brandi maintained carefully. "Marshall answered your phone; he said you weren't feeling good and that I should call back…"

At this, Mary directed her pinched brows to the man himself. Why wouldn't he tell her that Brandi had phoned? Did he think she was too delicate? Too frail? Perhaps his longevity in being by her side out of pity was taking its toll, she thought viciously. Even the way he was standing bugged her. He was mouthing inarticulately at some wrinkled piece of paper in his hand.

Leaving Marshall for later, she got back to Brandi, who was full steam ahead about that blasted nursery. This, of all things, was not going to raise Mary's spirits.

"Would you two just figure that out already?" she requested snidely without giving Brandi a chance to finish. "Honestly, I am sick of trying to choose between pink pigs or blue bears or whatever the hell else you guys have shoved at me. Can't you make a decision?"

In truth, Mary knew it was her who had not made a choice, but it was easier – much easier – to put all the fault on her mother and sister. It was apparent that Brandi sensed the oddness of the woman's questions, but sounded very reluctant to point it out.

"Well…" that word again. "I mean…Mare, it's for you…" she was forced to remind her as meekly as possible. "And, Marshall said you wanted the final say-so…"

"Then tell Marshall, why don't you?!"

Her shout echoed around the office, and when Mary spared the man another glance, he had looked up in alarm. He was struggling with whether or not to ask why his name had come up, but his partner paid him no mind.

"Tell…tell Marshall what?" Brandi asked.

"About the nursery – just, tell him! He can run it by me!" she had absolutely no desire to deal with this right now, or ever, it seemed.

The growing pain – brutal, relentless pain – attacking every crevice of her body was enough to convince her these kids were coming in matter of weeks, if not a matter of days. Weeks were too early – days were too early.

Mary felt in constant, unbearable conflict; she yearned not to be pregnant any longer. She was downtrodden and ailing with the throbs and the queasiness. But, she also longed to keep her children within; to hold them as long as possible, because the earlier they were, the higher the possibility they would not survive. She saw the wires and the tubes; the beeping monitors; the feeble little bodies. Nothing would be worse. Nothing. She could not fail them in this monumental time.

"I…I can do that…" Brandi's frightened, shaky voice pushed the worries from Mary's mind for the present. "I will. I'll e-mail Marshall. That's…that's a good idea."

The compliment didn't endear the older of the two in the least; she was impatient in wanting to be through this, "Was that it? Was that the only reason you called?"

The silence through the speaker convinced Mary that her sister's answer was a hearty, 'no, that is not all' but she clearly did not have the guts to say it. Unfortunately for her, Mary had no tolerance whatsoever and swooped down upon her in milliseconds.

"Squish, what?!" she even smacked her hand on the desk, which aggravated her almost-magnified fingers. It also got Stan's attention, who stuck his head out of his office at all the noise. When Mary only gave him a wide-eyed look of frustration, he backed himself right back inside, taking care to shut the door. "I don't have all day, you know!"

Brandi made a brave attempt at being kind, "Is everything okay?" she inquired shrilly, half-upset, half-terrified at her own courage. "I'm sorry if I bothered you, I just…"

"Forget it," Mary let her off the hook, but did not lower her voice. "What did you want to tell me? Make it snappy."

She took her opportunity while she had it, however careless the pursuit was, "I hope you're not gonna freak out or anything, because it's no big deal…"

This prelude did not inspire confidence. The inspector felt her heart rate pick up a few notches, reminding her how unwise it was to become uptight in these tumultuous times.

"But, I talked to Mark on Facebook yesterday…"

"Mark?!"

Brandi sidestepped the hysteria, "Yeah, and he's coming back for that conference – the same one he came to last year. I guess it's an annual kind of thing…"

"What about it?" Mary demanded, but she really did not have to guess.

"Well…" she had to stop starting sentences that way; it made her sound docile, like she expected the other woman to reach through the phone and hit her upside the head. "He…he asked if you and I would be around. He just wanted to say hi – have dinner or something."

Mary wanted to order Brandi the second she heard this information to tell her the truth about whatever she'd relayed to Mark concerning his inquiry. However, the little sister must've had some clue the question was on its way, because she rushed onward.

"I…I said I wasn't sure about you, because of the babies – um, the kids," she righted her terminology quickly when Mary sucked in her breath. "But, that I'd check with you just to make sure."

In the corner of her mind that the pregnant one was telling to shut up today, Mary realized that Brandi waiting before committing her to a meal with Mark was thoughtful. It was a far cry from her behavior a year ago, when she'd tried to brew a romance between the exes, but Mary was not in the most rational of moods at the moment.

"How did he even know I was having twins?" she commanded of Brandi without thinking, trying to pin it on her from the get-go.

"I don't know. You must've told him, because he brought them up," she sounded sure.

Despite how much it irked her, Mary thought it very feasible she had shared her pregnancy with Mark and did not remember doing so. Her memory didn't seem to be working quite the same way since she'd become the expectant mother. It was still superior in the matters of WITSEC, but anything in her personal life floated in one ear and out the other. Frick and Frack consumed every particle of her brain when she wasn't at work; there was no room for anything else.

"Well, leave Mark to me," she passed on to Brandi in hopes of closing the conversation. "If he shows up, I'll get rid of him."

This was the shortest, simplest solution, and she wasn't sure she'd follow through, but it was a tactic used to get Brandi to back off. She didn't relish having her baby sister transmitting messages to her ex-husband if he was toiling the streets of Albuquerque in the impending days. It made her think of some giggly teenager writing love notes on notebook paper in the back of an algebra class.

"Okay," Brandi consented, Mary's testy demeanor weighing heavily on her decision to stay out of it. "I'll warn you when he gets here," she added as an afterthought, working to be helpful.

"Whatever," she cast this off as of little significance, given everything else going on. "I have to go now, Squish. See you later."

She just barely heard Brandi trickle a faint, "Goodbye…" before she hung up, practically throwing the cell back to her desk; so hard it almost skidded the length onto the linoleum. She even thought she could see Stan's eyes flicker up through the blinds watching her little outburst, but he stayed hidden in his office, presumably where he was safe.

Regrettably, Mary's tantrum had caught Marshall's ear; he sauntered would-be-casually to the corner of her desk, placing a hand on the top to show his oath to have a reasonable exchange like adults. But, he was also a bright man and knew not to wait for her to get things rolling; he'd have to do the honors.

"Bad news?" he threw out in a low, steady voice.

Mary's green eyes, today rather untamed in their frenzy, snapped upward to meet his, her pen paused and held firm in her fingers. His perpetual serenity only infuriated her further. How could he be so composed with everything rushing down the pike toward them?

"Brandi's screeching like a barn owl about that damn nursery…" she muttered menacingly.

From Marshall's vantage point, he had thought it looked like Mary who was doing the screeching, but he decided not to bring that up.

"And she said Mark's blowing into town like some kind of typhoon – you can't predict when he's coming, but there's always cause for mayhem when he does."

Marshall couldn't help feeling she was being a tad judgmental of Mark, who he didn't consider one to cause any sort of turmoil. Indeed, he was so easygoing it was hard to feel even slightly inconvenienced by his presence, no matter how unexpected.

Instead of staying this, Marshall took an alternate route, "Actually, you can predict the patterns of typhoons," he supplied academically, faint hope in his blood that Mary would find his scholastic realities familiar and comforting. "Prediction is performed using a numerical model that…"

"Are you a meteorologist now?" Mary shot through his babble like a knife. "Jesus. If I wanted to know that much about the weather, I'd look it up myself."

So much for comforting.

Marshall allowed the abuse to bounce off him as swiftly as possible, knowing that being brash and brazen was Mary's way of deflecting her fears; it was her discomfort manifested in rudeness. He was far too used to her to be offended.

"Anyway…" he segued beyond her comments valiantly. "I look forward to seeing Mark, even if you do not," alleging buoyantly, determined to remain in a decent mood. Before the blonde could stomp on this too, he surged forth with more vital material, "Listen, I happened to come across my schedule for tomorrow…" he held up his tablet to demonstrate.

"And?" she butted in.

"It does not look as though I am going to be able to escort you to Doctor Reese's office. My morning is full to the brim. If you would like me to try and rearrange a few appointments, I'll see what I can do…"

"Why would you do that?" Mary crinkled her nose in that expert way of hers; Marshall had a sudden flash to fatherhood, and could envision his daughter doing the same thing. "Why would you try to rearrange anything?"

He couldn't help trying to choose his next words very guardedly, scrutinizing Mary for any sign of real craving in her outwardly stony face. When he'd said he couldn't make it to the appointment, he'd been certain he'd seen a flicker of fright in her glinting eyes. She'd been unhappy last week when he'd missed the date due to being out of town. Even the Mary from last night would've been persuading him in her own unique, non-needy way to get him to join her.

But, the Mary this steamy morning was no longer Jekyll, clammed-up and introverted. She had transformed seamlessly into Mr. Hyde, and Marshall was hard-pressed to determine which form she'd take the next day when the engagement in question came around.

"If…you think you'll be happy without me there, then that is fine…" he gave her leeway at first, something he hoped she'd appreciate, but finished with a carefully-cloaked stipulation. "Jinx can tag along, and you can fill me in after the fact."

In truth, Mary would've rather attended the check-up alone rather than have Jinx by her side, but she knew there was no point in arguing with Marshall, not even today when she felt especially spoiled for a spat. If she quarreled about Jinx, he would insist that he cancel every event he had on an otherwise busy Friday just to see another ultrasound, and that was hardly necessary.

"Fine," she gave her blessing for the first time since she'd woken that day, sounding mulish all the while. Reclining her neck over her work, "You'd better get cracking…" she jerked her head at the mass of papers on Marshall's desk. "Maureen's going to bust in here sometime today; we'd better be ready."

At this point, Marshall knew he had to be ready for just about anything.

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A/N: Mary's on the warpath! But, a pregnant Mary wouldn't be complete without mood swings!