Albuquerque, we have a problem

Chapter 20 – Idiocy Loves Company

Ellen sipped her coffee.

She'd had another nightmare in the early hours of the morning. For an instant after she woke up she'd considered waking Marshall up too. She'd quickly dismissed that idea when she remembered the sounds coming from her brother's room last night. She figured his need for rest this morning outweighed her need for comfort. Instead, she had settled for an early morning and a lot of coffee as a substitute for her brother's calming presence.

She was pouring her third cup when she heard movement. A moment later Mary and Marshall appeared in the kitchen. Ellen poured each of them a cup as well.

"So did you find out the Swedish word for sauna," she asked her brother with a knowing smirk.

"Ah, no," Marshall's eyes flicked to Mary, "I...uh...I got distracted."

Ellen watched as Mary tried to hide her blush behind her hair.

"Really? By what?" Ellen asked innocently.

Mary almost choked on her coffee.

Marshall grinned at Ellen, used to her teasing and silently saluting her skill at embarrassing Mary. Ellen brushed past him as she sauntered out of the room on her way to get dressed. As she past him she paused and whispered, "Did you have fun?"

Marshall's grin only widen in response.

xxx

Marshall sat at his desk staring at the file in front of him. It detailed Mary's newest witness who they were due to pick up the following day. Or at least that's what Stan had told him. Marshall hadn't actually read any of the file, he was too distracted.

The normally calm marshal was getting increasingly agitated as the morning wore on. He'd been okay in the car, content to let Mary drive, happy to gaze out the window at the familiar scenery on his route to work. The first hour at work had passed easily enough, he'd spent that chatting with Eleanor and Stan and they had provided plenty of distraction. Now however, he was supposed to be focused on work and he was failing miserably. He was finding it hard to sit still let alone take in information. He resisted the temptation to look at Mary, sitting opposite him engrossed in her work.

Mary hadn't said much to him this morning. He had known that this morning would be odd and a mite uncomfortable. He'd woken up with a naked Mary sprawled against and across him. The day had to be downhill from there, it certainly wouldn't - couldn't get any better. They had got ready for work companionably enough, Mary's early morning sluggishness preventing her from freaking out too much.

Ellen's comments this morning, while amusing, hadn't been helpful. Marshall knew they had had an impact on Mary's thinking and she'd been steadily retreating into herself since then. Marshall wanted to be able to say something to draw her out, but had no experience, no frame of reference for this scenario. He was having enough trouble getting to grips with the previous night himself so he found himself unable to give Mary whatever it was she needed.

He glanced around the desk, searching for something that would hold his attention and could stop him from replaying images from last night in his mind. He fiddled with his computer again, half hoping that it would flash up a warning, an urgent message that would require his attention. Something that would take him out of the office to somewhere he could burn off some of his excess energy. His wandering eyes alighted on a note from the day before reminding himself to return Amy's phone call. Well, he could go one better than that.

Slamming the file closed, he stood and declared, "I'm going to check on Amy, I'll be back later."

Mary didn't even lift her head to acknowledge his leaving. She heard him go, relieved to have some time to herself without Marshall's fidgety presence.

She'd spent long periods of time with him in the past, but over the last week she'd spent more time with him than she ever had before. Her eyes wandered to her calender as she calculated that she had spent five out of the last six nights with him on top of their usual working day. Once that statistic registered, she was amazed that she hadn't killed him, or he, her. She couldn't think of many people that she could spend that amount of time with without being indicted on a homicide charge. She knew from experience that she couldn't spend that much time with Raph without wanting to slap some sense into him.

Oh God.

Raph.

What was she going to tell him?

She'd never been unfaithful before. She'd never even considered herself capable of it. But then she'd never been in a relationship long enough to be unfaithful. The moment someone new had caught her eye, she'd move on to them and kick the previous guy to the curb.

She wanted to be able to say she'd forgotten about Raph, that she'd been drunk and didn't know what she'd been doing. However, she knew that to be a lie. She'd been lonely and hurting from Raph's mistrust of her. Part of her had wanted to hurt him back. Part of her had wanted comfort. Part of her had wanted to feel loved. Part of her was curious. Part of her was just plain horny and had wanted Marshall.

At some point last night she'd decided she may as well be hung for the sheep as the lamb. If Raph believed she had slept with Marshall and she was going to have to deal with the fallout from her supposed indiscretion, then she may as well have the benefit of actually having sex with Marshall.

And it had been worth it.

Sort of.

She'd had fun last night, it had been a new experience for her.

But it had been...different.

In the cold light of day, the more she considered the previous night the more she was left with a sense that she had been violated in some way. Like Marshall had stolen a piece of her. And he was never going to give it back.

As she doodled on the pad in front of her she couldn't help but compare Raph and Marshall. She'd let Raph take control in the past but it had always been just that. She'd let him have control. Marshall had been in control. She'd had no say in the matter. And she wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Last night she'd thought she had been in the driver's seat. After all, she'd been the one to initiate sex. Marshall hadn't wanted to at first and she'd persuaded, seduced him. That put her in charge, right? So when had she lost control of the situation? She replayed snippets of last night, searching for precise moment that Marshall had wrestled the reins from her grasp. She failed to identify it. Her memories were fragmented, blindingly clear one moment allowing her to recall the touch of his hand on her thigh, hazy the next as she writhed in ecstasy beneath him. The only thing her replaying her memories was achieving was to reignite her desire.

She'd resisted losing control with all her might in the past, not just during sex, but in her life as well. Now she wondered if she had been wrong. What would it be like to be able to hand a problem over to someone else and trust them, rely on them to solve it so she never had to think about it again. If the sexual equivalent was anything to go by it might be nice. Hell, last night had been better than nice!

She was swiftly realising that last night could become an addiction for her. She wondered if this was how skydivers felt. She'd never understood the desire to throw ones self out of a perfectly good plane, but now she could see the appeal of giving yourself over to something else. Giving up control to gravity, allowing it to pull you faster and faster to earth, the air rushing past you, the adrenaline pounding through your veins, trusting in only a flimsy canopy of silk to get you to the ground safely.

The only problem with her analogy was that she couldn't decide whether Marshall was the ground, gravity, the plane or the parachute.

xxx

"What? No! Why me?"

"You're a woman and so's Mary. You speak the same language."

"She's no woman, she's a..."

"Eleanor," Stan warned, "Play nice."

He shoved her out of his office causing her to stumble. She glared at him over her shoulder only to be greeted with the sight of him waving her towards Mary, as part of his none to subtle attempt to find out what was going on in the office.

She sighed.

Damn him. She wanted to know too, so she pulled up a chair next to Mary's desk and sat down. Stan closed the door so they could have have some uninterrupted girl-chat.

"Hey," Eleanor broached. Mary started at the voice next to her.

"Oh. Hey, Eleanor, I've got those S-nineteens for you somewhere." Mary rummaged through the papers spread across her desk, looking for the completed forms.

"Okay, but I was actually gonna ask about your afternoon off."

"Oh. You were?" Mary was relieved as she had just located the form and discovered it was covered in doodles. Then she remembered what had happened on her afternoon off, "Why? What have you heard?"

"Nothing, I just wondered if you got that...umm...issue with Raphael taken care of?"

"No, not as such," she hedged.

"Really? I thought you had, you obviously got your other problem..." Eleanor trailed off as she realised that she'd made Mary very uncomfortable all of a sudden. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry." She backed off, returned the chair to it's former position and went back to her desk, shrugging at Stan as she passed his window.

xxx

Marshall sat on Amy's front porch watching the world go by.

Amy appeared next to him and sat on the other chair as she handed him a tall glass of iced tea. He accepted the glass with thanks and took a long swig.

"So, everything okay?" he asked her.

"Yeah, it's fine. I can't believe it's been almost a week since I testified and they still haven't reached a decision, but other than that I'm fine."

Marshall could see that she was telling him the truth about being okay. She seemed much more relaxed that last time he had seen her when he and Mary were transporting her to and from Houston. Then she'd been scared and nervous and had covered it by talking incessantly and adopting a bubbly, childish persona. It had driven Mary nuts on the drive to Texas but he knew his witnesses and had understood her fears and coping mechanisms and had help her where he could.

"So why'd you call?" he asked after a moment.

"Honestly? I wanted to make sure Mary was alright. I was watching this documentary on how REM sleep was discovered and it made me think of her."

"Ah, yes, yet another serendipitous discovery, this time care of Eugene Aserinsky..."

"You saw it then?"

"No, but I saw it advertised."

They lapsed into silence. Both sipping their tea as they watched a neighbour mow the lawn.

"So, is she okay, then? I mean have you..."

"She admitted she has nightmares," Marshall informed her, "but we haven't talked about them. Getting her to own up to them was a big enough step."

Marshall thought about the problem for a while.

"I don't think she's had one since the night after your testimony."

"What makes you say that?" Amy asked, curious.

"She's spent most nights with me..."

"Really? I didn't think that was allowed."

"It's not. But my sister..."

"Oh, that's right, I'd forgotten about the bet! How's that going?"

Marshall spent a few minutes telling May about the bet and the problems they'd encountered. He had her crying with laughter as he described the complication that was Raph. He joined in with her laughter as he recounted the conversation Mary had had with Ellen about his and Mary's supposed First Time. He sobered as he remembered that he'd actually had sex with Mary since then and Amy was quick to notice his mood change.

"What's up?"

"I slept with Mary last night," he revealed, staring at his hands.

"So, you did two nights before that...oh. You slept with her slept with her!"

Marshall nodded as that seemed less binding than a verbal confirmation.

"And?" Amy prompted.

"And what?"

"What was it like?"

"Good."

"Good? Is that all you can say about it? It was 'good'?"

Marshall's smile told her he thought it had been better than 'good' and he just couldn't think of the words to describe it.

"But?" she prompted again.

"What makes you think there's a but?"

"There's always a but!"

Marshall ran his hands through his hair as he considered how much to tell Amy. He was surprised he'd shared this much with her, but he didn't have anyone else to turn to about this. He'd boxed himself into a corner with his lies to Ellen and he couldn't talk to Mary and work through his feelings that way, she had too much going on herself.

"I waited so long for her...And there's a good chance that as soon as Ellen leaves, she'll go back to Raphael."

"You'd let her leave without a fight?"

"I might. I don't know. I want her to be happy. If she's happy with him, who am I to stand in the way?"

"So why'd you sleep with her? If not to break her and Raphael up?"

"Because in a year's time, after she goes back to him, I'd be kicking myself for not taking the opportunity when I had it."

"Don't you think it'll be harder letting her go, now you know what you're missing?"

"Maybe. Probably. Yeah, I would probably be better off not knowing what she's like. But I can't bring myself to regret it. Not yet anyway. One day, maybe. Who knows?"

"She's a fool." Amy took a final sip of her drink. "But so are you. No wonder you're so good together. It's true what they say; idiocy loves company."

Marshall looked askance at her, "Don't you mean misery? Misery loves company."

"Bah! Close enough." She grabbed the two empty glasses and took them indoors.