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 29
A.N. Warning for language.
When Marshall kissed her, she was expecting it. Nevertheless, she was surprised by the intensity, the passion his kiss had, and even more when she discovered the difference was more evident as they made love.
When her brain was able to finally regain its normal functioning, she lay by his side, with her head on his chest, trying to figure out what had changed.
She remembered the first time they had made love and she realized that, that time, it had been all her. He had limited himself to respond to ─and survive ─ her onslaught.
Later that night, in the shower, the roles had been reversed and Marshall had taken the lead, but it had been a soft, controlled, calculated lead. After they had moved back to his bed, he had still kept the control and he had showed her what he had wanted, seemingly, for a long time. She had been treated in a way nobody had ever treated her before, as a precious entity, worthy of love, care, and respect.
The following day, she had gotten the chance to try his method and it had been a fun, pleasurable experience, but she still had felt that something was missing from Marshall's end.
As a whole, the experience had been better than any other she had previously had, physically and emotionally, though she could not pinpoint why, or what had made it better. The fact that they had argued so badly after it, had rendered the whole point irrelevant.
Then, their last encounter had been very unusual, every minute tainted by the knowledge that it was a farewell night.
Now, Mary could feel that Marshall had found what she had been missing. Every touch, every kiss, every stroke this morning had transmitted some kind of energy that moved her beyond what their bodies felt.
Was this what other people called true love? She found that notion sappy. She had to think of a better explanation.
She had been certain to have loved and been loved before. She had loved her husband ─for a while─ and she had loved Raph. She had married the first and she had been about to marry the second… because she was in love with them, right? She had had fun with them, she had desired them ─especially Raph─ and she had envisioned a future with them.
The first experience had ended in complete failure. They were both too immature and unable to carry a relationship beyond their bed.
The second one had ended with the beginning of a solid friendship.
Now, did she love Marshall the same way? What was this that bonded her to him? She had finally understood the depth of his love. Could she ever feel that way for him? For anyone?
Had she started to really fall for him and had that made the difference when they made love or had it all come from him? She was still baffled by the wanted she wanted him, not with fiery desire, but with almost desperate need.
"This was different," she said, unable to find an answer on her own.
"How?" Marshall asked, curious.
"I don't know. It's like, for the first time, I felt you were all there, both body and…" she hesitated.
"Soul?" he asked.
"I was going to say mind, but, yeah, maybe soul fits better."
He stroked her hair gently. "I know that something changed for me."
"What?"
He was doubtful about telling her what he thought. He finally gathered courage and said it. "Before, whenever we were together, I kept seeing it as just having sex, a matter of giving physical pleasure to each other. Everything we did was exciting, arousing, satisfying at a corporal level, but it left me wanting something beyond that and I couldn't reach it, not completely, none of those times. I could have gone on like that for a while, but it would have inevitably become too unfulfilling, empty, spiritually draining. "
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"I did. I was hoping it would change over time, but when you said you weren't interested in a more profound relationship, you know what happened."
"We're still not getting married or having half a dozen children, so, what changed?" she said, failing to see the difference.
He carefully extricated himself from their embrace and sat up. "I don't want to offend you or hurt you, Mar. Maybe we should stop here."
"No freaking way," she said, sounding already offended and sitting up to face him. "Whatever you have to tell me, say it to my face."
He looked at her with those wide eyes that had become a symbol of his inner turmoil to her. "I wasn't sure how you'd react when you got pregnant."
"And what would havebeen the right way to react, in your world? She asked indignantly.
He sighed. "In my world, and only in my world, because I try not to judge people for not doing what I think is right, having the child would have been the correct answer."
"And what would have happened if I had decided not to have the baby?
"The truth? I found out that I'd have kept loving you the same way I did before. I can't change that, but-"
"But what?"
"But I'd have been disappointed," he finished almost as if asking for forgiveness.
She calmed down. She was not really offended. She felt sorry for him. It had to be hard having very high moral standards and expecting the rest of the world to measure up. At home, she had soon learned that was not possible most of the time.
Besides, she knew he was telling the truth. He would have still loved her.
"And now that I passed the test?"
"I love you even more."
She had felt it. She wished she could say the same to him, but the words did not come to her lips.
She hugged him, trying to hide the fact that she was not saying what was expected of her. Marshall did not ask for anything else and simply tightened the embrace.
After a while, Mary broke the hug and admitted she was hungry. They ordered food from the hotel restaurant to avoid going out.
Mary was the first to take a shower and he cleaned the room while she was doing it. After that, he went into the bathroom. He had not been there for long, when Mary heard something that made her alert. They were trained to be always scanning for danger, but she was in a hotel room, with Marshall. What could be wrong?
She looked around and tried to carefully hear for anything different. She finally identified a muffled sound coming from the bathroom. She walked to the door and opened it very carefully, without making any sound, and discovered that Marshall was standing under the shower, with his arms and forehead against a side wall, crying.
She gently closed the door and walked back into the room. She sat by the bed. Her heart was racing; she was shivering. She was stunned by how much that image had affected her.
Was he crying because, after days of uncertainty, he was finally relieved to know the baby was alright? Was he crying because she did not love him as he loved her?
In any case, she felt it was her fault that he was suffering and it broke her heart.
When he came out, still drying his hair with a towel, he walked to her and gently lifted the edge of her T-shirt to look at her belly. She would have never guessed he had been crying.
"I still can't believe it," he said with a small smile.
"Aren't you going to get your stethoscope?"
He shook his head softly. "No… It's too early. The baby is most likely the size of a pea or so. We'd need far more sophisticated equipment to hear a heart that fits in that size. And it's only the beginning of the week. He'll be for sure pumping blood by the end of this week."
She looked at him, not really surprised that he knew all that, but at the fact that he had not corrected her when she first said it.
He knew what she was thinking. "I just loved that you'd been reading about the baby," he smiled.
She shook her head with a smile of her own. He would always find a way to surprise her.
After lunch, she decided to check her tickets. She was pretty certain that the departure time was five in the afternoon, but she wanted to make sure.
"Hey! These are for tomorrow, not today," she said with astonishment. "Do you think Eleanor knows something? First, she didn't get me a room, then she left me here for the whole weekend…"
"Eleanor always knows everything," Marshall joked.
"Well, let's hope she tells Stan and she solves one of our problems then."
Marshall realized that now they would have to tell Stan about their relationship. "I wonder how he'll take it."
"He's fine with it either way, as long as we keep the performance of the office at its top level."
"You told him?"
"Not really, but he kind of figured out that something was going on between us and said that, either way, just sex or whole marriage thing, he just expected professionalism."
"That we can do."
Mary agreed.
They spent the rest of the weekend inside, watching movies, trying different meals from the hotel menu, and making love. Mary admitted to herself that leisure time had always been fun with Marshall, but adding sex to the equation made it even better.
On Sunday, she woke up spooning with him and she realized she had not felt that great in years. Could that be what some married couples had or did all vanish after the first months, or after the first kid?
Why did she always have to dissect everything?
Around three in the afternoon, Marshall got a call on the radio from the policeman at the entrance of the parking lot, letting him know that marshal Alicia Walker was on her way. Marshall told Mary and he immediately caught her reaction, though she did not say a word.
He secretly ─and guiltily─ enjoyed the spark of jealousy in her face.
Alicia came with her husband Peter, as they were on their way back from their short vacation. She had a short talk with Marshall and agreed to drive to the airport with Peter so that they could bring Marshall back to the hotel after accompanying Mary.
Mary endlessly complained about not being allowed to drive on her own to the airport, but Marshall had a weird feeling and did not change his mind.
After Mary got in line to check in at the airport, Marshall, Alicia, and Peter watched her from the far side. It was a busy Sunday afternoon and dozens of people tried to push their way around.
Suddenly, in the middle of the multitude, Marshall spotted a face he recognized.
"Alicia," he said pointing at the woman and reaching for his gun. "It's her. She's going towards Mary."
The urgency in his voice made Alicia reach for her gun, too.
"I don't have a clear shot, there are too many people around her, and if I try to call Mary, she'll turn around and become a better target, or the lunatic could take hostages."
"I'll cover you," Alicia said, understanding the dilemma. She asked her husband to take cover and she followed Marshall.
He swiftly walked among the crowd towards his target and tried to make people back off by showing his badge and asking for silence with a gesture of his hand.
He was a couple of meters away from her, when all of a sudden the crazed woman noticed the change in people's behavior around her and turned to face Marshall. She was carrying a long kitchen knife in her hand and she threw herself towards him ready to stab him.
They both fell to the floor and fought for possession of the knife for a few seconds.
Mary, alerted by the commotion, was trying to find an angle to shoot the woman attacking Marshall, but she had no clear line of sight because of all the people running or, astonishingly, not running but trying to watch the fight.
It seemed to Mary that it was taking years for her to clear a path to them, when in fact it had only been a few seconds before a shot rang and the former witness fell backwards with a strangely neat dark circle in her forehead.
Mary reached them and kicked the knife out of her lifeless hand.
Alicia approached with the gun still in her hand as Peter followed her, showing her badge to the policemen running toward the scene of the shooting.
"They're U.S. Marshals," he kept repeating, because Alicia did not seem to be interested in talking to the police or putting her gun down. Mary did not either.
After checking the vital signs of the fallen woman, certain now that she was dead, Marshall accepted the hand Mary was offering and stood up.
He took Alicia's gun from her hands, emptied it, and placed all the items in a plastic bag he got from his pocket.
Mary looked at him, stunned that he would carry bags for collecting evidence in his leisure jacket.
Marshall realized what her look meant. "What? I like to be prepared. You never know."
She just scoffed. Then she looked more carefully at him. "You have blood," she said as she tried to check his side.
"It's nothing. Must be my hand again," he replied and turned to Alicia again." How are you doing?"
"Fine, fine," she said, but he was quite certain that she was not.
Half an hour later, he was sitting on a stretcher in the ER of the nearest hospital.
Peter entered the room and smiled nervously.
"They sent me to check how you were doing. It looks like they have a ton of paperwork to do. They have marshals and police and a lot more people in a room upstairs."
"I'm sure I'll have to do my share soon," Marshall said.
"I think they won't bother you until tomorrow. Your boss from Albuquerque called and they decided to let you rest. They have a police car downstairs to take you back to the hotel. I'm supposed to stay with you until Alicia comes to pick me up. Inspector Shepherd will take a plane tomorrow afternoon."
Marshall nodded. "As soon as they discharge me, we'll get out of here and go grab a beer at the hotel. That sounds good." He looked at Peter more carefully. "How are you doing?"
Peter looked down. "I… I suppose I'm fine. It's just that that was intense, man. I'm an architect, you know… My life is very different. I know Alicia is a U.S. Marshal, but watching her… Wow. She killed that woman… That was…"
"I know," Marshall interrupted. "She'll need your support now. It's very hard to deal with something like that, especially the first time."
"You're right," Peter said realizing what that meant. "She said she had never had to shoot to kill before… but that crazy woman was going to kill you. I could see her trying to stab you with that thing. Are you in pain?"
"Oh, crap," Marshall said with regret. "I just realized. They gave me those painkillers; I guess the beer is out of the question. You'll have to drink one for me," he added with a smile.
"Did she hurt you badly?"
"No, just some cuts and scratches in my side. I grabbed her wrist to stop her, but that blade was long… She got me a couple of times."
"For a moment I thought she was going to reach Inspector Shepherd before you got to her."
"I know," Marshall acknowledged, but refused to talk about the fear he felt, especially since it would have all been because of him and his past.
"Alicia told me on the way to the airport that Shepherd and you-"
"Mary." Marshall corrected.
"Yeah, Mary and you-"
Marshall guessed he was trying to ensure that he was not a danger to his marriage anymore. He decided to calm his fears. "That's correct. We're expecting our first child," he added to make sure Peter believed him, "the first one of many, I hope… but we haven't told many people yet. We have to clear it with our boss, first," he finished, worried that Mary would not like that he had shared their secret.
"Have you told Alicia?"
"Not yet."
"Better you tell her, when you're ready. I'll keep your secret."
"Thanks."
Peter decided to sit down for a while as they waited for Marshall to get permission to leave.
"So…" he tried to start a new conversation. "Was she crazy for you or the other way around?"
"Definitely the other way around. I'm completely mad about her. Sometimes it's kind of scary."
"Tell me about it. That's how I feel about Alicia, but at the beginning she didn't even look at me. We used to live in the same building and it took me three months just to get her to say hello to me every time we crossed paths."
"I've been in love with Mary for so long that it feels like it's been that way all my life, like before her there was nothing," Marshall confessed.
"You're her partner; you had to work every day with her. Wasn't that hard, to be so close to her?"
Marshall thought for a few seconds. "I could deal pretty well with it until she got engaged to another guy, a good guy, and I thought I would lose her forever, but when she was shot and I believed she'd die, I discovered that I preferred a million times to have her married to the guy than completely gone from my life. I don't think I've ever been that scared. She wasn't breathing… Her heart wasn't beating..."
Peter realized that Marshall was still not over what had happened at that time and tried to change the direction of the talk a little.
"I thought Alicia wouldn't even give me the time of day. I was surprised when she accepted to go out with me."
"Last year I thought about changing jobs, stop torturing myself," Marshall said looking down.
"Why didn't you?"
"She asked me not to leave and I ended up promising her that I wouldn't," he admitted.
"Maybe she already had feelings for you and she didn't know. Perhaps, if you had told her, she would have realized."
"I almost did, the last time I was shot."
Peter sighed. "Man, that's a dangerous job you three have, goodness."
Marshall shrugged. "It's part of it."
"So, why didn't you tell her?"
"I kind of did, but she didn't get it. That was the worst part. I had so much to tell her and it hurt to have to keep quiet to remain her friend. Every time I noticed she was unhappy at home or whenever she needed a hand and she had Raph's to hold, I wondered how it would be if we were together. It scared me to think that we could be fantastic together and that if we missed the chance to try, we'd never know… but I always had that little hope in the back of my heart, that I'd get a chance to show her."
"Well, it looks like you got it, because now you're together."
"With Mary is hard to say, but I'll enjoy every moment we get."
A doctor came in right then and gave Marshall his discharge papers.
Mary and Alicia met him and Peter later in the hotel. Alicia went home with Peter and Mary stayed the night with Marshall, but they did not talk about what had happened. They just lay down in bed, holding each other. They had spent other nights giving support each other before, after a rough day. It was not a night for lovers. It was night for partners and friends.
The next morning, he went back to teaching and she went back to Albuquerque.
A.N. This was supposed to be the epilogue, but it became so long that I had to cut it in two parts. I will try to post the second tomorrow. These events were necessary for what comes next. One more time, thank you for the reviews. The funny thing is that the more I read them, the longer the story turns to be. They give me ideas and the ideas become more twists to the plot and… You get the idea. I had a little section called "Eight years later" but when it started to grow, I thought it would be too much, so I am taking that out. I hope you enjoy!
