A/N: The story is likely to be incredibly sappy from here on out, and probably wildly out-of-character, but I guess I couldn't help myself!

XXX

"Will anyone be joining you?"

"Is there someone we can call?"

"Is your husband on his way?"

A hundred versions of the same question were hurled at Mary once the ambulance deposited her in the maternity ward at the hospital. Each time she heard it, she became more and more agitated, and more and more upset. It was as if they wanted her to feel remote, cut off from anyone and everything, like it was their goal to break her and make her ask for assistance. She wasn't going to do it because there was no one to ask, but that didn't mean the idea of being left out wasn't debilitating all on its own.

At first, Mary was nice, if not a little shaky. She tolerated the gown, the IV needle, the heart monitor, and the blood pressure clamp with relative grace, even if she couldn't seem to quit crying to save her life. She even held it together while various nurses poked and prodded every inch of her they could reach, as long as she wasn't ensconced in a contraction, in which case all bets were off. But, the constant reminder that she had no one to cheer her on and kiss her cheek was too much, and she was forced to whine out the matching answers to their insolent queries again and again and again.

"No, no one's coming…"

"No, there's no one to call; it's just me…"

"No, I don't have a husband…"

Mortifying didn't begin to describe it. Mary might not want to be by herself, but out of all the available options – robotic nurses and non-emotive doctors – she would rather brave the storm in peace. But, from the second she was admitted she was hassled left, right, and center; there was no escape. Trapped and in insufferable pain, she wanted someone to conk her over the head until she turned back into the rugged, take-no-prisoners Marshal she used to be.

It was thirty minutes before she even saw Doctor Reese, who marched in as though she were late for a lunch meeting, carrying a clipboard with a pen already poised and ready in her hand. Mary was not in the most flattering of positions when she arrived, balled on her side as tightly as she could go with her belly in the way, fingers fisting the bed sheets like she planned to rip them in two.

"Mary?" Raquel proposed carelessly, which made the mentioned unfold herself slightly to see who was there. "Hi."

There was nothing she could say back that would remotely explain her appearance. It wouldn't have surprised the pregnant one in the least if she looked like she'd been abused, only without the bruises. Her hair was limp and tangled, a scruffy version of its former glory from the night before, when it had been curled and crimped for the wedding. Her cheeks were rosy red from all the stamina she'd exerted, both in crying and in her disastrous attempts to breathe in and out. Crimson lines snaked all through the whites of her eyes, every vein prominent, their usual green obscured by the fat, wet tears that seemed to keep coming from nowhere. The way Mary looked at it, she had never been in a worse state, and knew it could only go down from here.

Following her blank gaze across the room, Doctor Reese migrated to the head of the bed to examine the mechanism charting Mary's contractions as well as her IV line, cool as a cucumber.

"How you doing?" some empathy was detectable as she gave the printout the once-over. "You hanging in there?"

This earned her nothing but a glare, the best Mary could muster when she felt as badly as she did. Doctor Reese ignored it, targeting facts and figures instead.

"Your vitals look good…" she proclaimed cheerfully. "Your blood pressure is a little higher than I would like, so we'll have to keep an eye on that, but otherwise we couldn't ask for better," considering how much stress she was under, hypertension could not only be anticipated, but guaranteed. "If you'll sit up for me, I can check you really quick and see how far along you are…"

There were all sorts of things wrong with this lesson, why Mary didn't see herself giving in one iota. Shifting onto her back with her legs practically in the air was going to be a monstrous mountain to climb given how uncomfortable she already was. Add in the torment of having her cervix checked and she felt like asking for them to put a bullet in her head right now. In any case, there would be no giving up easily, not if she had anything to say about it.

"I don't want you to check me…" Mary groaned, her head falling slack on her pillow. "I want to be left alone."

"I'll be done as soon as I can, Mary," Doctor Reese gave her a polite nudge with her shoulder, but the patient wouldn't budge. "I need to see how many centimeters you're dilated so we can get a better idea of when you might deliver."

This was a crock if ever Mary had heard one. Marshall – her heart sank another few notches at the thought of him – had said that childbirth was one of the most fickle adventures someone could go through. Trying to gauge when she was likely to reach the finish line was pure deception.

"You aren't going to know anything from sticking your fingers up there!" she burst crudely, still hunched on her side. "Leave me the hell alone and come back when this kid is crowning!"

Doctor Reese was obviously used to temperamental women given her profession, even if Mary was in a class by herself, and still she tried to elbow her into the desired position. When Mary refused to be shunted aside, she motioned none-too-discreetly at a nurse in the hall, which about sent her clear over the edge.

"What are you doing?!" she demanded, knowing she was going to be outnumbered, that the nurse was there to maneuver her, to overpower her. "I told you that you're not touching me! Are you asking to get sued?"

But, her bones were so weak; her level of energy so low, that two were able to do what one could not. Mary found herself sitting upright, the stranger of a nurse pinning her down by her shoulder with a surprisingly strong arm. Doctor Reese then saw herself to the end of the bed, plopping down on a rolling stool and snapping on a pair of surgical gloves.

"I'll do my best to be quick, Mary; I know it's cumbersome…" this understanding went nowhere toward improving the inspector's mood. "While we're on the subject of interventions, though…" whatever that meant. "If you were looking for pain relief, we can make that happen. Were you interested in an epidural?"

The term sparked something in Mary's memory and she became distracted against her will, try as she might to keep an eye on the doctor to see what she was going to do.

"The…the spine thing…" she spluttered, exactly what she had said to her partner when he'd brought it up. "It…it makes you numb…"

"From the waist down, yes," Doctor Reese confirmed. "If you like, we can track down the anesthesiologist and have him on call for when you're ready…"

"I'm ready now," Mary assured her boldly. "Call him now. Give it to me now," anything to taper some of this wretchedness.

"Well, you may have to wait awhile yet; it can't be administered until you're four centimeters dilated, but I'm checking on that right now…"

As if this bad news wasn't enough, Mary felt her entire body tense automatically, the pings of the monitor telling her as well as her uterus that she wasn't going to be pain-free for much longer. The coaster was ascending the hill, first in the form of a tiny stitch, no more than a thorn in her side. When it built to a nauseating ache, Mary began to growl low in throat, the conception of Lamaze now a very distant aim. The guttural sound she made alerted Doctor Reese as well as the nurse to what was going on, but before they could get any ideas, Mary made herself holler, no matter how much precious vigor it wasted.

"Don't do it now; please don't do it now…"

Her begging was ignored. Perhaps Doctor Reese thought she was sparing her the agony of two spurts of pain, but Mary would've rather dealt with that than the blindingly terrible feeling she experienced of the peak of a contraction matched with having her cervix examined. Hating herself for it but unable to restrain the bellow of the beast, she cried out like she never had before – a whimpering, sobbing little girl trying to block the sensation that her entire belly had just been compressed into a wad and turned upside-down, like her insides were water being wrung out of a towel.

"I told you to stop, damn it!"

Being mean was the closest she was going to get to feeling like her old self, and Doctor Reese seemed remorseful, but not nearly remorseful enough.

"I'm sorry, Mary; I know that smarts, but you're done…"

Nothing about her was 'done' even as she panted for air through her tears on the tail end of the contraction, shaking violently from the shock to her system.

"You've just eclipsed two centimeters, so you'll have to hang on a little while before you can have the epidural…"

"Get out!" was her toxic reaction to this unsatisfying news, gesturing madly toward the door and almost hitting the unsuspecting nurse smack in the face. "Get out NOW!"

The nurse didn't need telling twice; with a subtle nod from Doctor Reese she scurried away, clearly frightened of how malicious a woman in labor could be. But, the one in charge stayed behind, hands on her hips, staring at Mary's distorted form like she was a spectacle at the zoo. She knew that being manhandled hadn't done her outlook any favors, but she also knew it went far beyond that. She was digging herself into a giant hole; anyone with eyes could see she would never last for the duration in this condition.

"Mary, call somebody."

Her voice was level, but there could be no mistaking how essential she found the order.

"You are miserable; you're scared, and you have every right…" as if noting that mattered. "You need someone. Don't do this to yourself. This will turn into a day that will haunt you for the rest of your life if you let it go on."

Blubbering but still doing her best to look menacing, Mary rose her eyes just enough to face the other woman and make her plea known one more time.

"Go away. Please, just go away…"

Doctor Reese sighed, but she was there to help the patient, and if the patient wanted her gone and there weren't any more pressing matters to attend to, then she needed to abide.

"I'll be back in an hour to check you again. Hit the call button if you need anything; one of the nurses will come in."

As a comeback, Mary rolled right over and faced the opposite wall once more, where all she could see was the curtained window, the blinds drawn so that only the smallest inkling of sunlight passed through the cracks. Only when the footsteps died away and the door had clunked shut did she believe Doctor Reese had really gone. The veracity of her announcement was terrorizing to an extent. If Mary loved Mango like she very sincerely hoped she would once he materialized in the here and now, she wouldn't want to remember his birthday as a time of melancholy. It was supposed to be mammoth, not horribly scarring.

It might've been this realization that caused the woman to throw in the towel, or it might've been another one entirely. Nonetheless, she pulled her broken shavings together, glued them into a misshapen mess, and reached for her phone on the bedside table. Sleek and slick in her hand, the screen still slightly dented from where she had smashed it in the hotel, she sniffled and punched in one of two numbers she had yet to call. Through the rings, discouraged because she was asking for that which she hadn't earned, she told herself that her method of dissolving down to nothingness still held some measure of self-worth. She wasn't seeking out the man whom she adored, but going for the big guns, because she knew the boss would accomplish what she couldn't bring herself to do.

"McQueen."

Infinitely more than Doctor Reese, Stan's salutation was a breath of cool, calming fresh air. He was the father Mary couldn't run to, and he'd give her what she was too ashamed to grovel for. She trusted him to understand, to know what she needed and allow her to save face at the same time.

"Stan…?"

Her voice echoed in the small space to which she was confined; she sounded suddenly small and meek, the tears glistening upon her cheeks as she grounded herself for a few single seconds.

"Mary?" but, he knew without questioning who was on the other end. "I'm so glad you called; I wanted to talk to you about something. Marshall said…"

Whatever Marshall had said, Mary didn't have to guess for a second, but she also didn't care what sort of stories they had swapped in her absence. Gossip and water coolers and stolen secrets were meaningless and, any minute now, Stan was going to think so too. Diluted by her constantly fragile state of being, she allowed the tears to run without being stemmed, sliding over the slopes of her cheeks and around her nose.

"Stan…" she interrupted with a shuddering sigh. "Stan, I'm…" Unlike Doctor Reese, she didn't need to use the proper terminology and cut to what she knew he would comprehend, "I'm having the baby…" And, in case he didn't get it, "Now. Today. I'm in the hospital."

The effort she expended to be direct failed outstandingly, because each word was riddled with more sobs, something that was probably making Stan feel so awkward that he didn't know which direction to stumble first. But, like the inspector he had trained so well, he did not show even a sliver of his discomfort, nor did he ask for clarification from Mary. He wasn't a US Marshal for nothing – and US Marshals put everything on the line when they scented danger.

"Oh, Jesus…" if she hadn't been so overwhelmed, Mary might've laughed because he sounded so much like her. "What timing…" no kidding. "Oh, man…okay…" he was gearing himself up, Mary could tell. "All right…okay…" the repetition while feeling ill-at-ease was so very Stan. "Okay…okay…"

"Stan…" she sighed, her head sinking into her pillow, dotting the cover with moisture.

But, the sound of her voice seemed to recall him to the most important question that he had yet to ask.

"Are you okay, kiddo?"

Saying yes would mean transforming back into her old, acerbic self, a side of her she desperately wanted Stan to see because it would mean that she hadn't experienced so many frightening changes. The universe in which she had resided for over a week now was so unlike the one she'd lived since the age of seven, when she'd become the adult, taking over for a father who couldn't get the job done himself.

But, she had a father right now. It wasn't James; it wasn't the man who had coiled a medallion around her neck and tucked Biscuit into the crook of her arm. It was not he who had written her letters from nowhere, he who coined her 'sweetheart' and promised she was destined to make everyone feel safe. And yet, Mary had been back at the beginning for days now, trying to manage an uphill climb she had skipped when she'd gone from seven to thirty-five overnight. James didn't have to be the father with the key. That man was standing right here, waiting for her soul to be poured into his.

"Mary…?" Stan prompted when all he heard was crying. "Are you all right?"

Candor was going to feel like a relief, "No…" even if came with still more wracking sobs.

She knew he hadn't said, done, signaled, gestured, indicated, or shouted anything at all and yet, like any man worth his salt, he knew exactly what his girl needed when she wasn't okay.

"He'll be there, kiddo. He's on his way."

X

Marshall was standing on the roof of the Sunshine Building, allowing the warm September breeze to ruffle his hair, arms folded against the cement wall as he looked down at the street below. His phone, which might very well be broken for all the noise it had made this morning, sat beside his bent elbow. He was almost to the point where he'd quit glancing at it, resigned to the fact that it was not going to go off. His ingrained reflex to pick it up, to answer it when it wasn't ringing, or else to place a call to his partner was a hard habit to break.

He had insisted, probably thirty minutes earlier, that he just needed some air before meeting with a new witness, although Stan had seemed skeptical he would be up to the task today. And, when he heard his chief's voice calling all the way from inside, he assumed he had been out longer than he'd anticipated, that the new charge was here, and it was time to go in and get back to the grind.

But, when Marshall whirled around at the sound of his name, he saw a Stan that couldn't possibly be this frenzied over a simple witness.

"Marshall! Marshall!"

Alarm setting in quickly, he took two steps toward the glass door before his boss burst through it, breathless even though he'd only run the length of the top floor, anxiety in his brown eyes.

"What is it?" the younger man wanted to know, intending to get to the bottom of the chaos as quickly as possible. "What's going on…?"

"You've gotta go – you've gotta get out of here…"

"What, why?"

"It's Mary!"

"What…what about Mary?"

And then…

"She's in labor!"

Marshall's brain seemed to crash with a resounding clunk against his skull as this information slammed into being. He wouldn't have been surprised if he staggered where he stood, unable to believe after everything he'd endured in the last twenty-four hours, that it was going to end with this.

Mango. Mango was coming. Mango was arriving – this very minute, perhaps. By day's end, or shortly after, he wouldn't be a Mango anymore. He'd be a John or a Billy or an Alex; a whole, complete, tiny person that would appear and change Mary's existence for the long haul. Nine months Marshall had waited, with the last week in highest anticipation because of what this child would mean to him as he embarked upon his journey officially as Mary's son. The day was finally here.

And yet, the cogs in the inspector's head seemed to be spinning in opposite directions, preventing him from rushing off as Stan had indicated he needed to do. Last night was still unsullied and abominably fresh. If he'd lost Mary, he'd lost Mango, hadn't he? They were one in the same now, and the hurt and indisputably negative response from his dearest friend still rang true. Weren't things different now? How could he be sure that he could stake any sort of claim after such a momentous brawl?

Evidently, Stan was the one who was going to make him 'sure.'

"Why are you just standing here?!" the shorter demanded, in more of a tizzy than Marshall had ever seen him. "Get down to the hospital – go!"

The other faltered in his uncertainty, "But…but…she didn't call me; she called you – she-she must want…"

But, Stan shut him up with a furious whack to his bicep that actually stung and a few words of not-so-fatherly wisdom – but words he needed to hear nonetheless.

"She doesn't want me, you moron – she wants you!"

Dazed from the blow, "But…but, how do you…?"

"Marshall, wake up!" and here was the bad-ass-boss they all knew so very well, coming into his own at the drop of a hat. "She wants you – she needs you! She called me because she's too embarrassed to call you; she wants to protect her dignity – you know how she is!"

"But…but how…" he still couldn't wrap his head around this, and still his feet began to itch in their yearning to be out the door, right by Mary's side. "How…did she sound…is she…?"

Stan sighed, probably due to just how many times he had-had to show his two inspectors the very bright light when it came to their relationship, but they had finally reached the crux. If they didn't get it now, if they didn't leap now, they never would.

"She sounds like she is dying because she is not with you."

And this was all that Marshall needed. Love or no love, wedding or no wedding, future or no future, the child of his best friend was about to enter the world, and he would never forgive himself if he missed it.

"Now, would you go?!"

Stan slapped him on the back and with a burst of renewed power and mirth, he ran.

X

Marshall all-but flew through the corridors of the hospital once he arrived, feeling very much in disarray, but bound and determined to get to his destination. He was counting on Stan's knowledge to carry him through, that he possessed enough intuition to know what Mary wanted, because putting himself out there when they'd gone through such turmoil was risky business indeed. The very idea of facing his partner after their tribulation was making him feel edgy already, but it was vital to put it aside. Chances were, Mary was in a far more defenseless state than he was.

Once upstairs in the maternity ward, Marshall searched hungrily for the room number the receptionist on the floor below had presented him with. Twice, he had to turn and go a different direction because the numbers on the doors didn't match the one in his hand. The longer he hunted, the more agitated he became. There was no telling what he was missing, what had already happened in his absence, and how much more would escape his notice before he arrived. In equal measure, the time spent locating his target gave way to all the foolish 'I love you's' from the night before, pounded into his brain as though with a sledgehammer. It was really no wonder he'd upset Mary. It might've been time to be a little more forthright, but the way he'd pushed her off the dock had been rather intrepid – perhaps even idiotic.

Then, at long last, when Marshall was beginning to sweat and was considering asking passerby for help, he found the room he was looking for. Witnesses didn't typically land themselves in the maternity ward, and so his dealings with the hospital tended to be confined to the ER. Now, he had reached quite possibly the most sensitive wing in this entire palace – it docked women at their most powerful as well as their most vulnerable. Only the best and brightest deserved to be here. Marshall just hoped Mary considered him one of those people.

Taking a deep breath, preparing himself to walk in on a flurrying, fussy, fevered version of his partner, he was therefore surprised when he pushed open the door and saw nothing but the woman's back. Undoubtedly trying to shield herself from anyone who dared intrude on her in such a thin-skinned moment, Mary was curled in something resembling the fetal position, probably not unlike the one that Mango was leaving at this very moment. It wasn't the posture that really bothered Marshall, however. It was the noise issuing from the other end of the room – a noise that definitely wasn't a whistling air vent or a bleeping monitor. In some ways, Mary was exactly as Marshall had left her twelve hours earlier.

Crying.

To her credit, she did seem to be trying to hold it in, and concealing it from onlookers to boot. And yet, the image as well as the idea made Marshall feel great pity for the friend whose world he had rocked to the very core. In all their time together, he couldn't imagine a time when Mary had been so exposed – no walls, no pretense; nothing but bare skin and bones.

If she had heard him enter, she didn't show it. In fact, there was no way for her to know who stood on the threshold, but Marshall was going to have to give himself up soon enough. With one cautious step after another, he inched himself closer and closer to the bed and when he stood looming above her, his shadow casting darkness over her form, he knew he was going to have to make the first move.

"Mary?"

His voice rent the tears, arresting their control over an already sticky set of circumstances. The woman in question hiccupped, but Marshall could've sworn she was listening. Maybe it was because she knew the tone belonged to a man, maybe because she had guessed what Stan's plan of attack would be once he'd heard the news, but when Marshall settled himself in a rolling stool placed on his side of the bed, she finally rotated around to see who had come to call.

He had the briefest glimpse of her soaked face before the sounds of ecstasy and liberation came streaming into the open, expelled in the form of still more tears.

"Oh…!"

It was really more like a gasp than anything else, but it was all Mary managed before the wash of buckets inundated her once more, crumpling her face, deforming her features. For a split second, Marshall thought he might've made a mistake in coming, because she looked horrorstruck, but then he saw her arms extend, saw the way she hurried to get all the way around to face him, and knew at once he was in the clear.

"I told him not to tell you…!"

The 'he' was, of course, Stan, but this excuse was feeble at best. Both partners knew her strategy in dialing the chief had been to get the news of her predicament to her best friend in a round-about way, but there was no sense bringing that up.

"I told him not to say anything – I didn't want you to think you had to come down here and rescue me after what I said and what I did to you! It's not fair – it's not fair to you – Marshall…" the run-on was making her breathless, which was not a good sign given the fact that she was in labor, but there was no shutting her up now. "Marshall…Marshall, I'm…I'm…"

"Come here; come on; come here…"

Without further ado, he swept her hard and fast into his arms, her face plunged deep into his chest, drenching it with her overflow of dampness. She was trembling so badly that Marshall found her hard to hold, but he wasn't going to let go for anything. Having her so near to him again, even though they hadn't been apart for more than a day, was intoxicating. She might be the one in pain, but he had been aching just as fiercely. Neither heart that beat in either chest was whole without the other ticking out an identical rhythm; they pounded a tempo all their own.

And, if Marshall thought having the furrowed form of Mary in his grasp was the best he was going to get today, he was wonderfully, marvelously mistaken.

"Marshall, I'm so sorry…"

He'd never heard an apology so genuine coming from his best friend, which told him how real it was.

"I'm so sorry…"

"It's okay…" he didn't even care anymore; the two of them entwined together was more than enough.

"I wasn't telling you the truth…" muffled with her mouth pressed into his shoulder, and stopped up with tears. "I lied, Marshall…"

And, finally, the three words he had longed to hear for eight endless years suddenly become four – more evident, more accented, with more force than he could've ever hoped for.

"I do love you."

"Oh…" it was the man's turn to breathe out as his eyes fluttered shut, bathing, basking, savoring such a beautiful phrase; a thousand times more so coming from Mary. Even though he should've come up with something far more poetic in return all he could manage was, "Yeah?"

"I just…I didn't know what to do…I never know what to do anymore; I was so afraid that what we have would go away and I can't handle that…" this was all so new and exciting, and fearsome just the same. "But…if for some insane reason you still want me after everything I put you through…"

"Of course I still want you…" he whispered, patting her back now, feeling her grapple at his own still tighter. "Of course I do…"

"What I said was awful…"

"It's okay; I don't care anymore…" and there was nothing untrue about this at all. "I went about it completely the wrong way; I forced the whole thing, I sprung it on you; I should've been more careful…"

"But, I wasn't listening; I never listen…"

"Well, you seem to be listening now," Marshall observed quietly. "And so am I."

Not wanting to, but knowing it was necessary, he gently lugged himself free, finally getting his first real look at Mary's face since entering the room. Unkempt wasn't a strong enough word for the expression she wore, but her exquisite nature shone through nonetheless. More attractive than anything else about her was that, scared shitless though she might be, there had been a profound reprieve granted upon her, a woman who had been so closeted for so long. Whatever came next might be difficult, but it could come when they had nothing left to hide, and that was the only place to start.

With his index finger, Marshall drew a path underneath Mary's eyelids; soaking in her tears even as she blinked and more trickled out.

"I'm here," he promised stoutly. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. We will get through this together, okay?"

"I'm making a disaster of it already…" Mary wallowed. "I have been a wreck; be glad you didn't witness it…"

"It's you and me now," more allegiances. "Come what may; the trail starts here – with Mango. Does that sound all right to you?"

And a watery, weak-willed smile finally formed on Mary's careworn face, the first one she'd spread since Marshall's departure the night before.

"Anything with you sounds all right to me."

XXX

A/N: So, it IS love after all! My endless gratitude to all of you for being so loyal! I feel like now, at chapter fifty-two, is a good time to tell you that this marathon of a story is winding it's way to the end. Still quite a few chapters to come, though!