Yay for chapter 2! Thanks to slumbajam for helping me with the craziness! Enjoy!

As always, I do not own nor make money from IPS. Obviously.

The coffee wasn't nearly as good as it smelled, which was a shame, considering that Mary really REALLY needed some good coffee this morning. Whatever sleep she had achieved the night before did not seem to have been nearly the amount her body, mainly her head, was demanding. Drinking mystery cocktails with locals and getting panicked phone calls from insecure partners in the middle of the night would do that to a woman.

"Stupid Marshall," she muttered as she swiped a few of the danishes from the counter of continental breakfast choices. She could have gone into the hotel restaurant for some decent breakfast foods, which smelled amazing, but she had a phone call to make. If she needed a good, heavy, meat-laden omelet afterwards, then so be it. Vacation entitled her to as many breakfasts as she wanted.

Sitting down at a vacant table on the veranda and taking a bite of an apple danish, she dialed Marshall's number, ready to rip into him like there was no tomorrow. She almost felt sorry for the guy.

But not really.

"Stan's Fun House of Dwarves, Dopey speaking."

She smiled slightly, making a note to ask what prompted that quirky greeting.

"Guess what happened to me last night while on my apparently much-needed vacation."

She heard a chair screech and a few muttered curses.

"Mary, I—"

"So I'm sleeping, right? Cuz that's what people do on vacation," she overrode, not even trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. "And I get this crazy phone call from a delusional maniac who seems to think I have a fed in bed with me, which is weird, cuz it wouldn't even be his business if I did have a fed in my bed, and the strange part was that it wasn't just any fed supposedly in my bed, but a very particular fed who actually wants to be in my bed, and if you make me say fed and bed in the same sentence again, I will shoot you through this phone."

She was met with silence from the other end, which was not encouraging.

"Well?" she asked in exasperation, taking another bite of her Danish, which wasn't that good, but it would do for now.

"I'm trying to stop likening you to Dr. Seuss at the moment. Can you hang on for a second?"

"Dammit, Marshall, you owe me an explanation, now give it to me."

He sighed. "I know. I just—I just wanted to make sure that you were using your vacation time wisely, and, given past experiences with Agent Faber, I was concerned that—"

"Stop with the BS, strap on a set, and be a man. What the hell was that all about, Marshall?" She took quick drink of her now lukewarm, average-tasting coffee and grimaced.

"Fine. Fine. You wanna know?"

"Yeah, I wanna know!" she responded, mimicking his words in a whiney voice.

"OK." She heard him take a deep breath, and then: "I had a dream that you were in Mexico taunting a room service boy with your sexual wiles and then Faber walked in half dressed and you two went at it like a couple of Rottweilers in a junkyard after a honey ham."

He'd said it so fast she had to replay it all in her head before she could decipher anything, and then it didn't take long, considering the shocking absence of typical Marshall-esque words that only made sense in encyclopedias. A dream? Was he serious? He'd called her about all of this…because of a dream?

"Mary," he said slowly, and she could hear the anxiety, borderline concern, in his voice.

"My sexual wiles?" she asked in confusion.

"Oh, for God's sake, of everything that just came out of my mouth, that is what you choose to fixate on?"

"Well, I'm a little anxious about your witnessing my supposed sexual wiles, Marshall!" she said in exasperation. She put her elbow on the table, and huffed. "Does this happen often, Marshall? Are you fantasizing about me?"

"What? No! Mary, c'mon, no." His answer was both quick and sharp, almost too quick. And there was a definite note of panic in it, besides the fact that it was about three octaves too high.

But she couldn't afford to dwell on that just yet, so she stored it in the back of her mind for later. "Was it working? Was the kid worth it? Did I look hot?"

"I'm hanging up."

She held up a finger, as if he could see it. "You are not! I'm not through with you yet, buster, and don't even pretend that you don't owe me."

"I've already bought you a pie and it's waiting for your voracious appetite in my fridge."

She grunted. He knew how to get to her. "Not what I meant, but I accept, now get back to the story. You called me in the middle of the night, panicked like a little girl, over a dream?"

"It's not so uncommon for a dream to feel like a reality. In many cultures, dreams are a major source of revelation and insight, and the more authentic the dream seems, the more gifted the dreamer as a resource for those around him. And many scholars believe the nightm-dreams that instill a worry or fear should not be ignored, as the subconscious may be trying to inspire us to actual events in the future."

"Were you just going to say nightmare?" Mary asked, pouncing on the word instantly. "You had a dream about my sexual wiles, and you're calling it a nightmare?" That was oddly offensive.

She heard Marshall swear again and imagined him running a hand over his face in frustration. "The nightmare was Faber half naked in your room, Mare, not your promiscuous attire and behavior."

"So you liked my sexual wiles," she taunted with a grin.

"Stop saying sexual wiles."

"You said it first."

"And I regret it bitterly."

"So you called me in the middle of the night…because you had a nightmare… about my sleeping with Faber?" She spoke slowly, not for his benefit, but for her own, as she tried to fit those puzzle pieces together in her mind. It didn't actually make sense, but then, it was Marshall.

"In Mexico, yes."

"Huh."

"Excuse me? What is 'huh'?"

" 'Huh' is 'huh'," she replied with a shrug he wouldn't see. "What's the big deal, you always get my 'huh's."

"I can't see your face, and so deciphering this particular 'huh' is not as easy for me, although I am sure I could accomplish it with additional time, but I am not willing to put forth the effort necessary when I really have no idea why you used it, so you might as well just elaborate yourself."

Mary opted to give in to him just this one time. "I just don't understand the panic attack. Why not wait until I was awake or you were awake or ask Stan, he knew where I was."

"He said you paid him not to tell me."

"I did, but that's besides the point, since I paid him not to tell anyone."

"Not entirely beside the point, but I'll give it to you, considering the extenuating circumstances of your family."

She smirked momentarily. "But why the emergency call?"

"I already told you I was worried. It seems irrational to both of us now, but at the time it was pure instinct. You weren't having the dream, you don't know how real it felt."

"No, because if I had been having the dream, it would not have been so real because if I had to bang a fed on vacation, I'd choose one a lot more fun than Faber, the man's got more baggage than American Airlines."

"And this coming from the woman who inspired the phrase 'commitment-phobe'." The wry amusement coming through the phone couldn't hide the relief. He had really believed the dream, and she knew, and she was fairly certain he knew she knew.

"Hey, that's enough about my emotional constipation, thank you, back to dreams. So big deal, you had a dream about me that left you squirming. You could have called me at a reasonable human hour."

"I'll repeat, you weren't there, you don't know how real it felt. You're my partner. We look out for each other, even on vacation."

"Right, no, that I get that, but here's what I don't get: you were literally freaked."

"Mary—"

"I mean, I had a dream about you getting totally trashed in a bar full of coeds, wearing nothing but your Mickey Mouse boxers, standing on the counter, and singing Cyndi Lauper at the top of your lungs, but you didn't see me calling you in the middle of the night, did you?" She hesitated, then added: "You didn't actually do that, right?"

"Of course, I didn't, don't be ridiculous. And you didn't call me because had that actually happened, you would have recorded the whole thing and used it for blackmail, and then mocked me about it incessantly until I no longer had teeth."

She grinned and sat back. "Damn straight, I would. But still, it was a rather frightening experience."

"I can't help but be curious…Which part?"

"All of it. The boxers were up there, but I think the Cyndi Lauper tops the list."

"For future reference, I don't know the words to any Cyndi Lauper song. And if you are going to dream about me in my unmentionables, don't dream them to be Disney characters. I have better taste."

"Oh, how mysterious. What are they?" She spun her coffee cup on the table and crossed her fingers.

"Not having this conversation." She winced and snapped her fingers. Oh well. Someday she'd find out.

"So, Mare… Am I forgiven?"

She cocked her head. "I'm considering it."

"What's there to consider?"

"Why are you Dopey? That sounds like a fun story."

"It is indeed, but I want you to come back, so I will save it for your return."

"Devious man." She popped the last bit of Danish into her mouth and looked out over the view, sighing in contentment.

"That was almost a happy sound," Marshall said, his voice finally back to normal. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, just drinking my mediocre coffee and eating the cheap continental danishes while enjoying a spectacular view of the ocean."

"You're in Hawaii and you're eating cheap hotel danishes for breakfast?" He almost sounded offended. "You need to learn how to vacation right!"

"What's the deal? I just wanted to munch while talking with you, it's not like this is my real breakfast, and you like danishes. You eat them all the time, you buy them yourself instead of copping them from hotel continental breakfasts. What gives? Moron."

"Do me a favor. After we're done, go get an omelet or Belgian waffles or some local fare. Be extravagant with your breakfast, ok?"

She sighed heavily. "Fine, ok, so I suck at vacation. I bet my local beach grandpas would help me find some decent grub."

"I wanted to ask you about that after you stopped yelling at me. Did you say you were gambling with those grandpas?"

"Yeah, I did. So?"

"Mary, gambling is illegal in Hawaii. You can't even do it on Hawaiian cruises."

"Oh, for crying out loud, Marshall, we gambled with alcoholic beverages and were betting on wanna-be surfers, we didn't even have cards, get a grip." He was such a mother hen sometimes.

He chuckled softly, which surprised her.

"What?" she barked.

"It's just really good to hear your voice, Mare."

She couldn't help it; she smiled. "You too, Doofus."

"When are you coming home?"

"In a few days. Salt water smells weird, not sure how long I can take it, but Stan says he'll shoot me if I'm there before Thursday."

"I believe him. I'll try to stop him, but…." He trailed off and let it hang. Then he didn't say anything else for a long time.

"Uh, Marshall?" she asked, wondering if the line had been disconnected or if he was intentionally being awkward.

"Mary," he started, hesitation nearly palpable, "do you remember what I said to you before you left?"

She stilled, her heart plummeting into her stomach and swimming around in there. "Yeah."

He waited. "And?" he finally prodded.

She bit her lip and closed her eyes. "Still thinking."

After a long – meaning really long—moment he sighed. "Ok. Just promise me you really are."

"I am," she said softly. "We'll talk when I get back, ok?"

"Ok. Now go have yourself a real breakfast and try not to get arrested. I don't want to come bail you out of some Hawaiian jail if I can't stay and play a while."

"Deal. In fact, I smell some pretty awesome pancakes coming from the restaurant. Wonder if they have bacon in there too, or just pineapple. Damn, I'm starving. I can't believe I'm still talking to you when there's fresh carbs to be had."

"There's my girl, go eat your pancakes and bacon, and get some better coffee. I've heard that the Loco Moco, which is a breakfast meal of rice, hamburger, gravy, fried egg, and onion, is quite delicious. Try that as well."

She sighed. "I love it when you talk food."

"I know you do. Call me when you land, I'll pick you up."

"Will do, thanks, Cowboy."

He didn't say anything at first, and then he said, quietly and without emotion, "You're welcome, Mary. Bye."

"Bye," she replied, staring at her phone in confusion. What was that all about? She replayed the words in her head and groaned. Cowboy. What in hell had possessed her to use that word? Now she'd have to explain herself.

"Maybe messy is what you need." His voice echoed in her head and she shifted uncomfortably. She did hate messy. A lot. In a way she hated very few things.

But for all the hatred, she couldn't help thinking that maybe, just maybe, it might be exciting, too.

There was a whole hell of a lot to consider. And the next few days would be full of consideration, and fighting with herself, and replaying conversations. Hopefully she'd have an answer when she got back.

Because she knew exactly what Marshall had been saying.

And she was very afraid that she agreed with him.

Please review! And leave suggestions, if you'd like. I'm still new at this game. Thanks!