This one comes quicker then the last. Though I apologize for any factual errors. I researched as much as I could to make everything fit medically, but I am no doctor and do not have access to one to pick their brain, sadly. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

~SRDempsey

Fury and Flames

Chapter Two

Pandemonium seemed to be the order for the day.

At least, Marshall thought so.

As the Probe coughed and died as they pulled up in front of what was left of Mary's home, Marshall swung his legs out of the side of the car and stared, annoyed that he couldn't walk further because the pain was bad, and concerned by the way Mary was practically vibrating with stress as she grabbed the nearest police officer and demanded to know where her family was. Where Raph was.

Marshall gritted his teeth, reminding himself that the man was a good guy. But at the moment there was no getting around the fact that he was the cause for all this hell. Marshall knew it. Mary knew it. Hell, Laurence knew it and was likely going to tear the ex-ball player a new one if he caught sight of him. It had nothing to do with the tiny sprout of flat-out jealousy he harbored and every thing to do with the fact that the rarely-given trust Mary had put in the guy was going to blow up in her face like a time bomb because he couldn't keep his mouth shut. That pissed Marshall off worse then having an explosive activate on the floor beneath him and reduce the top two floors of the Sunshine building to rubble. Mary trusted so rarely as it was…

He saw no signs of the county ME or cadaver dogs, so that was a good sign…chances were that Mary's family was alive, at least. Ever paranoid, Marshall snapped photos of every onlooker with his phone and jotted down license plates on Mary's note pad to be run later, focusing his irritation towards the culprit. They weren't stupid – that much was obvious – so he doubted they would be staying in plain sight. From the preliminary ballistics report Stan had shown him, the bullet that had nailed Cassie was a .338 Magnum and had been fired at a distance. Everything pointed to a sniper – or someone with enough knowledge to be a decent one. Marshall didn't want to think that they were going against someone in the military, but his gut kept hanging onto that thought with the tenaciousness of a pit bull.

Military means this won't be easy, he thought grimly, stretching his legs and wincing. They shouldn't feel that stiff, should they? A military man would mean more bodies in the county morgue are likely.

Unwanted and unsettling, the image of Mary laid out on the ME's autopsy table flashed in his mind, deathly pale and a bullet hole straight through her temple. Marshall shook his head as if it would go away with enough force, his heart thumping a little harder – a little too fast then was probably normal and his face feeling a little too flushed even with the 90 degree heat – and he could only think of how much hell Mary was going to give him if he passed out before he heard shouting…lots of shouting.

And he tumbled head first out of the side of Mary's car.

Mary heard the pop of a sniper bullet before she saw Marshall go tumbling head first onto the pavement and her mind made the most logical conclusion given the evidence before her…like any good investigator's brain would.

Of course, this was Marshall, and as far as logic was concerned she couldn't really give a shit.

"MARSHALL!" she screamed his name, panic filling her veins when he didn't move, god damn it, MOVE and only Laurence shoving her flat behind her one of the fire trucks kept her from running to him at a sprint. The panic made her fingers shake as she grasped her Glock with both hands to steady it and searched, heart pounding a million times a minute in her chest, every second wasting precious time…

And then nothing. Blank, blissful nothing.

Mary was in a place that was not-quite-there and was hyper-focusing on her surroundings in a way she'd never done before. The shaking in her limbs halted abruptly and her ears only vaguely registered the local LEO's and marshals saying they had the perimeter secured and calling in for a medical team before she was walking calmer then fucking calm to where her partner was. Focused on the bullet in the back of the Probe's window, the hole in the passenger side headrest where the bullet went through…and to Marshall's face-down head.

A head that had no hole.

She paused, baffled, and touched the back of his head and his disheveled brown hair, feeling no blood or hole, and that lethal stillness that seemed to slow time disappeared, time racing to catch up with her, and she suddenly heard all the clamoring and the sirens and shouting and felt every mother fucking tremor as she sank to her knees near his head, gun slack in her hands, and cursed. Loudly. Loud enough that even Dershowitz didn't dare go near her.

She was still cursing when she stormed into the hospital right behind the stretcher holding him, stupid fucking moron cowboy, I told you to stay in the hospital and how DARE YOU pass out from some secondary damn infection and a fever, promising him things Mary had no actual recollection of saying despite the EMT's assurances that she did say them ten minutes after the fact and only vaguely aware that Laurence was loping in behind at a leisurely pace, stone-faced but amused. Most of her promises apparently involved several creative ways to induce near-death because he was so stupid and should have fucking stayed in the hospital AS TOLD and not scared her to death and then bring him back to life again because he was not allowed to fucking die before her, damn it, but no one could recall any of them when asked by the doctors why they had a furious marshal making death threats to her partner in their emergency room.

Selective amnesia and scary women packing heat just worked like that.

It was Stan who eventually led her away, reminding her of her frightened family who were not too far away in a private room upstairs waiting for her, and Mary tried to focus off those terrifying moments thinking that Marshall walking encyclopedia of information useful and not Marshall was dead and succeeded. Sort of. Her heart still couldn't seem to stop beating ten times faster then normal and her fingers twitched when she was touched, nodding only once when Stan told her he'd be downstairs with Marshall and that everything would be OK.

OK. Right. It'll all be OK when Marshall is up and moving, because a severe infection is NOT LETHAL, the son of a bitch is caught, and I can find someone to shoot…preferably said scumbag that is trying to kill us all. Mary stopped in front of the door, shutting her eyes and taking a deep breath that was shakier then she liked. My life is going to hell – AGAIN – and it isn't even fucking noon yet!

Her head was held high as she opened the door and suddenly Brandi was in her arms, crying and so glad you're alright, and her mother was weeping, confined to her hospital bed by a broken leg she apparently got from tripping in her haste to get outside when the fire started. Mary soothed them and made all the right noises even though all she wanted to do was go – go get this sick bastard and shoot, shoot, SHOOT THEM ALL – and make it all go away. Quickly. Preferably before dinner.

She sat Brandi in a chair, telling her it would be alright and brushing her hair out of her eyes like she'd always done a million times whenever she got upset, and then…

Then arms wrapped around her, trapping her in a hug that made her tense, and Raph was speaking rapid-fire Spanish that Mary only half understood. Basically being glad she was alright, if she understood it correctly.

I'm not alright. Nothing will be alright until this sniper-fuck is put away until he's a pile of bones or six feet underground dancing the mambo with Lucifer himself. She pulled away, shaking her head, and ignored the confused glances of her family to stare at Raph's dark eyes grimly. Anger bubbled just under her skin, hot and tingling, warming her in a way no man could. It wasn't his fault really but…it was. In her mind, in her eyes, it was. Everything that had happened today. The fire. The injuries. That mariachi-whistling janitor's death.

Everything.

Why could he just not leave things alone? She understood, now, why the lowest scumbags on Earth could know her job and he, the man who was to be her husband, couldn't with crystal clarity. Those putrid piles of pus knew her secrecy was the only thing standing between them and whatever gang or mob boss wanted them dead – humanity's need for self-preservation that she knew only too well. But Raph…he didn't understand. She doubted he ever would, and that hurt. But she couldn't let him go, as Marshall had so aptly put it. I painted myself in a corner so I'd have to marry him. God damn doofus...I hate it when he's right. She wanted out because where once she'd at least felt lust she felt…anger. Agitation. But how? Raph was a fucking boy scout – he had no concept of the danger his slip of the tongue had put them all in. Had put Marshall in.

Mary tried to imagine it…a world where her partner was gone. Unavailable to help her at odd hours of the night because the Probe chose to die on some hick road hidden in obscurity and could only be found because of the damn GPS he had planted in her car. Not there to back her up when they busted doors down to apprehend a fugitive or to make her spray milk out of her nose even if everything else around her was going to hell and back. She could not fathom it – didn't want to because of the ice cold chill of terror that ran straight down her spine just trying to picture it. No one to turn to. No one to trust as she trusted him.

She knew who she could live without. And it wasn't Marshall.

Being single for the rest of my life would be OK. That's what they invented vibrators for. The thought calmed her, but it was a thought to tackle later. Not yet. Not until the sniper-shit was out of commission. Priorities, Mary, priorities. She eyed him – her boy scout of a fiancé she knew deserved so much better and had probably never had anyone hate him in his life – and looked at the door as Laurence stuck his head in, vibrating with stress and making very obvious eye movements towards the hall. Get out here now.

Silent he was, but subtle he was not.

Everything would've been fine if Raph hadn't grabbed her arm, his face upset and pleading. "Dios mio, Mary. What's going on? What in the world is happening?" When she didn't speak, just looked at him with tired eyes as she wondered how many times they had this same conversation every day, he let go and threw up his hands, frustrated. "Of course we can't know. Is it the job? Is that it Mary? Because it has to do with whatever mob boss or gang banger…"

He did not get to say more. Mary was so tired, she doubted she could have stopped it anyway, and she felt guilty when the fist landed, but mostly she was just…tired. So fucking tired of the same damn fight. Laurence's fist sent Raph to the floor and before he could get to his feet he yanked her stunned fiancé up by the front of his shirt, whatever expression that was on his face scary enough that Brandi and her mother didn't even make a sound, though their horrified looks towards her weren't difficult to interpret.

For God's sakes, Mary, help him!

Infinitesimally, she shook her head once. Not this time. His partner…his turn.

"Say one more word, Shik'is," he rumbled quietly, disdain and sarcasm dripping like molasses from a word she only knew was not English, his muscles quivering and just waiting. Raph was a tall man – taller then Laurence even – but even he looked pathetically small in the face of so much fury. Inanely, she wondered if this was what Marshall saw when she got pissed. If it was, she made a mental note to make him record it for her sometime. "Give me a reason." He jerked his shirt hard once when his wide-eyed gaze traveled to her, beseeching, and those dark eyes zoomed back to him, anger flaring and making him bold…or stupid, depending on one's interpretation.

Mary still wasn't sure which it was even after the first punch was thrown, her mother and sister screamed, and she dove in to pry the two idiot boys apart.

To Marshall's extensive knowledge, antibiotics didn't cause hallucinations, nor did any pain meds they may have given him, so the three people in his room had to be real…maybe. It was confusing, really, because he didn't remember them being as beat up as they were the last time he saw them. While he could rationalize Laurence's busted lip as Mary's work if she got pissed enough, he had no idea how the woman in question could be sporting an ugly yellow-purple bruise forming on the left side of her face from cheek to eye…or how Raphael had managed to come by getting his right hand put in a cast.

His mind ran through numerous scenarios, sparing a few brief moments to gaze at his legs to make sure they really were just some popped blisters that hurt like a bitch and the fever that was already dissipating, before eyeing the three of them with a quiet consideration only he was ever capable of achieving.

"So…what did I miss?"

Shik'is: Navajo for "friend" (Please correct me if I'm wrong)

A/N: I feel like I'm getting my footing with this story…hopefully. And who didn't know Raph getting decked wasn't coming? Anyone who does gets a cookie! And what creative tortures will Mary bestow upon Marshall for is inopportune fainting act I wonder…? Hehehe….

As always, please give me some feedback. You know you want to. =)