I apologize for the delay…I got screencap happy. And had a bout of insanity by joining the NaNoWriMo 2009. (Introduced to me by Sassy516 in a review from "Marshall's Guide"). Whether I am grateful for the intro to this writing challenge remains to be seen. Anyway. Here is Chapter 4! Enjoy!

~SRDempsey

Fury and Flames

Chapter Four

"Are you an idiot?"

"Possibly," Marshall agreed dryly as he stood outside the emergency room doors and listened to his mother question his sanity. Ever the cop, she'd somehow gotten wind of the trouble blowing here in Albuquerque and had phoned him quicker then he'd expected. But really, he should've known better. Rose Mann had single handedly run her own unit in the police force for nearly twenty years in a time where women were openly considered lesser then a man in positions of power. Men were chauvinistic still, but less vocal about it with more women like his mother and Mary populating the world because they were more then capable of self-preservation and rather fancied their ability to father children.

Marshall didn't mind talking to his mother really…except that he was too honest with her. More honest then any son should be with his mother probably, and he'd blurted his ill-conceived suggestion to Raph out to her knowing full well she was already well aware of his chronic attachment to said man's fiancée/his hell-raiser partner.

Hence the questioning of his intelligence.

She sighed and tsked over the phone line, exasperated with a touch of affection because he'd always been this way. His father had been his brother's sounding board about girls and women, but for him? Marshall had always gone to his mother. It had made perfect sense, in his teenage mind, to ask for advice about women from a woman. Who knew women better then another woman, after all?

His father still though he was touched in the head because of that.

"Just be careful," she warned him. "It won't take much for this gesture of kindness to backfire. Culturally, this Raphael is different. He had different values then you or even this Mary who I really would like to meet one day. What is normal and innocent for you both may not be perceived as such by him and he has demonstrated already that he is jealous of you in at least one sense. Mary sounds like the man in this partnership, for lack of a better term darling, so you have to be the girl, Marshall. Be the girl. Read the emotions."

"Yes mother," he droned, making a face. "Shall I wear the makeup and brassiere too?"

"Don't get smart with me!" She was laughing as she said this, however, so Marshall merely smiled and glanced at his watch. 4pm. They still had time to swing by the restaurant for the guest list if they left now. Mary had probably had her fill of her mother and sister before they got buried in whatever town or city the USMS chose for them and Laurence…well, there really was no limit to his ability for staying complacently at his partner's side. He left it when necessary and came back the second he was able to. "Just keep your head on firmly and you'll be OK. You're resilient, like garden weeds."

"Love you too mom," he chuckled, shaking his head. Now he was like a garden weed? The week just kept getting better. "I'll call you again once I'm able."

"Be safe." And then she was gone, obviously worried but utterly confident that he'd come out on top in the end. It made him proud that she thought so highly of him, but Marshall wasn't so sure this time around. They were dealing with professional level enemies and were operating at a severe disadvantage where the enemy knew all about them…but they knew absolutely nothing about him.

All the marksmanship in the world wouldn't save him if he had no idea what he was shooting at.

Marshall made his way back to the room, unsurprised that Mary was waiting for him outside of Cassie Hayner's room, her face set in stone. So they've moved them already. The knowledge was right there on her face and he didn't ask her to verbally confirm it, instead merely placing a hand on her shoulder and giving it a brief squeeze before letting it drop. "Not going to say hello?" he teased, motioning towards the room with his head.

"What's the point? She can't hear me."

"Actually, studies show coma patients actually-" The words halted as she slapped a hand over his mouth, grinning behind her palm unashamedly.

With a shut the hell up before I shoot you look, Mary walked into the room without prompting. The private little room was a replica of Jinx's, except the occupant of this one was completely still under the clean sheets and had bandages wrapped around a good majority of her head. Laurence sat by her side, feet propped up alongside hers on the bed and his fingers toying idly with her untouched hand habitually. He murmured in a language Marshall couldn't understand but recognized as Navajo, but he had a feeling he knew the gist of what was being said.

The unfathomable bond between partners, he mused. The best ones are either your best friend or the bane of your existence.

"I will be back," Laurence whispered into her ear, as intimate as a lover, and Mary raised her eyebrow at the gesture minutely. With a gentle kiss to her bandaged temple, his dark eyes turned to regard them flatly. "Are we ready to go?"

Mary was still looking at him like he was a curious bug under a microscope doing something intriguing but nodded. "Let's go, Geronimo. Times a wastin' and daylights a burnin'."

They piled into his GMC with little fuss, though Mary still kept looking at the man in the back seat with that loudly quiet because only Mary could not ask question VERY LOUDLY expression on her face. Marshall could practically see her mind turning as she tried to figure out the dynamic between the two junior inspectors in the office.

"Just ask," Laurence finally rumbled. "The loud silence is far more irritating."

She did and, like everything else about his partner, she cut straight to the heart of things without preamble.

"So were you sleeping with her?"

Marshall just slid his shades on and shook his head. Oh boy. Sorry Stan.

'La Carina Notte' looked as beautiful in the setting light of the sun as it did in the dead of night with all its strung up lights turned on and Mary still felt like she should turn the other way. Marshall appraised it with a pleased nod of his head, obviously impressed by what he saw and probably making plans to return here in his time off, either with a book or with some woman. With Marshall, you just never knew.

"Buonasera signores e signora," the beautiful tart of a hostess beamed, young and lovely and full of curves even Mary could appreciate. Everything about her, from her Italian accent to her tastefully snug clothes, screamed confidence. And she was certainly interested in her partner from the eyeful she took in of him before smiling just a bit brighter. "Tre persone?"

"Buonasera, signorina," Marshall shot back as he flashed his badge and his most charming smile, the accent only marginally better then his French one. "U.S. Marshals. We've come to ask for the transaction logs from June 20th?"

"I see." Any accent had disappeared from her voice with the flashing of the worn star on his hip. "We'd love to help, but that might be a problem. Our systems had a crash last month and a good majority of our transaction records from that month were lost. Come, I will bring you to my father. He knows more of it then I would and will help you if he can."

"Grazie." Marshall's face wasn't happy. Laurence never looked happy to begin with, but this news certainly didn't help his mood any. "Accident?"

"Sure, and I'm just a really tan white boy," Laurence shot at him dryly.

Mary snorted just a bit. They ignored her.

The office the hostess brought them to was small and off of the busy kitchen area. There was just enough room for a few chairs and a desk that was overflowing with receipts and a brand new looking computer that an older, sort of handsome man in a nicely cut suit was glaring at as if the look would make it do what he wanted through sheer will. Mary sympathized. Her own monstrosity at work defied her constantly and she refused to keep one at home despite Marshall's needling. One pain in the ass hunk of junk was enough.

"Papa," said the hostess, smiling slightly at the sight. Obviously, it was a common thing to see. "The U.S. Marshals are here. They wish for the logs of our transactions from June 20th."

"Please come in." His angular face raised to meet their eyes, congenial and curious. "Close the door behind you, Rosina."

They remained silent until they heard the telling click of the latch shut.

"I'd love to help you with that, marshals, but I'm afraid the system crash wiped out most of it. I can give you what little we recovered from our old system, but…"

"Do you still have your old hard drive?" Mary could hear the techno-nerd rearing his twisted head, and she eyed him side long with only mild exasperation.

"It is probably still out by the dumpster unless someone picked it up," the owner supplied, "We only got these new…things…in two days ago."

Marshall shot her one look – play nice while I'm gone – and excused himself in short order.

Surely she could manage to not piss someone off in the two or three minutes it would take him to pick the offending machine up, right?

Luck just wasn't with them.

Because of course he had to catch some local punks making off with the computer, excited by their find, and of course they felt the need to run when he called out to them and they saw the badge. Marshall wasn't happy running 3 damn blocks just for a computer he had little hope about recovering anything exceedingly useful from, but which might give them hints in other directions. So when he finally got the computer from the bumbling teen, he might've taken a little bit of a sick pleasure in squeezing the brat a bit before letting him go.

There better be something worthwhile on here, he thought with a wince, his legs complaining and telling him just what they thought about the impromptu workout with a vengeance. He could walk and even sprint a very short distance, but running was still supposed to be off limits for him. The opened welts scraped against his jeans and suddenly they felt like sandpaper, grinding against the sensitive skin and raw nerve endings with each stride he took. Marshall had a reasonably high tolerance for minor pains and the like, but these hurt like a bitch and made him wonder just how much of his nerves had been exposed in that blaze. A fair amount if the pain was any indication.

And of course I can't ask Stan for time off, even if he probably would give it to me…

He just couldn't shoot Stan and the USMS in the proverbial head like that.

Marshall had no illusions about his position. He was the only thing standing between Mary and the world, alternating between protecting the two from each other. Leaving her and Laurence – another example of an exotic animal in his own right, but much more lethal – alone with the restaurant owner wasn't the best of ideas either, but he needed the exercise. He needed to move and feel even mildly helpful because just sitting back and letting Mary and Laurence do the leg work made him uneasy. Antsy. Agitated.

And then he saw the fire.

Marshall heard the crash, somewhere from the front of the restaurant, before he heard the loud pop of fire igniting some kind of accelerant. Alarms rang and people darted out from the building shrieking, sprinklers activating to try and squelch the fire before it got out of control. He felt a brief moment of severe consternation – what the hell is it with these people and fire? – before he hit the parking lot and let the ignition roar, tires squealing as he reeled around to the back where he knew they'd be waiting.

Mary in front and Laurence pulling up the rear, Mary had the back door open before he even came to a complete stop, part of her hair singed and covered in plaster dust.

Laurence didn't have a mark on him.

"What happened?" he demanded when he was certain they were as safe as they could get, the sirens of the fire truck already getting louder with each second that passed.

The look Mary shot him both confirmed his fears and assured him that she was relatively unharmed. "What does it look like, doofus? They tried to kill me!"

"Do you need to go to the hospital?"

The look she gave him answered that rather effectively. Mary liked hospitals about as much as she liked con artists. "What I need is a shower, chocolate, and sex - not necessarily in that order."

With an exaggerated bow of his head and a tip of an invisible hat, Marshall smiled slightly and said, "And what my lady wishes, she shall receive." Just not all from me. Unfortunately.

Perhaps wisely, Laurence stayed utterly silent during the entire exchange.

If there was one thing Mary liked about Marshall's house is that it was relaxing. Sort of like Marshall himself. And just as multi-faceted.

He had trinkets everywhere. Their first year of partnership had been spent listening to every single story in every little thing that he kept, from photos to little rocks he'd collected as a kid because he thought they were dropped from space. He was proud of his heritage – as displayed by the old black and white photos of marshals long past hanging in his hallway amongst the vibrant colors of the recent generations – and made sure his house expressed himself. His taste, his mentality, his out-of-left-field personality.

Seeing Raph in the middle of all that was just simply Marshall was somehow…irritating.

Extremely. Irritating.

Marshall didn't say much as he walked in, though Mary was sure he'd probably forgotten about him for awhile. His face simply shut down, eyes skirting to her with questions she had a fair idea about. Mary didn't plan on answering them – not now and possibly not ever if she could swing that – and simply pretended she didn't notice them. At all. "I'm going to take a shower," she finally said, too tired to think of much else and tired of smelling like fungus-covered plaster. She distantly heard Raph begin to say something, but his voice died with the shut of the door and a turn of the shower faucet. She stripped off her clothes and stepped in, her muscles relaxing as the hot water soothed the muscles that had been bunched up since the whole fiasco had begun.

Wash it away. Just make it go…away. She glared in the direction she knew Marshall's room was, wondering if he was there winding down. Doofus has to be a saint. Has to open his house to Raph the one time I really can't see him. Not yet. Not when all I think of when I see him is that damn dinner and the fire. She sighed, groaning loud in frustration, and shook her head under the spray. It's so like him, but hell. I really want to shake him. Badly. Rattle that big brain in his obscenely large head and ask him what he'd been drinking before he offered such a thing and WHY DIDN'T HE SHARE? Especially after all the good whiskey I let him poach from my bottom drawer!

She wasn't much surprised that Raph was in her designated room – the small 12x12 box room directly across from Marshall's junk room turned Raph's room. It was her "unofficial" room in his house, seeing as she often crashed here if they got back from witness details or escorts late. She kept a few pairs of spare clothes and undergarments for emergency in the hand-me-down dresser he'd placed in there. All her important papers – her living will and various other forms – were tucked securely in a fire-proof lock-box in the bottom drawer along with her father's old Glock 27 and some spare magazines just in case. Other then those things there was nothing claiming the room was hers, per se, except for her intimate knowledge of it and the bedside table drawer that was always stocked with chocolate and spare .40 S&W magazines because of her habit of sleeping with her gun underneath her pillow.

It was a stash she dove into now, garbed in nothing but a towel and a small pounding of a headache beginning at her temple. She needed chocolate…or sex. Maybe both. She eyed him speculatively, considering. The engagement was one thing, but until the sniper-fuck was caught, she would stay quiet. Raph was the type that would go he-man stupid, insisting he was fine and get himself killed because he would underestimate the danger. While she was pissed with him, she didn't want him dead. So when the danger was passed she would break the engagement and deal with the emotional fallout – of which she knew there would be – and be free. Spread your wings and fucking fly away free.

She was plotting. Mary imagined it was probably a bad idea – one Marshall would probably point out smacked far too close on using a man who really did have feelings for her like a whore – but the angry, irritated marshal almost didn't care. Not really. This was what they were supposed to be. Fuck buddies. That was it. Not a girlfriend that she'd simply…gone into being before she ever realized it. Not the fiancée who felt stone cold whenever she thought about any wedding to anyone. Just…casual sex. Because the sex was good. Banging-the-headboards good.

Mary was plotting. Thinking. Planning.

And won't Marshall just be so proud?

Buonasera signores e signora: Good evening gentlemen and lady. (To the best of my knowledge, anyway.)

Tre persone: Three people

Buonasera signorina: Good evening, Miss

A/N: And here is the next installment. Mary, Mary, Mary…what am I going to do with her? *Sigh* And Rose Mann makes a cameo!

As always, please review. I love the feedback. Makes me feel all warm and tingly…