Disclaimer, warnings, and other stuff: Still not mine. Surprisingly, no particular warnings in this one, unless you've ever been as traumatized by strep throat as I have. I really, honestly, tried to write a good fight between the characters. And failed. Spectacularly. So we have the not-so-artful sidestep. Not what I had in mind at all, but we'll go with it, see how it plays... Lord knows Mary can always find a reason to pick a fight, if I get a better idea later.
Marshall knew it wasn't going to be easy, pursuing Mary's heart. He'd known from the day he'd met her, that her defenses were sturdy, tall, and covered with vines that were more thorn than vine. He knew, the day he realized he loved her, that his heart was doomed to a lifetime of cuts and bruises from rough handling, no matter how careful she tried to be. And yet, he thought, as he considered the most recent emotional injuries, he couldn't imagine ever wanting anything different. He'd tried to want something different, somebody else, anybody else... anything but this passionate woman whose extremes made fire and ice look like mere amateurs, who should have been off-limits by virtue of being a coworker in the first place. But the more he'd tried to guide his heart toward wiser choices, the more strongly it fought for the chance to pursue Mary. Even now, he didn't regret giving in to love.
He knew that things would get tense between them as Shelley began to shine lights in the dark corners of Mary's soul, and as the two women started mopping up the mess left behind by the slimeballs from the past. He hadn't expected it after their second session, though. He'd gotten up and out the door Monday morning, on time as usual, waving to Shelley as the two passed in their cars about a block from his house. Mary had planned to be about an hour late to work, but ended up coming in three hours late, with dark circles under her eyes from crying, and her stomach positively screaming for food. Marshall had dropped everything to give her a snack from his desk drawer before putting his jacket on to go buy lunch, but ended up sitting next to Mary in the women's restroom, holding her hair away from her face as her body staged a complete revolt. He'd asked if she wanted to share any of what she and Shelley had worked through, but she flatly refused. And when he'd asked how he could support her, she'd answered that she needed space, and to not be smothered.
Marshall knew he shouldn't do that, not like Mary wanted, but... but she had told him what she needed. And now here it was, nearly two weeks later. She'd stayed in his home a few days after that fateful Monday, but always keeping her distance, even at night. She slept so far away from him in the bed that he wondered how she didn't fall onto the floor every time she moved. She'd gotten more terse than usual, badgering more than one witness to tears before turning her anger on Stan on Thursday morning, flinging insults until he was screaming in her face just to cover over the fact that she'd nearly reduced him to tears in his own office. That was when she stormed out, and the two men hadn't really seen her since.
She'd emailed them both Thursday night, apologizing and telling them that she needed time to work through some issues with Shelley before she'd be able to cope with the close relationships that he and Stan were accustomed to having with her. And she'd taken to coming in at all hours of the night to do paperwork, so that days could be spent sleeping, visiting witnesses, and generally avoiding her coworkers. Marshall had begun to question whether confessing their mutual love had been a mistake after all. It seemed like it was destroying the partnership, and he knew the only reason Mary still had a job was that Stan had taken an entirely too fatherly role with her, patiently tolerating her as she not only committed what should have been professional suicide, but also ripped his heart to shreds, on more than one occasion over the years.
Even now, he'd tolerated a week and a half of her doing her job, however passionately, at odd hours, only seeing Stan and Marshall now and then, when she breezed through to change file folders, or in one case, to set up a new witness. Marshall had shared his concerns with Shelley on Monday, a week after Mary's initial breakdown. He'd thought of meeting her at his house, since Mary wasn't staying there at present, but if Mary ever found out... no. So they'd taken a long lunch and met in the office, under Stan's watchful eye. Shelley had had some strategies, some ideas for how to support their struggling friend, but it's really hard to show love and acceptance to somebody who won't even look you in the eye, and harder still to encourage independence in someone who's gone overboard isolating herself from everybody.
Marshall was fixing to launch into a second weekend without his Mary when he saw Shelley's email, letting him know that Mary had failed to show up for their Thursday appointment. His heart had dropped to the floor when he saw the email. He and Stan had also noticed her desk seemed untouched Friday morning, but they'd assumed it was normal... or at least, normal for right now. But missing an appointment with someone who had the power to revoke her badge and gun? Something was wrong, he sensed. Informing Stan of his concern, he grabbed his keys and left work an hour early, intent on carrying out his own brand of welfare check before he went home for the night. He'd cruised by her house, seeing her car in the driveway, lights on in the home, and what looked like Mary's figure through the open window, though, so he had decided to keep driving. Better to live and fight for her heart another day, than to get himself shot for smothering her.
But now, at 4 o'clock Monday morning, he deeply regretted that choice, as he rushed to pull clothes on, barely bothering to make himself marginally presentable before he ran out the door, carrying keys in one hand and boots in the other. He'd take the time to put them on later. He'd only been awake for twelve minutes when he backed his car out onto the road and turned it towards his beloved partner's house. He had woken up to a call from Mary's cell phone. He answered groggily, thinking it was her, but not sure if she was up to anything more friendly than "hello". It turned out to be a good move, he decided, when he discovered Jinx Shannon on the other end of the line.
"Something's wrong, you need to come take Mary to the hospital," she'd said. She didn't seem capable of assessing the situation or telling him anything more, just that something was wrong, so Marshall had practically hung up on her in order to keep both hands on the wheel as he pushed well above the criminal-speeding mark. Now, the past two weeks of distance felt so incredibly stupid, as he gunned it just a tad more to beat an early morning freight train. Images of Mary laying in the hospital, machines breathing for her, haunted him. Whatever was wrong, it had to be bad for her mother to call for help. He wondered briefly why she didn't just call 911, or take her daughter to the hospital herself, but the woman had never been known to make the most reasonable choices in life, so he didn't give that thought too much of his energy.
Marshall was still stumbling in a combination of grogginess and pure adrenaline, as he made his way to Mary's front door, barely noticing the way it echoed as he rammed his body into the surface almost before turning the knob. Surveying the scene, he found Mary lying on a sofa in front of the TV, medicines and tissues strewn on the nearby surfaces. So she had been sick for a few days, he thought. That must be why she'd ditched Thursday's appointment. He knelt quietly next to the couch, eyes widening in shock when he brushed hair from her forehead and felt like he was going to burn his hand.
"She's got a high fever," Marshall said. "What happened?" Jinx stood nearby, looking forlorn and uncertain.
"I don't know. She seemed upset, so I tried to stay out of her way, and then a few days ago she started taking over-the-counter painkillers kind of a lot, and sleeping any chance she got, and then Thursday and Friday she said she was sick, and going to just sleep it off, but... Marshall, she hasn't woken up since Saturday night." Marshall stared up at the woman, not sure if he wanted to hug her for calling him or kill her for waiting so long to sound the alarm. He chose to save any reaction for later, though, when he realized that Mary still wasn't awake.
"Mary?" he said, trying to gently shake her awake. "Mer? Come on, I know you're in there." After a few tries, though, he gave up. "She's not asleep, she's unconscious. How many painkillers was she taking?" Jinx shrugged.
"She asked me to buy some more on Wednesday night... it's this bottle, here," she answered, handing him a mostly-empty bottle. Marshall skimmed the instructions briefly to confirm his assumption that the maximum dose was three pills a day. There should be twelve, maybe fourteen pills missing at most by now. A quick count showed that eighteen were gone.
"Did you take any of these yourself? Did anybody visit who maybe asked for one, for a headache?" Jinx shook her head.
"No, I gave them to Mary and left her alone. I take aspirin, I don't need all that expensive new stuff."
Marshall had expected this answer, but it still felt like she'd punched him, when she spoke. Already, he was putting his boots on, asking if Mary was taking any other medicines, before scooping her unconscious form up and striding purposefully out to the car, promising to call Jinx the moment he knew anything. When they got to the hospital, Marshall discovered that apparently the trick to not spending seven hours in a waiting room chair was to be passed out when you come in. Or a U.S. Marshal, maybe. Or both. By the time he'd finished filling out paperwork and answering questions, Mary was already in a bed, IV line marring her strong but delicate hand as it carried desperately-needed fluids to her body, blankets laying loosely over her. It wasn't an overdose exactly, the nurse had explained, but it was a bit much, especially for somebody who was so dehydrated that they estimated she'd gone two or three days without any food or fluids. Two or three days. He knew exactly why she hadn't called him, but the question still hung over him like a raincloud.
Marshall heaved a sigh and settled into the chair by the bed, taking the opportunity to grasp her hand since he knew that, at least for a little while, she wasn't going to punch him. He must have been more tired than he realized, though, because the next thing he knew, he was resting face-first against the mattress by Mary's side, and she was moaning incoherently. Marshall was standing up, leaning over her in the span of a heartbeat, stroking long fingers through her hair.
"Tell me what you need," he whispered, praying that her answer wouldn't be to go away. He was certain he couldn't give her that. Mary opened her eyes, letting him see the depth of confusion and fear within them. "You're okay, Mer. You're sick, and your mom was worried, so she asked me to bring you to the hospital. Tell me what you need." Mary held her hand up, staring at the IV line in dismay before bringing her fingers into a pencil-holding position, and looking back up at her partner. Pen and paper. Okay. Marshall looked around the room and, seeing none, grabbed the whiteboard off the wall. He wiped off the information about which nurses were assigned to the room, before handing it over. Mary took the tool in shaky hands, painstakingly writing one single word for him to share with the hospital staff: strep. Marshall cringed at the word. Among all the horrors he'd ever experienced in life, the miserable pain of strep throat was one he could never forget. It easily scared him more than most anything else he'd ever faced in life. And here his treasured Mary had been enduring it for days, alone. He wasn't sure if he was more angry about her self-imposed isolation, or distraught at the thought of the pain she'd had to endure.
"Oh, Mary..." he muttered, disgusted with the whole situation. "Next time you need space, I'm going to check in on you anyway, just to be sure you're okay. We're not going to let this happen again." He had surprised himself with the firm statement of what was going to happen, without concern for her wishes, but he realized it was logical. The thing he always asked of her, after all, was what she needed, not what she thought she needed that would actually end up hurting her in the end. He wondered if that would come back to haunt him later, but brushed it off as the next couple hours needed to be spent on his partner's physical health.
He watched quietly as the doctor examined her, then ordered a narcotic painkiller. He'd laughed in spite of himself when the nurse injected the painkiller into her IV line, and Mary's face went from abject misery to a glazed-over look of relaxation, feeling the stress leave his own body as her pain eased. The doctor's treatment plan was a simple one: keep her in the emergency room until probably nightfall, giving her first two doses of antibiotics by IV, and keeping the painkillers coming as often as she needed. At home, the doctor explained to them both, she would need to keep up on both drugs, taking a stronger painkiller religiously for a couple days until her body had adequate time to heal, then switching to the usual Vicodin as needed after that. Marshall laughed at that. Of course Mary wouldn't need it. She practically had to be dying to take an aspirin. But the prescription would be in Marshall's wallet waiting, if she did decide she needed it. And above all, the doctor stressed, she was not to go home alone. Marshall sat quietly by her bed all day, watching over this woman he loved so completely.
"So..." Marshall began, as soon as they were in the car again. "Whose house do you want to go to?" Mary sat silently for a moment, absently brushing her fingers over the bandages where her IV had been.
"Yours," she whispered, still sounding in a lot of pain in spite of the drugs they'd given her. Marshall nodded his agreement.
"I know they said not to leave you alone, but I'm going to put you into bed and then go out to the pharmacy. Is that all right?" She nodded, her eyes already closed. Marshall breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, she would be back where she belonged. His relaxation, however, was interrupted by a phone call. Stan. Uh-oh. Did he remember to call and take the day off?
"Hi, Stan," Marshall answered.
"Where the hell are you? And where's Mary?" came the angry reply. Nope. Didn't call in sick. Oops.
"I'm on my way back to my house, and she's right here with me, why? Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing's wrong, I just lost two inspectors today and spent half the day driving around Albuquerque looking for them. Why the hell would you think anything's wrong? By the way, the lock on your front door is a pain in the ass to pick." Marshall closed his eyes momentarily. He deserved that reaction, but he knew how lucky he was to have a good, honorable man for a boss, and he hated letting his boss down.
"Stan, are you still at my house? Because I'm, like, a block away, and this will be a whole lot easier to explain in person."
"Yeah, all right." The line went dead, and Marshall realized the older man had hung up on him. That was a first, he thought. Usually it was he and Mary disconnecting when they were finished talking with their boss, not the other way around. He heaved a sigh, glancing over to see Mary asleep against the window. He felt terrible about frightening the man who so often risked his own job security to make sure that he and Mary had the tools and freedom to do the best job possible. They probably owed their boss a case of those ribs they'd gotten for Norman Baker, Marshall figured, for this little stunt. He made a mental note to place the order in the morning, as he turned into the driveway. Mary stirred at the change in sensation, but her partner put his hand out, resting it on her arm.
"Wait, let me carry you inside." If she wasn't fully awake before, she sure was now, he thought, as he took in the death glare she fixed on him, at the thought. "I screwed up. Instead of being there to keep you from stumbling, so to speak, I just let you fall on your face, thinking it was good enough to help you back up after the fact. I just spent two weeks giving you what you asked for instead of what I knew you needed. Now, you're very sick, and high as a kite, and Mary, no, I'm not doing that again. I'm giving you what you I know you need."
"What I need, or what you need?" Mary asked, cutting to the heart of the matter in those few words. Marshall wasn't really sure if there was a right answer to that question. She was likely to fall on the uneven stone path, honestly... but he did need to protect and provide, for his own purposes, as well.
"If it's what I need, can you give me that?" he asked in return. Damn, he was good at turning that right back around, she thought. The answers, any of them, really didn't matter... all that did matter was that the two partners re-established their habit of taking care of one another, before the angst devoured them alive. Mary nodded her response, bringing a smile to her partner's face. "That's my girl," he muttered as he came around to the passenger side and gently lifted her from the seat. Stan came around the corner from the porch just as Marshall turned towards the front walk with his delicate cargo.
"Oh my God, Marshall, what happened?" the older man asked tersely as he hurried towards the pair. He sounded positively furious, but Marshall recognized the worry bordering on panic, in his tone.
"It's all right, Stan, just help me get her to bed." That was all Marshall had to say, and Stan shifted gears instantly, from whatever investigative mode he'd been in all day to protective and fatherly, hurrying ahead of his inspectors, helping them into the house, then rushing ahead to pull the blankets back. Marshall almost laughed when he saw Stan heading for the guest bedroom. "Hold up, let's put her in my room. The doctor didn't want her left alone tonight." He was pretty sure the doctor had simply meant not to leave her home alone overnight, but Marshall preferred a more hands-on interpretation of the orders he'd been given. Marshall saw the flash of wonder that told him Stan might have just put all the pieces together, but he discarded that information as quickly as it had come to him. There were more important things to do right now. Working together, the men arranged Mary's weary body in the bed, still dressed in the pajamas she'd been wearing when Marshall had rushed her to the hospital before sunrise. He'd help her change into fresh clothes after Stan left, if she wanted. Stan ran his fingers over the hospital ID bracelet around the woman's wrist, and looked up at Marshall, waiting for an explanation.
"Apparently, she came down with a strep infection, and was trying to treat it with common grocery store painkillers," Marshall answered the unspoken question. "Her mother called me in the middle of the night, and asked me to take her to the hospital. They got her hydrated, and started IV antibiotics and painkillers, and I need to get to the store to fill some prescriptions. I need to watch her for a couple of days... she was unconscious when I found her, Stan. Breathing, but I... I keep seeing the blood, from when she got shot, just for a second."
"Pretty scary," Stan commented. Marshall nodded. It hadn't been a question, he knew. He'd known where the elder man's thoughts had gone when he saw the two in the driveway just a few minutes ago.
Mary watched her partner sink onto the side of the bed, letting his head fall into his arms. She'd known his heart had been badly scarred by her shooting, mostly because he'd been on a date instead of there with her when he'd known she needed him... when he'd known she needed him. Now it dawned on her why he was being so protective tonight. She had said she was fine, and even believed it was true, but Marshall had somehow known otherwise. He'd let her confidence, and his desire to go on a date, dictate his plans for the night, instead of listening to the quiet, but urgently nagging voice screaming at him that something wasn't right. Now he was afraid it would happen again, he'd make the wrong choice, listen to her wants instead of her needs, and... and it would all go to hell before he knew what hit him. Shelley had warned her that disconnecting too much from her partner would cause him to be overly paranoid in the future. At the time Mary had dismissed her words as exaggeration, but now... well, maybe she'd give Shelley more credence next time. Oh well, Mary thought, shifting position in search of a comfortable position. At least this sort of paranoia wasn't entirely unwelcome... much as it was awkward to her, she'd been looking for a long time for someone who cared enough to pursue her heart like Marshall seemed to be learning to do.
After a couple minutes, Marshall seemed to pull himself back together. He stood up and took the folded papers out of his pocket, flipping through them to find the prescription pages. He held them up when he found them, a wordless statement that somebody needed to go trade those papers in for the all-important pills that would help Mary's body recover from what she'd done to it over the past few days.
"I'll stay with her," Stan offered. "We can talk when you get back from the pharmacy." Mary grunted at that.
"I don't need a babysitter," she grumbled. Marshall shot her the dirtiest look he could muster.
"I just spent the whole day worried out of my mind, because you couldn't be bothered to get checked out when you knew you knew you were sick. And the doctor said, multiple times, that you are not to be left alone. I was okay leaving you alone when I didn't think I had a choice, but now it's different. You can pick who stays and who runs to the store, but Mary, you do need a caretaker right now." Mary glared around the room a bit. The painkillers sure had made her alert and feisty, Marshall observed. It was better than half-dead, yes, but just slightly more annoying as well.
"Marshall knows my drug allergies," she muttered as she rolled over. Marshall nodded, the decision made. While he gathered his wallet and keys, he watched Stan climb into the bed, sitting next to Mary as he took out his pocket knife to remove the hospital bracelet, gentle fingers smoothing the rumpled bandage on her hand in the process. He thought back to Stan's words after Mary had been shot, when she was trying to work a full shift the day she got out of the hospital. Stan had fought dirty that day, proclaiming his love for the woman, knowing that her aversion to emotionally-charged conversation would drive her from the building. But, Marshall mused as he drove, Stan had clearly meant everything he'd said. There was definitely a fatherly sort of love going on there. He wondered if Mary picked up on it, too... if that was why she constantly tried to push Stan's buttons, tried to get him to give up and abandon her like her own father had.
When Marshall came back home, he found Mary sitting up in bed, picking at some mashed potatoes while Stan sat beside her. He could hear talking as he came down the hall, but his presence seemed to interrupt the conversation, as he brought the sack of medications in. She wasn't due for anything yet, according to her discharge instructions, so he simply set the bottles down where they'd be easy to reach, before sitting on the side of the bed, his hip bumping against Mary's knee in the process. He laid one hand gently on her leg, not realizing how that would look to their boss until it was far too late to take it back.
"Feeling any better?"
"Better than being half-dead on my couch, yeah. The pain's a lot better, but the swelling is pretty bad. It's hard to eat." Marshall nodded at that. Stan picked that moment to clear his throat.
"So Marshall... Mary tells me you have a new girlfriend?" Crap. Okay, maybe it wasn't women, or the couch, that provoked the deer-in-headlights look. Maybe his whole house was just some kind of bad talisman or... something. Marshall stared, wide-eyed, utterly speechless as he glanced between his partner and his boss.
"She said what?" he managed to reply, after a minute.
"You can give up the innocent act, Marshall, he figured it out," Mary interrupted, still picking at the plate of starchy goodness.
"I just want to know if the problems the past two weeks have anything to do with your relationship," Stan continued. Both partners shook their heads.
"No," Mary answered. "I'm dealing with some personal issues from the past, and... and I didn't handle the last couple sessions with Shelley very well."
"Relating to the shooting, or the abduction?" Stan asked, getting another shake of the head in reply.
"Neither, and I don't want to talk about it. Not today, anyway." Stan nodded, obviously thinking deeply about the situation.
"Okay. But I need you to get your head back where it belongs, not in whatever crazy place you've been the past two weeks. I've been trying to let slide, because you're so good at what you do, but... we need you, Mary." Mary shifted uncomfortably. Stan knew she wasn't really good with expressions of emotion, and he knew she'd heard the underlying message of love and acceptance, no matter how much he tried to make his words be about the job. But he also knew that being needed was a driving force in her life, so he sought to tap into that, to help goad her out of whatever nightmares she'd been trapped in, and encourage her back to the present.
"I'll be back Thursday. The doctor wanted me off work until then." Stan nodded as he got up from the bed.
"All right, see you both on Thursday then. I'll see myself out." The two watched Stan leave, then listened for the front door, before moving. Marshall got up from his place and opened the top dresser drawer, grabbing some of his own pajamas to toss at Mary before stepping into the bathroom to get ready for bed. When he returned, Mary was laying down in the blankets, back to his side of the bed, evidently waiting to be cuddled up to.
"Did you take your pills?" he asked, getting a nod in response.
"So..." Mary began, then lay quietly while Marshall crawled into bed, wrapping an arm around her waist. "So I need to tell you everything that happened with Chuckles, when I was little... and I was wondering if we could maybe have Shelley over tomorrow night, and do that." Marshall heaved a sigh at that. He'd known it was coming, the day when one or both of them would decide the tale needed to be told. He just hadn't expected it so soon... she didn't even want to wait until her scheduled Thursday time.
"Is this why you were so out of sorts a couple weeks ago?" he asked gently, trying not to come across as accusatory. Mary nodded against him. "Then yeah, we need to get this done before it tears you apart any more." The room fell silent after that, and Marshall's mind began to drift into neutral, so prepared for sleep that he almost didn't register when Mary rolled over onto her back, and spoke up again.
"Are we still okay?"
"We're injured, and it's going to take a little time to heal, but we've already started that process. And I still love you, Mary. In all these years, you haven't been able to make me stop, and you haven't run me off. Might as well quit trying." Mary smiled in the dark. There was the trait that she loved and hated most about Marshall, the one that had first caught her attention when they'd met, the one she'd tried to fend off with biting personal attacks and fiery sarcasm... the trait that had intrigued her to the point that she'd decided to stick around instead of going back east after that very first pair of witnesses, so long ago. Marshall somehow always knew what was really going on in her heart, beyond the mask she tried to hide behind. She breathed a sigh of relief, letting her head tilt just a little more closely, feeling his tender kisses against her hairline. Tomorrow wasn't going to go well, she knew. But just for tonight, she could let the impending nightmare go away.
As usual, I've no idea where I'm going next. I've a good concept of where I want to end, but that's a year into the timeline from now, and I am NOT going to rehash all 365 days along the way. This came from the "crap I'm out of plot devices" bag, kind of because I needed to not blow all my good plot devices in the first few days of my timeline. I suspect I can only play the "I need to talk at you while rehashing every horrible thing I've been through" angle for so long before I need a new idea that will actually not suck, so I thought I'd try a tantrum-and-crisis on for size. Thanks for continuing to read!