A/N: I'm currently stuck while writing this so I'm just posting what I have for now. Chapter 3.5 should be up by the end of the weekend but I'm not making any promises. Thanks to Pip and Yankee360 for the excellent betaing.

Raph was less than pleased. The day hadn't started out badly. Work had been fine. Jinx was taking her meetings seriously. Brandi had helped him clean up when he got home so the house was looking less like it had been ravaged by animals. But then Mary had come home in a particularly foul mood and Raph had learned that Mary's temper could, in fact, get worse than what he had seen in the past.

That wasn't the worst of it though. It had been bad enough that she had thrown bottles at him to chase him off when he had been simply trying to give her the phone. But now he was watching his fiancée run after her partner. Marshall had chucked a bottle back at her, yelled at her and turned his back on her. Instead of screaming at him or throwing another bottle, she had run to him. Now, the way they were standing- the way Mary was touching Marshall's cheek, Raph was starting to wonder just how intimate their partnership really was.

The awkwardness grew as Brandi and Jinx turned to look at him sympathetically. Unlike Mary, they didn't –couldn't – ever hide what they were thinking. Raph wished they could hear what was being said outside instead of just making assumptions. It was hard not to interpret the way Mary was looking at Marshall though. And it was damn difficult not to jump through the window and strangle Marshall when he reached over to push some of Mary's hair out of her face. Apparently their fight was over and, the way they were standing, Raph was worried that they were about to literally kiss and make up.

He was glad that Brandi and Jinx were still looking at him, concern and pity oozing from their faces, instead at Mary when she spoke because Raph wasn't sure he could cope with their reaction. Even though she had never said the words to him, Raph knew what she had said. She told Marshall something that Raph had been waiting to hear from her, would have done anything to hear from her, and he felt like he had been punched in the chest when she said them to another man.

So it was a surprise to everyone when Marshall pushed Mary into the pool.

*~*~*

'Oops.'

That was Marshall's first thought when he looked down at the bedraggled Mary sputtering in the pool. His second thought was about how her clothes clung to her but that was quickly stuffed into the back of his brain in a file marked 'Pervis'. His third thought was 'she deserved it' and that was the one he stuck with.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Marshall! What the hell did you do that for?" Mary shrieked as she splashed her way upright.

She did deserve it. After years of torment, she had found a new way to drive him insane. This new way was worse than kicking his pride, insulting him with a smile, and randomly punching him for fun. She had ripped away hope when she got engaged to Raph. Then she had told Raph about the job and stolen the one part of her that Marshall had thought he would never have to share with anyone. Everything about the job was his and his alone until she had opened her mouth to a man that couldn't make her happy no matter how much she tried to fall into someone else's picture of normalcy. Marshall had no problem with her stealing his food, his keys or even his heart, but for her to take this away was cruel- even for Mary.

"I'm going to rip off your arms and beat you with bloody ends, you fuckwit!"

Saying that she would tell him that she loved him just so he wouldn't be mad at her anymore was worse. Far worse.

"Goddamn it! What the fuck is wrong with you?"

It was worse because she didn't mean it. Not the way he had meant it. She probably did love having him as a partner. She might even love him as a friend. But he loved her in everyway and it was killing him. It felt like his heart had been the bottle he had shattered on her wall. Actually, that was a good analogy. He had spent years breaking down the wall she had built up around her and she had finally let him in. If anybody else had gotten that close to her she would have pushed them right through that damnable wall but Marshall wasn't that lucky. Mary had let him in but was now dragging him back outside that wall. Over broken glass. Slowly. Tearing little bits of him away because he wouldn't stop her and she knew it.

"Doofus?"

He blinked away his train of thought and looked at her. She had stopped yelling and was staring up at him. Apparently, he had just been staring at her while she threw her tantrum and hadn't even realized it. It seemed to have unnerved her and, somewhere in his mind, Marshall made a note of how to deal with her the next time she threw a shit fit.

"Marshall?"

Oops. Still staring.

Marshall walked to the edge of the pool and crouched down. He started to reached out a hand to her but pulled it back as a spark of mischief danced in her eyes. He simply raised an eyebrow and Mary wilted. He was in no mood to play her games tonight and it looked like she understood that. But, just to make sure, he said, "If you pull me into the pool, I'm leaving, Mare."

There was a certain weight behind his words and even he wasn't sure what he meant by them. But Mary looked shocked and a little bit scared so Marshall guessed that she had taken his words to the extreme. It was nice to know, despite everything she had done to him lately, that she was still scared of losing him.

He held out his hand to her and she grabbed it like it was a lifeline. Marshall pulled her up and she stood next to him, docile and dripping wet. For a second, it seemed like she would stay quiet and calm but then her face scrunched up in annoyance. It was such a familiar expression, confused and irritated at the same time, that Marshall had to suppress the tiny smile that crossed his lips.

"I'm sick of you being mad at me," she said, sulking. Mary flipped her wet hair back and glared at him as she bluntly asked, "What do you want me to say?"

Marshall blinked. What did he want her to say? He wanted her to say that she was happy and actually mean it. He wanted her to say she was sorry. He wanted her to acknowledge that she had fucked up. He wanted her to. . . he wanted her. . . he wanted. . .

"Christ. What does it matter?" Marshall's jaw clenched. There was nothing he wanted that she could give. She couldn't turn back time and she couldn't stop the ache inside him. Talking wasn't helping anything right now. Marshall just felt worse. He wanted to go home, crawl into a bottle and forget this whole night. Forget the last few days. The last four years. Everything.

Marshall started to turn away but Mary grabbed his arm. She seemed bound and determined to keep him here so she could inflict her own particular brand of punishment on him. Ripping his arm from Mary's grasp, Marshall walked away from her. The crunching noise from under his boots annoyed him and he was suddenly jealous of the people who only had to dodge poorly thrown bottles. They just had to learn how to duck and run but he had to suffer.

"Marshall- ouch- damn it!" Mary yanked him to a stop and forced him around to face her. "What do you mean- what does it matter? It fucking matters to me so tell me what to do to fix this."

"I don't know what to tell you, Mare," Marshall said despondently. God he was tired. She had him so off kilter he couldn't find any kind of balance at the moment. One second he wanted to scream at her until his throat bled and, the next, he just wanted to slide into oblivion to hide. From the look on her face, Mary was having the same problem. She was red from rage and alcohol but her eyes were shining. They were both stuck somewhere between crying and launching a full-scale assault but neither could pick which way to go so they just flipped between the two extremes and Marshall was exhausted from it all.

"You have to know! You know everything. You have to tell me how to- how," Mary rant was suddenly cut off as she grabbed the lapels of Marshall's jacket and hung onto them. She tried, disjointedly, to finish, "I- Fix this- Marshall, I have to. I can't. . . I can't lose you."

Wracked with tears, Mary clung to Marshall as she slowly collapsed to the ground. He crouched as she pulled him down and wrapped his arms around her shaking frame. She was muttering something indistinguishable as she ground her face into his chest. Marshall hung onto her as best he could but, when Mary's legs slid out sideways from underneath her, he had to put a hand down to steady himself.

The ground stung and bit into his skin. 'What the hell,' he wondered irritably as he looked at his hand. Glass shards coated his hands and when he looked down at the concrete under him, he saw the bloody smears trailing from Mary's feet.

"Damn it, Mare," Marshall exploded. Grabbing Mary under her knees and arms, he lifted her off the offending ground, "Why the hell didn't you tell me you were standing in glass?"

Without waiting for an answer, Marshall carried her up the back step to the back door. There, he stopped, stumped. He couldn't set Mary down without risking that the glass on her feet getting driven in further and he couldn't open the door with her in his arms. Her hands were still clenched onto his jacket and Marshall didn't think she would let go. Frustrated, Marshall kicked the door frame hard and yelled, "Open the damn door!"