A/N: I own nothing but Katie and the typos. Not mine. Also, I'm not getting paid by Apple to advertise for them. Or getting paid by anyone else. And I apologize if the USMC doesn't have an EOD crew. The Navy does, so I figured the Marines do, too. This one's longer and a little darker. It surprises me that some of you still don't trust me to make this an MM Shipper. Where's the trust, guys? :-) I think you'll find this to your pleasing, and should allay all your fears on the issue.

Thanks to anyone who read, reviewed, etc. I love review, I just hate asking for them. That said, feel free to do so liberally (but nicely, please. Criticism is one thing, but let's keep thing constructive, shall we?). XOXO!

-A very tired, stressed out med student.

Marshall tossed and turned all night. Something wasn't right, and he just couldn't put his finger on it. Mary had been off all evening. There had been times in their partnership, and indeed their friendship, when he prayed to high heavens that she would just be quiet once and a while. But tonight, he discovered that he found her silence right down unnerving. It just wasn't like her to be so quiet. She had hung back while he helped Katie put the finishing touches on dinner, barely said a word while they ate, and then there was her question. "So, what do you think of her?" Her words batted around inside his brain like a ping pong ball. From anyone else, that would have been an invitation to give his opinion. From one of his brothers it would have meant something akin to "tell me how jealous you are of me because my girlfriend is a swimsuit model." From a college friend it would have meant "are you willing to distract her long enough for me to have a go at her friend?" Stan would have really meant, "what problems do you foresee with this witness?" He knew instinctively that the underlying question beneath Mary's query was nothing like any of those. She was off balance. Off kilter. It threw him off balance, too. He'd never realized it before, but Mary, with all of her complication and confusion, steadied him. Grounded him.

"So, what do you think of her?" Mary was jealous. She was jealous that he had made friends with her cousin. She was jealous of her cousin. She was jealous. He tried to think of an alternative to this conclusion. It didn't make sense, and Marshall demanded that the things in his life make sense, although ever since that fateful day when he'd first met Mary Shannon he had learned to ease up on the rules a little. To his credit, he had, begrudgingly at first, learned to allow room for uncertainty. Disorder. Disarray. Mary was uncertain. Mary was a variable. Mary couldn't be contained, controlled, or defined. At first it had irritated him, and later he had envied her for it. Time passed and he'd learned more about her. Snippets at first, as if she was testing him with the little bits, the superficial things before she'd dare trust him enough to tell him anything of substance. He hadn't let her down yet, save for that whole job interview thing. And the kidnapping. And the shooting. Wow. He was turning out to be a really crappy partner, he realized drily. It's a wonder that Mary hadn't requested a transfer, but she'd never let on that she blamed for any of it - at least the things that had happened to her.

Groaning in frustration, Marshall balled up his pillow under his head for the tenth time in as many minutes and rolled over again. Making his mind up to pump Katie for information tomorrow – as delicately as possible, of course – he finally drifted into a fitful sleep.

Marshall woke before his alarm went off, a skill honed to near perfection from years of owning the world's single most obnoxious alarm clock. Even his subconscious would rather get up ten minutes early than have to listen to that godforsaken contraption buzz, no matter how quickly Marshall's reflexes were at extending his arm to slap the "off" button. He remained in bed for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling. When had this happened? When had become this pitiful person who pines for a woman that he can realistically never have? He'd beat the crap out of himself if he saw himself doing this. Marshall grinned at the irony of his last thought, an image of a younger, supposedly hipper Marshall pummeling present-day Marshall into the dirt for being a moron. All things considered, thought, he knew that Mary could do worse. She'd done worse. Often. Then she'd told him about it dismissively, never noticing the way his jaw set firmly or the narrow darkening of his eyes. He could be better. Better than them. Better than Raphael. Better than he was now. He'd learn how. He'd show her. He'd teach her how to see him. How to see herself.

Finally rousing himself from his stupor, Marshall trudged to the bathroom and turned the water to hot. Maybe he'd feel better after a shower. He liked to think in the shower, so there was the possibility that he could discover a previously unseen answer to his dilemma. Then again, there was always a chance that he'd just frustrate himself into a small rage and forget to rinse the conditioner out of his hair, too. There was precedent. It had happened before. On more than one occasion, and with increasing frequency of late. Mary had that effect on him. She made him forget things that used to be second nature to him. She made him forget to breathe. Briefly, he wondered as he rubbed shampoo over his scalp, what made Mary forget to breathe?

He arrived at the house a full fifteen minutes earlier than he'd told Katie he would, and hesitated before exiting his truck and walking up the short path to the front door. To his surprise, the door swung open to reveal Katie, dressed and ready to go it would seem except for the apron covering her good clothes.

"I'm sorry." She motioned for him to come inside. "I promise I'll be less than five minutes. Would you like some coffee? I've got some brewed already."

She rambled as she led him into the kitchen, already reaching for a mug and filling it up even though he hadn't had a chance to respond.

"I don't know how you take so, sugar's there." She pointed. "Milk's in the fridge."

He sniffed the air and focused on her activities. "How early did you get up?" She was icing cinnamon rolls that curiously looked like a cardboard tube had never played a part in their existence.

"Oh, I never sleep that much." She shrugged, not turning around. "And these are Mary's favorite."

He marveled at her ability to say it like it was nothing. Those are Mary's favorite, so OF COURSE she got up early to make them. Of course she'd set her alarm, and timed the ordeal perfectly so as to not intrude on anyone's time unnecessarily. Of course she had. She's Katie. She had music playing, he realized, and was singing softly along to it. Her voice was pretty. Crystal clear and sharp like glass. Maybe she'd had voice lessons at one time. The song wasn't one that he recognized, and he wasn't listening to the lyrics much anyway. He sipped his coffee and tried to concentrate. He'd already had a steaming cup of caffeine at home, but his head still felt fuzzy. Sluggish. No doubt due to his inability to sleep the previous night.

"Want one?" She was holding a plate with a tantalizingly sticky sweet cinnamon roll on it and offering it to him now.

"Are those pecans?" He had a sudden flash to his childhood summers spent visiting his Gran and picking pecans from the tree in her front yard. How did she do it? How did Katie always know exactly what everyone around her needed?

"Sure." She shrugged, like it was something ordinary; like she was something ordinary. Marshall found himself sending up a little prayer of thanks to whoever was responsible for sending this girl here to look after his partner. Finally. It's about time. The girl was a blessing. A godsend. A revelation.

Marshall sipped his coffee and thoughtfully chewed on his pastry while regarding the young woman in front of him. She moved easily about the kitchen. Mary's kitchen. Glancing around the room, he noticed the refinished walls, paint mere months old. Mary had shared her displeasure with him when she'd arrived home from the hospital to find her home had been fixed back up by her then fiancé. Furious didn't begin to describe her feelings on the subject. She had expressly detailed to him how the house had been a constant subject of contention between Raph and her. He obstinately refused to listen to her pleas to not fix it. She wanted the feds to be held accountable for what they did to her – had caused to be done to her. Marshall got it. He understood. It wasn't about the walls. The house was inconsequential compared to the symbolism having them held accountable for wounding her person. Bitter hot, seething anger sprang up, adrenaline suddenly coursing through his veins as he remembered the frantic search to find her, and then the look on her broken face when she saw for the newly renovated dwelling. There were actually times when he ached for her. Not romantically, although he did more of that than he'd care to admit, but rather physically ached for her; knowing how difficult the people in her life were to deal with, how inattentive they were to her needs. He wondered if he had ever caused her that kind of pain.

"Okay." Katie was shoving the cinnamon rolls into the refrigerator, already full of goods from her stay. "I'm ready."

"Give me a minute." Marshall took a quick bite, his treat had been forgotten in his contemplation. It was a bad habit that had gotten him into trouble on more than one occasion as a child. His father had always thought that his son was too soft. How could he be expected to be a US Marshal if he was going to go around with his head in the clouds?

"I'm going to wash my hands." Katie was removing the apron and hanging it on the peg in the pantry. "And put the laundry in the dryer. Take your time."

"Is Mary up yet?" He ventured, trying to act nonchalantly when she returned. A part of him wanted to see her, yet still another piece of him wished that she could sleep all day and finally get some of the rest that he knew she so badly needed. Her family was exhausting to her, and their absence had to be good for her. It was so ironic, really. Mary had so few people in her life upon whom she could depend, and here he was, hoping that she'd get out of bed so HE could see her. Demanding.

"No. Not yet."

The look on her face was indiscernible, and he couldn't tell if he had failed to pull the wool over her eyes or not.

She held out her hand to take the now empty plate from him, then rinsed it in the sink. "I wouldn't expect her to be up for a few hours still." She sat the plate on the counter and checked her watch. "I'd say she's got a good two, two and half more hours before she joins the land of the living again."

He nodded silently, not at all surprised to discover that his partner preferred to rest in peace on the weekends, especially now with the more demanding members of her family absent from the home. It must feel like a luxury.

Katie flipped of the iPod she'd been listening to, and Marshall felt the silence envelope him uncomfortably. He had planned on prying Katie for information, but now the looming quiet and anticipation of the conversation he desperately wanted to have scared him.

"Bring it." He urged with a crooked grin that he hoped would mask his discomfort. "You can use my iTrip."

She laughed softly and shook her head. "I can't do that to you."

"No, really." He honestly didn't mind. She didn't have half bad taste in music, but he did wonder why she refused. "Bring it with you. I don't mind."

"It's girl music." Katie protested, hands on her hips just so, reminding him of Mary. His subconscious wondered if perhaps it was a stance she'd learned from years of observing her older cousin. "I can't subject you to that. Not in your OWN car." She stressed "own," as if possession of the vehicle somehow saved him from being forced to do something against his will.

"That would just be plain mean." Katie finished up, sitting her player on the entertainment system as she walked toward the door to slip on her sandals.

Marshall didn't argue, but he did surreptitiously swipe the mp3 player and slip it into his pocket before he left.

"Here." He handed her the iPod once they were on the road, only halfway convinced that she wouldn't try to hop from the moving truck and take it back home. "I liked the song."

Katie stared at him for a moment before reaching out a tentative hand and grasping her player. "Is everything okay?"

Damn her. She was too perceptive for his own good.

Marshall sighed and scrubbed his face with his now empty hand. "Yeah." It didn't even sound convincing to his ears. "I didn't get a lot of sleep last night."

She sensed he didn't wish to discuss his insomnia any further, so she leaned forward to catch the plug-in for the device. Marshall was grateful that she didn't pry, and flipped the radio on, dialing it to the correct station more out of habit and muscle memory than anything else. There was only a short pause as Katie adjusted the volume, then changed the song or playlist – he couldn't tell which, and a soft, clear female voice filled the cab. He wasn't listening to the lyrics, his ears tuned to catch the surprisingly complicated and layered harmonies in the background.

"I like this." He told her honestly. "But I don't recognize the artist."

"PJ Harvey."

"Never heard of her." He shrugged.

"No one in the US has." Katie chuckled with mirth. "She's British. Had a couple of radio hits a few years back, but it's her stuff that no one has heard that's really good." She paused a moment, and Marshall waited for her to continue, but she never did.

"It's nice." He offered lamely, albeit genuinely. "Pretty."

"Yeah." Her voice was soft. Longing. "It's my favorite song."

He got the impression that she was sharing something deep and secret with him, and regretted not listening to the lyrics more closely. The song ended, and another began, and Marshall felt the familiar leaden guilt weight his already heavy psyche.

"Same person?" He inquired about the next song.

Katie just shook her head. "Winterpills."

She liked obscure music, he decided. Not the typical pop-radio, talent-devoid plasticized princesses that monopolized the airwaves these days. He made a promise to listen better, and turned his attention back, split between the road and the music. What could he learn about a person from their musical tastes, he wondered. What does a playlist say about a person? The rode in silence, both absorbing the soothing sounds; Katie soothed by their familiarity, and Marshall somewhat disturbed by his earlier breech in perception, but appreciating the way the melodies smoothed down his frayed, tired nerves. She interrupted the silence only to inform him of the band if he raised an eyebrow in question, and he was appreciative of her apparent understanding that he needed to think.

"Oh!" Katie's demeanor changed abruptly, anticipation radiating off her in waves. "Is that it?"

Her energy was infectious, and Marshall felt his own mood lift, the dark clouds parted in his own mind. "That's it." He smiled, realizing how much better it felt to smile than ruminate on that which could not be undone. "We're here."

"It's huge." Her eyes were wide open in awe and anticipation.

"Biggest in the area." He informed her, scanning the street for parking. "Do you want me to let you out here? It could be a hike from the parking space, if I ever find one."

"I'll wait." She was surveying the area. "A little exercise never killed anybody."

He glanced at her shoes, thankful for her good sense to wear flat, unfussy sandals, rather than the complicated, high heeled things so many women found appealing. She had so much Mary in her.

Katie rushed from stall to stall, gushing about mangos and egg plant. She admired the many varieties of squash, the myriad colors of potatoes. Purchased berries and tomatoes and fresh green beans. Marshall insisted on paying for some if, reasoning that if he was going to be continually invited to these fêtes that he should contribute. He had an inkling that Mary was not funding this adventure, but Katie herself. Generous spirit. He decided that if a girl could be summed up in five syllables, those would be the ones for her.

Hours later, Katie was finished shopping, or out of cash. He couldn't tell which, and she wasn't telling him.

"I can't wait." She was humming with energy. "I'm going to make curry tonight." She announced.

"You are?" Mary hated curry.

"For me." She clarified. "Mary won't touch the stuff."

That explained her insistence on purchasing certain of the foodstuffs herself. She refused to allow him to assist her in paying for a very select array of vegetables. The one's she knew only she would eat. He could pay for it if Mary was going to eat it, because that meant that he, too, would be enjoying the meal.

"You like curry?"

"Love it." She nodded. "All varieties. Thai. Indian. Japanese. Sri Lankan. I love it all."

"Vietnamese?"

"Definitely."

He was kind of hungry. "There's a good Vietnamese place not too far from here, if you're up for lunch." Mary was rarely up for trying any food that she labeled "ethnic," so getting to eat Vietnamese food with company would be a special treat.

"I can't." It wasn't that she wasn't tempted. She was just broke.

"My treat." He knew why she'd turned him down, but he didn't want to go back yet. He had yet to follow through on his plan to learn more about Mary. "Chicken." He told himself.

"I can't." She repeated her earlier protest.

"Will you share the curry with me later?" He drove a bargain, but figured she'd see the logic of it.

She mulled it over slowly, and then finally responded. "Deal."

He exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Now or never.

Katie took all of three minutes to choose her lunch, leaving Marshall feeling nervous. Now he had to come up with conversation.

"When does the rest of your stuff get here?" He assumed that her personal effects were being shipped across the country.

"What stuff?"

"Your stuff." What did she mean, what stuff? "Furniture, the rest of your clothes, books. Stuff."

"I brought it with me."

"All of it?"

"All of it." She shrugged. "I didn't need a lot of stuff in my last job. The gig included housing, so I didn't need furniture. I brought my clothes and computer with me. That's all my stuff."

Marshall couldn't imagine being able to pack his entire life into three bags. Let alone move across the country with it.

"Have you found an apartment?" That seemed like a safer topic.

"I've found a few, but Mary vetoed them all." She shrugged. "I'm not sure where else to look."

"Are you going to stay with Mary until you find one?"

"She said I can, but I need to get my own place. I can't keep mooching off of her. I'm getting on her nerves." The corners of her mouth were upturned to form a smile, but her eyes didn't match the expression.

"Mary loves you." He extended the only comfort he could think of.

"But I'm grating on her nerves." She didn't seem upset about it. "She needs her own space, I think."

"What does your mom think about you moving to the middle of the desert?" Was that a land mine topic, too?

"Not really." Her lips drew a thin line, and Marshall realized he'd stepped right on the mine again. This was not going well. "She told me not to come, but that's just because she figures my boyfriend will be mad."

"Is he?" This was the first Marshall had heard of the boyfriend.

"No." She laughed ironically. "It doesn't really affect him."

"How's that?"

"He's in Afghanistan."

Oh. Well. That explained it. "Army?" He finally had a topic from which to launch.

"Marine." Her voice was proud, and finally she smiled for real.

"What's he do?"

"Explosive ordinance disposal." Now she looked a little worried. "I try to not think too much about it."

"How long is his tour?"

"Five months so far." She took a sip of water. "He told me that he's expecting to have to stay for a few more, so me being in New Mexico really isn't the big deal my mom was so freaked out that it would be."

"Does he support you going back to school?"

"I've been in school the entire time he's known me."

"How long is that?" He wondered out loud.

"Two years, but I've been going part time for five."

That surprised him. "You were working, then?" She nodded. "What'd you do?"

"Nanny."

Marshall felt his eyes open wide without meaning to. "Really? Did you like it?"

"Parts of it, yeah." She glanced around the restaurant. "I had free rent and decent employers most of the time, so it wasn't so bad." Another pause while she carefully picked her words. "I felt badly for the kids, though, you know?"

"Parent's mostly absent?" He guessed this was the case with the very wealthy.

"Absent. Clueless. Self absorbed. The person who suffers the most isn't even old enough to understand what's going on." Her eyes had a faraway look in them as if she was seeing the faces of the children she'd help raise.

"I figured you'd been a cook or something." Good, Mann. Safe topic.

"Thought about cooking school." She agreed. "But I don't want that part of my life to be judged and graded."

Marshall could well understand the sentiment.

"Besides, Mary said that she didn't spend ten years checking my homework every night so I can learn to make the perfect soufflé. She's not a snob." She hurried to explain. "She just wanted me to be a scientist."

"Ten years?"

"I was only a year behind her in school." Katie explained. "I skipped a few years."

"I'll say." Her statement hit him then. "She checked all your homework?"

"Every night." She nodded. "Unless it was a class she hadn't taken."

"Were there many of those?"

"Yeah. I took all the science and math. Mary's a brain, but her mind isn't scientifically oriented." She laughed at the memory of taking chemistry with her older cousin. She'd been a sophomore, Mary a junior. Mary had hated the class with a passion, except for lab. She liked lab because she got to catch things on fire. "She could have taken the upper levels sciences, but Mary doesn't like science." That much he knew.

"She likes certainties, not variables." He'd never thought of it that way before. "She likes thing that don't need to be quantified. Intangibles. Things that aren't going to change. Mary isn't into the abstract. She needed...things that were concrete…in her life. Things she could count on. Science was never her thing. Too many variables."

"She wanted you to be a scientist?" He repeated, more in awe of his partner and her cousin than ever. "You were always into physics?"

"Oh, I took all the science and math classes I could find." She agreed

"You said Mary raised you." He began, hoping it wasn't too personal a topic.

"Yep." She took a sip of water, then traced the condensation down the length of the glass with her fingertip. "Maybe not raised, but you know, she was always there when I needed her." She paused and considered her words carefully. "We were always together. Inseparable. I'm glad we're talking again."

"You hadn't been?" This was news to him.

"Not for a few years." She spoke carefully, and he could see her hesitation. "We hadn't talked since a few months before she moved out here."

"Do you mind if I ask what happened?" He pried gently.

"That's for Mary to tell, if she want to." Katie fiddled with her glass again, then nervously adjusted the cutlery on the napkin beside her. She wasn't sure how comfortable she was discussing her cousin with this man, even if they were friends or partners or whatever they were. She wanted to figure that out, too.

His respect for her ratcheted up a notch or two when he realized that she wasn't going to go telling him Mary's secrets. He just hoped that she'd help him understand the ones he already knew.

"We had a sort of falling out." Katie explained shortly.

He had surmised as much. "But things are better now."

It wasn't a question. "Yeah." Katie rewarded him with a smile that was only barely colored with sadness. "She called me out of the blue a few months ago and asked me to be a bridesmaid. She said she needed some sanity around her."

"Did you know him?" Katie asked as she dipped her spring roll carefully into the peanut sauce. "Raph, I mean?"

She didn't miss Marshall's facial expression. Disdain. And something else.

"I met him a few times." He ground out evenly.

"You hated him." It was neither a question nor an accusation. Merely a statement of fact. "Why?"

"He just…" Marshall hesitated. He needed to be careful about divulging too much. "He cheated on her at least once. I think she could do better." That wasn't even the half of it, but maybe Katie would buy it as an explanation.

"And?" She prompted. No such luck.

"And he didn't really try to get to know her." His brain was screaming at him to stop. This was a mistake. But his mouth kept right on talking. "He was a nice enough guy, I guess, just not for Mary. He didn't understand her. He wasn't good enough for her." He finished lamely.

Katie appeared to be thinking about his words as she carefully ate her lunch.

"She's hard to get to know." Marshall observed, knowing from experience how frustrating it could be to earn Mary's trust.

"She had to be." Katie shrugged.

"I guess." It was cheap, but Marshall decided to play dense for a bit and see if Katie would open up more. Offer insight.

"Do you know Jinx?" He noted her lack of the term "aunt" prefacing the question.

"Oh, I know Jinx."

"Not a fan?" The corner of her mouth turned up a bit.

"In general?" In general the woman annoyed the hell out of him. He wanted to shake her sometimes after Mary would finally reach a breaking point and explode her frustration all over him. How could a mother be so blind to her own child?

"Jinx isn't exactly maternal." Katie read his mind. "She's never really known what to do with Mary. She's never looked outside her own pain and tried to understand that life affected all of them, not just her."

Marshall knew what she was talking about. Had echoed her words in his own mind on numerous occasions. He was surprised to find such insight in the young woman across from him, though.

"Mary had to fend for herself." He stated.

Katie searched his face, and did not find what she'd expected. "It's more than that." She shook her head slowly. "She had to fend for them all."

"The loss of a parent affects a child deeply." Marshall was paraphrasing a psychology text book now.

"She didn't just lose a parent." Katie corrected.

"I suppose not." He wondered if she would expound on her previous comment, but other questions were more pressing on his mind.

"You know Brandi, I assume?" Katie waved her chopsticks at him, and waited for his affirmative nod before continuing. "Brandi was a baby when their dad left." Katie could clearly remember the day after he left. She'd walked to Mary's house and found her sitting on the front porch crying. That was the last time she saw her cousin cry.

"Brandi is just like Jinx in so many ways." She continued. "She truly is her mother's daughter. She's never known anything different. She was too little to remember their dad. And Jinx, she's so wrapped up in not being a famous dancer or actress or whatever that she couldn't even understand that she wasn't the only person that he walked out on."

Marshall knew all of this, but waited patiently for her to make her point. He had a feeling it was going to be a good one.

"But Mary." Katie's voice hitched, and Marshall wrenched his eyes to meet hers. "She was a daddy's girl She was Daddy's girl. When he left, he didn't just pack up his things and take off. He took her identity with him." She closed her eyes and steeled herself once more. "He took the part of her who knew who she was, the part of her that was Mary. He took her sense of belonging and safety and self. He stole her identity, and she's never gotten back really."

The light was starting to dawn in Marshall's brain. How had he missed this?

"I mean, she had to start completely over. Just all of a sudden. She had to figure out who else she was now, because you can't be daddy's little girl if daddy leaves. She's lost. She's searching. She hasn't found it yet. He injured her as deeply as a person can, and since then she's kept everyone at arm's length. She's too afraid to let herself become wrapped up in another human being, especially a man. If she did, and he left, and she was that attached, she'd lose herself again. Her identity. She's done that once. She can't do it again. I'm betting she kept Raph at arm's length."

He nodded. She had. She'd told him. Not in so many words, but he knew. She told him once that he was the only person who really knew her. She'd been mistaken. There were two. How had he not put it together before? This is why Mary is so good at her job. This is why she handles the witnesses as well as she does. This is why she gets too wrapped up. Too close. She knows what it's like to have to assume a new life. A new identity. She's done it. And she did it without anyone's help. His respect for her swelled in his chest, and he realized that it wasn't just respect that made his heart palpitate.

"She'll never tell you this, but she trusts you, you know?" Katie said it so softly that he wasn't quite sure he'd heard her right.

He didn't say anything, but he heard her. And he heard what she meant.

"Have you and Mary talked about whatever it was that came between you?"

"No."

"Are you going to?"

"Are you?"

Her question caught him off guard. "Am I what?"

"Are you going to talk to her?"

"About what?"

"Are you not in love with her, then?" Katie had a bad habit of being too direct at times, and she hoped that this wasn't one of those times. "I mean, I've seen the way you look at her. And no offense, but what's with all the questions about Mary?"

Marshall felt himself blush, starting from his collar line the telltale blood and concomitant warmth told him that he was turning twelve shades of red. "I mean…I just…wha…" He stuttered, berating himself internally. Great job, Mann. Way to be smooth.

"I'm sorry." Katie took his loss for words as a denial. "I was too forward. It's a bad habit, and I'm working on it. I guess I read it wrong. Forget I said anything." She tried to take a nervous bite, but her hands shook a little, and the food dropped off the chopsticks before she could get it to her mouth.

"It's fine." Marshall placated her. "I…uh. There's rules against partners…dating." It was a lame excuse. He'd kick himself for saying it if he could.

"Right." She nodded. "Fraternization and the like."

"Exactly."

"It's a tricky spot." She agreed with him, growing quiet once more.

"They could split us up." He tried to explain, although he knew he was wasting his breath. That wasn't the reason, and they both knew it.

"Plus, you're friends." Katie knew what he wasn't able to say himself. "And she's hard to get a read on."

"That she is." He hung his head limply, shoulders sagging.

"And you aren't sure if she feels the same way." She almost whispered his deepest fear.

"Mary said she trusts you, Marshall." Katie tapped the table with her index finger. "She trusts you. Mary hasn't trusted anyone since she was eight." She grew quiet and waited for him to respond.

He turned her words over and over. She trusts me. I'm her only friend. She trusts me. When he lifted his eyes, still unable to speak, Katie relieved him by doing it for him.

"I guess you have to ask yourself if what you would gain is worth giving up what you could possibly lose." She had a point, but it wasn't anything he didn't already know. "I like you." She cocked her head and watched him. "And I like the two of you together. I've known Mary longer than anyone, and trust me when I tell you that she is more comfortable around you than anyone else. Ever. Ever."

"But is that enough?" His brain screamed silently.

"Give her time." Katie winked at him. "I'll work on it."

Marshall grinned full out now. He knew he liked this girl for a reason. This had been a productive day.

That's all for now. Back to parasitology. And then on to cardiovascular. Fun. (Not really)