A/N: So here's the deal. I'm tired. I'm stressed. I'm moody. I'm dealing with family crap, and my boyfriend is on the other side of the freaking country (quite literally, actually). I haven't slept for a few days, so I apologize for any mistakes, grammatical, spelling, or otherwise. I tried. I really did. I've proofread a million times, but you know how you only see the spelling error AFTER it's up and posted? Yeah. That's me. That's me all the way. I do want to thank everyone for the incredibly kind reviews. It is so generous of you to take the time to write something after you spend the time reading. I swear I'm going to buy a thesaurus. I even saw a bookstore in walking distance yesterday, I just need the time to actually walk there and get it. Thanks again for reading, thanks even more for reviewing. I'd hug you all, but I need a shower. I hope you all have fabulous weekends (or weekdays, depending on the day of the week that you actually read this). This chapter may be a tad more moody, and I'm blaming that on my own family drama right now. So, enjoy. Or not. I'm sorry if you don't. Rambling now, so I'm gonna go. Take care (and thanks for reviewing...)
Mary was tucked comfortably onto the sofa watching television with a mug of hot coffee and a cinnamon roll when Katie and Marshall arrived back at the house. She looked up from her breakfast and mumbled something that Katie took to mean "good morning."
"Hello to you, too." Katie chirped brightly as she moved to the kitchen to put away the groceries.
Mary turned her attentions back to her partner, and smirked at him. "Done communing with produce?"
He took a seat beside her nudged her with his shoulder. "We had fun, thanks for asking. How was your morning?" Not that he couldn't tell. Her hair was freshly washed and smelled faintly of coconut, and her skin was still pink from the shower. She looked…refreshed.
"Not too bad." She shoveled another bite in and talked around it. "Katie made cinnamon buns."
"I know." He raised his eyebrows and nodded approvingly. "She let me have one."
"I hope you enjoyed it." Mary muttered. ""Cause that's all your getting."
Marshall just smiled and leaned back against the cushions. Propping his feet up, he grinned at his partner. "Whatcha waching?"
"Law and Order." She eyed the remote nervously, then snatched it up, settling it safely on the other side of her lap, away from Marshall. She was well acquainted with his penchant to change the channel when she wasn't looking. When he made a questioning face at her, she smirked right back. "I'm not watching any of that educational crap you like today. My TV."
Marshall was about to respond when Katie entered the living room.
"Hey, Mare?" She inquired.
"Yeah, kiddo?"
"You need anything?"
"Nah. I'm good." Mary smiled affectionately at her little cousin, who really wasn't little anymore. She was all grown up. Still.
"I'm going to go hit the books then. I've got a ton of stuff to study this weekend."
"Have fun with that." Mary called over her shoulder sarcastically.
Katie turned and looked before she shut the door to her room.
"NO!" Mary was shrieking as Marshall reached over her to grab the remote. "My TV! My house!" She was struggling and struggling so hard that she didn't notice the way Marshall was draped across most of her body.
"Let…me…have…it." Marshall grunted as he attempted to wrestle the controller from her grasp.
Katie just smiled and shut the door to the bedroom carefully, eyes bright and smile wide when she heard the distinctive thump of bodies hitting the floor and Mary's yelp. She didn't need to see to know what had just happened.
"Jesus, Stan," Mary growled as she walked into the Sunshine Building Monday morning with more than a small dose of her usual cheerfulness. "Tell me there's a transfer. A babysitting mission. ANYTHING that will get me the hell out of here for a few days."
Stan raised his eyebrows and glanced at Marshall, who merely shrugged and mirrored his boss's expression.
"Good morning, Mary." Stan closed the file he was reading and dropped it on his desk. "As a matter of fact, there is."
"Thank God." Mary muttered as she dropped her personal belongings on her desk and dropped into the chair. "How far is it? It is Kentucky? Because you know, everyone should see Kentucky eventually."
"Portland, actually." Stan handed Marshall the file for the inspector to peruse.
"Maine?" Mary's voice was positively ecstatic. "Seriously, Stan, you are my absolute favorite person today."
"Not Maine." Marshall frowned absently. "Oregon."
"Whatever." Mary's newfound good mood was not deterred at all by the new information. "That's still like, hundreds of miles away. Oregon sounds great. When do we leave?"
Stan and Marshall exchanged another confused look. Mary was never this eager to start an arduous transfer. She usually complained, at least a little, and Marshall had discovered early on that there was a direct linear relationship between the distance they would be travelling and the amount of arguing she did about it.
"Mary?" Marshall asked her later. "Is everything okay?"
"Everything's great, Marsh, why?"
He couldn't figure it out. She looked genuinely excited at the prospect of driving for days on end. Stuck in a car.
"Okay." He was wary to push, but his better judgment told him that there was something afoot here. "If you change your mind…" He hesitated. Mary hated being patronized to. "I'm here." He finished abruptly, but knew she'd understand.
Mary opened her mouth, as if to say something, and then shut it hard. Her features softened, though, and Marshall was relieved to see that he'd made the right choice.
"Later." He heard her say as he tossed his wooden coffee stirrer into the trash and headed back for his desk.
Turning to face her, he took careful inventory of her face. He knew every curve and plane of it, but now her brow was knitted with something akin to worry. Her eyes were sunken and red, from a night of drinking or not sleeping or…crying, he realized. Instantly on alert, he met her brown eyes, his blue questioning orbs asking for something, anything…to let him know she was okay. Mary was only grateful for her partner's ability to read her emotions like this on very rare occasions, but this was one of them.
"Wanna make the rounds now?" Marshall suggested, hoping to get her alone in the car. She'd poured her soul out to him between visiting witnesses before. He prayed the pattern would continue. His hopes would be dismayed, though, as Mary was as silent as before in the office the entire trip. She was agitated, anxious. Marshall was thankful for the shoulder harness strapping her firmly in place, for without it he was positive she would have vibrated right out of her seat. Something had happened.
Marshall's worry grew throughout the day as he watched a normally alert, abrasive Mary introvert and become taciturn. She didn't complain about the department-funded redeye to Portland with two layovers, she didn't whine about the cramped quarters or throw in sarcastic comments about how cheap the Marshal's Service is to stick them both in cramped coach seats. All of this was worrisome, but when she sat up straight, eyes wide open and didn't fall asleep, even though the plane left past eleven o'clock p.m. Marshall's internal alert system got bumped up from orange to red. He tried to doze, but her silence was as distracting as her usual steady string of insults and curses.
The plane landed, and Marshall checked his boarding pass for the hundredth time. The printing still told him that they would have a three hour wait before they could board their next flight. He and Mary hunkered down in the obnoxiously individually portioned seating with the annoying arm rests in between each seat that made it impossible to spread out, lay down, and get some sleep. Not that he could have slept anyway. Mary had been silent for almost an hour now, and he was almost frantic. He was watching her out of the corner of his eye as she sat slumped angrily in the terminal chair, arms laced across her chest, defiant. Her head nodded imperceptibly, though, and he caught it. Again, her head bobbed, and again, each time, she jerked her head up, eyes wide open with determination to remain conscious. He couldn't take it any more.
"Come with me." He rose and pulled Mary to her feet, gathering her luggage with his. "Come on." He led her over to a wall, slid down, and pulled her with him.
"Take off your jacket." He instructed as she stared at him.
"It's freezing in here." Mary refused. "Seriously, Marshall, it's like forty degrees in here. I'm surprised the local butchers aren't using the terminal as a meat locker. If we died in here, we wouldn't even decompose."
"Take off your jacket." He repeated softly, grateful that she was at least still functional enough to argue with him. He made a face at her and removed his coat as well.
"I don't want to." She raised her chin defiantly. She had always hated being told what to do, and even though she knew that Marshall would have never requested such an activity unless he had a good reason, she felt she had to argue on principle.
"Mare, come on." He was getting exasperated. She waited, waited for him to back off, and when he didn't, she complied. Slowly, she removed the flimsy garment and held it up for him to see.
"Happy?"
"Ecstatic." His response was dry and sarcastic, but he was too busy draping his coat around her shoulders to notice the face she made at him. "Here. Mine's warmer."
"Now you'll freeze." She protested. "And you'll get sick."
"No, I won't." He countered. "But if you don't get some sleep, you will." He folded her jacket into a neat square and placed it on his lap, stretching out his legs in front of him. Grasping her upper arm softly, he urged her to lie down. "Come one. Get some sleep."
Mary scoffed at him and refused to budge. "I'm not sleeping with my face planted in your crotch, Doofus."
He hadn't actually thought about how this would look, and she did have a point. "Fine." He grabbed one of their bags, covered it with the soft jacket, and held out his hands. "Voila. A pillow."
"You're gonna get sick." She warned him, even as she laid her head on the makeshift sleeping quarters.
"You're gonna get some rest." He countered, voice low and soft and his hand, unbidden by his brain, reached out to smooth her hair from her face. She murmured something fairly incomprehensible as she fell asleep, lulled into that sweet place of comfort by his gentle fingers stroking lazily through her golden locks.
Mary was sure she'd only been asleep five minutes or less when Marshall shook her gently.
"Mare." His voice was a whisper. "Mare, we landed."
"Hhmmmhhm?" Came her reply, as she pulled her head off his shoulder. Wait. Marshall's shoulder? She didn't remember using him as a pillow. She barely remembered boarding the plane.
"Come on." He helped her stand, knowing she was a slow starter after a nap. "Let's go. We have to make our connection." The plane was mostly deserted, only parents with small children and the elderly remained, but Marshall hadn't wanted to wake her until the last moment necessary. The stewardess came over a few times to move them off sooner, but a quick flash of his badge had quelled her urging.
Mary insisted on carrying her own bags, and stumbled a few times before her legs and feet started cooperating with the rest of her. Marshall thought she was adorable when she was sleepy, especially when she was still too out of it to throw things at him or punch him for letting her sleep that long in the first place.
"How long is the layover?" She yawned.
"We have twenty minutes." He was pulling her now. "Come on. It's across the airport." Marshall, it turns out, was one of those people who actually read the in-flight magazine, and had memorized the floor plans to the airport in San Francisco.
Mary followed him at a trot at first, then a run, cursing and muttering the whole way about poor planning and the idiot people working for the airlines who schedule flights so close together. Her complaints did wonders to relieve Marshall's worry. She was fine. Or she'd be fine. One way or the other.
Marshall had hoped, nay prayed, that Mary would fall asleep again and get some much-needed rest on the connecting flight, but he had long ago learned to not be surprised when she did the opposite of what he anticipated. Instead of sleeping, she squirmed, festered, and rocked with pent up energy and something else. He watched her carefully out of the corner of his eye, brain scrambling to unravel the puzzle. Mary usually told him what was bothering her in time, on her turf. On her terms. He had tried, on occasion, to give her the opportunity to tell him. Time to explode in that cathartic way that only Mary could. He thought back to a conversation he'd had with Katie, and missed her council immediately. She knew how to handle Mary better than even he, and while it stung him a smidgen that someone else understood his partner better, he was grateful for her insights.
"You read, right?" Katie glanced up at him in between sips of lemonade, her green eyes peering above the rims of her glasses.
"Some might say obsessively." He nodded.
"You ever read Melville?" She queried, and he again nodded in ascent.
"Moby Dick?" Now he wondered where she was going with this. If she was going to compare Mary to a whale…well he had a few problems with that implication. And if she was going to speculate that Mary bore a resemblance to Ishmael…he paused and actually drew a few of those conclusions himself, but Katie had different ideas.
"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth," she started quoting, and Marshall felt he'd been suckerpunched. "Whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses…" she paused and took a breath, searching his face for comprehension.
"And bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can." He finished automatically, the words tripping of his tongue easily. He knew the story; had read the book, devoured it, searched it for symbolism when he was younger. More naïve. Still, though, he wasn't quite up to speed, and eyed her curiously as he waited for her to continue.
"Mary has rarely had a substitute for a pistol and ball." Katie paraphrased, and the connection started to dawn on Marshall. "Mary spends a great deal of her life grim about the mouth." She paused, took another sip, staring into the distance with an unreadable look on her face.
She sipped again, then continued. "She's grim a lot. Has been for years. And she's never really had a sea to take to, you know?" It was a rhetorical question, but he nodded anyway. "She…she just…she had – no has – me. And she has you. That's all there ever really has been. And I've been…gone…" she tripped over the words awash with guilt. "I've been gone for a while, so she's only had you. I have a sneaky suspicion that you're the only thing standing between her and her pistol and ball most days. She needs that. Everybody needs that, but Mary does especially. She…God, I love her, but she…she just…coping mechanisms, okay? She's great at "dealing." She's great at "getting by." She's a pro at denial. But actual coping? Mary's all instinct. She's quick and kind of the "kick ass and take names later" type. Always has been." She smiled as she remembered more than one incident involving the two of them pitted against others, fists bared and teeth drawn. She had always had Mary's back before…shaking her head she met Marshall's interested gaze.
"You help her." She finished simply. "You're her sea."
He could tell that it hurt her to admit this, that she blamed herself for not being there physically the past few years. "Yeah." He nodded in agreement. "But it goes both ways."
"Good." Katie nodded, chomping in earnest on her previously forgotten pretzel before grimacing and swallowing with effort. "Okay, this?" She held up the offending snack food. "Is not a pretzel. Come to New York, and I'll show you a real pretzel. There's this place in Greenwich Village that…" She stopped abruptly, and gasped, realizing her faux pas. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. I'm…gosh that was rude." He bought her a snack, paid for it with his own money, and here she was criticizing it.
"Rude?" He was busy eating her pretzel, having already finished his own.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I…I like it. I'll finish it." She held out her hand sheepishly, and a little nervously.
"You don't have to eat it." He continued chewing. "I can take care of it for you."
Katie perplexed him. She had a habit of going off on a tangent, stopping, then pushing him away with apologies and pleas for forgiveness, and something indefinable in her eyes. He wondered what in her past had built up this defense. Mary had enough defenses, but she was less of a mystery to him. She was guarded and prickly, but he'd pulled away most of those layers and met the real Mary. Katie was more difficult. She was open and bubbly in some ways, but sometimes he thought he glimpsed a speck of something else right before she repaired the hole in her armor with speed and efficacy that made Mary look right down cuddly.
Marshall smirked with the memory and the comparison of Mary to something cuddly. Looking at her now, she was anything but. Hesitantly reaching out a hand, he placed a careful squeeze on her forearm, hoping to convey some sort of understanding and comfort. She rewarded him with a tight smile, then hunkered down in her airplane seat, an obvious attempt to control her antsiness that would ultimately prove futile.
"You okay?" He murmured quietly enough for only her to hear.
She actually hesitated, paused and considered his words before answering. "I'll be fine."
That wasn't actually an answer to the question he'd asked, but he appreciated that she needed to be left alone for a while longer, and just hoped she'd hold out until they were alone. He doubted that it would be easy to explain away her outburst to a crew of nervous flight attendants, and flashing the badge would really only get you so far.
Mary seemed to relax, and whether or not she actually DID or not, Marshall could not tell. The plane landed abruptly, bucking down the runway and jostling the passengers awake. Mary gripped tight to Marshall's thigh without realizing it, and he just stared at her hand, knuckles white and fingers long. Slender. Grasping his leg.
"You good?" He asked her when she had failed to remove her grip or loosen her grasp, even as they taxied to a stop.
"Great." She answered characteristically, pulling her hand away quickly, reprimanding herself internally for the external display of weakness and fear. Years ago, scared and hungry in a new apartment tucked in a ratty corner of some rundown building that Jinx had just relocated them to, Mary had made a deal with herself. She could still remember Brandi's eyes, wide and innocent as she pulled the blankets a little closer around herself, and asked her big sister when Mommy was coming back. Mary promised herself that she would be stronger. That she would show no weakness to anyone, no matter what she felt on the inside. That promise had fueled her, driven her to excel in school, in athletics. In the academy she'd actually scared some of the guys. They'd been sparring, and the look in her eyes, the one she'd been perfecting for years, hardening so that no one could see inside, had actually scared off the men. Boys, she corrected. They'd all been so young then.
And Katie. Oh, Katie. She loved her, she really did, but having her at the house was getting to be too much for her to bear. She could deal with Brandi. She could tolerate Jinx if she had to. But Katie. Katie still seemed to have that innocence that Mary secretly craved, and even though she genuinely knew better – knew all the sordid details of Katie's not-no-perfect childhood – all she could see when she looked at her was that little girl. Katie had always been small. The shortest in her class, the first to stop growing. She looked for all the world like she would break if someone spoke to her too harshly. Mary had seen the steely backbone that lived inside the younger woman's spine. She'd witnessed the gentility and the wrath that the tiny girl wielded. And still, she felt responsible. She saw them as children, playing together, later getting into mischief, and it was those parts of her childhood that Mary tried so desperately to forget. Or ignore. Sometimes she wasn't sure which. But Katie reminded her. She was tired of being reminded.
Marshall took care of the car rental while she collected baggage, grateful for his intuition. She wasn't up to dealing with people right now, so snagging baggage off the carousel was a welcome reprieve from the incompetence of most rental desk staff.
"All set?" Marshall asked as he slung his bags over his shoulder. "I've got the car and directions to the motel."
"Motel?" She had really been hoping for something a little more high class on this trip, but leave it to the USMS to skimp on accommodations. Whatever. At least it was a bed. Maybe she could sleep.
All checked in, Marshall watched as Mary angrily fought with her key card. The lock was refusing to cooperate, and it only fueled whatever battle was already raging inside her head. He slid his card into the slot and smiled as the light turned green with an annoying beep. He opened the door, and tried to get Mary's attention.
"Trade you rooms?" He offered, gesturing to his already open door. "I'll take that one and have the office reset it."
He had expected her to argue. At least a pretense of irritation. He got nothing. No chastising for being a ridiculous excuse of a gentleman. No stab at his antiquated south Texas upbringing. No argument. No thanks. She just snapped the card out of his hand, shoved hers into his chest and pushed past him into the room, kicking the door closed with her foot as she went. The card fluttered to the ground as Marshall stared at the room number, dazed for a moment. This one was a doozy.
Marshall had showered, brushed, and changed when the beating started on his door. He knew who it was without looking through the peephole, and scrambled out of bed, putting down the latest book he was reading onto the night stand.
He opened the door to reveal an agitated Mary almost cowering outside on the walkway. Stepping aside and gesturing her in, he didn't wait for an explanation for her appearance. He'd been expecting her. Stayed up for her and waited, in fact. Mary didn't disappoint.
He sat on the edge of the motel bed and watched in silence as she paced, wrestling with the words, working up to actually getting them out. She had showered, he could see. Her blonde hair was darker now, and wet as it hung limply on her shoulders, droplets tracing dark streaks down her red shirt. He knew that she usually found a shower relaxing. The heat of the water or the solitude of the activity, he was never sure, and it didn't seem like it was his place to ask. One thing was fairly certain, though, she had not relaxed one bit since he'd seen her ninety minutes ago.
"Katie and I had a fight." She stilled momentarily, facing him square on and gauging his reaction. He merely nodded, waiting for her to continue. She hated him for his ability to just wait, sit patiently while she doled out the dribbles of her life in bits and pieces. He rarely pressed. Even more infrequently insisted. He was just there. Waiting. For her.
"She's driving me crazy." The pacing resumed.
"She's always there. She's just there. Perky and bubbly and helpful." She stilled again. "She just cooks and cleans. Over and over. My house has never been this clean. You know she actually cleaned MY room?" She spat out "my room" exasperatedly. "She gathered up all my laundry, changed the sheets, and cleaned my entire room. My room!" Her voice had risen higher in deparation, but Marshall knew that it was borne of desperation to avoid the actual subject. This was not what had upset her so. "She put away my stuff, and what she didn't put away, she picked up, cleaned under, and put back in exactly the same place. God!" She pushed off the bathroom counter that she had leaned against momentarily.
"And she has the gall to tell me I need to grow up." She growled, and Marshall felt the pit in his stomach relieve a bit as she got around to the crux of the situation. "Why is it that every single person in my life thinks that they have an open invitation to tell me how to live my life? Why is everyone in my life so fucking interested in how I conduct my life? My life!" She repeated the phrase, and Marshall started to understand what was wrong. Katie had too much insight into Mary. She understood her too well, and nothing would irritate Mary like having her own emotions placed in the open to be examined without her consent. She hated feeling naked in front of people. She wore her defenses in armored layers, shielding herself from the watchful eye of the outside world.
Mary had grown silent, sullen now as she replayed the argument in head.
"Can you walk me through what happened?" Marshall was still sitting on the edge of the bed, willing himself to stay calm. He knew she needed a gentle nudge before she'd unload the rest.
"Did you clean my room?" Mary accused, anger evident in her voice.
"Just a little." Katie shrugged and glanced up from her homework. "I wanted to do the laundry, so I got yours and it just sort of snowballed from there."
"I didn't say you could go in my room!" Mary's voice was gaining volume as she avoided the actual problem.
"I didn't take anything, geesh." Katie was baiting her, and it annoyed Mary to no end. "Just cool your jets, Mare. I did laundry, and straightened up a little. That's all."
"Stay the hell out of my stuff!" Mary was almost on the verge of yelling now. This had been building for days.
"Everything here is your stuff." Katie pointed out. "We agreed that I'd help out if you let me stay here. I'm just trying to keep up my end of the bargain."
That was the problem, though. Mary had never agreed to this bargain. "Well, just leave it alone." She spat angrily. "Leave me alone."
Katie sighed and watched as her cousin stomped away, flinching as the door slammed. She needed her own place. Mary didn't emerge again for hours, but when she did, she was fit and ready for round two. Katie was still at the table, still studying, and for some reason that irked Mary even more.
"God, don't you ever do anything but study?" She jeered. "You need to get a life outside of school and cleaning my house. Or does domestic labor actually suit you?" It was a cold stab at the work that Katie had done after high school. Mary understood better than anyone why she'd taken the job. Why it suited her in the first place. She knew all the circumstances, and she stabbed at them all with a knife and just kept cutting.
Katie didn't take the bait. She breathed out a slow exhale to study herself and turned to face her red-faced cousin.
"And why the hell are you and Marshall so cozy?" Mary continued her tirade, angry hands pointing accusatorily at Katie. "You're not his type, you know?" It was a low blow. It was wrong. She was wrong. Katie, actually, was exactly Marshall's type, and Mary knew it. They were complementary. They were perfect for each other, with one exception.
"I'm not trying to get into his pants, Mary." Katie finally stood. If she was going to be in this fight, she was going to do it right. Giving up her passive aggressive tactics, she stood facing Mary. "That's your move, if I remember correctly, isn't it? That has you written all over it."
"Be careful." Mary wrenched out through gritted teeth.
"Be careful?" Katie scoffed. "It's a little late for that, don't you think? Careful went out the window a LONG time ago."
"We are not discussing that now."
"What ARE we discussing now?" Katie shouted back, not one bit afraid. She'd argued with Mary enough to know that she had to match her volume for volume, insult for insult if she was going to walk away at all. Show weakness, and she'd be devoured by the depth of Mary's rage. It hadn't always been like this, she remembered.
"Why can't you just leave me alone?" Mary repeated, knowing her words were a flimsy cover for the real problem.
"Right." Katie nodded sarcastically. "Why doesn't everyone just leave Mary alone? Why does everyone insist on annoying her with their simple existence? Wouldn't you just be better off if we all disappeared and left you alone?"
"Well maybe I would!" She seemed to remember her earlier question. "And don't change the subject!" This was silly. This was stupid. She knew it. She was picking a fight with the person she loved best in the world, and it wasn't fair.
"Leave Marshall alone!" She hissed territorially.
"I'm not INTERESTED in MARSHALL!" Katie hissed back, voice low and laced with venom.
"And when exactly are you getting your own place?" Mary plodded in this ridiculous attempt to fight.
"I tried to get a place!" Katie reminded her. "You said you wouldn't let me live there."
"I don't need this." Mary spun on her heel and started to storm away.
"Just run away, why don't you?" Katie pushed. "That's what you do best, isn't it?"
Mary turned back around so quickly that Katie was surprised she didn't give herself whiplash. "You got something to say to me?" She crept closer, using her height to try to intimidate the shorter woman.
It was a tactic that Katie was prepared for, though. She was used to this. Drawing herself up to her full five feet, she stared back evenly. "You think you have some sort of monopoly on pain? You think you're the only one with problems? Well you're not. You went through some shit, Mary, no one's disputing that. But you think that gives you the right to treat everyone in your life like crap, well you're wrong!" She took a step forward, surprised and a little empowered when Mary matched her with a retreating step backward of her own.
"You don't even see it! You can't just let it go. I'm sorry your dad left, Mary. I'm sorry your life is crappy and you're unhappy. I'm sorry you and Raphael broke up! I'm sorry I wasn't here the past couple years, but that was your decision, so don't you dare blame me for it now!" She shook her head and pointed at the taller, angry woman in front of her when Mary opened her mouth to speak.
"I've stood up for you my entire life." Katie continued. "I've defended you. I've tried to be there for you, but you have to meet me halfway. Hell, you just have to meet SOMEONE halfway. Anyone. Pick someone, I don't care who. You're hurting, I can see that. But I can't help if you won't let me in. Let someone in!" She took a breath and continued. "Other people hurt, too, you know? And I know you've had it rough. I know you had to grow up quick and take on responsibilities that you should have never had to do. I'm know it, and I'm sorry. But you need to stop making everyone around you pay for mistakes that aren't theirs!"
Mary sucked in a hurt breath and shut her mouth.
"You think you're alone, but you make sure no one gets close to you. You keep everyone away so you won't get hurt again. You're dad left, Mary." Katie softened her voice. "He left, and it was wrong and terrible. I'm so sorry he hurt you, but there are people that haven't left. There are people that want to love you, but you won't let them." She was whispering now, her anger from only moments ago evaporated. "You can't even see what's right in front of you. And if you can't see that and accept it, then you'll never have it. I get that you're hurting. I get that you think you can't be happy and have good things; that you don't deserve them, but you need to understand something. You CAN be happy. You CAN…"
Mary assumed she was talking about Raph, and pounced, cutting her off angrily. "You don't even know what you're talking about." She shouted vehemently. "You never even met him. And he left me! I didn't break up with him."
"I wasn't talking about Raphael, Mary." Katie shook her head sadly. "I don't care about him. From what I hear, you're better off without him." She realized her mistake instantly, as Mary's face clouded in unrepressed anger.
"From what you hear?" She snarled. "What you hear? What are you two just sitting around discussing who has to pick up the pieces now?"
"I asked him what he thought of Raph, that's all." Katie tried to keep her voice even this time, drained from fighting, and hoping it would all be over soon.
"You had no right! You had no right to talk about Raph with him." She wasn't sure what bothered her more; the fact that Katie and Marshall were talking about her failed relationship or the fact that Katie just suggested that she was better off without it.
"Well I wasn't getting anything from you." Katie was just mad now. She'd uprooted her entire life to come out here, and this was the thanks she got?
"I never asked you to come here!" Mary hollered. "I didn't ask for your help! I didn't…" She trailed off when tears welled up in Katie's eyes.
"Then I'll go." She said, tears hitching her breath as she spoke. "And you won't have to worry about me in your space or in your life again."
"Yeah, whatever." Mary turned and slammed the door to her bedroom. Pushing the heels of her hands to her eyes, she slid down the back of the door, feeling immediately guilty as she heard Katie's quiet sobs. "Fuck!" She shouted, and launched a pair of socks across the room, hitting a vase of flowers she hadn't even known were there. She felt the familiar pang of guilt take up residence in her stomach as she watched the vase teeter and fall. They were lilies. Her favorite. Katie had gotten her favorite flowers and put them in her room. And she'd driven her away. Again. "Fuck." She repeated again, quieter this time. She closed her eyes and slumped against the door. "I've done it this time." She thought to herself wearily. Somewhere in the depths of her mind, she registered the front door closing a few hours later, but she was too deep in her own self pity to pick herself up off the floor and investigate. She'd deal with it later. Or not. Whatever. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
Marshall was pacing now, and it was making Mary skittish.
His mind was trying to wrap itself around what Mary had told him. He had to rearrange the bits to put them in order, since they spilled out of her mouth at random. She and Katie had fought, and it had been ugly. Angry words had been exchanged, and Mary was blaming herself.
"Now's my chance." He thought to himself, internally groaning at the irony. "I'm the sea."
"Tell me what happened after." He urged her softly.
"After what?"
"What happened this morning?"
"She's gone." Mary shrugged like it didn't bother her, but he knew better.
"She moved out?"
"I guess." She threw him a careless glance, knowing it wouldn't work. Marshall could read her like a book. He always had. So had Katie, then, and hadn't that really been the problem? As much as she tried to act like it was nothing, he knew better. He knew that it was killing her, that she feared the angry words they had exchanged would be the last they ever spoke.
"For good?"
"I don't know." She sunk down on the mattress tiredly.
Marshall frowned. He had not anticipated this. "What happened back there?" He frowned at Mary's scrunched up face. "In Jersey. Before." He clarified. "Why did you two stop talking?" Maybe he'd understand better what prompted this argument if he had all the facts.
"Like you don't already know." Mary was still kind of mad at him. He had no right to go behind her back discussing her private life with anyone.
"I don't know." Marshall sat beside her on the bed and stared straight ahead. "She said I'd have to talk to you if I wanted to get the story."
Mary closed her eyes and shook her head. "Of course." She thought to herself. Katie wouldn't betray her confidence. Not to Marshall. Not about this.
"I…uh…" She hesitated. "I slept with her boyfriend." She confessed, head down and voice low. She felt guilty even today.
"Oh." He got it. It all made sense now.
"No." Mary shook her head. "No, you don't get it." She squirmed a little, and settled her gaze on her knees. "He was her first boyfriend. And Katie…she…her life wasn't as great as you'd think. I know she's all happy and sweet, and pretty much the opposite of me in every way, but she's not. Not really. She just deals with her crap differently…better…I don't know." She'd known. She'd known, and she'd done it anyway. "She…he said she wouldn't have sex with him. Like they'd never had sex, and they'd been together a while. And I knew why. I knew why, and I slept with him. And she walked in and found us together. I mean, not in the act, but you know. She knew."
Marshall nodded, brain working furiously to put all the pieces together.
"What really got me was she wasn't even mad." Mary laughed a little. "She wasn't mad at me, and that made me angry. Like she just expected me to betray her like that. She said she understood." Mary stopped talking suddenly, and Marshall wisely kept his tongue.
"I was the reason we weren't speaking." She whispered. Katie's forgiveness had been too much for her to bear. She couldn't look into her eyes without feeling the weight of guilt press on her.
Marshall draped an arm around her shoulders, but she shrugged it off.
"Now she's gone." She choked off, falling back against the mattress so she wouldn't have to see Marshall's pitying eyes. "I drove her away again." Just like I do to everybody, she finished silently in her head, but Marshall heard it anyway. He always did. He just knew when she was wallowing in self-pity.
"Mare." Marshall laid down beside her, mirroring her position, legs dangling off the edge, feet still planted on the floor.
"Now now, please, Marshall." She whispered.
"Sorry, but I need to say this." His voice was steady and even. "You need to hear this." He was finished piecing together the argument and something had caught his attention.
"She was right, you know?" He didn't wait for her to respond. "You do deserve to be happy." He watched to see if she'd respond, but she didn't so he continued.
"Why do you think she moved here?" He questioned carefully.
"Because…I don't know. She likes the university." That was a lie, and she knew it. She knew HE knew it, too, but she didn't want to say why.
"She moved out here, uprooted her life to come out here and make sure you were okay. She was worried that you'd internalize everything and not deal with it." He continued, knowing that Katie's fears had been well-founded. "She moved out here for you." He finished, and watched as Mary's brain churned gears for the point he was obtusely making.
"I didn't ask her to." She said petulantly.
"That was kind of the point, I think." Marshall smiled softly. She hated being coddled.
"But…"
"She loves you, Mary." Marshall cut her off. "She just wants you to be happy." This was a new role for him, patching up near sibling rivalries and arguments. Marshall had long-since realized that Katie was far more of a sister to Mary than Brandi ever was. Brandi occupied a dependent role in Mary's life, while Katie strived to be depended upon. To be seen as an equal.
Mary was silent for a long while, eyes closed and contemplating her partner's words. He stayed beside her, losing track of time as he counted ceiling tiles. Katie had nearly betrayed his feelings to Mary. She hadn't picked up on the slip, but it galled him a little. On the other hand, maybe it would help matters out. Poor kid, he thought to himself. Mary had alluded to something in Katie's past that was less than savory. That explained the look in her eyes sometimes, he concluded. And Mary. He turned his head, and observed her for a moment. She'd fallen asleep, exhausted from her outburst. He smiled, pleased she was finally getting some rest, but amused at the predicament that placed him in now. Sitting up carefully, he spied her room key on the table where she'd thrown it down when she first stormed into his room. After he'd covered her with the blanket as well as he could, he paused, brushing her hair out of her face with feather light fingertips. Mary resisted assistance in all areas of her life, so this blowup with her cousin had been inevitable. Katie probably knew it was inevitable, and came anyway. Her own words echoed thoughts that he had considered voicing on more than one occasion. Maybe it would help. He just hoped it wouldn't hurt more. He left a note on the motel note pad, replaced her room key with his, and closed the door carefully behind him.
A/N: Marshall to the rescue? Maybe not. Stay tuned. It's already in my head, it just takes time to transfer to document form, edit a trillion times, re-edit, then end up with it exactly the way it was the first time. Ahhh. Circles. How comforting. Hugs!