A/N: Two in one week! Or close to it. I suppose it is technically Sunday, so being the first day of the week, it may not count. Close enough! Here's another chapter! It's been bright and sunny here in fricking New England, and I've been stuck inside the entire time studying. Boo! So, to reward myself for working hard, I got to write a little more. Shorter chapter this time, sorry. Time is pressing, and this was a good stopping point. More next time, I promise.
A knock on the door startled Marshall from his reverie. He shook his head as he rushed to peep through the window, easing the curtain aside gently with the butt of his Glock and trying to stay out of sight. Lisa, he sighed. He'd told her to stay in the room.
Opening the door, he pulled her inside quickly and tried to shush her as he shut the door quietly.
"I just wanted to check on Katie." She whispered.
He gestured to the sleeping forms on the bed. "Still napping."
Lisa smiled tenderly and turned her face, now refreshed from her own nap, to met his. "I wouldn't have figured her for the type."
Her assessment was a bit of a surprise to Marshall. She'd seemed so oblivious before.
"Well," he murmured and cast a glance at his slumbering partner. "She's not quite what she seems."
"I can see that." Lisa observed as she moved back toward the door. "You'll bring her back when she wakes up?"
"Of course." Marshall walked her back to her room. "And stay inside. Call me if you need, but don't leave the motel room." He shook his head and walked the few steps back to his room. Truthfully, he could use a nap as well, but he knew he'd never be able to fall asleep. His thoughts drifted back as he tried to remember what he'd been thinking about before Lisa interrupted him. Shaking his head, he thought hard. Nothing. The click from the door closing was louder than he'd intended, and when he turned to check on Mary he was met with two blue eyes and a sleepy, slobbery grin. Katie had awakened, and he had to smile back as she swiped at her face with a chubby hand and started squirming. Mary felt the movement, and he watched as she struggled into wakefulness. She smoothed a hand over Katie's hair, kissed her unconsciously, and patted the baby's back while she reentered the land of the living.
Meeting Marshall's eyes, she frowned at him as she sat up. "Wipe the dopey look off your face there, numbnuts."
"What look?" He held his hands up innocently. "I'm just a man. Eating your chips. Doing my job."
"My ass." She muttered, and then groaned. "Great. I need a shower. Kid drooled all over me."
Marshall bit his tongue, but couldn't stop the smile. It was so like Mary. She was never comfortable showing affection around people. He'd be willing to bet money that when he was out picking up lunch that baby had received more kisses than she'd get in the entire next day – and that was saying something. Both Lisa and Ben were very affectionate parents.
"Something to say there?" Mary challenged him, still not putting Katie down, rather shifting her to one hip in a manner that made Marshall's mind wander, images flitting through his brain like movies. Mary. A baby. Their baby. Mary carrying their baby on her hip just like that.
"Hmmm?" He met her eyes distractedly. "Oh. No. Nothing. Just…" He hesitated. "You say you're bad with babies. It doesn't really look like it to me."
"Whatever." She reached an arm out, and he braced for a slap or a half hearted punch, but it never came. Instead of hitting him, she grabbed a diaper from the bag. "Could you bring me those wipes? I think we've got a situation here."
She put Katie down on the towel she'd laid out on the bed earlier in a makeshift changing station, and held out her hand for the wipes.
"Thanks. Now shoo." She waved him off.
"Shoo?"
"Yeah. Shoo. I'm gonna change her diaper." She made a face at him. Could he be that dense?
"I understand that. Why do I have to…" Then he understood. "Okay. I'm shooing."
He turned on the television and kept his eyes on the screen, but he wasn't paying attention. His mind was fully tuned into Mary as she spoke in soft, soothing tones to the cooing baby. She blew kisses and raspberries, and he was fairly certain she'd bent down to plant a gentle kiss on her forehead.
"Okay, can you take her for a second?" Mary's voice carried over the TV and his own internal dialogue. "I need to wash my hands and dispose of this." She held up a dirty diaper and made a disgusted face.
"Sure thing." He swung his long legs off the other bed and scooped up a giggling Katie. "I told Lisa I'd bring her back when she woke up anyway." Truthfully, he didn't want to take her back to her parents. He was enjoying this too much. But the charade was just that: a charade. She wasn't his. Wasn't theirs. Mary wasn't even his. They were friends. Partners. And nothing more.
"Okay." Mary leaned into him for just a second, and Marshall stilled in confusion until she dropped a kiss on Katie's chubby cheek. "Bye, munchkin."
She walked out of the hotel room, leaving a stunned Marshall holding a baby that was only just starting to get fussy. As Katie's fusses edged on full on cries, he grabbed the diaper bag, shoved all her things back in it, and knocked on Ben and Lisa's door.
"I believe this belongs to you." He called over the screaming as Ben reached out to comfort his crying daughter. "She ate, napped, got a clean diaper, and now…" He gestured to the red-faced child screaming bloody murder. "Not sure, but I said I'd bring her back when she woke up." Did he just fail some sort of babysitting exam? Was it poor form to bring back a child to the parents if the kid was competing with that girl from the exorcist for loudest holler?
Mary was gone when he got back to the room, and he could only figure that she'd gone to find a dry shirt. The one Katie had napped on was rather moist, not that he'd ever admit to peeking. She'd been wearing a white shirt, and the drool had made strategic parts of it rather…transparent. The view had been a good one, but Mary would likely kill him for it later.
Half an hour later, Marshall had maps sprawled out over the bed, sipping a soda, and scribbling down what appeared to be the best route for them to take back to Albuquerque. He figured it would be best to stay along main roads to afford them the most opportunities to stop. Although, if he detoured a little, he could make the drive much more scenic, which could be superior in the end. Parks were probably preferable to rest stops, and he wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd spent time in the Pacific northwest. He heard a key insert into the electronic key card mechanism on his door and look up with a smile to greet Mary as she entered his room.
"Good thing you're not naked." She deadpanned as she shoved some maps aside and flopped beside him on the bed smelling freshly of the shower. "How many days is this going to take?" She questioned him when she spied his handwritten itinerary. She liked to razz him about his lack of high-tech saavy when it came to these things. She'd just plug the destination into MapQuest and let it do the work for her, but she knew her partner liked to buddy up with his maps. He seemed to enjoy charting courses and plotting directions. She secretly wondered if he would have been happier as a sailor.
"About thirty hours if we take this route." He traced a line with his index finger. "More if we detour through Denver, less if we go straight through this way."
"Less it is." Mary stated definitively.
"Have you ever travelled with an infant?" He raised his eyebrows at her suspiciously.
"No." She scoffed. "I know better. Have you?"
"Plenty." He had. "I have a passel of nieces and nephews." He reminded her. "I when I lived closer, we'd all go up to Big Bend for a week every summer." Those were simpler times. "You need to stop a lot with kids. They can't handle it."
"How often is 'often'?" She queried.
"Every hour or so." He shrugged.
"For how long?"
"Couple minutes."
She sighed and rolled her eyes in irritation. "Fine. How much time does that add?"
He wondered why she was in such a big hurry to get back to New Mexico. She'd been so excited to leave.
"Couple hours a day, I'd say." He frowned, trying to do the worst case scenario math. "Three or four days, tops."
"Jesus." She muttered to no one in particular.
She rolled over onto her back, moving the atlases onto her stomach as she went so she didn't wrinkle them. She knew how Marshall hated his maps to be folded incorrectly. Once, when they'd first been partnered together, they'd had to drive back from Minnesota. She'd been different then. More brash. More impatient with him. He was taking too long, in her opinion, and she'd grabbed his map and crushed it, wrinkling it in her haste to get the hell out of the boonies. She hadn't missed his pained expression, though, or the tension that immediately burned between them the rest of the drive back. She'd felt so guilty that she'd purchased him another one at the next gas station, contritely delivering it with a mumbled, but very sincere apology. He felt they'd made a sort of breakthrough that day. Mary had actually taken the time to realize that her actions had hurt him somehow. Even though she didn't understand what the big deal was, she'd quickly done what she could to rectify her actions. Since then she was always careful. She never touched his maps. Never wrinkled them. If she had to whip one out, she spent careful time studying the way it folded, the direction of the creases, while she was putting it away. Marshall noticed her care, and it never failed to warm his heart and remind him of that ratty excuse for a gas station and the way she'd blushed when she handed him the replacement map. It was such a small thing, really. A couple of dollars. A token, if even that. But it symbolized the real beginning of their friendship. He still had that map. It was safely tucked away at home in the desk of his study, kept in a manila folder labeled simply "Mary." Whenever he was feeling particularly sour toward her, whenever she was in a fouler mood than usual, he'd get out that map. Trace the crisp edges, and remember her face that day.
He kept all the trinkets she'd given him over the years. Just things, really. Some of it had value, some of it not. Birthday presents. Christmas presents. She'd been superficial the first few years, unsure of where they stood as friends or partners. The past several years had been more elaborate. A copy of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (all three volumes). A rather expensive bottle of Scotch that he'd mentioned liking in passing one afternoon on a long drive. He felt as though he didn't need a gift this year for his birthday. The wedding being called off truly was gift enough in itself, but he was confident that she had something planned. It was never a big show. She wasn't the surprise party kind of girl. She hated the spotlight, and knew he did as well. She was always quiet on his birthday, little things throughout the day. A Danish in the morning with coffee. She'd spring for lunch. After work, he could count on her showing up at his house with an assortment of food from restaurants he knew she'd never visit on her own. They eat, sometimes in silence, sometimes not, then she'd shyly hand him a box or bag – always wrapped neatly. The only time he could truly count on seeing Mary blush was his birthday or Christmas when she handed him his gift, although the past few years she'd blushed when he handed her a gift as well. This year, his Christmas gift had been a signed copy of Dune. Only Mary would have thought to do that for him. She'd tease him, for certain, about his penchant for science fiction and nerdom in general, but she always managed to peg him just right. She knew exactly what he liked, and she held nothing back when it came to giving it to him. These tender moments of Mary were saved and remembered, and they got him through the harder, drought times when she was harder to be around. She cared about him. That much he never doubted. He just wondered how much.
"How're you feeling?" He asked her, making sure he didn't make eye contact. He knew how she hated hovering.
"Better." She admitted, kicking her feet under the pillows and staring at the ceiling.
He just nodded, grateful for an honest answer. She looked better. More relaxed.
Neither one spoke for several minutes while he finished writing up his desired route. Once he was done, and all his things put neatly away did he look directly at her again. She was lost in thought, he could tell. The subject of those thoughts was indiscernible to him, but he figured it wasn't good. Her jaw was clenched, and there was that telltale line beside her eyes that told him she was upset.
"Wanna tell me about it?" He asked quietly as he lay down beside her.
"Not really." Her voice was strained, and he knew she wasn't feeling as well as she'd have him think.
He was quiet for a moment, searching for something to say. Finally, he broke the silence. "Did you get the memo about the course at Quantico?"
"Hmm?" She looked at him questioningly, then remembered. "Oh. Yeah. I got it."
"You going?"
She shrugged in response. She really hadn't put that much thought into it. She hated the Feds, truth be told, and did not relish the thought of spending a week at G-Man Central having some arrogant kid in a cheap suit tell her how to do her job.
"I'm thinking about going." Marshall offered. "It could be interesting."
The edges of her mouth turned up a little. She knew he couldn't resist the opportunity to learn something.
"I'll think about it."
Marshall let it rest, knowing she wasn't in a talking mood right now. If he knew Mary, and he truly did, she'd go if he went. The prospect of spending the week doing the job alone would be enough compulsion to send her across the country with him. He hadn't missed the way her eyes lit up the last time he'd returned from a trip on his own. It could be interesting, he reasoned. But it would be more interesting if she came with him.
"Are you going to eat your sandwich?" He finally asked her.
"Hmm." She considered it briefly. "Go ahead. I'm not that hungry."
"I'll save it for you." He offered. "Or would you rather have something else?" It was unlike Mary to turn down food. The rift between she and Katie must be bothering her more than he'd initially thought.
"No, I'm good." She tried to smile, but didn't have the energy. Maybe it was rain dampening her spirits.
"What do you want for dinner?" He tried again, head turned to study her as they rested side by side on the motel bed.
"Anything good here?" She asked absently.
"There's a good Japanese place downtown." He offered. "They have sushi, but other stuff, too. Authentic."
"Sounds good." She didn't really care.
"Steak?" No response. "Mexican?" Still nothing. "Male stripper?"
"If you want. Sure. And hell, no." She finally answered, her smirk matching his own. "I do listen, you know."
"I never doubted." He assured her, then propped himself up on his elbows to watch as she rose from the bed.
"I'm going to…" She trailed off. "I'll be in my room."
He nodded and watched her leave, calling to her before she shut the door all the way. "Mare."
"Yeah?" She stuck her head back inside.
"If you need anything." He knew he didn't need to finish. The genuine smile she gave him told him she knew. And she appreciated it.
A/N: That's all for now. I hope you enjoyed. If you did, feel free to say so…