(Next chapter Feeling inspired. Mary McCormack responded to a tweet of mine, I had sent her a sketch of her as Mary Shannon… She asked me to follow her sister and recruit my friends to do so too, so if you're a twitter user, follow marycmccormack and Bridgetformich Just putting that out there, I love you all for reading! I really love writing Marshall and Mary, please enjoy! Comments are always appreciated!)

Mary opened her eyes, voluntarily for the first time in what seemed like had been forever. The smell of pancakes filled her nostrils, sending her up on her feet. She looked to her right, expecting to find her daughter, but the crib was bare, even of her blankets. Mary found herself sprinting down her hallway, hoping she wouldn't find herself in the Twilight Zone again. She wanted Marshall to be there, she wanted Norah in his arms- she wanted the pancakes whose smell was radiating through her entire house to be on a plate waiting for her to soak them with syrup.

"Why hello there sleepy head, eleven o'clock? You've practically slept the whole day away!" Marshall teased, cradling Norah in his lanky arms, like he had become so familiar doing, letting her slurp at a bottle.

"Doofus!" Mary boomed in disbelief.

"What?" He asked, suddenly fearing he had done something to upset her.

"How did you get her to take the bottle? What did you do? I've tried and tried- Bug? Was it bribery? Did you bribe my daughter?" Mary eyed him suspiciously, her eyes dancing with playfulness.

"It took quite a bit of coaxing, but after a car ride with Uncle Marshall, a few go around's with that pesky bottle there she may never want it straight from the source again the way she's been sucking that down. Here can you take her? I have to go flip our griddle cakes!"

"Sure, griddle cakes? C'mon, you and I both know they are pan cakes-

"But when they are being made on a griddle, they are griddle cakes, and I am in fact using your griddle." He smirked, looking up from his flipping.

Mary looked down at Norah, instead of taking a straight shot at him, she decided to add her daughter into the conversation,

"Oh Bug, what did I get us into? I'm so sorry, you can blame me when you start repeating his Shakespearean rants verbatim." She gently pulled the bottle from her mouth, examining how much she had downed and began to pat gently on her tiny back, kissing her chubby cheeks.

"How many of these do you want Mare?" he asked chewing a piece of griddle cake.

"I don't know Marsh- let's see where breakfast takes us, shall we?"

"Ya know, she prefers it when you position her on her belly in your lap, plus if she spits up it's on your foot, not down your back…"

"Thanks for the tip doofus, but I think I know how to handle burping my kid.." she replied defensively, but Marshall watched her sit to carefully place Norah on her belly.

After Breakfast, Mary scrubbed at a few dishes while Marshall laid Norah down for an afternoon nap. Completely full she began to recollect some memories of right before Norah's birth, pre-coma. Unfortunately, she couldn't seem to piece together what had been real and what had been her dream, yeah it had been bugging her since she had woken up, but she hadn't had the guts to tell anyone what she had truly experienced when she was under.

"Hey Marshall?" she called, rinsing the last dish and placing it to dry on the counter.

"What?" he asked, sitting down on the couch, tucking in the front of his shirt that had slipped from its place.

Before Mary could stop herself, she wasn't asking the question she had thought was on her mind, but the one that had truly been eating away at her,

"Why weren't you there when I woke up?" she blurted.

"Today, in your bedroom?" he asked dumbly.

"No. At the hospital…"

"Oh. I, uhhh….Your mother, she scolded me- when I was lying down with y-you she-

"Go on?" She urged, her heart fluttering in whimsy, so she hadn't imagined the warmth of his body against hers that day.

"She yelled at me, and that's when- Marshall began to stumble over his words the way Mary had never see him do, even with a sucking chest wound he had never been this tongue tied.

"When what?"

"You kinda- I don't know how to explain it, you choked a little, some adverse effect from the drugs you had taken to slow the progression of your labor, and you o-opened your eyes and you looked straight at me-you didn't talk, but th- then you closed your eyes again, and you d-didn't wake up. I didn't know what to do-Mark, he came back around and took my place… I know I promised you I wouldn't leave you, but I couldn't look at you Mare…" he bowed his head, clearly apologetic,

"Hey- she inched closer, "Marshall, look at me; I'm fine…You're here now, that's all that matters…" Mary ran her fingers through Marshall's thick brown locks, appreciating his presence even more now that she made direct contact with him.

"It's not okay. I promised you, I wasn't there, this is like the time you got shot all over again!"

"Oh, jeeeeez, don't be beating yourself up about that still! You know, the next time I go into a coma, after knocking down a bullet or being in labor or whatever, because quite frankly no one can say they have come out of a coma twice, just be there Marshall, please?"

"Well, I'm kinda hoping you don't plan on going into another coma.."

"Fine, then make it up to me by being here when I wake up in the morning, I don't want you spending the rest of your life feeling guilty about what you've done, I want you to spend the rest of your life happy, with me, with Norah. Be here for the rest of the great stuff in my life, in ours lives and I promise you I'll never dwell on the past…"

"Do you really mean that Mare?"

"I have to… Marshall, I had a dream, while I was under, and you were in it…" Mary trailed off, wondering if it had been a mistake to bring it up.

"What kind of dream was it?" he chuckled, his mind wandering to inappropriate places on his partners body.

"A really real dream.." her eyebrows rose and fell with those four words, remembering how happy she had been, and now realizing how happy she was now.

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"I can't- Marshall, I'll just say- it was like almost everything you've already given me…"

Norah's cries pierced the silence between them,

"Wanna go together?"

"What the hell? Okay Daddy Marshall show me how it's done." She joked, lifting herself from the couch,

"Daddy Marshall eh?" he snickered.

"Let that be a lesson to you."

"For what?"

"Calling my daughter Mini-Mare."