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"HOW THE HELL DID YOU FALL OFF OF THE ROOF?" Mary screamed as she slammed the door of the hospital room.
He cleared his throat,
"Back in New York, every kid did that in the suburbs, myself more than the rest, cuz I could think up there, I just thought…"
"You just thought you could sit up on your peaked and steep I might add, roof? Instead of helping your, whatever the hell you call her, unpack?" Mary pointed out the door, in the direction Lindsey Shepherd had exited when she entered.
"I just needed time to think Inspector! Jeez, you don't know how stressful this is!"
"What in God's name are you talking about? I don't feel bad for you, usually I would play the 'understanding card', but with you, I find it impossible to even pretend that I do! You don't know what stress is kid!"
"STOP CALLING ME 'KID'! Where's Miss- er- Lindsey?"
"Oh let me guess, she's the only one who 'gets you' who doesn't treat you like a teenager? Is that it?" Mary replied, her tone more condescending than disgusted now.
"You don't get it." He rolled his eyes, turning his head to reveal three or four stitches in his cheekbone, Mary imagined he fell into one of the rose bushes that bordered the house taking a look at the scratches that covered his bare skin.
"No, I totally get it, who hasn't had the hots for one of their teachers? I imagined running away with my seventh grade math teacher on several occasions in class, but I never actually did it!"
"I chose to be with her, because- because I love her!"
"What about college Carl? Where does that come in, you won't last two seconds in the real world without a college degree these days!"
"College can come later, I need to get a job, support her, I need to-
"I hate to break it to you buddy, she will wear the pants in your relationship, she will make more money, therefore she will pay most of the bills, why not get an actual education so maybe one day, if by some miracle this actually lasts you can take care of her? Ya know, maybe put her in a nice nursing home or something?"
"SHUT UP! I LOVE HER! SHE AND I HAVE BEEN TOGETHER FOR THREE YEARS NOW! SHE IS THE WOMAN I WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE TAKING CARE OF!" his face was beat red,
Mary sighed, frustrated and tired, looking at her phone for the time, wanting nothing more than to go home for Norah, and to crawl into bed with Marshall.
"Did someone push you off of that roof?" she changed the subject, trying to get away from the tender topic for the time being.
"Wha? No!" he responded, as if suffering whiplash from the sudden change of emotion.
"Fire a shot at you?"
"No!"
"Then you could have spared me a trip down here, I have better things to do than come argue with a teenager about the difference between love and lust. And let me make one thing perfectly clear, if you wanna stay with Miss. Shepherd or, Lindsey, whatever the hell you call her, you never under any circumstances mention you were sixteen years old when the relationship was initiated. Because if I or any other inspector here about it again, I'll have to arrest her for statutory rape so fast it will make your head spin, got that?"
"Please don't do that, Inspector, she's havin my kid…She can't go to jail, it's my fault she's even in this mess in the first place.."he shook his head, his long hair brushing across his face repeatedly as he repeated the motion.
"What?" Mary's eyes bulged from her skull as her witness divulged yet another secret.
"She told me not to tell, somethin about keepin it a secret till the second semester-
"Trimester" Mary corrected quickly.
"Yeah, whatever, but, she started throwin up in that alley where that dude got capped a couple of days ago, from that motion sickness pregnant chicks get-
"Morning sickness." She corrected again, remembering the knot in her stomach.
"That's not the point, it's my fault, if I hadn't- you know, went and got her all pregnant and stuff she would have never been pukin in that alley, she woulda never seen that dude get murdered…"
Mary sighed, let her head fall, suddenly feeling a tinge of guilt from what she had sadi earlier, but still not much.
"Jesus Christ. I can't believe I'm saying this, but don't blame yourself for that. Fate is sick and twisted; if she hadn't been upchucking from morning sickness she would have been from eating bad chinese or actual motion sickness. It's not your fault Carl."
"Can you just go? Like you said. It was a wasted trip, no one tried to off me or nothing, get back to whatever cops do in their spare time."
"Unfortunately for me, this is where my spare time is usually spent, scolding unruly witnesses for stupid decisions, I'm just gonna talk to Lindsey for a sec and then I'll go, but this isn't the last of me Carl." She threatened as she slammed the door shut.
She met her witness halfway down the hallway, closing the door to the public restroom,
"Hey Mrs. Shepherd, I'm just going to reiterate what I told Carl in there, unless you are in grave danger, or you think someone if after you, my cell is off limits to any non WITSEC related incidents."
"I'm sorry, it won't happen again Mary." She said guiltily.
Mary began to walk away, but turned back around,
"By the way, when were you going to find an appropriate time to mention you were pregnant?"
"How did you know?"
"A little birdy who just so happens to have trouble flying spilled the beans.."
"You know, normal people say 'congratulations'." She smirked, clearly trying to make it less tense.
"Not when you're carrying your student's unborn child, in this situation, that's not how normal people do it. Fifty percent will get the hell away from you, people who say 'hi' to you every day stop when they catch wind of it. The other fifty percent do exactly what I'm about to do."
Mary stepped up really close, her nose practically touching her witnesses,
"I don't approve of this, not in this least bit, that boy in there is throwing away his life, his education for you, if anything as a teacher, I would sure hope that bothers you. But because I know where you're at, and it's my job to protect you, I'll do my best to bite my tongue. I can't promise I'll be able to look you in the eye when all is said and done, but I will promise this. If you hurt that boy in there, or use this kid as a tool in whatever the hell you're trying to pull here, I'll have you out of witness protection and back to New York with just a scribble of a pen, without your baby, where you'll spend an ungodly amount of time in prison, have I made myself clear?"
"Inspector, you are very clear. But let me tell you something. Carl and I love each other, we really do, and I will make sure he is the best man he can be. He doesn't know it yet, but before he fell off of the roof I was looking at the programs they offer around here, he will get an education, he'll just have to have to be a father at the same time."
"Well I certainly hope you have fun convincing him, he's pretty sure a job at McDonald's is gonna support you two. Oh teenagers, well maybe his mom can- oh wait, his mom's halfway across the country. Good luck with that one." Mary walked away, leaving her witness in the middle of the hallway, mouth wide open. She could get in so much trouble for what she just did, but it could also go the other, by some miracle it could all pan out. She had broken her moral codes so many times before in this job, but this was one thing she couldn't bring herself to even pretend to be okay with, because it wasn't okay to her. Maybe Marshall should have taken the case, maybe she should have swallowed her pride when she had heard the phrase 'student teacher relationship' used in her casual "get to know you" conversation when the day began, but like her usual self, she didn't listen to her subconscious screaming "not the best idea right now Mary".
She opened the door to her house, the smell of pizza hitting her in the face; never had she felt the two feelings of hunger and nausea combined before she had gotten pregnant. When you were not acting as a human incubator, you usually only felt one out of the two at a time, just another thing she didn't like about the long process of having a baby.
"Marshall?" she called, taking tiny steps as she gulped in huge breaths of air into her mouth, trying to avoid the smell of anchovies radiating from Marshall's usual half cheese, half nasty tiny fishy, twenty-four cut pizza. How he could ruin a perfectly good pizza by tainting it with undersea life was to her, the question of all questions.
He appeared from the counter, in his boxers and undershirt, chewing on a chunk of anchovy,
"Pizza Mare?" he asked, holding up a slice angled just so, that an anchovy was staring back at her as well.
"Oh, Jesus, Marshall, can you bring that outside? Holy hell.." Mary would have continued, but she had already begun the several yard dash to the bathroom, while Marshall immediately closed the box, and obediently set it in the garage. He then spit his mouthful into a napkin and began to gargle some coke to erase any after whiffs of fish. What had he been thinking? Under any other circumstances she would have been ecstatic to see a large pizza pie sitting on the counter, but he should have thought it through, he knew she wouldn't be arriving home with a smile on her face. Even he would be a little ticked off if his witness had managed to fall off of a roof and because it was Mary, he should have known the feeling would be amplified, and that didn't even count the extra hormones raging around in her system. One of the reasons he had wanted her case was because he knew it would be a high maintenance pair, not that Mary couldn't handle high maintenance, but he knew the couples "situation" would definitely take her for a ride. Marshall credited himself for having enough self-control at the appropriate times, unlike Mary he didn't use the term selectively. Sometimes in the rush to please her he made decisions that were somewhat undesirable ones, sad, but true. Now he would be lucky if she would even talk to him, and he still had to tell her his parents would be there first thing tomorrow morning….