(A/N): Alright, I apologise for the lateness of this chapter, especially to Adelled, who has been helpfully prompting me to continue this story. I'm not on vacation or anything, just busier than I thought I'd be, and I'm pushing myself to update as many unfinished stories as I can, so I have about three or four things I'm writing for simultaneously, along with the other ideas in my head I can't help but write down. Well, type down. Still, this is the best my brain could come up with, a sort of filler chapter I guess, before more action hehe.

I do not own it, no matter how much I wished for it. If I did, Mary/Marshall would have been canon for at least two seasons, if not more. As always, let me know what you think. I will update as soon as I can, I promise.

HeavenSkye x

No Matter What

Chapter 4

Marshall opened the door after double checking to make sure it was safe, seeing only Bobby stood in the corridor, a case of beers and a few bags of Chinese takeout in his hands, having picked up Marshall's order on his way over. Bobby grinned upon seeing the dishevelled Marshal. He narrowed his eyes as he took in the bags sat to the side of the main room. "Shopping?" Bobby asked shrewdly, grinning at the weary look in the other man's eyes. "Damn, I gave up on letting them do that years ago. It just leaves you exhausted."

"Come on in, Bobby." Marshall returned, ignoring the detective's comments as Bobby followed him into the suite, setting his gifts down on the table just as Tommy rushed out of his room, diving on Bobby's back with a wide grin, the happiest that Marshall had ever seen the boy.

"Bobby! Did you bring dinner?" Tommy asked excitedly. Bobby laughed.

"Yeah, I did, now get down before you break my spine, Little Man."

Tommy sighed but jumped off of Bobby's back as Kelly walked out of her room, sniffing the air. "Is the food here?" She asked before her eyes alighted on Bobby and she smiled. "Hey Bobby, any news?"

"Not yet. I'm sorry, Munchkin." Bobby said apologetically, but Kelly simply shook her head.

"It's okay, Bobby. I know you're doing all that you can do." Kelly shrugged. "That's all I'll ever ask of you. Now then, when can I eat?" She asked lightly, making Bobby and Tommy roll their eyes. Marshall frowned.

"Have either of you seen your sister?" He asked the teenagers worriedly. Tommy and Kelly shook their heads.

"Not since earlier." Kelly told him. "She's probably in her room. She'll be out when she's ready; she always is."

Marshall ignored Kelly's reassurance as he moved over to Norah's room. Knocking lightly, he walked in, not sure what he was expecting. Norah looked up from her phone, her expression concerned, and although she hid it well, Marshall also saw a little fear in there, though he hoped it wasn't aimed at him. "Nor, are you okay?" He asked softly, refraining from calling her bug just in case she reacted as she had the day before. He hated that he hadn't been able to watch Norah grow up, and somewhere deep down, he'd also wished to be her father, though obviously he couldn't in the biological sense. Seeing her so grown up made Marshall aware of just how much he'd pushed his best friend away, so much so that she couldn't even tell him she was moving, or that she had two other kids as well as the one he knew about.

"As much as I can be." Norah assured him gently, standing up and leaving her phone on her bed. She paused in the doorway, peering out to make sure they were out of earshot before turning back to Marshall. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Anything, Norah." Marshall promised instantly.

"Do you remember your bachelor party?" Norah asked quietly. Marshall frowned, but nodded.

"Parts of it, sure. Others… not so much. I kind of had a lot to drink that night. Why?" He answered honestly, sensing it was important to the sixteen year old. Norah looked torn before Marshall saw the light in her eyes change, signalling that a decision had been made.

"If I were you, I'd think on it some more. You might surprise yourself. But if you choose to start asking people, do not ask Bobby. He'd shut you down before you could get anywhere." Norah warned him, taking in a deep breath. "I don't like you much, Marshall. It's not really all that personal, but I don't like you for what you've done in regards to my mom. I know that probably will confuse the hell out of you, but that's just the way it is." Norah gave him a brief smile.

"You say you don't like me, but you've not really been uncivil towards me." Marshall pointed out. Norah rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, because my mom would kill me if I was awful to you. She's only ever spoken of you in the highest terms. Sober." She added under her breath, too low for Marshall to really hear, so although he knew she said something, he didn't know what she'd said. "You're still her best friend, even after all these years. We don't have a clue why, neither does Bobby or Uncle Stan, but hey, another mystery of the universe, I guess." She shot him a long look before moving away from the doorway and into the main room, leaving Marshall alone in her room, pondering all that the eldest Shannon child had told him.

…

After they'd eaten, Tommy had dragged Bobby off to talk about something or other, and Norah had gone back to her room, leaving Kelly and Marshall in the main room, sat on either end of the sofa. Kelly was watching a modelling show, and Marshall was trying to not watch it, knowing he hated those shows, but was unwilling to ask Kelly to turn the channel over.

"Kelly, did your mom ever talk about me?" Marshall asked slowly, his head still trying to sort through all that Norah had told him. He'd decided to start with the easiest of the topics. Kelly's head shot up from the TV to stare at him questioningly as she turned the sound down with the remote control.

"Uh, sometimes, why?"

"Oh, it was just something your sister mentioned, that's all." He tried to play it off, but Kelly saw straight through it.

"She doesn't like you." Kelly smirked. "Mom likes you though, so Norah won't be too nasty to you. And yeah, mom does mention you, though not as much anymore."

"Anymore?"

"Uh yeah. When we first moved to New York, mom would mention you all the time, so much that by the time I was three, I could recite most of the things you'd ever done in your life." Kelly grinned at him. "When Tommy turned four, mom started to tone down the stories. We never got why, but we went along with it. Then about three years ago, she stopped altogether, well, kind of."

"Oh?" Marshall knew he was fishing, but the fourteen year old was much more open than her siblings, though he hadn't really spent much time with Tommy, and Norah had been open in her dislike for him. Kelly sent him a look that told him she knew he was fishing, but that it was okay, that she didn't mind it.

"Yeah. She still talks about you and your Nancy Drew when she's drunk with Bobby." Kelly smiled in sympathy when she saw Marshall wince at the nickname. "She has favourite stories then, mostly about you being too high and mighty to come to Norah's brithdays."

"What? She never invited us!"

"Oh she did. She gave the invites to your fiancée or whatever, but you guys never showed. Mom still hates that, though she doesn't blame you as much as she blames the woman, I think she's called Abigail or something."

"Yeah, Abigail. I divorced her three years ago." Marshall told Kelly with a forced smile. "What else does your mom say when she's drunk?"

Kelly shrugged. "I have no idea. Norah sends me and Tommy inside after a while. I remember that mom mentioned someone called Peter once, just in passing about four years ago, but Norah flipped out, told mom to shut up and sent me and Tommy inside earlier than usual. That's the only time I ever saw Norah so frantic, so desperate for mom to shut up. Usually mom's comments have her laughing so hard she can't breathe." Kelly shrugged again, her face turning serious. "Listen, Marshall. I don't know what Norah knows, but I know she sends me and Tommy away to keep us safe, ignorant of things we probably don't want to know."

"Ignorance doesn't equal safety, Kelly. Ignorance can hurt you more."

"I know." Kelly agreed. "But I trust my sister. If Norah thought that ignorance would hurt us, she would tell us the truth. She's only protecting us because she doesn't see any other options. What did she tell you to think about?" She asked knowingly.

"What makes you think that?"

"Norah doesn't really come out and tell you important things. You have to figure them out for yourself. That way, if Nor doesn't come straight out with it, you know it's something really important." Kelly finished with a smile as she scooted up the sofa to sit next to Marshall. "Look, I don't know you well, but I do like you. Are you going home after we get mom back?"

"I… I don't know, Kel. I just don't know."

…

Norah sat curled up on the armchair in Tommy's room, watching silently over her two younger siblings as they slept, Kelly on the bed and Tommy on the floor, the latter trying to be gentlemanly for his sisters' comfort over his own. After Bobby had left and Marshall had cleared up dinner, all three of them had decided to stay in Tommy's room for the night, whilst Marshall slept in his own room. Norah sighed, her eyes seeking out the outlines proving her siblings were still in the room, the dim light not very beneficial, but Norah refused to turn any of the lights on in case it woke them.

She hated all that she was keeping from them. Kelly knew that Mary was in actuality her aunt and that Mary had adopted Kelly just before her second birthday, but Kelly didn't know the identity of her actual mother or her father either, and when Mary had discovered that Norah knew, she had made her daughter promise to keep it a secret unless she really had to reveal it, if there were no other options.

Norah wiped furiously at her eyes, refusing to let the tears welling there fall. She protected Kelly and Tommy at all costs, and she would continue to do so forever if she had to. That was the only reason she was still awake. Mary had told all three of her children to listen to their guts, as it wouldn't lead them far wrong, and Norah's gut was telling her that she needed to stay awake, to protect her brother and sister.

Tightening her grip on her phone, she dimmed the light and unlocked it, staring absently at the background, a picture of Mary, Norah, Kelly and Tommy pulling faces at the camera before clicking on the messages and pressing the most recent one. She'd received it earlier that day, just after they'd come back from the mall, but she hadn't really decided what to do about it until now. It was from an unknown, blocked number.

Bring your mom's old cell phone and black memory box to Central Park at dawn, or something may just happen to them. Do not inform the police or face the same consequences.

Under that message was a photo taken at the mall of Marshall leading the way into the music store with Kelly and Tommy running behind him and laughing. Norah bit her lip in thought before quietly sliding off the chair. There were only three hours until dawn and it was going to be difficult getting back into the city this late, but she had to try, if only for her mother's sake.

…

Norah pulled out of the gas station in a beat up pickup truck, abruptly thankful that Mary had taught her how to hotwire cars since the girl had been six years old. She driven Betsy's old car for about ten miles before swapping it to a motorbike for about an hour before she'd then commandeered the truck she was in as she pulled back onto the freeway. She knew that she should have told Marshall where she was going, but whoever had took her mother had probably assumed that Marshall was a cop, and she couldn't put Mary in danger like that. She just prayed that her plan would work out.

Her phone lay on the passenger seat, the blank screen making her oddly paranoid, as though she was being watched, though she knew it wasn't true. Well, logically, she knew it wasn't true, but the logical side of her brain wasn't very loud at the ridiculous hour she was driving back into the city at.

She drove the old truck to a couple of blocks from her house, hopping out of the cab and grabbing her phone before taking off at a run over the back of people's fences and through their back gardens until she reached her own back garden. Instead of trying the door, she pulled herself up the drainpipe and swung herself across to sit on the window ledge of Tommy's room. From there she managed to edge herself across two more window ledges until she reached one that looked into her own room. She yanked the frame up and in at a certain angel she'd figured out when she was ten. Feeling it give, she opened her window and slid inside.

She checked her phone, frowning a little at the demands the unknown person had made. Everyone knew that Mary kept her old cell phone in her top drawer beside her bed, but Norah wasn't sure where her memory box was, though she assumed it was still in Mary's room. Swiftly making her way through her room, she opened the door and flew down the corridor to her mother's room, opening the door slowly. She wasn't supposed to be there, after all.

Immediately heading for the nightstand on Mary's side of the king sized bed, she reached inside and pulled out the blackberry her mother used to have practically permanently attached to her hand. Mary had always told her that her cell phone had been her most important weapon, after her gun, of course.

A spark of inspiration had Norah rushing to the opposite side of the room. Pushing aside a few work blouses, she uncovered Mary's safe, something which they'd been informed they shouldn't go in, despite them all knowing the combination. Typing in the number, Norah opened the safe and pulled out a small handgun. Checking to make sure it was fully loaded, she shoved it into the back of her jeans.

Before she could close the safe however, she spotted a box at the very back. Reaching inside, she pulled out the black box, recognising it instantly. Taking that too, she closed up the safe and put everything else back in place before moving silently back to her own room. She just hoped her actions would be enough to save her mother.

TBC