Title: Separate Vacations
Author: vegawriters
Fandom: In Plain Sight
Pairing: Mary/Marshall; mentions of Mary/Faber and Marshall/Michaela
Rating: Mature for language.
Spoilers: Everything. Yes. Everything.
A/N: This is a part of the Patience series but it does make reference to events in This is How the World Ends. You don’t have to have read that one to understand this one.
Disclaimer: David Maples, please come back. Oh, wait. Er. USA owns them. Mary owns Marshall. Marshall is looking for the soul they stole. Faber is owned by crapweasels.

They've given enough to hurt you
with all the things they say
So you put on your armor
And stand in the way
You're wearing the target
That took so long to earn
And your start looking sideways
At every turn
You start looking sideways
At every turn
From Flower Man by Tonic



She is a category five hurricane as she spins through the door, her hair flowing – he notices a loose strand on the elbow of her jacket. She is all talk about Mexico, the trip on which he is not invited, the trip he isn’t sure he wants to be a part of, and his resolve to not stare at her wavers when she pauses at his desk and strokes the top of the paper crane he’d made out of one of the many 2-10’s he’s ruined over the last few weeks.

Four weeks, exactly. Four weeks since the last time she let him into her bed, since she let him touch her. Four weeks since the trip to Chaco when she bared her soul, and then took off running. Running so fast his head still spun. He’d been ready for this. He knew it was coming. He hadn’t expected it to kick him in the gut quite the way it did.

She’d even told him she needed a vacation. Wrapped in his arms, crying, vulnerable and angry at the same time, she’d told him she needed to get out of her head for a while. They both did, he knew.

Now that he has everything he’d ever wanted, he suddenly isn’t sure if it is in fact everything he actually wants. Maybe he’s been chasing the dream, the hope, the sweet vulnerability in her eyes and friend she was when she wasn’t lashing out at the world. The last time she had been this biting, this angry, he’d almost left.

He stares, blankly, at the vacation form in front of him. He’s going to Virginia for two weeks. Mary is not invited. He’s going to visit Dana and confront issues of his own he’s not quite ready to face. Issues he has to face by himself. The parallels are not lost on him and this knowledge bothers him. He hasn’t even told her where he is going and she has not asked.

She’s going to Mexico. He knows that much. There’s a resort she likes, right on the beach; a boyfriend took her there ten years ago or something and she fell in love and it’s her first time back since kicking the boyfriend out.

He tries to not torture himself with images of the men she’ll meet down there. He tries to still his heart. It isn’t his business. She needs her space and they’re on a break and she …

Fuck that. It is his business. It is his business to know that she’s been talking more and more to Faber. He tries, and fails, to not envision the two of them together in a hotel room in Mexico.

Angry, he gets up to pour coffee and ignores her pleas for one of her own. Unable to sit near her, he grabs a stack of reports and steps out into the hot, biting, Albuquerque afternoon. Sitting on the deck with no air conditioning is better than being so close and knowing that some fucking cowboy in Mexico is better for her than he is.

Maybe she deserves Faber – the jackass that smirks BS. Maybe all she’s ever really wanted is to be called “kitten” and have someone not give a shit about her feelings. Maybe Mary is just too broken for anyone to risk their own hearts on and so she is destined for men like Mike Faber who, under normal circumstances, might not be such a bad guy. If you liked that kind of crap.

Fuck that. Mary deserves the sun and the moon and every last star in the sky.

Moments like this, he misses Michaela. He misses her soft hands and her sweet smile and the way she teased him without cutting him down. He misses how gentle she was. Moments like this, he curses a God he no longer believes in. Maybe he’s only enabled Mary. Maybe he’s allowed himself to fall for an idea instead of the real thing.

“Marshall?”

She’s only inches away. He can smell her – that light, easy scent that is a mix of lotions and moisturizers and that tropical conditioner she likes so much. He can smell the leather of her jacket and the lingering scents of lunch. She went for ribs.

Faber likes ribs.

He can’t keep blaming everything on Faber. Faber isn’t the root of their problems.

“Not right now, Mary.”

“Shut up, would you?”

It takes every ounce of patience in him to not snap at her and tell her that it is her turn to shut up. Only a week ago, he opened his heart to her and told her everything she needed to know about the kind of person she deserved to have in her life and how it was time she let herself get messy and she ran. She fucking ran. She actually fled into Stan’s office and created that barrier between them and then later that night, through a text message, told him she was going to Mexico. Alone.

But instead of snapping, he holds perfectly, perfectly still. She sits down in a chair across from him and her fingers tangle in the wire mesh of the table. He wants to yell. But if he starts, he’ll never stop.

So he waits. And she says nothing. Finally, his heart starts beating normally and he looks at her. “You aren’t the only one with lingering issues, Mary. You aren’t the only one who comes riding into camp loaded down with bags that bleed. And if you want to spend your time doing cowboys and pushing me away, that’s fine. But I won’t watch you do it. I won’t. I’ll transfer before I do that.”

“Where would you transfer to?”

Just like that, defensive. Hiding from the real issue. He stares at his hands and the file and answers, without thinking, “Virginia.”

“Your friend. With cancer.”

They pause and he nods, surprised she remembered. “Dana and Fox need help and I’d transfer there in a heartbeat.”

Again. Silence.

“Marshall …” This time her voice is softer, more vulnerable, and when he looks up, she is staring over the wall. “What do you want me to say?”

“Anything that isn’t some compliment hidden behind anger.” He sighs and looks at his hands again. “When you ask me what it’s like to be a pussycat who wears clothes, I know what you are really saying is that you are amazed someone can be sensitive. When you tell me you need to do some cowboy, you’re apologizing for pulling away. But Mary, I can’t live my life like that. I can’t spend the rest of my time on this earth trying to decipher what it is you are trying to say. And I can’t spend the rest of my time in this office, staring across the desks, knowing that I had you and knowing that you weren’t mature enough to work through our issues.” He pauses again and looks down at the file. “Have fun in Mexico. Work out whatever you need to work out. I’m going to Virginia to see Dana. When you get back, I want an answer. You’re right, we got into this too quickly and you need to be alone before you jump into bed with someone else and I went along with it because I’m too in love with you to listen to my head when my heart gets what it wants. So go. Work out your issues. Do your cowboy. And come back either ready to break this off and be mature about it, or to work through the fears you have. I’m through.”

“I’m not Michaela, Marshall. I’m never –“

Her instant, defensive comparison infuriates him. “Don’t ever do that again. If I wanted a replacement for Michaela, I’d have found one. I want you, Mary. You. But you need to figure yourself out. Clear?” Again, silence. He can tell the tears in her voice had made their way to her eyes and were threatening to escape down her cheeks. He wants to hold her, but he is too angry. “I have reports to finish before my vacation starts. You can stay out here if you want, but I’m working now.” He stares at the words on the report, tears swimming in his eyes. If Mary storms inside, he knows, it is over. But she sits there, in frightened silence, and he realizes she is terrified he will leave her. He can’t bring himself to assuage her fears because right now, he isn’t sure if he will or not.

Finally, he looks up at her where she sits, her head bowed, her fingers still tangled in the mesh of the table.

“It’s easier to hit you with my baggage,” she says, shaking her head. “You are the only person I’ve never chased away. Ever.”

“I’m awful close, Mary.” He sighs and reaches over, finally making contact. She flinches and under her leather jacket and windblown hair he sees the seven year old, standing up to the priest, pushing at the man, screaming that God didn’t care, and that he had to get out because God was fake.

“I know.”

“You’re better than this, Mary. So what gives?”

“I don’t know. It’s like …” she sighs and stares up at the sky. Anywhere but at him. “It’s like the script for my life is just royally fucked up.”

“Mary … we write our own scripts.”

“I don’t know if I believe that, Marshall.”

“Do you want to feel like you’re feeling forever?”

“No.”

“Then you have some work to do.” He squeezes her hand and she finally looks at him, streaks of mascara and dried dust left behind by the tears on her cheeks. With little fanfare, he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to her. “Here.”

“Thanks.”

“Call me when you get down there, okay? I need to know you’re safe.”

“I will.”

“Call me whenever, okay? According to Dana, if she isn’t working, she’s sleeping so I’ll have free time.”

“I will.” She stares at the dark streaks on his white handkerchief. “Marshall, did you mean what you said before … about …” She trails off but he makes her say it. “Loving me?”

“Yes, Mary. I did.”

“That’s what scares me about you.”

“Why?”

“Because I just don’t know if I feel the same way you do.”

The words hit him, hard, and he struggles for breath. But all he has asked from her was honesty. She was finally giving it. “Then I think this separate vacation thing is a good idea.”

“Yeah.” She sighs and he has a feeling, a strong feeling, she is going to spend her time in Mexico in the arms of another man.

“Mary …” But he can’t. He can’t tell her to have a good time. He can’t tell her to go ride some cowboy. He was her cowboy. “I’ll talk to you later, okay? I have to get these reports done.” Summoning up the last of his strength, Marshall moves back inside, leaving her alone on the balcony.

She needs solitude more than she needs him right now. He just has to accept that. No matter the outcome.

And he needs to be as mature as he is begging her to be. He can’t force her into something she is unhappy in. Someday, he knows, he will heal. Someday. Somehow, he forces himself to focus on the reports.

It is a long time before Mary comes in from the porch. But when she does, she smiles, wanly, at him and settles at her own desk. They work in comfortable silence until he is ready to leave.

When he stands, she follows him to the elevator and presses her hand to that place on his stomach, that place she so likes to touch. “I’ll call you from Mexico.”

“Just … leave out the details, okay?”

“Fair enough.” She stares at him and he sees the tears barely covering the quiet determination. “Marshall …”

“Sort it out, Mary. Please.”

“I will.”

The elevator doors open and he steps inside, away from her and her touch and toward his need to figure out his own life. Mary cares, at least he knows this. The rest will have to come together later, if it comes together at all. He makes a mental note to check out the witsec office in Virginia. He wants to believe that final look of determination in her eyes, but he needs to plan a softer landing for his heart.

~fin~