Final chapter…I know, so sad. It took a bit because I realized I never watched all of "Jailbait" and I actually lost what little respect I had for Raph by the end. He's an ass and no amount of good guy doing can change the fact that you don't spit in the face of traditions like that because you can't strap on a fucking pair with your mom. Or maybe that's me. I don't know, but…argh. And how the HELL is it that Mary is the bad guy for telling the truth there and actually displaying respect for cultural traditions? WTF? And that was such a bunch of guilt-tripping bull to shove her father in her face on top of that…bah! Yeah, she's got issues, but there is a time and place for that fight and THAT WASN'T IT! Of course, if he doesn't care about the fact that he essentially guilted her into the proposal…well, whatever floats your boat.
Anyway, yeah, I got side-tracked for a bit so I apologize for my delay and subsequent rant. Anyway…please enjoy the final installment of "Marshall's Guide" and stay tuned for more from me in the future!
Marshall Mann's Guide to Exotic Animals
Everything You Need to Know on How to Keep One
Chapter Seven
Oh Mother, a Triple Tap!
Motherhood is a beautiful thing. Nothing is more wondrous then watching a new mother with her children. The same can be said for a wild animal and their cubs, a surprising gentleness and, dare it be said, vulnerability to their personalities.
What is very much forgotten in that warm glow is the raised viciousness such animals are capable of…all in defense of said children.
Marshall did not breach the subject of children until a year and a half of marriage had flown by, allowing his hellcat ample time to adjust to simply being married to someone. She did not cook for him or do his laundry, or cut him any slack once so ever – he, in fact, did all the laundry and cooking because she'd turned his white shirts pink and utterly destroyed half the kitchen in flames the one time she did.
"Just one?" she asked, somewhat skeptically, because ultimately it was going to burden her far more then it did him. It was the one thing Marshall couldn't do for her and he took it as a sign of luck she hadn't shot him yet for mentioning it.
"It would be nice," he admitted. "I've always wanted a child – at least one to carry on the Mann name. Maybe even the tradition of being a US Marshal if they wanted to."
"You're such a sap," she snorted, but with a smile. "OK. Just for you, doofus."
He eyed the drawer full of condoms from their wedding and post-honeymoon hazing somewhat curious. "What should we do with those then?"
"We'll fill them up with water and washable paint and bring them to the next company picnic for a condom fight," she snickered. "Now why don't we get a head start on this baby-making thing, huh?"
It would figure, Marshall mused, that trying to get pregnant would be a pain in the ass.
Mary was sick a grand total of four times, and after the second false alarm he learned to try not to jump around like a Jack Russell Terrier on speed automatically and wonder is this it? Admittedly, he was still browsing countless baby shops in his spare time instead of playing chess against a 14 year old girl in Kazakhstan, and Stan was starting to give him the stink eye when he kept dawdling for too long, but Marshall figured his witnesses could speak for themselves. They were all healthy, content, and alive, which was the very most they could usually hope for some days.
It was a glaringly sunny day with a radio station having some sort of promotion across the street when he heard the struggle as the disc jockey had his mic rudely ripped from him that the news finally came.
"Hey doofus!" she announced for half of Albuquerque to hear, and he and the rest of the office stepped out onto the balcony curiously to see what the hell Mary Shannon-Mann was up to now when she was supposed to holed up at home sick. "Start thinking of a name!"
It took three of his fellow marshals to keep him from pitching head first over the balcony when his knees gave out on him, but Marshall didn't need a microphone to let Albuquerque know just how giddy that made him.
Marshall Mann was going to be a daddy.
They weren't smiling a month later, in her fourth going-to-fifth month of pregnancy, however.
Disbelieving, unwilling to hear the doctor correctly, Mary stated, "That ain't funny doc." Even Marshall felt a little green, though it was debatable on whether it was due to the news or the fact that Mary looked ready to murder something. "Say that again."
"Triplets, Mrs. Mann," Doc Holiday said with a bemused expression. "You're having triplets."
Despite her protruding stomach, his hellcat could still run damn fast, fast enough to nearly catch him once or twice, damn it screaming profanities at him and a chair from the waiting room raised over her head the entire time.
"I HATE YOU!"
Marshall briefly wondered if the doctors would give him some pain meds, but one look at the harassed doctor made that unlikely. If we must suffer, so will you. So he kept talking, as the nurses suggested, since she didn't seem to calm down at all for anyone else and was continually sounding more and more like a demonically possessed woman.
"Do you know many midwives think screaming actually makes the birthing process a lot worse? Many actually suggest grunting or…"
Mary grabbed his ear, the other clutching his now numb hand, and snarled enough that Marshall felt a tiny bit nervous, "Do I look like I care!?" This followed another scream of "Get it OUT, OUT, OUT!" and a push that he was pretty sure finally crushed the bones in his fingers, and then he heard the wailing echo against the walls like a gunshot to his heart.
"It's a boy! Number one is a boy!" Marshall nearly forgot he had two more coming as he raptly watched the nurses usher him away to clean him up, drawn back only by his she-cats pissed snarl.
"I am shooting your nuts off when I get my Glock back, damn it!" she vowed, and he briefly looked up at where Stan was standing, taping the entire thing for them. Considering she'd been out on leave for half a year now, that boded ill for him.
The second came quickly, another boy who cried so loud even Mary found a small amusement in it. She laughed when the third child – an incredibly tiny little girl that Marshall really did cry over when he saw her – impatiently came out right after him not a second later.
"Two boys and a girl," the doc said with a beaming smile, the nurses gathering around with their bundled up children when they cleaned them up. "How do you feel Mrs. Mann?"
"Marshall?" Her voice was soft, gentle even, and understandably tired…which was the only excuse Marshall could think of giving for not realizing what was coming later. She touched his cheek gently, gave him a bit of a smile to soothe his nerves and say I'm alright, idiot, and just as fast snarled at him and decked him full on in the face before he could even register it. Marshall went ass over elbow onto the floor, Stan gleefully recording it all because he could hear the laughter in the galley, damn them, his nose bleeding and the nurses and doc staring at them both in stunned silence. "If there is ever a next time, doofus, you're birthing them and see if you don't scream!"
Mary never shot his nuts off, though Marshall was positive that she was at least tempted in the weeks following their discharge from the hospital. The eldest they named James, after her father because she DID have a sentimental streak and the other boy Parker because Marshall thought it was a nifty name. Naming their daughter was a little harder, but they finally chose Maya for no other reason then it was the first thing that came into their heads that didn't really suck with the last name 'Mann'.
James screamed. Loud and long whenever he felt unhappy or whenever he damn well felt like it and it actually took five hours that first time before they could figure out how to calm him down. Ironically enough, it was Stan who inadvertently discovered it when he stopped by with baby presents and to give Mary back her service weapon. James took one look at the Glock and squealed. Mary laughed. Stan sighed.
Marshall just hoped he wouldn't grow up and shoot anyone.
Parker was the quietest (and Mary's favorite by default for this reason), never making noise and scaring the hell out of him more then once when it almost seemed like he wasn't breathing. He slept a lot and cooed under attention, though he was also the most curious and was often poking at things he shouldn't. He bumped his head into things constantly once he learned to crawl and was once found trying to shove his finger into an electrical socket.
He had socket plugs in every unused outlet within the hour.
Maya was…different. She cried sometimes, though not nearly as bad as her brother, who she sometimes stared at with a look like he was some foreign alien when he started throwing a fit. She slept in the oddest places, from under the couch with the dust bunnies to against the wall, her legs straight up in the air, and only slept after both her brothers were knocked out at night. She also got this scrunched I'm-gonna-cry look whenever Mary tried putting her to sleep, instead only drifting into her dreams once he told her a story. Mary scowled at him for it. Marshall just grinned.
Mary's temper eased when she finally came back to work full time, the trips left often in the care of his parents (who never minded driving down from Santa Fe nearly every weekend) or with Jinx if Brandi and Peter were available to stay with her. She had a new respect for the single mothers who entered the program, but beyond that he saw nothing unusual. Same, ball busting hellcat he'd always known. Practical. Ruthless. Secretive even more so.
Marshall lived for the other moments though…the ones of watching her play with James and his toy gun that he hugged like a teddy bear at night, or trying to give all three of them a bath at once. She made angry faces while doing it (which Maya laughed at), but she was laughing like a loon with the rest of them and soaked clear through to her underwear.
"They're not so bad…" she admitted one sleepy night when the trips were three months old after setting them down to sleep. "But did you have to get a triple tap all at once? Ever here of pacing yourself, stud?"
"Think of it this way," he chuckled, "Now you won't have to go through labor again. You got it all out of your system in one go."
"I still ought to shoot your nuts off for that," she yawned, stretching like a contented feline. "Fortunately for you, I happen to still like them."
"My nuts thank you," Marshall smirked dryly. "They happen to like you too."
Neither of them actually heard about the baby betting pool at work until Marshall proclaimed like the proud daddy he was when the trips were 10 months, "Maya said 'Dada!'" and Bobby D, who was present, turned to Stan who groaned while slapping a twenty in his hand and said, "Told you she was the smart one!"
They showed them the pool – of which the entire building seemed to be in – with little coercion and Mary promptly slapped a twenty in front of both men with a sound like gunfire and said, "James is going to be the first to walk."
Marshall just shook his head and went to his desk to do his work.
Their personalities became quite apparent by age 5. James was entirely Mary, all full steam ahead and already prone to repeating the profanities they let slip a few rare times. He was a typical boy, pranking his siblings mercilessly. Parker stayed out of it and was more reserved like Marshall had been, preferring quiet introspection and often spending time under his desk – and legs – with books while Marshall worked on the computer in his study. Maya was a curious blend of them both…usually clinging to his leg to read with her or helping him in the kitchen because she liked food as much as he did, at ease with whatever she was doing, and pranking James right back.
James put a bug in her bed.
Maya stuffed a bug into his mouth.
He dropped an ice cube down her back while she was helping make dinner.
She dumped a bucket of ice water over him while he slept.
He flipped her skirt up at the park so all the kids could see her underwear.
She kneed him between the legs so the kids could watch him cry like a girl.
It was this last instance that he and Mary had to sit them down for a stern talking (once Mary stopped laughing like a lunatic and beaming in pride Maya knows where to hit!), though it was apparent to Marshall that it was a rivalry that wasn't about to break. They didn't hit each other anymore at the least, and for that he figured they ought to be grateful since James never got the hint and always instigated it.
Parker, being Parker, kept track of it all on the laptop Marshall gave him for his 7th birthday. He was able to upgrade simple components inside it by his 8th, and a more mental rivalry sprang up between him and his sister who were often found spouting random facts in rapid succession until one of them didn't know anything about the topic – mostly over the dinner table because of tidbits he said about anything.
Mary blamed him for that particular feud every time they started.
They were all smart academically, in their own ways, and followed different after school activities. Parker was a regular Math whiz and worked with technology in true geek-fashion, and James liked History and sports, while Maya liked Science and the martial arts. It was a science project that was the cause of what would later be called 'the defining day'; a cloudy fall afternoon when the trips were 11 yrs old and the gray in his hair was starting to sprout that Marshall found himself and Mary called into school earlier then scheduled by the principal.
He did not ask why James had the beginning of a shiner on his left eye when they arrived or why Parker was clutching a wrecked laptop like his heart was broken or why Maya had a goose egg on the back of her head and a death grip on her chair.
Mary asked all those questions for them.
"What happened?!"
"Please take a seat Mrs. Mann," Principal David Heiman, older and grayer then Marshall recalled him being, said in a calm tone of voice he knew from experience would piss Mary off worse. "You can see why I called you in. It seems the trips instigated a fight in the gymnasium today." He folded his hands in front of him on the old desk peaceably, as if he weren't saying the most ludicrous things either of them had ever heard.
Marshall eyed the laptop in Parker's hands and the goose egg on Maya's head pointedly before speaking. "With all due respect, Principal Heiman, the physical evidence here tells me a different story."
"Oh?" Still calm. Evenly curious tone. "And what might that be?"
Gently, he held up Parker's right hand, mentally wincing right along with him as he bit his lip in pain. It was faint, but the vaguest of bluish tints signaling a bruise were forming. "This would not be the first time Parker had been bullied in this school – a fact we have asked the school to take care of numerous times, might I point out. My son is also attached to his laptop and I'm willing to wager someone picked on him and stepped on it today, given the damage I'm seeing."
Parker just sniffed again but nodded.
He patted his shoulder, letting Mary pick up while he consoled his sensitive child over the loss of his beloved piece of geekdom in a moment only he could truly understand.
"That would of course not settle well with Maya here," Mary mused, sounding reasonable but looking anything but, "who I am sure approached whoever this was and attempted to make them apologize. And knowing my son as I do, he probably told her not to, and she would more then likely turn to demand why not. But bullies don't like people getting between them and their victims. Do they, Marshall?"
"Nope." He grinned. Heiman did not. "Never do. Probably grabbed her arm or something to push her out of their way, yes?"
Mary smiled – a baring of fangs. "That's what I thought too…Because she really is too much like you, doofus, only prettier in pink." He sneered. She ignored him with a grin. "But then, she's a regular Karate Kid too, right? What level? Kyu 4? Whichever is right before brown, at any rate." She waved her hand dismissively. "Not the point, however. I'd bet my paycheck she flipped someone though – whoever grabbed or pushed her, maybe – in self-defense. And bullies never have the balls to travel in anything less then a group of three or four, so I think it's good to guess that's where the goose egg eventually came into play, because even she can not fend off that many boys if out-numbered and trying to defend her brother and herself at the same time. And while my children are pain in my asses, they are quite protective of each other." Mary glanced at James then – eyed his knuckles that were suspiciously red looking. "I suppose you felt you just had to defend her or something at this point."
"They hit her on the head with her project!" he exploded, silenced quickly under his parent's simultaneous looks.
Mary tsked, rubbing Maya's shoulder in a comforting gesture. "After all that hard work you did on it? Christ on crutches, I'd be pissed too. It was like the Taj Mahal of science projects."
"Livid." Maya looked away – glared. "They were going to punch me for trying to live up to my last name."
Marshall felt properly disgusted. "Boys worth anything don't hit girls."
"Well they are trash, daddy…"
Heiman coughed at that point, unpleased by the comment but otherwise maintaining his composed face that he'd had on since they arrived. "Be that as it may, I'm afraid I will have to suspend them all for a month. We simply can not allow such violence in our halls."
Mary did not like this. Marshall knew it even before he saw her hackles raise, bristling like a protective mama cat, but he reached over to place a gentle, calming hand on her leg. "Mary." One word – her name – and her indignant gaze zeroed in on him.
Satisfied he would not have to bail her out of jail for mauling a principal just yet, Marshall focused on Principal Heiman who looked way-too-smug then the situation warranted. "That is fine. They were in a fight, after all." He silenced all three trips with a look before they could argue the point. "I would like to know what the school plans on doing as punishment for the other children, and what are you going to do to prevent this from occurring again?" He made no change in his laid-back position, but the tone in his voice made his words clear enough. Are you going to get off your ass you festering puss-drool and fix the problem?
Marshall could not clearly recall what happened after that, seeing as the principal managed to insinuate they were at fault for having their children exposed to such a violent profession, and no amount of pleading on his part could stop his hell cat from tearing into him a second after it left his mouth. It was all a whirlwind of excitement, and glimpses of the little punks who looked worse then his kids glaring as their parents took them out of the office by their ears.
Mary got a good look at them too as they were escorted out, the trips running ahead to the car, and sneered in pleased feral pleasure. "Damn brats."
Marshall had a slightly different take on things. "Only our children could successfully get kicked out of two schools in less then a year for things that they didn't even start. Bobby's making a killing in the pool." Slightly perturbed, he mused, "You don't suppose we're really raising them wrong, do you?"
Predictably, she smacked him across the back of his head as soon as he said it. "Doofus. They're being raised fine. It's the rest of the world that's fucked up." She pillaged the keys from his jean pockets, grinning. "Now let's go. I'm starving and Maya's ice is melting!"
Motherhood is the LAST step. There really is no more after that and so long as you keep your exotic animal happy, you have a good chance at living a long and exciting life. Because nothing is dull when your beast is by your side, the unspoken knowledge that they'll rip your heart out and feed your dick to the leeches if you ever step out of them drifting in the space between you and that ever visible dark precipice in a silent – and un-needed – warning.
You're MINE, Bitch.
...Several Years Later…
The clear Albuquerque sky was dark and twinkling with stars when the gentle click of their home's front door unlatched, only the soft light of a single lamp next to his chair illuminating the kitchen. "What are you doing up still, dad?"
Marshall smiled; the crow's feet in the corners of his eyes were more pronounced and his hair more gray then brown as he tucked the plain leather-bound journal on his lap. His Marshal's badge and service weapon lay easily on the side-table on his right, watching as his little girl came in from her first away mission as a member of the New Mexico Marshal's Southwest Fugitive Task Force. Her badge sparkled, still new and shiny, against her hip, and he remembered a time his own was just as brand new with fondness.
Which is why he tried not to fuss unduly about her left arm that hung limply in a sling.
"I'm being an old fool," he chuckled. Maya, now 24, a second grade black belt, and natural sharp-shooter, huffed at him but otherwise simply sat on the floor by his leg, just like she would when she was four. "Your brothers, I feel inclined to point out, however, were up right along with me until an hour ago."
"You didn't have to." She tried to sound annoyed – Oh, Mary, she really is like you – but her smile gave her away. "Mom's probably in your room, awake and glaring at a wall."
"She'll understand," he mused. "And I certainly had to. A wolf always worries when his pup goes out on a hunt alone."
"Are you ever going to explain to me where that animal analogy first started? Uncle Bobby laughs whenever I ask him about it."
Marshall looked at his journal – filled with notes and observations he'd had ever since he was fourteen – and considered it. Remembered it all; from his first date to his first meeting with Mary to their wedding and the birth of his children. She was certainly a lot like him and would understand it just as well as Parker, who he'd let see it when he was 16 and just discovering girls, but was also very much like her mother too.
Marshall smiled at the book in his hands slightly.
"Not on your life."
A/N: It's done! Kudos to aullberg for managing to influence me into trips instead of the twins I'd originally thought of. I like them. I may even have them appear in some future fic. And THANK YOU for all the reviews. It broke 100 before the final even came out!
As a teaser like I promised, here's the first few paragraphs from the story I have in progress – my "When Mary first met Marshall" version. Thank you all who read "Marshall's Guide" and I hope you continue reading my stuff and inspiring me in the future.
~SRDempsey~
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The first time he worked with U.S. Marshal Mary Shannon, she shot him.
Marshall Mann, Senior WITSEC Inspector and US Marshal…and all around good guy in a quirky computer nerd kind of way, was very popular among the officials who worked with him daily in the Albuquerque branch. He could tell you the boiling point of mercury or the exact placement of the mole on President George Washington's backside without batting an eyelash, his head a jumble of random facts and tidbits that were both useless but sometimes handy.
It was a month before his birthday when she arrived, all fire and brimstone with a gaze that could petrify on sight and a hand that many suspected would be trigger happy. Stan McQueen, Chief WITSEC Inspector and the Albuquerque branch's unassuming and mild-mannered boss, knew she would be trouble the minute she stepped through the wire gates and saw fit to assign her to his most responsible and subsequently mild-mannered team of inspectors for her probationary month in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, they would rub off on her.
Ten years later, despite the multitude of headaches, Stan would still insist it was the best decision he ever made despite all the stress that made him bald prematurely and the fact that she shot his best marshal by accident on her first day in the field.