Fic: Phases of the Moon (In Plain Sight, 3/7)
Here we go with the next couple of chapters of this story.
Title: Phases of the Moon
Spoilers: Nothing specific, but set during season 3.
Rating: PG-13 for some minor language, violence, and what you might call “thematic elements”, if you were being annoyingly vague.
Characters: Mary, Marshall, Stan, a bit of Charlie, and a few OCs.
Summary: Mary and Marshall continue to deal with the uncanny fallout of Mary's chance encounter.
Author's Note: This story makes reference to my previous crack!fic, “ A Wolf At The Door.” You don't have to read that story in order to understand this one, but it would help a little. This one is much less cracky in mood, though.
Also, continued thanks to both kaffyr and pipisafoat for their expert beta skills!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
~
Chapter 3
8:45pm
Mary drove even more like a bat out of hell than usual as they reached the Motel 6. Marshall could tell that despite his advice, she was barely holding back panic. She spoke to the guy behind the counter as little as possible and didn't wait to see if Marshall was following after she got her room key. In fact, she almost ran to her room, closing and locking the door behind herself. Marshall, who had managed to keep up reasonably well in spite of a lingering dull headache, thought he heard her toss the key across the room and pull the window blinds.
“Mary?” he called through the door.
There was a moment's pause. “Yeah?” She sounded tense and distracted - which made sense, he guessed.
“Do you need anything before-- uh, between now and tomorrow morning?”
Another brief pause. “I, um, I left my overnight bag in the car. You can bring it by and drop it off in front of my door when you get up.” She sniffed. “Thanks.”
“You're welcome,” Marshall replied, his heart squeezing at the vulnerability in that last word. He took a deep breath and headed for his room across the hall. Mary had requested a room with no one on either side of her, which again made a certain amount of sense. Still, Marshall wished there was something more he could do.
He set down his duffel bag in the room and then headed back out for Mary's bag. Without aggravating his injury, Marshall hurried as fast as he could to the car and back. The moon was rising by the time he closed the car door, and by the time he made it back to the hall outside her room and stopped to listen, all seemed to be silent within.
He couldn't resist. “Mary?”
There was no response, except a thin canine whine and what could have been scratching at the door.
Marshall closed his eyes and turned away. This was real. And it was going to take some serious thinking. All he knew now was that he could not leave his partner to deal with this alone.
The night was quiet, as far as Marshall could tell. He had gone to bed after spending a few hours mulling over the situation, developing and discarding several ideas of how best to help Mary. This had included going through the pivotal scenes of every werewolf movie he had ever seen ... although none of the solutions to the problem were particularly useful, as the unlucky werewolf usually ended up dead. Unsurprisingly, this mental exercise hadn't relaxed him much. Based on how often he looked at the clock after he finally put his head to the pillow, he had not gotten much sleep - although he was sure Mary got much less, of course.
It was only after he looked at the clock again at 4:17 that Marshall finally fell into a deeper sleep. The alarm woke him as usual at 6:45, and it took him several seconds to realize why he felt so awful. Then he got up and headed briskly across the hall to Mary's door.
“I've got your overnight bag, Mary,” he called, knocking and setting it down.
There was a faint groan from inside, and then she replied, “'Kay. Leave it there. I'll get it in a minute.”
Marshall did as instructed and finished getting ready to leave. The bag outside Mary's room vanished at some point during this process. When his partner finally emerged a half hour later, said bag in hand, Marshall's eyes widened, although he tried to keep his expression neutral.
“Yeah, I know,” Mary said irritably. “Rough night, okay?”
“I didn't say anything,” he objected.
“You didn't have to.” She stalked off down the hall, and Marshall followed.
Although it was clear by her still damp hair that she had showered, and although she had made some attempts to style her hair, this did not distract from the dark circles under her eyes or the paleness of her skin. Evidently even when she was locked up safely during her night of transformation, the lack of sleep and whatever else she experienced really took it out of her.
Mary started to walk toward the driver's seat, but Marshall stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “I'll take the first shift.”
She regarded him with narrowed eyes. “You know,” she remarked, “you don't exactly look fresh as a daisy, either.”
“No,” Marshall agreed, “but at this juncture, I'm fairly certain we stand less of a chance ending up in a ditch somewhere if I drive.”
“Okay, fine, whatever.”
Within minutes of their entrance onto the interstate, Mary was fast asleep, her head against the window and her mouth slightly open. Marshall smiled faintly. It was good to see her relaxed, even if he knew it wouldn't last long.
~
The Next Day
Marshall glanced up at her from his desk yet again. She still seemed focused on the pile of paperwork in front of her - and she was still ignoring him. It was unnerving. Not only did his partner rarely spend more than two consecutive minutes on paperwork without complaining about it, but more importantly, she had blown off any attempts on his part to bring up the events of the past two nights - other than to ask him sincerely if he was feeling better, before covering with a crack about how that was good, because brain-damaged marshals weren't much in demand.
He hadn't told Stan about any of it, of course. The whole thing was hard enough for Marshall to believe, and he'd come into direct contact with it; Stan would assume his inspector had in fact suffered serious brain damage if he tried to tell him. And Mary would never forgive him if he told their boss without express permission from her, which she would never give.
Finally, Marshall cornered her on their way out for lunch. “So, are you planning to keep ignoring me while we eat? Because if so, I'd like to know in advance so I can go ahead and procure my food at a different establishment.” There was no point in even being at the same table or booth with her if they weren't going to interact.
Mary scoffed, although he caught a brief flash of guilt. “You're free to 'procure your food' elsewhere if you want to - but I'm not ignoring you.”
“That's funny,” he said with heavy sarcasm, “because it sure feels like you're trying to pretend I don't exist. I might as well have stayed home today, for all--”
“Oh, shut it, Marshall!” she interrupted, eyes blazing. “You're not some jilted lover, so stop acting like one.” But before he could even begin to gear up for a full-blown fight, all the fire left her and she stared at the ground, shoulders slumped. “God. I'm sorry. I just ... I just wish I didn't have to keep worrying about this, but at the same time I can't exactly ignore it.”
And so you decided you'd ignore me instead? Marshall thought, but he didn't say it out loud. It was rare enough for Mary to apologize at all. He'd take what he could get. “And you didn't think maybe I would want to help you try to figure out what to do?” he asked.
She looked up at him then, and he could see the desperation in her eyes. “Do you have any ideas?”
Marshall was just opening his mouth to reply with what he'd been considering when she held up her hand.
“Wait, hold on - let's sit down and eat first.”
Despite this apparent enthusiasm for lunch, Marshall was dismayed to see that Mary only picked at her food once it arrived. He swallowed a bite of his sandwich. It might help lift her out of this depression if she heard about some possible solutions. “Okay, you ready to hear some of my ideas?”
Again, there was naked desperation in her eyes for a second before she masked it. “Yeah, go for it,” she replied, pushing a piece of chicken around on her plate. “At this point, I'm willing to try just about anything.”
“All right.” Marshall took a moment to organize his thoughts. “Classically, most remedies for lycanthropy have been suspicious at best, and almost certainly fatal at worst. But,” he continued, before Mary could voice her protest, “other more useful remedies have been suggested more recently. I would propose that we begin with silver.”
Mary stared at him. “Bullets?”
Marshall rolled his eyes. “I thought I had implied rather strongly that we'd be avoiding the almost certainly fatal options.”
“You could've meant you were going to wing me,” Mary muttered, shrugging.
“As much as you incite me not infrequently to high levels of frustration,” Marshall said wryly, “I have never actually wanted to shoot you. Or at least, I would never follow through on any such desires.”
She gave him a wide, fake smile. “Aw, gee, Marshall, you're such a gentleman.”
“I know,” he said, and took another bite of his sandwich. “But no, I wasn't referring to silver bullets. I was referring to ingesting small quantities of silver in your food or drink.”
Mary raised her eyebrows. “And that wouldn't be poisonous - to ordinary, non-werewolf human beings, I mean?”
“Definitely not,” he assured her. “In fact, silver is one of the least risky metals to ingest or come into contact with as far as documented negative side effects, although of course I still wouldn't recommend consumption on a large or long-term scale.”
“Okay.” Mary took a bite of her own meal and chewed it slowly. “So where do we get the silver, then?”
“I've got some I can melt down,” Marshall answered casually. He had several old silver coins that he'd had appraised for their purity and value some years back. They were worth a significant amount, but that was insignificant in this situation. “Then you can decide in what kind of doses and how many you want it delivered.”
Mary nodded. “All right. I'll give it a try.” Then she looked down at her plate and back up at him, before starting to laugh quietly.
“What?” He regarded her in confusion.
“Nothing,” she said, subsiding. “It's just ... we've talked about a lot of different things at lunch over the years, but I think this day's topic of conversation is the weirdest.”
Marshall smiled. “You could be right,” he conceded. “Although there was that time that we talked for a good ten minutes about the Loch Ness Monster.”
“No,” Mary corrected him, drawing out the negative, “I brought it up, and then I regretted it almost immediately because you spent the next fifteen minutes reciting every single possible theory about what the damn thing actually is, and how many different people have seen it, and what evidence exists for whether or not it's real, blah blah blah.”
“Oh, you were interested,” Marshall returned, feigning offense. “Don't try to tell me otherwise.”
“Sure. Uh huh.”
Marshall was thrilled to observe his partner finishing her meal in almost record time. He wasn't going to try to fool himself that everything was settled - it wasn't even a certainty that this remedy would work - but at least Mary didn't have that dispirited air about her anymore.
“So, I'll go by the local silversmith and bring the metal to you ASAP, all right?”
Mary regarded him skeptically. “A silversmith? Really?”
“There is in fact one in Albuquerque,” he informed her. “I'll have it melted down and made into powder, and then get it to you as soon as it's ready.”
She nodded, and after a minute offered him a quiet, “Thanks.”
“You're welcome.” Marshall dusted a few crumbs off his shirt and then hesitated before deciding to say it. “But Mary, I do have to tell you--”
“I know, I know,” she interjected. “This isn't a sure thing. I realize that. But I appreciate the attempt, no matter how it turns out.” She gave him a small smile, and then stood up to head out of the restaurant.
~
The silversmith wondered why Marshall would want his valuable silver coins melted down and then made into fine powder, but when Marshall offered no explanation beyond, “It'll be more useful this way,” he just shrugged and did as he was told.
Marshall slid a Ziploc bag of glittering silver powder across Mary's desk the following Monday. The coins had produced about a tablespoon and a half of powder, which Marshall devoutly hoped would be enough to be effective (assuming this whole plan would be effective at all).
Mary looked pleased, but then she voiced similar worries about the quantity.
“Well,” Marshall said, trying to sound confident, “this is at least enough to make a bullet, so, logically, it ought to be enough to provide a cure.”
“A cure for what?” Stan asked, coming out of his office at that moment.
Mary and Marshall exchanged glances. “Oh, uh, it's just some ground ... ginger,” Marshall improvised hastily. “Mary thought she might be getting a cold, and my grandmother always swore by ginger.”
Stan raised an eyebrow. “Doesn't look very gingery,” he remarked, looking at the powder. “I would've thought it would be brownish or maybe reddish - you know, like ginger hair.”
“Yeah, it's kind of weird,” Marshall agreed smoothly.
“But I figured I'd humor him and try it this once,” Mary added, with a long-suffering look at her partner. “At least then he'll shut up about restorative properties.”
“All right,” Stan said with a shrug. “Let me know if it works, Mary. And stay home if you do get sick. Meanwhile, your new case is arriving in an hour, Marshall. Here's the file.”
After their boss was out of earshot again, Mary shot Marshall an incredulous look. “Ginger?”
“What?” Marshall said. “He bought it, didn't he?”
She just shook her head and muttered something about him being a worse liar than her mother.
Marshall looked at her. “I would appreciate it if you refrained in future from comparing me to Jinx.”
“Fair enough,” Mary said after a moment, with a wince.
The new witness, Katie German - now to be known as Katie Gellar - was sullen and whiny. She had the usual wrong place at the wrong time kind of story, but with the added joy of having to relocate from the high life in NYC to Albuquerque, away from all of her rich, sophisticated, high-class friends. Marshall privately (and Mary not so privately) wondered how long it would be before Katie called him to sob about some completely meaningless, shallow thing she was missing from her old life that just wasn't available here. Her file didn't mention any serious relationships that she was leaving behind, other than an aunt in Albany.
After Katie was finally and discontentedly settled into her apartment, the door closed behind her, Marshall heaved a sigh of relief.
“I can guess what you're thinking right now,” Mary said brightly.
“Oh?” Marshall asked. “And what would that be?”
“You're thinking, 'Golly, she might just be my new favorite witness! I'm so lucky she was assigned to me and not to my partner!'”
“Shut up,” Marshall said, rolling his eyes. “You don't have to rub it in, all right?”
Thankfully, Mary shut up. It wasn't not until they were both back in the SUV and on the way to the office that she spoke again. “So, how do you think I should take the silver powder? I was thinking it should wait until right before the full moon...”
Marshall glanced at her before returning his eyes to the road. “Yeah,” he said slowly, “perhaps spread out over the course of the day before, in your food. Even if it isn't poisonous, I doubt you're going to want to taste it much if possible.”
“You got that right,” she replied. Then she cleared her throat. “I know this is all basically just guessing, and like I said before, that's fine. But, um, what's your next idea, just in case?”
He debated just telling her to wait and see if they'd need it at all - but even though he was sure she wasn't going to like the sound of his next idea, he was also sure that Mary would see it as trying to coddle her if he didn't tell her. “Wolfsbane,” he said.
The stare she gave him was even more skeptical and confused than the one she'd leveled when he had first suggested silver. “Bane? Yeah, that doesn't sound ominous or anything.”
“It is more risky than silver,” Marshall admitted, “since the herb is in fact extremely toxic.” He declined to mention the fact that aconitine, an alkaloid also known as 'the queen of poisons' for its high toxicity and lack of antidote, was derived from this plant. “However, it has also been used medicinally for centuries by the Chinese, so it can be safely ingested if adequate precautions are taken. And as the name suggests, it has been used against lycanthropy in some writings, as well.”
“Well.” Mary blew out her breath. “I can see why that isn't Plan A.”
~