DISCLAIMER: They're not mine, I swear.

It looked like the floodgates had opened, he observed quietly. He knew that she'd mentioned something about a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, and it had been completely on a whim - a hunch - that maybe she'd show up at the next one. She bit back a choked sob, her hands clutching at the podium; she hadn't noticed him yet, from where he stood just outside the doorway, watching discretely.

"...He walked out of my life two days before my seventh birthday," she was saying brokenly to the group.

He shut his eyes tightly and pinched the bridge of his nose. At the rate she was going, she wouldn't last much longer in there. She'd returned too shaken from her first encounter to make any charade believable, and suddenly he felt a rush of relief. Yes, he told himself, this was a good idea.

Good idea. The words rolled around in his cluttered mind amidst the trivia he prided himself on. He'd known almost instinctively that Mary had needed someone to catch her this time; had known, actually, that she would need someone to catch her in general, for every time. With all the endeavors she embarked on, she barely paused to assess her own involvement, and the consequences of said interaction. He shook his head slowly as he felt a small smile quirk his lips.

That was Mary; any other way, and he'd be utterly confused. She bordered on rational and compulsive, a combination that interested him to no small degree. But he understood, or had grown to over the years, and he appreciated her for what she was: his partner, confidant, and closest friend.

He'd almost adopted a defensive stance out of habit, but it didn't bother him. The meeting had been winding down since she took the stand, and knowing Mary, she wouldn't have stood until she was sure she had an available escape route. Marshall found himself smirking at that. He definitely spent too much time in her company.

Which, after all, may not have been a bad thing. When she came charging out of the room moments later, her words of undying love still hanging, shimmering, in the air, he was there to cushion her against his chest in a protective embrace. He led her outside and patted her head, brushing her hair behind her ears and smiling, because he knew that this was what he was meant to be: her backup, tried and true.