Project Shady

Break in

Marshall's reaction to Clara's request was not what she had expected in the slightest. There had been a long silent pause, which was completely broken as Marshall doubled over with laughter. The pure shock on Clara's face was something that could only be witnessed in person. She stood her eyes wide and confusion etched over her face as Marshall let over with his hand on the door frame as he tried to stifle his laughter, however, it continued to bubble up the second after he stopped.

"When you're done, would you kindly tell me what the fuck is so funny?" Marshall held up a hand to stop her from talking, which was also signal that he was going to answer once he stopped laughing. Clara waited her arms crossed and her feet tapping against the carpet of Marshall's living room, she even started looking over at the clock, watching the seconds ticked by waiting for him to finally stop laughing.

"You can't be serious about the whole this is never happening again thing because you literally said it wasn't going to happen last night and well the fact you didn't sleep in the guest room speaks for itself don't ya think," Marshall pointed out. He was now stood up straight, his eyes clearly searching her face for any signs of a reaction. However, Clara was cool and spoke clearly towards him.

"Well I am this time, so you can shut it with the laughing and maybe drive me home once I'm dressed," Clara then shoved past him, this time he didn't move to stop her. Instead, he let her grab a few things out of her suitcase that had remained in the hall from the night before and watched as she stomped up the stairs.

"Marshall why did you lock the guest bedroom? where the fuck am I supposed to get changed?" Marshall grinned, that was the reaction he had been waiting for, "Oi answer me," he jumped slightly at the harshness in her tone before he ran up the stairs to break the news that she'd just have to get changed in his room.

°°°

Marshall let out a puff of air, he was far from out of breath. He'd carried the heaviest of Clara's suitcase up three flights of stairs to her apartment. He thought of it as a way of saying sorry for what he'd said earlier, even though he had no idea what he was exactly sorry for, he had really just been stating facts, since Clara did sleep with him even though clearly said nothing was going to happen. All he'd done was simply say that whatever she said regarding the issue wasn't going to be true. In a sense, he was taking her advice into consideration because he hadn't forgotten what she'd said about the fact that he needed to chose what to believe when it came to what she told him.

"Hello, earth to Marshall you gonna move so I can unlock the door?" Marshall jumped out of his thoughts and moved to the side to allow Clara to pass him. The sudden pause she made before going towards the door confused him.

"What's..." Clara cut him off with a shush and a wave of her hand telling him to be quiet.

Clara took in a deep breath and placed her ear against the door lightly, making sure not to push it nor accidentally scratch her nails against it. The slightest movement could alert whoever was on the other side because she could quite clearly hear the shuffle of feet and rumblings of voices. Unfortunately, she couldn't work out if they were male or female or most importantly what they were saying. She inched slowly away from the door and grabbed the nearest body part that belonged to Marshall, which was his arm and pushed him backwards at the same time she walked backwards.

"What's happening? What are we going to do?" He whispered even he wasn't stupid enough to have not figured out that someone had quite clearly broken into her apartment.

"We aren't going to do anything, you are going to go back downstairs and find out from the doorman if anyone walked in that he knows doesn't live in these flats," Clara explained turning around to face him her hand still firmly resting against his arm.

"What are you gonna do," he whispered looking down at her. She didn't usually show how she was feeling, but it was pretty obvious she was nervous because he eyes were slightly brighter in colour and the way she gripped his arm wasn't lose, in fact, he felt that if she held on for much longer then he'd have a red mark.

"I'm going do something either extremely clever or extremely stupid. You just gotta trust that I'm going to be ok," for some reason part of Marshall felt that he should do exactly what she said and let her do her own thing. Another part of him didn't want to leave her alone because whoever was in her apartment didn't seem to be the usual robbers because well they seemed to have been in there for a rather long time.

"Ok, but any sign of trouble you yell ok, I got big ears I'll hear," Clara couldn't help but laugh as he slipped out of his grip and back down the stairs.

Clara knew he'd be as quick as humanly possible meaning she had to be quick too. Her first task was to unzip the smaller of her two suitcases and retrieve her gun out of it. That part of her plan was fairly struggling forward and didn't her long at all. Once she had her gun in her hand so laid flat against the wall on the left of the door, since it was slightly ajar she could peek into the room slightly. She could still hear the voices, this time a lot clearer because she was sure that they belonged to two men. Taking a deep breath she knew the only way to find out was to go through the door and soon because there was no way Marshall would take more than five minutes to locate the doorman ask him a couple of question. So with her gun poised in both her hands she nudged the door open slowly willing it not to make a sound. When the gap was big enough to allow her to shimmy inside without being noticed straight away she started to count down from three.

"Three, Two, One..."