Sean Cassidy

Mail for Sean Cassidy. Make it count.

Deep breaths, now, boyo. Easy does it.

Sean takes the steps up to Meredith's apartment two at a time, his heart in his throat. It's not that he's nervous, exactly, as this is far from the most unnerving thing he's done today, but he really doesn't want to be doing it. He's turned it over every which way in his head and he just doesn't see how it can be anything but the right thing to do, but it still somehow feels like a mistake. That doesn't make any sense, though. He can practically still hear the sirens tailing him, for Christ's sake, and alright, maybe that will prove to be a mistake in time, but this? Pulling away from Meredith for her own good? It's just a natural consequence of things.

Now if only all of his perfectly reasoned justifications made him feel less miserable about it.

Sighing as he gets to her door, he musters up all the nerve he has (which is quite a lot, as it happens) and knocks, going over all of his rehearsed lines in his head one last time.

"Another day, another dollar, luv?" Sean asks, looking up from his book, some hardcover monstrosity that he's been making only minimal headway on, to watch Meredith as she comes through the door, Doc kicking up the usual fuss at her arrival. For the last few days, he's been making it a point to make sure he's always around when she gets out of the clinic, even going to so far as to subtly rearrange his schedule or stay up at odd hours whenever he can to accommodate it. It's not that he doesn't trust her to handle herself, of course, but with Lexie's disappearance still so fresh, he figures that it can't hurt to at least avail himself as much as he can in case she needs the extra bit of support.

So far, however, it seems to be a wasted effort, with Meredith going about her week as usual aside from the slightly increased workload left by another doctor's absence. Knowing her, he's not sure why he expected anything different, but in the end, it doesn't really change his approach any.

"Ye doin' all right?"

This is crazy. Sean's done quite a few mad, impulsive things in his life, but this... well, maybe it isn't quite the craziest, but it's definitely up there. Still, it has to be telling that, amidst the slight creeping panic that he's steadfastly pushing on through, he hasn't yet felt a shred of doubt about this being exactly the right thing to do, the perfect way for them to finally go about the whole messy business of getting married.

He's getting married. Again. The big day came and he didn't even realize it. No more affairs to get in order, no more planning, it's just going to happen. What more can a man ask for?

Well, alright, there are a couple of small things left to do, but taking care of one of them is the reason he's out in the jungle right now, so it hardly counts. It should probably concern him that Wolverine is the person who immediately came to mind when he needed to come up with a witness to be his entire side of the wedding party, but he's getting married in less than an hour. He's got far better things to worry about than his lack of a social circle.

"Logan!" he barks as soon as he's within shouting range. "Ye busy?"

There's the alternative.

Her words follow him like a shadow, settling into his skin so he can't shake them, stifling his anger until all he's left with is a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

There's the alternative.

She took her ring off. All they've been through, all they've done, and this is what might end them? All those tragedies just couldn't compare to a bit of drinking? It's ridiculous, and infuriating, and he hasn't the slightest idea what to do to even begin to fix things. This one isn't on him.

He has to go back to her. That much is obvious. But to what end? They'll just pick up right where they left off, an eventuality that he ducked out specifically to avoid. He'll give it some time, then, let her dwell on what she's done while he does the same. They'll survive this. They have to. He considers heading out to grab a drink, even gets his flask topped up for the evening, but Meredith's rantings have soured him on the idea for the time being, no matter how desperately he needs one.

There's the alternative.

That's when it occurs to him: if she thinks his drinking is such a terrible problem, worthy of jeopardizing their happiness (or whatever it is that they've had lately) over, then he'll just prove to her that it isn't. Simple as that. He'll sober up properly -- which shouldn't take too long, since he hasn't even gotten a real start on things today -- and then they can discuss things like rational adults. Problem solved.

There's the alternative.

He doesn't even make it a day.

He's mostly alright until night falls, at which point the pain behind his eyes becomes nigh-unbearable. He retires to his old hut on instinct, though stripped and bare as it is, it's hardly a decent accommodation. Where else is he supposed to go, though? Really, he's just lucky that someone else hasn't taken up residence. Between the headache and the cut on his back keeping him stuck on his side and his stomach, it's damn near impossible to sleep, but somehow he manages to lose consciousness long after midnight only to be woken up scant hours later, sweating and needing to retch as the sun comes up. Considering he hasn't eaten anything in days, this proves to be a particularly painful prospect, and he goes for his flask without thinking about it, just another instinct.

He can't decide if the few decent hours of sleep it earns him are worth the way he wakes up in the afternoon, hating himself.

There's the alternative.

That second night, he makes up his mind. It was absolutely worth it. He'd accomplished so much that day, getting out and showering, putting some actual food in him, but his pointed decision not to get himself a refill proves to be a mistake as he spends the night tossing in an absurdly uncomfortable bed, at once sweating and entirely unable to shake the chill that grips him. But hey, at least there are no blankets, so it's not as if he has to make a decision on the matter. None of his bruises or cuts seem to be healing properly, and he aches worse than he did back when he'd been in Rapture, right in the thick of it. He's still awake when the sun rises on another day spent cursing his own stubbornness, ending yet another night too many spent alone. He wants so badly to give up, to go back to her and try to pretend none of this happened, but after the things she said, the way she treated him, it's just not an option.

There's the alternative.

It's just the world's worst hangover. That's what he tells himself over and over as he forces himself out and about, carefully keeping track of the time to avoid Meredith as he forces himself to head back out into that impossibly bright sun to choke down more food that he likely won't taste until the second time around. He spent a full week down in that hellhole, drinking far more than even he would be able to justify under normal conditions and putting God knows what sort of insane chemicals into his body just to stay alive, this sort of thing is to be expected. He can't live like this, but he doesn't have to, he just needs to ride it out so he can prove some ridiculous point that he barely remembers, and that will be that. Really, it doesn't even have anything to do with his previous situation, which somehow proves to him that Meredith is even more in the wrong about all this.

Soon she'll be able to see so for herself.

All that's left to do is pray that it makes a difference.

There's the alternative.

He's still trying to fall asleep, sweat pouring off of him worse than ever, when he hears Meredith's voice. He's lost all track of how many days it's been in his stupor, and he's convinced that it's the first time in weeks that he's heard her, so thrown that he doesn't even register what it is that she says. Then he's coming to his senses, remembering just how he alone he truly is, and writing the sound off as nothing more than the scraps of some mad dream as he was finally slipping into blessed unconsciousness.

Hers isn't the only voice he hears that night, but it's the only one he remembers, and when he sets out again in the morning, he makes a vow that he's not coming back again.

There's the alternative.

Finally, finally, he seems to find himself capable of functioning like a normal human being once more. He still feels as if he's got one foot in the grave, but his breakfast seems inclined to stay where he puts it this time around, and he even finds enough patience in him to wrestle a new outfit out of the clothes box. Time to go home, then. If he still has one. After days of essentially having walked out on her (no matter how justified in it he continues to feel), he has no idea how welcome he'll be. How welcome he deserves to be. But hey, at least he'll have made his bloody point.

There's the alternative.

Time to see how intent she is on sticking with it, he thinks, eager to finally replace the endless echoes of her words in his head with the real thing as he maneuvers his way around Doc (at least someone's definitely happy to see him) to knock on his own front door.

When Sean doesn't wake up to the sound of the alarm, he assumes that he's just too early. The light in the room begs to differ, though, and while he likely wouldn't be able to get back to sleep either way, he forces himself to begin the tedious process of waking up. That in and of itself is something odd, since it isn't usually a process as such for him, and he has to fight an uncharacteristic sluggishness in his limbs as he stirs under the sheets.

It takes a moment for the truth to come to him, in bits and pieces at first and then all the rest at once, but as soon as he clues in, once he places what it is that feels so strange yet familiar about everything, he pushes himself to sit up in one fast motion. His head swims in protest to the sudden rush, but he's not so foggy that he doesn't know exactly where he is, where he never thought he'd have to wake up again.

"No," he says, his voice hard and flat as he staunchly refuses to believe what's happened for as long as he's able.

The second time that Sean sets out at the crack of dawn, it's with considerably more determination and with a far different attitude. The days since his breakdown certainly haven't been easy, but every day the pain grows a little duller, seems a little further away. He'll always miss Maeve fiercely, always regret so much about what happened to her, but he's got other things to live for now, and that's not anything he should feel guilty about. She took a piece of him with her when she died, but he's always been able to stand as his own man, and he's kept a piece of her with him, as well. He'll get by.

More important than his pain abating with the days, perhaps, is the fact that the days continue to pass with a stunning regularity. They rapidly turn into weeks, with Sean and Meredith still solidly back in the real world, not a beach or palm tree in sight. It's too good to be true, but even a healthy dose of skepticism can only go so far when a man's every sense other than his gut is telling him something's real. So when the day finally comes that he can no longer treat this as a mere temporary reprieve, he becomes a man on a mission. If this is real (even now, even as he commits himself to the idea, the almighty if remains important), the time to continue shirking his responsibilities has passed.

He doesn't like the idea of leaving Meredith alone while he runs off (all in the name of duty, as always, boyo), but taking her along with him as he tracks down his errant cousin just isn't an option. He needs to be smart about this, efficient and safe, and these aren't traits that he tends to possess when Meredith's involved. Besides, he's pretty sure that she likes it even less, so he can't complain. Instead, he just promises to return within the week and prays that she'll be safe on her own in the meantime. Anything can happen, and it usually does, but treating her like a china doll to be coddled and fussed over is no way to begin their life together. He has to trust that she can take care of herself, no matter how much the act of leaving hits way too close to issues he's still working his way through.

He finds Tom on his very first night out, tucked snugly away in one of his nicer hidey holes, a drab but spacious apartment in Galway, no doubt funded through all manner of dark dealings. There's a fight, of course, but it's mostly just a formality. Tom never questions how Sean found out about Terry, and he never bothers to pretend that he has any real claim to be raising her. Hell, maybe it's for her safety that the other man never goes all out in taking Sean to task for coming to take her away. Maybe he really does care for her. It doesn't matter. He's come to take his daughter home, to wipe all the crime and the alcohol and the hurt clean from her life before she even has to go through it all. There are complexities and tricky questions about the child in his arms and the woman he once knew who'll never exist now that he'll have to address eventually, but for the first time in either of their lives, he knows that he's doing what's right with regards to Theresa. Tom doesn't enter into it. Their mutual hatred was well-earned on both sides, and it's far too late to do anything about that.

He's back before even three days elapse, most of it due to his taking the roads a lot slower once he's no longer traveling alone. That's one promise kept. A good start, he thinks as he arrives home and heads inside with a small, squalling bundle in his arms. Now comes the hard part: everything else.

Another day down without waking up in the expected place, yet another spent traveling, and as nice as their time in London was, Sean's really not sure what to make of all this anymore, which is making him nervous. Never would he have imagined that upon finally coming back to his family's home for the first time since losing Maeve, he'd have bigger concerns on his mind than that, but as he sits behind the wheel of the small off-road vehicle with Cassidy Keep looming in the distance, the implications of his return are only a small portion of what's got him so edgy. Most of his attention is focused firmly on not thinking about the one thing that's been taboo since this all started: the quiet, increasingly difficult to ignore thought that maybe this is it. Maybe there won't be any waking up elsewhere for them this time, maybe, for one reason or another, they succeeded in getting out together.

But he's not thinking like that. He can't. It would just be setting himself for disappointment, and there's already more than enough of that in his life. He's not stupid.

But it's been almost a week now.

"Almost there," he says to Meredith, deceptively light, although he has to speak up over the rattling of the vehicle as they move over increasingly bumpy terrain.