missingthekeep | Christmas Eve [for Meredith]

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Christmas Eve [for Meredith]

Sean's so nervous, he thinks he might pass out. He was expecting to be nervous, of course, he was anxious as sin the last time he tried something as insane as this with the last woman to cross his path, but this... this really goes above and beyond. Fortunately, in the years since his last proposal of marriage, he's gotten a hell of a lot better at hiding how nervous he is, so the only outward show of it he allows is some fidgeting with the ring in his jacket pocket. It doesn't help much.

It's a good ring, he thinks. Fancy and pretty without overdoing it. He'll want something a little more personal than what he could scrounge from the Pond woman's stash for the final things, but as an engagement ring, it does nicely. Would that he were so confident about the rest of this, especially when he has every reason to be. This isn't about how lousy everything else in his life is right now, this is about him and Meredith, nothing else. And they're good. They're better than good, occasional hiccups aside. He wants this, she wants this, and they're great, they're solid. How could this possibly be the wrong thing to do, the wrong time to do it?

It isn't, he tells himself for the thirtieth time. Besides, it's already been weeks since she told him she was ready, that she was finally and fully ready to marry him. How much longer does he really have?

Right.

Right.

"Nice night, innit?" he asks with a smile, trying to keep up the charade that he dragged her out to the snow-covered beach for nothing more than a walk on Christmas Eve as long as he's able.

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Meredith finds herself wanting just to go back to where she was, curled up and hidden by the side of the bed where her glass is still on the floor, but when she lets go of him, it's to head back out to the living room and the fire. "That's... probably a good idea," she says. Neither of them are all that steady, after all, though now she's finished falling apart for a little while, she's trying to be.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, Sean bitterly thinks, roughly rubbing at his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket before he tosses it into a corner of the room and follows her back out. He's not actually all that cold anymore beyond a slight tingling in his extremities, but the memory of it is enough for sitting back down in front of the fire, a little closer this time, to come as a relief. "I hate bein' this person."

Meredith huffs out a laugh, catching a little in her throat, and she nods. "I know," she says, "I know." Even when she does better, it fades away, never lasts. Everything good has to be won back again and again and again until it feels like her life's just an uphill battle to be okay. She hates the person she is tonight, too, aching and insecure and so painfully needy, a blow to her own pride. Moving closer, she slips her arms around him, irritated by her own clinginess, but needing a hug anyway. "I know the feeling. But this person or not, I love you."

Any neediness on her part is all too welcome from where Sean's sitting, since it really just saves him the trouble. There's no hesitation as he turns toward her, pulls her against him as much to comfort as to be comforted. "Have trouble seein' why some days," he admits with a frown. "This isnae who I am. Ne'er used ta be, anyway."

She has to wonder sometimes what that means for her, if the person she loves is the one he hates being, if he'd rather be someone she wouldn't even recognize from where she is now. Eyes closing, she settles against him; she'd been ready to let go, play it off, if he needed the space, but now she relaxes, breathes him in. "We change," she says. "Things happen and we change. It doesn't mean it's all for the worse. Doesn't mean you can't change again or that it has to last."

"But I'm nae changin'," Sean says, frustration flaring up again before burning out just as quickly. "Least nae f'r the better. F'r a while back there, it felt like I was, but then everythin' jus' started fallin' apart all o'er again an'..." Maybe it wasn't all nearly as bad this time around, but as tonight has proved, that first breakdown still affects him just as much as it ever did. "It's like I'm movin' backwards."

"I don't know what to do," Meredith says, like a kind of confession, though she winds up saying it to his neck. She doesn't like not knowing, not having a clear path, but she's used to it. Somewhere deep down, she's wondered before if she'll have the same effect when she's gone, but the idea is suddenly much more visceral, less worrying, more frightening. Even now, she isn't much use to him. There's no knowing how long they have before he loses even that. "And don't tell me I don't have to do anything, it doesn't stop me wanting to." She sits up, doesn't let go. If anything, she holds on tighter. "You can move forward again. I know you can."

Edited 2010-12-15 09:54 (UTC)

"How?" Sean asks as he tightens his arm around her in turn. It's not a disagreement, not a rebuttal, it's just an honest question that he doesn't know the answer to. "How d'ye know that?"

Meredith lets go just enough to raise a hand, trace her fingers through his hair. "I am, aren't I?" she says. She doesn't always know, so it's not really a rhetorical question, but most of the time she believes it. Anyway, he never saw her at her worst. "It's different, I know, but I'm moving forward. Trying to. So you can, too."

Sean closes his eyes, the heat of the fire and the touch of her hand lulling him into a sense of security that he has no right to feel. "It is different," he says, just letting his mouth run ahead of his thoughts for the time being. "It's you, ye're different, ye're... stronger. I dinnae ken what I'm doin' anymore."

"I'm not stronger," Meredith says. "You're strong. You just don't see it. I never know what I'm doing." It's what she's always liked about the operating room, somewhere she can rely on intellect and pattern and something learned and still get the rush of instinct, a place where things go right and get put back together. Life isn't really anything like that. "I just make guesses. You keep going or you let go, and letting go doesn't work so well. That's all."

"It's nae strength," Sean says, giving a tiny shake of his head. "Nae lettin' go, that's nae strength, it's jus' stubbornness. Maybe things'd be better if I could. The roads I've traveled, Meredith... sometimes it's worse ta keep goin'."

"I mean like giving up," Meredith says, though that's just her being stubborn, too. "I don't know what makes you think I'm any stronger if that doesn't count. And what else are you supposed to do, just stop? Not take any road?"

"When it's better than the alternatives, why nae?" Sean asks, hating the way that sounds. "It's like I said, though, 'm too stubborn f'r that. I can't nae fight, e'en when it costs me everythin'."

Meredith closes her eyes tight and breathes in deep and lets that go. She won't point out the folly in that right now, because the last thing he needs tonight is for her to let it slip that she thought it was better once, too, just to stop and be done with all of it. Maybe it would make him see sense, but it's not worth it. "It won't cost you everything," she says when she looks at him again. "I'm not going anywhere. You aren't going to lose me. I don't know what else'll happen, but I know that, okay? But you do have to fight."

Edited 2010-12-15 11:19 (UTC)

"It already has once," Sean says, voice dropping almost to a whisper as he bites the inside of his cheek in some attempt to keep himself together. "Cost me everythin', I mean. Ye dinnae have ta worry, though, I've a habit o' nae learnin' from me mistakes."

"It won't happen again," Meredith says, firmer now. She's gotten herself into plenty of trouble before, but she's far enough removed from all that to recognize it's usually her fault (even this year, but she won't tell him that either). "What do you think you're gonna do or not do, huh? What do you think's gonna happen to me? You aren't losing me. But you can't move forward like this."

"I don't know, I don't know," Sean grits out, scowling before his expressions softens a bit and he opens his eyes. He doesn't know how to explain any of this. "I... I dinnae hesitate 'fore I do things, never have. I'm used ta chargin' forward. But I feel like I'm gettin' closer to the fella I was when I first showed up here an' it's... it's puttin' the brakes on me."

As good as Meredith is at making everything about her, she holds back now, bites her tongue and doesn't say I told you so. She's not enough, never enough, not even for him, but she knew that already. She doesn't need to fall apart over it again tonight. "Maybe that's a good thing," she says, a little colder than she means to be, considering that she liked him then, too. She relents a little. "You know what's wrong. You know. So maybe you should try and do something about it, Sean."

"It's nae that simple, Meredith!" Sean shoots back, and while he doesn't mean to, he draws back slightly as he does. "I've tried, ye know I have, I don't know what ta do. An' there is nothin' that's good about it."

Meredith pulls away, hands in her lap and shoulders hunched as she refuses to look away. "I don't know that, actually," she says, doing her best to keep her voice even. No good will come of yelling at him, but it's so tempting sometimes. "You get from day to day and I know sometimes that's hard enough, but you have options, if you weren't too stubborn to use them."

Sean tenses, his hands curling into fists as he slumps down, sulking and staunchly refusing to recognize it as such. "Yeah, well, tonight it feels like more than jus' hard enae," he says in lieu of actually addressing her point.

"So tonight you just get through it," Meredith says, "the best you can. And tomorrow you try." Worn out, she draws her knees up against her and leans against them, watching him like she might still figure out something else to make this right.

"We'll see," Sean replies dully, staring straight ahead into the fire for what feels like an age before cracks and reaches for her again. "Lord, I cannae be pissed off at ye f'r no good reason right now."

"You could be," Meredith says, flippant because she doesn't know what else to do, but she finds she's relieved to let him pull her close again. Tipping her head up, she kisses his cheek, rests her head against his. "You shouldn't be, though, no. I told you I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm trying to help."

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