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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"Maybe so," Meredith says. The memory of what he told her is still chilling, she can't pretend otherwise. Leaning her head against his shoulder, she reaches for his hand. "But I still would. I couldn't just give you up. Would you do the same thing now?"

"I know ye would. An' I, I don't know," Sean replies as he threads his fingers through hers, even if that second part isn't quite the truth. "I jus'... had so much hate in me, so much hurt, an' it needed someplace to go. She jus'... couldnae understand it. I think that was the worst part."

Meredith barely gets it herself, still doesn't quite have all the pieces, can't conceive of actually wanting to kill someone. She doesn't want to understand, but she tries anyway. "It wouldn't make it better," she says. "Going through with it. Everything still would've been the same. And she wouldn't have just... understood at the last second. It wouldn't have made anything better. Would it?"

"No," Sean agrees, bowing his head, and as obvious an answer as it is, some part of him still rebels against it. Rationally, he knows he was wrong, but there's nothing rational about hatred. "An' there, there would've been no comin' back from that. F'r me as much as f'r her."

"But it didn't happen," Meredith says. "And maybe that's only because you turned up here or maybe you would have picked it, but either way, it didn't happen. You're here and you didn't do it." He came here and found her instead. That has to mean something, count for something. "You can come back, you did. You will. You shouldn't punish yourself for something you didn't do."

"I would've done it," Sean says, his cheeks burning with something like shame, if shame didn't make it all sound so bloody trivial. He's far enough removed from the event now to be able to say it with certainty, though. "I would've regretted it, but I would've done it. That's nae bad enae?"

"It is," Meredith says, quiet but unwilling to lie. Pretending isn't going to help, although the effort of being both calm and honest makes it easier to ignore the way his actually saying it makes her feel like the floor's dropped out from under her. "It's awful, it's... I don't know what to say it is, I don't know a word for it. But what can you do about it now?"

"Regret it anyway?" Sean asks, darkly wry even though there's nothing funny about it.

"Other than that," Meredith says, brow raising a little, and then she sighs. "Because if you really wanna do better, if you really wanna move forward... I mean, you don't have to let go of everything, I don't think that's even possible, but you can't let it all hold you down forever."

"I know," Sean sighs, biting his lip. "I know, I'm jus'... in a mood." The problem with her viewpoint lies in the way that the chains around him just keep binding themselves tighter whenever he does try to move forward, but that's not anything he can share with her right now, not after tonight.

"Could ye still love me? If I'd gone through with it?"

Meredith considers that, glancing down at the floor, shaking her head slowly. She's hardly sure what she'll do a day from now, let alone what she might have done two years ago. "I don't know," she says, looking up, still struggling to reason it out even as she speaks. "The man you were when you got here, the one who would have done it, who almost did? I really liked him, too. I think it would have been harder. If you'd done it, if I'd always known... I would have had a lot of trouble with that. But you're you. And I can't imagine not loving you."

Whether it's true or not doesn't really matter. What matters is how it sounds to Sean's ears and that he knows she believes it entirely. In that respect, it counts for a lot, it's the world. Since there's no possible reply good enough for something like that, he just kisses her, a small, shaky, but wholly felt smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. "He really liked ye a lot, as well, f'r whate'er it's worth."

"It's worth a lot," Meredith says, smiling a little just because he is. Even if she'd known, even if she had loved him anyway, she knows it would have been different. It's all hypotheticals, though, no more worth thinking about than the things he told her not to think of. Hand at his neck, she kisses him again. "But you aren't going to be him again. And this man here's the one I love."

Sean's still too overwhelmed for proper words, choosing instead to smile again as he pulls her closer, almost onto his lap, and tucks his head in on her shoulder. If he can't properly convey how much that means to him, he'll have to take it on faith that she already knows. "Well, he's pretty fond o' ye, too."

"He'd better be," Meredith says, slipping her hand into his hair and just holding on, though that smile comes a little easier now. The hurt from earlier might not be forgotten, but it's fading and she's remembering why she bears it when these things happen. She's quiet a moment before she adds, "You can keep it here. If you want."

Apparently, they've gone back to the things which shouldn't hurt to hear, but do anyway, though Sean's really just touched by that as well. "Ye, ye dinnae have ta do that," he says, drawing back again to look at her.

"No, it's okay," Meredith says. "It's not going to be easier for me to deal with if you're always going somewhere else, like a secret. Besides, I have no reason to be jealous." That doesn't mean she isn't, but it's easier again to believe that.

Sean nods, since that's nothing but the truth, before he kisses her again, smiling tentatively. "Thank ye. I ken that it prob'ly jus' seems like junk t'ye, but it meant a lot ta her an' it means a lot t'me an' ye, ye really didnae have ta do that, so... thank ye."

It's a wreck, but it matters to him, and if that still hurts, she gets it, too. Besides, she has to learn to cope with it eventually. It may as well be now. "I think it's better for both of us," she says. "As long as you aren't going to start on it tomorrow. I mean, with it being a holiday and all."

Truthfully, Sean had been planning on doing just that, but as far as concessions he's having to make go, it's a pretty small one and he nods. "Got ta make up f'r tonight, right?" There'll be no pulling that off for him, no making the night's cost worth it, but that just means he has to try that much harder to make sure the day isn't ruined for Meredith, as well.

Meredith nods. "Christmas is for us." She's not sure they can shut everything out tonight, but maybe with the morning, they'll manage. In spite of the residual hurt, that thought makes her smile again, kissing him, a little bit of contentment creeping back in. "I didn't used to think we'd get two," she admits. With so many ways to fuck this all up, some of which they've tried, and so little say in the matter, she's pretty sure it's barely short of a miracle.

After wasting so many Christmases that were supposed to be for him and Maeve, Sean knows better than to question just how meaningful that is. The thought that he may yet end up getting even fewer with Meredith still terrifies him. "I was so thankful f'r the one," he says by way of agreement, and that should have been his first clue that this one would get royally screwed up somehow. What the hell had he been thinking?

"Now... I cannae imagine spendin' another one alone."

"Me either," Meredith says. It's been a while since she had to, but though she isn't all that festive, it still matters, it's still important to have someone to share it with — to have him now. Maybe it's tempting fate even to assume they get tomorrow, but she's beyond caring about that tonight. "I wouldn't want to. But we won't have to."

"Never again, darlin'," Sean says, closing his eyes once more. They hope, anyway. Even now, he takes these things for granted, but at least they still have hope. "She would've liked ye."

The resurgence of all those things she felt earlier is so sudden, it's dizzying, and Meredith can't answer for a moment, has to remind herself again they've been over this, that it's okay, that his dead wife isn't any kind of a threat. It's all too recently dispelled not to come back, but she shoves it away as hard as she can, still blanching at the words. She doesn't know what she's supposed to say to that anyway. It's some kind of a compliment or intended to be and she agreed that talking about it was better, but that doesn't make it easy. "Maybe," she says, not knowing how else to respond. It's hard to imagine Maeve having any reason to like her, not with where she's sitting now. If anything, it makes her uneasy.

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