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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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.

"She would," Sean repeats, resting his cheek on her shoulder. There's no 'maybe' about it, and for all that he's pretty sure he's made things awkward again, he can't go about regretting everything to come out of his mouth. Not tonight. "I know it shouldnae matter none, an' if I thought otherwise, it's nae as if that could keep me from ye, but... I don't know. Seems important, somehow."

Meredith wants to say that she would hate her. If their roles were reversed, if Maeve were sitting here halfway in Sean's lap, his head on her shoulder, and Meredith were elsewhere, she would hate her. Except she can't say it, because it would hurt him, because it probably isn't true. She's not the wronged woman here, she's the interloper again. Being wronged would be easier. "Okay," she says slowly. "I'm not... I don't know what to do with that."

Sean sighs quietly and gives an almost imperceptible shake of head since he really doesn't want to move right now. "Nothin'. Ye dinnae have ta do anythin' with it, I jus'... felt like sayin' it. I'm nae expectin' it t'mean anythin' t'ye."

Edited 2010-12-17 08:10 (UTC)

"Okay," Meredith says again, working through it as she speaks, leaning back to look at him better. "I mean, you should — you should say what you want to and it's important to you and... It just doesn't really... make me feel better about it. Having your, your wife's approval, it..." She trails off, nodding slowly, parsing just why that bothers her so much, her thoughts finally registering.

"It's nae 'bout her approval," Sean says, struggling to find the right words for what he's feeling and coming up short. "E'en if it was, that's nae exactly somethin' I c'n give, it jus'... she mattered t'me, what she thought, her opinions mattered before. I guess I jus' feel like they still should. Least on some level."

"It's okay," Meredith says, shaking her head. It isn't exactly. It's still awkward and unsettling, but she gets it to some degree and she's starting to think this isn't entirely his fault anyway. He's never tried to do this to her, it just happens. "It's okay. I just... I think I need to stop thinking of her as your wife. I don't think of her as someone dead or — or someone real, I — she's your wife. Present tense. Like she could just walk in and take my home away. Not, not, not literally, but — I think of her like that and I feel like the mistress."

Sucking in a sharp breath as he lets that sink in, Sean just frowns and nods, looking away. "Do what ye need to," he says, and while it comes out sounding cold, that's got nothing to do with her. Forcing himself to stop it and keep from closing off comes with the unfortunate side effect of tears pricking at his eyes again, but he soldiers on regardless and hopes his voice can hold out. "It, it's okay, ye're right. I havenae worn a ring on me finger in almost two years, Meredith. I'm nae married. I... I don't have a wife, I have a memory."

"I'm sorry," Meredith says, reaching up to cup his face in her hand again. It's strange, she thinks, how difficult it is to absorb what he's saying. She knows it's true, she's thankful to know it, but it still feels removed from her except for the part where she can see she's hurt him again. "I know. It's not your fault I think that way, it's me. I know it's hard for you already. I don't want to make this worse, I just... don't want to not say things to you."

"No, no," Sean says immediately, full-on crying again as he shakes his head vehemently. "I- I dinnae want that either, but I ne'er want ye ta feel like ye need to be holdin' yer tongue. That doesnae mean that it'll all be easy t'hear, but... ye're only tellin' the truth, anyhow."

"It's not like it's all the time," Meredith says, stricken, starting to babble, "or even most of the time, it's just when I think about it and I don't usually, I don't feel anything like that usually, it's... It's good, okay? This is good. I need to know what's wrong before I can fix it and now I know." Not that that's ever really helped her before, but she's getting better about it, she thinks. This, though, seeing him like this, she never gets any better equipped for.

Sean pulls her tight against him again all in a rush, trying and failing to reign himself in as his breath hitches almost painfully in his chest. "H-how is any o' this okay?" he asks, knowing that it's just the night and all his frustrations making him feel this way, small and lonely and impotent, but unable to stop it either way.

Meredith hushes him, arms wrapping around him as she presses a kiss to his hair, desperate for some way to fix this and knowing she can't, not really. She might make it a little better in the here and now, but it's not enough. "It is," she says, quiet but firm. "It is and we are. We're talking about it, right? We aren't keeping quiet or ignoring it, ignoring her, we're — we're taking care of it, we're talking about it, we're here. We didn't — you didn't leave. I didn't run that far. This is good. I mean, it isn't, it's awful, but it's, it's still good, right?"

"Good," Sean repeats blankly, not buying it for an instant but hoping the repetition might get it to stick in his head some. "It's good, it's good, it's... God, it ne'er used to hurt this bad." Maybe because, with the memory of the ring he'd picked out and the spiel he'd prepared burning holes in his mind, he's mourning his future with Meredith fully as much as his past with Maeve, whether that's necessary or not.

"What?" Meredith draws back to stare at him before she can help it, before she can try to pull the stoic and supportive routine again, and she's sorry for it the second she does. She keeps making this about herself and, for once, she can't ignore that, but she can't control how hard it keeps hitting her either, all the doubt and insecurity and the sense that she only makes things worse.

"I don't- I don't know," Sean says in some half-hearted attempt at damage control. The last thing he needs is to go about making her feel even worse when she's all that's keeping him together, when that's been the case for months now. "It's the talkin', an' it's Christmas, an' it's, it jus' hurts. Tonight, it's jus'... it's bad, is all."

Meredith keeps her mouth shut, nodding slowly once, until she can trust her voice to work right. It still feels like something gripping her heart, a sharp ache, and it's all too easy to jump at every imagined slight and self-perceived shortcoming. "Should we not talk?" she asks. "About... about this? I thought you wanted to or we should or — we don't have to. Or it can wait until it's less... like this."

"No, no, it's... I don't know," Sean says, repeating himself and feeling like a prize jerk in the process. "I think it's less 'bout wantin' to an' more that I cannae help it. An' anyway, this is prob'ly good, we should, it should hurt, it jus'... feels like too much. Tonight was s'posed to be simple."

"It does," Meredith says, biting her lip as she nods. It shouldn't hurt like this, she thinks, but then, she isn't sure; what would she know about any of this? Maybe it should. It's still too much, still overwhelming, and their quiet evening on the beach seems like it happened weeks ago. "Simple would've been nice. But we have this. And whatever you need to say, you need to say."

Sean nods, reaching up to wipe roughly at his eyes. She's right, of course, but that's never made things he doesn't like any easier to bear. "I hate this place sometimes. I really do."

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