missingthekeep: (Default)
Sean Cassidy ([personal profile] missingthekeep) wrote2011-02-01 08:18 pm

[for Meredith]

He’s been hurt worse. That’s what Sean tells himself when he wakes up to the sterile clinic walls instead of his bedroom and feels a wave of frustration wash over him. Relief that he’s still alive is probably buried in there somewhere deep down, but he’s too busy being disgusted with himself for making such rookie mistakes as taking his eyes off his attackers and not having backup escape routes planned in advance. He never trusted that bloody space station from the get-go, but he was still caught unprepared. Not that one can ever really be prepared for robotically animated corpses, but he should have at least been able to put himself in a frame of mind suitable for protecting Meredith without sacrificing the basics.

He got sloppy. Just like the last time something like this happened. He got overly emotional (the emotion may have been different this time around, but the principle remains the same), and he lost his edge, and bad things happened as a result. Which is why, as true as it is, the knowledge that he’s been hurt worse than this doesn’t come as much of a comfort. Maybe he’ll be out of this place sooner, but that doesn’t mean much if he’s just going to screw up again the next time something bad happens.

Besides, at least the last time he found himself laid up somewhere, he was capable of complaining about it.
drownondryland: (Hope in the air.)

[personal profile] drownondryland 2011-02-02 03:46 am (UTC)(link)
Meredith doesn't have the luxury of staying by his bedside at first and she is, guilty though she feels for it, grateful for that. He's told her more than once how strong she is, but she's not, not like this, and she can't still and wait for a sign she can breathe again. There are more than enough doctors to care for the incoming patients without her having to do any of the work herself, but she's desperate for something to do, so she falls to becoming a kind of glorified traffic director, making everything runs in perfect order and everyone is where they're meant to be, which includes getting her own cut cleaned and bandaged. She shouldn't have waited so long, she tells herself later, but it doesn't really feel like something that matters.

She can't lose herself in any of it, the rush and the adrenaline of it. She's perfect and utterly unsatisfied by it, staying in Sean's line of vision at all times, circling back to his side as often as she can, looking over again and again to see if he's awake yet. The second she sees he is, she hands off her paperwork to Lexie and hurries over, taking a seat and leaning over the bed as she reaches to clasp his hand in both of hers. "Don't you ever do that again."