missingthekeep | Homeplot: I Loved Her First

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Homeplot: I Loved Her First

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.

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"Ye an' I both," Sean says softly, holding Meredith close while running the fingertips of his free hand gently along Theresa's arm, still grasping blindly even as her chattering quiets into the occasional murmur. "But ye'll be a good mother to her, no matter what she calls ye. I know't."

"Is that what I am?" Meredith asks. It's not fair, really, if she thinks about it, because she starts to feel she's stolen everything, but, though she's as surprised as anyone else, she wants it. Theresa deserves a hell of a lot better, but she's got Meredith instead, so she intends to do her best, which starts with trying to keep the worry from her voice so the baby doesn't pick up on it. "I don't know how to be a mother."

"O-only if'n ye want it," Sean quickly says, not doing nearly as good a job as her at keeping his concern tucked neatly away. Theresa starts to fuss again, though, and he does his best to knock it off. "I mean, nobody's gonna force ye ta... I dinnae think anyone really knows how right off the bat. I sure as hell dinnae ken what I'm doin', bein' a father, an' I've had years ta get used to the idea."

Meredith shakes her head quickly, turning her attention back to Theresa for a few moments. "Shh, it's fine," she says, admittedly a bit distracted, but hoping she sounds convincing enough for an infant. "And I do, I — I do want it. I want that." She'll just have to try like hell to be good enough for it. "I think it's different when you start when they're actually babies. You have a little more room to figure it out."

Sean's smile returns in an instant and he tips his head to kiss her again, light and quick, his relief palpable. He always had a feeling that she'd come around on the idea, he just never dreamed that she'd ever get such a good reason to. "Saints, I hope so," he huffs, shaking his head slightly. He's in way over his head with this tiny little person, but in a lot of ways, that's been the story of his life and he's made it this far.

"I could be making that up," Meredith says, starting to smile again, as much because he does as anything else. "Babies really aren't my field. I guess we'll find out soon enough." Nervewracking though that is, she can't help being pleased, almost relieved, now she's more certain of the part she gets to play in all this. There's a hell of a lot of pressure no matter whose daughter she is.

"I guess we will," Sean says, and if he's still not entirely confident in his prospects, he's doing a far better job of faking it now. They're in this together, and they haven't yet found anything that they can't handle. Surely the task of raising the perfect little girl between them won't be any different. "What d'ye say we see how she takes to her crib, then?"

"Right," Meredith says, "good idea. Could probably use a little rest after all this excitement." Heading over to the crib, she lowers Theresa slowly, carefully into it, though she doesn't pull her arms entirely away, letting them hang inside so her hands stay within the girl's reach. "As could you, I imagine. Did you miss me?"

"Always," Sean replies easily, positioning himself once more right at her side as he leans over the side of the crib, watching as Theresa sprawls out happily on her back, reaching for Meredith with both arms and legs now. With the baby and a whole lot of complicated thoughts to keep him company, he wouldn't say that the trip had been a particularly lonely one, but he'd also be lying if he said that those thoughts didn't have a habit of straying regularly back to Meredith, waiting in this big old castle for him to return to her. "It's good ta be home."

This is not somewhere Meredith expected to be or things she thought she'd want, but she can't exactly complain now she's here wanting what she's got for a change. Turning slightly to kiss him properly now she's not holding onto the baby, she smiles. "Yeah. I think it's starting to grow on me."

"Me, too," Sean admits, since growing out of it is about the best description for what happened to him with regards to this place that he can think of. "I mean, we'll nae stay here fore'er, o' course," he goes on, quieting his voice a bit as Theresa starts to settle down. "Ye're a lot o' things, darlin', but I dinnae figger ye're plannin' on makin' housewife one of 'em. But until we're settled, an' all..."

"I would kill you in your sleep eventually," Meredith says dryly. "No, we'll find somewhere else, somewhere I can work, but until then... Yeah. Where were you thinking?" It might be a bit yet and she'll need to figure out what to do about her qualifications, but lovely as this is, it's mercifully temporary.

"I'm nae rightly sure," Sean says, still leaning lazily over the side of the crib. How he's expected to leave long enough to get some sleep later on is anyone's guess. "I mean, we've talked about it b'fore, but it's still tough thinkin' on't as anythin' other than hypothetical, ye know?"

"I know," Meredith says, taking in a deep breath, though she's smiling still. "It's so weird to finally get to think of it as something real. We have so many options. I don't know where to go. Somewhere I can work, of course. Both of us." They'll have to figure out something with their schedules, since she doesn't want to subject Theresa to what she went through as a child, however much she enjoyed aspects of it.

"O' course," Sean says, nodding and smiling over at her. "We've got the whole wide world ta play in, now." Slipping his good arm around her shoulders, he lets his other rest on the edge of the crib, more content than he can remember being in a very long while.

"Course, we'll have plenty o' time ta figger it out. It's gonna be a right bitch fixin' things with Interpol now, an' I dinnae e'en want ta start worryin' 'bout that until ye an' I're good an' wed."

"I guess they won't take 'we thought we were imagining all of it' as an answer, will they?" laughs Meredith, though it's not really funny now that the repercussions will stick. With the pair of them home and the future looking otherwise bright, though, she's in high spirits. "You'll manage it. With some creative explanations, I'm sure."

"That's puttin' it mildly, aye," Sean laughs, glancing briefly upwards as if the solution to this particular dilemma will suddenly come to him from on high. "I'll be lyin' through me teeth is more like it."

"But it's doable, right?" Meredith asks. "You'll think of something? Because I don't think on the run is any way to raise a baby." And she sure as hell can't do this on her own, least of all when she's not meant to exist in this world.

"Ah, c'mon," Sean says, rubbing his hand along her arm reassuringly. "With where we are, after all we've been through, d'ye really think I'd let a silly li'l thing like bein' wanted internationally get in our way?" He nudges he gently with his hip. "I'll figger somethin' out."

"You'd better," Meredith says. They got this far, it's true, and it helps to think of it that way, but they aren't going to beat everything just because they survived the last thing to come their way. "I'm not doing the whole thing with the wedding and the dress and the baby just to have Interpol mess it all up."

"Perish the thought," Sean teases, though the breezy, laughing confidence in their prospects is overcome slightly by nerves a moment later, and he awkwardly shifts his weight around on his feet for a moment before going on. "So... that mean ye been thinkin' 'bout it, then? Ye know... settin' a date?"

"Well, we ought to," Meredith says. It isn't as if she's actually picked one yet, though she's always been a fan of sooner rather than later, particularly in this case. "I mean, you're home, we have Theresa, there's no reason not to settle on a date."

"Aye, that's what I was thinkin'," Sean quickly agrees, oddly relieved. The whole affair with Theresa has put him on pins and needles for just about everything, no matter how well it's all been turning out. "I figger we'd go wi' the same as what we were plannin' on before, jus' waitin' long enae ta put the thing together. An' with all the help we're sure ta get here... maybe a couple o' weeks?"

"A couple of weeks," Meredith echoes. Though they've been engaged for weeks and she's the one who wanted to hurry things along, it suddenly seems incredibly soon. That's what she wants, though, she tells herself. She does want to marry him. The more choices they make with regards to it, though, the more real it seems. "Yeah. Yeah, a couple weeks. And it doesn't need to be anything elaborate, Sean, please. I don't want the whole big fuss. Some fuss, but..."

"No, no, I- I agree," Sean says, grinning once more. "We could have it here, even, jus' a nice, small ceremony." Smaller even than it would be on the island, since he's the only one who knows anyone here, but that's just the unfortunate nature of things. "Throw in some dinner an' dancin', what more do we need?"

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