Cassidys

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Note from Sil: This is something of an AU. It was finished last September but it didn't really end up fitting so it got dropped. However, because it's a lovely little log, I figured I'd post it here in case anyone was interested in how the Cassidys relate to each other.




Sean had felt like people around him while he had breakfast for a change, so he was cooking out of his suite for once. He was just finishing frying everything when Terry walked into the kitchen. He hadn't planned on just bumping into her, but maybe for once they could get through a conversation without it all going wrong. If nothing else, he had bribe material...

"Morning there! I've found a place a bit away that does soda bread, and I was just making a couple of soda sarnies, if yeh want one? They're not as good as home, but they'll do..."

Terry stopped, wide-eyed and glanced around to see if there was any way to get out of this gracefully. She was feeling more shy than hostile toward Sean these days and didn't want to ruin the fragile mental space she'd created. But…real food. "Morning," she returned softly and walked to the counter and slipped onto a stool. "That would be great, thank you." One meal shouldn't be so hard. If they didn't talk, they probably wouldn't break anything either.

Sean slid the fried eggs onto the bread, humming a little to himself as he did. He dropped a couple of rashers of bacon onto both, before adding ketchup to the top of his, and putting the other slice of his bread on top, and sliding Terry's over to her with the ketchup bottle.

"So, how're yeh, anyway?" as asked, as he picked up his sandwich, and took a generous bite.

Terry nodded her thanks and dumped ketchup on hers as well. "I'm all right." She hesitated, not sure what to say or how much she really wanted to talk to him. "I've, uh, been working with Forge. For my voice." Talking to him was always so hard, she never knew what to say.

"Aye, I heard. I tell yeh, I wish I'd had someone like him around when I was going through it all, instead of just having to sneak off to the woods to practice so's I wouldn't break all the windows." Sean smiled at the memory. "Are yeh enjoying it?"

Yes. Terry shrugged, "I suppose. I didn't know how much more I...we, I guess, can hear." She poked at her breakfast, thinking. "Alison thinks I'm doing well. Forge seems pleased too. It's a lot of work though."

"I suppose we got lucky, there - I mean, imagine being able to make noises yeh couldn't hear? We'd be breaking things, and have no idea we'd done it..." Sean paused, and the continued, more tentatively, "Look, I know I was no bloody use last time, but you've got proper teachers now who can actually work out how your powers are different from mine, and if I can help at all..."

Terry's eyes widened in alarm. Breakfast was one thing but having him teach her? Alison had promised it wouldn't happen. Terry nearly said as much before remembering that she was trying to be good. "I...uh, you could talk to Forge? I don't know what they're planning really."

"Aye, sure. I don't know if I'd be any help, anyway, just if anything comes up, and they think it'd help to compare the pair of us, or something." Sean's face didn't waver. Aye, well, you earned that reaction, right enough. Change the subject...

"Yeh know, I'd've thought you've asked me about that photo by now. The one where I've got the black eye?"

Terry sighed, grateful for the switch. "Aye and I didn't really thank yeh for it." Just that email. Nice coward's way out. Certainly she couldn't tell him that she'd cried over the pictures. "It was a nice thing yeh did, putting that together." She smiled tentatively at him, "So what did yeh do to deserve the shiner?" It was impossible to hold her American accent for long while listening to him.

Sean grinned widely. "I chinned her boyfriend." He took a sip of his tea, then continued. "I was the first night I ever met Maeve, a couple of days before that photo was taken. Tom'd brought her fella - some brainless eejit she was seeing at the time, that Tom kind've knew somehow - and a couple of other friends up to the keep after the pub'd shut one night, and she'd come along. Anyway, I was just off a shift, and didn't mind sitting up with them for a bit. So we were all sitting about talking, and the eejit started going on about the "glorious struggle" or some similar ballacks. I told him to give that shite a rest in my house, and one thing lead to another, and he took a swing at me, so I laid him out."

He paused, just for a second.

"I turned back round just in time to see her standing there, and the next thing I know, I'm lyin' there next to the eejit."

She stared at him, open-mouthed, then started to giggle. She covered her mouth trying to muffle the sound but only laughed harder when she did. The mental image was perfect, right down to inserting one of Uncle Tom's friends into the story for colour. She had to grab the edge of the counter to prevent her from falling off the stool before she finally managed to get her merriment under control. "Serves yeh right, Sean Cassidy," she said, eyes dancing, "I'd have done the same. Good for her. So what happened then?" It surprised her that she really wanted to know.

"Here now! He took a swing at me *first*, I'll remind yeh." Sean tried to look indignant, but didn't quite manage it through his grin. "Well, after I'd picked meself up, she had a terrible go at me, saying I'd no business imposing what I thought on everyone around me, and stopping people speaking their minds. I must've looked some kind of sight, standing there with my jaw hanging off me, staring at this woman who'd just flattened me, and was having a go at me in my own home." Sean's eyes went distant with memory.

"I was tryin' to think of something to say, but all I could think was 'I've never seen anyone look so beautiful in my life.'" He took a quick bite of his sandwich. "So, just as I was getting ready to deliver me witty comeback, her fella groaned and started to get back up."

"Aye and he was a guest in yer home. Terrible manners that, brawling in the keep like it was any pub." Terry giggled again. "Beside that she had to stand up for her fella, didn't she? Couldn't let the insult pass."

"Aye, well, that's what she said." Sean managed to look a little put out at the memory. "But like I say, he started getting up, and she had a go at him worse that she did at me - more or less chucked him on the spot. Not that I was complaining, mind, since she'd stopped havin' a go at me, but if she was going to do that all along, I don't think she needed to hit me quite so hard."

"'Course she did. Just because he was wrong didn't mean yeh weren't too," she pointed out sensibly, taking a bite of her sandwich then hopping off the stool and went to the refrigerator to get a bottle of water.

Sean smiled. "I might've known you'd side with her... Anyway, Tom was near killin' himself for laughin' so he was, and the fella was stupid enough to get all huffy about it with the lot've us, so in the end he stormed off, and left Maeve sittin' around with us all, and the three've us got to talkin', and it turned out we got on famously when the eejit wasn't there to get in the way, so it just sort've started that if Tom and I were off down the pub, one or the other of us would give Maeve a bell. The photo was taken I think the first time the three of us were down the local there - she said she'd never given anyone a black eye before, and she wanted a souvenir, so we talked this tourist with a camera into takin' a photo of the three of us."

Terry reseated herself with a faint smile and a far away look. "Yeh were all friends then?" she asked, "Yeh and Uncle Tom and Mum?" Those stories she'd never heard while growing up. Only how Sean had stolen Maeve, how Tom had been wronged. How Maeve had been an angel who didn't deserve someone like Sean.

Sean frowned. "I thought so. I never asked to inherit the keep, but he didn't seem too bothered that I got it instead of him - he hated his Da, said he was happier knowin' that whatever he got in life, he got it himself. I told him he always have a place there, anyway, and he came and went as he pleased. Och, we never saw eye to eye - me in the police, and him always up to some daft scam or other, but he was me cousin, and aye, I thought we were friends."

He took another bite of his sandwich. "I've no idea now if we really were. I don't know when he made up his mind that he hated me. Sure, I knew he was a wee bit hurt when Maeve and I started seein' each other, but he put a good face on it - said he was happy for the pair of us. He maybe was away a wee bit more, but it wasn't like we never saw him, and he came to the wedding, right enough, wished us both well..." He trailed off, a look of honest uncertainty replacing the slight frown...

Terry stared down her own meal, appetite gone. "He told me he loved yeh like his own self. Would have given yeh anything." She shrugged, just a little bit. "I don't know now. His blather was always half truths at best and it was a long time ago." Had it really been six years since Tom was arrested? Terry had to count it up carefully just to be sure. "Almost seven years now, I guess." And five since she came to the school. She drank her water instead of going on, closing her eyes and suppressing the sudden wave of homesickness and resentment.

"Aye, well, it's maybe time I stopped wonderin' how well I ever knew him at all, and just left the past where it is." Sean sighed, then forced himself to smile. "Jaysis, would yeh look at the faces on the pair've us. That'll not do at all."

"But we've managed five minutes without yelling at each other. That's some kind of record, isn't it?" Terry said in a feeble attempt at humor. It didn't cheer her any so she shrugged and looked away from him, staring around the kitchen without really seeing it.

Sean smiled sadly. "How d'yeh feel about tempting fate, maybe? I really ought to get back home for a week or two some time soon, just to do a bit've work on the keep there, make sure the roof hasn't fallen in. If yeh wanted, you could come to, maybe invite a few folk from here, make a wee holiday've it? Show Jay and Bobby and Clarice what a country with some proper history's like?"

Her head snapped back to him so fast her hair whipped around and hit her in the face. She didn't seem to notice, "I…I haven't been home in years. Not since yeh sent me away." Surprise made her tactless. "Do yeh really have to go or are yeh just saying so to convince me to go?"

"A bit've both." Sean looked a little abashed. "I really do have to go, but I'd really like it if you'd come to. I'd like your company, and the place'll be yours one day, and I'd hate for you to get it and have no good memories of the place." He smiled then, a little slyly. "And yeh know, I'm proud of the place. I wouldn't mind showing it off a bit to some of the folks here..."

Appealing to pride of the Keep and county was sneaky, all the more so for its effectiveness. Terry was disappointed and relieved in equal amounts that the trip wasn't just about spending time together. And she really did miss home. "Just a short holiday then? There's classes after all."

"Aye, I was thinkin' maybe a week or so. Not more than a fortnight, anyway. I can patch the leaks in the roof, air the place out a bit, and work on the garden a bit. Yeh could give me a hand there, if yeh'd like."

"That would be…" stupid? Boring? Terrifying? "okay. Might be. How soon did yeh want to go then? We'll need time to get permission from the teachers." Alison would give it in a heartbeat she knew. But not every teacher might be so accommodating.

"A couple of week's time, maybe? Before the weather gets too bad, anyway." Sean finished his sandwich, and took another sip of his tea. "Besides, if we're wanting to impress people with the unspeakable beauty of home, then we'd better do it when the place isn't tipping it down. You let me know who you'd like to invite, I'll talk to the staff. We'll call it an educational field trip..."

That was an easy enough list to make. "Clarice, Jay, Bobby. Shiro, too if Clarice wants to bring him." That would make the trip small enough to enjoy. She would have liked to have brought along Kitty and Jubilee because they were her oldest friends but Sean had said small and there would be more opportunities later for them to come along. "That's it really." She smiled shyly, "Thank yeh for asking."

"Not at all." Sean waved a hand in dismissal. "I'm glad yeh want to come. Right, well, I'll talk to Charles, shall I, and let yeh know when to invite them?" He finished his tea and glanced at his watch. "Is that the time? I'd better get to class, before the students beat me there..."

Terry nodded, "Aye, that would be grand. Yeh can just email me when yeh know? Then I'll be able to ask the rest from there. I've missed home. There's nothing here that compares." She smiled tentatively at him, "Thanks for breakfast."