xp_logs | Emerald Isle: Resolution

Terry's been busy in the last week. She uses her innate sneakiness for Justice. It goes exactly as planned but there's no joy.

Terry had spent the last week manoeuvring things into position. A phone call here, a text there. Borrowing on the kindness of strangers for a few minutes at a internet café to send a quick email. There was no way to check that she was getting through but it was the best she could do.

She wasn't sleeping anymore. Every time she tried, she woke up in a cold sweat, convinced that she'd some how left some way for Tom to find out. That he suspected and was letting her play this through because... she didn't know. But she gave up trying to rest and survived instead on a great deal of tea. Nights were cold, long and nerve-wracking.

Days were better. Tom had grown bolder and was slipping out, making plans of his own, meeting old friends happy to assist old Tom out. He treated Terry with an absent affection more suited to a child than a teenager. It never even seemed to cross his mind that she might betray him, let alone already had.

They'd gone back to moving around. Now they were staying in an empty flat, owned by one of Tom's friends or so he'd said with a roguish look in his eye and a wink. Terry decided not to ask again.

Right now he looked entirely absorbed in the plans in front of him and the map on which they rested. Outside the payphone on the corner was ringing, so faintly that Terry could barely hear it though her spine straightened away and she squared her shoulders. Right then. "Uncle Tom, we need to talk."

Tom looked up from his papers with a faint smile and an odd expression in his eyes. "Something the matter, lass?" he asked. "You've got that look."

"Yeh're still planning that job, aren't yeh? Even though I told yeh that we'd have to find some other way?" The phone was ringing again, three rings then silence. Her stomach knotted. "I told yeh I wouldn't do it." She knew already that this wouldn't accomplish anything and waited with a purely internal sigh for his patronizing response.

"Yeh told me yeh wouldn't do it, yes." His eyes narrowed just slightly. "Is there more to it than that, then?" he asked, almost conversationally.

"I'll not let yeh do it either. I..." Terry walked to the front window, needing to move, trying to look casual though she knew that her nerves were evident. "Uncle Tom...I can't do this. Not any of it."

"Ah, lass." He set his pen down, shaking his head at her. Strangely, he didn't look surprised. "Yeh don't trust me, is that it? Do yeh really think I'd bring yeh into a situation where yeh're going to get hurt? I'm doing this for you, Terry."

"For me...no! No, yeh can't justify it like that! It's not...," she paused, turning away from the window and going to him. "I missed yeh. Everyday for seven years, I've missed yeh. I love yeh so much and that's never going to change. But I can't do this. This isn't my life anymore. I have friends. I have...God, I've got colleges sending me acceptance letters! I don't belong here." Terry pushed his plans out of the way and sat down on the coffee table.

Tom leaned back in his chair, tilting his head as he regarded her. "So that's it, then," he said, a flash of something close to anger in his eyes, but it was gone again almost as soon as it had appeared. "Yeh've made the choice that your life over there, that your friends and that bastard of a father of yours are what yeh want. Yeh love me, but yeh want nothing to do with the life I can offer you. Is that the sum of it, lass?"

Terry sniffled and looked down at her hands, white knuckled as she clenched them together. "I wanted yeh back every day. Every time I saw Sean's face, I hated him for taking yeh away from me. But...he didn't. I wish to God he had but he didn't. Yeh did. And aye, I'm saying that my home is back in New York now. But I can't leave yeh either. Not when I know what you'll do." Her voice shook. She'd practiced out a hundred ways for this conversation to go. She wasn't prepared at all.

"Then what are ye proposing, Terry?" His smile was very odd. "Do yeh have some way out for us? Or just for yeh alone?"

A way out for them. She'd thought of that. Planned it a little even. But in the end couldn't do it. " Yeh steal, Uncle Tom," she said softly instead of a direct answer. She looked away then forced herself to look back. "And yeh don't just steal money or trinkets. Yeh stole my father from me. Yeh stole my home as it should have been. And then yeh weren't even man enough to set up a life where I wouldn't lose yeh too. Now yeh want to do it again! And yeh'll never stop. Not unless someone stops yeh..."

Terry stopped, choking on sobs she couldn't contain any longer. Her keen ears picked up the sound of feet scuffing over gravel, trying to be silent but sounding like gunshots. She hadn't heard any cars. God, what if she'd screwed this all up?

"And yeh've decided to be the one who does that." Tom smiled a little, not moving from the chair. "Well, lass," he said, sounding almost amused, but the look in his eyes was strained and unreadable. "Seems yeh take more after Sean than me, after all."

"I'm sorry." It was hardly a whisper, mostly a sob. Tears tracked down her cheeks freely. "I'm so sorry."

There was a knock at the door. Then a pounding. Official sounding voices raised with shouted orders. Terry closed her eyes.

"Go open the door for them, lass," Tom said, still not moving from the chair. "I don't want yeh caught up in anything unfortunate."

"Uncle Tom..." she began then shook her head violently and got up. She knew better than to turn her back on him. And did it anyway, walking without hurry to the door.

But he didn't get up, didn't attempt to make a break for it as she opened the door for the police. He sat in the chair, that slight smile still on his lips, and didn't say a word when they arrested him.

It was almost worse and Terry couldn't watch. She walked out of the flat, hating herself. Wondering if he hated her.

She wanted to go home.