xp_logs | Wednesday evening, Sean/Terry

Things are never quite as you'd expect with the Cassidys. Terry goes to have dinner with her father and important bits of news are passed on and discussed. Yes, including that one.

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,

Sean didn't ask much of his daughter. Terry had to admit that much at least, even with all the other things that still rankled. So when he'd asked her to come have dinner with him, she didn't say no or push it by asking if Bobby could come along too. (It was wrong to need moral support against your father, wasn't it?) She rapped on his door shortly before the time he'd indicated and heard the sound travel through his suite in the weirdly muffled way that indicated soundproofing had been put in place. It surprised her a bit, though it probably shouldn't have. It made perfect sense that Sean would want to shut out the outside world a bit and the walls of the mansion were rather poor at that.

There was a knot in the pit of her stomach, possibly due to the fact that her somewhat defiance profession to Scott that she'd told Sean about Vegas was...overly generous an interpretation of what had happened. Technically, leaving him a note counted. Leaving it in his staff mailbox that he never checked--there were graduation schedules in there still--that maybe didn't count for so much. She wished she'd thought to check his box first before coming up here. What if he had finally read her note?

Sean opened the door, a smile crossing his face. "Theresa," he said with a wave of his arm. "Come in, I'm just packing." He gestured into the room, his smile slowly fading as he looked at the large suitcase, half-full, and the stack of graduation schedules on the table, topped by a very familiarly-folded note.

The knot in her stomach turned to writhing snakes and all she could was stare for a moment. Packing? And the note too? Mother of God, had she finally managed to drive him off completely? "I, uh...yeh're for going on a trip then?" her voice wavered and the American accent she usually adopted faded away. Her hands snuck around her waist and hugged tightly. The ring on her left hand felt like fire.

"Back to County Mayo," Sean said, running a hand through his short hair. "It's... the Historical Society, and the Keep. I need to represent the family's interests in a hearing. It's family business, Theresa," he explained, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I feel like a fool, yeh know? It's been all this time, the two of us living here and sure now here yeh are, all grown before me. And I'm running off again."

He gestured awkwardly at the note. "Yeh have to leave me notes, that I haven't even read yet. And I'm sorry. I know there's yer training, and Pace, or I'd ask yeh to come with me."

Terry reeled back, feeling like she'd been slapped. The relief that he hadn't yet read her note warred with the panic that he was leaving her again. When he'd sworn he wouldn't. When everything was finally going properly in her life. "I...how long? How long will yeh be gone then? Yeh...yeh never check your staff mail." Family business, said he and she wouldn't begrudge him it. At least it wasn't that job again.

"If I could predict the Irish bureaucracy, I'd take me next shot at predicting the weather and make us a fortune," Sean admitted with a shrug. "I told yeh, Terry, never again would I let me job come before me family. And I mean that now. The Keep, it's family. It's everything, it's you and me, and your mother and aye, even Tom. And I mean to have it be yers someday. So the school, well, I talked to Charles. He understands."

Shifting, he took Terry's hands in his own, looking into his daughter's eyes. "Do yeh? I want yeh to know, that this is me trying to make everything right again, Theresa. For our family. Yeh, me, and one day some lucky man of yers."

Terry made a choking sound and wondered wildly for a moment if he was just toying with her now. There's no way he'd be saying that if he didn't know, right? God in heaven. "I...uh. Aye. Sure I understand. There's..." Terry took a steadying breath and sat down on the bed beside him, "There's something I should tell yeh. It's a grand joke really, you mentioning it. Um." She couldn't look him in the face and felt her fair skin heating with rushing blood. She concentrated on his hands over hers instead. "Bobby...uh... Yeh remember that Bobby and I took that trip to Vegas?"

"Bobby, of course," Sean said with a laugh, looking somewhat abashed. "He's a good man, that one. Treats you right, and don't think yer da hasn't noticed. But I know what yeh're going to say." Letting out a long breath and staring at the floor for a moment, Sean continued. "Yeh're a woman now, Theresa. And yeh're in love, and yeh don't need to worry about yer daft old father giving yeh some puritan's speech about responsibility and waitin' for the marriage bed, and..."

Terry cut him off and moved her left hand so her green and silver ring caught the light, "That's actually what I had to tell yeh. We, uh, got married?"

"Oh, yeh got married," Sean echoed distantly, looking at the ring. "Married. In Las Vegas." He stood up abruptly, hands on his waist. Two steps away from the bed, and he rested his hands for a moment on a table. "Married.Married." His shoulders shook uncontrollably, and slowly he turned to look at Terry, face contorted in a paroxysm of laughter.

"Yeh married your husband in Las Vegas? Terry, me darling, that's the most wonderful thing I've heard of!"

She was staring at him like he'd grown another head. Or given that they were already mutants and a second head wouldn't have been too odd, something even stranger yet--her father reacting well to the news that his daughter had eloped in Vegas. "It was...kind of an accident?" she added timidly, not really sure how to take this reaction. She'd been prepared for anger and shock and disapproval...all the things that they'd met so far in telling folk. Amusement...wasn't even something she'd imagined. "You're not mad?"

"Mad?" Sean wiped his eyes, falling back onto the bed hard enough to make the suitcase jump. "Mary and all the saints, Theresa, how could I be mad? That yeh went off and eloped? What, d'yeh think I walked up to Seamus Rourke's stoop all those years ago with my hat in hand and asked for his blessing over me and yer mother? I know a wee bit about being young and in love, Terry."

He sat up, the smile fading but his eyes still bright. "All that matters to me, all that's ever mattered, is - are yeh happy?"

Tears had flooded her eyes by now and she wiped them away hastily, "Aye. More than...I never imagined I'd feel like this, Da. I know that we didn't really think it through much but I'd never take it back. I love him more than anything." She smiled and knew that is was a foolishly adoring one, "We've had our troubles, sure, but...it's like you said. It's worth it."

With one arm, Sean reached over and shut his suitcase, gesturing to Terry with the other. "Then yeh've got every blessing I can give. The both of yeh. Here now, I was going to ask yeh if you wanted to go out with yer old da to a nice dinner before I fly out, but why don't yeh go on and ask that son-in-law of mine? The three of us. Because yeh've made him a part of this mad family now, Theresa." Sean chuckled to himself and rolled his eyes dramatically. "God help the poor lad."

On impulse she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, shaking with emotion. "I'm sorry. I've never been a very good daughter for yeh." She sniffled and smiled up at him, "Buíochas, a Dhaid."