xp_logs | Thursday afternoon, Scott, Terry, Bobby

Scott meets with Terry and Bobby for their requested meeting. They tell him their news.

Terry lifted her left hand and rapped on Scott's office door. Her right was firmly entwined with Bobby's--for comfort, for strength, for solidarity but mostly just because she liked having his hand in hers. She wasn't nervous...exactly. However complicated things had become for the three of them Terry had hope that for this at least they could manage.

"Come in." Scott had been expecting them, of course, after Terry's email. He waved at the chairs. "Just need to finish this up..." He added a last line to the email he was working on and then sent it.

It seemed to Bobby that this scene was all too familiar: He and Terry, presenting a united front as they went into Scott's office, and yet it kind of made him sad to think this could be the last time.

He pushed the door open, squeezing Terry's hand encouragingly as he preceded her into the room, smiling faintly at Scott as they went to the familiar empty chairs in front of his desk. "Hey."

Terry's smile was a little stronger but tinged with the same sadness that Bobby had, reflecting that this could very well be the last time they did this. "Hi Mr. Summers. Thanks for meeting with us," she said as they sat down.

Scott nodded. "You had something you wanted to talk to me about?" he said, putting the right emphasis on the 'you' to make it clear that he meant both of them.

"Uh, yeah." Bobby glanced at Terry, then at her nod he looked back at Scott and cleared his throat. "We've been talking, and--well, for Christmas, Sean gave Terry..." This was why he let Terry do the talking most of the time. "Okay. Let me start over." He took a deep breath, squeezed Terry's hand and said calmly, "We're moving to Ireland." Before Scott could react to this, he ploughed gamely on. "I'm quitting the team, and we're taking over caring for the family keep. We've been thinking about this ever since Christmas, and we both feel this is the right thing for us, right now." He looked at Terry then, kind of afraid of what he might see in Scott's face. Would he be relieved that they were going away? Disappointed by Bobby quitting the team, giving up the superhero life for something far more mundane? Would he be sad to see them go? Bobby wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Terry took pity on her husband and clarified a bit, "Sean's been asked to take a job with Interpol again and he's giving me the Keep. It's a full time job, managing it and Bobby's said he'd be willing." She smiled at Bobby then at Scott, "I still have classes and such of course and I'd rather not leave the team. So we'll still be settling how to juggle all that. We thought...maybe you'd have some ideas?"

Ah. "Well, congratulations, first of all," Scott said mildly. "That's quite the wedding gift. I can certainly see how managing a property like that would take up the bulk of your time, Bobby." He tilted his head slightly at Terry. "We do have a couple of people around here who split their time between different continents successfully. It's made a little easier for Moira and Paige because of her plane, obviously... you would have to be doing a lot of international flying. It would be expensive, and fairly time-consuming - and do you get jet-lag badly?" He didn't actually know how badly time zone changes hit Terry, he realized.

"Hardly at all." Terry shrugged, "We haven't really talked about how to split the time yet. I think I'd be making less frequent trips than Moira and Paige do--I'll need to be here for classes most of the time. Money...isn't really a problem though. There's a bit from my mother and from Tom. I'll likely need to get a job---probably here but we'll do all right." Come summer she'd be able to spend more time at the Keep too.

Bobby smiled and nodded at Scott. "Yeah, it's a pretty big thing, we know. But we think we can make it work--if you're willing to work with us." The money thing didn't really worry Bobby, as much as all of the time spent apart from Terry. But in his heart, he still felt like this was the right decision. "So, uh. Consider my resignation from the team effective as soon as possible--there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done before we can move to another country, and with Terry in school and everything, I'm going to be dealing with most of it, so...yeah."

Scott just nodded. "This is going to be hardest on you, I think, Terry," he said. "That's an awful lot of work and an awful lot of traveling. To be fair to yourself you ought to reassess regularly whether you're all right with that sort of lifestyle."

"We will. This summer will be the real test, see what it's like. I think the first few months are going to be the worst, settling in, getting everything moved. We're also talking about moving the wedding." Well, she'd talked about it. Bobby had nodded agreeably as he did every time she brought up the wedding.

The wedding was for Terry. They were married already, that was all that mattered to Bobby, so pretty much whatever she wanted to do was fine with him. Then again, that was a fairly good description of their relationship, too. "There's obviously still a lot to work out, but we wanted to let you know as soon as we made our decision," he said, smiling at Terry.

"I appreciate that. I can make arrangements for your class, for the rest of the term," Scott said, already reviewing substitute teachers in his head. "I'll assume you've already spoken to Nathan?" That wasn't really any of his business, though, so he went on before Bobby could answer. "It'll be an adjustment," he said, "but I'm sure the two of you will make it work."

"I'm gonna talk to him as soon as he gets back from Muir," Bobby answered, smiling at Scott. "Thank you. I know this seems really sudden, but..." But then, it really shouldn't surprise Scott. It's not as if the two of them weren't known for impulsive actions, and so far, it had seemed to work out, more often than not.

"It seems sudden but it's not." Terry knew that everyone thought they were impulsive. And they were, quite often. But they weren't rushing this one. They'd talked about it for two months before they made their decision and that was a month longer than Sean had asked them to take. "We figure it'll take a few weeks to get everything settled. Any help you can give us...we'd really appreciate it."

"Of course," Scott said. "If there's anything specific beyond getting your class covered, Bobby, and fitting your training schedule to when you're here, Terry, just let me know."

Just like that they were done. Terry could hear in his voice, the slight intonation that said Scott had other things to worry about. She shouldn't have been surprised, things hadn't been the way they were for a long time now. "Thank you, Mr. Summers. We will." She smiled and squeezed Bobby's hand so they stood as one. "We'll let you know when we have a better timeline."