Theresa Cassidy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
formerlysiryn) wrote2016-10-12 04:30 pm
formerlysiryn) wrote2016-10-12 04:30 pm
Entry tags:
[Dated October 10th]
There are plenty of moments in Terry's life that are burned into her memory, there to stay with no fading around the edges, no rose colored glasses on. They're simple, stark, and always readily available when called upon (usually in the form of nightmares). Being the Morrigan had provided both a relief from the pain and a stark clarity in the memories themselves -- that clarity stuck around, leaving Terry with all the pain and none of the relief. There are days the memories are unbearable, and days that she's free, for some time. Hour by hour, day by day, for the past few years Terry has survived, a steady, daily recovery from bouts of grief and guilt wrapped in loneliness.
It sucks.
Being in the other Darrow has provided some much needed distraction, however, some few hours of living solely in the present.
She's explored the city often, traveled through the portal a few times -- even today, with how things seemed to be going strange and wrong around it. She'd gone through anyway. It's the curiosity that gets her, ultimately, and today she's finally worked up the nerve to see if, once and for all, there's some version of Sean walking around.
Of course she's spent most of her time looking for Sean, hoping, against her own rationality, that she could see him again. But she's found nothing so far, and it's really only the hope that's kept her going. Blind, stupid hope, but it is what it is.
She's kept an eye on this world's version of his apartment, and she's decided to go in today. The building is mostly empty this early in the afternoon, but Terry is still careful when she goes up. She rings the bell at his door, knocks, calls out, but there's no response. Convinced that no one is home, Terry finally sends a short lance of sound at the door knob, shattering the lock. She eases her way in carefully and quietly, relaxing only when she sees the apartment is empty, her footsteps echoing on bare walls.
There's no other family living here, but there's no Sean, either. It had been a wild hope, but it still hurts.
The sound first reaches her ears when she's first turning to leave. It's one that shouldn't be in the empty apartment, one that strikes right at her breastbone.
Still, she goes to check. She can't not.
The sound of crying is coming from the bedroom, and Terry pauses in the open doorway, shock freezing her in place. It's a hospital bassinet, with name card on the end facing her.
It's a familiar hospital bassinet. A familiar blue blanket, a familiar cry.
She knows that cry; she'd had only a few hours with him, but she knows what her son sounded like. It's one of the few memories she really has of him.
Christ. Jesus Christ and all his saints, it's Sean. It's Sean.
Terry finally breaks from her frozen state with a cry of her own, brushing tears away so she can read the label on the bassinet and the bracelet on his wrist, confirming what she already knows.
"Sean," she whispers, and his cries quiet slightly. She knows it's most likely because someone has shown up for him, but she wants to think he knows it's her. He quiets, hiccuping before all that's left are heavy breaths. His eyes are red and squeezed shut, his hands balled into fists, his face fat and pink, his hair soft and brown.
He's small and upset and he's hers.
Terry barely registers anything as she sinks to the ground, back against the bassinet as she holds Sean, humming as she rocks him to a calm state.
Time passes, and it's only when the window is no longer letting in much light that Terry stirs again. Sean is fast asleep, but he's going to need food. Clothes. A place to sleep. Lord-- what if she can only exist here? She can't take him through the portal. Even if it were perfectly safe, she won't take that chance. Thinking of Raven and Luke gives Terry pause, but she thinks they'd understand. She can't give it much more thought.
She has enough cash to book a hotel room, and she's discovered before that her card works here, which makes buying a few baby basics easy -- a carrier, clothing, diapers, food. It all adds up much quicker than Terry expects, but she's saved up enough to be comfortable for a few months. She'll make it work. She'l use her power if she must -- not the best decision she'll ever make, but Sean is all that matters.
Sean finally wakes when Terry is still heading back to the hotel, bags from her second trip to the store in one hand and his carrier in the other. It's heavy and she's glad for the excuse to set it down on a nearby park bench, and she drops the shopping bags next to it before tucking his blanket around him a little more securely.
He's screaming as she fumbles through the brand new diaper bag, searching for the bottle of formula she'd made earlier.
"I'm gettin' it, love," she tells him, voice low and soothing even though she feels anything but at the moment. "Just a wee bit longer, ye'll be okay."
It sucks.
Being in the other Darrow has provided some much needed distraction, however, some few hours of living solely in the present.
She's explored the city often, traveled through the portal a few times -- even today, with how things seemed to be going strange and wrong around it. She'd gone through anyway. It's the curiosity that gets her, ultimately, and today she's finally worked up the nerve to see if, once and for all, there's some version of Sean walking around.
Of course she's spent most of her time looking for Sean, hoping, against her own rationality, that she could see him again. But she's found nothing so far, and it's really only the hope that's kept her going. Blind, stupid hope, but it is what it is.
She's kept an eye on this world's version of his apartment, and she's decided to go in today. The building is mostly empty this early in the afternoon, but Terry is still careful when she goes up. She rings the bell at his door, knocks, calls out, but there's no response. Convinced that no one is home, Terry finally sends a short lance of sound at the door knob, shattering the lock. She eases her way in carefully and quietly, relaxing only when she sees the apartment is empty, her footsteps echoing on bare walls.
There's no other family living here, but there's no Sean, either. It had been a wild hope, but it still hurts.
The sound first reaches her ears when she's first turning to leave. It's one that shouldn't be in the empty apartment, one that strikes right at her breastbone.
Still, she goes to check. She can't not.
The sound of crying is coming from the bedroom, and Terry pauses in the open doorway, shock freezing her in place. It's a hospital bassinet, with name card on the end facing her.
It's a familiar hospital bassinet. A familiar blue blanket, a familiar cry.
She knows that cry; she'd had only a few hours with him, but she knows what her son sounded like. It's one of the few memories she really has of him.
Christ. Jesus Christ and all his saints, it's Sean. It's Sean.
Terry finally breaks from her frozen state with a cry of her own, brushing tears away so she can read the label on the bassinet and the bracelet on his wrist, confirming what she already knows.
"Sean," she whispers, and his cries quiet slightly. She knows it's most likely because someone has shown up for him, but she wants to think he knows it's her. He quiets, hiccuping before all that's left are heavy breaths. His eyes are red and squeezed shut, his hands balled into fists, his face fat and pink, his hair soft and brown.
He's small and upset and he's hers.
Terry barely registers anything as she sinks to the ground, back against the bassinet as she holds Sean, humming as she rocks him to a calm state.
Time passes, and it's only when the window is no longer letting in much light that Terry stirs again. Sean is fast asleep, but he's going to need food. Clothes. A place to sleep. Lord-- what if she can only exist here? She can't take him through the portal. Even if it were perfectly safe, she won't take that chance. Thinking of Raven and Luke gives Terry pause, but she thinks they'd understand. She can't give it much more thought.
She has enough cash to book a hotel room, and she's discovered before that her card works here, which makes buying a few baby basics easy -- a carrier, clothing, diapers, food. It all adds up much quicker than Terry expects, but she's saved up enough to be comfortable for a few months. She'll make it work. She'l use her power if she must -- not the best decision she'll ever make, but Sean is all that matters.
Sean finally wakes when Terry is still heading back to the hotel, bags from her second trip to the store in one hand and his carrier in the other. It's heavy and she's glad for the excuse to set it down on a nearby park bench, and she drops the shopping bags next to it before tucking his blanket around him a little more securely.
He's screaming as she fumbles through the brand new diaper bag, searching for the bottle of formula she'd made earlier.
"I'm gettin' it, love," she tells him, voice low and soothing even though she feels anything but at the moment. "Just a wee bit longer, ye'll be okay."
no subject
Erik is here, somehow, and there's another version of her hellbent on causing chaos. The one person she would want to be here isn't, though, and somehow the arrival of so many other people makes the ache of his absence even stronger. Most of the time, Raven's accepted that he's not coming back, but surrounded by his legacy in the school and now confronted with his former friend/foe, it's hard not to hope.
Her focus is shifted from herself the moment she hears from Terry, though, and she knows this is the final push she needs to cross the breach into the apparent alternate version of Darrow. Terror extinguished by concern for her friend, her adrenalin is through the roof when she spots them on a park bench.
Theresa and a baby. "...hi. What's going on?"
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Now, she's suddenly thrust into motherhood, and as ecstatic as she is to have Sean back again, the very idea of what that means is terrifying.
She looks up when she hears a familiar voice, and though she wants to immediately relax and maybe cry a little, Terry has to make sure it is indeed the Raven she's come to call a close friend and not the other. Not Mystique.
"Where were we, when we shared your dream?" she asks, hoping Raven understands the need for the question in the first place.
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"On a beach," she answers, still standing back. "In Cuba."
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"Raven," she breathes around the lump in her throat, "I got him back. I don't know how or why, but I got him back."
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"I was...I broke into me da's apartment here," she admits, guilt only slightly coloring her tone. "Or what his apartment would've been here. It was empty, but then I heard Sean cryin' in the bedroom."
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She keeps swinging between terrified and elated, each mood swing clamped down fiercely so she can focus on Sean and what she has to do for him now. It's easy to keep going when she thinks of it that way.
no subject