RP Log: Meaghan and Caradoc
Who: Meaghan, Kirley, Caradoc Where: Heathrow Airport When: Early, 28 February 1980 What: Doc puts his family on a plane to Rio. Rating: PG Status: Complete
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Meaghan McCormack-Dearborn did not want to be Anna Duke. She did not want to be blonde, to have brown eyes, did not want to pretend to be Muggle, did not want to leave her husband and all her friends to grief that she had caused. This was not how she had envisioned the path her life would take. No glamour charm could fix the worn and reddened state of her eyes, the slow and heavy movements of her usually quick and graceful body. With one hand she clung with a kind of sad desperation to her husband, with the other she held on to her brother as tightly as she could without hurting him. She was overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of this busy Muggle place, filled with people in strange clothes, stands selling strange items, and all around the babble of incoherent things she could never understand. She felt like a child, bewildered and lost by the noise around her. There were no words to articulate how she felt, so she simply let him lead her where he would.
Caradoc, for his own part, knew that he could hold it together until he saw her get on the plane. His jaw was set and his face was flint as he guided his little family through the bustling Muggle crowd. Heathrow aeroport was the same jumble of escalators, moving walkways and terminals. He knew how to blend them in and seamlessly, they moved until they reached the terminal. Gate #19, direct flight to Rio de Janeiro.
A voice over the loud-speaker crackled - fifteen minutes to board. With shaking hands, he took Kirley - his son - in his arms and gave the boy a soft kiss on the cheek. "Alright," he said gruffly, "you've packed your chess set. I'll expect a checkmate within at least two moves when I get to the new home. You'll beat this old man solid." Her grinned, setting Kirley back on his feet with another pat for his head. "You'll close your eyes one night, open them to the morning and there I'll be."
She nearly lost her iron control on herself at the sight of him bidding farewell to Kirley. Her brother loved him like a father, and her actions were depriving him of yet another parent, yet another adult he trusted and loved. She wanted, so badly then, to ask him to come with her, to beg him to give up the ghost of fighting and to run fast and far away with her. She knew if she did she would break him, she would take away the only thing he had left to keep him standing.
"Soon, I hope." She managed to say, her voice as even as she could force it to be.
Turning to Meaghan, one hand fell on her shoulder and the other hand wrapped around her waist and pulled her close. His hand splayed over her stomach, palming - was he simply imagining it? - the gentle, tell-tale swell of their growing child. "Soon. It's a promise."
He was not imagining it, now--her once-taut abdomen was now softer, except for the little mound of their child, completely unnoticeable to any who couldn't claim intimate familiarity with her body. She pressed her face into his shoulder, letting a tear slide out and run against her nose, wetting the fabric of his shirt. She would not sob, as she so desperately wanted to. She would not leave him with the burden of her hurt. "I love you. I love you so much."
"I love you too. More than anything," he replied, pressing his face hard into the sweet scent of her hair. Inhaling, remembering this single moment (the feel of her body in his arms, her scent) for the months ahead, he pulled back (though not completely, he was intent on holding her until she had to board) and pressed a small metal object into the palm of her hand.
"Listen to me, little sparrow. My home is where-ever you are and I will follow you, this is not forever. I am coming for you. Keep a weather-eye on the horizon."
She nodded, curling her fingers over the necklace like she believed it might fly away if she wasn't careful. She loved this man, in a way she never thought she would be able to love another human being--she was vulnerable because of him; that vulnerability gave her more strength than any carefully-erected carapace of defenses could have. "I believe you. I know how much you fear my wrath if you are not there to help me through labour."
Nuzzling her cheek, he had to laugh softly, a rumble deep in his chest. "I wouldn't miss it." She was his second chance at life; his best hope, better than the blood in his veins. And it was his belief, his true conviction, that he would be witness to the successful birth of their child. "Take pictures. I know you can't send them. But I want to look at you all along the way when I get there."
"Even when I'm haggard and cranky. Though not until I rid myself of this wretched hair." She squeezed his hand, then looked down at her brother, her son, her beating heart. "You're the best thing that could have happened to him, to us, after everything. Without you I might not have made it."
" ... and I would've been long dead," he murmured against her ear, dreading the impending crackle of the loud speaker. Only moments longer, he knew, they couldn't keep digging their hearts out like this. "You were my salvation. Thank you for crashing through all my walls."
"They never stood a chance, Ginger. I'm a wrecking ball." She swallowed hard, forcing down the tears that gathered in a painful knot in her throat. Their time together was drawing so quickly to a close, all she wanted was more time, more time. She would never have enough time with him.
Already gently wiping at the glistening corners of those precious eyes - at any colour - with his thumbs, he kissed her. He kissed her right in the middle of that crowd of people so caught up in their own goodbyes, he kissed her in front of Kirley, whose face screwed up like he was going to make a comment and then went silent ... this was different. His hands felt like lifelines as they clung to her, his lips taking what strength he would need for the lonely months ahead.
She allowed herself a brief moment of selfishness, a brief moment of thinking only of her immediate needs--she let go of Kirley's hand long enough to cling s to Caradoc, to kiss him with a fervor that was completely innappropriate for a public place, to show him how much she needed him to live, to steal some of his iron will to sustain her for the agonizing time apart. After that moment, she let go of him, sliding her hand back into his, her other capturing Kirley's again, as he had waited dutifully for her to turn her attention back to him.
"My love."
"And mine," he said. "My only love." As the words were spoken, the disembodied female voice spoke the words he dreaded over the loudspeaker. Another kiss for Kirley's forehead, another light press of his lips to her lips (a hand paused reverently over the baby).
"It is time."
She nodded, beyond words now. She felt like she was slowly tearing off her own arm, how painful it was to leave him behind. Her eyes begged him to come with her, even if she could not allow her mouth to speak the words. She hoped against rational hope that he might say at the last minute that he was coming, that this was no longer his fight to fight. She nodded again, letting go of his hand finger by finger. "I know."
He walked with her as far as he could, his hand just as tightly wound around hers, every step she took away from him ... "I'll see you soon," he said softly, smiling for them, brave until the last. He wouldn't let her see his agony, he would be her strength. There was time to grieve out of her sight.