Disclaimer and notes: All characters (that's right; all of them that you recognize and even then one or two more) were created by and are property of Marvel Comics. I use them without permission, and make no money from their use. This is part of the County Mayo series. If I've reduced what seems like the most exciting parts to exposition, it's because they've already been shown in canon in enough detail that I have nothing substantive to add. The canon material used in this story comes from the backstory in Classic X-Men #16. If you have that in your collection, you can see how much liberty I have taken. I apologize in advance to a) anyone who knows how INTERPOL works, and b) anyone with a major interest in history. I am truly, truly sorry to all of you. But the story must go on.
*this* means thoughts and _this_ means emphasis. (#) means there is a footnote at the end of the chapter.
Bike Rides And Long Drives
By Red Monster
Chapter 1
"Hello?"
"Hello, is Maeve there?"
"Yes, hold on a moment."
"This is Maeve."
"Maeve!" he said just a little bit too enthusiastically into the receiver. *Stop that, Sean, don't make a bloody fool out of yourself already.* "Uh, hello, Maeve, this is Sean."
"Well, it's lovely to hear from you, Sean. How are you?"
So she remembered him. This was a happy revelation for Sean, who was sure his chances with Maeve were shot as soon as she met Tom. It wasn't that she'd ignored Sean; in fact, she'd kissed him when he brought her back to her dorm. It was just that he knew Tom, and he didn't expect old patterns to suddenly change.
"Very well," he nodded vigorously, regardless of Maeve talking to him from her dorm room in Ulster, where she couldn't see him. "I was wondering if I could take you out somewhere this weekend. See, there's this..." he began, when he was cut off.
"I would love that, Sean. When can I expect you?" she asked.
*So she'll need a ride there. Of course, she wouldn't have gotten a new bike since a week ago.* "Well, let's see, it starts at 7:00, and we'll need time to get there, so how about I pick you up at 5:00? Saturday night."
"I'll be waiting for you, then."
"Wonderful!"
There was a real ladies' man living in Cassidy Keep, and his name was definitely not Sean Cassidy. The older of the two cousins worked very hard in secondary school, and it paid off. He was admitted to Oxford, but once he got there, it became clear that his interest was not in academics. Instead, Tom spent a year there learning how to talk to women. This diversion of his efforts was reflected in his grades, but when the dean of admissions asked him not to come back after his first year, Tom wasn't really upset. He had what he needed from them; namely that he came back home knowing how to catch some tail whenever he wanted.
Meanwhile, Sean was admitted to Trinity College, where he studied Criminal Science, and he actually studied, resulting in a BS degree four years later. His love life was not so impressive. It didn't much bother Sean that the girls he'd grown up with weren't interested in him, though. Sometimes he'd meet a girl in town, and she'd have a wonderful time with him at first, but as soon as she met Tom (and he couldn't keep them from meeting him, because they all insisted on seeing his home, and Tom would always show up there sooner than later), Sean was as good as never there in the first place. While it drove him crazy to see his cousin win over all those girls and then not even hold onto them for very long, he refused to hate Tom for it. Since his parents had died in a car crash when Sean was 16, Tom was the only family he had. Regardless of his disastrous showing at Oxford, Tom had encouraged Sean more than anyone else when he applied to and attended Trinity, and was now supporting him in his quest to join INTERPOL.
Sean had met Maeve while hitchhiking home from a concert in Londonderry. He was stopped and questioned by a sergeant who was convinced Sean was working for the IRA, and was about to detain him for no good reason when Maeve rode by on her motorcycle and stopped to let Sean hop on. She then led Sergeant McLanahan and his partner, as well as the team of police cars that had been chasing her through the countryside, on a feverish ride through the province that ended when Maeve lost control of her bike after the sergeant put a bullet in her back tire, and they went off a cliff just past the border. Sean used his mutant scream to fly them over Donegal Bay and back to Cassidy Keep, where Maeve's first reaction was to slug Sean and give him an earful for getting her bike destroyed. She calmed down when Sean reminded her that he'd just saved her life. He invited her inside for a drink and a snack, where Tom found them, introduced himself to her and made Sean feel like a "country lump" at the same time. It was because of his cousin's charm towards their beautiful guest that Sean was both surprised and pleased when he flew Maeve back to her university dorm and she told him he'd "but to ask" to see her again, and they kissed.
It was even better when he asked her out, and she didn't even ask where he wanted to take her before she accepted.
Whistling, he skipped out of the main hall of Cassidy Keep that Saturday afternoon and paused only to give a surprised Mrs. Bridges a peck on the cheek as he left.
"Where are you going in such high spirits?" Tom asked him, one eyebrow noticeably raised.
"I'm taking Maeve to the movies!" he sang.
"Good work, cousin," Tom said after Sean shut the heavy double doors behind him. "You managed to beat me to her."
The ride up to Maeve's school was difficult once he crossed the border into Northern Ireland. Not because of the mountains, or especially twisted roads, or a lot of cars out that day; none of that was a problem. It was just that Sean wanted nothing more than to ride to Maeve's dormitory as fast as he possibly could without burning the tires off his motorcycle, but he couldn't afford to draw attention to himself on the road and have another meeting with Sergeant McLanahan. But even at that more relaxed pace, he almost missed the turn for the university.
"Can I help you?" asked the girl at the desk when Sean entered the dormitory.
"Yes, I'm here to pick up Maeve Rourke."
"Room number?"
"..." That was when he realized he'd never bothered to ask Maeve her room number. "I don't know."
"That's okay, I'll look it up." She paged through a booklet of names and numbers. "Ah, here she is." The girl dialed a few digits on the telephone sitting on the desk. "Hello, Kate? Would you tell Maeve there's someone here to pick her up? Thank you." She hung up the phone, and looked up at Sean. "She'll be down in a second."
So she was, looking gorgeous in some stonewashed bellbottoms and soft green blouse under a bulky cardigan, with her bike helmet in hand. "No run-ins with Ulster's Finest this time, I see," she observed with a smile.
"No, I was a sneaky one this time."
"Good," she said, putting her arms around his shoulders. "Now, where is it you're taking me tonight?"
"It's near my home, in Westport. You look lovely, by the way."
"So I'm dressed well enough for the occasion, then? Good thing, as I'd certainly hope you wouldn't ask me to go on a two-hour ride in a fancy dress."
"Well, I may have brought the car, you know," he suggested.
"Did you?"
"No," he admitted sheepishly. "I came on my bike."
"Then it's a good thing," she chuckled, "that you think I look lovely like this."
He didn't mean to sound so gushing, so exaggerated, but the words just came tumbling out, in front of all the girls walking around them to get in and out of the building. "You'd look perfect in anything."
"That's so sweet," she laughed. "Now why don't we get going, before someone knocks us over for standing here?"
Sean had intended to drive them back to Westport, but Maeve knew the backroads of the province better, and she'd been itching to get back on a bike since hers ended up in Donegal Bay, so she did the driving. She took them down the scenic route through Ulster, then Sean directed her once they got into County Sligo.
Their destination, which Sean noticed Maeve hadn't sought to ask him since he'd called her, was a theater that was showing several short films recently completed by local filmmakers. They came into the auditorium just as the lights were dimming, and found that they were lucky enough to get a couple of the last empty seats near the front. Maeve took Sean's hand in hers, and they waited for the films to begin.
Some were impressive, but most were unintentionally amusing. They looked at each other and shared a laugh every time a film took itself too seriously.
After the films were over, they agreed that it had been several hours since either of them had eaten, and therefore a bite to eat was in order. They ducked inside a pub down the street from the theater.
"Have you always lived in Omagh?" Sean asked between bites.
"No," said Maeve. "I'm from Belfast. I went to Omagh for a change in scenery."
"Can't blame you for that," Sean replied, with a tone of voice and roll of the eyes that gave away his reference to "the troubles."
"Sean, it's not that bad," she said, dead serious. "I just got tired of the big city atmosphere."
"I'm sorry," he gulped, looking slightly downward and to the side. "I didn't realize." *Now you've really gone and done it, Cassidy.*
"Honestly, sometimes it seems like the whole rest of the world thinks nothing goes on there except Black and Tans and bombings, but it's not so. There's more to the place than that."
"I believe you," Sean said. "I meant no offense, truly."
"Well," Maeve began, her expression softening noticeably. "You do have a point, either way. No offense taken."
"Perhaps I could go up there with you sometime, and you could show me around," he suggested, eager to recover.
"Perhaps we could do that," she nodded, smiling gently. "But what about you? Your home seemed awfully empty last I saw it; where's your family?"
"I don't have much in the way of family, to tell the truth. Tom and I are both only children, and our parents died when we were young."
"Oh, I'm sorry. It's just the two of you now, then?"
"Did you meet our housekeeper?" he asked. Maeve shook her head. "We've had Mrs. Bridges with us our whole lives, so it's really the three of us."
"What about Tom?" she began.
*Wonderful. This had to happen eventually. May as well just hand her over to my cousin right now, get it over with.*
"How do you two get along when there's not a girl around?" she finished.
*Oh, now that's different.* "He likes to rib me even then," Sean said. Maeve chuckled, and he went on. "We don't have much in common except that we both grew up in that castle and we both lost our parents in our teens." *Don't tell her about Tom's track record with the girls. She seems to think you're good, so far.* "But we're family, that much is for sure. I can trust him when it really comes down to it."
"I'm glad to hear that. I've got two sisters and three brothers and enough aunts and uncles and cousins to fill up this whole town, and I can't trust half of them to tell me when the house is on fire. So you're lucky as far as that goes."
Sean drove Maeve back to the university by a different route than they'd used to come down. She said it was better that he drive them back, because if McLanahan had spotted them on the way down and had anyone looking for them, they'd be looking to see her up front.
"It's awfully late; are you sure you want to go back home tonight?" she asked when he stopped his bike in front of her dorm.
"Where would you have me go at this hour if not home?" he smiled.
"You can spend the night in my room rather than risk being seen by the coppers again, you know. My roommate won't mind," she said, getting off his bike.
"I don't want to impose on you." He got off his bike, too, and took off his helmet, just to walk her to the door.
"It wouldn't be an imposition," she assured him.
*She really wants me to stay the night,* he thought. *But I'd better not. Letting her put me up on the first date wouldn't speak well of me.* "If Tom and Mrs. Bridges wake up tomorrow and I'm not there, they'll be worried."
"I suppose there is that. In that case, ride safe, and don't draw any attention to yourself. But don't let anyone know I said that, either. I have a wild, unruly image to maintain," she said, running her hand through his hair. It must have been close to two in the morning, and the whole campus was quiet, all the windows dark. The only light was from the street lamps placed along the walkways. Maeve had taken off her helmet, too, leaving her hair a rumpled whitish halo around her head. The air had grown much cooler since he'd arrived there to pick her up hours before, and their breath came out in clouds. Sean found that he felt much warmer standing next to Maeve.
"Your secret's safe with me," he said.
She stepped in closer to him, and wrapped her arms around his waist. "I had a wonderful time tonight. Thank you for asking me."
"I had a wonderful time being with you," said Sean, leaning in closer to her. There was something so different about Maeve. She wasn't at all like the girls he'd dated before and quickly lost to Tom. He felt so in awe of her, and yet so at ease. Her eyes glittered dark, dark blue under the lamplight, and she looked up at him with a dreamy smile. Normally he would have been so self-conscious around her, but this time, he could only feel himself sinking until their lips met.
