AN: This is a multi-chapter Seth/Jessica story. I've been rewatching MSW for a few months now, and I stumbled across the definitive fan website, where I read the interview with Peter Fischer regarding the Mirror, Mirror episode and the intention for it to be the series finale with broad hints that Jessica and Seth would end up together. After watching their performances, how could you not expect them to end up together? I found myself unreasonably perturbed by this. So, I decided to write a fic that would get them together, the way I'd always wanted to see it. I weaved in references to a few of my favorite episodes and sprinkled bits of dialogue from the show here and there when I felt like it was necessary. For instance, the chapter devoted to Mirror, Mirror has quite a bit of dialogue from the show in it.
How Long Has This Been Going On? Has a long and fascinating history that you should definitely Google. The version I love is sung by Ella Fitzgerald, who recorded a number of different interpretations. The one that inspired this story is on her 1983 album with Andre Previn entitled Nice Work If You Can Get It: Andre Previn and Ella Fitzgerald do Gershwin.
This is a complete story, and I thought I would post it weekly - on Sundays, of course.
I own nothing pertaining to MSW and I make no money from this. I'm just indulging my fantasy of unrequited love being requited.
Seth Hazlitt wasn't a loner by nature. In a former life, he'd been quite outgoing, jovial even. He enjoyed being around people: laughter, the shrill spike of a trumpet's trailing note, the friendly clink of ice as it hit the side of a rocks glass. He'd lived, been part of a community, a family, a marriage. School plays, neighborhood cookouts, Sunday School classes, Parent-Teacher meetings, dinner dates. He'd had acquaintances, friends, a daughter, a wife. At the time he felt expansive, invincible, limitless. Now, he just felt old. He flung a hand across the nightstand table to clear the unnecessary alarm that he'd set the night before and so many nights before that. As he reached for his glasses, he sighed. He feared it would be another long day.
I could cry salty tears
During those first few weeks after Ruth's death, Seth had gone through the expected motions. All the arrangements had been made months before by Ruth herself. She was ruthlessly honest, most particularly with herself, and she'd understood and accepted (as well as she could) what Seth and Margie raged against. Seth often wondered if his bull-headed stubbornness (a trait his daughter had surely inherited) was what gave Ruth the courage and determination to do what must be done, knowing him to be incapable of carrying out those important last wishes.
As soon as they learned the diagnosis, he abandoned his practice in Portland, referring his few high-risk patients to other doctors and letting the rest fend for themselves. He had only one patient now, and he tended her assiduously. While Ruth was awake, he petted and soothed her, concocted what he hoped were tempting meals (though his culinary skills were not on a par with his medical skills), bathed her forehead with cool cloths when she was sick. While she slept, he read all he could about her diagnosis and made pages of notes: recommendations for her current doctors, lists of experimental treatments, contacts for clinical trials she might be considered for. Anything, anything to keep the monster at bay.
At last, when he'd exhausted what little hope they'd had, he'd done his best to make her comfortable. When she felt up to it, she loved being held in his arms as they reminisced about their courtship, the early days of their marriage and his practice, Margie as a baby.
"Seth, do you remember," she'd say in her gentle voice, and his arms would tighten around her. He'd drop a kiss to her head and tell her that of course he remembered, better than she, because she'd left out this or that detail, all the while clearing the tears from his throat.
He prayed her death would be peaceful, he prayed it would be during the day for his own selfish purpose, his own fear of the dark, he prayed in spite of not believing in prayers or in any sort of higher power at all any longer. He prayed because he could do nothing else.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
After Ruthie died, he'd thought to return to his childhood home. He hadn't visited in years, wasn't sure if anyone there might remember the thoughtless boy he'd been, but he was sure the town couldn't have changed all that much. He thought perhaps he could work with old Doc Wilson, sort of fill in when the old fellow wanted to go fishing or perhaps take the night calls. He wasn't prepared for Doc to up and retire as soon as Seth got settled in. Even more surprising was the elopement with his long-time nurse. That set tongues wagging for a good long time.
He supposed it was his being a native son, no matter that he'd been gone almost since World War II, that endeared him to the old timers and made the transition from one doc to another so smooth. He hired his own nurse, Beverly Hills (the name amused him so that he found he almost had to hire her, or so he'd envisioned telling Ruth), and settled into something of a routine. Even after he'd sold everything of value that was left of their life together, the medical bills from Ruth's illness left him nearly bankrupt. It was cheaper and easier to rent the furnished rooms above the office.
He spent all of his free time and even some of his patients' time fighting with the insurance company. Quixotic, Ruth had sometimes called him, and the memory brought a brief smile to his face. He viewed each day as an enemy combatant, and each night an assault by friendly fire. He clung to his work and the town and its inhabitants.
He was pleased and gratified to see that the town hadn't changed all that much since he was a boy. He knew a great many of the roughly 3,500 inhabitants, by reputation at least, if not personally. Only a few months after Wilson up and retired, Seth was being greeted warmly in the diner and down at the docks. He cooked as little as possible and fished as often as he could get away. It got about, of course, that he was a widower, and while he noticed a few lingering stares in the diner, for the most part, he was left alone, and for that he was deeply grateful. None of these Cabot Cove women could hold a candle to his Ruth, except maybe Frank Fletcher's wife.
He'd noticed Jessica Fletcher right away. Of course he had. She wasn't easy to miss, especially in a small town. She was friendly and outgoing; they had a nodding acquaintance. She was absurdly healthy, so she seldom came to his office.
Of course, Frank Fletcher was still alive then. Seth saw them around town occasionally, swinging hands as they walked along, talking and laughing. Frank gestured as he talked; he would drop Jessica's hand as he used his own to punctuate whatever anecdote he was relating to her, then reach for her hand again as soon as he'd finished speaking.
At first, Seth's grief was so raw that his heart would seize when he saw them together. He often ducked into a shop or onto a side street to avoid being nearer than possible to them. He and Ruth were different people, had been a different kind of couple, less publicly demonstrative but no less in love. While he was never the kind of person to begrudge another's happiness…well, that didn't mean he wanted a front row seat to it, either.
Gradually he began to settle into Cabot Cove and his new life. Margie called him once a week to check on him, but thankfully she was so busy with her own life that she had neither the time nor the inclination to oversee his. Each day began to blend into the next, and old Doc Hazlitt kept putting one foot in front of the other, making a new life for himself, even if it paled in comparison to his old one.