Log // Alison, Nathan, Carter Blaire // Of Fathers & Daughters...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Alison goes to see her father to ask him for some help, with Nathan tagging along as moral support. He doesn't get to meet Carter Blaire directly, but what needs to get done is done and what might happen from there is anyone's guess.

The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt.
  ~ Max Lerner

~*~

Emily smiles at her, eyes peering at her a bit worriedly and a whole lot sympathetically over her glasses as she reaches forward, pressing the button on the intercom to announce the next appointment. Alison realizes right away that Emily didn't say who the appointment was, and that means Emily gave her a time slot without telling her employer who was coming in to see him. This will cause her trouble later, Alison knows, but Emily has been here forever and will likely be here forever, and everyone in the office knows that nothing would happen in the proper way if Emily didn't see to it.

Stepping through the doorway and entering the office, even though it's a new one and larger than the one he had as a lawyer still brings back a cascade of memories. The smell of books and leather, dust motes dancing in the air before half-shut curtains, light streaming through a semi-dark room and leaving bright spots here and there. The creak of leather as a chair moves, is turned around to face the new arrival and she looks at him just as he sees her, the room going still and quiet for a moment.

She wasn't sure what she might see there, in eyes the exact same color as hers - you have his eyes, just look at that they used to say - but whatever it is, the moment goes too quickly and swiftly and then there's only iron present, in his eyes and his words and the way he carries himself.

Like father, like daughter, they used to say.

She remembers how important it used to be, to see the glint of pride in those eyes as they looked at her, to hear approval in his voice after a success he'd been requiring of her being achieved spectacularly well. She also remembers the way that all went away, the day she told him she would not be doing as he expected her to do - would not, even, be taking the second alternative, which while not as satisfactory had still been deemed somewhat acceptable.

She remembers telling him what she wanted to do, and how everything in the way he used to look at his daughter died that day.

It's almost frighteningly easy to just forge ahead and ignore the ice cold way he speaks to her, or the razor sharp words sent in her direction each time he opens his mouth. Even when Miles is brought up, a family friend now working in social services having seen Alison's name on a file and asked Carter Blaire about his grandchild, during an evening reception. Needless to say, there is not much pleasure at having learned about it that way, nor is there much confidence in Alison's skills as a mother. Lack of ability to shoulder any responsibility or to carry through with anything comes up more than once, as does a scathing evaluation of her current lifestyle, which he actually knows far less about than he thinks he does - but that doesn't stop him, since as far as he's concerned, he knows all he needs to know.

But she needs his help, and for Haroun's sake, Alison will suffer anything her father has to say without a word of protest and will bide her time until she can have her say and make her request.

~*~

The man is a bastard. It's the one thought that keeps recurring to Nathan as he listens, both with his ears and his mind, to the 'discussion' going on behind the closed door to Carter Blaire's office. A smug bastard, who believes he knows far more about his daughter's life than he does. A presumptuous bastard, to be passing judgment on someone he doesn't know at all anymore.

It is, perhaps, a good thing that he's sitting out here under the curious and somewhat watchful eye of the man's secretary. In fact, it probably is; the tension between Alison and her father is bad enough. Adding another element to the mix, and an inexperienced lawyer at that, probably would have provoked the man into attempting to establish his dominance, and that would have been unproductive.

Nathan tries to stifle a cough, keeping his breathing carefully shallow and focusing on the muffled voices, rather than the pain in his chest. If only he could 'listen' more effectively... but it hurts to reach out with his mind, and he can push only so far without causing a reaction that the secretary would notice.

The only thing that keeps him from risking that, and reaching out to Alison to remind her that there are other options, even if they aren't quite as good, is that the bastard appears to be listening. Only a little, and he seems much more concerned with criticizing his daughter, but there is some interest there. Some focus on what matters, rather than petty self-aggrandizement.

It is a slender hope, at best, but it isn't his place to point that out. And he suspects that he would refrain, in any case. For whatever reason, Alison's placed her hopes on her father, and she has precious little to hold onto as is.

~*~

She steps out of the office and closes the door behind herself, feeling somehow oddly light and yet weighed down by a mountain at the same time. Emily's eyes are on her the moment she looks up and she offers the woman a small smile, a hint of gratitude showing through the after-battle fatigue. "Thank you, Emily. We'll be going now, but… thank you." She can't tell Emily how much she owes her, for this - even if there are no results at all, she got this far and managed to do what she had to do thanks to this woman, who used to give her lollipops whenever she'd come to visit her father's office, as a child, and now looks as though she wishes that same gesture might somehow soothe the ills of the world as they used to when Alison was a child.

Turning around, Alison offers Nathan another one of those small smiles, which she can manage somehow because despite everything else, something was accomplished today, though her father will likely not see it that way, she thinks. "Hey. Let's go?"

Nathan swallows and gets up slowly, wavering a little on his feet and trying not to notice the concerned look from the woman behind the desk. Outside first. Then they can talk. He limps slowly to Alison's side, and out through the door she holds open for him. Only when it closes behind her does he speak.

"Will he help?"

She moves closer to him, giving him a sidelong glance and ready to help if need be, keeping her pace slow and easy while they head towards the car.

"I don't know."

She has no answers and no solutions, no salvation or promises waiting for her in that office on this day. But she still hopes, even though she wishes she could stop herself from doing so. Hopes that somehow she got through to her father, that he understood how vital it was to her that he go through the files she left him. "He might end up accusing me of industrial espionage, for all I know. I don't know," she repeats the words slowly, shaking her head.

"It's a puzzle, to him. Or part of him," Nathan says slowly, thinking about some of the things he had overhead - and he had pushed, a little too hard, trying to listen to what was going through Carter Blaire's mind, not just what he was saying. "Intellectual interest alone might make him pursue it."

"That's what I'm hoping for. That and the fact that if he finds even anything slightly off in the files we gave him, he will want to chase it down and expose it, because he can't help doing so." She didn't feel sheepish at all in admitting that, that she had played on her father's sense of justice and fair play that way - what didn't apply to his family life still applied to his work and the man had always had a frightening sense of fair play and a need to abide by the Law.

Nathan wobbles a bit, reaches out with his less-bad arm to steady himself against the wall, and tries not to give in to the tickle at the back of his throat. "Don't like him," he says a bit gruffly. "Either you take after your mother or you were a changeling child." But he isn't precisely objective on the subject of fathers these days, and they both know that.

Alison can't help it and smiles almost luminously at that, the corner of her eyes crinkling in response. "My mother was perfectly horrified with the idea of me becoming something so crass and common as a rock star," she informs him, though her tone is light now and she pauses beside him, watching him intently as he pauses during their short walk back to the car.

"Changeling, then. Should have figured." He straightens, wincing, and focuses on the car. Once they're in the car he can relax. "You held your own, you know. Didn't rise to his bait. I think he respected that, in a way."

She thinks that over for a moment, then realizes what was missing from this visit, as compared to the last few times she saw her father, and smiles just a bit, nodding in agreement with Nathan. "He didn't yell." Which meant he was thinking about what was going on the entire time, regardless of what he was saying. She's smiling as they reach the car, though she still doesn't know that her father will help, and she opens the door for Nathan, closing it behind him carefully once he's inside.

Maybe. Just maybe there's a chance there after all.