Log: Garrison, Sofia, and Wanda

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

Backdated: Sofia and Wanda decide to travel down to the South Seas and surprise Garrison on his father's boat. They bring the two things he needs most; some sound advice and tiny bikinis.



Apia Harbour was by far the busiest harbour in Samoa, a wide crescent of water at the foot of the capital city. While much of the dock was dominated by commercial shipping, there was a network of ash white wooden docks crisscrossing to provide for recreational shipping. One of the docks led to a large white sailboat, close rigged and lying lightly on the water. Standing by the stern gangpank was Christian Kane. The Englishman seemed in his element, wearing a loose white shirt, his long hair tied back into a rough ponytail hanging down his back. He squinted into the sun, looking out at the figures on the dock.

They were hard to miss after all. Two women, taller than most of the men they passed, both with dark, curly hair. But it was there that the similarities ended. Sofia had foregone her usual stillettos, laced up instead in a pair of flat sandals; she kept the appearance of height with legs for days in a pair of white shorts. She looked comfortable in the heat, natural even. Wanda too had changed at their small hotel, following Sofia's lead as she'd packed away her heels. She'd dragged out a knee-length cream colored sundress that swirled as she walked. As they neared, Sofia pushed her large sunglasses into her hair, smiling in greeting.

"On the boat, is it Captain Kane?" Wanda asked as they moved into hearing range. She'd kept her sunglasses perched on her nose but she was peering over them, eyes twinkling in amusement. The dark circles were hidden by the glasses but she was moving slower than she normally did. "If we ask nicely, do we have permission to come aboard?" Even if they didn't, Wanda decided, eyes half-closing as the sun beat down on her back, Sofia deserved a medal for dragging her out of the office and out of the weary New York weather to this.

"In my experience, beautiful woman are able to ask to come aboard in whatever fashion they wish." His voice carried the normal, perpetual amusement woven in the warm accent. "And be successful." He waved them up the gangplank and into the boat itself. The white hull and wooden decks were pristine; spotlessly clean and perfectly squared away.

Gesturing Wanda ahead, Sofia followed on her heels, letting her eyes roam the lines of the boat as if she were a particularly delectable partnering prospect. Her palm ran over the polished wood of the boom as she slowly made her way towards the older gentleman, her eyes softening. "She's beautiful, if you don't mind me saying. Classic, just on the edge of modern. Have you owned her long?"

"Since I retired. Didi persuaded me that it would be the kind of balance that I need between stability and mobility." He smiled, patting the rail with one hand. "She was right, of course."

Wanda peered around with open curiosity and admiration. "I have had very little to do aboard ships or boats," she said, remembering the last two boats she'd been on. The first had been a fishing boat that had pleasant, if smelly, memories and the other one. Well. She'd sunk the other one. Which had also been the last time she'd seen Kane the elder. "But she is beautiful. And peaceful looking." She gave Sofia an arched, but amused, look.

It would have been an easy look to miss, with Sofia still absently wandering around the deck, but Wanda was nice enough to keep it going until she noticed. "What? I like boats," she said briskly, as if caught at something unseemly. Shoving her hands into her pockets she swiveled on her heels to look squarely at Kane, failing to ignore that she had not convinced her teammate of anything. "I... had a sailboat. During the summers. So, what about that son of yours?

"He's up at the prow. Brooding. Dinner is in an hour." Kane gave them both a wicked look. "Try to leave enough of him left so he can eat later, would you?"

Smirking a little bit, Wanda weaved her arm through Sofia's as she wiggled her fingers in Kane's direction. "See you in an hour, then. For now, we have a man to surprise." They headed towards the prow at a leisurely pace, enjoying the relative peace and quiet that surrounded them. In comparison to New York it was as if any major noise pollutant had been washed out to sea. And she was suddenly glad they were about to, finally, see Garrison. It wasn't just the
desperate need for a vacation that had sent her out this far.

The Canadian was sitting at the prow, his arms resting on the rails as his legs poked through and dangled over the side, above the water. He had his back to them, staring out over the harbour, with his chin resting on his forearms. He looked like a typical tourist, taking a moment to drink in the seemingly limitless blue expanse of the Pacific, stretching out past the harbour and into the ocean beyond. His head came up as he heard the approach, and while his eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, it was impossible to miss the raised eyebrows and sudden jerk back of the head as he caught sight of them.

"Dear Penthouse." He said, in a reflective voice. "I never believed anything like this would ever happen to me."

"And never, never will," Sofia returned, leaning down to give him a kiss on the cheek. She smelled like fresh fruit, warming on the window sill. "Charming as you are. You ran away before you could get me coffee again, after all. With a second latte, this meeting might be all the different."

Soft, throaty laughter bubbled out of Wanda as she also leaned down to press a kiss to his other cheek. She stepped back enough to ensure she wouldn't trod on him if he decided to move and propped a hip on the rails, being careful not to massively wrinkle her dress. "If only I had known," she responded mournfully before turning a bright smile down toward the man at their feet, pushing her sunglasses up so they nestled in her hair. "Hello, Garrison."

"Geez." Garrison slid his legs up and out from under the rails, and clamboured to his feet. He was dressed for the weather; a pair of khaki shorts, a t-shirt advertising 'Steam Whistle' beer, and a pair of sunglasses. He looked tan, fit, and nothing like a man who'd nearly been brutally killed less than three months ago. "What are the two of you doing here? Dad got some kind of business for you guys? It's kind of a long way for a social call."

Sofia blinked hard at him, looking for all the world like he had just told her that his favourite designer was American Eagle; first, that was a company, second, American Eagle? "You brought. Me coffee," she said slowly, seeming to believe this was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

"In other words," Wanda replied not a second after Sofia had closed her mouth and Garrison had started to look even more confused, "we were worried about you, especially when you – understandable as it might be – left." A soft sound escaped her friend as if she were preparing to make a strangled, disgusted sound but Wanda cheerfully ignored her for the moment. "Sofia has probably sought legal ways to actually divorce herself from troublesome things like emotions but until then, you'll have to make due with her praising your coffee choices." Her tone dipped from light teasing to a warmer, more tired one. "You've been missed a great deal."

"There's something not entirely right with either of you." Kane said, slightly bemused as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I appreciate the concern, though. I like to tell myself that what I'm doing isn't actually running away, but, well-- when a seventeen year old delinquent is able to see through the bullshit, I guess I don't have a lot of chance of fooling either of you. How's Pete?"

"Alive," Sofia return after a long, stony silence. The entire situation left a dry, rot taste in her mouth. "I'm told I have father issues. But Wanda went crazy while you were gone and broke our tank. So I think we should concentrate on that."

"He's gone to Muir," Wanda filled in smoothly, rubbing at the circles under her eyes. "And I did not go crazy - actually, you know, let us stick with that. It's an easier explanation than how I actually was almost killed. It's part of why I'm here. Sofia was ... unimpressed with the fact that I am stunting my own recovery by continuing to work and go on missions. We simply coupled that with our desire to seek you out."

"Coupled?" Kane said, a ghost of his old self echoing. "So this is a social call? How long are you both planning on staying?"

Sofia chuckled quietly, a deep red wine kind of laugh, a phantom wind tussling all of their hair. "A meal or two. Maybe three. Enough to get you trashed a couple of times, have some indecent stories to take back and make up some more that you'll again be too drunk to know if they're true or not."

"...that's exactly how you started your idea for me to come out here!" Wanda suddenly exclaimed, sounding both affronted and highly amused.

"Alright, but any threesome stories I get to hear first, just so I can really badly deny them and thus prove they're true." Kane said. He opened his mouth to keep going, and stopped. He looked at his hands for a moment, and then back up. "Tell me something. I've got a pretty good idea what you guys do. How do you make that choice? To be responsible only to yourselves without getting all twisted up in the process?"

"You don't." It was easy, practiced, for Sofia to look down at the water, so persistently hitting against the boat. "You'll put on a brave face and tough through it. Let it tear into you and leave something ugly and dead behind. The smart ones let themselves hurt with no shame in it."

"I would be lying if I said it only gets easier with time because it doesn't," Wanda said, smoothing down the side of her dress. "We all cope differently – some of us overwork ourselves or we do things like drink or stay out all nights of the hours. Sometimes anything to feel 'normal' again. But what you don't get is that you've already changed at that point." She took a deep breath to soak in the smell of the water, letting it loosen the muscles that were bunched with long held tension.

"But it's up to you if you let those changes completely redefine who you are."

Garrison didn't have an answer for that, considering the words. He knew at some point he'd need to face what he was feeling, but he didn't know how to put it into words yet. "What if it reveals who you actually are? We can be very good at lying to ourselves."

"Yes, we can. Experts." Looking over her shoulder at him, at Wanda, Sofia smiled. "It will only reveal what you could be. You get to make who you are. No one, nothing, can force you to be something you don't want."

"No matter what happened or what was done to you, you still have those choices. You still have that freedom." Wanda crinkled her eyes at Sofia in response; she hadn't missed the message or had Sofia intended for her to miss it. "And sometimes, at the end of the day, that freedom is the only thing you can count on to still be there."

Garrison gave them a wry smile, letting the comments sink in, well aware that it would take time to come to terms with. "Alright, so time for the important questions. What do you both want to drink, and tell me your plans included some kind of incredibly small swimwear?"