Log: Garrison and Christian Kane

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

Backdated: During his weeks on the boat, Garrison finally has the conversion with his father that he needed to, and learns a lot about himself in the process.



It was a blue so deep to touch indigo. That was Garrison Kane's first thought looking at the South Seas waters around the Enigma. Not the slatey grey of the North Sea, or the white touched and azure streaked Atlantic, where it touched around the East Coast. It spoke of immeasurable depth; a clean ancient swath of water that had been the centre of thousands of years of tiny island wars, belching steel conflicts, and forgotten pasts of piracy and exploitation. It almost fit the idea of his father here, the clean appearance belying the blood soaked history.

Kane sat in the prow of the ship, watching the waves break against the knife-like front of the hull and his mind turning to the same thoughts that had consumed him since he'd fled to Australia, to meet his father and come aboard his floating retirement. Now, after two weeks, he still didn't have any answers, only the endless litany of questions that piled up in his mind, and during the darkest moments a sea, threatened to swamp him.

He watched the impossibly huge moon above the horizon, almost seeming to touch the water. He knew all the conditions that made it look immense; the proximity to the equator, the clarity of the sky, the lack of cloud cover or haze. Not explanation really gave the ability to not gawk at the satellite hanging so close that you felt you could touch it, so bright that the darkness felt more like the touching of an early twilight, as opposed to the depths of the night.

"It's beautiful. Five years, and I still haven't gotten used to it." The soft Scots accent at his back wasn't entirely unexpected, but Garrison was still amazed at how softly and quietly his father moved.

"I think I understand why you moved down here." He said, and Christian handed a cup of coffee to his son.

"There's a few reasons. The world has a lot of beautiful places, but few that can be both tranquil and deadly."

"Deadly? Looking for trouble, Dad?"

"It's second nature. A sudden storm, a standing wave, piracy, unstable politics." Christian Kane smiled, his teeth luminous along with his white beard in the moonlight. "There's a point were you need to accept that the things that you need aren't always the safest. Besides, I go way back here. Did you know that my first posting overseas was in Madripoor?"

"No. Madripoor, really?"

"I was, oh, twenty-two at the time. Just finished my time in the army, and ended my training with MI-6 at the time. My job was to simply wait for signels from our contact after the deal had been finished, and provide him with the documents to get on the British merchant marine ship waiting to get him out." Christian paused to light a cigar, inhaling deeply and blowing out a plume of smoke. "The whole thing came apart, and I spent a week working my way out of the island and back to Hong Kong. Terrified the whole time."

"I can't imagine you scared." Garrison took a sip from the cup of coffee. It was strong and sweet, the way his father liked it. He took the pre-offered cigar, not really a smoker, but enjoying the odd Cuban that had been de rigour for a while in Ottawa during his college years.

"I've been scared plenty of times, son. In the job I did, the only people who weren't scared were too stupid or too foolish not to be." Christian gestured with his cigar. "Fear is good. It reminds you what is important to you."

"Words of wisdom." Garrison said, sourly.

Christian didn't answer, occasionally taking a draw from his cigar and looking at the sky. All around them were the sounds of the sea; the creaking of the hull, the sound of the waves lapping against them, the creaking of the rigging or the rustle of the sail. Being at sea was never silent, Kane was learning. It was learning to live in a constant soft haze of noise.

"So, where are we going next?"

"That's up to you."

"I thought Didi did all the navigating?"

"That isn't what I meant."

"Oh great." Garrison's tone turned hostile. "Is this the part that we have the long delayed father-son conversation?"

"Oh, stop being such a child." Christian's tone didn't change, delivering the statement with the same easy voice as the earlier conversation. Garrison knew that his father's accent came from his material grandfather; a Scots that he'd been sent away to during the Blitz, and ended up living with for almost two decades in Scotland.

"Look, I don't need--"

"You don't need what? You came out here for a reason, Garrison." Christian gestured at the boat. "Do we really need to do the same dance before you can talk to me?"

Garrison was quietly, looking back out over the ocean before replying. "Look, I needed to get away and figure some things out." He knew he was being petulant, but it was part of his normal reaction to his father.

"And you've figured out what?"

"That running away works better for you than me." The tone was acidic, but Christian only raised an eyebrow.

"Is that the point?" Christian said, almost sounding amused. "I'm right here, son. If you've got something to say, there's never going to be a better opportunity."

"Maybe I don't want to talk to you."

"Possibly. But you chose a bad escape to avoid me." The elder Kane took a seat beside his son, taking the unlit cigar from his hands, and neatly snipping away the end to make it ready to be lit. "What happened, Garrison?"

Garrison delayed, taking time to light the end, using a wooden match to scorch the tobacco first, and only after drawing on the flame, to slowly and evenly start the flame on a slow burn. He took a long draw, and paused, letting the smoke dribble slowly from his mouth.

"I was killed. I mean, really, killed. They tore my arm off, and I remember lying there, unable to move, just focused on the texture of the road in front of me. I couldn't feel anything, no pain, just this unnatural fixture on the bumps and cracks in the asphalt as I died."

"Dying has a tendency to focus the mind." Christian agreed, staring at the water, enjoying the air and the oily flavour of the cigar. "What did you think about?"

"Nothing. That was the weird thing. I expected to have my life flash before my eyes or something. Some kind of last important thought, and instead, I just lay there, not able to make a sound, just-- just staring." Garrison shook his head, and took another draw. "And then I woke up."

Christian sipped from his mug, not interrupting. Garrison still wasn't really opening up yet, more grasping for words to make his own decision whether or not to take that step.

"I heard Pete, and my first thought was, 'well, we must be okay'. How stupid is that? I heard him, and suddenly, everything fine, right? Until I started listening, and then..." Garrison trailed off for a second. "He was too dangerous. I arrested him the first time. Less than two fucking months until he's back out, already making innocent people into weapons, and I couldn't let it- I mean, I was so angry. I was so angry that he'd just get away with it."

"Apocalypse? The mutant you stopped in New York City in the fall?"

"I arrested him. SHIELD had him in custody, same as Sabretooth, and, what, two months. Two fucking months. I put both of them away, and they're back out and it just didn't make sense. And then Pete had a plan, and he said-" Garrison gulped a breath, barely aware that the words were starting to pile up on him, and he couldn't stop them flowing. "We were going to take him down. All the way. And Jay and Dani had already been changed and there was no going back so why not just finish it? And I just didn't- I didn't want to try and do the right thing. I wanted him dead too, and we did it."

He'd crossed almost into a babble, just unable to stop voice the thoughts that had corroded his soul, burned him since he'd helped do the deed, aware that was what ached inside, the fact that he wasn't any different than- "I decided a man had to die. I gave myself the right to kill him. So everything I said about being different, everything I've dedicated myself to is just a lie!"

The last statement was plaintive, and it hung in the air long after his voice died away, resonating like the afterglow of a firework. Christian took a long, reflective drag from the cigar, sketching them both in a moment of glowing crimson as it flared. "You came here because you came to the conclusion that you're no better than me. Is that right?"

Garrison hesitated, not wanting to fling it back in his father's face, but he didn't have it in him to lie. "Yes."

"Hmm." Christian muttered, toying with the coffee mug before taking a sip. "You know, Garrison, there's a talk that is long overdue between us."

"Dad, look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come on your boat and be an asshole. I didn't mean to-"

"I know you didn't mean to, son. But that's part of why you're here, because whether you meant it or not, you had to. It's long past time we dealt with this." Christian said, although there was no anger or offence in his voice.

"I don't think-"

"You're here because you think deep down, you're the same kind of person that I am, son. And you're partially right, but not in the ways that you think." Christian's voice hardened slightly. "And you're just as much Emily's son, and your mother is inside you too."

"Don't talk about my mother." Garrison shot back, suddenly angry. It felt like his father was brushing his concerns aside as usual, and to bring up his mother like she'd been any more than an afterthought of his set off his temper. "You're the one who fucked off on her, and didn't even bother to show up when she died! If you'd cared for one second, as opposed to fucking everything that moved behind her back, then you can lecture me about her! The only thing she ever did wrong was be stupid enough to get back together with you in the first-"

Garrison's mutation involved being strong enough to lift tons, unnatural endurance, and reflexes and speed to rival a cheetah. All of that, and even he couldn't avoid the slap from his father that spun him against the rail. Kane could only looked shocked as he turned back to his father, putting his hand to his reddened cheek.

"Don't ever call your mother stupid, Garrison." Christian's voice was steely, implecable. For a flash, he understood what having Christian Kane for an enemy must be like, his immense will set against ones self.

"I-"

"The person that you think you are is based on a lot of misconceptions, son. If you came here for answers, then you have a golden opportunity right here. You want to have it out with me? Didi's in bed, we're a hundred miles off the coast, and no one else is around. You want to blame me for something, Garrison? Now's the time." Christian still didn't seem angry, just determined.

"Now's the time? Now's the time you find convenient to pretend to be a father?" Garrison pointed an accusatory finger at his dad. "You left, walked away from mom, and stayed away. I grew up closer to one of your students than with my own father. And he made me a killer." He blurted out, appalled a moment after to voice that thought about Pete.

"Son, look--" Christian softened for a moment, gesturing back at where they had been seated. "You're killing yourself trying to understand what's happened, and that part is my fault. I didn't understand just what you needed, until now. I always thought- well, I always assumed, and that wasn't fair to you. Please sit."

Garrison took a deep breath and sat down, not mollified, but at least trying to control his temper. His father had always been his trigger, and now, the urge to simply attack was almost palpable.

"I want to talk to you about your mother." Christian held up a hand, cutting Garrison off before he could speak. "You don't have the full story, and we once thought that was better for you. I think we were wrong."

"There's no story. You went and-"

"Garrison, if you want answers, please shut up." Kane said, a slight smile tugging at his mouth. Garrison shut up.

"When I first met Emily, it was- well, it was like being stopped in time. She wasn't the prettiest woman I'd ever met, or the most accomplished. To be honest, at the time, she was kind of awkward, dealing with New York City and the UN for the first time. But when we met, everything seemed to slow, and melt away." Christian finished off his coffee, and set the mug aside. "No matter what you might think, your mother and I loved each other. For her until the end, and for me, well, still. When we left New York for London, she was excited, happy. When you came along... I remember that night. Your birth was almost a state secret, and I had ministers wanting a moment’s time, MPs, and then it happened. I walked in to see your mother lying in bed, with you in her arms. She was never more beautiful, son."

"I don't see how this matters, Dad. I appreciate that you had a moment, but it didn't change things."

"Change. It's funny that you mention that." Christian said with a rueful laugh. "Emily knew what I did. She knew the person that I was, and that's when the first difficulties started. She took you both back to Canada, said what she needed for the marriage from me. It took me almost a year before I finally was able to determine that Emily mattered more than Queen and country. So I left the service."

Garrison held up his hand. "No you didn't. Wisdom said you worked for British Intelligence in Canada. Some kind of-- some operative thing."

"I worked with British Intelligence. My three years in Toronto, son, was mostly spent as a kind of liaison between STRIKE and Canada's Department H. Both agencies were small, STRIKE was brand new, and Department H was undergoing a huge re-alignment under that Colcord. Never liked that man." Kane took a drag from his cigar. "I traveled a great deal, and kept my ear to the ground with the SIS, but ultimately, I was a civilian. And that's when the rest of the trouble started."

"The affairs."

"No. Not until we'd reached the end." Christian paused, considering the break of the waves for a long moment before going on. "When I came to Canada, I made a commitment to your mother. I changed. It only took a couple of years to discover what the end result would be. When I changed, when I gave up the job, committed to her and the life she wanted for you and Victoria, I became a different person. That person wasn't what Emily wanted."

"Bullshit." Garrison interrupted angrily. "I can't believe you're trying to make this all Mom's fault."

"Don't be ridiculous. It wasn't her fault any more than it was mine. The Christian Kane that she loved wasn't the kind of man she needed for the life she wanted for her children, and the person she needed for that life, she didn't love." Christian looked down into his coffee mug, his demeanour subduing, as if the memories weighed on him. "We denied it as long as we could, and when I went back to the job, that meant being the person who couldn't be what she needed at the same time. Love isn't simple, Garrison. It's not something that you can truly control. Men and women fall in love with what's worst for them all the time, and you can't simply wish it away."

"But you left. You-- Mom wasn't like that. She used to talk about you like--" Garrison blurted, feeling adrift in the words of his father.

"Your mother never remarried, son. She never had a serious relationship after I left, did she."

"She dated. She-- there were boyfriends and things."

"You know what I mean." Christian said. "It's a terrible thing to not be the right person for each other, and still be in love as much as the first day that you met. It wasn't until your mother got sick that she finally told me to stop being an old fool and try to move on."

"You weren't there when she was sick. You showed up, what, five times over the three years. Vikks said she forgot what you looked like."

"I know. But I did visit your mother many more times during that period. You were at school and then at the Academy. Victoria was being, well, Victoria." Kane sighed, staring his son in the eye. "When we realised that we couldn't be what was needed, Emily asked me to limit my visits. Having a father who jetted around the world, could disappear and never turn up any moment, talked to prime ministers and presidents as if they were children; that wasn't going to let you find yourselves. It would just lead to trying to be the same. She wanted you both to choose who you were, as opposed to being shaped by my abnormal life. Your mother had a core of steel, Garrison. She knew what was best for you both, so I stayed away."

"Again, you're trying to blame her just because you didn't care. You were too busy with everything that you decided was more important!" Garrison shot back, and to his surprise, his father's reaction wasn't anger, but sadness.

"I was there many times, son, more than you ever witnessed. Just because I agreed with your mother doesn't mean I didn't try to share what I could, even if you had to be kept unaware." Christian gestured at him. "Think about it, boy. Did your mother ever say I wasn't around enough? Did she even once say that I was at fault for not being there?"

Garrison opened his mouth to respond, and stopped. His mother had comforted him a hundred times on events that his father wasn't at, but she'd always make it about how he felt, and not about his father deciding not to be there. There was a growing suspicion in Kane's mind that his father might be telling the truth, and with it, cracks were growing in his well maintained hostility. "No."

"No. Now, maybe we both went too far with it. In trying to let you make up your own mind, we pushed you into being influenced by rejecting me as much as you might have been if I'd been there. I don't know. Emily and I trusted that we were at least trying to do what was best for you, and we were mistaken." Kane said, raising his hands up in an uncertain gesture. "It was never easy, son, for you and your sister, or for your mother and I. We made mistakes, and I'm ready to ask your forgiveness for both of us. But we tried to do what we thought best, and by the time we realised we were wrong, you're already learned too much anger to fix without making things worse for you."

Garrison sat starting at his feet, leaning against the rail. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. "She was in the hospital for a month. Three years of chemo, and you didn't-"

"I did. I was there the day she died. She knew that if we were there at the same time, you'd never be able to deal with both the grief and the anger. She spent her life making the best decisions she could to try and protect you, son. I held her hand, and she whispered memories to me about her life with the both of you until she was gone. I waited until she made you and Vikks go home and get some sleep. She thought she'd make it to see you in the morning, and when we both knew she wouldn't, she tried to entrust me with what was most precious to her; her memories of the both of you." Christian stopped, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. His hand came away moist, although Christian didn't pause. "After the funeral, I collected Emily's final instructions to me, asking me to try and find a way to re-enter your lives, to make amends for the mistake we both made with you and Victoria. I haven't done a very good job of that."

"Mom never said any of this. She never said that you knew or that there was some kind of, dammit, I needed a father! I needed someone else to be there, and you both just made some kind of deal without ever giving us the chance to decide." Garrison cut his father off, his voice echoing over the water. Christian just nodded.

"You're right. Wisdom told both of us that what we were doing wasn't fair to you both, but-- we thought it was best, son, and we were wrong. Even if you can't forgive me, don't blame your mother. It was never an easy situation, and she took the hardest role." Christian's voice carried genuine concern, and it struck Garrison that he was concerned that he might blame his mother. For the first time, Garrison felt he believed his father's feelings about his mother. Still, the revelations had made him wretched. He turned and spat into the ocean, his mouth sour and his stomach acid.

"I can't believe you didn't just tell us."

"By the time you were old enough to understand, the damage had been done." Kane shook his head. "I think Peter still wants to punch me over it. He cares deeply about you both, you know."

"I don't want to talk about Pete."

"We should, because the only way you're going to be able to understand what you're going through is to clear some of the conclusions that you've drawn about yourself and others." Christian sighed heavily. "The worst thing that we do to ourselves is to try and make things simple, son. Nothing ever is."

"That sounds like an excuse." Garrison retorted, sounding miserable. He was awash with the information Christian had given him, trying to sort out his feelings.

"I know, which is why people keep falling into that trap." Kane got up and walked down into the galley, returning with the coffee pot to refill their cups. "I know your feelings about the law. How do you make that work with Peter, a former government assassin trained by your father?"

"I, uh- I don't know. I guess I tried to focus on the person he was." Garrison said slowly.

"But Peter took the law in his own hands. He did his job without any of the things you hold dear." Christian took the cigar from his mouth and took a sip. "I'm not trying to put you on the spot, son. I'm trying to point out that you can believe in the law, and in what you do, without being compromised by having worthy people as friends who do things you don't believe in."

"It's different."

"Is it? Really? How?"

"It, well, see, Pete and his-" Kane stopped. "Alright, there's grey areas that you can't always apply law to, and those situations need, well- look, it's like this. There's a larger--"

"Son, stop. The reason you are having trouble is that you're like your mother; you try to judge people based on who they are first. What they do, what they believe, that comes later. I've seen your friends. I wouldn't be surprised if someone in that mansion is an outright criminal that you think is a decent person. Or your friend, Logan? That's a psychopath's psychopath, and yet, the two of you are close. I'm going to assume it's because you see something better inside him?"

"That's not the same. Logan is trying to be better. Pete--"

"Stop trying to fit the people you care about in your life into an easy place. Wisdom is many things, but none of them is innocent. The point is that it doesn't define you." Christian motioned at his son, pointing to his chest. "You make decisions based on what you feel is right, as opposed to what you can prove is right. That's what life is about. You compromise to do what you feel is right, and sometimes that means stepping aside from your beliefs. That doesn't negate them."

"Yes, it does. Saying that you hate theft and then ripping off other people makes you a thief and a hypocrite."

"Every time? What about the man that hates theft but steals to feed his family? In the wider sense, he needs to be prosecuted if he's caught because the law is about being applied equally to all people, or it has no value. But what about the people who's job it is to apply that law?" Christian shook his head. "The only absolutes are inside you, son. The lines you absolutely won't cross. Belief isn't supposed to be mindless, and it's not supposed to be taken out of context. You didn't ambush a man that could have been innocent. You didn't stretch the rules to arrest someone and make the charges stick. You had your back to the wall and the choice was between him or a lot of other lives."

"I don't have the right to make that call!" Garrison thundered, the cry ripping free finally from inside of him. "I do not have the right to judge who lives or dies!"

"Yes, you do. In certain circumstances, and you're trusted and trained to make that judgment. A man advances on you with a gun, do you and other police shoot to wound?"

"No department trains anyone to 'shoot to wound'. That's a fucking myth."

"Yes, I know. Apocalypse wasn't a man who had a gun and had ignored the calls to surrender. He was something much worse, and you were still in the position of having to make a life or death call. Something that you have trained to analyse and trusted by the federal law enforcement of two separate countries to judge when it is necessary." Christian shook his head. "There's a common argument that goes back ages, about the necessity of allowing torture. They say imagine if a suspect had knowledge of a bomb planted somewhere, that was set to explode in an hour, and he refused to talk. Would torture be alright in that situation? It's a rather stupid argument, but you tell me, does that make torturing the suspect alright?"

"No. You break down due process, make it allowable in some cases, it would eventually be applied to all cases."

"That's right. Now, in the same situation, would you torture him to get the information?"

Garrison was silent for a very long moment. "Yes." He said, his face twisting.

"Of course you would. And you'd accept whatever punishment as a result of doing it afterwards, because that way the law did not break down." Christian poked Garrison in the chest with his finger. "That's what you're killing yourself over right now. In an extraordinary situation, you have to be able to make a decision and stand by the need to have made it, and not the right you had to do so. It doesn't change what you believe, son. We live in a complicated world, son, and you have to trust yourself when you make a decision that steps outside of the normal boundaries. Sometimes, Garrison, you have to accept that sometimes what makes it right to compromise what you believe in is because you're the one doing it."

"That's arbitrary."

"No, but it's not quantifiable. You can't make exceptions in writing laws for good people. You have to believe in yourself making that choice. And it is hard, son, because you will be judged for it, but that's the pain of taking responsibility for a decision." Christian looked at the stub of his cigar and tossed it over the side of the boat, reaching into his shirt pocket for a new one. "I know you don't agree with what I do, but I was the one that had to make the decisions, in places where the law didn't exist, or with people who wanted to destroy what we were. Sometimes those decisions involved horrible things, which is why I was the one trusted to do it, lest wider and more terrible consequences were allowed to take place."

"It's not right."

"Of course not, but that doesn't mean it isn't occasionally the only choice." Christian clasped Kane on the arm. "Even your X-Men deal with that, son. They choose that the importance of what they can represent involves certain guidelines, and do their best to live with them. That doesn't mean they don't stretch that line when then feel it is best."

"How do you know when it's right?" Garrison threw his own cigar overboard, although waved away his father's offer for another, sticking with the coffee. "How do you know that it's not you crossing over those lines?"

"You take responsibility for your actions, and you trust yourself. That's all anyone can do." Kane said, motioning with his mug. "That's why you don't judge Pete, by the way, because he believes in what he has to do, and you trust his judgment, even if you don't agree with his methods. It's not easy finding the lines inside yourself. Your friend, Marie, stood right at the line between two very different paths, and made her decision based on what felt right."

"I can't believe you took her on a fucking assassin's mission."

"Without it, she'd have never have made the decision she needed to. Worse, she might have let herself make the wrong choice in a moment of rage, and it would have eventually destroyed her." Christian's face was impassive. "Sometimes the only way to find out is to have to push someone to the brink."

"If you say you asked her along for her benefit, I'm calling bullshit right now."

"Of course not. She was bloodthirsty , hungry for revenge, and happens to be bloody bullet proof. I'm getting a little old to be chasing after super powered terrorists on my own." Christian smiled slightly. "It's good she made her choice, because she's not a killer, and now she can't pretend to be."

Garrison didn't know how to answer that. Marie made her own decisions, and maybe his father had been right. He'd heard her for years talking about taking lethal revenge on Magneto, and he'd never been comfortable with it. Having to confront who she was might protect her from making a decision for bad reasons.

"I feel like I've managed to fuck up everything in the last year, Dad. I feel so... lost. Like I can't trust myself any more to understand what's right and wrong."

"Son, the road you chose is never easy. It didn't help that you've never had the whole truth about your mother and I, and that you've had to face the kind of trauma that a lot of people never come back from. But who you are, what you believe isn't a lie. It's just not as simple as you told yourself it would be. Trust yourself a little bit, Garrison." Christian put down his cigar and mug, holding on to his son's upper arm. "Believe in yourself. I'm not a monster you're in danger of becoming, and even if I was, I see your mother in you too. That need for justice, compassion for those who can't protect themselves. I'm proud of you, son. You decided to walk the hardest path because you felt it was the right thing to do. Nothing can take that away from you, and nothing can completely change what motivated you to do so in the first place."

For the first time in years, Garrison felt grateful that his father was there. He still felt lost, and had a suspicion that only time to really think would change that, but his father's words, and even the apology had shifted perceptions he'd been willing to believe were certainties. Now, he wasn't so sure, and that meant that the harshness of the personal condemnation he'd laid on himself wasn't necessarily the truth.

Sitting there, staring at the water, with his father simply sitting next to him made him feel safe. Safe enough to face himself and his principles, and question everything from the ground up, until he could figure out how much of himself was real, and how much of himself needed to be re-evaluated. At least now, he felt like that was possible. Garrison Kane took a sip from the mug of coffee, and stared out at a seemingly limitless ocean, no longer feeling quite so afraid.

"Thanks, Dad."