BACKDATED: Garrison and Marie in Australia

[x-traction.livejournal.com]

Backdated to January 15th.

Marie and Garrison meet in Australia to finally have the chat they should've months ago.



Marie sat at a table, nervously picking at the napkin in her lap as she waited for Garrison to arrive. Glancing out the window at the ocean waves lapping the shore, Marie was struck by the beauty of the scene. The Australian Harbour was truly breathtaking. Thank goodness Clarice had been able to port her from the mansion or the Southern girl's breath would have been taken away by the price of the plane ticket instead of the beauty out the window.

The small cafe was between the famed Sydney Opera House and the botanical gardens, a typical example of the new wave of Sydney bistros, imitating the foodie explosion in Melbourne. It was open, bright, and let the breezes from the harbour into the restaurant. Garrison Kane approached it with a certain level of trepidation.

His father's boat was tied up in a private dock deep in the harbour system, and he and his wife had gone off to fulfill several errands, leaving Kane to his lunch date alone. He wasn't entirely sure what to expect for this meeting, but it wasn't something that could be put off. Too much history, too many unanswered questions and unfinished conversations between them. He walked through the doors, and took the seat opposite Marie.

"Hey."

"Hey," Marie replied, trying to push a smile on her face. It was hard, considering this was the first good look she'd had of him since his kidnapping. And it was definitely the first time they'd been alone, so to speak, in even longer. She knew she felt awkward and looking at Garrison, it was one thing they had in common.

Kane didn't look much different from the last time she'd seen him, perhaps a little more tanned, his beard a few days growth past it's normal trim. As he crossed his hands over each other, the left looked no different from the right, no sign of being torn from his body, and then replaced through a method that no one understood. But there was fundamental change in the Canadian. Kane had always been expressed most through his eyes, and where there had been a determined focus, or the glint of a scoundrel, now there was only confusion and weariness.

Garrison waved over the bartender for a pair of Boag's, and got up long enough to collect them from the bar before returning. "You've never been to Sydney, have you?"

Marie paused for a moment and took a sip of her beer before answering. "Sad that Ah didn't know right off the bat, huh? But no. Probably should've arranged more time here, but Ah just asked Clarice for a lunchtime...or well, more like a dinner time port for me. First time Ah've traveled to the future." She managed a smile, albeit a weak one.

"Try doing it without a teleporter. Twenty-five hours on an Air Canada flight, two lay overs, and the joy of seeing Honolulu at midnight right after the all the airport bars close." Kane said wryly. He'd caught the flight in Toronto after a difficult couple of days with his sister, and he was sure that part of him was still jetlegged.

"Ah didn't realize you'd just gotten here," Marie said, setting down her beer to pick up the menu. "So you're probably ready for some real food, huh?"

"Got in last week. Dad decided to put back in for an engine tuneup before heading north. Mostly just being tooling up and down the coast the last while." Garrison said, taking a long pull from the bottle. He'd spent much of the time learning to do the chores on the boat automatically, and the rest staring out over the water. His father had been uncharacteristically quiet, giving him space, although there was no where to hide from Didi's everpresent chipperness.

"Caught a barramundi up off the Sunshine Coast. Thing was bigger than Yvette." Kane tapped the menu. "I'd recommend it."

Marie smiled and nodded, setting her menu down. "Ah'll take your recommendation, since Ah don't recognize how the fishes on this menu." After a moment of silence passed, she sighed and glanced down. "What happened to us?"

"We happened to us, Marie." Kane said, part of him glad to finally avoid the dance that they'd been both doing since Marie had come back. "I don't know. At one point we were fine, and then it's like we hit a wall together, and it wasn't possible to go any further together."

"Ah just felt like we couldn't talk anymore. Not like we used to, you know?" Marie said. "Things got awkward, and we couldn't talk about it, and that just made it worse."

"We never talked about it. You'd freeze up and withdraw, and I didn't have a way to bridge the gap. And then you went up to Canada for the summer, and that turned into twice as long. I know we broke up badly, but we were still supposed to be friends, and that didn't happen."

"Ah didn't mean to stay so long. Ah just...Ah didn't feel like Ah belonged back at Xavier's or something. And the gap between us just seemed to get wider and wider. Ah didn't know what to do about it and wasn't sure if you wanted to..." Marie said.

"Unfinished business." Garrison said simply. "This hasn't been good for either of us, Marie. I've been on my own since you left, because I wasn't able to move on. At the same point, I don't know whether 'us' is a good idea. I don't doubt my feelings for you. In a way, I've loved you since you first came to Canada and screwed your head back on. I never really felt we had a choice in being friends, from my end. It felt like it was going to happen, no matter what either of us had to say. We're too alike in some ways to not be. Maybe that's not right for a couple. Or maybe that the risk we need to take is that if it doesn't work out a second time, that friendship and feeling can't survive the end."

"Ah don't know either. And that's the problem, isn't it? If this was going to be an easy decision, we wouldn't have had all the delays in making it." She smiled a bit wryly. "And we wouldn't have needed to schedule it in Australia."

"Is it? Marie, I don't even know who I am any more." Kane said, draining half the bottle of beer in a single pull. "I wasn't under control when we hit Apocalypse." He said, admitting what had been tormenting him. "I agree with Wisdom that the man needed to die, and if we had a shot, then Pete was right, we take it. Because of him, we'd been killed. Jay and Dani are barely recognizable any more, and me, well, when it comes down to it, all those words about the law, about being a cop, about how the only way to not be the Brotherhood was to trust the institutions and laws in place. It's all bullshit. When it comes right down to it, I'm no different than my father, ready to be judge and executioner if I deem it right."

As Marie blinked her eyes, she saw the scene she'd replayed a thousand times in her head of Christian shooting Byron Calley in front of her. "We all have to make choices," she said softly. "And you are only like your father if you chose to be. You went through a trauma - under control or not, that changes how you think. You didn't see any other options at the time and did what had to be done."

"I don't know if that's entirely true. The principles we believe in, we're supposed to hold on to, especially when it's hard. If we toss them aside when it counts, then how is that honest for the rest of the time. Oh, I'll hold to the law except when it's too hard, and then I'll just do what I want. That doesn't sound like principle to me." Kane said. "It's sounds like... justification."

"Why did you make the choice you did?" Marie asked. "The reasons, the justifications do matter. The Bible says not to kill, yet it also shows examples where killing is justified. There are always exceptions."

"I did it because I believed he had to die. I gave myself the right to make that decision, which I've always sworn I'd never do." Garrison said sourly. "He got out the last time I arrested him. How many people were going to have to die before we could do it the right way again?" His voice was ugly, clearly disgusted with himself.

Marie reached out to place her gloved hand on top of his. "Too many, probably." She sighed, giving his hand a squeeze before pulling it back. "You made a choice and you will have to live with it. But just because you made it one time, in one instance, doesn't mean you'll continue to make it unless you choose to."

"That's the part I'm having the trouble with. If I made it once, what's to say that going over that line isn't going to be easier next time? That maybe the person I am has no problems with that line when you get right down to it." Kane sighed. "It's been that kind of week."

"When isn't it?" the Southern girl asked. "That's our lot in life. To ask these questions and be faced with these decisions. What happened...you can move forward in two ways. One, to tell yourself that by doing something once you've now made it more likely to occur again. Two, to learn from doing something you regret and realize that it is something that should rarely, if ever be done. It's a choice Gar, and Ah'm just gonna keep repeating that until you get it through your thick skull."

"It might take a while." Garrison said, as a waiter finally came over. Table service wasn't common in Sydney pubs, but this was one of the new trendy gastropubs, so the rules were a little different. They made their orders quickly, getting rid of the girl as soon as possible. "So, Sydney."

"So Sydney indeed. Subtle shift," Marie said with a wry smile. "Is that how it's going to be from now on? Awkward small talk as we make our way through a meal?"

"We could also talk about mutual friends in a really uncomfortable circular fashion." Garrison said, a kind of shadow of his old self echoing in the statement. "Or we could be honest."

"And what would you say, if you were being honest?"

Garrison opened his mouth and closed it again, finally shaking his head. "Right now, I have no idea."

"And that's the problem, isn't it? Two people with no idea and no one willing to make a choice. Funny that everything really does come down to that today, huh? Choices," Marie said as she twisted her napkin in her hands.

"Ever notice that's the one thing we're really not good at, eh?" Kane sat back in his seat, tugging at the short hairs of his beard absently, thinking. "Do you remember when we got together, how easy it seemed at first? Like sliding into a warm bath; one minute we were best friends, the next we were dating. I just-- I think about it, and I don't know how much we really changed at that time. You were my best friend, Marie. I still love you, did then, and that's never going to change. But is that enough for us?"

"Ah dunno. Maybe part of the problem is that it was so easy, so that when it got hard we had trouble coping because it was so different than anything we'd done before. And the threat is double - not just losing someone you love, but your best friend as well," Marie said before taking a long sip from her beer.

"I really missed you when you were in Canada, Marie." Kane said, simply. "I kept trying to call, and each time, well, it felt selfish. You needed time to get your head together, I'd already been an ass... I was afraid that you'd maybe decided you were better off without me at all. I didn't have the guts to find out."

"Ah wasn't sure if you did. Want to talk to me, Ah mean. Ah just...Ah expected you to call once you got out of your funk. And the more time that passed, the harder it got for me to pick up the phone. Ah mean, that's the longest time we've gone without talking since we've known each other," Marie replied, her hand automatically going to twist white strands around her finger.

"Man, when we screw up, we really go for broke, don't we?" Garrison said sourly, as they sat looking at each other. "Maybe we just need to start over? From the beginning, I mean. The last, well, year was so spectacularly fucked up, let's jettison it, and try from scratch."

Marie actually managed a small chuckle. "Hey, and we actually know people who could do the memory wipe," she joked. "But yeah...Ah think Ah'd like that. Just...get back to where we were back then."

"Well, I don't think we'll ever be the same, but that doesn't mean we can't be happy." Kane sighed, leaning forward and taking one of Marie's hands. "I do love you, Marie. Whether that means one day we're going to be together or not, you're one of the most important things in my life. Even when I was miserable, I knew that."

Marie smiled at Garrison, but whatever she was about to say was cut off as their food arrived at the table. Picking up her drink, she held it in the air. "To a new beginning?'

"To being back." Garrison said, clinking the neck of his beer with hers.