Garrison and Adrienne - Medlab

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Adrienne visits Garrison as he tries to remember his motives regarding what he did in Aikins.



With a paper sack containing a burger and fries in one hand, two cans of beer in the other, and a magazine under her arm, Adrienne sat down in the visitors chair by Garrison's bed in the medlab and settled in to wait for him to wake up. She would have been there sooner, while he'd still been awake, but she'd been hiding from Amelia and in the meantime he'd appeared to doze off. Hence the magazine. She would wait.
 
Kane came to slowly. It was odd because the Canadian was normally only good for a few hours sleep a night and seemed to be able to snap awake immediately thanks to his powers. It had made for a few humourous mornings when they had first come together as a couple. But today, he seemed to struggle awake, foggy from sleep.
  
"Mm... ow." He muttered as he opened his eyes and rolled over. "Adrienne?"
  
"Hey there Boy Scout," Adrienne cooed sweetly, sounding excited. "You're awake!"  And then in the blink of an eye she had rolled up the magazine, shot out of the chair, and was beating him in the shoulder with it.  "What the fuck were you thinking?!?" she yelled as she whacked him. "You stupid idiot!"
  
"Ow, ow! Hey-" Kane raised his arms to defend himself from the manic attack, and for once, Adrienne could tell that his preternatural strength was absent. "Why are you hitting me?" 
 
"Because you nearly died, you asshole! Again! This is the second time you've done this to me!" When she realized his mutant strength wasn't kicking in, she threw the magazine at him and crossed her arms over her chest petulantly. "Why do you keep doing this to me?!" She slumped down in the chair again, staring at her feet because if she didn't she might start crying and there was no way she was doing that.
 
"It's not like I had a choice you know." Kane pushed himself up to lean against his headboard. "I'm sorry. It was- it was a tough one. I didn't see any other options."
 
"Oh, really?!" she screeched, looking around for something else to throw at him, "sort of like me going to Boston? You didn't see any other options?! Well well well! Look how the tables have turned! Y'know what? You were right! Being on this end of things sucks! Being the one who's left behind waiting and not knowing what the hell is going on really sucks!"
 
"Stop yelling at me." He held up his hands plantiatively. "I was not expecting to run into a fistfight with a god. I also didn't expect that another god was turning the town into-" He blanked for a moment, the memories of Aitkins bizarrely distant to him. "I had to protect the people of that town and stop what was happening.
 
"I'm going to yell because I'm mad at you, you stupid fucking idiot!" she kept yelling, though her tone had grown less angry and more emotional. "And just because you think you had good reasons doesn't mean I agree with you! I don't care about some stupid fucking people in Christ's Armpit, America!" Okay, yeah. Now she was really starting to understand a little of what he'd been through when she'd made her decision to leave town. Her Boston accent was also starting to make things sound really ugly, so she tried to calm herself down. "Okay, maybe I don't mean that last one," she grumbled, then handed him the paper bag with the food in it. "Here. Contraband. But I want some of your fries because I'm mad at you." She tried really hard to keep glaring her death glare at him. "So how are you feeling, anyway?"
 
"Pretty awful. I forgot what it was like to be tired. Or to have your body ache." He opened the bag and pulled out the burger and fries. "Hey, come grab a seat so we can talk without you screaming at me."
 
Adrienne glared at him some more. "I don't know if I'm ready not to throw more things at you just yet." But she caved over the smell of the fries. "Oh, okay. Fine. I think my magazine's toast," she murmured, sitting on the edge of his bed and staring at the torn scraps of the magazine that had gotten ripped while she'd been pummeling him. "It was about hockey. I bought it because I thought there would be more baseball in it. It's Canadian. I bought it for you. I should have known it would be all hockey. And it's not even about actual hockey. It's lockout stuff."

I appreciate- wait, there's a lockout? Man..." Kane rolled his eyes and unwrapped the burger. "You know that I've been suspended from the Bureau and the RCMP right?"
  
"Yeah. And also I'm whupping the butts of everyone from the mansion in Fantasy," she smirked. "Wait, what?" That sobered her up pretty quickly, last vestiges of anger towards him disappearing. "Really? That's bullshit," she snorted, without even knowing why he'd been suspended. She opened a can of beer and put it on the nighttable next to him, then opened the second for herself and took a long sip. "Fred do that? Or someone over his head?"
 
"Internal investigations. I killed three people, Adrienne. If they decide that any of them were not righteous kills, I will be charged with murder." There was an old note to his voice. It wasn't fear or shame or even looking for pity. It was more honest, trusting her with the details.  
 
"You don't kill people un-righteously," Adrienne responded before she'd had time to properly construct the sentence in her head. "I mean, you don't murder people. So there's nothing to decide." She knew this was important to him so she made sure she didn't sound flippant, just convinced. Like she believed everything would be fine. "I say, let them investigate. It'll get straightened out, they'll offer you a raise as an apology, and you'll keep doing the job."
 
"I'm not so sure. My head is pretty messed up from what happened, but I'm not sure it was self-defense. I may have crossed the line, done something the easy way instead of the right way." He shook his head. "But I don't feel conflicted about it. I think I did what was necessary even if there might have been other options. I'm not sure whether it's because I've changed or whether it's because I'm right." 
 
Before this, Adrienne would never have thought talking to kids about addiction and dating would actually be easier than trying to respond to Garrison. But it was. Go figure. "I thought you said you didn't see any other options?" she questioned, frowning.
 
"I didn't have any options about staying in Aitkins. I couldn't simply leave those people. But - there was a girl who worked at the motel. Bright, sweet kid. And they killed her. So I shot the pair who did it to death and then killed someone else to keep a worse threat being unleashed. I'm trying to figure out why I made that decision. If it was because I thought that was the way to resolve things safely and quickly, I can live with the choice. But if I did it for revenge..." He sighed. "If that's the case, I shouldn't have the badge. Sorry. Didn't mean to unburden on you. I think it's the grease talking." 
 
"Don't be sorry for 'unburdening' on me," Adrienne shrugged, sipping at her beer again and snagging some of his fries. "I'm just sorry I can't help you figure out why you made that decision, other than to say that I know a lot of people who would kill for revenge, and you're not like any of them. So I'm sure you did it because you thought it was the best way to do things." She shrugged again and said through a mouthful of starch and grease "But I guess you need to figure that out for yourself or you won't believe it. Maybe it's time for a visit to your dad's boat?" she suggested with a wry smirk, knowing he had used it for serious thinking in the past.
 
"Maybe. Unless this is you angling for an invite, and no way I'm getting teased with that bikini again, lady." He gave her a small smile before wolfing down another couple of bites of the burger. "Yeah, I guess it was the telepathic... thingy they did, but I'm trying to figure out just what I really think about, well, everything, I guess." 
 
Adrienne winced unconsciously at his allusion to the last time he felt like she'd 'teased' him with a bikini. When he'd hit the balcony. Maybe he had changed. "You think the telepathic thingy had something to do with needing to figure things out? Because I warned Emma not to mess around in your brain, unless it was to erase your unfortunate loyalty to the Jays," she joked. "And thanks, but no invite for me," she shook her head wryly. "Financial investigation's taking fucking forever. I still can't travel. Unless I'm kidnapped, apparently. But you don't seem in much of a state to be kidnapping anyone. Plus, probably not gonna help you with your own investigation if you turn into a kidnapper."

 "I'm not sure. Things still aren't fitting right, if that makes sense. I find myself questioning things I never would have before. Maybe it's a result of a near death experience or the telepathic efforts to put me back together. No idea." Kane said. "And I appear to have some time on my hands, so if you need some help, let me know? I may not be able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound, but I can still investigate things." 
 
"I appreciate that, but I can handle it," Adrienne murmured. "Well, you've had near-death experiences before," she pointed out, scarfing down more fries. "And you did do some soul searching after at least one of them, if I recall correctly. But maybe the telepaths poking around in your head did mess with you. Maybe they connected something or didn't connect something or lit some spark- I don't understand how any of it works, myself. And hearing some of the things Emma wants to make people do sometimes, I don't think I want to really understand."

"I doubt Emma would mess with my head too much with Jean and Haller there. I think it might be just me. No one else to blame." Kane finished off the burger and tossed the wrapper back into the bag. "So, other than playing candy striper down here, what are you up to?" 
 
"Ah, you know. Responsible Teacher stuff. Stay in school, don't do drugs, don't put that in your mouth, math is cool." She took another swig of her beer. "Trying to help Matt stay sober. And help Sue, who insists she wants to be his girlfriend despite it being a terrible idea for both of them, deal with Matt trying to stay sober." She didn't mention the stuff about Hope and her mom, worried that it would bother him somehow due to his complicated relationship with his father. "Oh, and I'm starting a chess club. Wanna help with it?"

"I'm a terrible chess player, but I do have some time on my hands." Kane said wryly. "But sure. I'd love to help you with it."

"Excellent! I think we may officially have more staff than students involved now, so the students are gonna have to play us sometimes, which means if you're terrible that might not be a bad thing," Adrienne smirked, poking him in the shoulder playfully. "Evens the playing field for them a bit more, y'know?"

"At least gives them something to laugh at."