Garrison and Adrienne

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

After her conversation with Father Michael, Adrienne sets right a past mistake by going to speak to Garrison instead of deciding what to do on her own, and reveals her fears regarding becoming one of Tandy's guardians.

Trigger Warning for discussion of abuse.

Aimless wandering had brought about the desire to talk to Garrison, leading Adrienne to the FBI building. Even his coworkers seemed to sense something was off about her as she made her way over to him. She was still made up as carefully as ever, still smiling and polite as she greeted them in passing, but lacked the usual animation in her face and body language she had when she was at ease. "Hey, can we talk?" she asked him without greeting him, trying to keep her voice from sounding strained. That was what he wanted, right? Back when she'd first returned from Boston, he'd wanted to be a part of her life, to talk about the things that came up and be a part of the decisions she made? Well, here was a doozy for him.

Garrison looked up from his paperwork. The trip down to Central America and the involvement of SHIELD had turned the post-arrest report into a logistical nightmare, and Duncan had drily suggested it was punishment from the fates. What he hadn't expected was Adrienne turned up halfway through.

"Uh, hi. Yeah, sure." He looked around, and led her into the breakroom. It was empty midday, and he poured a couple of cups of the Bureau's decidedly mediocre coffee for them while she settled into a chair. "What's up?"

"Thanks. Hi," she mumbled after the fact, shaking her head as if to clear it. "Sorry. Umm, well. Something pretty weird is up, in fact. And I wanted to... talk to you about it. Talk about it... together, I mean. Instead of... figuring it out on my own. Do you know Tandy's uncle? The priest?"

"I know of him. We haven't spoken." He slid her coffee over to her and took a seat opposite.

"He's the one who introduced me to Tandy," she explained, hands around the coffee mug without lifting it up to drink. "He comes into the clothing shop in District X to pick up donations for the soup kitchen. One day we were chatting and realized I know... knew, his sister, Tandy's mom. He was the one who told me he thought Tandy should come to the mansion." She was being a little repetitive, she knew, not to mention useless with what she was giving him, but her mind was still racing and she couldn't seem to slow it down enough to process everything properly. "The social worker who's taking care of Tandy's... situation now apparently doesn't think he should have full legal guardianship, though. Because he's a priest. So Father Michael asked... he asked if I'd share guardianship with him. Of Tandy." The shock factor she experienced when she tried to process it hadn't abated much from when Bowen had first told her.

"Huh." Garrison took a sip of the coffee, leaning back in the plastic chair. "OK, so his vows and position at the church makes guardianship difficult, I get that. But he could pass over limited authority to the school as a full time boarded student. Why ask someone who's not family and, to be honest, a relative stranger to take on that kind of legal responsibility for Tandy?"

"Because her mother and I used to be friends back in the day," Adrienne murmured, still half in a daze. "And I guess Tandy's fond of me. At least that's what he said. She's told him we've bonded." She put her head down on the table, feeling suddenly nauseous.

"So what do you want to do?"

"Run and hide," she admitted, head still on the table. "But I didn't this time. I came here to talk to you instead. I don't know what to do," she told him quietly, not daring to look over at him. "I... I want to help her. I do. I don't want to be the kind of person who tells a kid 'no, sorry, I know your parents just died and/or went completely batshit crazy, but don't look at me like that. I can't help you.' And I know it's not even the same thing as like... being a mother, thank Christ, because her uncle is gonna do the actual parenting or whatever; I mean we pretty much agreed that if I were to do this, I would be more the fun aunt or like... big sister or something. But still. I don't... I never... I mean, this? Me, the priest, and the teenager? Pretending to be a family? Is that what this is supposed to be? I mean... it's not for me. Pretending to be a family. It never has been."

"I don't think it has to be pretending to be the family, Adri, unless that's what you want to try and make it. Look at it this way; if her uncle is expecting you to take that kind of a role, tell him you're not ready to do that. But if he just wants someone who can keep an eye on her, provide some advice and emotional support when she needs it, and just is there so the poor kid doesn't feel like she's alone, I kind of have the feeling that's something you're already planning for her, aren't you?"

She put her chin on her forearms to listen to him and when he asked his question, she finally snapped out of her daze and gave him a watery sort of nod, lips pursed and eyebrows raising in contemplation as the corner of her mouth turned up in a half smile. "Yeah, that was sort of what I was already planning." But her gaze fell again after another moment to think. "But what if I screw her up, Gar?" she muttered, sounding doubtful once again. Her mouth twisted and her eyebrows knotted together. "What if I screw her up the way my father screwed me up? I mean, my father's a monster. The son of a bitch was abusive; emotionally, physically, and sexually. And those genes are in me. And I know... it's a thing. Kids from abusive homes are more likely to be abusive. It's a thing. A thing that happens. Kids get messed up by the people who are supposed to have their backs. I don't want to do that to her. I don't want to fuck this up for her. But I'm afraid that I will. That I'll hurt her somehow."

Kane's eyes narrowed. Adrienne had never been forthcoming about her past, from Stephen and before. He knew her husband had been extremely abusive, and that her time as a model had been marked by heavy drug addiction and the unspoken hint of sexual exploitation. The fact that her father had abused her shouldn't have been surprising. And yet...

'I can't say that you won't. There's a lot in your past that makes it a risk, and its not about genetics. Learned behaviour sends us often down the roads that we traveled. However, it's not as simple as assuming because you were abused, you will abuse." He said finally. "I believe that the person you are now wouldn't and will turn yourself into knots making sure you don't. If that changes, that's when I get in the way before something you regret happens. Tandy is a good kid who's not far away from being an adult. She's not going to need you to be her mother. She's going to need you to be her friend, who can support her and make her feel like she isn't alone in the world. That's something you've already done safely for people."

With her upper body still folded up on the table, Adrienne let what Garrison said sink in, silent for a long time. When she'd finally absorbed it all, particularly the part about his belief that she wouldn't hurt Tandy and how he would keep her from doing something she regretted, she got up and went over to his chair, settling herself in his lap and putting her arms around his neck. Even though she knew she'd laugh at herself for it later, she wanted nothing more in that moment than to be that close to him. "Is it because you're Canadian and that's how they make you people up there?" she mumbled jokingly, putting her head on his shoulder. "Is that how you always know exactly what to say to make me feel better, I mean?"

"It's a Canadian thing. We passed legislation." He touched her forehead with his cheek. "Adri, I don't pretend to know what you went through, but I can safely say that you're not the person you were a couple of years ago, much less a decade ago. You haven't been a victim in a long time; long enough that I can't see you needing to make someone else one just to survive."

"Hopefully one of these days that'll finally start to sink in so you don't have to keep reminding me," she muttered with a wry smirk in response to his point about her not being a victim anymore. "You, sir," she announced, "are as wise and kind as you are hot." She grinned at him, nuzzling his cheek and holding onto him for a moment longer before getting worried one of his colleagues would see. Reluctantly, she slid off his lap and back into her own chair, finally taking a sip of the coffee he'd poured her. "Okay, so... I guess I'm doing this thing?" She still sounded a little incredulous as she said it. "Do you think I can get her to start rooting for the Red Sox? Maybe I should make that a caveat of assuming guardianship... Father Michael gets financial power of attorney. I get medical power of attorney. And I can ground Miss Bowen immediately for up to twenty-four hours upon hearing her diss the Red Sox."

"I thought you wanted to avoid abusing the girl? Making her a Sawx fan-" He aped the bad Southie accent. "seems like a textbook description."