Carter's Shadow - 41. Chapter 41

Will walked out of his office, slipping a pair of sunglasses on, and loosening the tie he had bargained to wear. The weather of that mid-June day was below seasonal, and in a country that really had only two seasons there was little separating oppressive heat from frigid cold. So he savoured those few scant weeks where it felt like spring.

He crossed to his Jeep, opening the door and stepping up and in, pausing a moment to look across at his office building; the night shift were going on duty, and by rights he should still be in there. But he was finding it harder and harder to find the motivation to stay in that office. If they weren't going to pay him for all the extra hours he put in, then he didn't feel obligated to work them. He filled his agreed-upon hours and got the hell out of there as soon as he could...

His phone rang.

"What is it Scott?" Will asked, not even bothering to check who was calling.

"Are you leaving?" Will's boss asked anxiously. "We have the Board of Directors inspecting the call centre next week and we need to fill seats..."

"I know," Will replied. "I'm going to take a swing past the universities and check our recruiting posters are still up, and collect those applications."

"Oh..." Scott sounded almost apologetic that he had doubted Will.

"Not a problem," Will said, sounding almost apologetic about lying through his teeth to his boss. "I'll be in first thing tomorrow." And he clicked the phone off, tossing it into the passenger seat and starting the Jeep, listening to the engine splutter through its ignition. He would have to take it in soon and get it looked at; over all the years he'd had the Jeep it'd never let him down because he took the time to take care of it.

He checked around him as he turned the Jeep out into traffic and started to work his way towards the Queensway heading for home. His mind worked through the various things he needed to get done that evening, and he realized with a slight smile that his evening was relatively clear.

He relaxed; after the stress of the day he had, catching up for all the work he'd been missing lately, it would be good to stretch out on the couch and watch something mindless. True, he would have to kick Sprog off of the television, but there were some sacrifices he was prepared to make for the good of being a couch potato for the first time in what felt like a year.

Andrew was sitting on the bench outside the university Student Union; done his evening classes, he always sat, waiting for Will to give him a lift back home. And as Will swung around to pull up he stopped to look at him.

Andrew sat, his hair falling about his eyes as he read a textbook intently. He was oblivious to everything around him, his glasses sliding a little down his nose, book bag at his feet. Such a stark contrast to Andrew-the-hockey-coach, or Andrew-everyone's-best-friend. It was a moment Will knew only he got to see-Andrew-the-academic.

Will sat a long moment resting on the steering wheel of the Jeep, waiting for his turn to pull up to the curb, watching Andrew. Andrew, who poured through endless textbooks, learning as much as he could to fulfil a dream of his, and Will couldn't help but smile tiredly. That was the reason he worked as hard as he did.

When he pulled up to the curb, Andrew stood, picking up his book bag, and, not looking up from his book got into the Jeep, leaning over to kiss Will's cheek while still reading.

"Hi," he said distractedly.

Will smiled and glanced down at the book. "American Military law?" he asked, a little surprised. "Considering a career in uniform?"

Andrew looked up and grinned a moment with Will, the pair of them contemplating that thought...

"No," Andrew said, shaking the image free of his head as he tapped the book, "I'm just trying to figure out if I can help someone."

"Free legal advice barrister?" Will asked, feigning an upper-class English accent. "How improper."

Andrew shook his head and smiled as he pushed his hair back from his eyes, "I'm just trying to work out the legal ramifications for not hiring someone based on their sexuality."

"Ah," Will said nodding, "Constructive Dismissal."

"What?" Andrew glanced at Will.

"It's not legal, but we do it all the time at my company," Will said, as they rejoined the highway heading for home. "It's where we have an 'undesirable' worker and we then have to construct reasons to fire them that would be legal." Will shrugged, "It's illegal to fire someone because they are too old; however, if their performance dips below a certain level, a level say that was set higher for them than for everyone else..."

"That's..." Andrew shook his head, "that's wrong..."

"I know," Will agreed, "but sometimes I'm not given much of a choice. Ok, I have a set of 'official' rules about who I can and can't hire, then I have the unofficial ones. Like I'm not allowed to hire anyone under eighteen..."

"That's age discrimination," Andrew fired back.

"No," Will countered, "they don't have a high school diploma which is required for the job..."

"That's..." Andrew began.

"That's the job of Human Resources; sixtty percent of my job is finding reasons not to hire people, and the other forty is finding reasons for the people we do hire to stay with the company." Will shrugged again and sighed, "I don't agree with it, the whole practice is illegal, but no one can prove it. That's the problem. Like in my company, there has never been a female manager, mostly because the female candidates are encouraged not to apply, and are often overscrutinized to find reasons for them not to be promoted."

"Well, what can we do about it?" Andrew asked in concern. "There has to be something. They can't break the law like that..."

"Well, short of getting me fired for going along with it, and despite the fact that if I don't I'd be fired if I didn't follow their rules... not a whole heck of a lot," Will replied with a shrug. "The problem is you can't prove anything because recruitment and hiring someone is based off of the intuition of the recruiter, and you can't prove a recruiter is biased because there is no hard evidence."

Will turned in his seat, "Why, who's this about?"

"West Harding," Andrew said with a nod. "He got rejected from the Marines because he's gay."

Will sat quietly a moment, pulling around a station wagon, staring thoughtfully at the road ahead of him, "I thought the Canadian army allowed..."

"American," Andrew corrected. "He wanted to join the US Marines."

"Ah," Will said, understanding; his father had been a British liaison officer to the Canadian forces for nearly ten years, and Will had grown up hearing about the failings of the Canadian government to support its troops. And in a way he sympathized with West wanting to join a military that was appreciated for what it did, instead of dismissed as ineffective.

"He applied to the Canadian Army," Andrew continued, "but it's going to take him a year to get accepted, and then..." He shrugged, "As for don't ask, don't tell," Andrew shrugged, "it's like they just can pretend to be accepting while in reality they're still just as prejudiced, bigoted and hate-filled as they always were."

"You're not going to beat them with a law book," Will remarked.

Andrew snapped the book shut, "Why not? Someone has to do something... This is a kid's future we're talking about... one of my kids... How would you feel if it was Peter they were discriminating against?"

"Don't get mad at me," Will said testily. "It's not my fault the system's bigoted, there's nothing we can do about it, except just deal with it and move on..."

"Like you do at your job?" Andrew bit back. "Lie and cover up for other people to break the law?"

Will stared in shock at Andrew glaring at him furiously; he swallowed down his own anger as his hands gripped around the steering wheel, "That job pays our bills."

"So you trade your soul for a paycheque?" Andrew demanded. "What happens next, you help them embezzle money? You can't pick and choose what laws you follow and don't follow."

"Everything I do is completely legal," Will snapped. "I do my job."

"Yeah, you do your job. While some poor kid struggling to put themselves through high school is standing in front of your desk begging for work, while you search over their resume to find some excuse to tell them to fuck off."

"I don't have a choice," Will retorted, shaking his head as he glared at the road ahead of them. "What do you want me to do? Get fired for some kid I don't know?"

"Yeah, if it means you're doing the right thing," Andrew insisted.

"And what then?" Will said turning. "If I give up my job for your principles... what happens when the bills arrive at the end of the month..."

"We'll get by," Andrew said firmly.

"How?" Will asked. "Your student loan won't pay the rent, electric... food."

"Get another job," Andrew set his jaw.

"Don't be so naïve," Will rolled his eyes. "Do you know how lucky I was to get this one? I'd take a pay cut trying to find a job somewhere else. I'd be starting over..."

"But at least you'd be the man I fell in love with," Andrew said quietly.

* * *

Will stood in his empty home. Andrew had chosen to stay at his mother's that night. His anger and frustration on the behalf of one of his boys had him lashing out and Will knew they were both exhausted, and needed a night apart.

It didn't stop Will from standing there in the doorway to the quiet living room, hands in the pockets of his khaki slacks, staring vacantly out of the patio doors over the garden.

Why had he gotten so mad at Andrew? So defensive about his job? Was it that he was feeling guilty for the things he had to do for a paycheque? Was it because Andrew was right about him sacrificing his soul just to make ends meet?

He sighed a long breath, thinking about those luminous blue eyes of Andrew's staring at him in anger for the first time. They'd fought before; like any long-term couple, they'd had arguments. But this was the first time that Will had seen true anger in those eyes, and it compounded his guilt.

"What would the man you fell in love with do?" Will asked, glancing to a picture of Andrew sitting on top of the entertainment centre.

"The right thing..." Will could almost hear Andrew's voice replying. That insistent tone, the hope there. The belief in him that no one else had ever had.

Will swallowed and closed his eyes, letting his shoulder's sag. "I can't quit..." he murmured, "we need this..."

He looked up at Andrew's picture again, "But you're not angry at me, you're angry at the system..."

He looked back at the garden again, the carefully cultivated lawn that Peter worked on each and every weekend. The neat rows of flowers that were coming in nicely, bringing the garden to life with his loving fingers. Peter had a real future in landscaping; he had a truly artistic talent for it.

What would Will do if it was Peter?

The difference was that if Peter was rejected from one landscaping firm, he could always go to another one. There was only one Marine Corps...

Will looked up suddenly, frowning at his reflection in the patio doors, before he turned and made for the door, grabbing his leather coat on the way past and jumping into the Jeep.

* * *

He hadn't been there in years. It was an unspoken agreement that he wasn't welcome there that he had respected. But he couldn't think of anything else he could do as he got down from the Jeep and took that first hesitant step up the driveway.

The house hadn't changed in the better part of seven years; it still sat like some brooding creature in its little clearing off of the road. Dark and forbidding colonial shingles, and heavy curtains that kept the world from seeing what went on inside those walls.

His shoes crunched on the gravel as he stepped up to the front porch, taking a deep steadying breath, reminding himself that he wasn't a kid any more. But knowing that in that place, he would always remember his childhood. Every word, every blow...

His Jeep was behind him, the road just beyond that, but he wasn't about to run away from the ghosts of the past. He wasn't a scared, wide-eyed boy any longer, and some monsters grew less powerful with age.

The door opened on the old man; the pressed uniform looked rumpled as it did after a day of wear, but always meticulous; polished boots, crisp stripe up the trouser leg, and that raised eyebrow under steel-grey hair. Hard eyes meeting his own.

Will squared his shoulders and looked up at Major David Carter. "Hello, Dad," he said, finding his voice.

"What do you want?" the Major asked, his tone still commanding. Tense; it always was between the two men, who hadn't spoken in years.

"To talk," Will responded, matching his father's gaze, straightening up.

"You'd best come in then." The major stepped aside and motioned for Will to enter the house. And enter a life he had left so long ago.

The first thing Will noticed, coming through the doors into that stuffy old house were the shipping crates. He recognized them immediately for what they were--standard issue, already labelled and half packed. Will had grown up with them; every few years they would be brought out, and their lives would have been packed up into them to be shipped off to another base, to another place. Always moving to wherever the Major's duty took him.

The Major caught the look and nodded. "I'm being reassigned to command a line unit," he said calmly. And Will again stared. His father had complained bitterly about being transferred to a desk job in Ottawa, but had done his duty, leaving the front line fighting to the young. That he had managed, after so long to regain a field command...

Will shook his head. "Congratulations," he said quietly, as he followed his father through into the kitchen. "Lucy?"

"Your stepmother took her out for the evening," the Major answered simply, crossing to the coffee pot and deftly starting making the coffee. And Will blinked as he realized exactly how like his father he was in the simplest of mannerisms. That still scared him.

"Well, you're here, so talk." The Major turned.

Will swallowed, realizing so much of his thoughts had been consumed by the past in coming there that he hadn't given any thought to what he would say. He folded his arms and took a hesitant step forward, a thoughtful look on his face as he searched for the right words.

"I need your help," he began.

His father rolled his eyes, and opened his mouth to refuse, on principle.

Will cut him off holding up a finger, "It's not for me. There's a... young man..."

His father's eyes hardened and his jaw set angrily. And Will knew this wasn't going to go well if he didn't start explaining and quickly.

"He wanted to join the US Marine Corps..." Will explained, "but they refused to let him join, they found out he was... well... that he was..."

"A fairy," the Major said simply.

"Good to know some things never change," Will bit off, and shook his head forcing himself to calm down. "I'm sorry..." holding up his hands, "I'm sorry; look, all this kid's wanted to do his entire life is be a soldier... you of all people should understand what that's like... and they said no because of..."

"His...choices," the Major said, choosing his own words with care, rolling them around distastefully. "And what do you want me to do about it? I have no control over the hiring practices of the United States Marine Corps."

"No, but his only other choice is the Canadian military..." Will said, sounding hopeful. "If he applies they're going to make him wait a year, perhaps more; you have contacts that might be able to cut that time..."

"It won't do him any good," the Major said with a shrug. "The Canadian military is useless anyway. Do you know they have more Generals than tanks, more Admirals than ships? Too many chiefs, not enough braves..."

"He's top of his class in marks," Will continued. "He just won the provincial hockey championship as team captain, whilst his ribs were broken..." He shrugged.

"How did the Americans find out he was..." His father again avoided the word.

"West was jumped a few weeks ago," Will replied. "Took five of them to put him down..."

"Five?" the Major nodded. "You could have taken five."

Will glanced up at the strange compliment and frowned, "I just need to help him..."

"You can't help him," the Major replied, pouring two cups of coffee, mixing them in exactly the same way, adding a pinch of salt as he handed one across to his son, "and I don't know if I should."

Will looked at his father, and took a deep breath. "I've never asked you for anything in my life... but please..." he stared into his father's eyes. "Please."

"This isn't about you," the Major said firmly, downing his coffee and walking to where his coat was draped over the back of a chair. "I make no promises, and I'm not doing it because you begged me," the Major said, a note of finality in his voice.

"I know," Will replied with a nod