Kim Possible: Mother and Son
(A/N: Second up today and much darker than the first three. The first three in themselves could have made up this installment in the series, but I figured it would be too short. Hence the reason the title is subject to change. After the next chapter I'm sort of trying to figure out where else I can go.)
I'm So Sorry
Monkey Fist looked exhausted as he sat at the table. "Nightmares, dearest?" Nanny Nane asked, suddenly placing a plate down in front of him.
Monkey Fist scowled at her and replied, "They weren't that bad. And why are you cooking and serving and not Bates?" Pointedly he looked at his valet, who sat across from him.
Bates paused and blinked as his tea was at his lips. He grinned innocently, shrugging. "Really dear, I don't half mind cooking. It's certainly been some time since last I had my son living with me."
"Oh years, old mum," Bates said.
"Precisely. I rather miss domestic menial tasks," Nane said.
"For the longest time, young lord Fiske, you wouldn't touch anything made by hands other than your mother's. She certainly knew what you liked," Bates said.
"Why are we reminiscing about my youth?" Monkey Fist complained, looking bored and annoyed with it all. He looked at the meal cautiously and took a bite. Hmm, his mother hadn't lost her touch with food.
"Simply because. What other reason do we need?" Nane asked.
"Old mum, you missed him very much," Bates said.
"Bates," Nanny Nane warned. Bates cringed and cleared his throat, shutting up.
"Humph," Monkey Fist muttered. "Missed me indeed. In what universe?" Monkey Fist complained. Nane started, offended, and her eyes narrowed.
"Do not pretend you could read my mind, child," she warned darkly.
"I didn't have to," he replied. "I wasn't the one who left."
"You left over and over and over without a word, Montgomery!" she yelled furiously. "This was hardly even your home!"
"Why you…" Monkey Fist began, shooting furiously up.
"Milord, Milady, please! What would Lord Fiske say if he could see this now?" Bates quickly said, cutting them off.
KP
Mother and son paused and looked over at him coldly. "What?" Monkey Fist icily asked. Bates bit his tongue. He'd mentioned Lord Fiske. That was a bad mistake. "Leave my father out of this, Bates."
"Why should he? It's about time you faced what happened to him!" Nanny Nane stated in a tone that was a cross between gentle and angry.
"What happened to him, mother?" Monkey Fist growled lowly.
"Your father was murdered, Monty!" Nanny Nane shot. "I've accepted that, have you?"
"Father's death was an accident! He fell from one of the castle's parapets!" Monkey Fist yelled.
"He was pushed," Nane growled.
"He got careless," Monkey Fist hissed.
Nanny Nane stiffened, eyes widening. Bates's mouth fell open slowly. After a long moment, Nanny Nane asked, "Careless? What do you mean?" Monkey Fist stiffened. After a long moment he turned and swiftly left, going into his library and down into his dojo. Nanny Nane and Bates looked after him, pale. What did he mean? What was he hiding?
KP
Monkey Fist meditated deeply, blocking out everything he could. He wanted to wipe the memory of his father from his mind; but it was the only one he was seeing, and he couldn't erase it. He couldn't focus it away. "My son," the man's voice whispered in his mind.
"Father, I'm sorry. I'm so, so deeply sorry," he communicated back. "I didn't… I never meant for you to…"
"Hush, my child. I know. I know," his father said. "And perhaps it's time your mother did as well."
"No… It's none of her business," he replied.
"Son, it is very much her business. Are you afraid?" his father asked.
Monkey Fist was quiet. Finally he answered, "Yes. Very much so."
"She will not forsake you," his father promised.
"How can you be sure?" he demanded.
"Did I ever break a vow to you?" his father asked.
"No, father," he answered.
"She comes," his father stated. "I love you."
"I know… and… and I you," Monkey Fist replied, albeit reluctant to betray that fact. But if it were a dream, or just his imagination, it wouldn't really matter.
KP
The door to his dojo opened and Monkey Fist opened his eyes with a gasp. He felt tears almost immediately and quickly wiped them away. He stood up, gazing at his monkey shrine. He heard her behind him. "What did you mean?" she asked.
"About what?" he asked, playing dumb.
"'He got careless?' Monty, what are you hiding?" she questioned.
"It's none of your concern," he replied.
"It is every bit my concern. I am your mother! For the sake of the gods, I insist you do not shut me out!" she stated firmly.
"If I tell you… If I tell you then there will be nothing that will save us," he declared.
"Young man, I have heard some outlandish things before. There is nothing you can say that will surprise me," she said, though inside she just knew that this… this would be something she didn't want to hear.
"Yes there is," he said.
"What is it?" she asked. "For goodness sake's, Montgomery. Talk to me," she pled. "What did you mean?"
Monkey Fist closed his eyes tightly and turned around, hollowly answering, "Mum, I've… I've done something bad." Of course he'd done a lot of bad things, but this… This was something else entirely. Slowly her lips parted and she tensed.
"No…" she breathed. No, no, please… Please say he wasn't about to tell her what she thought he was.
Flashback
He was the first one to notice. Notice that something was very, very wrong with his son. It frightened him. His wife was busy with her job, Bates was busy with his duties. When he was here, though, he saw it; and he was frightened for the boy; still just a child, a teenager. He knew this obsession was devouring his son from the inside out. More and more Monty was isolating himself in the library or study, pouring over books and scrolls or practicing his martial arts stances.
He entered the library where the young man was. Montgomery was lounging on a settee and reading a book avidly. "Monty," he said softly. The boy never even glanced up, as if he'd never heard. "Montgomery," Lord Fiske repeated. The boy was still lost in his own world. "Son," he said.
This time Monty looked up in annoyance. "Dad," the boy greeted, making it no secret he was unimpressed with the interruption.
"I need to talk to you," Lord Fiske said.
"About what?" Montgomery demanded suspiciously.
"About things," Lord Fiske vaguely answered. "Come. Let's go up to the parapets."
Monty looked suspicious then finally sighed and put down the book, saying, "Very well." He came up beside his father and sulkily followed the man.
KP
The two stood gazing out over the view. "You're spending quite a lot of time at your scrolls and stances, aren't you?"
"Hardly," Monkey Fist replied.
"Monty, you've spent all day in that library. We've hardly seen you once for two days," his father said.
"That's not true!" Monty insisted.
"Yes it is. I want you to take a rest," his father declared.
"No thank you," Monty growled, getting angry.
"What has you so engrossed, son? What is it that is drawing you into those scrolls and that fighting you do? Honestly, it's become an obsession with you!" his father shouted, snapping. Monty jumped at the sudden change in tone and looked at him in shock.
His eyes narrowed. "I am perfectly capable of handling myself, father!" Monty said sharply. "You do not need to worry! Honestly, you'd think I'd joined a cult with the way you're acting."
"Monty, this is an obsession," he repeated, and his tone was worried and tender as he took his son's shoulders, eyes so filled with fear for the boy. He didn't want his child to be hurt. Why couldn't Montgomery read the love and concern in his expression? "Please, you must stop this."
KP
"I will not stop and you can't make me!" Monty argued loudly, shoving his father away from him. "You have no idea what is being revealed to me, father. You cannot even imagine the power that's being offered."
"Offered? Monty, they're scrolls! They cannot offer you anything!" his father argued.
"Which is precisely why I plan to go out and get it," Monty stated.
"Go out and…" his father began. His eyes widened in realization and he gazed at his son in horror. He couldn't be serious. "You will do no such thing!"
"Watch me! I will master Tai Shing Pek Kwar, and when I do I will begin my quest to become Ultimate Monkey Master, like in the scrolls. Father, if you would just read them you would see what I'm talking about. This power will be virtually unstoppable! Well, maybe not unstoppable, but still!" Montgomery said.
"Ultimate… Monty…" his father said, fear now in his eyes. The boy was losing himself. The boy was going out of his mind! "Monty, those are just legends. Nothing more, nothing less. They're just myths, like all myths. There is no truth in them," he calmly said, trying to bring his son down from the expression he was seeing in his eyes that he couldn't pinpoint, or didn't dare pinpoint.
"You're wrong, old man!" Monty shot firmly. "Oh how you are wrong. The Mystical Monkey Legend is true. The Mystical Monkey Powers exist. And I am destined to wield them."
"You need help, son," his father worriedly said. Quickly then man started to head inside, but Monty roughly grabbed his father and threw him against the parapet wall, startling the man who gaped in horror at his son.
"I am not crazy, father! I am not obsessed, I am not losing my mind! I can show you, then you'll understand," Monty insisted.
KP
Lord Fiske listened to his son's rant, tears in his eyes. At that moment he knew there was only one more thing he could do if he had a hope of sparing his child some horrible fate. "I forbid you from looking at those scrolls again! You are not to practice Tai Shing Pek Kwar in this house again, no reading from mystical books and scrolls, Monty. None! Not until you stop this madness!" Angrily he pushed passed his shocked son, almost running toward the door. All at once, though, the boy recovered and scowled viciously, leaping in front of his father and swiftly kicking him back.
The man gasped and stumbled onto the ground. "Montgomery," he said in disbelief. The child had just dared to strike him!
Roughly Monty pulled his father up and slammed him against the walls of the parapet. "Listen to me, father. You can't forbid me from doing what I love. You're seeing this hobby as more than it is, and I dislike the implications."
"It is because I so love you that I'm drawing this line. I will not have my son chasing his death," Lord Fiske tried to reason gently. "I will do anything to spare you your life, my child. Do you know that?"
"If you want to spare me my life, stay out of it. I don't need your rules, father!" Monty yelled. Lord Fiske suddenly and roughly shoved him back. The man tried to bolt again, but Monty would have none of it. "Not so fast!" he shot, grabbing his father's arm and swinging him around. Lord Fiske held on this time, though, not stumbling. Monty scowled and immediately began fighting his father, who desperately defended, trying to avoid fighting but really having no choice.
Father and son rolled across the battalion violently tearing at each other. All at once they were on their feet, still scrapping. Monty, though, was infuriated. He pulled away from his father and suddenly moved, pushing him hard. Lord Fiske cried out as he fell against the battalion walls. Wait, he was going over! "Monty!" he screamed out, reaching for his son as he fell. Monty gasped, paling.
"Dad!" Monty cried, leaping for the edge and grabbing for the man's hand. It was too late, though. His fingers brushed his father's, his eyes meeting his terrified ones, and he watched in horror and fear as the man fell down to the ground far below! "No!" he cried out. The rain hid his sight from the impact, but he heard the thump. He heard his mother, who had been walking in the garden, shriek in horror and then burst into tears, screaming for help.
Monty, shaking, sobbed suddenly, covering his mouth. This wasn't happening, this wasn't happening. What had he done? He hadn't meant to kill his father, he hadn't! Oh gods please, please, not this. Let this all be a nightmare he'd wake up from. But it wasn't to be. He burst into tears and swiftly got down from the battalion before anyone could come up to investigate. Locking himself in his room he wept until he couldn't anymore. He had to put on a front now, so his mother wouldn't think he already knew about his father's death. Then… Then he could mourn openly.
End Flashback
Nanny Nane listened, mouth opened in disbelief and shock. "I'm sorry," Monkey Fist said meekly.
"No… No, no, no," she repeated over and over. She closed her eyes tightly, tears burning them, and said, "No… It… it can't… Oh gods! It was you… You murdered…"
"It was an accident," Monkey Fist said, moving towards her.
"Don't!" she screamed angrily, backing away. "Don't come near me." Accident or not, this… this was too much.
"Mother…" he began. She sobbed and turned, racing from the room. "Mum!" he called, racing after her immediately.
KP
Nane ran into the ballroom and stopped, sobbing and covering her mouth. She heard her son race in and slide to a stop. It was quiet. "Mother, please, talk to me!" he begged. "Talk to me!"
Gazing forlornly into the fireplace she replied, "It has never mattered to you, has it? You've never been able to tell how deeply others care about you. You've never…
"Oh like you ever cared!" Monkey Fist shot angrily, snapping. Nane never looked away from the fire. He scowled. She was ignoring him. Even now she could turn her back on him and not glance back, not treat him as anything more than a client! "See, even now! Even now you don't care! You never cared!" Then the last thing he had ever expected from her manifested itself. She sobbed and whirled to face him, fury and hatred and anguish and love all in her eyes, and he pulled back, startled on seeing so much emotion on his mother's face.
"Rot in your godforsaken Monkey prison," she hissed.
He could only stare, eyes wide and confused and uncertain, even concerned? Well, that wasn't right. She… she was crying. Had he driven her to tears? His mother was crying. He'd never seen her cry before, ever. Well, with a few occasional exceptions, but still; even then he'd never seen, only known that she was crying, hiding it from him. To actually see it now… He felt a chill go up his spine and he shifted uncomfortably. He didn't like it. He hadn't meant to drive her to tears, had he? And even if he had… why was he regretting it? "M-mother?" he uncertainly questioned. Nanny Nane sobbed and closed her eyes tightly, covering her mouth. "Mother, please, control yourself," he said, moving towards her, arm outstretched uncertainly. How was he to handle this?
"Naïve boy," she hissed suddenly in a tone that made him gasp and pull back, withering.
"I am not," he protested as he regained his courage and stood straight, because assuredly he had no idea what else to do. He couldn't begin to fathom how to handle his mother's tears. Parents were not supposed to cry. They were supposed to comfort their children. When she never responded, he shrunk down again. "Mummy, please," Monkey Fist pled, trying to find a way to calm down the woman who choked on her sobs; and it disgusted him to address her with such a childish title, but it had always seemed to snap her out of things when little Montgomery Fiske was witness to a sudden mood change he didn't know how to handle.
When she was shocked or shaking or felt scared or anything, and little Monkey Fist had seen it, all he'd had to do was say mummy and she'd suddenly compose herself and regain all her courage. Now as an adult he saw it for what it was, a mother trying to be strong for her child by forsaking her own emotions to tend to his. When he was little it hadn't particularly mattered. It was funny, thinking back on his past. How had he ever thought she never cared? How had he believed he was no more important to her than the whelps she usually took care of? He didn't like it, that this time it hadn't worked. Words couldn't describe how he felt right then, and he refused to say he felt guilty over what he'd done. She was the one who'd run from him.
KP
Then she spoke, saying, "Time after time you would leave the castle, sometimes in the middle of the night, sometimes in the first hours of the morning or late in the evening, and you would go without a word to anyone. The only hint I had of your leaving was a shutting door, and then only if I were awake and in a nearby room. By the time I reached it, you were always gone without fail. No goodbye, nothing. You would hop a plane whenever you so pleased to without a word to anyone, and I would never know. There would be no note, no call, nothing. For years… Montgomery for years… For years every plane crash I heard of I dreaded when you were not at home. Every report of an aircraft going down in a fiery inferno; every report in which every passenger, any passenger, was killed aboard a ship, a train, a plane, anything you travelled in… Immortal gods, can you begin to understand the terror and panic that seized my heart; enough so that I felt I couldn't breathe, that I fainted, that I was administered to a hospital because of your unpredictable obsession!
Then one day I heard of a plane that went down near Japan, a private plane, the kind you often rode to get to isolated regions. The pilot was found dead, body beyond recognition. His passenger was nowhere to be seen, and for the longest time I thought, I dreaded, it had been you, for only you could escape a situation like that. For the length of that search, each time I closed my eyes I would see your face, I would see you in that crash, or bleeding somewhere off in the jungle, dying, suffering, longing for help and unable to obtain it. Then… Then they found a body somewhere along the flight path. It was the passenger, a young man was all they could tell, who had jumped from the plane as it was going down in some last ditch attempt at survival. A young man with black hair and your eyes… and I… I was called down to identify it. They believed it was you. Oh gods I had to go and identify the body of my only child, and it wasn't a pretty picture they told me. Words cannot describe how I felt as I walked into that morgue. Words cannot describe how I felt as they were drawing back the sheet, or how I felt when at first glance I believed it really was you. Of course I quickly saw otherwise, and the next thing I knew I was in a hospital bed having fainted dead away after barely breathing out that it wasn't you after all.
Then to have you return soon after… You had come home immediately on hearing of what had happened with that plane, weeks, months, after it had occurred, days after the discovery of the body. You were probably somewhere where there was no outside communication at all, if I know you. I still can't fathom whether it was for my sake you returned or simply because you'd done all you needed to. I so wanted to run to you, to hold you tight and kiss you and tell you how much I loved you and to never let you go. But of course that affection I was forbidden from having towards you. That much was hinted at with the cold greeting you gave me. When you called to me declaring your presence, I dropped the plate I was carrying. I could hardly think to restrain myself from racing out to you. Mother, I'm home. Humph, indeed. And then you had the audacity to add 'not that you noticed I'd left.'
When I came to you greeting you with your name looking tired and worn—and I know full well you saw it—you added, 'oh quit your insincere worrying.' How was I to respond other than with what I did? Immortals, I could hardly restrain myself while we ate, while you sat in front of me alive and completely indifferent as to what your poor mother was suffering. I did kiss you that night, you know. You fell asleep in your library pouring over some infernal scroll that would soon take you from me again and start the whole pattern over, and I covered you with a blanket and kissed your forehead, holding you tightly. I wept that night over you, until Bates came and informed me I should go to bed. When you took off the next night, so did I; and with no intention to return. I never looked at another news report again, or read another paper unless I was guaranteed there was nothing about a crash in it. If they wanted to find your family, they would find me soon enough. There was no need for me to worry needlessly, it was killing my health after all. Unless you really were gone or dying, I simply didn't want to know."
KP
Monkey Fist listened in shock, mouth dropped. His eyes stung. Why? He didn't know why. He swallowed over a foreign lump in his throat. What was this? Where had that come from? Really now, he wasn't about to cry, was he? How weak and pathetic would that be? Of course the course was set, and before he could even control himself he was across the room and in his mother's arms sobbing and pleading for forgiveness, saying he loved her, apologizing for so many things he'd lost count. What was he doing!? He needed to control himself! But he couldn't. He felt so weak, so desperate for his mother's touch, her comforting embrace, oh he'd so longed for it. It was so rare. And she held him back, burying her face in his hair after her shock passed over her. So tightly she never even knew she'd had such strength. She kissed his head and cradled him sobbing, forgiving him, telling him how much she loved him. Gods how he'd longed to heard those words, and for a long while mother and son remained that way.
