Episode: 2.11

--- Molly ---

She felt something patting her cheek, and she moved to swat it.

“Come on, time to get up.”

(G-Graves?)

Through an act of willpower, she managed to open her eyes and spot the green-eyed boy standing over her. Though the act did cause her to also notice the migraine pounding in her skull.

“This is going to be a recurring thing with you isn’t it.”

“W-what?”

Graves rolled his eyes, “The whole: me having to patch you up after you knock yourself out thing.”

“Knock… myself… out?”

(W-what?)

“Yes.” Graves nodded misunderstanding her once more, “And you know, it wouldn’t bother me so much, if you weren’t the one knocking yourself out. Starting to think you’re a self-inflicted masochist.”

That made her blink.

“What.”

Graves watched her for a moment before tapping his skull with his palm, “Right, sixteen, naïve, and I wasn’t paying attention for a second there.”

“What?” she repeated once more, hoping for (something resembling an actual answer this time.)

Graves gave her an odd look, “You ask a lot of ‘what’s but not a lot of ‘who’s, ‘where’s, ‘why’s, or ‘how’s, you know that.”

She bit down her irritation, after all she already knew he was something of a smart (ass) when he got the chance.

“Okay, where are we?” she asked, playing his game.

“Your apartment, living room.”

She glanced around, and (yes, that is where we are.)

“Why are we here?” she tried, sitting up.

“Because you knocked yourself out…?”

She had to keep herself from glaring at the bemused grin that did absolutely nothing to help her (fucking migraine).

“How did I knock myself out?” she asked, massaging her temples.

“Oh,” Graves nodded, as if just figuring out what she was getting at, “You pushed your magic into the red, and well your mental strength wasn’t enough to keep you conscious.”

He paused, seeming to think something over, “Well, that or it was all of the bullets that hit you. I’m honestly not sure if it was the accumulative damage or magic exhaustion that got you.”

Slowly it came back to her.

She was not happy when it did.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!” she screamed.

“What do you mean?” Graves asked, tilting his head in a way that just served to piss her off more.

“You, you, you just… kicked me off a fucking building!” she forced out passed her overwhelming rage.

“I knew you could take it.” Graves voice was so nonchalant that she actually stood and swung on him.

“How the fuck would you know that?!” She shouted as he caught her wrist, and easily twisted it away from him.

“Because I’ve been a Half-life longer than you’ve been alive?” he stated as if he didn’t understand how she didn’t know that.

This time she tried to knee him.

“Then why the fuck didn’t you give me a warning at the very least?!”

“You wanted to be a hero, so I made you be a hero.” Graves shrugged with a gesture to the alleyway.

She blinked.

“You… you knew that those, those bastards were here?” she whispered in revelation.

“Yep.” He nodded, as if that didn’t make everything worse.

“Why, why would you d-do that?!” she gasped, trying not to show the sheer level of betrayal she felt from him throwing her at a couple of would be rpists and traffickers.

“Because that girl needed to be saved and you needed a test, if you couldn’t handle it, I would’ve stepped in.” Graves explained simply enough, before shrugging, “Truthfully, I hopped off the roof right after kicking you off. You just didn’t notice.”

“That’s, that’s…” she ran a hand through her hair, trying to understand what he was saying, and she did in a twisted sort of way, (but still) “Even if you were going to help me that’s not… what you did is not okay Graves…”

“I know.” He agreed without a fight, or any other shift in his tone or body language.

That made her pause, she expected some kind of defense, confusion, or guilt, not, not this… (apathy…)

“Then, then why did you do it?” she licked her lips, not really sure she wanted his answer.

“I already explained it was a test, which you passed by the way,” he gave her look, that probably would’ve meant something if she wasn’t riding an emotional rollercoaster, “but I guess you want to know the point of said test?”

She couldn’t answer, there was something… off with the way he was acting, it wasn’t the innocent off key awkward teen, or the stern teacher she’d gotten used to. Hell, it wasn’t even the vulnerable man she’d seen during his musical number.

(No, this… this is too clinical, too cold for the Graves I’ve spent this weekend with…)

And honestly… that kind of scared her.

“You want to be a hero, so, I tested to see if you could be a hero. I threw you at an unforgivable act (that I was going to stop, one way or another) without any cause or warning because nine out of ten times the world won’t give you a warning when it’s about to go to shit. If you needed me to save you, if you couldn’t stand up for someone other than yourself, if you had abandoned that woman, then you wouldn’t have had what it takes to really help people when they need it. Not now at least.”

He… he wasn’t wrong… and she didn’t like that.

“Does… does that mean you’re going to…” she swallowed down her apprehension, because honestly she needed to know this, for her safety if not her sanity, “that you’re going to do this again?”

Graves tilted his head from side to side as if thinking of his answer, a fact that did not reassure her.

“Yes, and no.”

Nope, that did not reassure her.

Graves took a seat next to her, still thinking out his answer.

“Yes, I’m going to keep testing you, whenever you reach certain… milestones on your training, and I’m not going to lie those tests will be difficult. That said, if I’m being honest, that test ended up harsher than I would’ve preferred.”

Okay, that reassured her a little but still…

“How…” she licked her lips falling short, “How did this… test turn out harsher than you wanted?”

Graves watched for a moment, before nodding, “Alright, I do owe you that much.”

(Yeah, you do.)

“Alright, earlier you wanted to know why I chose that specific rooftop correct?”

She nodded.

“Well, I have this… trick, that lets me see when someone is going to die somewhere.”

“You can see when people are going to die?” she blinked.

“Yes, and sort of…” Graves gnawed on his lip seemingly deep in thought, “There are… conditions to it, complicated conditions, but if I spend magic I can see if someone is going to die wherever I’m looking, but the magic cost is quadratic, and based on time… I think the farthest I can see is about… four days, and that’s under the right circumstances, and if I’m looking at a viable place when those circumstances are met.”

“And that alley?” she asked, already having an idea of what he was trying to say.

Graves just grimaced.

“So then, that woman…” she trailed off.

“It wasn’t a pleasant death…” Graves answered both simply, and horrifically.

Her heart stilled as she had a chilling thought.

“And she’s… after I was knocked out?”

“I healed her physical injuries, and put this calming spell on her, she’ll still remember everything, I-I don’t like it when people mess with memories like that…” Graves trailed off, before shaking his head, “But! Either way with the spell, it’ll be few weeks before the memories can give her any nightmare, hopefully it’ll give her enough time to… deal with it, so it’ll be a once a year type of thing rather than a nightly one…”

(That’s… that’s concerning… but good…)

At the very least the woman would be able to deal with what those men tried to do.

“And what about those, those men?”

“Well when that first one ran away, I made a couple of skeletal-constructs to rough him up, then I took the two you blasted a good six meters away with a kid’s night light,” Graves cackled, “and from there I dealt with the three of them so that they couldn’t get away.”

She tried not to blush at his laugh, because honestly, she wasn’t too sure how she did that herself.

Graves blinked, “Oh, but just so you know I didn’t stick around for the cops after the woman called the cops, because well, me and the constables… we don’t… get along too well, all things considered…” his face became a worsening grimace as he went on.

“That’s, that’s okay…” she admitted, mostly because she didn’t think the police would let a strange Deviant move a female Mask, and definitely didn’t want them asking questions about who she was, or why she was out in a Mask instead of joining Sanctuary.

That made her pause.

(Actually, should I consider joining Sanctuary?)

While the majority of Sanctuary’s field teams were known to be anti-Deviant, the organization as a whole was known to employ a number of licensed ‘Specialists’ to help with the more extreme cases, or to work as a supplementary police force in haven towns.

At least one of whom had to be an Arcane.

(Hell, if the rumors are true then they have an entire branch made of Arcane, fixing the bigger problems caused by people messing with what they don’t understand.)

Either way, there was a safer alternative to dealing with more of Graves’s ‘tests.’

But did she want to turn Graves away after everything he’d done and taught her in the last two days? And was that really worth another night like tonight? Being kicked off a roof, having to fight three would be rpists and kidnappers, who would’ve done who knows what to her…

She ran a hand down her face, before deciding to finish hearing him out.

“You said… you said my… ‘test’ went to hell.” She started, “And I’m guessing my test was saving that woman?”

“Yeah…” Graves rubbed the back of his neck before sighing, “First, and this is the part that made the rest seem so bad, I ended up misjudging how much time we had.”

“What do you mean?”

Graves leaned back in his seat, “I knew when the woman was supposed to die, and had an… idea of how it would happen, but I let our lesson drag on long enough that we couldn’t just take the stairs and stumble on the woman at the start of what would look like a mugging, at least to you. If you were the kind of person, I thought you were, think you are, you would’ve stepped in rather than just ignoring her, especially since you knew I was there if you failed.”

(Okay, I can… I can see how that would be a fair test…)

She could admit that, at least, to herself.

“And because we were running low on time you… kicked me off the roof?” This was the part that was really bugging her, because that wasn’t just putting her at risk for a practical lesson, it was actively harming her.

And after the abuse she’d taken at school… this was her deal breaker.

“If we took the stairs, we would’ve stumbled on the scene mid…” Graves paused apparently not even wanting to say the word, “Mid-unspeakable, and I couldn’t willingly or knowingly allow that to happen to that poor woman. At which point I overlooked the fact that you were still new to the whole, Half-life thing, especially since we were having a conversation on our healing factors, something I figured would make your test easier to stomach.”

She opened her mouth to say something, before closing it, because yeah, knowing she could tank bullets would’ve made being thrown into danger easier to handle. If she actually had time to understand that before being shot.

“How was I supposed to piece that together, by being thrown off a building?”

“Truth be told, I didn’t realize how strong my healing factor actually was until about… a year after I got my powers. Fell off a cliff and broke half the bones in my body, before watching it stitch itself back together.” He shrugged, “Figured one or two bones was an easier lesson, and since you gave me permission to hard-ball you…”

They both grimaced at the implications of that, though she felt for different reasons.

Leaning back herself, she couldn’t help but run a hand down her face.

Again, she could see where he was coming from, and again, she didn’t like it.

She shook her head, before sighing.

“Look, I… I don’t mind you hard balling me, as far as our lessons go… but I have to draw a line at you actually causing me harm.”

Graves grimaced, “But… I promised to teach you magic and there are certain lessons that you have to learn for the others, like controlling your healing factor or making blood ink. And to do that you or I need to…” He trailed off at the end and despite the ominous name of the second lesson, she understood where he was coming from.

“Then give me warning, don’t just… don’t just… don’t just hurt me…” (like everyone else.)

“Yeah, that’s… I…” Graves looked like he wanted to hug her, before thinking better of it, “Yeah, I won’t hurt you… and if a lesson requires you to be hurt on some level, I’ll give you forewarning before we even start the lesson… that way if you don’t feel up to it that day, we can push back a bit.”

“That’s…” she wiped something from one of her eyes, “That’s a fair compromise.”

“So… you’ll stay my apprentice, you won’t tell me to leave?” Graves asked, with a desperate sort of hope, she felt a little too familiar with.

She knew there was some question there that she wasn’t picking up, and with everything else she’d been through tonight, hat she should be cautious… but at the same time she’d had that same kind of hope shattered far too many times herself.

“Y-yeah, keep teaching magic, and I’ll… I’ll let you stick around.”

A tension she hadn’t noticed seemed to lift from Graves shoulders as a comfortable quiet settled in around them.

“For what it’s worth I am sorry.”

She glanced at Graves, not sure if she’d heard him right.

“You didn’t ask to put up with me and my issues, but your trying, and regardless of whether for my benefit or your own… I’m sorry for whatever I have and will put you through and… thank you for putting up with it.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond to that, she didn’t think she’d ever gotten such a heartfelt response from someone before, and if she was being honest… it was worth whatever gamble she was taking being Graves apprentice.

She gave him a soft smile, “Sure, no problem.”

Another silence fell over them, even more comfortable than the last, as a single thought drifted through her head.

(Maybe this won’t be so bad after all…)