AN: So, I had this idea in my head that Dave's power wasn't random, and it had to come from somewhere. I wondered what Dave's mother would think of what happened to her son? Seeing as just because a college student goes to college does not mean you cut contact with one's parents. This story is told from Dave's mom's POV (point of view).
Anyways, please give a round of applause to the oh-so-awesome Arlothia who betaed this story! Her help and improvements were greatly appreciated!
Disclaimer: I do not own The Sorcerer's Apprentice Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer do. I am not making any money off of this. This story was written for fun and as a practice to become a better writer…plus it's fun :-).
Please do not forget to review this story when you are finished! Thanks!
She always knew that her family had something going for them.
For one, every generation seemed to only have a single son or daughter. Never more. Never less.
Then, in every each generation each person had a knack, you could say, or talent that they could do extraordinary well. Sure, some families had their over-achievers or the people they couldn't stop talking about. But in this family, well…that was the norm.
Her great-great-great grandfather, from what she heard from her grandfather, was known widely for some advances in medicine.
Her great-great grandfather was a well known linguist and professor at Yale University. He spoke at least ten different languages fluently, and an added bonus of at least two languages that are now dead or had ceased to exist.
Her grandfather had been an excellent mathematician and another professor at a well known university. Well, two to be honest; a short time at Oxford and then at Harvard. He would sure have given Pascal a run for his money!
Her father, Dave's grandfather, had been something of a prodigy when it came to biology. He had this thing for birds it seemed. So he was always travelling around to different coastlines and countries to take a look at the different bird species and evaluate them.
For her, well maybe science and linguistics weren't her thing, but she was an established artist. She drew, imagined, and painted whatever she could see and dream. It seemed odd that in a family dominated by science and mathematics she had an eye for art. Not that anyone disliked it. Art was a craft in its own right.
She had studied with two masters, one in France, the other in Italy, and had attended the Rhode Island School of Design. She wasn't a well known international artist, but she wasn't a poor starving one either. She had an established career, a gallery in New Jersey, and was in the works of opening a gallery in New York City. Her works, one of them at least, was at MoMA and she was hoping another museum would pick up her work. She also did commissions in her spare time.
So it didn't much surprise her that her son had inherited the Stutler gene. Her husband, Bernard Haggerton, had divorced her after Dave's birth for a single reason: "I didn't want to have kids."
And he ran off, never coming back. He didn't even stay around long enough to figure out child support. At least she was smart enough to have her own bank account. They never really got around to creating a joint account after they married. It must have been a subconscious move, to be honest, telling her that they didn't need one because this wasn't going to last.
She never told Dave about that part, the part where his father left because of him. He didn't need that kind of drama and her father and mother were more than willing to help out if need be. But she always wanted a kid and that was why she, even though not much of a liar, had to tell her husband how she had forgotten to take "the pill" for a few months.
Bernard had been nice enough, but somehow she figured he didn't like the fact that her parents didn't really approve of him. His family had never gone to college and he was the first generation to do so.
But that wasn't what bothered her parents. It was the fact that he said she should get a "real" job. To be perfectly honest she was making more money than his diminutive landscaping business was. That had upset her, since he had once supported her in her artistic pursuits. But then again young love did that to people. One day you believe you found your soul mate and then the next reality gets in the way.
It didn't matter to her. She had her son and that's all she really cared about in the end.
Dave had taken a liking to science which was not unnatural in her family's lineage. Physics, it seemed, was his forte and mathematics took a not-too distant second. Her father and her grandfather were proud of him and so was she.
What could she say? Her son was going to continue one legacy or another, the idea of him being a professor wouldn't surprise her at all. Professors were always fighting over who would get to have him as the teacher's assistant, and some had never even met him! What craziness, but as she said it wasn't unnatural in her family.
Back in high school she had been fond of physics as well. She still remembered her teacher's faces when she told them she wanted to go to art school. They were convinced when she showed them her drawings, though, that this was what she wanted to do. They agreed, but it didn't make them any less deflated.
But then there was the second part of her family's legacy. It had something to do with unnatural and…just unpredictable events that happened to each member of the Stutler line, but not the ones who marry into it.
Her great-grandfather was believed to have seen ghosts. She couldn't really confirm that story; it could be a bed time story for all she knew. It was word of mouth and she never met her great-grandfather. He was up in Montreal living in a nursing home till he passed away in his sleep. She was just a girl trying to ride a tricycle at the time.
She knew her grandfather had fits in his sleep and her grandmother always worried about him. The fits were shiverings, interspersed with incoherent sayings; something about "the keep" and "the grimhold". Whatever those words meant she believed it was caused from the stress of his job being a mathematician at one of the most prestigious schools in the world. It was an immense amount of pressure to feel like you had to be the best in the world.
Her father, from what she remembered when she was little was always away a large majority of the time on business. He studied birds after all, and they tended not to stay in one place. But one time she had seen him with some other people, co-workers she believed, who wore a vast array of cloths from suits, to jeans and t-shirts, to leather jackets, and one always brought a staff of some sort. Her mother would call her into the house when his co-workers came over. She always wondered why dad's scientist friends weren't all in jeans. Maybe they were other friends of his, unrelated to his job.
She remembered hearing one of the older men tell her father if she should go see him. She never heard a name but her father wasn't too happy when he learned that she overheard that question. She asked her father who this him was. Her father said he was an orthodontist. She was eight at the time and she knew her father had lied to her. But she never asked again.
She got this feeling in her stomach she would learn sooner or later, and rather than make her father annoyed she just let the subject drop.
Then there was her own odd experience. She wouldn't say it was anything that out of the ordinary, though. Her car had died on the side of the New Jersey turnpike. This was before she had Dave. It was four in the morning with not many people on the road at all. There were no cell phones back then and the nearest call box was a mile and half away. Great, she thought. Her car didn't even have one of those fancy car-phones either. She had been told she needed to get a new car but with a house, rent, utilities, and her professional art career just taking off she could live with her junker as long as it still ran. Which it seemed it decided to stop doing now.
It was cold and she saw no cars or trucks on the road. It was about ten minutes later she thought she should make the effort to get to the call box and was about to walk away when she saw the headlights of a car, and it pulled up.
She blinked.
It was a 1930's style still-in-running-condition Black (at least as far as she could tell) Rolls Royce Phantom, and most surprising of all is that it stopped behind her '73 Pinto. The door opened and a man stepped out. He wasn't ordinary by any standards with his long honey curled locks and his fairly worn out leather duster. But he was polite and asked her what happened. She knew her car battery hadn't failed her and it wasn't a gas issue. He said he would see what he could do.
For a well-off man he was quite the gentleman and not at all afraid to get dirty. She was standing by his side when he asked her kindly if she would mind turning away. He said what he was about to do might spurt some oil and that he didn't want to get her clothes dirty. She almost bought it, except she asked him if he was worried about himself. After all it wasn't easy to wash leather.
He just shrugged and said if he did get oil on his coat then he would deal with it. She shook her head and did what he asked. She for one didn't want oil on her jeans or favorite Yankees sweater.
She didn't hear any spurts, or anything else to be honest. She thought she heard a low hum and then her car sparked back to life. The tall man closed the hood, told her that something was off in her car and that he had fixed it. She pulled out her wallet knowing that he was probably in a rush to get somewhere and the least she could do was pay for his time. But all he did was pushed her wallet away. He didn't want the money, nor did he need it. He was just glad to help.
Well if there ever was a knight in shining armor he certainly fit the bill. Instead of a trusty steed his curvaceous Rolls did one better than any fair mare that is for sure!
She watched him go back into his car and by the time he drove away she realized that she had forgotten to get his name. Well, the nameless vigilantly left without saying another word.
Her experience was nowhere near as 'out there' as others', say, like a ghost-seer, but it still being in the twilight hours and no one else on the road but that one person? It was rather strange. What would a wealthy man like that be doing out at that hour? He certainly didn't seem like the mafia type, but then again anything was possible.
She couldn't quite place the feeling that somehow she should know that man from somewhere. She sat down in the driver's seat shaking her head and thinking that it was time she replace this old beater. She still couldn't quite shake the feeling about that man. A minute or two later she thought she heard the roar of an engine that sounded like Mercedes sports car or something. But she shook her head. What? It wasn't like people could change their cars into another of their choice. If she could do that, she would have changed her '73 pinto for a Phantom. It might be a quirk of hers, but she liked cars that had class. She looked at her pinto and groaned.
But enough about her personal life. This was about her family, which undeniably included her son as well. And like all Stutler's he wasn't immune to that specific quirk of the family's.
His 'out there' experience was when Mrs. Alger had called her about Dave telling "stories". He told her what had happened. At first she thought he might have been telling a tall tale, but in her family, what with the ghost-seer, a feverish sleeper, her father's "outings", and her moments of usual luck or that chance with the man in the Phantom… Well, maybe this wasn't just a story, although she prayed that it was. Fire and men disappearing into an urn?
That was a little too out there for her own comfort.
She wasn't into conspiracy theories or any of that, but she knew enough in her life to know that some things couldn't be explained, and while a large majority of people turned to religion, which was all well and good, she was sure there were some things even He couldn't explain.
It was a few months later she decided to visit her son, seeing as he wasn't calling as frequently or sending emails as often as she hoped. Dave told her that he had a girlfriend, Rebecca, or Becky, and was the same girl he had written a note for back when they were nine. She thought that had been odd but then remembered the story about her grandfather finding the love of his life twenty years later after they had met for the first time when they were six years old.
She had been getting worried. Call it a mother's hunch or whatever, but normally when you don't get calls or emails, let alone a visit from your son, you start to think the worst. She didn't believe Dave couldn't defend himself—well maybe he lacked in that department—but he had brains on his side.
Another oddity of the family's: intelligence, it seemed, flowed through their very blood. Not that was a bad trait to have.
She rather her son have brains over brawn any day to be honest. There was more than just muscle out there. Intelligence had gotten her out of a few skirmishes of her own during her youth. In general, it was a good thought to live by. People who relied on one skill didn't get far in life. You needed something else, be it determination, ingenuity, wit, charm, smarts, or whatever else a person had going for them.
She remembered visiting once where her son worked on his Tesla coil project. It was in an old abandoned subway turnabout that one of his professors had allowed him to use for his experiments. The first thing she noticed was a black Rolls Royce Phantom sitting outside and wondered who would put that car there. She parked her car, no longer a '73 Pinto (she had gotten a Volkswagen Jetta) and realized that she recognized it. It was the same Phantom owned by the man who fixed her car back on the Turnpike all those years ago.
What a coincidence, she thought, though her father once told her he didn't believe in those. She was nine at the time and thought her father was silly. Coincidences or fate. Did it really matter in the end? The car was still parked there in front of the old subway turnaround where Dave was doing his fairly dangerous experiments. Certainly the man still owned the car, not Dave. Her son would have told her if he bought a car like that. He was a college student. He couldn't even afford a Costco size Ramen Pack without asking for money.
She stopped before opening the door and heard another voice. It wasn't Bennet's, her son's roommate, but an older voice. A voice that was achingly familiar, and she was intrigued to hear it here of all places.
Well his car was there, the only question was what he was doing here? Did he work at the University? He didn't seem the type from what she could remember in her hazy memories. Professors usually didn't wear long dusters or own a classic car like he did.
He might not have said too much when she had first seen him, but the man who fixed her car had a voice that one could recognize easily. It was baritone with a slight edge to it, but not too harsh, and a wry tone infused throughout. The kind of voice that spoke of experience and a rather snarky sense of humor, a sarcastic wit, but deep down a good guy on all four cylinders, forgive the pun.
She had met the man in 1987. It was now 2010. Twenty three years had gone by. Someone's voice would have changed in that time.
Through the door she could hear a muffled, "Again," and she quirked her eyebrows. The door wasn't locked like she thought it would be. She decided to open the grated door and was met with the steel staircase of the upper platform. The lab was hidden till you got out on the platform and, well, once she did; she wasn't the only one who was surprised.
What she was expecting to see was her son working on his coils or cleaning up the lab. What she saw was entirely different. Dave's equipment was moved to the sides and an ignited circle of flame was infused in the middle of the floor where her son was standing in the center of it.
"Mom?" Dave all but squeaked out. She knew her son to be awkward, but that timbre in his voice just reestablished that something was going on here. She didn't need the evidence to see that.
Well, either she was seeing things or this had to be one of those unusual moments in her life. But then she heard the screech of a chair being pushed back and the same man, the very same man who fixed her car stood staring up at her. He hadn't aged one day since that night twenty three years ago.
Well, what could she say? Strange things happened in her family's gene pool. This was definitely one of those times.
Though she was pretty sure this particular event took the cake.
She felt herself falling. Great. The only other time she had fainted was when her father had surprised her and took her to Disneyland when they were in California on a family vacation. He wasn't a big fan of the guy for some reason, but, like all little girls, she had loved Disney.
The next thing she knew her eyes fluttered open and she found herself on the bottom floor sitting on a bed. Where had the bed come from? She didn't remember a bed being in the lab earlier.
She saw her son fidgeting in a chair next to her who looked up when she came-to. He offered her a glass of water, which she took. The circle wasn't ignited anymore but she could still see the engravings where the symbols had been.
Another part of her gene pool was an astute memory. At least for the most part. But she was pretty sure she hadn't imagined that.
"Dave, would you mind telling me what it was I just saw? I'm pretty certain that wasn't part of your project." She regarded her son who looked like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. She suspected whatever was going on was the reason behind his small amount of communication with her for the past few months.
On second thought, maybe she didn't want to know. But Dave had already started speaking.
"Um, you see mom….well this is…." her son started to say, but then the man who had fixed her car held up a gloved hand to stop her son.
"Dave, I think a direct approach is probably the best way." Well she couldn't agree more but this wasn't just about her son. She would get to him later.
Dave just gave a grand sigh and said, "I'm a sorcerer mom."
She should have been surprised, she really should. But then the ghost-seer, the feverish sleeper, her father, who seemed to know all too well what she was thinking, her great-grandfather, whom she heard had the gift of foresight (but that was talk…or not), and all the other tales she thought were bedtime stories about her family came to the forefront of her mind.
But in the end, she really wasn't flabbergasted. She knew there was something different about her family and all she said was, "I've heard worse."
She had to hold back a smug grin when her son and the other man's jaws dropped at least ten feet to the floor and Dave just said, "Mom…I'm not kidding! You know the whole Arcana Cabana deal…?" Oh yes, she remembered that. Now what was it that her grandfather had told her when she decided she loved paints? He had this glimmer in his eyes and said that this was her "awakening" of sorts. She had just given a wide smile at this and he had chuckled. She had no idea what he was really referring to, but she was just a child at the time. How did they expect her to know any better?
The Arcana Cabana had been her son's "awakening", apparently.
She never told anyone she didn't believe in magic. She knew it was magic that Dave had been born despite her husband not wanting a family. She knew it was magic that had brought this man to fix her car when there was no one else for miles around. She knew her family had hid it from her but she never said a word about it to any of them. If they wanted to keep it secret, that was fine with her. They had their reasons. She wasn't a good liar but she knew when to keep her mouth shut.
The idea that her son was a sorcerer honestly wasn't that hard to believe. He was a very special boy. She remembered the dream she had when she was told to stop using the birth control pills. She remembered in that dream an elderly man who looked very wise talked to her about her life. She commented that, if she had her own way, she would have a family even though her husband did not. The man had been sympathetic and had told her that having a son was in her future and that her husband wouldn't be a part of her life for much longer. Then he said that she was a very special woman from a very special family.
She remembered waking up with a smile on her face and flushing the pills the very next morning.
She knew her family was special. She just didn't know how special at times.
So they told her everything, including the fact that Balthazar Blake, finally putting a name to her mystery man, was connected to magic as well, which didn't surprise her. He told her that he recognized her from way back when, but she just shook her head and something about fate or another.
Dave had been very surprised at how his mother had taken everything, and after he told her all about what was going on in his life she told him about all the stories she was told by her parents, grandparents, and the fables and tales of other family members. It was then that Balthazar became really interested, to the extent of asking a few questions, which she answered the best she could.
She learned that Balthazar was an apprentice to Merlin, the Merlin, and all about the issues that had happened recently. She could say that she sat there, taking it all in without a problem, but her heart wrenched when she heard about all the horrible things that had happened to her son a few months ago, to which she was not a part of. But relief washed over her learning how her son had saved the world.
Well let's put it this way: she knew her son would grow up to be somebody as great as the man in her dream all those years ago. Though now she had the distinct feeling that it was no dream, but a vision of her and Merlin. She would keep that to herself, though.
All during this conversation, Dave believed she was going to freak out. What he didn't know was that she already had that experience.
She clearly remembered being freaked out after she watched The Sorcerer's Apprentice from Fantasia and had danced around the kitchen only to see mops start moving on their own accord. She was able to stop them by just thinking about it and they had dropped to the floor. It would have been horrible if she had suffered the same fate as Mickey. She was sure that there would be one Yen Sid character or another who would look at her with barely contained fury. At the time she just thought it was a dream, but had smiled nonetheless. She knew that her family was magical, even if they were not going to tell her point blank.
She was just glad she wasn't going to have to keep it a secret from Dave. If anything, Dave had more to tell her than she did. But just because he was this "all mighty" sorcerer didn't mean she was going to excuse his absentee behavior. She was still his mother after all. But she couldn't hide the fact that she was very, very, proud of him.
Fin