Elliott awoke in the middle of the night, something she regularly did. She didn't know the last time she had fully slept 8 hours, maybe in a foster home. But since leaving and living on her own, Elliott was far more used to getting no sleep, staying awake at all hours to keep herself safe, especially when she was living on the streets. She noticed the both of them had shifted in the night, with Cordelia holding her, one strong arm thrown over her protectively. As she tried to untangle herself from the woman, Cordelia's grip on her tightened, making it impossible for her to move without waking the older witch up. She noticed Cordelia's face was scrunched up and sweaty, her body slightly jerking every few moments. She wasn't a thrasher like Elliott was, but Elliott still recognized a nightmare when she saw one.

The younger witch had managed to contort herself enough so her hands were free and her body was facing the woman. She had a trick up her sleeve that used to work when her foster siblings had nightmares. If that didn't work, she would wake the woman up. She placed her hands over the woman's forehead and focused, seeing into the woman's head. She saw the whole dream in a matter of seconds, shrinking back from the woman when she realized what she was dreaming about. The man who had shot up the salon, she was in love with him. Elliott didn't know much about the shooting. It was before Grace was in charge, she wasn't really allowed to hang around the salon while Marie was alive. She remembered Grace and Sarah crying about it though, their friends dead. Elliott pulled herself together, after all, changing the woman's dream would be easier than waking her up and having to face her. So she repositioned her hands over Delias forehead and concentrated, using the womans own memories to alter her dream. She didn't want to alter it too much, just refocus what the landscape of the dream was. She used the same man, but happier memories. She briefly saw a flash of what the new dream would be, the first time they told each other they loved each other, them having a baby, their wedding. Elliott pulled back and repositioned herself, thinking about the memoires she had seen. If Cordelia had had a child, obviously something had gone wrong because she didn't appear to have one now. Elliott knew not to bring up the subject, not only would it probably make the supreme uncomfortable, but she didn't want to reveal her power to the supreme, deciding it was best to keep a few gifts to herself. This one she didn't need to control. She thought for a while about the dream before falling back asleep herself.

When Cordelia's alarm went off the next morning she awoke to an empty bed, rolling over and seeing the pajamas she had lent Elliott already cleaned and folded on the bed where Elliott used to be. She stood up and headed downstairs in her pj's for a cup of coffee, noticing Elliott's empty room as she passed. A pot of coffee was already brewed and seemed fresh, so Cordelia grabbed a cup and went in search for the young girl. She wasn't in the library, nor the living room, but Mallory was up and she couldn't find her either, so she assumed the two were probably together out in the greenhouse. She quickly got ready for the day, choosing a short black dress with red detailing and long sheer sleeves. Normally she would have slid on a pair of heels but she instead went for a simple pair of black sandals, throwing them on the making her way towards the greenhouse.

The closer she got to the greenhouse the more she could hear the two girls giggling. She smiled to herself, happy that Elliott had appeared to settle in decently well, and headed for the open door. She poked her head in and saw Elliott sitting on top of the table, her legs swinging beneath her as she giggled at something Mallory had said, who was working next to her on reviving a dead plant. She knocked on the door and the two girls turned towards her, Elliott smiling widely. "Good morning ladies, sleep well?" she said, looking over at Elliott.

"Yea, did you?" she responded, already knowing the answer.

"I did." Cordelia responded, smiling softly at the girl. Even though the child said she had slept well, Cordelia noticed how tired she always seemed to look, like she hadn't slept for days. She must've gotten out of bed pretty early this morning, judging by the clean laundry left on Delia's bed. The two had gone to bed pretty late last night, well into the morning, so Cordelia assumed she had slept maybe 4 hours before starting her day. It worried her a bit, that 4 hours of sleep was this girl's definition of sleeping well, but girls in the system often slept as little as possible for a multitude of reasons, none of which being any less heartbreaking.

She surveyed the greenhouse, which looked more like a storage facility and less like the little kingdom she had built in here years prior. If the girls were going to use this place as much as they had been, she probably should clean it out. It hadn't been used much since Cordelia became the supreme, none of the other girls really had an interest in it, and since Misty's passing Cordelia had found herself avoiding the place she used to love so much.

She walked over and helped Mallory with the incantation she was trying to learn, the wilted plant blooming underneath her hands. Elliott looked stunned, and Cordelia chuckled as she grabbed another dead plant from the desk for Mallory to try. Mallory struggled with the words for a minute before finally the plant underneath her hands came back to life, a rose blooming at the top. She looked at the supreme and smiled, she had been working on the incantation for months with no luck, and was about to give up.

Cordelia turned and grabbed another plant, this time motioning for Elliott to try. The girl stared at her for a few moments, not believing she could ever be able to do that, before Cordelia spoke to her. "Come on, we have to assess your powers today anyways." She said gently.

The girl hopped off the edge of the table and walked towards the two women as Mallory made room for her in front of the plant. She put her hands over the plant as the other two women had done, and repeated the words. Nothing happened, so she took a step back. "You have to have intention, picture it in your mind. Focus." Cordelia said to her, motioning for her to try again.

She stepped back towards the plant, and tried again, focusing as hard as she could. She felt the plant tickle the bottom of her hand, so she opened her eyes and saw the greenness of the undead plant, smiling to herself before looking at Cordelia and Mallory who were beaming back at her. Cordelia reached for her hand and grabbed it as Mallory moved in to hug her, shaking her back and forth slightly. She didn't tense up this time, much to the women's surprise. After they had released her she stepped back, waiting to see what they wanted to do next.

Cordelia ushered the girl inside to begin her testing, starting out with the normal school subjects: Math, English and Science. She handed her a test and told her to take as much time as she needed and told her to come to her office when she was done.

Elliott stared at the test for a while after the supreme left, nervous. Even though she was told she wasn't expected to pass, she still wanted to do well. It had been years since she was in a classroom, and although she had taught herself what she thought she should know to keep up with other kids, it still terrified her. She slowly opened the test and started reading the questions, going through the problems at a pretty rapid pace. Maybe this wasn't so bad, she thought to herself.

Meanwhile, Cordelia had gone to her office and spotted a stack of papers at the printer. She knew what they were, she had contacted Social Services yesterday and requested the file, Elliott's file. She wanted to know as much about the girl as possible so she didn't have to ask Elliott herself. She pulled the stack of paper from the printer and whole punched it, putting it into a large binder, before sitting down to start pouring through it.

She started at the beginning, with the first notes on her file being "Highly violent", "Pyromaniac", and "Flight risk". The first major note she found on her file was that she set a woman's couch on fire at age 4, supposedly after the woman refused to let the girl go outside. Cordelia knew to take these notes with a grain of salt, she had already read queenies file, much of these stories were the foster parents cover up for something they did wrong. It did peak her curiosity though, most of the girls don't get their abilities until they are teenagers, and Elliott had never said anything about being able to set things on fire, although it wasn't an unusual talent. The following stories up until age 7 were mostly the same, the parents did something Elliott didn't like, so she set something on fire. After age 7 however, there were no more notes about Elliott's "Pyromania", it disappeared. At age 7 she got put into her first group home, where she fought with most of the older children and had an aversion to one of the oldest kids there, a boy named Thomas. The file didn't say why she didn't like this particular boy, although Cordelia could make a wild guess, the very thought of it sending a tear down her face. The file did however detail that whenever Thomas got near her he would walk away with a bloody nose, screaming about how she must have hit him. The more she poured through the file, the more she understood why the girl got her powers so soon; Witches powers grew in times of crisis, when they needed them most, and from what she was reading Elliott's entire life had been a crisis.

It was then she was jolted out of her reading by a knock on the door, Elliott standing there with her test, her previously wet hair now half dried into gentle waves. "I'm done." She said softly.

Cordelia looked at the clock, it had only been 45 minutes. Most girls took about 2 hours to finish the test, so she was surprised. Elliott saw the shocked look on her face, and her own face dropped slightly, worrying that she had messed up. Cordelia saw and quickly recovered, standing up and grabbing the paper from Elliott as she closed the binder. "Alright, I'll grade this later, you ready to test your abilities?" She said, offering the girl a smile. The girl nodded apprehensively and the two women headed back downstairs.

The beginning of testing had gone relatively smoothly. Cordelia wasn't going to test Elliott on the abilities she already knew she had, there really wasn't a way for her to test those safely anyways. She started with telekinesis, asking Elliott to bring a candle on the table to her. She watched the girl focus and the candle lift slightly, hovering over the table before the candle dropped back down, falling over. Elliott blushed, thinking she had failed, but Cordelia reassured her that she was just asking to see if the candle moved, which it did, but that unless it was something she practiced she wouldn't be as good at it. She next tried to see if Elliott could control others. Cordelia grabbed Zoe and Queenie for this, as her mind was a hard one for even a talented witch to get into. Zoe was the easiest, and Elliott had her dancing instantly. Queenies took only a few milliseconds more, and pretty soon she was dancing along with Zoe, something normally even talented witches couldn't do. Controlling one mind was hard, but multiple was practically unheard of. Even Cordelia struggled to do it, although her mother was pretty good at it. Cordelia wanted to see just how advanced the girl was, so she told Elliott to stop. "Now try me." She said. The two other witches looked at her shocked. No other new witch had been asked to try on Cordelia, it was too hard and they knew it. Even Mallory hadn't been able to do it.

Elliott noticed the looks on the women's faces and immediately felt self-conscious. She had given too much away and she knew it. The other witches couldn't do this. She tried to feign stupidity, "I mean I already did them, isn't that what the test was?"

"The test is too see how strong your powers are, so we want to know as much as possible. Just try, if you can't do it then no harm no foul." Cordelia responded, trying to be as gentle as she could.

Elliott got nervous, something she rarely does. She knew she had to try, and she knew Cordelia already had the sneaking suspicion she could do it. Her breath became shaky as she tried to focus. Her powers always acted up when she was nervous, and she had a hard time controlling them, even if she was meaning to use them. She tried to calm herself and focused, easily entering Cordelia's head. Cordelia felt it but kept her face blank, wanting to see just how much the girl could really do. She felt her fingers move on their own accord, and Elliot pulled back, thinking she had done enough. "More." Cordelia said to her, wanting to see just how much she could get inside her head.

Elliott shook her head, "I can't." she said, hoping the supreme would move onto the next task. The supreme nodded her head and Elliott relaxed, thankful they wouldn't press her further.

Next, Cordelia decided to test her pyrokenisis. She had a hunch the girl could do it based on her file, but she wanted to see it to make sure, sometimes when girls were manifesting their powers, they got some that disappeared, being replaced with more advanced versions. Cordelia assumed her ability to fry someone's brain stemmed from pyrokenisis, but brain frying was more useful to Elliott. She held a candle in front of her and told Elliott to light the candle. Elliott's face drained and she closed off, offering the supreme a hard "No."

Cordelia didn't want to let the girl know she had been reading her file, so she tried to convince the girl that even if she couldn't do it that it was ok and to just try. Elliott wouldn't budge, getting more and more agitated the more the supreme pushed her. "I said no, I can't." she responded, the venom in her voice evident enough to make Cordelia cringe. She didn't blame Elliott for getting angry, every time she had used it before she had gotten sent away, so there was probably some trauma behind it. She tried to reason with Elliott again, only for this to push Elliott over the edge. "I said just DROP IT." She yelled, the candles wick bursting into flames at the same time it fell from Cordelia's grasp. It had all happened so fast, Cordelia didn't even realize Elliott had pushed inside her head and quite literally made her drop it. As she stomped out the flaming candle Elliott walked past her and a few moments later she heard the door to Elliott's room slam. Cordelia wasn't mad at her; she was the one who pushed her to do it. She decided that they would continue the testing later and right now she would let Elliott cool down, heading back to her office to grade the test.

Elliott heard Cordelia's office door close as she sat on the floor fuming. She was mad, furious, that Cordelia pushed her after she said no. She didn't want to do it and Cordelia pushed her to the point she lost control, giving the supreme exactly what she wanted. She felt played, and also scared. She felt stupid for feeling scared, but every time she had set something on fire she had always gotten beat or locked away in some closet or room, if she was lucky she just got taken away to a new home. What was she scared about? That they would make her leave? She laughed to herself, cursing under her breath. She had been here two days, how the fuck did she manage to get attached so easily? She was a pro at keeping her distance, not settling anywhere, so that when she had to leave it wasn't hard, it was just a place, and places come and go. For whatever reason, she knew that if she left this place right now that she would be devastated, and she hated herself for it. She had gotten too comfortable, so now she had to pay the price. She sat and fumed until she couldn't stand to be in the house anymore, so she grabbed her backpack, still filled with all of her belongings, and she quietly walked down the stairs and walked right out the front door.