Ugh, I just started back to school and classes are already stressing me out. None of my professors are organized, and I swear it's going to give me a heart attack by the end of the semester! Anyway, hope you like the chapter, I'm really trying to keep up with this story, but the way things are going, it might need to be put on the back burner for a while, at least until I get in a routine with my classes. As always, thanks for your support, and please review!
Wednesday morning, Mallory was sitting in the waiting room of Angel's Placement Social Services' main office, waiting for her name to be called. She looked at her phone as she waited, and smiled a little as she opened a text from Dick, wishing her luck. He'd been almost annoyingly helpful since she told him that she was going to the interview. He'd helped her prepare some answers, helped her pick out her clothes and hairstyle, got up early and made her a big breakfast, and offered to take the morning off to go with her. She'd firmly refused the last offer, not wanting him to get in trouble with work and, more importantly, wanting to do this on her own. Still, she thought, it wouldn't be so bad to have him to talk to right now.
She was just considering giving him a call when the secretary looked up from her computer screen. "Ms. Johnson, Dr. Veritas will see you now," she said.
Mallory nodded and stood, smoothing the wrinkles from her gray dress pants and white blouse before walking as confidently as she could down the hall. She touched her hair, taking a breath. She'd pulled her jett-black hair into a professional bun, with wisps of hair 'accidentally' coming out and framing her face. She was glad she had the shampoo again. It felt like having a piece of Wally with her, and she really needed that today.
"Dr. Veritas?" she asked as she knocked on the open door.
The woman looked up from some papers. "Yes?"
"I'm Mallory Johnson. I believe we have-"
"An interview, of course. Please come in." She rose from the desk and crossed to the front of it, her movements graceful and full of purpose. Mallory walked over and extended a hand, and the woman, probably ten or fifteen years older than her, gave it a firm shake, then gestured to the armchairs at the side of the room. "Shall we?" Mallory nodded and settled in one of the chairs, and Dr. Veritas grabbed a clipboard and pen off her desk and joined her a second later. "Well, I hope you weren't waiting too long," the woman said. Her voice was full of warmth and hospitality, prompting a small smile from the pyrokinetic.
"No, not at all. Thank you so much for considering me for this position. It really means a lot to me."
"Yes, well, you understand that there are some rather serious points that we need to discuss, correct?"
"Yes," Mallory said, though she didn't think that was a question so much as a statement.
"For example, you were terminated from your previous position. We've been in touch with your former employer, a Ms…" she looked down at the clipboard to find the name, "Bently. She said that you were let go largely for your absences, constantly being late, taking extended breaks during the day, leaving early. She also said that you were constantly tired, slow at your work, and didn't seem to care about what you were doing."
Mallory's stomach twisted into knots. What had she been thinking? There was no way she would be able to get another job after the way she was fired from the last one.
"Do you want to explain that?" Dr. Veritas asked gently.
She sighed. "Well, I can't excuse my behavior. It was careless and immature. All I can do is tell you the reasons for it, and tell you that I have a much better work ethic normally."
"Well, I don't have anything to compare it to, so why don't you just tell me those reasons, hmm?"
She nodded. "Well, I got the job right out of college, and I was still in the process of getting myself situated in the city. And right before I graduated, I had several, um, family crises I guess you could call them."
Dr. Veritas smiled a little. "Ms. Johnson, I have lived in Metropolis most of my life. I completed both of my doctorates here, and I can barely drive to work without being stopped by some alien or supervillain trying to take over the world. I completely understand crises. And, as I recall, just a little while before you would have gotten your last job, the world was in a crisis of its own."
Mallory looked away, the confidence starting to falter. "Um, that was actually what happened with my family. I lost someone in the Reach invasion. I know I wasn't the only one who did, but…"
The older woman's smile became sympathetic as she reached over and put a hand on Mallory's arm. "I lost someone close to me, too, recently. I understand how that can affect your work and your personal life." She pulled back, crossing her legs. "However, it is the way a person adapts to the changes that marks what kind of person they are, or the kind of person they will become."
It sounded like the opening speech to a training session with Black Canary, and Mallory couldn't help but smile at the thought. Then, she remembered that she was basically being told she was a bad person, and she sighed, trying to keep her impatience at bay. "I'm sorry, Dr. Veritas, but I'm a little confused. Why exactly am I here? I understand that my references aren't exactly stellar, and your secretary told me last night that I didn't have the typical amount of experience you would want."
The woman smiled, seeming satisfied. "You don't like to waste time, do you?" she asked. Mallory tilted her head, not understanding the comment, and the doctor moved on without waiting for an answer. "You are here, Ms. Johnson, because of this." She handed her a small stack of papers stapled together. Mallory took it and flipped through it. "Recognize it?" Dr. Veritas asked.
"Well, I should. I wrote it," Mallory replied, not even thinking. It was the essay she'd submitted to her last job with her application, detailing why she wanted to go into the social services. "I'm sorry, how do you have this? I didn't submit it to you."
"No, you didn't. Ms. Bently faxed it over when we called her for your reference check."
Mallory looked between the essay and the woman in front of her, her forehead creased with confusion. She shook her head slightly. "I don't understand," she admitted, "why would she do that?"
Dr. Veritas smiled again. "Well, it would seem that she was impressed by it. And, she told me that you had family concerns. Anyway, I read it, and I must say, I found it quite moving. The idea of wanting every child in the system to know the sense of family and home that you found, you seem to have a real passion for it."
Mallory nodded, not knowing what to say. Dick hadn't asked her anything close to this when he'd been helping her the day before.
"Well, Ms. Johnson, that passion is worth something to me. We have plenty of people who do their jobs well here, many of them are really quite good at what they do, but I want someone who inspires them to care about what they do, someone who really puts a passion in them. Do you think you could be that person?"
Mallory tilted her head. "What do you want me to do? Light a fire under them?" she asked, smiling a little.
Dr. Veritas chuckled. "Well, metaphorically speaking, yes. You've been in the system, you know how these kids feel, and you know how important it is that we not fail even one of them. You see, this is why I wanted you to come in for an interview. I wanted to get a sense of who you are, to make sure that you really care about people and want to change things for the better."
"And you think you can tell all of that in one interview?" Mallory asked.
The woman smiled, satisfaction on her face. She leaned back in her chair, tilting her head to the side as she studied Mallory. "Yes. Yes, I think I can."
"I got the job!" Mallory yelled into the phone as she practically jogged down the street.
"Mal, that's great! I knew you could do it!" Dick exclaimed, seeming even more excited than she was about it.
"I never thought I would get it. She brought up the last place, and I thought it was over."
"Listen, Mal, I want to hear all about it, but I just got to the station. I shouldn't be long, they just want to go over the details about the attack last night. Hey, how about when we get back to the apartment, we go get dinner. I'll buy."
Mallory laughed. "You won't have to for much longer. And, Dick, I swear, as soon as I start getting some money in, I'll help out with the bills, and I'll pay you back for everything."
"Nah, don't worry about it. I'm just glad you're doing so good. I'll talk to you later, ok?"
"Yeah, talk to you soon."
They hung up, but Mallory was still far too excited to keep quiet. She allowed herself a muffled scream and spun in a circle on the sidewalk, prompting some sideways looks. She ignored them. Nothing could bring her down right now. She was just floating along as she made her way through the city, heading towards the zeta tube. When she turned the corner, though, she slammed into someone. Hard.
"Oh! I'm so sorry, I-"
"Mallory?"
She looked up at the man she'd run into. "Alex?" They laughed and stepped to the side of the sidewalk, letting the other people go around them.
"Hey, how have you been?" he asked.
She shrugged, still grinning from ear to ear. "Well, I actually just got a job. I was on my way back to my apartment from the interview."
"Wow, that's great! What's the job?" he asked.
"It's a social service position with Angel's Placement, I'll be working in one of their homes and coordinating families with fosters, and if I stay a few years I'll be able to oversee adoptions, too."
"That's great! That's what you wanted to do, isn't it?"
"Yeah. So, what about you? What have you been up to?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing much. I'm a paid intern at a new free clinic downtown. It's not much, but the doctors I'm working under are really good, and it's getting me out of years of school." They paused for a moment, not knowing what else to say, then Alex tilted his head. "Hey, do you want to go get a drink? Celebrate your new job and catch up?"
Mallory smiled, shrugging. "Yeah, sure. I'm going out with a friend later, but I have a few hours to kill."
His face brightened a little. "Great. There's a coffee shop near the clinic, we order it in all the time. I don't think they have your spicy drink, but they have all the normal stuff, and the pastries are great."
She chuckled at his description of her drink, but she didn't say anything about it as she fell into step beside him, shifting their course around and heading downtown.
"So," Alex said, leaning back in his seat, shifting his almost empty cup of coffee from one side of the table to the other, "how are you really?"
They'd spent the last half hour talking about all of the things that had happened to them since they'd graduated, though Mallory had left out almost all of the details. But now, he was watching her, knowing that there was more to her story. She laughed, hoping it would get some of the concern out of his eyes. "How do you do that?" she asked, shaking her head.
"Do what?" he asked innocently.
"See past what people are telling you, get to the truth."
"Please, you do the same thing. Besides, with you, it's pretty easy to see when you're lying. You aren't very good at it."
Her eyebrows rose in amusement. "Really?" she asked.
He laughed softly and shrugged. "Sorry, but you're pretty much an open book."
She shook her head. "Well, if I'm so bad at lying, then you'll believe me when I tell you that I'm ok, really. I went through a rough patch, but I'm back on track now."
They were quiet for a moment while Alex considered her words, then he smiled a little and nodded. "That's good to hear. Hey, do you still talk to Jen at all?"
Mallory forced her face to stay calm, though a twinge of hurt went through her. She shook her head. "No, not really. I haven't talked to her since graduation."
"Oh," he seemed surprised. "Well, she and Brandon are getting married."
"Really? That's great. I like them together."
Alex nodded in agreement, and they fell quiet for a long time. Eager to fill the empty air between them, Mallory sat up straighter and said, "So, the clinic."
He smiled at the mention of his work. "Yeah, it's great. I'm pretty much a glorified nurse, but every now and then I'll get to help with the more serious stuff, and I get to sit in on surgeries."
"The clinic does surgeries?" Mallory asked, surprised.
He shrugged. "Just minor stuff. Resetting bones, appendectomies, bullet removals."
She laughed. "Bullet removals? Really?"
He nodded. "We've had a few since I started. I think they're all from the same gang, they all have this weird symbol tattooed on their shoulders, but when the doctors ask them how they got hurt, they clam up. We can't report anything to the police unless the patient wants us to, it's one of the things that attracts our business."
"That sounds like the sort of place you would expect in Gotham, not Metropolis," Mallory mentioned, trying to hide her disapproval. Alex sighed, his face conflicted. "I thought that, too, at first. But now I think it's good. People don't really think of Metropolis as having a high population of low income families, but it's still a problem, and the so-called heroes of this city don't seem to care about anything but the big guns. At least, they don't want to raise any awareness on it, and someone has to help them."
Mallory looked away, thinking about the parts of the city that she usually patrolled, the low income areas that had the most muggings and assaults in the city. And, though she knew it existed and was a problem, she never talked about it, and she never heard any of the other heroes talking about it either. She decided that, even if the clinic sounded like it would be serving a lot of people that she would end up fighting, but she was glad it was there to help the people of her city. "Can I see it?" she asked.
He chuckled. "What, the help?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No, the clinic."
"Oh, um, you really want to see it?" he asked. She nodded, and he shrugged and checked the time. "Well, I don't usually go in on Wednesdays, but I don't think they'd mind if we dropped by."
The clinic was only two blocks away from the cafe, so they were at the clinic in just a few minutes. When they walked into the building, the first impression that Mallory got was that it was efficient. The inside of the building was deceptively large, and the small staff was moving around with purpose.
"Hey, Alex, are you working today?" a young woman asked, coming up to the counter. There was a half wall blocking the back from the waiting area.
Alex smiled and put a hand on Mallory's back, leading her to the wall. "Hey, Maria. This is a friend of mine from college, Mallory. Mallory, this is Maria, she's interning with me, she's in the same program I am."
Mallory nodded, her eyes still moving around the room. The equipment wasn't at the same level, but it reminded her of med lab at the cave. While that was probably her least favorite room of the cave, it still felt like a small piece of home. Alex gave her a short tour, but before they finished she got a text from Dick saying he was on his way back to the apartment.
"Oh, I have to go," she said, surprised at how disappointed she was.
Alex shrugged and started walking to the door with her. "That's fine. Hey, it was really good to see you."
She nodded. "Yeah, you too." She started to walk down the sidewalk, but Alex stopped her with a sound.
"Uh, hey, I know you said you're doing ok, but if you ever need anything, you can always call me. I hope you know that."
She tilted her head, studying his face, and smiled at the steady look in his eyes. She smiled a little. "Yeah, I think I do. Thanks, Alex."
He nodded, and she went on down the sidewalk, going to the first zeta tube she could find.
Dr. Veritas is a real character from the comics, but I'm going to pretty much change most of her story, so it's more of a name drop than really including the character. If y'all have any suggestions for the story, just leave a review!