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Sabrina the Teenage Therapist, Volume 2

Chapter 3: Job Interview

Summary:

Sabrina interviews a potential new officer for the Superhero Liaison Department

Chapter Text

“Excuse me? I was told to come and see someone in this apartment?”

Standing in the entryway of her counseling office, her hand on the doorframe to block the entrance, Sabrina furrowed her brows, studying the man in front of her for a long moment. About the same age as her father, though maybe a year or two younger, with the frame of a strong and fit man who had lost a little of his muscle tone. His hair was short-cropped, almost military in its appearance. Looking at his face, Sabrina started, blinking. She had never met this man before, had she? But there was something so… familiar about the face.

The man gave her a nervous look and took a hesitant step backward, doubt, anxiety, and confusion creeping into his emotions. “Sorry; I must have the wrong apartment. I’ll just… go and try the other one?”

Suddenly, Sabrina’s eyes widened and she nodded in realization. “Oh! Of course! Sorry; I completely forgot. My father mentioned this morning that he would be sending you over… you’re Marcel, right?”

Marcel nodded slowly, looking past Sabrina into the counseling office waiting room with a confused look on his face. “Yes, that’s correct. Although I was never told why I had to come here. I, um, I was told it might have something to do with a job?”

Sabrina gave him a reassuring smile and stepped back from the door, gesturing for him to enter. “Don’t worry; it’s nothing bad,” she explained. “You were recommended for a very specific position, and this is the last stage of the vetting process.”

Hesitantly entering the waiting room and glancing sidelong at the decorations on the walls, Marcel cocked his head in confusion, still standing by the front door. “But… I didn’t apply for any jobs lately…”

“This isn’t something you apply for,” she told him, gesturing for him to follow her down the hallway and into the counseling room. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you any more than what I’ve already said until after we finish our conversation. But I promise, all of your questions will be answered in due time.”

Marcel furrowed his brows dubiously but shrugged, finally taking a seat on the opposite side of the coffee table from Sabrina. “Okay, so…” He waved his hands expectantly. “What are we doing here?” He chuckled, shaking his head. “I have to admit, I never imagined I’d be interviewed for a job by a girl the same age as my daughter!”

Sabrina stifled a giggle. “And I wasn’t expecting to be vetting a man the same age as my father!”

He gave her a wry half-smile, though his emotions were lacking in humor. “Touché.”

Sabrina inhaled and exhaled, releasing her own emotions into the atmosphere and focusing her attention on Marcel, ignoring the happiness welling up from inside of her. Anxiety, confusion, a hint of worry… but a hint of excitement and anticipation all the same. No red flags so far. “Why don’t you start by telling me a little about yourself?” Sabrina suggested, making a couple of notes on her clipboard.

Marcel shrugged. “Okay… Well, I’m married. One daughter – about your age, I think. Born and raised in Paris. I served in the army for almost 20 years – Marine Infantry. I just took my retirement, right before all this madness started.”

“In that case, thank you for your service,” Sabrina told him, checking the note on her clipboard and nodding to herself. “Tell me a little more about your military record. Where did you serve?”

He hummed. “Let’s see… Africa – a dozen or so missions, all around the continent. Most of my deployments were in North Africa, though not all. I can talk about some, but there are still a few I can’t actually talk about – top secret assignments, you understand. “

Sabrina raised an eyebrow, suppressing a laugh. “I understand completely,” she assured him. “I won’t ask you to breach any confidences if you don’t ask me to do the same! Then which missions can you discuss?”

He frowned, furrowing his brows pensively. “Let’s see… We were sent into the Middle East on a peacekeeping mission a few years back… not much happened on that one. I did end up pulling a protection mission for a VIP at a conference in Lebanon, fifteen years ago, I think? That deployment got real hairy, real fast. It wasn’t while we were there, but after we had left, a terrorist group bombed the peace conference and killed several innocent civilians. Afterward, our squad was sent to flush the group responsible into the open. We captured a lieutenant and disrupted a couple cells, but it was only of… mixed success.” He frowned. “That seems to be too much of a recurring theme: mixed success. But that’s about it for important or ‘eventful’ deployments. I’ve mostly been stuck behind a desk the last couple years, marking time until retirement. But now…” He shrugged. “I retired and got out, but it’s starting to look as though the world is passing us by.”

“Oh? What do you mean?”

He scoffed. “I used to think our military was among the best in the world – at least on a level with Britain and Canada, even America or Russia or China in some respects. But then that… monster showed up, and it was like we could do nothing to it.”

Sabrina swallowed, putting down her pen. “Were you there?”

He shook his head, his shoulders slumping. Sabrina could feel guilt welling up in him. “If it had been just a couple months sooner… But I’d already retired by that point,” Marcel explained. “So I was in town when the shutdown started. I was sitting in the living room, watching the news, when the Tarasque formed.” He shuddered. “That was an unreal experience: I watched that monster form, watched all the chaos and confusion, all of it in real time on the television. They didn’t even have a chance against it.” He swallowed, his jaw clenching, and looked away. Guilt and shame roared to life in him. “It was like it didn’t even notice them. I’ve seen a single Leclerc obliterate an enemy column in less than a minute. Two could bring down a bridge from three-plus kilometers away with a pair of well-placed shots each. But this thing… it just kept coming. Shells that could rip through concrete just bounced off of its shell. And the fire coming from its eyes – it destroyed two lines of tanks in a matter of moments. When you watch something like that…”

Sabrina hummed ruefully, pushing aside the anxiety that roared to life every time the subject of the Tarasque came up. “You’re not wrong,” she told him curtly. Slowly she forced herself to breathe. She was okay. Her friends were okay. The Tarasque was gone. They had defeated it in Tarascon, and he had found Max again after seemingly losing him – they had a baby on the way, they were going to get married, they had a life together. Drawing in a deep breath, she released it slowly, recentering herself. “What did you do while the Tarasque was rampaging through the city?”

He groaned. “Not much I could do,” he retorted, his features falling. Wringing his hands, he looked down at the floor. “My wife, Noémie, was at work when it appeared. I couldn’t find her, so I just grabbed my daughter and tried to get out of the city. We weren’t really making much progress, but then King Monkey showed up out of the blue and half-dragged us down to where the portal had been opened. I begged to know where my wife was, but all he could say was that he would try to look. Then he shoved us through. I didn’t see him or my wife again.”

Sabrina nodded, remembering the story. She could sense the mix of guilt and anger coming off of him, both emotions warring for dominance. “I imagine that was terrifying, running away from that monster and finding yourself in a completely different country.”

“Good guess,” he muttered, frowning. He grimaced. “Thinking back on those days, I wasn’t really thinking; I was only feeling. I felt pissed off and frustrated. I had no idea where Noémie was. I thought the Heroes of Paris had failed, that they had gotten my wife killed, like so many other civilians who were killed between the fight and the evacuation. I spent the first few days just sulking in the tent. That’s when Ondine got angry with me and left, because I was in such a bad headspace. I didn’t see her again until we were leaving to return, after the Heroes had defeated the Tarasque and started to repair Paris.” His shoulders slumped. “And then, when we came through the portal back to Paris, what did I do? I was short with her, blaming the Heroes of Paris for all the crap that had happened. And that’s when she ran off again. And what did I get for all of that? I got home, and Noémie was just sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me. She’d survived, and she had been in Paris the whole time.” He looked away. “I’m not proud of what I did, or how I handled it. Ondine is at least talking to me again, but it’s still not the same as before all of this happened. I always liked that boyfriend of hers before this, but he’s been… distant with me. Never said anything before asking her to marry him.”

“That was a very difficult time,” Sabrina pointed out. “The Tarasque brought out the worst in some people; it brought out the best in others. I’m not in the business of judging people solely based on their responses to the Tarasque. Have you thought about this since then?” Sabrina concentrated on her miraculous, pushing in deeper, focusing on Marcel’s emotions as he considered her question. Anger, frustration, guilt… She hummed. “Are you still so angry at the Heroes of Paris for their failure against the Tarasque?”

He shrugged, his brows furrowed in thought. His emotions shifted through a wide range before settling back on guilt. Finally, he shook his head. “Not at the Heroes of Paris, no,” he admitted. “I’m not angry at them; they did what they could to rescue the people who were in danger.”  He frowned. “No; If anything, I’m angry at myself. I just – I felt so useless when the Tarasque appeared, and then when we were in Angola. There was nothing I could do, and my family was in danger. Young men and women had lost their lives, and for very little gain. I thought I had lost everything – everything but my daughter… and then I lost her, too. Not because of something the Heroes of Paris had done. But because of my actions.”

Sabrina nodded. “But now? If you had the ability to do something in a similar situation? What would you do? Is that something you would even want?”

“I would leap at the opportunity,” he answered immediately, his mouth set in a thin line. “If there was something I could do, something to help the situation, I would absolutely want to do it.” Confusion colored his emotions. “Why?”

Sabrina let out a breath, furrowing her brows in thought. Finally, she nodded. “The fact is that you were recommended for a very specific job in the Paris Police,” she explained.

He cocked his head to one side, his brows furrowed. “They want me to be an investigator?”

Sabrina gave him a reassuring look. “You don’t have to be an investigator, though it can help. One of your former squad mates suggested you, in fact. But until you had been vetted, we could not share any details – security, you see.”

He cocked his head to one side. “This is all a test? A security thing?”

She nodded. “Yes. The first step was a background check, which was already completed, but we also needed to give you an in-person interview to judge your fitness for the Department. And my evaluation is that you passed. So I am authorized to offer you a position in the Paris Police Prefecture’s Superhero Liaison Department.”