He’s been in the hospital for a week, at least, he thinks it’s been a week. His sense of time has been off for a while now and it’s still taking its sweet time to recover. If only that was the only thing that needs to recover.
Seraphina came earlier in the day, her face grim and bearing bad news. The news of his impersonation by Grindelwald, the incident in New York, and his capture, torture, and rescue had spread. And despite her and Theseus Scamander’s best, the international confederation was strongly calling for his resignation, citing a weariness to trust him, his possible mental instability stemming from his confinement, and the simple reality that he had not been strong enough to stop Grindelwald. They saw it as him unable to do his job, now they wanted someone else. He was being forced out, as quietly as possible.
If he was at his best, he could have fought them on it, he would never quietly resign. But he had nearly collapsed a wall three days past because of a nightmare, his hands hadn’t stopped shaking since he woke up, and he finds himself unable to meet people’s eyes. He didn’t want to consider it, he didn’t want to entertain the notion, but reality had come crashing down after Seraphina’s words and he had to face it. They would never trust him again, and to be quite honest, he wasn’t sure he could trust himself anymore either.
So he had given Seraphina an answer, and now he had no job, no purpose. His hands shaking even worse since Seraphina left. What was he to do? His whole life had been all for this, his job, it had never occurred to him to consider any other alternatives. But who would want him? Who would trust him? What did he have left?
He hadn’t noticed he had clenched his fists tightly, emotions swelling up in him faster than he could control, and suddenly the closed door to his hospital room flew off its hinges and shattered into pieces against the wall in the hallway.
Percival Graves simply stared at the destruction, the door in pieces, broken, just like his life, just like him.
