The Lion and Lamb [James]

[Ginelle Leveaux]

*--outfit

Sunlight spilled into a tiny room through a wall of windows, dappling the floor with its rays and highlighting those inside. There were only two people, but they filled the room. It was a teacher and student, both in harmony as they preformed arabesques, pirouettes, and other various ballet exercises. Every now and again the teacher would stop and give gentle criticism to the student, who would take it in stride, continuing to dance, but raising the bar ever so slightly higher for her to reach. Most children at the age of ten were just starting ballet, or were still in the basic stages. Ginelle, however, was far from a beginner. She was a ballet prodigy, which is what one would expect. Whispered behind delicate hands, the truth would reveal itself. Ginelle Leveaux was the youngest daughter of Imogene Cabal, one of the most prominent ballerinas to grace the French stage. Ginelle knew they knew, and she pushed herself all the harder for it. She wanted to make her name as famous as her mother’s, she wanted to be so good her mother would have to come see her.

Childhood is indeed the land where nothing dies.

As the lesson drew to a close for the day, Ginelle thanked her teacher and left. Still sporting her ballet slippers, she crossed the campus, bag under her arm and hat perched on her head. Ballet normally took her mind off things, but something had been eating away at her for a few weeks, something that made her stomach turn whenever she thought about it. She had worried herself to pieces about it, pulling at her fingers until they came off, knuckle by knuckle until she had a mess of parts she had to put together again. She had decided a week ago she would go to someone about it, but she kept putting it off until she finally put her foot down. She would go to Dr. Campbell today.

‘ What? They attacked? But she was only 14! Is she okay? I can't believe those hu- ... people would do that. Okay. I'll be there. Bye.’

Thinking back on that fateful day when she had been playing, Ginelle shivered, even though she was under the full heat of the summer sun. The thought of anyone being attacked chilled her to the bone. Picking up the pace, the girl stepped lightly through the courtyard and half ran into the doors of the main Hammel offices. She watched the bustling people move about, oblivious to the little child who had entered. She was tiny and she was quick, padding through the hallways, past Doctor Neville’s office and to the office of James Campbell. She stood awkwardly in front of his door, raising a hand to knock, but not quite knocking yet. Her right hand raised and her left hand clutching the strap of her bag, she stayed frozen in the position, staring at the nameplate on the door as if it would jump off and bite her face.

“Oh my.” She whispered, torn between knocking and not knocking. Her tiny fist finally pushed into action, tapping on the door so lightly that it barely made a sound. Frigid, she waited for the door to open, biting her bottom lip as both hands moved to clasp in front of her.

[Dr. James Campbell]

James watched his hands as he stretched his fingers carefully. They were healed, and other people would have said perfectly. But as always, James perceived things differently. They didn't hurt anymore, which was good, but there was still a slight twinge in the skin when he flexed his fingers. He could feel the near-invisible scars from the deeper cuts, and though the faint lines and ridges of the other ones were not perceptible to the human eye....well, he wasn't human, now was he?

Clarisse had been right, and he hadn't needed stitches. Even if he had gone to the hospital, there probably wouldn't have been much else they could do. If there was any sort of scar on his hands, he would feel it.

At least his hands were free of the gauze wrapping that had been covering the healing wounds from sight for the past few weeks. As strange as it felt to stretch his fingers out all the way, it was nice to be able to shake someone's hand without them looking curiously at the wrappings. It seemed like his workload had been limited since the attack, and he'd mostly done paperwork and phone calls. On the rare occasion he'd actually gone and spoken to a parent or a possible recruit, his story had been a simple one. "Oh, just a kitchen accident. I knocked a hot pan off the stove and then tried to catch it. Would have been better if I missed it, huh?" And he'd smiled and shrugged and came across as particularly affable. Somewhere, he had turned into a pretty effective liar.

His cell phone rang, and he didn't even have to look at the screen to see who it was. He'd set the ringer to the Wicked Witch of the West's Theme on purpose. With a small smile, he pulled it from his pants pocket (James had stopped putting his cell phone in his inside jacket pocket after the attack.) and flipped it open, cradling it against his ear. "Hello Harri."

"Hey Jay. How're the scars? Nice and healed?"

James blinked incredulously, then asked, "How did you know I was taking the bandages off today?" Really, his sister astonished him sometimes, both with her intricate knowledge of his life and her cavalier way of talking about him.

"Mom."

"And how did she know?" He'd talked to her the weekend before, but they'd carefully sidestepped their way around discussing his injury.

"Chase. Really, Jay, I just wanted to see if you were okay. You seemed pretty freaked out when we saw you, and not even in the 'Oh dear Lord, I have a son.' kind of way. How's Niko doing, by the way?"

"He's fine, and I'm fine." James sighed slightly, "And can we back up to the part where Mom talks about me with Chase?"

"We all talk about you behind your back. You've been the most interesting one of us for decades now."

"I know you and mom and Laura do. I'm used to you guys doing it. I expect it now. I just want to know at what point Chase got in on this?" Then he heard a soft tapping on his door. Thank God. He really wasn't in the mood to deal with Harriet right now. "Look, I'll call you tonight, after work. I have to go. Bye Harri." And he hung up, before calling to whomever was in the hall, "Come in!"

[Ginelle Leveaux]

The little blonde girl stood at the door for a moment, listening to the voice inside but not picking up words. She was half tempted to take her ear off and put it to the crack in the door, but she decided not to, looking up and down the hallway instead. People were rushing by, adults, students, people she wasn’t sure about, and she swore she saw an animal pass the hallways but she might have been wrong. She almost left the door to check. aAs she remembered her Father saying once, ‘Only in Hammel’. She didn’t know what it meant, but it seemed to sit into situations like hers.

She jumped as she heard a voice from the inside of the door call for her, and to add insult to injury (Or, was it the other way around?) her hand fell off to the floor and she had to pick it up and reattach it. She stood there for a second, taking a deep breath before opening the door and peering inside. She must’ve looked strange, dressed in her ballet uniform, still in her shoes, even. As she stood there, hat perched on her head, leotard and skirt pristine, and legwarmers askew only by the slightest bit, she felt a feeling of dread come over her, even though she wasn’t in trouble, not in the slightest.

“Hello Mr. Doctor Campbell.” She said, bowing at the waist like a bobble doll. She stepped forward a foot or two before closing the door behind her and looking to him. She wasn’t sure what to say to him, or even how to say something. All she could do was bite her lip as she stood there. Instead, she tried to avoid the reason she was visiting, even though she was the one who had come by unannounced. Maybe if she tried to look happy, he wouldn’t know what was wrong. True, that was the opposite reason of why she was there, but she could dream.

“It’s really nice outside.” She supplied, going on. “I mean, it’s hot, but it’s nice, and I was thinking about it on the way back from dance, and I was thinking I’d try to find Niko because I like playing with him outside even though I’m not all that good at playing but he still plays with me even though I’m not really good at running like he is and even though I have cooties, and then I remembered you and some stuff that happened and…” Looking down at her hands as she realized she had been pulling her finger off and reattaching it for the past minute. Her run-on sentence reached an abrupt halt as she gulped, unable to think of any more words.

Now Mr. Campbell was going to wonder what was wrong, and she had a feeling she couldn’t say it out loud.

[Dr. James Campbell]

James offered the girl a small smile when she walked in, and it grew at her strange parsing of his titles. Out of all of the kids he had met at Hammel, out of all of the scores of girls who had reminded him a little of his absent daughter, no one made him think of Ginny quite so much as Ginelle. It was obvious why, too. She was sweet, blonde, and sometimes gave him a look that made him think she knew a lot more than she actually did.

And the poor girl looked stricken. She was trying to hide it, and maybe she could have from someone else, but she had chosen to come to him, and that meant he could tell she was upset.

With a faint nod, he gestured towards the chair across from him, inviting her to sit down. He could deal with his own problems later. In fact, he was glad to put off worrying about himself and what was so wrong with him that caused his husband to talk to his mother about him behind his back. Ginelle was a just little girl. It was unlikely that her problem, whatever it was, was probably something he could fix.

He listened to her story, wondering what, exactly, it was leading up to. "I think Niko has a training session with Chase--Mr. Kilbourne-- this afternoon. So he might be a bit too tired to play today, but you should ask him about that, of course." James was glad there was someone at least close to Niko's age at the school. It was bad enough seeing him, so tiny and impressionable, walking through the hallway with the likes of Vincent Verax.

When Ginelle trailed off, he smiled again and pushed the bowl of candy on his desk towards her. Sugar usually was an excellent tool for getting kids to open up, so he kept a stock of Ginny's favorites around, even if he didn't directly work with kids all that much here. (Most of his contact with them was before they were students.) "It's okay, Ginelle. How can I help?" First he had to know what she was going on about, but he hated to see anyone this nervous. (And dear lord, if she could please stop pulling her finger off. James knew it was her power, but the sight still disturbed him. He'd had quite enough of any hand mutilation, he didn't need to watch that as well.)

(Of course, he wouldn't say anything about it. He didn't want to make her any more nervous than she actually was.)