A Brand New Year, James

[Katherine Scully]

It had been a long time since Katie had stepped foot onto her old school grounds. Months had passed since the day she'd dropped out. It hadn't realy been something she'd wanted to do. She didn't regret it, it had been something that needed to be done, but she never let a day go by without missing the place. That was probably why she stayed away from it, she didn't need to be reminded that she didn't belong there, anymore.

Well, that was one reason. The other was the current state that her relationship with her brothers' was in. At least one of them hated her, she got that well enough, and the other... it wasn't as easy to tell. But she knew that she was the one that was easiest to blame for what had happened to their parents, and sometimes she couldn't deny that she felt the same way. Maybe it was her fault.... There was a good chance that it was.

Still, with all the guilt that there was to go around, that usually ended up on her shoulders, she still tried to keep in touch with her brothers. They were all she had, even if they hated her. They had to know that she still loved them, no matter whether they cared or not. That was why she'd dropped out of school. Luckily the house that her parents had lived in had been theirs, so there was no rent to deal with, but there was still other things that needed to be paid for.

She had two school tuitions to take care of, because her brothers had to finish school. Then she had to buy food and pay her own bills at home, as well as make sure she always had enough left over to get her brothers presents for their birthdays and christmas's and whatever other little surprises came up. At the moment, Katie worked two full time jobs, just to get by, but she didn't even complain about it.

There wasn't anybody around to listen, even if she wanted, but she didn't. She knew it had to be done, and she was the only one that could do it. However, with all the time that had gone by, she couldn't stay away from the school forever. She was the gaurdian of her brothers now, and when something needed to be taken care of, it was her job to make sure that it was done.

With the school year starting up again, Katie had to go in and fill out all the proper paperwork, and pay for the first quarter. She had to do all of the parental stuff she'd never really paid any attention to in the past. It had taken her a good two and a half hours to get through it all, and by the time she was done, everyone was in their classes and going about their business. She really should have gotten this done weeks before, but she hadn't had the time.

And now that it was done, she found herself looking around the office she was sitting in, knowing that it was time for her to leave again. Putting her messenger bag on, she stepped out of the office, and back into the hallway of the administration building. She could remember walking the halls of this school, and it seemed like a lifetime ago. Taking a deep breath, Katherine started making her way down the hall, towards the doors that would lead her outside.

[James Alcander]

James was always busy. That was just par for the course, running such a large Academy as well as filling the gap as far as teaching was concerned. James was the one that ran extra-curricular classes went, as well as performing the duties of a supply teacher when the Academy needed it. As always, the man strode around the buildings full of purpose, briefcase in hand. The new school year was up and running, parents rushing about to get tuition and the rest sorted out. There was a lot of funding for the Academy, so it wasn’t out of reach as far as payment was concerned, but it was still a bit of a hassle. There were always the stragglers that forgot about paying until the very last moment. They were the ones that had to rush to James’ office and ask him to rush through the process. A lot of the time, parents were so frightened that they’d forgotten to pay that they went to James well head of time, making sure their payments were in. That was today. Already, three sets of parents had been in to pay him, and the cheques were in his briefcase, along with the rest of the paperwork. Now, on top of everything else, the Headmaster had to walk briskly over to the centre of the administration offices to sort everything out. Wonderful.

Finally dropping the papers off and making sure that nothing was going to go to pot, then he sighed in relief and reasoned that he may as well take his time getting back to his rooms. Didn’t everyone deserve a little time to catch their breath? It was even easier to do so now that his briefcase had lightened considerably. What was even better was that the corridors were empty of students. They had all finally entered their classrooms to learn, so there was a hint of peace in the air. Good. Tranquillity allowed James to take a deep breath and relax. When he heard the scraping chairs of students ready to escape their lessons, that was when he would realise that he needed to really get back to work, but… well, he was spending a lot of time on work, right into the early hours of the morning. Sleep was a commodity that James now didn’t take for granted. He was glad of having Evelyn around for more than one reason.

So, taking his time, that was when he frowned, seeing someone that he was sure that he recognised. Although the number of students made it almost impossible to remember every student’s name, James was good with faces. And this face was one he definitely did remember the name of. The girl, Katherine Scully, had been one of the rare dropouts of the Academy. Although James didn’t recognise her from any classes, he read up on her file when she had left. Now, she had to be filling out paperwork for her brothers. She was their guardian now, after what had happened to her parents. It was awful.

“Miss Scully!” James called out to her, voice upbeat as possible. “What a pleasant surprise. All sorted with admin?”

[Katherine Scully]

Katie had the rare day off, she'd made sure that she could incase time needed to be spent here, but that didn't mean that she got to laze about the house. There were always more things to be done. She had to go shopping for food that day to last the next few weeks, as well as fix a few tears she had in her clothes. Then she had to clean the floors, and take out the trash, and she probably should take care of the garden in the back yard better than she had been. Half of those plants were dead now.

And she had a bit of a walk to get back to her house in the first place, so that was going to take at least fourty-five minutes. She didn't mind the way, it was just time consuming. Her mind was going through all the things that she wanted to get done that day, but before she'd managed to go five feet, she heard someone calling out to her from behind. Turning around, It did't take a second for her to recognize the face of the head master.

She remembered almost all of the teachers from this school, and the staff. The ones she'd gotten to know, the ones she'd just seen walking around, pretty much everyone, except for the newer members of the staff, and there were very few of those. The Headmaster had been the same man for years, though, so there wasn't much of a chance that she would have forgotten him. He ran the school, you didnt' get far without getting to know who he was.

"Yes, Sir... Is something wrong?"

Maybe it wasn't the best question, but it was the only one that came to mind. The headmaster was a busy man, she had known that when she was a student, so he had to have a reason for stopping her. He didn't just say hi, did he? Well, maybe to other students, but he never semed to pay much attention to her. She wasn't special, she stayed out of trouble, and he had others to deal with. So the fact that he even remembered her name made her nervous. Has she done something wrong?

[James Alcander]

James was obviously used to being called ‘sir’. It was one of the many titles that he allowed his students to use, and ‘sir’ was obviously the easiest way for any student to address him. Plus, it was always hard for any new students to remember all of the names and designations of the staff members. It was true that James hadn’t really known Katherine as far as her school career went. Unfortunately, because James was the Headmaster, he only really got to know either the most disruptive of students, or the shining examples. Katherine had never signed up for any of his extra-curricular classes either. So, although he had happened to see her around and about, he had never had a chance to properly speak to her.

However, since she had left, he had to respect what she was doing. When he had Jessie and Daniel to look after, he had still been at the Academy, too. Luckily for him, he had managed to scrape through and get his education at the same time. There was no such luck for the girl in front of him, though. He obviously had no idea what she was up to now, but James imagined that she was really struggling. It was always hard when there were no adults around to guide you. Plus, when you were a teenager, sometimes pride stopped you asking for help, which wasn’t the best thing.

It was probably sad that Katherine thought she was in some kind of trouble. Maybe it was just her school days coming back to her. When a teacher called out a student’s name, it was rarely for something particularly good. Especially if it was the Headmaster calling out. “No, no, nothing.” Waving off her worries with his free hand, the man smiled. It was hard to talk about things when circumstance was surrounded by dark memories. “But how are you? You holding up okay?”

Just because James was a teacher, that didn’t mean that he only cared about grades. His job was to make sure that every student filled their potential, and obviously Katherine had been cut short of something that she could have achieved. Lyxara, now sitting at James’ side in her Ethiopian Wolf form, leaned her head slightly to the side as she regarded the girl’s daemon. He hadn’t even Settled yet, so seeing her have to be just another adult was saddening. “I admit, I do have some work to do, but you can always come up for a chat if you like,” the man then offered.

[Katherine Scully]

When he assured her that nothing was wrong, Katherine was able to relax a little bit. Or, at least, she was able to relax as much as a perosn her age could when she was facing her old headmaster, and had no idea what he was planning on saying to her. It wasn't like she was afraid of authorty, or at least, she hadn't used to be. She wasn't really afraid now, but she was just a lot more tense these days than she used it be.

It had been weeks before she had been able to turn lights off at night, and even longer before she'd managed to be able to sleep all the way through the night. The way everything had happened.... she could never forget the things she'd seen, and sometimes it was hard to make herself do anything, but she had to. She had people to take care of, and there was no one else to do it, if she didn't.

She wasn't going to let herself and her brothes get put into the system for adoption or anything silly like that. They didn't need new paretns, and whatever had to be done, she knew that she could do it. It wasn't always easy, but life wasn't ever easy. Even now, she was trying to figure out what it was that she had been stopped for. Not that she was upset about it, just confused. When he asked her how she was doing, however, she started to get the idea.

"Oh! Uh... yeah, fine, I guess."

She didn't know what she was supposed to say. What was he expecting to hear? Her parets had been murdered, she'd watched the worst of it before getting a head injury. Then she'd dropped out of school so that she could take care of people that hated her, and blamed her for everythign.... Well, in all fairness, he probably didn't know about most of that. Still, she really couldn't think of why he would suddenly take an interest. She hadn't been important as a student, but now she was interesting?

That wasn't fair to the headmaster, and she really didn't believe that, it was just a thought that came to her. She couldn't just tell him everything that had been going on, and share her deepest feelings. She was just going to stick with her usual answers. SHe was fine, everything was fine, and she didn't need to talk. As kind as his offer was, she was a little nervous about accepting it. What if he tried to talk her into giving her brothers up, or something?

"Thanks... I was just about to get something to eat, though. Forgot breakfast."

[James Alcander]

That was something that was terribly psychological. Because Katherine had always had it drummed into her head that the professors were always to be respected and almost revered, then it would be difficult to see James just as another human being. It was the same for any student revisiting their old school and seeing their old teachers. James himself had those feelings when it came to his old Headmaster offering him the position of English Professor. From there, James was respected and then took over from a man that he had greatly respected. He supposed that the cycle would always need to continue. If the kids didn’t have that extra little hint of fear when it came to certain adults, the vast majority would walk all over the staff at the Academy. Needs must, as the old saying went.

As far as Katherine was concerned, of course James knew the bare bones about her family. Her parents had been murdered, and the girl had happened to see most of what had gone on. It was an outsider, the police had said, and the case had been moved out of Berryn Falls. Because the town had such a tightly knit population, news travelled fast, even if the details of the message were eventually garbled.

So, he wasn’t about to let the girl go straight away. James was concerned, and hoped to show her that his door was always open to her, even if she wasn’t a student any more. “Hmm?” Glancing out of a window, James realised that he hadn’t bothered to break for anything either. “Me too, actually. Like always.” He smiled encouragingly. “Why don’t we stop off at the kitchens? I hardly ever get an excuse to stop working, so this’ll be a nice change. And we can catch up, which would be nice, yes?”

James looked at Katherine, and really didn’t expect to be contradicted. He was used to having his own way as far as students were concerned, and he unfortunately looked at Katherine like she was still a student. Because he had been a professor for years now, his work really had rubbed off on him. “A coffee would be in order. On the house.”