Tattle Tale || Julia

January 7, 1922
Around 2 in the afternoon

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Julia?" Rae called from the otherside of the woman's door. She hadn't made an appointment and didn't think to. The young girl didn't have the patience to be fit in sometime in the next week when she'd seen for herself the extent of the problem. Benji was in trouble, real trouble, and it was clear there was no fixing it on their own. Who did they think they were? Well-adjusted adolescents with a slew of admirable role models having forged them since birth?

Bullshit. Delusional. Unrealistic.

A shithead from Hackney and a fuck-up who roamed more English streets than she could remember, they had no business trying to fix trauma on their own. At the end of the day, they were dumb children with even dumber coping methods. Now, everything had come to a head, and rather than have it all crumble, Rae decided that it was time to pull the plug. Let Benji be mad; let him ice her out after if his pride was exceptionally bruised and he needed to, but this was beyond them, and she was done pretending it wasn't.

"Sorry for stopping by like this. It's Benji. Julia?"

A voice came from the other side, inviting her in. She swung the door open to find the woman inside, her black cat atop her desk and Kathryn at her little desk in the corner...reading...? Studying...? Staring at pages while she waited for the stroke of the next hour? Merlin knew with that girl.

It didn't matter.

Nothing else mattered.

Rae shut the door behind her, training her expression into one that displayed the seriousness of the problem she'd brought with her to the towers.

She didn't sit; instead, she paced the floor before Julia's desk. "I don't know where else to go and don't think I could tell anyone else, but he's not okay. He's really not. He's freaking out; he's hyperventilating. He's losing his shit and I can't—I can't fix it—HE can't fix it, and he's so full of shit; he keeps saying he can—he's SO FULL OF SHIT, Julia, like you wouldn't believe, and he's probably gonna break up with me, but you gotta fix it because no one else will."

Without realising it, she'd gone off on a tangent, her legs moving faster and faster as she launched into circles.

"Pages thirteen and fourteen, Little." Julia instructed over her shoulder. It was arithmetic hour, and Kathryn had been working on fractions and percentages for the past week. Overall, Julia had been pleased with her progress and they were nearly onto the next segment.

She reached over absently, giving Maddox a little scratch behind his ears as she shuffled through her desk drawer, searching for file she'd been keeping on one of her students. The boy seemed to keep having trouble in the Hospital Wing, and the Head Nurse had had enough of him administering the wrong treatments. It wasn't that Julia thought he was doing it on purpose but...it was becoming a problem, and he'd taken to try treating students outside of the wing once he'd been banned.

A quick note home to his parents and -

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Julia?"

She glanced up at the sound of Ruth's voice, her search abandoned for the moment at the urgency with which her future daughter-in-law sounded.

"Sorry for stopping by like this. It's Benji. Julia?"

"Come in love," Julia called through the door, concern immediately taking over. Ruth didn't often stop by her office in the tower - in fact Julia couldn't remember a single time she had. The library was where they had most of their chats. Occasionally they took a little walk together around the grounds, but for the most part Ruth didn't venture up this far.

It was Benji. Merlin knew her son had his share of troubles and the woman was doing her best to navigate those the way she knew how. Her boy was tight-lipped, a perpetual smile and cheerful demeanor that never betrayed the way she knew he was actually feeling beneath it all. She'd tried, especially after this summer, to talk things out with him, but he was a closed book.

She hadn't caught him, but if he was smoking or drinking again, God help him. Not her. Him.

When the girl entered Julia watched with confusion as she paced and circled, her eyes catching those bright blues on her desk. "Ruth, why don't you sit down?"

"I don't know where else to go and don't think I could tell anyone else, but he's not okay. He's really not. He's freaking out; he's hyperventilating. He's losing his shit and I can't—I can't fix it—HE can't fix it, and he's so full of shit; he keeps saying he can—he's SO FULL OF SHIT, Julia, like you wouldn't believe, and he's probably gonna break up with me, but you gotta fix it because no one else will."

She was spiraling, hard, her words coming faster than Julia was processing them, and she glanced over her shoulder at her daughter who was now intently staring at the pacing girl. Whatever this was, it wasn't for Kate's ears. Her little girl was a sensitive one, especially when it came to her brother. There was no need to scare or worry her about things she had no control over anyway. "Kathryn, will you please take your schoolwork and head on into the living room? I'll be there shortly." She nodded to her daughter with a slight smile. "Go on darling."

When Kate had closed the door behind her, Julia stood, rounding the desk and laying her hands on Ruth's shoulders to slow her. She glanced sideways at Maddox, a silent request that he stay and hear it all out. Benji was going to be his stepson, and whatever was affecting him would affect their entire family. It was better he was in the know.

"What are you talking about? Hyperventilating about what?" She nudged gently for the girl to sit herself down on the plush sofa. "Take a deep breath before you start."

"Ruth, why don't you sit down?"

Sit...down? She didn't think she knew how. The more words pouring out of her mouth, the more anxious and agitated she became. It was bigger than them, yet she'd waited so long. Would going to Julia all those months ago have made a difference? Surely, even if just a little. He'd already be on his way to healing, and they wouldn't have had to have that meltdown in the library...on either of their ends.

But she had waited. She'd let Benji continue telling himself he was fine when it was so painfully clear that he wasn't. Were either of them?

"What are you talking about? Hyperventilating about what? Take a deep breath before you start."

Rae was barely on the sofa for a second before she sprang back to her feet, once again pacing as if the moment she stopped it would all catch up on her. If she could just be fast enough, she could outrun the guilt and shame and move into something more purposeful. Before she left the woman's office, Rae needed to know that something would be done and that someone would understand.

"He told me you were having a baby—c-congrats, by the way." At least one of them was getting laid. She shook her head firmly. This wasn't about that. She would be fine; she had to be. She was Ruth Anaya Elliot and she'd been through plenty of tough times. She'd weathered them all. "We got into an argument in the library because he said he wouldn't give me a baby, and I—I shouldn't have because I know he's not alright, and it's the library, and you have rules in there that I follow sometimes, but I started crying because everything's been so much, and I'd be a great mum, but he doesn't believe it, and it's okay—it's really okay because I probably don't even want one, but everything just got SO BIG, and I couldn't help it, and and and I guess," she went from wall to wall, her gestures growing bigger and bigger with the rise of her apprehensions.

"I guess he was just trying to make me feel better. He was shaking so much; I should've stopped him, but I wanted to believe he was okay so bad—I'm sorry, I didn't think he'd get that way. Then he couldn't breathe right. He could barely touch me before all of him started freaking out, and I don't care what he says. It's NOT because I'm upset he didn't follow through."

She stopped, turning abruptly to the woman. They were the only two in the room as far as she was concerned, the black cat nothing but a background fixture.

"It's been months..." she admitted, her shoulders sagging in defeat. "Eight of them. Everything makes him squirm and freak out. He thought I didn't notice, and I pretended I didn't so he wouldn't feel worse, but...but what I saw in the library...he's not okay. That's not Benji. He's still so fucked up over what Lucy did and I..." Her voice broke with her distress. "I can't fix him, and he can't fix him. It's too hard."

They'd both already admitted that.

"All he ever says is those things don't happen to people like him – that he's too strong for that. He wants to pretend it never happened."

And she didn't know how else to tell him it wasn't true.

The girl was back up in a flash pacing again and Julia blinked, taking a step back to give the girl space. Sitting was obviously not going to happen, and she wasn't of the mind to argue about it. If Ruth needed to pace, then let her. Julia was going to sit.

She sat herself on the sofa instead, watching and listening as the words spilled out of Ruth faster than they could be absorbed. There had been an argument, something about a baby, apparently set off by her own pregnancy - weren't teenagers wonderful - followed by tears.

She was following so far. For whatever reason there had been an argument about teen parenthood, which Julia made a note for later. Gideon would get an earful - this had to be his fault, putting strange ideas in these kids' heads - but that would come later.

And then an avalanche of admittance they they had been - good Merlin. Julia had had an inkling. She wasn't stupid and knew her son better than he'd like to think she did. There was a reason she'd put the charm on him. To protect him from himself, and yet here Ruth was upset about a baby that she didn't have or apparently want?

And if Julia was following correctly, her son was having panic attacks when Ruth touched him.

"It's been months. Eight of them. Everything makes him squirm and freak out. He thought I didn't notice, and I pretended I didn't so he wouldn't feel worse, but...but what I saw in the library...he's not okay. That's not Benji. He's still so fucked up over what Lucy did and I...I can't fix him, and he can't fix him. It's too hard."

Julia's expression softened and she sighed heavily. What had happened to Benji was a source of debate within the family. Julia had never seen it as anything but what she knew it was. Lucy had assaulted him after drugging him, and the Burkes and her brother had been happy to sweep it under the rug as an unfortunate misunderstanding. Julia had demanded more from James, who of course had refused, and here they were.

It wasn't that she hadn't tried to talk to her son about it before. But Benji was a nearly-sixteen year old boy. He was stubborn and kept his cards close to his chest. He'd regale everyone with reassurances of being fine and refusing to talk about the things that bothered him.

He'd never once opened up about Syria. New York hadn't been any different. It was the idea that he had to be a man about things, instead of allowing himself to be her child and seek the warmth and comfort of his mother who would never judge him or his feelings.

"All he ever says is those things don't happen to people like him – that he's too strong for that. He wants to pretend it never happened."

"I know," she said quietly, holding out her hand to Ruth, asking her to come sit again now that she'd gotten everything out. She wasn't sure what to say aside from that. Her boy needed help, more than she knew how to offer herself. Kathryn was different from Benji in almost every way and responded to the little things that urged healing.

Benji...was a harder nut to crack.

"I'm glad you came and told me. I wish..." she shook her head slightly, "I wish you two would come to me more. I can't help you if I don't know what's going on." She looked at Maddox briefly, unsure what came next. "I'll handle it Ruth, I promise. We'll get him the help he needs." She'd address their antics another time, when the girl wasn't so hysterical and when it felt relevant to do so.

"Where is he now?"

Why was Julia so concerned with her sitting?

Rae couldn't, no matter how much she might have wanted to. Her body buzzed like a live wire, full of adrenaline and terror at the realisation things had even gotten so far. They'd been trying to handle it, like they'd handled James and her father interfering – poorly. Like they'd handled his attack in Syria – not at all. In the same way they handled the lines that ran all the way up her arms beneath long sleeves, her nightmares, her vices – hardly.

Over and over, they'd done what they thought they had to, surviving by codes they'd learned on the street, and she could admit none of it was working, not this time, not any of the other times. It was funny how different the results could be when problems shifted from cold, hunger and fear, to emotional explosions and systematic grooming.

Finally seeing this didn't leave her with answers, just the crippling realisation that they...couldn't do this anymore. For the first time in a long time, Ruth Anaya felt her age. Fifteen. Incapable of taking on the big bad world that always managed to hit harder than she could.

It was time to outsource, and that required overriding a great deal of her defences. Running to an adult? Getting an authority figure involved? It wasn't her and wasn't what she'd been taught. Even with a woman like Julia, who had proven herself time and time again, the concept was foreign and terrifying, but not more terrifying than the idea of Benji remaining in traumatised limbo for the rest of his life. If her suffering was the only worry, Rae could've white-knuckled it as she'd done every other problem, but that afternoon, the lens was turned outward to the boy she loved, and she couldn't bear to keep looking.

"I'm glad you came and told me. I wish...I wish you two would come to me more. I can't help you if I don't know what's going on."

Rae shook her head adamantly.

The girl was already at the end of her rope and unwilling to extend herself much further in sacrifice of basic comfort. "This is about Benji and Lucy, nothing else." She wasn't here to confess all her sins or pour her heart out about feelings that shouldn't matter or the way she constantly felt like she was drowning of late. This was the problem. This was the information she was willing to relinquish with the expectation of help in exchange.

That was the transaction.

Hearing that she'd help was the conclusion of business.

"I left him in the library, but he could be anywhere by now. I told him I was going to tell you – offered to let him come along and everything. He wasn't trying to hear it. I think he's already mad." Mad enough that she didn't think he'd actually sit with her that night at dinner.

"No matter what he says, he's not fine. Don't let him brush you off...please. Don't let him get away with hurting himself more."

Merlin knew she couldn't stop him.

"It's not," Julia said. Despite what Ruth would insist on the woman believing, Julia knew better than to think this stopped with what had happened in New York. Both Benji and Ruth had been spiraling - albeit slowly for years - and while she'd had very little say, if any, in what happened to the girl, she'd done what she knew how to with Benji.

Remain present, offer him an ear, reassure him of her love and support, try to find things to keep his hands and mind occupied.

It wasn't and hadn't been enough.

Benji, in all the time he had been in her life, hadn't been okay. She'd met him as a broken twelve year old, in knots over his sister's situation and struggling to fit into circles he had no business being in. He'd taken up with a group of older kids who relished his comedic side, but held no real interest in his well-being.

Syria had launched him head-first into the kind of darkness she'd only witnessed in the most dangerous of families, and it had led her to changing her entire life's trajectory to rescue him from it. Still, she hadn't been able to protect him in the way a mother should have. This past summer was evidence enough of that. There was no going back, only forward.

But how?

"I left him in the library, but he could be anywhere by now. I told him I was going to tell you – offered to let him come along and everything. He wasn't trying to hear it. I think he's already mad."

They would find him. If he was actively hyperventilating as Ruth had said, then it wasn't likely he had a clear enough mind yet to hide in the way probably wanted to. She turned to Maddox. "Can you search the roofs and higher places? I've got the grounds."

"No matter what he says, he's not fine. Don't let him brush you off...please. Don't let him get away with hurting himself more."

Julia nodded quietly, giving the girl's shoulder a light squeeze. "He'll be alright. It'll take some time, but we'll get him there. You did the right thing." She stood, summoning her robes with a flick of her wand and wrapped them quickly around her.

Without another word, she headed out the door in search of her son.