Chapter Text
Carmilla gets the call on the way to the grocery store.
“There’s a little girl who needs a placement,” the social worker, Sarah, says, getting right to the point. Carmilla knows it’s nothing against her personally or the little girl that needs a place to stay, but she always hates how damn clinical this person makes the whole process feel. She’s always gotten the impression Sarah is far too jaded to do her job as kindly as she needs.
“Alright. What do you know about her?” Carmilla asks, pulling into the Tesco parking lot with her free hand.
“She’s seven. History of abuse, but I don’t know the details. We need to find her somewhere by tonight at the latest, she’s… combative. She is a flight risk, but we’ve gone through several other, more experienced fosters and group homes who all can’t take her, and you don’t have a placement at the moment. I know you are quite new, relatively speaking, but from your evaluations you seem to be able to handle this. Can you take her?”
Carmilla sighs. The bedroom is clean, she’s going for groceries now; she can be ready by tonight.
“Yes,” she confirms.
“Good. Her name is Jane.”
Carmilla buys some kid-friendly snacks and food, some soaps with fragrances that are stronger and generally fruitier than she’d usually prefer, and a couple of new bath toys.
She tidies up the empty bedroom and makes some dinner. Most kids like chicken nuggets, at least.
Around 18:45, there’s a knock at the door. Carmilla sweeps over, patting down her skirt to look more presentable.
“Hello,” she greets. Sarah opens her mouth, about to start her formal, clipped introduction, but Carmilla leans down to meet the child first.
Jane holds herself tall, despite being tiny for her age. Her eyes are wide and clear, a shock of grey-blue against brown hair and fair skin.
Her eyes narrow and her nose wrinkles in suspicion at this new person.
Carmilla smiles. “Nice to meet you. I’ve got dinner inside, if you like.”
She stalks in, her eyes darting around the room. Carmilla doesn’t stick too close, but she follows Jane to the dining table.
“We can go out to get food you like tomorrow,” she offers, “but until then we have chicken nuggets.”
Jane sits down in the chair carefully, glances back at Carmilla, once, and digs in like she hasn’t so much as touched a crumb in months.
She steps slightly away to chat with Sarah.
“You said she was a flight risk?” Carmilla asks. She wants to know as much as possible about this child before she’s put into her care, but Sarah simply doesn’t know a lot most of the time. It’s not ideal, but she can be realistic.
“Yes. She has a history of running away from fosters. She’s come back on her own once, it took hours, but she doesn’t like to cooperate with law enforcement so it often takes a longer time.”
Carmilla nods. She has… opinions about sending weaponed, imposing men of authority after a child with a history of abuse, but it’s not her place to say.
“Do you have any specific info about anything else? Her likes, anything?”
Sarah pushes her horned-rimmed glasses further up her nose. “I already told you, nothing. Her history should be in the paperwork. Now, I need to be off.”
She hands off all the paperwork to Carmilla, who sets it aside to look through after she’s gotten this child settled.
She sits down, taking a seat across from the little ball of shaggy brown hair and suspicious blue eyes huddled into a chair much too big for her, and smiles kindly.
“So, Jane, I was th-”
“No,” Jane cuts off, suddenly on the offensive.
“Jane…”
“Don’t call me that!” She hits the table, surprisingly strong for a seven year old.
“What do you want to be called, then?” Carmilla soothes.
This child… stops. Blinks a few times, as if not expecting to get this far, and opens their mouth aimlessly.
“Uuuhhhhh. Jan-y? J… Jan… Jonny? Yeah. My name is Jonny. And I’m a boy!” Jonny puffs out his chest, as if he didn’t just pull that out of his ass.
Carmilla tries very hard to take them seriously. To be fair, she hadn’t been much better as a little lass, taking her own name from a fucking lesbian vampire novel she read at an age probably too young.
“Alright, Jonny then. Would you like seconds?” He narrows his eyes at her.
“Okay.”
She hands him some more chicken nuggets, and he devours them again, crouched over his plate still despite the free offering of seconds. She knows it’s just a habit from most likely living in group home situations before, but she can’t help but worry that the only reason he’s that small is because he hadn’t learned that early enough.
“I was thinking, after this, we could go on a tour of the house, and set the house rules.”
“Okay.”
When he finishes his chicken nuggets only a couple minutes later, he pushes the plate away and starts to stand.
“Rule number one,” Carmilla lays out, as good a moment as any for this, “is that you clear your own plate, alright?” She reaches out to grab the ranch dressing she’d placed out for him, still untouched, and he startles backwards suddenly, squeezing his eyes closed.
She tries not to react too much visibly, but her heart aches. He blinks, once he realizes nothing is coming to hurt him, and snarls at her. “Go away! I hate you!”
Carmilla aches. “Do you need a moment to calm down?” She asks. With slightly older ones, Jonny’s age or more, she finds it better to not try to soothe them when they’re upset, early on. They don’t always understand that she’s here to help.
Jonny stiffens, and angrily shakes his head. “No!” He sputters, caught off-guard by this proposal, apparently.
“Then let’s go see your room.”
Jonny protests a bit, but she’s able to get him up and around the house, assuring him he can get food whenever, showing him where the bathroom is, the normal things. The bedroom is somewhat themed with fish, but she’s got plenty of stickers for him to use on the walls when - or if - he gets used to the environment.
Jonny chews on his wrist anxiously, clearly an enduring habit given the amount of old bruises and little puncture wounds of baby teeth in soft skin.
“Would you like a moment alone?” Carmilla offers. Normally, she wouldn’t offer that for a kid so young, but he looks so strung out at the moment that she’s concerned he’ll make himself sick if he doesn’t get time to decompress.
Jonny warily considers this, and then nods once.
“Come out if you need me. I’ll be in the kitchen,” she tells him, and carefully shuts the door.
For a moment, she waits by his door, holding the pain in her heart close, the sadness of seeing such a young kid who is so fucking shattered. Even if it’s fixable. Even if he turns out okay. The fact that anyone could do this to anyone, especially a fucking primary schooler, makes her want to curse the world.
This, she feels like, should have ended with her. Her own childhood suffering should have been the last. The world has no right to endure in its tragedy.
Tiny, choking sobs begin to echo out into the hallway. That room has never been very good at suppressing noise.
Carmilla leaves. That is not for her to hear. Not yet.