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It's been two days and Leonard is just starting to get settled in at the Healer’s Collegium. Mostly he’s been unnoticed in the fuss that’s been raised at the palace and Herald’s Collegium.
As a simple country Healer, he’s never expected to see anyone important except maybe at a distance. Then there he was, in the presence of half a dozen folks in courtly garb, one of them the Dean of the Herald’s Collegium, another the Monarch’s Own Herald.
Leonard shakes his head at the memory of it. Frankly, he’d been glad when they sent him off, not wanting to be in such exalted company when he was tired and dirty from travel.
Jim had looked good, though. He’d faced them all without any sort of hesitation or worry. That confidence was really what had convinced Leonard that Jim was one of them, not any stuttered exclamations that the guard had given.
And really, the kind of person Jim was didn’t need to keep acquaintance with a half-trained Healer he’d met on the road, no matter how easily the two had fallen into camaraderie. So Leonard has accustomed himself to being on his own again.
His room is almost set up to his liking. He’d brought little more than the clothes on his back when he came to Haven, but the head of the Healer’s Circle has given him an advance on the stipend that all Healer’s at the Collegium received. Between a visit to the city markets and the cast-offs of his fellow Healers, the room actually looks like a place where someone lives.
It’s a luxury that Leonard wasn’t expecting, especially since he has yet to prove his worth as a Healer.
The room is really more of a suite, with a good-sized bedroom and a bed at least as large as the one that he and Jocelyn had shared, a washing room with it’s own indoor water closet, and a parlor to entertain guests. They open to a courtyard that features a medicinal herb garden-- something he can appreciate about the Collegium grounds; no space is wasted. There are other living quarters that open to the same courtyard, but they’re either empty or have tenants in rotation at a House of Healing outside the capital.
There’s a desk in the corner of the parlor and that is where Leonard is sitting. He’s lit a candle in the dimming afternoon light and writes a letter to his grandmother; the only person worth keeping in touch with back in Peach Tree. He thinks he can get a courier to get his messages to her within a week.
Then there’s a knock at the door and Leonard wonders who could possibly be visiting him. When Leonard opens the door to see Jim standing there-- well. Surprise would be a good word for it.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Leonard says before his thoughts can process.
The smile that Jim had been wearing is gone in an instant. “Oh. Right. I guess I shouldn’t-- I should--” He takes a step back, but Leonard grabs the shoulder of the grey tunic that all Herald Trainees wear before Jim can leave.
“Forget I said that,” Leonard says. “Are you gonna come in?”
Jim enters the room with an odd hesitation, and Leonard contrasts that with the memory of the self-assured Trainee that he’d first met. Jim’s practically shuffling his feet and he rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.
He’s not sure of his welcome, Leonard realizes.
They’d built an odd sort of friendship out there on the road, for all that they’d only known each other a few hours. But then the truth about James Kirk came out and Jim clearly thinks that must change the rapport they built between them.
Leonard presses his lips together thinly and smacks Jim upside the head.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“You couldn’t think to tell me that you’re part of the damn Royal Family?” Leonard growls.
“What was I supposed to say?” Jim says, aggrieved, but at least he isn’t looking like some kind of kicked puppy. “Hi, nice meeting you-- by the way I’m the only surviving son of King George?”
“No! Yes. Hell, I don’t know. But I shouldn’t have had to hear it from the guards.” Leonard glares at Jim. “I should have heard it from you!”
“Yeah, well, we can’t always get what we want!”
There is silence after the shout. Jim looks startled and maybe embarrassed at his outburst. Leonard sighs and shakes his head. “Just see to it that it doesn’t happen again, all right?”
Jim’s lips quirk a little at that. “I think I can probably guarantee that it won’t.”
Neither of them know what to say after that and there’s a long, awkward moment. Leonard takes the opportunity to give Jim a once-over since the other man isn’t looking him in the eye.
“You’re hurt!” Leonard says, startled.
“What? Oh, this?” The grin Jim gives him is oozing charm and disarming and Leonard doesn’t buy it for a minute. “I started weapons work today and got put through my paces.”
“That’s a heap of comfort,” Leonard says sarcastically. “Pace on over here, then.”
“Bones!” Jim protests. “It’s just some scrapes and bruises.”
“That’s wonderful. Here. Now.” He points firmly to the floor in front of him. Jim heaves an exaggerated sigh but does as Leonard orders.
Leonard reaches inside himself for the green fire at his core that supplies his Healing power. At the same time he’s lowering the shields Jim had taught him to send out his awareness, checking the extensiveness of the Trainee’s injuries.
A light touch and a spark of energy clears up the scrape just above Jim’s left eyebrow. He palms Jim’s other shoulder and soothes away the light strain in the muscle.
He expects Jim to complain, or keep talking, but the other man is oddly quiet as Leonard does his work. Emotionally he’s very well contained; Leonard can’t feel a thing from him. Not that he could even before Jim taught him shielding.
It isn’t until several minutes later that Jim breaks the silence.
“I’m not the heir, you know.”
Leonard looks up from his study of the extensive bruising on Jim’s knuckles, but the Trainee isn’t looking at him, but at the floor.
“The council’s trying to pressure him, but the King hasn’t picked an heir yet. There are plenty of cousins to choose from, so there’s no point in me getting any preferential treatment.”
“Does that mean you’re not a prince, then?” Leonard asks as mildly as he can.
Jim winces. “That kind of stuff doesn’t matter, not when you’re a Herald!” he protests.
Leonard rolls his eyes. “I get it, Jim. You’re nothing special. Now give me your other hand.”