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“Go ahead, get out of here,” Eve allows as she strips the boxing gloves off her hands.
Ezekiel, looking as sore and winded as she's ever seen him, can’t leave the training room fast enough.
Eve takes her time cooling down and putting away all the equipment. All three of her charges are geniuses, the world’s foremost experts in their fields, but she refuses to call them Librarian-ready by any stretch of the imagination. Ezekiel is used to being good enough to escape confrontation, while Cassandra has never had any reason to be a physical fighter. Jake’s her best option when she needs some muscle, but his style leaves much to be desired.
Flynn, she couldn’t help but notice, is actually very spry and quick, not to mention his skills with the sword. He’s a survivor like her. He’s seen war and loss and horror, like her. The other three Librarians had led hard lives, to be sure, but there is a pained wisdom in Flynn’s eyes that makes him fight and survive on his own. She needs to impress at least some of that on the new Librarians; she knows she will not always be there to protect them. Deep down, she knows that she doesn’t really want them to be like Flynn, who hides behind masks and catapults into danger with nary a thought for his own life. She wants them to be better. To know that they have her to depend on, but also to be okay out on their own.
With Flynn gone, the only one of them who really knows what this job is about, it’s up to her to prepare them. And the best way to prepare them for being on their own is to train them like she used to train her men. Well, if she is honest, she just wants them to be able to throw a decent punch. And then run really fast.
She steps into the nerve-center of the Annex, tensing when the doors slam closed behind her. Her three charges are waiting for her around the table, nervous expression on their faces. Even Ezekiel, though his chest is puffed out in a show of confidence.
“What is this?” Even asks, low and dangerous. She doesn’t like to be caught unaware.
“This is an intervention,” Cassandra half-whispers, not meeting Eve’s eyes.
“ What ?”
Cassandra squeaks and shuts her mouth, so Stone takes over. “Well, we figured,” he says, “if we have to learn your area of expertise, you should learn some about ours.”
Eve is about to open her mouth and tell them not to be ridiculous, that she’s in charge and she’ll be running things as she sees fit. But when she takes in their expressions, she pauses. They don’t look like they’re trying to punish her for their cuts and bruises. Instead, they all look surprisingly earnest.
“It ain’t a bad tactical idea, you know,” Jake is saying. “Just like we might need to defend ourselves alone, you might need to-”
“Know some obscure architecture fact,” Eve interrupts, raising a brow. But if she’s honest with herself, he’s not wrong. And she can admit to the benefits of more individual bonding exercises, even if she’s sure it’ll result in a lot of reading and headaches. “What’s your proposal?” She sighs, gesturing to Cassandra, who picks up the stack of papers in front of her.
Cassandra eagerly waves a timetable in her face. “Okay, this is great! Well, you have art and history with Jake for two hours on Monday, science and math with me on Wednesday, and computer stuff with Ezekiel on Friday!”
Eve nods. “And if I do all this, none of you will complain about weapons training?”
She is met with a chorus of sighs from two of her charges, though Jake just grins at her. He loves training, Eve knows, so he must feel like he’s getting the best of both worlds.
As Cassandra’s chatter fills her ears about lesson plans and background knowledge and pedagogy, she resigns herself to her fate.
And resolves to go a little harder on them in training in the morning.
-
Sending Flynn away after the mess with the Apple of Discord is one of the hardest things she’s done since becoming a Guardian. She feels tethered to him somehow. Like when he’s around, she’s at her best. It makes her curious, makes her wish that she could learn more about what makes him tick, what created the absent-minded genius that calls her hands lovely and disappears after giving her the best kiss of her life.
She is in a session with Jake when this gives her an idea.
“Hey, Stone?” She asks, interrupting him mid-lecture.
To his credit, Jake looks only slightly peeved. “Yep?”
“Out of the three of you, your whole deal is the closest to Flynn’s area of expertise, right?”
He furrows his brow, and after thinking for a moment, he shrugs. “I mean, the dude has tech degrees and a couple Masters in Cassie’s territory - physics, astrophysics, applied mathematics, chemistry… but yeah, I guess his big ones are pretty heavy in art history, anthropology, and ancient languages.”
Eve nods. “And he had to publish a lot for those degrees, I’m guessing?”
Jacob narrows his eyes at her. “Yeah,” he drags out. “Carsen’s pretty well-published. What of it?”
Eve shifts awkwardly in her seat. “Do you think…” she pauses, clearing her throat. “If I wanted to read some of his…”
Jacob’s eyes widen. “Yeah, sorry - for however smart Flynn is, he’s not really the best at writing on an understandable level - some of his cryptology papers…” he gives a low-whistle. “I had to do a lot of cross referencing.”
Eve straightens her shoulders. “But you could teach me some of the background? So I could understand?”
Jake sputters. “We’re only halfway through early art and writing systems! I mean, his easiest paper to get through is probably his dissertation on comparative religion, and even there, the knowledge you’re gonna need about materials engineering for his analysis of early Jewish artifacts is way advanced- why do you even want to-”
“Jake. Please.”
He studies her for a second before his eyes widen even more, and he turns a little red. “Oh. Ohh .” Eve rolls her eyes. “Yeah, okay, I’ll find a way to fit it in. But we’ll need to add in a couple field trips. Have you ever been to Cairo?”
-
When Cassandra and Ezekiel find out about her extra project with Jake, they come to their next meetings with her with articles by her absent Librarian. Of course, Cassandra is overt about it all, squealing excitedly about particle accelerators and how cute it is that she wants to read Flynn’s work. Ezekiel simply leaves a critique that Flynn wrote up in response to a new hacking technique on the table, acting like it’s nothing, though there are carefully scribbled references and notes in the margins that look like they were very time consuming and actually make it manageable to read. It takes her a month to get him to sit down with her to discuss the few articles he’s left out for her, but when he finally does, a barrier breaks down between them.
Who knew that complaining about Flynn’s holier-than-thou academic language would bring them together like this?
She keeps her studies and Flynn’s papers in the Librarian’s apartment, next to Jenkins’, who lets her use the space in Flynn’s absence. She’s never learned so much in her life, information that her father would have called useless and even she, herself, doubted was very important a mere six months ago. There is something in learning for the sake of learning, and, embarrassed to bring it up with her three charges, she goes to Jenkins.
She sits across from him in his lab as she haltingly tells her what she’s been thinking, about knowledge, about the library, about how she hadn’t really comprehended what she was protecting until now. To his credit, Jenkins seems to recognize how difficult this is for her, and he puts down his tools as he listens carefully.
When she is finished, he is silent for a moment, then: “Colonel, no one’s started you on philosophy, yet, have they?” She shakes her head. “Well,” he says, standing, “someone must remedy that, and I am the only qualified candidate.”
Eve exhales. “Jenkins, as much as I appreciate that, I don’t have a lot of free time.” She’s not lying; between missions and her lessons and the LITs physical training, she is already only sleeping a few hours a night.
Jenkins sighs, thinking for a moment before motioning her to follow him out of the room. “Well, I suppose we could combine it with another discipline that you might find more… practical.”
Even jumps to attention, following him out with no more protest. “Swordfighting,” she whispers under her breath. Jenkins has been refusing to teach her for weeks; she’s not going to turn this opportunity down.
She can only see Jenkins’ back, but she can feel him roll his eyes. “Swordfighting and Kant, Colonel. Keep up, would you?”
-
Her new knowledge comes through for her in unexpected ways. When they are sneaking through a museum in search of an artifact, she sees a Degas that makes her stop and gasp. “Stone…”
“I know, I know - it’s much better when you know about his techniques for capturing motion in art.” he whispers quickly, yanking her down as their competition enters the room. “Can we talk about it after you’ve knocked those guys out?”
She is equally validated when one of the men goes down without her involvement. Ezekiel and Cassandra shrug at her, and the latter wiggles her fingers. “Pressure points,” they cheer quietly, high-fiving.
-
To everyone’s surprise, it’s a sword, not any intellectual gap, that takes her out. Of course, she is up against a knight of Camelot, so perhaps it’s not really her fault.
On the bright side, the brightest side, Flynn is back. Here, in the newly returned Library with her. It’s been so long that she doesn’t want to let him out of her sight. She thinks he feels the same way about her, as his eyes have barely left her form for the past several hours.
The hours have been creeping by quickly until night is upon them, and all the cosmetic cleanup that is possible to do in the immediate aftermath has been done. Eve settles carefully in her chair, and Flynn leans up against the desk, close enough so that his right knee brushes her folded legs. “I’m not sure I should let you go home,” he teases, but she can see the worry and concern beneath the mask.
There is a sense of raw desperation in the way his body has not taken more than two steps away from her since he had healed her wound. After the situation with the Apple of Discord, she thinks more often about calculating, sharp mind beneath his absentminded professor facade, the pained and broken and complex man that she’s slowly falling in love with. There is an intensity to him that he clearly tries to hide, a paradoxical need to be the smartest person in the room and yet still be underestimated, the same way that his boxy suits with their five layers hide the wiry strength that she knows he possesses.
“I’m not sure I can get home,” she admits now that the LITs have left. There’s no way that Flynn has missed the residual effects of shock and trauma that she has been suffering the past few hours, and his steady nod assures her that she made the right assumption.
She sighs, pushing herself off of where she leans against the staircase, stumbling a little. He’s there in an instant, an arm tight around her waist. “Whoa,” he hums, steadying her. “Okay, there?”
Eve nods, resisting the urge to pull away. It feels good to lean on him a little, but that doesn’t make it easy. “Jenkins lets me use the Librarian’s apartment upstairs when it’s too late to go home,” she says, steering him towards the staircase. “I figured you wouldn’t mind, seeing as you were… away.”
She peers up at him just in time to see a blush spread across his neck and cheekbones. “No - why would I - I mean, mi casa es tu casa and what’s mine is yours… and all that,” he rambles.
“Is that a Librarian-Guardian thing?” she teases as he helps her up one stair at a time.
“Nope,” he replies, popping the ‘p’, smiling down at her as he pulls her up to meet him on the landing. “Pretty sure it’s a you-me thing.”
It’s Eve’s turn to blush, and she leads him into her-his-their apartment. She keeps it neat and tidy, half because that’s how she likes it and half because it’s very small. There’s a small kitchenette and a comfortable main area with a couch, several bookcases, and a fireplace. There is one door leading to a bedroom and enjoining bathroom, and a coat closet next to the door leading back into the Annex. Eve breaks away from Flynn, telling him that she’s going for a shower and a change of clothes and to make himself comfortable.
She showers quickly, and fifteen minutes later, exits the bedroom to find him standing next to her couch. When she sees what’s in his hands, she stops in her tracks.
He, of course, is holding one of his papers, the one that she had been reading and annotating last week with Cassandra’s help. It’s flipped open in his hands; he has clearly been thumbing through her comments, and the mere thought of that makes her want to turn on her heel and hide back in the bedroom.
But before she can beat a hasty retreat, he looks up at her. “What’s all this?” He says softly, setting the paper down and sweeping out an arm to encompass the stacks of paper on her coffee table. His eyes are narrowed on her, confusion and something else she can’t quite put a finger on emanating from his expression.
“You should know,” she teases, uncomfortable with his scrutiny. Her mind is searching for exits, but in short of pretending to faint from blood loss, there are no ways out. And she’s sure that Flynn knows how the Oil works, that she’s replenished and refreshed with the exception of the emotional trauma. “You wrote them,” she adds, eyes on the overflowing table instead of him.
She had expected him to chuckle, to banter back like he always does with her, but his expression stays strangely serious, the way it has been since the LITs had gone home and left them alone in the Annex. He rounds the couch, taking a firm step toward her, quiet and contained, with none of the external arm waving or bumbling of which she is so familiar and fond. Only her military training keeps her from retreating, but her back does instinctively straighten. His eyes never leave her face.
Flynn’s attention has always felt a bit celestial, otherworldly - his mind never stops working, and she’s so very rarely, if ever, seen him focus on only one thing at once. To have every part of that sharp mind reading her body language, trying to get under her skin and figure out what she’s thinking - it’s a sensation akin to being on a stage in front of hundreds.
“You studied psychology at West Point,” he observes, taking another step forward, confusion still furrowing his brow. “Went straight into the military after. You’re smart, Eve, but my work-”
She takes pity on him. “The others have been helping me,” she says. Does he think her understanding his work is a challenge to his intelligence? “It took - well. Trust me, your place as the smartest person in the room is completely intact.”
He huffs at that and shakes his head, and she visibly experiences the calculation and confusion in his eyes fade to a warm awe. He swallows. “No, that’s not-” he pauses, collecting his thoughts. “This would’ve taken weeks to figure out. And your comments - they’re insightful.” She tries not to take offense at his clear tone of surprise. “You understood the point of a dissertation it took me six months to write,” he continues. “Me, focused, for six months, Eve. Granted, I was working on two other sites at the same time, but that’s beside the point. You learned all this - why?”
Eve can’t help but turn a little red; he’s too smart for her to equivocate. It’s better for her, as tired and emotionally exhausted as they both are, just to be straightforward. “I’m your Guardian,” she says simply. “And… the other three, I understand. I just wanted to understand you.”
That familiar fond and awed look, the one that told her only hours after they met that he was into her, deepens as he studies her. “Eve,” he says, deep and gravelly, “you’re-”
“Henge?” She interrupts, smiling. “Key?”
“Incandescent,” he corrects, taking one more step forward so he can grasp her hands in his. “Singular.” He looks down at their joined hands. “No one’s ever done something like this for me.”
Eve smiles as she inches forward. “I get it, now,” she says. “Why you love to learn - why you love the Library so much. I know you’ve been alone for a long time, but you have me now. And the others too.”
“They’re very loyal to you,” he teases. “It took a lot of promises to pry Stone off of you after…” His gaze turns a little haunted, releasing her hand to rub the spot above her left breast, along her clavicle, where she had been stabbed. There’s no physical remnants of the wound on her, but his white sleeves are still stained with dried blood. “You’re my Guardian, Eve,” he says, like an intonation, like a promise, a paradox of warmth and heat in his eyes. “Mine, after nearly a decade. And I could’ve lost you before we even…”
She squeezes his hands, which are shaking in hers. “You saved me, Flynn. I’m okay,” she soothes.
He looks uncertain. “Can I…” He trails off, the intensity fading as a nervous expression crosses his face. He makes an awkward, aborted movement to bring their bodies even closer. “I mean, would you mind - if I-?”
He doesn’t need to say anymore; she knows what he needs. She holds out her arms to him wordlessly, a faint smile crossing her face. He sighs in relief, sliding strong arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder. His hands move restlessly across her back, uncertain where to land for half a minute before they take hold of her sides and pull her in tighter. When she turns her face into his neck, he relaxes in her arms, burying his own head against her neck and pressing a warm kiss against her skin.
She’s not sure how long they stand there, embracing, but eventually her legs go numb. Flynn clearly feels the slight weight differential and steps back, watching her with worried eyes. “How are you feeling?”
As much as she doesn’t want to leave him, she’s fading fast. “Tired,” she admits. “But I don’t want to sleep. I’m afraid…” she trails off, leaving the rest unsaid.
He scratches at his neck, giving her a hesitant look. “I could - if you don’t mind - we could stay - I mean, I could stay.” He watches her eyes widen. “Or not!” He adds hurriedly, and just like that, the intense Flynn has faded into her absent-minded, frantic Librarian. “You’re right, it’s a bad idea-”
She shakes her head. “No, I would like that.” She pauses. “Just to sleep,” she adds.
His mouth drops open, and she can almost see his brain tick to a stop. “Of course - I would never-!” He blurts, flailing a little.
She rubs her hands along his arms. “ Flynn , it’s fine. I have a few extra sweatshirts and pants in the closet. Take a shower and get ready for bed.”
He turns to leave, stopping again after a moment and turning back to her. “And - us…” he trails off.
“You’re my Librarian,” she replies. She knows exactly what he’s getting at, and it is not a conversation for them to have when they are dead on their feet. “Anything else can wait for tomorrow.”
He grins at her eagerly. “So, in the morning…” he prompts. His eyes helplessly dart from her eyes to her lips and back up to meet her gaze again.
She laughs, and suddenly she knows that they’re going to be alright. As much as she enjoys learning about the things he loves, the truth is that this eager, crazy, intense man just makes sense to her. Eve has never been in a relationship where she is just waiting to fall into something more serious, knowing that the person on the other side feels the same way. It’s refreshing, and for a split second, she wonders if Librarians and Guardians naturally have something special. An understanding. She loves the LITs, but she knows deep down that she’s meant for Flynn. For always. “Just don’t wake me up,” she warns, before padding into the bedroom.
She is asleep the moment her head hits the pillow.
She doesn’t see the way Flynn climbs in beside her, carefully leaving at least a foot of space between them. He watches her for a long while before the warmth emanating from her body draws him in helplessly; he wraps his arms around her, and only after he can feel the breath expand in her lungs at a regular two point three second interval does he succumb to sleep himself.
-
She finds a note on the counter when she wakes.
Gone for bagels. On the table, you’ll find the best paper I've ever written. FC
Eve raises an eyebrow at her Librarian’s typical enigmatic behavior. Jake had told her that his best paper was the dissertation in Egyptology - Cassandra, the comparative paper on mapping ancient Mayan constellations. Even Ezekiel had admitted to liking his critique of a recently patented design for biometric locks that they had read together a few weeks ago. Surely it would be one of those?
She approaches the coffee table with caution, bracing herself for some strange topic that she’s going to have to research for weeks before getting to actually begin reading. The table rises into view behind the couch, but instead of the stack of sheets she’s expecting, there’s only one torn piece of notebook paper left on the wooden surface. There, scrawled in semi-tidy block letters, is one, simple question:
Do you like me? Check yes or no.
She sits down hard on the couch. She guesses that she sits there a while, because soon enough, the door opens and closes. Quiet footsteps tread closer and closer, and there is a crinkle as the paper bag, likely containing the bagels, is set on the counter.
“Well?” Comes his voice. Soft. Low.
“I wasn’t aware we were still in kindergarten,” she replies, not turning to face him. As juvenile as this is, for some reason, she’s not ready to break the moment. No one ever left her a note like this in school; most men that have shown an interest in her have been confident, assured soldiers. The note is, well, it’s actually pretty adorable.
Not that she’s ever going to admit that to him.
“Well,” he says, circling the couch when she doesn’t turn to meet him, “maybe those kindergarteners had something going, then.” He kneels before her, gallant in his unique way, taking her hands in his. “For example, I could use Shakespeare - of the very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly at your service ,” he says, voice loud and theatrical. “I could speak to you in French - ‘ entre deux cœurs qui s’aiment, nul besoin de paroles’. There are declarations - I would die for you! - pleas - I cannot go on without you - and huge displays - I could wait until a storm and take you dancing in the rain. There are endless - endless! - options.” His showmanship fades, and his voice lowers as he gives her a genuine smile. “But it all comes down to that note there, really, if you think about it.”
Eve blinks back tears. No one has ever spoken to her like this. “Do you mean it? The note - you want to give this a try? A real one?”
Flynn’s eyes go serious and intense, only the second time this hidden man has ever been directed straight at her. “Eve, I mean it all,” he confesses. “Every halting sonnet, every French poem, every declaration - is it too soon to say that?” Eve’s heart starts to pound; her mind goes cloudy. What is he saying? Seeing her panic, he becomes worried, frantic, letting go of her hands to run his own through his messy hair. “It’s too soon,” he chastises himself, “I’m sorry to come on so strong, only you almost died yesterday - you almost died. ”
She pulls him up into her arms. “It’s a little soon,” she agrees as he takes his cue, wrapping himself around her. “But we have time. And,” she pauses, feeling a little silly as she says it, “it’s the easiest thing in the world for me to check yes.”
Flynn sighs into her hair, but she can feel the imprint of his smile against her temple as she bends down to snuggle into his shoulder. “Good - good.” They stand there for a moment in comfortable silence before he pulls back, leaning into her space with a suggestive look in his eye. “Now, what do you say we -”
He’s interrupted by the ringing of her cell; it’s Jenkins, asking if she knows where Flynn is. Soon enough, they’re dressed and back with the others, focused on spending the week re-cataloguing the library.
Later, they send the kids out on their own, and Flynn awkwardly asks her on a date. It should seem backwards after all that they’ve been through, after a half-confession of love and sharing a bed, but it’s perfect. He helps her with her coat and takes her hand, and after months of settling in as a Guardian, something finally clicks into place.
This is where she’s meant to be.
-
Later, they get stuck in the 1600s together, taking a break from their plans to watch Shakespeare in the midst of editing one of his sonnets aloud. The process is a little painful to observe for two people who have appreciated his work since high school, so she isn’t surprised when Flynn leans into her space. His tone is low and conspiratorial and a little disillusioned as he points out the lack of Shakespeare’s usual poetic devices, and when he is finished, she defends her favorite playwright by reminding him of his own halting sonnet.
He gasps in mock-displeasure before narrowing his eyes at her playfully. “Oh, you loved it,” he replies, turning to her and rubbing a thumb along her jaw.
Eve’s eyes sparkle. “I would not deny you,” she quotes, smiling as an instant understanding overcomes his expression. Though the speed at which his brain works drives her mad sometimes, it does help when she wants to flirt using Shakespearean dramas. “But,” she continues, “by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion…”
In a typical Flynn-like move, he doesn’t allow her to finish the line, jumping in with his own. “Peace! I will stop your mouth,” he declares, sliding his hand behind her neck and kissing her.
Shakespeare’s eyes go soft as he watches them, pausing in his drafting. “Come, dear lady,” he teases later in an aside to Eve. She is seated beside him as they both watch Flynn flit about and gather materials for their long trip through time. “I am sure you love the gentleman.”
Eve smiles, but says nothing, kissing the gentleman in question when he dances close enough for her to pull him in.
-
Very later, when he confesses his love to her in a Venezuelan airport, his eyes alight with the same intense focus, he dips her into his arms and she takes his kiss easily, remembering his words so long ago in the Library. She doesn’t need endless lines of Shakespeare, nor does she want French poets or grand gestures. No, the real Flynn, the pained, insecure man that had woken up early to get her bagels and write the most important promise she’d ever agree to, the man that calls her his favorite person when they’re fighting, that thinks of being with her even as his worst self, that’s the man she needs.
And if he has to regale her with the history of every place they visit, barely stopping to breathe as he pulls her through door after door? If he murmurs ancient languages in her ear and traces sonnets down her spine every night? And most especially, if he needs her to be patient as he figures out that she’ll always, always be there for him, as both the Librarian and the man she loves?
She’ll take it. She’ll take his heart and his hand and his brilliant mind, and she will never let go.