Henry Morgan was old. Two-hundred and thirty-five years old, to be exact. In those two-hundred and thirty-five years, he had seen and heard almost everything under the sun. He understood the mysteries of the body and mind, simply because there was very little he had not experienced. People, places, events – they all started to blend together after awhile. He could remember specifics of the past if he tried, but he was more interested in the present and the future.

Only two days stood out to him.

The first was the day he failed to die.

The ship was violently rocking to and fro – there was a storm brewing, a bad one. If he wanted to incite a slave rebellion, this was not the best time. The Negros were weak and malnourished; they could easily be blown overboard in the gale-force winds before they had a chance to fight. But the ship would be reaching land soon, and the opportunity would be lost if he did not act now.

Just before he opened the door to the slave quarters, the captain hailed him from behind. "Dr. Morgan! A word." Henry clasped his hands behind his back, sliding the key he'd been about to use into his sleeve. "Something went missing," the captain continued. "A key. Do you know anything about that?"

He drew himself up. "Of course not," he replied. "Are you accusing me?"

The captain took a step forward. "You may be the owner's son," he informed Henry softly. "But out here, I'm judge and jury. Make one wrong move..."

"And what?" Henry asked.

"Sir!" A young sailor approached them. "We need the doctor. There's a slave with fever."

The captain cursed. "Damn it."

"Well, allow me to see him," Henry offered. "I can help." As he followed the young sailor, the captain called after him,

"Remember what I said, Doctor."

The slave was docile and obedient. Henry hated it. A people who had been so independent and free had been subjugated to this! But, he reminded himself, he couldn't change the past – only the future. He sat down and examined his patient, first checking his temperature, then listening to his heartbeat, using his pocket watch as a guide. "It's just a fever," he told the captain as he stood. "This man will be fine."

"He's not a man," the captain said briskly. "He's property." He gestured to the sailors he'd brought with him. "He has cholera. Throw him overboard." They moved to obey, but Henry stood up, blocking their path with his outstretched arms.

"I can assure you, he is not infected!" he shouted.

The captain had turned to leave; now he turned back and pulled out his flintlock. "You allow my men to remove him," he ordered, pointing the gun at Henry's chest. "Or I shall."

Henry glanced back at the slave, whose face was impassive, resigned.

"Step aside, Dr. Morgan, or I will shoot you!"

Henry shook his head. "I cannot let you do this," he told the captain.

"So be it!" The captain raised the pistol and fired at Henry's chest. He must have blacked out; he woke in the raging ocean. Helplessly, he sank. His life flashed before his eyes.

And suddenly he was at the surface of the water again, gasping for breath. What had happened? How was he alive? He grabbed for a board, but it was swept away on a wave. Confused, he felt his chest, sure that he had just been shot.

His hands registered a strangely, completely healed wound before he drowned again.

It was the first of many deaths. He considered it a curse, not a blessing. He did not enjoy watching his friends and family die while he remained thirty-five. He threw himself into his work, first as a physician, then as a medical examiner. He refused to allow himself to become close to anyone.

Well, almost anyone. He had married for the second time; he met his wife, Abigail, during World War II. They adopted an orphan from the concentration camps, and Abe was still with him. Abigail was long gone. Other than those two, Henry did not have meaningful interaction with people for two-thirds of a century. He spent his time trying to find a way to end his curse.

Then came the second day that stood out to him in two-hundred and thirty-five years.

It was the day a white envelope arrived in the mail.

More accurately, the white envelope appeared on his desk at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. He raised an eyebrow at it, then called in his young assistant, Lucas Wahl. "Lucas," he began, holding up the envelope. "How did this get here?"

"Uh, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, the mail?"

"It has no postage on it," Henry pointed out. Lucas only shrugged. With a sigh, Henry sent Lucas on his way and opened the envelope. If he had not been two-hundred and thirty-five years old, he might have been more startled when glowing words appeared and seemed to reverberate inside his head.

"You have been invited to interview for a prestigious position with the Metropolitan Public Library."

The word "Library" struck something in his memory. He vaguely recalled hearing the term several times, but each time, he had assumed he heard incorrectly. After all, why would a Librarian be retrieving items from a mobile army hospital during a world war, or mingling at a party for young artists during the Roaring Twenties, or providing valuable if ultimately useless clues during the Jack the Ripper case?

His natural curiosity wouldn't allow him to leave the letter unanswered. He showed up at the Metropolitan Public Library the next day and was surprised to find a line of hundreds of men and women leading up a spiral staircase. He signed the ledger and waited. If nothing else, he had time to spare.

When his name was finally called, he entered a room that was beautiful even by his high standards. It had vaulted ceilings, marble columns, tall windows, a polished wooden floor... He was almost afraid to walk across it, but then he remembered that this was an interview, and he needed to appear confident. So he stepped towards the imposing woman sitting at the shining desk, figuring that he at least couldn't die permanently from her glares. He took a seat.

She looked up from her notebook, flipped straight blonde hair out of her eyes, and spoke. "What makes you think you could be the Librarian?"

For the first time in years, Henry was speechless.

He didn't even know what a Librarian was. He knew what a librarian was, but this woman was clearly talking about something different, Librarian with a capital L. He could hear it in her tone. If he didn't know what a Librarian was, how could he adequately explain why he was right for the position?

"I am knowledgeable about many things," he said at last.

"Everyone in that line is 'knowledgeable about many things,'" the woman scoffed. "What makes you think you could be the Librarian?"

He paused. "I have more than knowledge. I have experience – years of it."

She sighed and consulted her notebook. "Doctor Henry Morgan, stop wasting my time. Tell me something you have experienced that nobody else who has walked in here has."

He got to his feet and began to pace around the room. Without looking at the woman, he spouted out random tidbits of his life. "I rescued and raised a young orphan from Germany. I took a bullet to protect a man I didn't know. I saved the life of a king on the Orient Express." He would have gone on – God knows he could have – but an echoing voice interrupted.

"What's more important than experience?"

He didn't question the origin of the voice, accepting it as one of the eccentricities of this Library. He thought long and hard about the question before quoting his dear Abigail. "Everything I've done, everything I've learned, is for something bigger." Another pause. "I have lived an... interesting life, and I am still discovering what that something is."

Henry's heart sank when the woman picked up the phone and said, "The interviews are over. Send everyone home." He turned to leave, trying to decide what the disappointment he was feeling meant, when the woman called after him. "Not you."

He raised his eyebrows at her. "There will be a six-month trial period," she informed him as she stood. She was a small woman, perhaps five foot two, but clearly full of fire. "If you don't screw up, then you will officially be the Librarian." And at last, there was a small smile upon her solemn face.

The smile vanished almost as soon as it appeared. "Until then, if you are one minute late, I will dock your pay. If you break anything, I will dock your pay. Got it?"

Henry nodded. "If I may..." When the woman inclined her head, he went on, "What is a Librarian?"

"You have learned and done much in your two-hundred and thirty-five years, Dr. Morgan," the echoing voice chimed in. Henry jumped a little – just a little, a testament to his immortality – when an older man appeared out of nowhere. "You are about to begin a, a wondrous adventure, from which even you will never be the same." The man spread his arms wide. "Welcome to the Library."

Barely two months had passed since his introduction to the Library, and already, he could tell that Judson was right: he would never be the same. Before the Library, every day had felt similar. Years had passed in a blur. The OCME had been interesting, to be sure, but homicides could only keep his interest for so long. The Library, on the other hand, could conceivably keep his interest forever.

He had always held the assumption that there must be other magic than the kind that kept him alive – although he preferred to call it "science." Regardless, he was now aware that magic of all kinds was real, and it was everywhere he looked. He would be content to observe and study it for the rest of his long life. The key to ending his immortality could be contained within the supernatural walls of the Library.

Some of his missions reminded him of his past, bringing up memories that he would have happily kept locked away. One particular mission – defeating a shapeshifter at a psychiatric hospital – sparked a panic attack. He was mortified; he had never had a panic attack, not in over two centuries.

"It's to be expected," Judson said when he expressed his concern to him. "You have lived a long life, Henry. It was bound to begin to affect you sooner or later."

"It has affected me," Henry replied harshly. "You know about Abigail, don't you? When she left, I was devastated, stressed, but not panicked."

Judson put a hand on his arm. "Don't worry," he assured the immortal. "The Library knows what you need. It won't leave you without support." The older man refused to elaborate.

Three weeks after their conversation, a courageous woman showed up at the Library and presented Charlene with a white envelope. Henry would later add that day to the list of those that stood out in his two-hundred and thirty-five years.

Hello, all! I've never attempted a crossover before, and I know this one's kind of an obscure connection, but no one's tried it before (that I know of) and I think it kind of fits. I'm planning on having some of the regular characters from Forever and from the Librarians pop up here and there. Some of the details have been changed slightly, but I kept most of the backstories the same. Let me know what you think! I'm always up for constructive criticism!