Written for a prompt on the kinkmeme.
The Back Door glowed and burst open, the Librarians-In-Training and their Guardian rushing through and hastily closing it behind them. Eve slumped against the door, relieved to have that nightmare of a mission finally over with.
"We're alive?" Cassandra asked, wandering a few steps further into the room, looking around at it all like she had never seen it before - or thought she would never see it again. She turned back to them and squealed, "We're alive!"
"Ah, Colonel," Jenkins said, entering the room. "I take it your mission was a success?"
"Somehow, yes." Eve pushed herself away from the door, striding over to Jenkins and handing him an solid white sphere with strange, runic markings on it. "Odin's Eye, secured and ready for storage."
"Thank you, Colonel." Jenkins took it from her, turning to place it in a wooden box, with similar runic markings were carved into the lid and sides. He gave a satisfied sigh. "One more artefact returned to the Library."
"I really wasn't sure if we'd make it through that one," Cassandra said, apparently having paid no regard to the conversation between Eve and Jenkins. "We've done some pretty dangerous stuff, but those axes really could have hit us, and the math puzzles were like nothing I'd ever seen before." She hopped up and down, a smile of absolute delight growing across her face. "It was amazing!"
"And did you see the carvings down there?" Stone enthused, his grin matching hers. He left the door to stand beside her, the two of them quickly getting carried away in talk about ancient civilisations and impossible puzzles. Now there was only one figure still slumped against the Back Door.
"What about you, Jones?" Eve asked, her own smile slowly coming to life in the face of Stone and Cassandra's enthusiasm. The mission had been tough, definitely, but they'd all come through it unharmed, which meant in her books, things had gone well. "Found anything you liked down in those tunnels?"
Jones, back still pressed against the door, didn't respond.
Eve frowned, slightly concerned at his uncharacteristic silence. "Jones?"
He stood straight, flashing a grin at her. "Sorry, couldn't hear you over the sound of my awesomeness."
Eve backed off, slightly mollified, and turned to walk over to her desk. It had reset itself back to Flynn's favourite settings, so with a muttered curse she began to organise the clutter that Flynn seemed to accumulate, keeping Jones in the corner of her eye. It didn't escape her notice that he hadn't actually answered her question, and if he was keeping one of the artefacts buried in that jacket of his – which was entirely possible considering the way his hand was pressing so closely against his side – she wanted to know about it before they were all buried in enchanted snow, or something similarly ridiculous.
It was that careful eye on Jones that meant Eve was the first one to notice that when he stepped away from the support of the door, he immediately staggered, in a way that was far too familiar. She was already out from behind the desk as he began to fall, but still wasn't fast enough to get there before he hit the ground.
"Jones!" She rushed to Jones' side as fast as she could, hands brushing him up and down as she scanned for injuries. Finding none, she turned him over, and was alarmed to find a puddle of blood had already begun to form beneath his midsection.
"Must have been hit by one of those throwing axes," Stone said from beside her. He clenched his fists, voice coming out in a low growl. "Why wouldn't he just tell us?"
"Maybe he didn't want to distract us," Cassandra contributed as Eve continued to feel around for whatever injury had caused Jones' sudden collapse. "Maybe he–"
"Found it," Eve said sharply. Cassandra immediately stopped talking. "Gash down his side. Not life-threatening, but easily could have been. As is, I need bandages, now."
She pulled him onto her lap so she could better reach the wound. It didn't seem to have hit any internal organs, but it was deep, and blood was spilling from it at an alarming pace. She could already see Jones steadily growing paler from the blood loss, and his skin under her hand was cool and clammy.
Jenkins hurried over, a softly glowing bottle in his hand. "I believe, Colonel, I have something which may work better. Waters from the Sea of Galilee – very powerful for healing. A few drops should do it."
Eve leant back, giving Jenkins the space to kneel beside her and open Jones' mouth, letting a few drops fall in. Immediately, the blood stopped flowing, the wound closing up until it looked days old, rather than mere minutes. Eve raised her eyebrows, impressed once again at the power of the Library. "Wow. I can think of a few missions that would have come in handy."
"It draws a rather significant cost, I'm afraid," Jenkins informed her, slowly standing once again and moving to put the bottle away.
Eve looked at him sharply. If this was going to have side-effects, she would have preferred to know about them before using it, to know if it was worth it.
Stone apparently had the same thought, glowering at Jenkins with fists clenched tightly. "Are you telling me this is going to hurt him somehow?" He took a step forward. "He," gesturing at Jones, "almost died. And now those waters are going to, what, make it worse?"
"As you so astutely pointed out, Mr Stone, Mr Jones should be dead right now. Surely any other hurt would be small in comparison?" Jenkins raised an inquiring eyebrow, before turning away and striding back over to his desk. "As it happens, the Waters of Galilee will not hurt him. Mr Jones will simply sleep through the next few days, to recover his strength."
"Oh." Stone's hands fell open, his anger apparently lost.
Eve decided not to give him the time to find it again. "Stone, help me lift him. We'll get him to the Infirmary." She shifted Jones' weight on her lap, trying to budge him off her without causing him too much discomfort. Despite her jostling, he remained alarming still, entirely unlike his usual activity. Even the colour slowly coming back into his face wasn't enough to calm her unease at seeing him so lifeless.
She mentally shied away from that thought. Not lifeless. Never lifeless. He was pale and still, yes, but she could feel his chest rising under her hands, breaths coming shallowly in and out. He wasn't lifeless.
"Baird?"
Eve didn't look at Stone, not wanting him to see just how worried she had been for her youngest Librarian-In-Training. "Put a hand under his shoulders, we'll try and get him upright."
Between the two of them, with Cassandra hovering nervously in the background, they managed to manoeuvre Jones off the floor, but they couldn't keep him upright for long. He was still unconscious, and the height difference made it difficult for the two of them to balance him between them. With a sigh, Eve finally just lifted him into her arms, carrying him down the hallway to the Infirmary.
Settling him into the bed, she stared at him, still off-balance by his uncharacteristic stillness. In the bed, he looked vulnerable, nothing like the invincible and somewhat irritating Ezekiel Jones she was used to. Very aware of Jenkins' eyes on her, Eve drew the sheets up around his shoulders, patting them into place. She tried to ignore the voice in her head telling her that her mother would have done the same. She was Jones' Guardian, not his mother.
She stood back, but her eyes remained on him. "Just needs to sleep it off, right?"
"Rather simplified, but close enough, Colonel," Jenkins agreed. He stepped around her, past the bed, and started rummaging through a shelf on the other side. "Ah!" He withdrew a device from the shelf, something similar in shape and size to a pocket-watch.
Eve's gaze shifted to him, voice taking on a sharp tone. "Alright, Jenkins, what aren't you telling me? What's that for?"
"While Mr Jones will, as you said, be 'sleeping it off', there is the risk that the magic will drain his energy, drawing enough energy to put him into a coma-like state, perhaps for months or even years."
"Just from trying to heal him?" Eve questioned. She briefly noted but discarded Stone and Cassandra entering the room behind her. As long as they stayed quiet, it wasn't worth diverting her focus.
"Oh yes," Jenkins confirmed. "In fact, the original legend of Sleeping Beauty was based on the after-effects of a young woman whose parents tried to use the Waters of Galilee to heal a nasty case of poisoning. The spinning wheel was only added later."
"So Jones could be stuck in a hundred year coma?!"
"The possibility is there, yes." While Eve was trying to hide her horror at that idea, Jenkins continued, holding up the device in his hand. "This will monitor the magic being expended, and can alert us if the magic begins to push Mr Jones into a deeper, longer lasting sleep, something more typical of a hundred year coma."
"What would we do then?" Cassandra asked quietly. Eve didn't protest, waiting for Jenkins to answer the question. "Is there some other magic we could use, something to wake him up?"
"No." Jenkins' tone left no room for doubt. "If the magic requires Mr Jones to sleep, we cannot stop it, but must let it be and wait for him to wake."
"Then what's the point of even havin' a monitorin' device?" Stone burst out. "Why not just stay in the room and wait?"
"And how long would you wait? A few hours? A day? A week? A decade? I assure you, there is a vast difference between sleeping for a few hours and sleeping for, say, a thousand years." For a moment, Jenkins seemed terribly old and weary. "And sometimes, the wait can be longer than you ever thought possible."
Cassandra's arms crossed tightly across her body, like she was giving herself a hug. Eve hesitated for a moment, wondering if the younger woman would prefer her privacy, then came a few steps closer. Hopefully, that would be enough for Cassandra to feel comforted without also feeling crowded.
Jenkins left the room very soon after that, possibly afraid he'd given away too much. Or he just didn't want to spend more time with the Librarians who had invaded his home, though Eve thought she knew him well enough by now to know he didn't mind as much as he pretended. Cassandra left after him, heading in a different direction.
There was just her and Stone left in the room now, neither keeping eye contact with Jones or each other. Eve knew that if she looked at Ezekiel Jones right now, let her follow her instincts and check if he was even still breathing, she wouldn't be able to stop. She'd just stare at him, and think about what else she could have done, and wonder why he didn't just trust them enough to tell them he was injured. All of this could have been avoided if he'd just trusted them.
But she didn't want to get caught in that trap. So she kept her eyes off him, and just listened to the soft breaths that filled the room.
"It doesn't seem right, y'know? Him not talking," Stone said softly. "I haven't seen anyone so still since–" He cut off there, but Eve didn't need the details to know it had been a painful memory. That kind of stillness was never a good thing. Jones didn't look quite as lifeless as he had earlier, but that didn't mean he looked much better.
"Take a break," she told Stone, leaving unmentioned any thought of lifelessness or the kind of memories that came along with it. Eve had her own fair share of those, and she doubted he wanted to talk about it any more than she did. When he looked about to protest, she stopped him, saying, "I'll take first shift." With that, he begrudgingly left her to it.
With just her and Jones left in the room, it was harder not to look at him. To save herself a few moments longer, she looked around the room, eyes searching for anything that could distract her. Waiting had always been her least favourite part. At least in the midst of an emergency she could do something.
She paced across the floor, drawing closer to Jenkins' device then turning away again. She didn't want to think about magic right now, not when it could be draining Jones' life away. Without that, though, she finally could distract herself no longer, and turned to look at Jones.
He was still... he was still so young. So full of life and energy, and an absolute confidence in who he was and what he wanted, to the point it felt like arrogance even though she knew full well he had the skill to back it up.
Eve knew he didn't trust them. With the life he lived, it wasn't a surprise. He went on missions with them, spent time with them, even shared stories – but never anything personal. He never talked about his family or his past. She didn't even know his real age! But really, she could live with that. A guilty part of her actually preferred not knowing how young Jones was, as it was one less thing to haunt her in the early hours of the morning. But now that lack of trust had put him in danger, and that was where she had to draw the line.
"After this," she told his still slumbering body, "I'm going to sit you down, and we are going to have a talk. No more hiding injuries!" She stopped, shaking her head at her own words. "I knew you'd be the cause of some new rules for our little team, but I didn't think that would be one of them."
She waited for a moment, hoping that Jones would wake up and tell her that of course he was awesome enough to need new rules. If this was a story, that would have been the perfect cue. There was nothing, and her shoulders slumped. Apparently, even a place with this much magic didn't always have a happy ending.
The hours ticked slowly by. After a while, Stone came back to the room, and at his firm insistence, she took a break to get something to eat and have a quick nap. It had been over twenty four hours since they had come back from this mission, and she hadn't exactly had a lot of sleep leading up to it. Despite her worry for Jones, she knew from experience that she needed the sleep. If something else happened, she couldn't afford to have her brain muddied with tiredness.
As soon as she woke up, Eve was back in the room, sending Stone to get some sleep as well. As long as one member of their group was out of commission, they all needed to be at the top of their game. Jenkins would understand that, she was sure, if he even needed sleep at all, but Cassandra might not.
That was why, when Stone returned, Eve willingly conceded to take a break so she could check on Cassandra. Cassandra was out in the main room of the Annex, surrounded by whiteboards covered in theorems and diagrams. To Eve's relief, she was also wearing different clothes, suggesting she had at least been home since they returned from their mission, and hopefully had even slept as well.
"Baird!" Cassandra squealed, spinning around almost hyperactively at the sound of Eve's boots coming down the stairwell. Eve mentally revised her opinion in whether Cassandra had slept. "Come look at this!" Cassandra dragged her down the stairs and towards a chair, gesturing excitedly at whiteboards as she went.
Eve managed to spend almost twenty minutes listening to Cassandra talk about the mathematical implications of some of the runes they'd found before her concentration drifted back to the room, wondering if Jones had woken up yet. She came back to herself to find Cassandra looking at her unhappily. Eve shook the thoughts away, bringing her focus back to where she was. "Sorry, Cassandra. What was that last bit?"
Cassandra didn't answer her. Instead, she slumped onto the seat beside her, asking in a small voice, "Is it terrible that I don't want to go back in there?"
Eve hadn't expected that. She took a moment to try and gather her thoughts together, finally saying, "No, it's not terrible. It's not easy seeing someone you care about in danger, and everyone reacts differently."
"But it's not just because he's in danger," Cassandra whispered. She turned to look Eve in the eyes. "What if, next time, it's me? We all know I'm going to die anyway, but what if I don't get to choose my time? What if it happens before I'm ready, and I'll be the one lying there and I won't even know it?" She looked away. "Every time I think of Ezekiel in there, that's all I can think about."
"Cassandra..." Eve didn't know what to say.
Cassandra gave a wet laugh, wiping at her eyes with the edge of her trailing sleeve. "It's okay. I just needed to tell someone. You don't have to do anything. There's nothing anyone can do, it will happen or it won't."
"And we're going to do everything we can to make sure it won't," Eve promised her. Truthfully, Eve didn't even know if they could do anything, but she'd do whatever it took to make sure Cassandra never looked this miserable again. She was their Guardian, so it was her job to protect their lives from every possible danger, even the ones inside them.
Cassandra smiled slightly at that, apparently feeling more settled, and Eve inwardly gave a sigh of relief. Dealing with emotions was not something she was particularly fond of, and today had been more emotional than most. She still hadn't processed her own worry for Ezekiel, let alone worrying about Cassandra's worries as well. Still, that was what a good leader had to do.
Now Cassandra was back to scribbling at her blackboard, though, so Eve took her leave. She'd waited long enough, it was time to check in in Jones again.
She pushed the door open with the hope that something had changed in her absence, but nothing had. Just to be sure, though, she checked in with Stone, who was sitting in a chair nearby, engrossed in a book. "Anything change?"
Stone tore his gaze away from his book to look up at her. "Nothing."
Eve heaved a sigh and went to flop down on the chair next to his, but stopped, looking at it curiously. "Were there chairs in here before?"
"After you left, I was wanting a place to sit, and they just appeared. Like the book." He held up the book he was reading, and Eve could recognise it as something about Gothic architecture – something she'd be bored stiff with, but was obviously Stone's speed.
Eve shrugged, and sat down anyway. Stone had obviously been sitting for a while, she reasoned, and he was fine.
As soon as she sat down, Jones groaned, shifting on the bed. She immediately stood up again, gesturing for Stone to go get the others as she came over to the bed, just in time to see Jones' eyes open. "Baird?" His eyes roamed over her. "What happened...to your hair?"
Her hands flew up to her hair, and she frowned in irritation as she felt all the flyaway pieces that had escaped from her ponytail over the course of the last couple of days.
Jones smirked up at her, eyes still fighting to stay open. "Worried...'bout me?"
Eve was saved from having to answer that by Cassandra's excited squeal as Stone returned, the others in tow. "Ezekiel! You're awake!" Cassandra rushed to his side, fluttering anxiously around him and asking him questions. Jenkins moved to one side of the room, ostensibly fiddling with some magical artefact, but Eve thought she knew him well enough by now to know he was also checking that Jones was alright after everything.
"That didn't take long," Eve said in an aside to Stone.
He shrugged. "They were already on their way here. Jenkins said he heard an alarm, and I think Cassie just knew."
Eve frowned, not entirely comfortable with that idea, but it seemed possible. Cassandra did seem to have an odd affinity knowing things at times, in a way that was almost magical, and she had become good friends with Jones over the last few months. That Stone had made his distrust for both of them obvious had probably helped with that, even if they now seemed to have moved past it.
She moved closer to Cassandra and Jones, noticing that he seemed more awake now than he had a few minutes ago. "Jones, do you remember what happened?"
He immediately turned away from Cassandra to look at her. "Think so. I was being awesome, right?" He smirked at her, but it quickly faded into a more neutral expression in the face of her unspoken disapproval. "We went to get some magical Eye thing, and when we were going through the traps, one got a little too close."
"Jones, this can't happen again."
"I've obviously just spent too much time around you do-gooders, so I'm a bit out of practice. Don't worry, I'll be fixing that as soon as possible." He grinned shamelessly, obviously awaiting her reaction to his implication that he would be committing more heists soon.
Eve took a deep breath, refusing to give in. Jones' thievery really wasn't her biggest problem right now. "Jones, had that knife hit you a little further over, you'd be dead right now." She paused, trying to find the words that would get her message across, but Stone got there first.
"Why didn't you just tell us, man?" Stone growled with anger born of worry.
"We could have helped," Cassandra added with sad eyes.
Ezekiel turned away from Cassandra's hurt gaze with a barely visible wince, looking up at Eve instead. "It wasn't relevant to the mission, alright? Yeah, maybe it was a bit worse than I thought, but we got the Eye and came back the Library, and you guys didn't even know anything was wrong."
Eve thought he sounded way prouder of that than he should be. "Your team not knowing if you are injured is not a good thing, Jones. We could have come back later to retrieve the Eye, once we knew you'd be alright."
"But I'm fine now!" He grinned brightly at her. "I'm Ezekiel Jones! A magical obstacle course isn't going to take me out that easily."
"Well, Ezekiel Jones," Eve emphasised the name, "that 'magical obstacle course' had you so badly injured you were in a magical coma for thirty six hours."
"Without Jenkins, you would have died," Stone finished.
Jones shrugged. "So the Library would find you a new thief. Not one as good as me, of course – I'm awesome –" he flashed them a dazzling grin, "but there will be someone out there. The Library probably has one all lined up for when I get bored and leave anyway!"
That Ezekiel seemed to believe that bothered Eve, but she put it aside for the moment. She'd probably just taken it the wrong way, anyway; there was no way anyone with Jones' confidence could think they were disposable. Instead, she focused on the current problem. "Even if," she emphasised the word, "the Library has replacements lined up, that's no excuse for you to put yourself at risk."
Jones looked dramatically around the room. "Have you seen the lives we live? We put ourselves at risk every day!"
Eve smirked at him, crossing her arms. "No, I'm not letting you get away with an excuse like that. There's a difference between a necessary, agreed upon risk, and you needlessly endangering yourself."
"Colonel Baird is right," Jenkins interjected, finally having finished whatever fiddling had kept him occupied on the other side of the room. "Being a Librarian has never been a low risk profession to begin with, and putting yourselves in danger – especially danger that is easily preventable – will only make that worse."
"No way. I've worked in a team before–" Jones took a moment to shudder dramatically before continuing, "–and I would rather risk the knives than rely on a team member to back me up. That rarely works out well." He shifted himself slightly on the bed so he was facing Stone and Cassandra. "No offence to you guys."
"How is that not offensive?" Stone said with annoyance. "You'd rather get hurt than actually trust someone?"
Jones thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "I rely on me, and only me. Trust me, life is way better that way!"
"We need to be a team, man!" Stone said, voice rising with anger. "The Library must need us to work together, or else it wouldn't have picked us! We have to trust each other!"
"Oh, like you trusted me after what happened in London?" Cassandra asked sarcastically, turning on Stone. "Then you were all 'I can still work with you, but I won't trust you'. How can you talk about trust now?"
"That was about you betraying us to the Serpent Brotherhood, and Flynn nearly ending up dead!"
"And now Ezekiel nearly died!" Cassandra flung her hand out towards Jones, but neither of them looked at him, too caught up in their own conversation.
Amidst their arguing, Eve was still watching Jones, noticing how his eyes had begun to droop again, and his head fell back towards the pillow. She glanced over at Jenkins, and he silently confirmed that yes, Jones might have been out of danger, but that didn't mean he had recovered.
Eve clapped her hands together, distracting both Cassandra and Stone enough to make the:turn in her direction. "New team rule! None of you are allowed to die until you become proper Librarians. Now, everyone out. We've had enough arguing, and Jones still needs sleep."
The others reluctantly filed out, Eve following along behind to make sure no one tried to sneak around her and continue arguing. She didn't think they would, but it wouldn't be the first time they'd surprised her. Just before closing the door behind her, she turned back towards Ezekiel, and said softly, "Trusting people isn't a weakness. Whatever team you've been part of before, this one? It's not so bad."