Hi! This is unedited and all over the place but I wanted to put it up before the new episode aired. I just recently fell in love with this show and the last episode was absolutely brutal so this is what happened. I know that this is more of an AU than what is actually going to happen in the episode itself, but nevertheless, enjoy!
That morning when she was getting dressed, she found it in one of the pockets of her jacket. It was an evil-eye talisman; made of a heavy glass she couldn't identify, with receding rings of blue and white surrounding a black pupil, and encased in circular petals of rusting silver. With a dull interest, she turned the charm over between her fingers, analyzing it under the sharp rays of morning light that filtered into her room. She didn't remember buying it, or someone gifting it to her for that matter. Then how had such an odd object found its way into her pocket? It didn't make sense, but that wasn't unlike a lot of things in her life the past few weeks.
She remembered when the feeling had started –about a month ago, when she had blindly walked back to her apartment, without remembering where she had been coming from or where she was going to. She felt disoriented, misplaced, like someone had upended the contents of her brain and left them scattered on the floor. A blinding headache was building up in the temples of her head that had left her reeling, and she had spent the rest of the day on her couch, debating the pros and cons of a trip to the medical clinic down the block.
When she had woken up the next day, she had felt better. But the feeling remained, like a huge chunk had been carved out of her being, like there had been something more inside of her that was now missing. In her fridge, she found a bottle of Fanta that she swore she would never have bought herself. In her closet, there were trinkets from a vacation that she didn't remember taking –an odd looking seashell, a vial of sand with a single pearl sitting in the middle. She felt rattled, hands unusually shaky, mind hazy and out-of-focus. A few hours later, she got a call from DOSA, telling her that the general had requested she be transferred to another strike team that had more use of her expertise.
She waited for the disorientation to pass, to get her equilibrium back to normal -but even with her new unit, she felt dissociated, like her mind and body and the earth around her were all functioning at different wavelengths. She pushed herself into the work, barking orders, developing strategies, but every night when she got home, the hollow inside her chest would be screaming, telling her to return to – what? Where? and there would be no answer.
She slipped the evil eye back into her pocket. She didn't know where it had come from but she had a feeling that it was important. Maybe it was the rusting detailing on the silver petals that looked as old as time, or maybe it was the weight of the glass, warm and heavy between her fingers, grounding her to something solid.
It wasn't until three days later that she found herself in the lobby of one of the buildings of the closest liberal arts college, turning the talisman between her fingers. She knew that it could just be a cheap souvenir that she had somehow picked up and forgotten about, but she couldn't help but feel like it was more. After a preliminary google search had revealed nothing of substance, she had found herself looking for a more credible source for her answers. She took a deep breath, convincing herself she wasn't crazy, that this was all perfectly normal, before knocking on the office of Professor Jacob Stone.
There was some rattling from the other side of the door, before a gruff voice called out, "Come in."
Professor Stone's office looked like a library that had swallowed a tornado and had thrown up its contents in the office's small confines. Everywhere she looked were heaps of books, old and new, extending in towering piles haphazardly towards the ceiling. An antique desk was squeezed into one corner and Professor Stone stood behind it, rummaging through the array of old-looking scrolls on his desk, looking for something specific. A caricature of renaissance painting on of the wall behind framed him into focus.
Even though Professor Stone had a distinct polished look to him as characteristic to most intellectuals, there was a natural ruggedness to him that couldn't be hidden. His hair was slicked back, and he had a nice pair of glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, but his broad build and rough stubble made him seem him like he belonged on a farm as much as he belonged behind his desk. Moving another few things around, he said without looking up, "I have just the thing you were looking for, Ms. Morrisson-"
Eve coughed lightly, forcing Professor Stone to look up. There was something infinitely familiar about him but for the life of her, she couldn't identify what it was.
She plastered on a polite smile, "Professor Stone, I am Colonel Eve Baird. I was wondering if you would be willing to help me with something?"
Stone looked more curious than surprised, "Colonel, huh? Of course, come on in."
Carefully, she stepped into the office, taking a seat in one of the two armchairs set in front of Stone's desk. There was a large ancient looking map spread across the table in front of hers, labeled in a language she couldn't even hope to identify.
"So what brings you here, Colonel?" Stone started in a conservational tone, taking a seat behind his desk, "I hope I haven't accidentally uncovered a national secret in one of my research papers."
Eve sat up straighter, giving him a hard stare. "No. this is more of a….personal matter."
Stone leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the table, eyebrows piqued in interest. "Alright. Go on."
Eve reached into the pocket of her jacket and took out the talisman, suddenly feeling silly. If it turned out to just another trinket, she would be mortified. But if there was one thing her time in NATO had taught her, it was that she had to trust her gut.
She reached over the desk and handed Professor Stone the evil-eye. "This was left on my door, without any message or note, and I have no idea where it came from. Can you tell me if this is of any historical or retail value?"
Stone took the evil-eye from her and turned it over in his hands, analyzing it curiously. He rubbed the talisman with the pad of his fingers, his eyes narrowing. Then he stilled entirely, looking up at Eve with something akin to delight in his eyes, "This-," he started, in amazement, "this is an almost perfect recreation of the Eye of Ampex. It is a variation of the nazar or the 'evil-eye' that has popped up in various cultures across history. Through it took different forms in different myths –pendants, talismans, tapestries- one characteristic has remained constant. The Eye of Ampex is prophesized to reveal the truth, the whole truth, in all its forms."
"So…" Eve said, "Is it useful… or should it be in a museum or something?"
Stone looked thoughtful, "This definitely has Turkish origins, I can tell from the glass, but I would have to observe a few experiments to determine the age of the silver. Nevertheless, I think it should have more value as a family heirloom than an identifiable artifact from history."
Eve sighed, leaning back in her chair, and grabbing back the Eye from Stone. She clutched it in her hand, suddenly tired. She didn't know what she had been expecting –but she had definitely expected something, and she didn't even know why –it was just a stupid old trinket, a useless piece of glass. She held the Eye up to her face, mockingly, "Well, show me the truth, Eye."
The Eye burned red hot in her hands, and before she could even yelp in surprise, everything changed.
She clutched her head as the memories came rushing back, at all once, a lightning flash, a thousand light bulbs simultaneously exploding inside her head. Entire years flashed through her mind in seconds and when she came back to herself, she was gasping for breath, the Eye falling from her hands to the floor in a loud clang. It took her another few seconds to comprehend the gravity of the situation. Nicole. The Library. Jenkins. Flynn.
Still breathing harshly, she looked up at Stone, "Jake!"
He was bent over the table, breathing heavily like her, one arm holding himself up. She could tell from his face that everything she had seen, he had seen too. When he looked back up at her, he looked startled and scared and angry and every other emotion in between.
They rushed to each other and she immediately pulled him into a crushing hug.
"Baird?" his voice sounded constrained, "Eve, what the hell is going on?"
"I-" she struggled to formulate a reply, "We got everything wrong, Stone. Everything. We have to get the others. And then we have to go back to the Library."
Eve's hands felt unsteady on the steering wheel of her car. Stone was silent in the passenger seat, still trying to process everything that she had told him.
"She played us," he concluded, voice quiet and heavy. "We don't know where Flynn is; we lost the Library and-" He paused, the momentary silence twisting in grief, "we lost Jenkins. And we didn't even remember what we had lost."
Eve was trying very hard not to think about it –about what would have happened if she hadn't had the Eye in her pocket, if she hadn't taken it to Stone. Would she have spent her entire life not knowing? Would she have spent the rest of her days feeling like her heart and body were in constant disagreement?
"We have to find Cassandra and Ezekiel," Eve said, bracing her shoulders. "Then we'll figure something out. We have to."
"Well, I think I might have a clue on where Jones might be." Stone said. He was reading something on his phone which he tilted her way, "Some rich guy is auctioning off his collection of Greek Antiquities tonight at a hotel about two hours from here. He has some pieces in his collection that a lot of rich folks would kill to have. How much are you willing to bet that that's where we're going to find Jones?"
Eve tried to brush of the uneasiness she still felt churning restlessly in her chest. She switched lanes, clumsily merging into oncoming traffic. "It's worth a shot."
Sneaking into a high society event turned out to be less difficult than convincing the world's greatest thief to talk to two strangers that he didn't know. They spotted Jones only a few minutes into the event, but it was almost impossible to corner him, especially when he realized what she and Stone were trying to do. His lips quirked up into a familiar mischievous smirk and despite her growing annoyance, she couldn't help the feeling of warmth and relief that lit up in her chest. He was okay –still up to his old antics and without any memories of his actual life, but okay.
"We're never going to corner him," Stone glowered, after another failed attempt. He had been trialing Jones conspicuously in an effort to lead him towards the left corner of the hall that led to a corridor in which Eve was patiently waiting. But it had taken Ezekiel about five seconds before he had figured out their plan and he had winked at Stone devilishly before he had sauntered off, grabbing a flute of champagne from a nearby waiter on his way.
An idea struck Eve then and she almost cursed herself for not thinking of it sooner. Quickly pulling out her phone from the pocket of her dress-pants, she scrolled through her contacts and grinned when she landed on what she was looking for. "Stone!" she grabbed Jake's arm, quickly pulling him to her side. She showed him the contact info on her screen, "I still have him in my contacts!"
Stone cursed under his breath at the simple solution. "We can't just send him a random text. It has to be something about him that we'd have no way of knowing. That's the only way he'd be willing to talk to us."
They take a few seconds to decide but at the end, they send him a text with the date and place of the only time Ezekiel Jones had ever gotten caught.
Immediately after, Eve sent him another text. Not with cops. Just want to talk. Meet at corridor in east wing in 5 mins.
When she and Stone make their way to the east wing themselves, Jones is already there, waiting. He was devoid his usual grin, but he sized them both up with the confidence of a man who had successfully evaded law enforcement systems his whole life. He spread out his hands, "Alright, you got me. Mind telling me why-" he glanced at Stone, "-a literal cowboy and a bird who couldn't look more like a cop, would be chasing an innocent individual like myself at this highly respectable event?"
"Ezekiel-" she started, but seeing the look on his face, she quickly changed gears. "Jones. This may sound crazy and unbelievable, but we are your friends. And we have to show you something."
Before he could formulate what she was sure was going to be a scathing reply, she took out the Eye of Ampex from her pocket. Quickly holding it up to Jones' face, she said, "Show us the truth!"
From the way Jones immediately clutched his head and hunched to his knees, she knew that the Eye was working. She and Jake glanced at each other and then back at Jones, waiting for the memories to regain their hold. It took only a few seconds and when he came back to, breathing hard and blinking at them rapidly in confusion, she immediately rushed to his side.
Unconsciously he reached out a hand and Eve grabbed him by the forearm, "Baird?" he said and his voice sounded more vulnerable than she had ever heard before. His eyes traveled to Jake over her shoulder, "Stone-"
She pulled him into a hug, her heart releasing, and just like with Jake, his first question was, "Baird, what the hell is going on?"
She took a deep breath and glanced back at Jake. Together, they started recounting the story.
Locating Cassandra seemed to be the most difficult of all. Despite how much all three of them brainstormed, they could only make a guess at where she could be. After leaving the auction with Ezekiel's memories safely retrieved, they had made their way to a local diner, squeezing into an empty booth which only seemed to emphasize how many people they were actually missing from their group.
"Well, Stone was some pseudo-intellectual professor, right?" Jones asked, and it was a testament at how relieved they all were to see each other that Stone didn't even make a quip back. "What if Cassandra's an astrophysicist working at NASA or something?"
"I doubt NASA has a list of employees that it could just hand us over," Eve sighed, pushing her hair back over her head.
"What if we use the same trick we did with Jones," Stone suggested, a spark of an idea in his eye, "We can try tracking her phone!"
Eve sat up straighter. Of all the possible places they had thrown around between themselves, this by far seemed like the most viable option. She looked at Ezekiel, "Jones, you think you could be up to it?"
"Already on it," Ezekiel said, tapping away at his phone, while simultaneously pulling out a small laptop from a backpack that he was carrying.
It took about an hour for Ezekiel's tracking software to run its course, and in that time, they ate the food they had ordered and caught up on the bizarre alternate lives they had been leading, glancing at the running laptop set between them every few seconds. The second the laptop pinged with its findings, Eve and Stone immediately crowded behind Ezekiel against the booth, trying to read the screen, faces inches away from his shoulders.
"The Rosenburg Central Library," Jones read. "She's at the Rosenburg Central Library."
Cassandra was at a library. For the first time in what felt like forever, Eve let out a small laugh.
Luckily, by the time they reached the library in question, it was still open.
All three of them rushed through the doors, and then stood at the threshold for a few seconds, at a momentary loss about where to go further. Even though they could've covered more ground if they had split up, they silently decided to stick together, scanning row after row of book laden shelves, looking for a familiar shock of red hair. Eve was overcome with an overpowering sense of nostalgia, something inside of her sighing at the familiar sensation of being surrounded by a seemingly never-ending series of wooden shelves, all carrying smooth volumes, long and short, new and old. Even though it wasn't her Library, it was still a library, and for the moment that felt good enough.
In the end, it was Cassandra who found them.
She approached them from the back, and it was her voice that Eve heard first. "Excuse me, may I help you with something?"
Eve whirled around, coming face to face the very person she was trying to find. "I-" Eve was suddenly at a loss for words.
Cassandra was dressed as quirkily as ever, her wildly patterned skirt and bright turquoise blouse making a familiar glow of warmth burst inside Eve's chest. Behind her, Jake and Ezekiel too had stilled.
"I'm the librarian. Is there something in particular you're looking for?" Cassandra continued brightly. It took a second for Eve to realize that she meant librarian with small l, and not a capital one.
Eve resisted the urge to immediately hug her. "Actually," she started, "we're here to talk to you, Cassandra."
Cassandra took a small step back, brows furrowing, "How do you know my name?"
Eve inched closer, hands outstretched mid-way. "I know this sounds crazy, but we're your friends. And things will make much more sense in a few seconds."
"What things?" Cassandra said, taking another few steps back. Her face was quickly transforming into a look of alarm, "Who are you people?"
Eve knew she only had a few seconds before Cassandra made a run for it or called security, so she quickly took out the Eye from her pocket, repeating the routine she had gone through twice before.
The Eye blinked white as it worked its magic, and then Cassandra was on her knees, letting out a sharp yelp of pain as the memories exploded behind her brain. The three of them rushed towards her at once, surrounding her in a small huddle. Eve was glad that the library was pretty much empty at this time of the night because otherwise, there was no way they could've gone unnoticed.
Cassandra slowly raised her head, blinking once, twice, before she seemed to recognize her surroundings and the people kneeling beside her on the floor. She immediately latched on to Eve's arm, "Eve-" she gasped, eyes darting from her face to Ezekiel's and then to Jake, "Jake, Ezekiel, w-what's going on?"
Eve pulled the Cassandra to her chest, and Stone and Ezekiel joined in until they were joined in an awkward but sentimental group hug in the middle of the library floor. When they parted, Eve pulled Cassandra up with her off the floor, "Come on, let's get out of here, I'll explain everything."
Eve felt a thousand times lighter as they all squeezed into her car, having explained and recounted everything to Cassandra. She knew that almost all was still lost, but at least they were all safe, at least they were all together again. Her equilibrium felt restored. For the first time in a month, she felt centered; she felt clear-headed and steady and sure.
"What do we do now?" Cassandra asked from the backseat, voiced laced with worry. One of her hands was latched onto Ezekiel's arm for comfort. Beside Eve on the passenger seat, Stone dropped his head back on the headrest, closing his eyes in either thought or exhaustion. "Nicole could be anywhere," Cassandra continued, "…as could be the Library."
"If it hasn't already exploded," Stone interjected, "The Library couldn't have survived this long without being tethered."
Ezekiel shook his head, face knotted in thought. "But that doesn't make any sense," he said, "Nicole has the entire world's collection of magic in her hands –she would never have just let it all die. She's waited a couple hundred years too long for that."
"I agree," Eve said, the words quiet with certainty. "We have to believe that the Library is still out there. Even if we don't know where it is."
"But we quit," Cassandra said. Her voice was small, years of grief loaded into one short sentence. "Even if it still out there, there's no way to get in. We're not Librarians anymore."
Eve finally turned the key in the ignition, the sound of the engine filling the silence that had otherwise fallen over the occupants of the car. "Just because we stopped believing in the Library-" she said, tightening her hands on the steering wheel, broken pieces of a half-formed plan slotting into place behind her head, "-doesn't mean the Library stopped believing in us."
She put the gear in reverse, and swiftly pulled out of the abandoned parking lot, her destination already in mind. This was not going to be their last stand. She was not going to let it be.
It was some time deep in the night and the four of them stood in front of the door of the Annex, almost twitching in anticipation. The lights from the bridge above illuminated them in a dull glow, and somehow even without trying the door, Eve knew that the Library was not there. It was now that it was absent that she understood how integrally it had woven itself into her very essence, how much it had become a part of her as she had become a part of it. And now its absence thrummed inside of her, as the other's Librarian's has done, as Flynn's still did.
It was Stone who went first. Taking a step further towards the door, he squared his shoulders, the muscles in his forearms tightening and then relaxing.
"I believe in the Library," he said, loud and clear, "and I hereby rescind my resignation as a Librarian."
Ezekiel went next, repeating the exact words that Stone had said, with just as much steel and conviction. Cassandra squeezed Eve's hand once before she too took her place beside the other two Librarians, her words the third of their kind to echo through the night.
And then it was her turn. Eve blew out a quick breath. It seemed amazing that this morning when she had woken up, she had been an entirely different person. "I am Eve Baird," she said, "And I am the Guardian of the Library."
The air around them rippled once. She opened the door and stepped into the Annex.
It wasn't the same Annex that she remembered -the Annex present right now was only half there. Eve felt like she had stepped into a hologram or a dream, where her every step might result in her falling straight through the floor and into nothingness. Every object in the room was blurred around the edges, fading into and out of life, flickering into and out of existence. The lights were dull and waning, and her footsteps made no sound on the floor at all.
"Oh, what happened to you," she whispered underneath her breath, her heart clenching, as she ran her fingers along the edge of the center-table. One second, it felt solid underneath her fingers and the next, it was like it wasn't there at all.
"It feels like it's stuck in a limbo," Cassandra said, softly, observing the walls around her that seemed to be leached of color, made partially out of shadows, "It's between dimensions, neither here, nor there."
"That means it's still tethered to something in this dimension," Stone concluded, "but just barely."
"Maybe Nicole tethered it to herself," Ezekiel suggested, "And since she's broken her oath as a Guardian, it didn't completely work."
Unconsciously, they had all taken their usual places around the center table, and for a second it felt like this was just another one of their adventures, another riddle to solve. But a very large absence made it clear that it was not.
"No, no, I remember Jenkins clearly saying that the tethering ceremony only works with Guardian and a Librarian," Stone said.
There was a beat of silence and then Eve whispered, "She has Flynn,"
They all looked at each other somberly. They were all thinking the same thing but it was Cassandra who finally said, "Flynn could have tethered with her if that meant saving the Library."
Ezekiel let out a noise of frustration, "And we have no way of knowing where she's keeping Flynn."
Stone ran a hand through his hair, gaze flitting from each of them and then to the Backdoor, the globe set beside it still intact and probably functional, "If we stay here," he said, gravely, "she's going to find us, and if she has her artifacts and has tethered to the Library, we will be powerless."
"No," Eve interjected. She paced around, mind whirring, "She wouldn't just keep Flynn anywhere. He's a Librarian –it would only be a matter of time before he figured a way out."
"But it's been months," Ezekiel said, "Obviously, he hasn't figured out a way out yet."
"So she has to be keeping him somewhere that's protected by magic," Stone said, "But with the ley lines dormant, and the Library between dimensions, magical objects have to be malfunctioning."
"She- she wanted revenge," Eve said, thinking out loud, "For forcing her to become immortal, she took Jenkins' immortality. Flynn –she must want Flynn to suffer the same way she suffered, all those years that she spent trapped in that cell."
Eve suddenly stopped pacing. She looked at her companions and realized that they all had come to the same conclusion.
"He's already here," Eve said, heart thumping in realization. "He's in the Library."
The main Library seemed even worse off than the Annex. Entire shelves once loaded with books were now empty, artifacts either completely missing from their cases or fuzzing around the edges, torn between planes of existence. Eve could only see a few dozen shelves into the distance and not the thousands that usually carried her vision as far as it could go. The polished tiles cracked under her feet as she moved and instead of the usual shafts of golden light that fell through the massive skylights on the roof at all times of the day, there was only darkness.
Ignoring the depressing sight, she quickly hurried towards one of the golden lions, hand pushing under the edge but landing momentarily on thin air. Gritting her teeth in frustration, she tried again, fingers finally landing on the latch that she quickly pulled to the side. The statue pulled open and she almost tripped in her haste to run down the stairs. She coughed, the air as musty as she remembered and when she reached the end of the hallway, she stopped short, heart in her throat.
He was out of sight at first and for a moment, she thought she had got it all wrong. That he was still lost after all. But then she saw a corner of a shirt, and then hair that was longer than she remembered, and then she was grasping at the cold metal bars of the cell, voice cracking, "Flynn!"
He looked haggard, ashen skin that hadn't seen the face of the sun in more than two months, face supporting a beard that she would have liked if it wasn't born of these particular circumstances. He looked thinner than she remembered, the lines of his forehead more pronounced, face more somber than she had ever seen. For a moment he just looked at her, and at the Librarians suddenly crowding the hallway behind her, before reality caught up with him.
"Eve!" He rushed towards the cell door, clammy fingers closing over hers on the metal bars. His eyes were wild and a tremor traveled through his fingers straight into hers. "It's Nicole," he gasped. "She-"
"We know," Eve interrupted, voice more controlled than she felt on the inside. "We have to get you out of here, she could be back any second."
"I don't know how to," Flynn started, words tripping over each other, "I've thought of everything but Jenkins-" He stopped and Eve saw him swallow once, looking over her shoulders to the other Librarians, before continuing. "Jenkins was the only person who knew how to get in and out of here. There is no lock, no key – I have absolutely no clue-"
"Flynn," she interrupted him again, tightening her hold on his fingers with her other hand, "Flynn, calm down. I'm going to get you out of here, okay?"
She inspected the bars of the cell, but true to what he had said, there seemed to be no way out of the cell, not even a door. She knew there was a way Jenkins had let Nicole out the first time; she had seen the woman step out with her own eyes, but Eve knew that they didn't have time to search for a switch, or spell, or key, that could be anywhere in the rapidly disintegrating Library. They only way out of the cell she could think of was to cut the bars down.
So that's what she did.
Taking a few steps back into the hallway, she cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted as loud as she could, "Cal! We need you!"
For a few seconds, nothing happened, but then there was a gust of air slashing through the musky hallway, and then a sword was zooming through the air, landing straight in her hand.
She let out a startled laugh despite herself and turned back towards Flynn, sword gleaming in her hands. "Stand back," she told him and she saw his eyes light up in fevered hope.
Pulling her arms back, she spread her stance, and then swung the sword in a neat arc. Excalibur sliced clean through the bars and rather than falling to the ground in pieces, the steel disintegrated into thin air. She staggered backwards before the momentum could carry the sword to the ground, and herself with it.
Flynn stumbled out, looking almost dazed. Every part of her ached to be closer to him, but amidst all other feelings resurfacing, there was doubt too, so loud and so unwanted, but also something that couldn't be ignored. Suddenly all she could think of was how happy she had been, and how far she had fallen when she found out that he had left.
He stepped towards her and one of his hands came up to cup her face, looking into her eyes with such pure emotion that she almost cracked, right there and then. His voice was scratchy, "Eve."
Unconsciously, her hand came up to grasp his arm. "Flynn, I-"
"I would never leave you," he said, earnestly, "If there is one thing you have to believe, you should believe that I would never willingly be parted from you."
She shook her head, closing her eyes against the tears gathering in her lashes. She had so many questions, so many things she had to know. Did you leave on your own violation the night you vanished? Did you leave your ring for me to find? Did you ever plan on coming back?
But most importantly, What went wrong?
She stepped back from his grasp, turning around so she could ignore the look in his eyes.
"We have to make a plan," she said, facing the other Librarians, pretending like her voice wasn't splintering at the edges. "Let's get out of here."
Almost in silence, the group of them ascended the stairs, everything outside and inside them broken and bent and wrong.
When they stepped back into the Annex, a familiar face waited for them in front of the door.
Nicole spread her arms and smiled a red smile.
"Well it does seem that you Librarians have exceeded my expectations after all."