A/N: The first part of this was written for a prompt that rjdaae sent me on Tumblr. The second part was written because of the popularity of the first part. Please read and review!
Now that the moment has come she can feel her heart pounding in her ears. Her curiosity had built her up to being brave, confident and self-assured in how she would greet the "borrower" and how she would confront him about his strange habit. (She did not like to use the word confront even when thinking about it, because after all are they really doing anything wrong if they always return the books? But confront sounds better than interrogate, so confront it is.)
But now she is infinitely more nervous, and she curls her fingers tight around the flashlight. The creaking has come from the 330s, the section on welfare for the poor both modern and historic, and she does not need the flashlight to find her way over but it might be useful for blinding the borrower.
With infinite care, hardly daring to breathe, Christine pads out of the section on economic history. She slipped her shoes off earlier, and her socks, and the carpet is warm beneath her feet but her feet make barely a whisper of noise.
Her eyes adjusted to the darkness long ago, and dimly she can see the outline of someone very tall. Her heart catches, skips a beat, and draws a stuttering breath before inching forward again.
Softly she hears the rustle of the borrower slipping books into a bag. It is enough to cover the dim brush of her walking as she creeps into the stacks behind the borr—the man. This close, and with that height, she does not doubt that it is a man.
But she is not quiet enough. The man whips around, a thin cord wrapping around her wrist and making her drop the flashlight. She yelps, and bangs into the books, pushing the far ones out to fall on top of him. The cord falls away as he curses and falls back, more books tumbling to the ground.
And Christine is not easily annoyed, but that annoys her. How dare he steal into the library by night! How dare he take the books! And how dare he attack her with that rope and make her knock books! She is not a violent woman, but before she knows it she's on top of him, pounding her fists against his chest.
Erik, for his part, is dazed and baffled. This was supposed to be easy. This has always been easy. Now suddenly he's lying in a heap of books with a small creature punching him and hair falling in his face. Blonde hair.
Oh.
Not a creature. A woman.
A woman?
He manages, somehow, to pull himself out from under her. The lasso is missing, presumably lost in the books, and it's on the tip of his tongue to curse when she launches herself at him again. How he retains his balance he will never understand, but he pushes back and holds her at arm's length.
Christine had been planning to ask why he couldn't come in and take out books like any normal person but in that moment, she catches sight of golden eyes, and a face that, in the darkness, seems misshapen.
And she knows.
She stops fighting, stops wriggling, but he doesn't release her. Doesn't say anything, in fact, and gathering all her composure, all her righteous fury, Christine asks, in a voice level and commanding, "Well? Aren't you going to tidy up this mess?
Before long, it becomes routine. The borrower, Erik, is her secret. The others long-since stopped questioning the mysterious disappearing and re-appearing of books, and once he returns them in time, all is well.
Upon her insistence that it is unfair of him to take out whole sections of books at a single time, for the sake of other people who might want to read those books they have arranged that he only takes out quarter of a section at a time. She usually meets him, now, in the library and logs which books he has. The records need to be kept, after all.
He has come to expect her, and the first time he appeared wearing a mask she ordered him to take it off.
"I did want to disturb you with the sight of this," he said softly, gesturing at his face, and it was all she could do to restrain a smile.
"If you think your face is the strangest thing in my life right now, you're sadly mistaken."
Sometime between their third and fourth meeting he became Erik and she became Christine. And as she shelves the books, they talk about his recent reading.
History. Politics. Biology (understandably). Architecture. Music.
They have been having these secret meetings for three months when he arrives to find her singing to herself, and stands staring with the bag of books slung over his shoulder. She breaks off the song, an old one her father taught her, and asks him if he is all right, and he shakes his head, and whispers, "You have a beautiful voice."
Their meetings are only ever short, always conducted in darkness. But she starts finding little gifts in the drawers of her desk – a pack of hair ties when her own snaps in the middle of shelving, a cd of Swedish folk songs after she referred to her father, a water-colour bookmark of Paris, a single red rose. Sweet little gifts, and though the blond librarian, Raoul, keeps trying to catch her eye, she knows the little things are from Erik.
It's the sort of thing he would do, really. Leave little gifts for her.
Each one she touches with light fingers. The cd lives beside her bed. The bookmark is tucked into a collection of fairytales. She wears one of the hair ties the next time they meet and she could swear that there is a slight quirk to one of his lips. The rose she presses in an old hardbound book. A multitude of little gifts, and he is content simply with her company.
She sings for him, softly, as she shelves, and before she knows it he is correcting her breathing, his fingers brushing her waist as he explains posture. She cannot help the burning blush that creeps into her cheeks but in the dim, low light she is certain he cannot see it. Unless his strange eyes have the vision of a cat, and somehow she does not doubt it.
They leave only the emergency lights on, and it is under the emergency lights one night that she reaches up, a bag of Russian novels between them, and presses her lips lightly to his.
He gasps into her mouth, and pulls back, tears shining in his eyes. "Christine?" His voice is faint, hoarse, and for a moment she fears she's done something wrong until he whispers, "Do you really?"
And she nods, tears prickling her own eyes because of course he would be nervous and of course he would doubt, and breathes, "Yes."
His lips are trembling when they meet hers again.