"Happy Birthday, Eve!" hollered a decidedly tipsy Jacob Stone, raising his nearly empty bottle of beer into the air over his head. All around him and his friends were brightly colored balloons, signs, discarded wrapping paper and ribbon. The mauled remains of a large chocolate birthday cake sat in the middle the Annex's workroom table, surrounded by more empty brown bottles and Chinese food containers, used plates and forks. Nearby, Franklin was flopped onto his back with his head hanging over the edge of the table, passed out, his long snout smeared with bits of cake and frosting.
"Happy Birthday, Eve!" The other Librarians, equally drunk, raised their own bottles and yelled out their good wishes as well.
"What...what time is it?" slurred Cassandra, an exaggerated frown wrinkling her brow. Ezekiel looked at his watch through squinted, bleary eyes.
"Eleven-thirty!" he finally crowed.
"We should…we should go to bed!" said Cassandra worriedly. "S-Santa won't come if we don't go to bed soon!"
"We got time for one more, Cassie!" said Jake, reaching into the cooler next to him and fishing out more bottles for everyone. "Come on, now—one more for th' road!"
"No more for me, thanks," said Eve crisply, shoving her one and only bottle of beer for the evening away from her before getting up from the table. "What I need right now is some fresh air." As the others opened their fresh beers and raucously toasted their friend's birthday again, Eve quietly slipped out of the workroom and headed for the front door to the Annex.
She opened the cold steel door and stepped out onto the concrete pad just outside. She sucked in a deep lungful of the sharp night air and exhaled it through her mouth, her breath hanging in a thick cloud in front of her face for a moment before dissipating. The sky was clear, and stars sparkled like ice crystals overhead. All was still and silent around her, and she closed her eyes for a moment to luxuriate in it.
Suddenly, something heavy landed on her shoulder. Instinctively, the soldier inside of her took over; her right hand shot up and across her body to seize the wrist of her assailant. At the same time, she turned her body to face the stranger as she used their arm to force them to turn away from her, then twisted their arm around and upward as she moved to get behind them. In less than five seconds, she had her attacker at her mercy, stooped over with their arm bent at a painful angle against their back; it would only take a bit more pressure to break their arm entirely.
"Colonel Baird!" The man's cry of pain stopped her cold.
"Jenkins?!" she exclaimed.
"My arm, if you don't mind?" he snapped tartly, trying to ignore the sharp pain that was shooting through his entire arm from the shoulder down.
"Oh!" The Guardian released his arm at once. "Jenkins! I'm sorry—I didn't hear you coming!' The old Caretaker stood up and rubbed his shoulder, then his elbow and wrist as he turned around to face her.
"My fault, I suppose; I should have known better than to approach a soldier from the rear without identifying myself first," he conceded grudgingly. "My apologies to you."
"No problem, Jenkins, no harm done," she answered, waving a hand in dismissal. Jenkins snorted.
"No harm done? Clearly you weren't the one to almost have her arm torn out of its socket just now!"
"Like you said—that's what you get for sneaking up on someone!" she reminded him good-naturedly. "Besides, I didn't use that much force." The tall blonde cocked her head as a realization came to her. "Just why were you following me, anyway?"
"I was curious as to why you were going outside, that's all," he answered as he rolled his injured shoulder to loosen it up. Eve's eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"I came out for some air; I said so in the workroom," she said. Jenkins stared directly into her eyes.
"You came out for air," the immortal repeated flatly, his tone indicating that he didn't believe her for a moment.
"Yes. I came out for some air," she said slowly, testily. The man's dark eyes swept over her body, as though assessing her.
"I've been watching you over the last few days, Colonel Baird," he finally said, his chin rising slightly as he addressed her. "I think you're in need of more than just air." Eve raised her arms and let drop against the side so f her body, her hands slightly slapping her thighs.
"Oh, really?" she asked sarcastically. "And just what is it that you think I really need, Dr. Sigmund Jenkins, if I may ask?" The Caretaker's head rose even higher, a slight smirk of triumph on his lips, as if he'd been waiting for just such an opening.
"A sympathetic ear," he replied loftily. Baird stared back, her jaw hanging in astonishment.
"A sympathetic ear?" she echoed in disbelief. "A sympathetic ear?!"
"Yes," he answered simply. He then fell silent, waiting. Eve rolled her eyes as she raised her arms and let them drop a second time.
"I don't believe this!" she mumbled, suddenly irritated. She began to pace on the short concrete pad. "I just came out here for some air and to think, Jenkins, that's all!"
"Ah! So now we're thinking, in addition to getting some fresh air!" the immortal gloated. "And what do you need to think about, if I may ask?" Eve whirled around and glared at the placid immortal. She quickly strode over to stand directly in front of him.
"Well, if you must know, I came out here to think about what a shitty year this has been!" she snapped, going from irritated to angry in the blink of an eye. She began gesturing with her hands, ticking off items on her fingers as she went on. "It's just been one crappy thing after another this year—the pandemic; the killings of all those black people by the cops; the protests against all those killings; the rioting; global warming; the politics; human trafficking; the white supremacists; all the wars in the world; all the floods and fires and earthquakes and hurricanes; that giant...orange...idiotic...jackass in the White House and all of his slimy little toadies! And that's all besides this scary new magical Cassandra that we seem to have on our hands now and all of the crap we had to deal with from DOSA this year—it's just been too much, Jenkins!" There was a raw desperation in her voice as she finished speaking. She turned away from Jenkins and there was silence between them for a few seconds.
"But you, of all people, Eve, know that hope is restored at this time of year," Jenkins answered quietly. Baird spun around to look him in the face again, and he could see that her eyes were glistening with welling tears.
"But that's just it, Jenkins," she said, barely above a whisper. "I do know that, and I'm telling you that I don't think even Santa can renew hope in the world, not this year!" The old Caretaker shifted his position a bit.
"I think you're wrong," he said steadily. Eve's shoulders slumped and she shook her head.
"I knew you wouldn't understand," she muttered, then turned and took a few steps away from her friend. "The entire world is at each other's throats right now; how can Santa possibly come up with the amount of hope needed to overcome all of...this?!" She waved both arms high in the air to take in the whole planet, then let her arms drop wearily again.
"There're billions of people in the world, Jenkins—billions of angry, hurting, struggling people, and only one Santa," she went on, her voice sad and forlorn now. "How is one being, even one as powerful and magical as Santa, supposed to overcome that?"
Jenkins stood silently and regarded the tall woman standing a few feet away from him, looking sadly up at the jarringly serene night sky with watery blue eyes. He dropped his gaze for a moment as he collected his thoughts, then raised his head and stepped closer to stand next her. He raised his head up to follow her gaze into the heavens above them.
"You're forgetting to whom you're speaking, Eve," he began quietly, contemplating the stars overhead. "I have seen far worse than what's going on right now." He took a deep breath, clasped his hands together behind his back as he stared at the North Star.
"Things are serious right now, I don't want to discount that; your concerns are valid," he continued. "But, honestly, they are nothing that can't be overcome with just a bit of effort on the part of everyone." Eve turned her head and scowled.
"Since when did you become such a Pollyanna?" she snorted. Jenkins smiled.
"This pandemic, for instance," he said, still looking up. "It is a serious health crisis and it's nothing to be taken lightly. But it's nothing compared to the Black Death that swept Europe in the Middle Ages." Eve looked over at him and saw the stony expression that fell over his face as he remembered that horrible time. "Nowadays it's cured with a simple antibiotic, but in those days there was no such thing. There was nothing to stop it. It tore through the largest cities in Europe and left nothing but piles of corpses in its wake in a matter of days. People died so quickly, so horribly..." A shudder went through his body at the memories of that dreadful time-the people dying faster than they could be buried or even burned, left in homes and on the streets for weeks to rot or for the rats and the dogs to scavenge. He forced the terrible images from his head and forced himself back to the present.
"I've seen nations rise and fall, some wiped forever from the face of the map," he went on. "I've seen peoples enslaved, oppressed, exploited and slaughtered, all in the name of some monarch, or religion, or for the glory of some nation, or some other equally stupid reason." He turned his head to look at Eve.
"What I'm trying to say, Eve, is that I've seen all of this before, and I daresay that I'll see it all again in the future..."
"Great!" the Guardian interjected her voice thick with mock cheerfulness as she gave him a thumbs' up. "Thanks for the pep talk, Jenkins; I feel so much better now!" The immortal lowered his head and gave her reproving look.
"If I may be allowed to finish?" he asked sternly. Eve sighed loudly and waved her hand at him.
"Fine. Go ahead."
"Thank you," he said, then cleared his throat. "What I started to say was that every time things began to look utterly hopeless, there were people who stepped forward and did their level best to counter the hopelessness by doing whatever they could to change things. Individuals forced the medical sciences to evolve and develop until now we have a drug that cures the Black Death and many other diseases once thought to be incurable. The same will happen with Covid-19." He turned to face Eve directly.
"Individuals banded together in centuries past to end slavery in almost every place on earth. Individuals banded together to fight for equality for everyone regardless of race, gender, creed or color; that struggle is still ongoing, but advances are being made every day!" He reached down to take her hand in both of his. He looked directly into her eyes, his own brown ones shining with fervor. "We still have a great deal more work to do, of course, but it can be done, but only if we don't give up on hope! We have to have hope, Eve! We can't give it up now, not after we've come so far!" Eve cocked her head and gave the old man a quizzical look.
"Wow, you really have turned into a Pollyanna!" she said in a half-teasing tone, and Jenkins chuckled softly.
"Perhaps I have," he answered. He squeezed her hand again and looked earnestly into her eyes. "But if that's the case, I have you and the others to thank for it—especially Cassandra. You've all...done a great deal to restore my hope, and not just in mankind. You've restored my hope in myself, too." He gave her hand another quick squeeze and then let go of her.
"You're immortal now, but you haven't lived nearly long enough yet to have any way of judging between what's bad and what's really bad," he went on. "But you will. Just wait, Eve Baird—things will get better, I promise! I can't say when, but I know that they will, and it will come by the efforts of people who refuse to let go of their hope for a better future and a better humanity." He laid his hands on her shoulders and stared intently at her.
"Please—don't you give up hope!" he urged. "A new year is coming; we all get a clean slate! Another chance to change the world, and if we help each other, well—there's nothing we can't accomplish."
Eve gazed into his dark, serious eyes, and saw the hope he truly had for them all—for her, for the Librarians, for the world. Suddenly, things didn't seem so bleak and impossible anymore, and she felt a heavy weight slough off of her for the first time in weeks. She smiled and slid her arms around the old Caretaker's body, leaned into him as she hugged him tightly.
"Thank you, Jenkins," she whispered in a husky voice. She felt his arms encircle her as he returned her embrace.
"What are friends for, if not to give each other a nice pep talk when we feel like the world is going to hell in a handbasket?" he replied. His tone was light, but she knew he was serious. She let go of him and stood back so that she could see his face.
"Even as an immortal, I never thought I'd live to see the day that you became be the voice of optimism!" she said, laughing. In the distance, a clock tower began to toll midnight. Jenkins raised his head to peer into velvety sky above.
"It's Christmas Day; humanity's hope is restored," he said in almost childlike wonder, then looked down at Eve.
"Merry Christmas, Eve!" he said warmly, and smiled. Eve smiled back and threw her arms around him again, pausing just long enough to kiss his soft, cold cheek before giving him the closest thing to a bear hug that she could manage.
"Merry Christmas, Jenkins!" she said fervently. "Merry Christmas...!"