Olivia never liked novels in which a helpless heroine just waited, as hero and villain fought to either save or corrupt her. They had literary value, but were boring to read, and probably written by men who never met a real woman.
Olivia certainly never saw herself as one of those heroines, though very often she felt helpless. She was an orphan, with no one who would miss her if she disappeared. She worked as a librarian in a broken and underfunded library, in a school where no one seemed to care about education, and she often could do nothing but watch as rude and spoiled kids were treated like princesses and princes, while good kids were humiliated.
She may be helpless, but she was not to be saved or corrupted by any villain or hero. She owned her own fate.
When she first met Jacques, she thought he looked like a hero from one of those novels. Maybe it was something in his posture, in how confident he appeared. Maybe it was the way he dressed, or his good looks, that could make any heroine swoon. Or maybe, and that seemed more likely, it was because he came to her, in a yellow taxi instead of a white horse, and offered her a chance to finally do something meaningful in her life.
He didn't come to rescue Olivia, as if she was a damsel in distress. He came to give her a chance to be a hero in this story too.
The few days she spent with Jacques were crazy. She would never have imagined, as she read The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations, that she would meet a member of said organization, or that he would invite her to become a member as well. She, Olivia, the boring and useless librarian. These people, they valued her. Jacques valued her. He said she was brave and intelligent, and that it was enough.
Olivia had yet to meet other members of the organization, other volunteers as they called themselves, but she could be sure that they were all noble people, like Jacques and the woman that passed her the mission of taking care of the park and of the important archives kept there. There was still a lot that she didn't know about the organization, but they were fire-fighters, and they were volunteers, and well-read, and looked out for children who were all alone in the world, as she had once been, and Jacques always spoke highly of them.
Jacques was really what she thought about most during the lonely days she spent waiting in the park. She wished he had gone with her, though she understood why he had to stay. The couple who got them arrested gave her shivers, but Jacques knew them. He said he had already faced worse situations.
In the short time they spent together, he told her of some missions he went on with his associates, of times when everything seemed lost but they managed to save themselves at the last minute. Olivia knew he didn't tell her the whole story, that certainly there were missions that didn't end so well, but it didn't matter. Jacques had been trained for it. He knew what he was doing. He would be alright.
While waiting for news, Olivia watched some tapes from the archive. She learned bits of some new secrets, and saw the faces of some people Jacques had mentioned, and some others that she had seen before somewhere, and many that she never met. But one face stood out from all. Jacques.
He spoke words that were very close to the ones he spoke to her. He talked of loss, but also of hope. Olivia supposed it was part of something that they showed to new volunteers at some point. She was a new volunteer, and hearing his speech inspired her.
She missed him. She wondered when she would see him again, if she... no, the idea of not meeting him again was too terrible for her to consider. No, a man as noble and brave and well-read as Jacques could get away from any trouble. He would soon come to meet her, and he would tell her more stories, and introduce her to other brave and noble volunteers she still didn't know. She would soon feel the warmth of his strong arms embracing her. She would soon feel his lips against hers again. She would soon be able to lend her favorite book to him, and learn which his was. She would make him proud of how much she learned. She could even say that poem by heart now.
"So don't scream when we take you,
The world is quiet here."