Beyond exhausted, but I *still* managed to produce TWO chapters for you guys. That's how much I love you. I hope you enjoy :) We are starting to move away from the angst now. Things are going to lighten up significantly. Thanks for sticking through it!

The next morning, Friday, Alex got up early and got ready for work. She was nervous, if she was honest with herself, about starting this new job. She liked doing things she was good at, which was part of the reason she hated change. She didn't mind trying new things if she was alone because if she failed, no one would know. However, if she failed at this, many people would know, including the Agents. She tried to calm herself down, but she was worried. What if she was terrible? What if she hated it? What if they hated her?

She sighed and shook her head. She was intelligent, a quick learner, and she could do this. Facing Olivia and spending thirty minutes alone in the SUV with her, however…well, that was another story. Other than a brief couple of words, she still hadn't spoken to her since their argument two days ago, and she wasn't planning on starting to this morning. She needed to get her own vehicle. She quickly decided to call Agent Thomas this evening and tell him she needed her own car.

She showered, applied a careful layer of make-up, and got dressed. She then jogged downstairs, pausing before the last step when she smelled the familiar scent of fresh coffee. Was Olivia already awake? She carefully stepped down and peeked around the corner, but there was no one there. She approached the kitchen and saw the timer flashing on the coffee machine. Olivia had programmed it to go off at 6:30. She breathed a sigh of relief, but also felt oddly disappointed that the brunette wasn't down here too.

She shook her head. You don't want to talk to her, she reminded herself. But I miss her. Alex grabbed a mug and poured herself a cup, shaking away her thoughts. She distracted herself with a sip of the coffee, sighing contently after swallowing the hot liquid. She grabbed a banana from the counter and pushed the back door open, pausing when she heard the alarm beep in warning.

"Fuck!"

She dropped the banana and mug on the counter, racing back to the alarm system. She keyed in the code and a wave of relief wash over her when it beeped, shutting off. The last thing she wanted was to set that damn thing off and then have to have an awkward early morning conversation before her cup of coffee. She would need at least one before being able to face the other woman.

She turned around and made her way back to the kitchen, grabbing the discarded banana and mug before heading out the back door. She sat on the top step, enjoying the cool, early morning breeze. It smelled nice…fresh, like water (for obvious reasons). This place was definitely better than where Emily had lived.

Alex watched the water until Olivia opened the back door, hesitantly stating that they needed to get going. Alex nodded, not bothering to look at her. She gulped down the last of her coffee before getting up and going back inside. She put her mug in the dishwasher, grabbed her purse and keys, and followed Olivia out to their vehicle.

They drove in silence, Alex watching the scenery and Olivia concentrating on the road. When they arrived at the library, Olivia told her she'd be back at four to pick her up. Alex nodded in thanks, and then left Olivia without saying another word.

The blonde turned toward the small building. It looked nice, in all honesty. It was a big, red brick building with huge silver lettering welcoming you to the Little Current Public Library, and big bay windows that let in a lot of light. Alex liked the place already.

She entered the building, making her way to the counter where she saw a woman about her age typing on a computer. She noticed the woman's pass: her picture was clearly displayed on the front, as well as a series of numbers and the name Jodie printed in the bottom right corner.

"Hi, there."

Alex looked up and quickly returned the woman's smile.

"Hi. I'm Valerie. I'm supposed to be meeting Reg here today."

"Ah, yes. He's expecting you. I'm Jodie, by the way," she said, extending her hand when she came around the counter.

"Valerie," she said, shaking the woman's hand. "Nice to meet you."

"And you. Come on. I'll bring you to his office. You're going to be spending the day there learning about our computer system, the databases we have here, the things we do every day to run the library properly. I hope you got a good night's sleep because you're in for a lot of information," she said, smiling brightly.

Alex smiled back, but she felt her stomach tighten nervously. She followed the dark haired woman to the back room, where she found an older man sitting behind a desk.

"Reg? Valerie is here."

The man looked up and smiled warmly at her. He got up and made his way over, shaking his hand as he introduced himself.

"I'm Reg, the manager. It's great to have you here."

"I'm happy to be here."

Jodie smiled at them before turning and closing the door to Reg's office on her way out.

"Please, take a seat. How are you this morning?"

"I'm great. Jodie told me there's quite a bit of information to absorb this morning."

Reg laughed.

"I hope she didn't scare you!"

"No," she assured the older man, smiling. "I'm a pretty quick learner."

"That's good to hear. So, what's say we go over what I'm planning on doing today and then we get started?"

"Sounds good."

Reg pulled out a few pages and handed the first to Alex.

"Here is the schedule I put together for today. We'll start with going through what we do in a typical day, then we'll get into the different services we offer here at the library, and finish off with the library's computer program. It might seem a bit backwards to leave the program for last, especially since it's what we use the most, but I thought it might be better to save that until the end since it's the most complicated. We'll hide back here for most of the day and start things off light. I know what it's like when you're new somewhere. It's nice to get some time to acclimate before you're thrust into the swing of things."

Alex smiled gratefully.

"So, the first thing we do when we walk in in the morning is disable the alarm system. Honestly, sometimes we forget to turn it on but it doesn't really matter. This town is not a dangerous place," he said, smiling. "After that, I turn on the lights, the computers, the printer, and while those things are warming up, I put down my things and come to the back. Then I turn on my computer and head back to the front, where we print off the paging list.

Since we are such a small library, we have an agreement with four of the surrounding county libraries to loan each other materials. So, if someone from Little Current wants a book that we don't have, but they have it in Richfield, we request that book for them and have it sent here and vice versa. The paging list is the list of all our materials requested by other libraries. So, we print the paging list and then set that aside. We will usually go get those materials once we're done with the other things we need to do.

Next, we go to the drop box. The drop box is the place where patrons return their library materials during the hours we're closed. So, we take everything from there, check it in, and then place it on a trolley to be placed back on the floor. Or, we put it in the appropriate cubby if it belongs to another library. If Anne borrows a book that belongs to the Richfield library, she can return it here and we will send it back to Richfield for her."

"That's really convenient."

"Yes, definitely. Before we had this agreement with the other libraries, our selection was pretty pitiful, as was theirs. This arrangement has helped our collection grow, as well as given our patrons access to material they normally wouldn't have.

So, the drop box is now empty and usually by this point is when we open the doors. We start work at 8 am, but the library itself doesn't open until 8:30. We get two copies of the Little Current Newspaper delivered to us every morning, so when we open the doors, we make sure to grab those before heading back inside. They usually leave them right by the front door for us. When we bring the papers in, we put a sticker on each one and then keep them up by the desk. Patrons can come in and read the paper for free, and we definitely have our regulars who come every morning.

Once that's done, we will greet the people coming in and then start the paging list. Everything is divided into sections: CDs, DVDs, audiobooks, books, magazines, and then newspapers. We only keep newspapers for a week before we recycle them, so if someone is looking for a paper from a week and a half ago, they're pretty much out of luck.

The only section that is divided up further is the book collection. We separate our books into fiction and non-fiction. The fiction section is then further divided up into romance, mystery, western, drama, and the books that don't fit into those categories are just classified under general fiction.

Fiction books have the tag FIC followed by the first three letters of the author's name. Non-fiction books are grouped by theme or subject and will have the same first three numbers, followed by a comma. After the comma, there will be either one or several digits afterwards, depending on how many books are in that collection, and then again, the last three digits of the author's name.

For example, all cooking books are filed under the digits 978, and we have about 80 books, so you'll find books in that section are labelled 978.1, 978.2, etc. up to 978.80. Are you following this so far?"

Alex nodded.

"I think so. It sounds very organised."

"It is," he affirmed. "I am very organised. Every few months, we go through the collection and look at each individual book to make sure it is filed correctly and that all books are in order. Now that chore takes weeks to complete, but then we know everything is in order again. The worst section is always the children's corner, but that's to be expected," he said lightly. "You'll get much more familiar with our material once we sort again. For now though, we won't worry about that. I don't expect you to know the sections off by heart. It has taken me most of my career for that. All you need to know now is how to find each one, and that's easy enough. Everything is labelled."

"Good."

He chuckled.

"Indeed. So, that was the paging list and our filing system. Usually it's around 10 or so by the time we are finished the paging list. We then go to the computer and scan every item we took from the floor, a small paper is printed indicating which library it's going to, as well as which patron requested the material. The paper is then slipped into the book or DVD, and we place the item in the right cubby. At the end of the day, we put all the items in plastic labelled containers which are then driven to the appropriate location by our driver, Rob.

Once we finish with that, we clear out our "holds" cupboard. Our holds cupboard houses all the materials our patrons requested from other libraries. Patrons receive a phone call when the materials they requested arrive, and they have five days to pick them up. If they don't pick it up within five days, we ship it back to the appropriate library."

"This is a lot to remember."

"It really is, but you know what, it becomes automatic. You'll see. We are very routine here at this location. I thrive on routine and in my old age, I need it so that I don't forget anything," he said, chuckling. "You'll get the hang of it in no time."

Alex smiled at his reassurance.

"Now, by the time we are finished emptying the holds cupboard, we usually start doing lunches. You get an hour for lunch, unpaid, and you can do what you like for that hour. There is a break room just across from my office. It has a microwave, a fridge, a couch and a table, as well as cupboards, a coat closet, table and chairs… oh and a bathroom."

"Sounds nice."

"It is," he said, smiling. "I'll show it to you later. After lunch, there's usually something going on, whether it's a school class here to pick up books, a reading group, or a viewing of a movie in the movie room, so we do whatever needs to be done for that activity. Jodie does story time every Monday afternoon at 3 for preschoolers, Wednesday at 2 o'clock for toddlers, and then hosts a yoga class on Thursday nights at 6 for adults. You won't be expected to do any classes, don't worry. Jodie is a machine and has too much energy to spare. She insisted on doing those things, but it has brought in a lot of patrons, so I'm grateful for it."

"I can imagine."

"Yep. She's a great librarian. Anyway, the afternoons here are fairly quiet as far as our work goes. The morning tasks are usually over by then, so we either make new book displays, clean, or really just read a book. I usually book appointments for the afternoon. We book appointments for people who need help using their laptops or iPads and give them basic training on those devices. You can't get advanced tutoring sessions on Excel from me," he said with a chuckle, "but we provide basic information about how to turn on computers, how to access the internet, things like that. You'd be surprised how many people come in for those sessions."

Alex smiled politely. She was getting a headache from all of this information, but she had to admit, Reg seemed very nice. And so far, the job didn't sound that bad either. She had always loved books.

"We usually get busy around 3:30 when the schools start letting out. Kids come to study or do their homework at the tables we have set up in the back, and we help them as best we can. They'll usually come find us, but we sometimes head back there to check up on them too.

Alex nodded.

"What are the library's hours of operation?"

"We stay open until 5 every day except Thursdays. Thursdays we are open 10:30 am to 7 pm. So, are you ready for a break now?"

"I think so," she said smiling. Her head was really starting to hurt.

"Alright. Why don't I bring you to the lunchroom and you can sit on the couch for a bit? If you're hungry, there's a corner store to the right and a sub shop on the left a few doors up. They make great sandwiches."

Alex smiled.

"Maybe I'll go there for lunch, since I forgot to bring myself something."

"It's a good choice."

The man got up and led the way to a cozy break room, where, upon his leaving, Alex promptly dropped on the nearest couch and groaned. She had a major headache and it was only- she glanced at the clock- 10:07 a.m.

Thankfully, the rest of the day passed by just as quickly as the morning had. Reg gave her some print outs for her to look at once she got home, a brief overview of a typical day, as well as the different databases they had at the library and a quick guide to their computer system, Sierra. She had gotten to chat more with Jodie, who seemed incredibly nice. She also met Lori, a volunteer who dropped by a couple of times a week to bring books to local shut-ins. She chatted with her as well, and she seemed very kind. As far as first days go, Alex had had an excellent one.

Olivia picked her up at 5 pm as promised, and while the blonde was in a great mood, she still wasn't really ready to talk. She wasn't angry, but she still needed more time, so to avoid any conversation with her, Alex immediately began reading through the papers she was given when she entered the vehicle.

She had to admit, the databases they had at the library were pretty impressive. They had an entire e-book collection, as well as access to magazines online, all for free. They had research databases, car manuals, homework helpers, career searchers, online learning programs for children, as well as random online game programs for teenagers. There were a slew of other things that Alex had yet to discover, but she was thoroughly impressed already. Despite her pounding headache, she felt excited about this new job. She had felt confident as Reg and Jodie showed her around the library, pointing out the different sections of books, magazines, newspapers, CDs, and DVDs. Everything was neatly organised, and seemed easy enough to locate. It also helped that the library wasn't that big. Thank God for small favours, Alex thought to herself.

When they pulled into the driveway, Alex got out of the vehicle and headed to her room, where she lay down on her bed and flipped through her pages again. She only managed to get through two more, however, before she promptly fell asleep.