Jenkins briskly ushered the last of the Librarians and their Guardian through the Back Door on their way back to Portland. He was about to step through it himself when he heard his name being called behind him.
"Mr. Jenkins! Mr. Jenkins! Wait!"
He quickly stepped back from the glowing doorway and turned around. He was somewhat surprised to see Jade Wells running up the sidewalk, waving one arm over her head to get his attention. He raised his hand to acknowledge that he had seen her, then took several hurried strides away from the magic door and toward the woman; hopefully she wouldn't be able to see the light from the Back Door in full daylight.
"Ms Wells! Is something wrong?" he asked as she clopped to halt in front of him, panting slightly. Jade shook her head.
"No, no—nothing's wrong," she assured him, "It's just that—well, back at the theater I turned around and all of you were gone!" She looked up into his brown eyes. "I just… I just wanted to thank you. For helping my mother and me find each other again." A polite smile teased the older man's lips.
"It was nothing, Ms Wells. I'll be sure to pass along your thanks to Mr. Carsen and the others," he replied and started to turn away. Jade put her hand on his arm to stop him, ignoring his dismissal. Jenkins turned back to face her, a perplexed look on his face. "I-I wanted to thank you especially, Mr. Jenkins," she continued.
"Oh, well, I really didn't do anything, that was all Mr. Carsen and Colonel—" he began to demure, but the younger woman cut him off.
"Yes, you did!" she countered sharply, her steady gaze unwavering. Now that she had his full attention, her dark eyes flicked to the ground between them for a moment. When she looked up again, he could see uncertainty in them, even a touch of fear.
"I mean…yeah, because of them getting sucked into the film and everything I was able to reconnect with Eleanor, but…" She hesitated a moment. "Before that. When we were looking for my father's typewriter back in the theater, I shared a lot of personal stuff with you about him," she continued quietly, as if afraid of someone overhearing her. "I never really shared any of that with anyone else before, see, and…well…I…" Jenkins raised his hand.
"You don't owe me any sort of an explanation, Ms Wells," he said softly with a small shake of his head. "You can rely on me to keep everything you said in confidence." But before he had finished speaking, Jade was vigorously shaking her own head at his words.
"No, no—you don't understand!" she said, urgency in her voice, "I told you all of those things because…I felt comfortable telling you about them." Seeing the confusion on the tall man's face, Jade took a deep breath and tried again.
"Look, I was a studio exec for over twenty years," she began to explain, "And in this town, studio execs do not make a lot of friends. None, in fact. Between the crazy work hours, the crazy traveling all over the place, the crazy meetings with oftentimes crazy people and having to say 'no' more often than not…it kind of makes relationships of any kind difficult to even start, let alone maintain. But with you…" Jade dropped her head, as if embarrassed.
"You were so easy to talk to, see? The fact that you know so much about my father's life and career and his work and everything—that's pretty rare these days. I mean, let's face it—he was no Steven Spielberg!" She laughed nervously at her own joke and unconsciously began to wring her hands.
"And then, when I talked about his relationship—or lack of a relationship, I guess would be more accurate to say—with my mother and with me…you weren't judgmental or anything like that," she plowed on, aware that she was dangerously close to babbling as she kept her eyes down. "You just…listened. And…I really appreciated that." She finally made herself look up to meet his steady gaze again.
"You probably think I'm weird or something, but…I think I felt so comfortable with you because...I kind of got the feeling that that's because you know what it's like to have to live with a parent who was difficult to love, too," she said carefully, "Right?" Jenkins slowly stood upright and raised his chin slightly, his unreadable eyes on Jade the entire time.
"I do," was all he finally said in reply, but she could hear the pain he carried in those two small quiet words. The same kind of pain she had been carrying since she had become a lonely and hurting young girl, shuttled off to be raised by strangers following the death of her adoptive mother.
"Well, anyway," Jade said uncertainly, carelessly waving a hand in the air beside her. "I was thinking…" She stopped and pressed her lips together briefly, as if trying to decide whether or not she had the courage to say what came next, until she at last blurted it out. "I was thinking, seeing as how we have some things in common—if you don't mind, that is—if we could…maybe get together for coffee sometime, or lunch, and just…just talk some more? As friends?" A startled look passed over the old man's face.
"But surely you'll want to spend all of your free time with your mother after so many years apart? Make up for lost time?" he said. Jade smiled weakly up at him.
"Oh, yes, of course I'll be spending most of my time with Eleanor, but…" She paused a moment, and an almost pleading look suddenly filled her eyes. "That doesn't mean I can't spend time with a new friend at the same time, too, does it?" Her shoulders dropped and her hands flapped uselessly. "You know—like the nursery rhyme says?"
"Nursery rhyme?" He tilted his head questioningly.
"Yeah, the nursery rhyme about friendship?" she prompted. Still getting a blank look, she recited it for him.
"'Make new friends, but keep the old; One is silver and the other is gold.'" Her mischievous eyes swept his tall frame. "I guess that makes you silver in more ways than one, huh?"
"Yes, well…" he chuckled, a wry smile coming to his lips. "Silver has always suited me better!" A wave of emotion engulfed Jenkins, almost as powerful as the one he'd felt in the theater as he witnessed Eleanor reveal herself to Jade. He felt the age-old desire for connection arc to life within his soul at that moment, a desire that he had kept ruthlessly suppressed for centuries. He recognized it now as he realized that he truly liked Jade Wells, very much. But, friends grew old, friends died, left him behind to live on, left him behind to deal with the pain of sorrow and longing for those he would never see again. Yet his tightly-reigned desire for connection had loosened considerably over the last four years, ever since Eve Baird and the young Librarians had entered his life. More specifically, ever since Cassandra Cillian had entered his life, like a cool breeze of sea air entering a stale, musty room, cleansing and revitalizing. It unsettled him to realize that perhaps…Jade Wells believed that he could be the same for her?
Jenkins found himself clasping his hands tightly in front of him and looking away, coughing softly as he tried to clear a sudden lump in his throat, blinking his eyes against an inexplicable stinging. When he felt he had the inconvenient surge under control again, he looked back at the expectantly waiting woman. He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but instead he reached into the breast pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a small, elegant case made of gold and inlaid with amber. He opened it to reveal a small stack of equally elegant business cards, printed long ago in raised letters with only the name "Jenkins" and his personal phone number. It had been almost a hundred years since he'd last handed out any of his cards, and he often wondered why he bothered to carry the case around with him day after day, but now he was glad that he had them. He took one the cards out of the case and held it out to Jade with a flourish.
"My card," he announced grandly as he snapped the case closed and returned it to his pocket with his other hand. "I would love to meet you for lunch—when you're ready, of course. I know an excellent place here in Los Angeles that specializes in modern fusion of Mexican and Indian cuisines, if you like—"
"Oh! I love Indian food! And Mexican!" Jade exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. She was almost giddy with relief that her overture had not been rejected as she took the card from him and examined it. She looked up at him for a moment, and, before he even saw it coming, she rushed forward and threw her arms around him. She gave the surprised man a quick hug and then stepped back again as she clasped his card to her chest.
"Thank you, Mr. Jenkins—I'll give you a call, soon, I promise!" she said, and began to back away from him.
"You can drop the 'mister'!" he blurted, before he could talk himself out of it, "My… my friends just call me 'Jenkins'." She grinned back as she continued to walk backward from him.
"And you can just call me 'Jade'!" she yelled back.
"I look forward to hearing from you, then, Jade!" She waved cheerily at him, turned and nearly bounced back to her theater.
Jenkins turned and went back to the magic door, his spirit buoyant. The door was still glowing, still waiting for him to pass through; one of the others must have set it to remain open for him. Probably Cassandra, he wryly thought as he prepared to step through the portal. That meant that she was probably waiting for him in the workroom so she could hear about what had taken him so long to return to the Annex, too.
The immortal smiled to himself, surprised to find that he was eager to tell her about the new friend he had made today.