The Librarian's Apprentice

Clara pushed the hair out of her eyes, stomach rumbling painfully. She'd slept in her clothes on the floor, leaving the shroud where it lay. When she'd tried to turn in for the night, the couch had thrown her off, a bit like a bucking bronco. The ground had seemed a safer option, even though she'd half expected it to crack open and dispose of her into Dante's Inferno or something. Nothing would surprise her anymore. The brand new toothbrush she'd tried to use had suddenly sprouted fangs, the toothpaste doing the same. As for the hairbrush...

She shuddered at the memory of it opening up its beady eyes, before getting unsteadily to her feet. As she did so, the door burst open, Flynn bearing a tray of food, a dress slung over his arm, Clara doing a double-take at the flower-pot he was sporting upon his head. Unperturbed by her raised eyebrow, he set the tray down on the desk, before chucking the dress at her, Clara having to dive like a goal-keeper to catch it.

"All items of hosiery, undergarments and such can be found in the bathroom," Flynn said pompously, "and that includes toiletries and fripperies for the average female."

"Your bathroom hates me," Clara said from between gritted teeth, "and so does your couch."

"I shall have a word with the bathroom," Flynn said loftily, straightening his bow-tie, "and as for the couch, she's just having separation issues, that's all."

"I'm having issues full-stop!" Clara seethed as Flynn strode into the bathroom, disappearing through its doorway. Shaking her head to herself, she turned the dress over in her hands, raising both eyebrows now at the blue and white polka-dot pattern of the fabric. But the rough feel of it between her fingers made her accept once and for all this was really happening to her, that it wasn't a dream or somebody's piece of fan-fiction. She really was trapped in a labyrinth of a library with a mad-man at its helm.

Flynn strode back out of the bathroom, looking triumphant, his victorious expression sitting at odds with the flower-pot now tilted over one eye. He clapped his hands together before breaking into a break-dancing routine which morphed into a speeded up Scotch reel, the sight making Clara take a step back. She was heavily into her Tudor dancing, but when he then started doing the cha-cha, before segueing into some sort of odd side-step shuffle, she knew where her love of dance ended, usually before the men in white coats came bursting through the doors.

"Are you done?" she asked uneasily as he started doing the Charleston.

"I am, but the curse isn't," he said, panting slightly now with the exertion.

"Curse?"

"I was cursed before I came in here," he explained, doing the Can-Can with admirable ease, "to dance myself to death."

"You were cursed?" Clara said slowly, not sure if she was hearing things.

"By a crone in Budapest."

Clara just stared at him before suddenly slapping him hard across the face. He reeled back, his hand flying to his cheek, eyes wide with shock. Clara crossed her arms over her chest, tilting her head to one side. "Something to say, big boy?" she said pertly.

"You just hit me!"

"But you're not dancing anymore, are you?"

Flynn looked down at his feet, his eyes widening even further. "Oh," he breathed.

"Oh indeed," Clara said.

~*~

Trailing her fingertip along the rows of books, Clara tiredly traversed the shelves, the heels of her ballet flats soundlessly crossing the floor. After cleaning herself up in the now well-behaved bathroom, tying her hair up in a high pony-tail and donning the dress Flynn had brought her, the bathroom providing shoes and everything else, she'd then tucked into the slightly bizarre breakfast Flynn had laid out for her, before going exploring to no avail.

She'd been in the Library for hours now, wandering its aisles almost forlornly. Any volumes she'd attempted to peruse had evaded her grasp, door handles she'd tried to turn remaining resolutely locked. The Library didn't want her here, and neither did its Librarian. Flynn had nipped off to Nice, or so he'd said, leaving her to her own lonely devices. She'd tried to seek out the ghost in the mirror, but the glass had remained empty of everything but her reflection.

Clara leaned her head against a display case, ignoring the protests of the artefacts inside. She was a pragmatic kind of person, but this kind of situation required something more than fortitude -

Somebody tapped her shoulder, making her whirl around, expecting to see Flynn, only to see the sword from the day before, floating in front of her. She stared at it, heart in her throat, remembering the coldness of its blade against her skin. But it just continued to hover, almost giving her the impression it was studying her.

"Cal?" she whispered, the cogs of her mind turning...

The sword quivered.

"Cal... Cal..." Clara murmured to herself, before it clicked into place. "Excalibur?" she breathed almost reverently, her eyes widening with wonder. Without thinking, she reached out to the sword, almost like she would take a hand, but the sword shot off like a startled cat, making her crash backwards into the display case.

"Do you mind?" a nasally voice complained. "Some of us are trying to sleep here!"

"Sorry," Clara hastily said to the display case before quickly high-tailing it back to Flynn's office.

~*~

"Hello, Hartley," Flynn said, surprised to see Clara loitering in the library wing. Judson had been keeping an eye on her for him, and had said she'd been in Flynn's office all afternoon, alternating between pacing the ground and pulling files off the shelves, flinging them at the walls when the information inside went blank. He knew that she'd been wandering the Library, but beyond annoying her, it had kept her safe, isolating itself away from her curious fingers.

"Why on earth do you have some sort of shrine dedicated to me?" Clara demanded as she strode towards him, arms crossed over her chest. "Like I'm some kind of crime scene you're sitting vigil at!"

Flynn stared at her blankly.

"I'm talking about that, dumbo!" she shrieked, waving her hand at the various boards erected around the room, all emblazoned with hundreds of pictures of her.

Flynn did a double-take, before remembering. "I'm trying to figure out why these people want to kill you," he said awkwardly, pulling at his bow-tie, "but I seem to have got a bit carried away with myself."

"More like you've gone completely overboard."

Flynn just nodded, his brow furrowing thoughtfully, his attention pleasantly drifting back to the evening he'd spent in the arms of Marlene Dietrich, time-travelling at its best...

"Well, have you figured out the answer yet?" Clara then asked, dropping her arms to her sides.

"Not yet," Flynn snapped, his memories of Marlene becoming dust, "I'm just getting started for chrissake!"

"Maybe if you stopped taking foreign holidays every five minutes, I'd be out of here and out of your hair by now," Clara snapped back.

"The Library doesn't revolve around you, Hartley," Flynn said, advancing on her. "There are other things that require my attention other than some silly little murder attempt on your life."

"Can't you delegate the work to someone else, then?" Clara replied, unperturbed.

"There is no-one else," Flynn said, voice cracking slightly, "there's just me."

Clara frowned, before stepping forwards, staring up at his face, studying it, noting the lines around his eyes for the first time. Flynn ran his hand across his face, uncomfortable under her scrutiny. Up close and without her high-heeled boots, she was even smaller than he remembered. But despite this, there was something indomitable about her that sat at odds with her pretty face and petite figure. He remembered the way she'd smashed that book across Lamia's face, the action almost instinctive. Clara was not all she seemed, there was a storm brewing below that still surface.

"You must need an assistant, then," Clara said slowly.

Flynn shook his head. "No," he said, backing away from her, "no, no, no."

"I'm a genius," Clara said without egotism, "and I've worked in libraries before. Maybe not magic ones, but a book's a book, right?"

"I said, no!"

"It would just be temporary," Clara argued, advancing on him this time, "until you figured out whatever it is you have to figure out."

"I work alone" -

- "And if I have to stay here," Clara continued, ignoring him, "I want to earn my keep, whether bed and board is included, I don't care."

"I said, I work alone, Clara" -

- "I get this is your thing, that you're the Librarian or whatever it is you call yourself," Clara said, "that you're the main man around here, nobody else. But I'm here too, whether you like it or not, and you can't keep me like I'm a pet canary. I have to do something, Flynn, anything - within reason of course," she added hastily.

"No" -

- "Even if it's just typing or filing, I'll do it. Just give me a goddamn job, Flynn!" she snapped, stamping her foot.

"Fine!" Flynn shouted, flinging his hands up in the air. "Go and file something!"

"Why don't you do it yourself!?" Clara shouted back, forgetting her whole argument.

"I already file evil under history," Flynn said loftily. "It's my MO."

"Your modus operandi is to irritate the hell out of me," Clara retorted. "But I'll go and file something like you said."

Flynn just watched in disbelief as she then turned on her heel and left the library wing, slamming the door behind her. Somehow, in some way, he'd just hired Clara Hartley as his apprentice.

Oh my my
Oh my stars
Everything you see is ours
Or it could be if you would try...