Team Jenkins

We live in cities you'll never see on screen
Not very pretty, but we sure know how to run things
Living in ruins of a palace within my dreams
And you know, we're on each other's team...

Blowing Clara one last kiss, Flynn finally took his leave, striding through the back door, his broad shoulders hunching, heart breaking behind his bluster. With a flash of blinding white, he was gone as if he had never been. Clara exhaled sharply, before turning away from the back door, hating the sight of it. It always came to this, Flynn leaving, Clara being left behind, the architect of her own despair, sending him away when he said he would stay.

"I know all about his detours to your doorstep by the way," Jenkins said, locking away the Libris Fabula, "nothing gets past me, and I mean nothing." He'd collected the rest of the books donated to Bremen by Thomson Dieter, who had been a connoisseur of rare books and manuscripts, Jenkins armed with the intention of cataloguing them himself, separating the dangerous from the delightful, promising himself a long evening with a fifteenth century folio he'd spied in the pile, planning on perusing its pages whilst sipping a cup of Earl Grey in front of a roaring fire.

"Windowsill actually," Clara corrected him, Jacob saluting her as he strode past the doorway, Clara tipping an imaginary hat in return.

"Whatever," Jenkins said, clearing away some crystal balls.

Clara raised an eyebrow, folding her arms across her chest.

"You're distracting Flynn from finding the Library," Jenkins said, folding up a lace tablecloth, "and that I cannot tolerate."

"You won't tolerate it!?" Clara said incredulously. "Flynn is forty one, not four years old. He doesn't need your approval or disapproval" -

- "And the world doesn't need him warming your bed when he should be doing his work," Jenkins said coldly, making Clara pale. "You should have stuck with Stone, Clara. For all his faults, at least he's here and not in the hereafter."

"I don't want Jacob," Clara spat.

"And I don't want history repeating itself," Jenkins retorted, thinking of the rule of three, Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot. All the components for disaster in the Annex were there; the king, the queen and the loyal knight, the wildcard running off with another man's wife.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Clara said, shaking her head at him, "but if mumbling makes you happy, go ahead, be my guest."

"I do not mumble."

"Yes, you do."

"I don't."

"You do."

"You know, I miss your warts," Jenkins said, tilting his head to the side. "They gave you such a picturesque air."

"I bet you wish you'd taken a picture for posterity," Clara parried.

"You would have broken the camera," Jenkins said dourly.

"Beauty like this cannot be contained," Clara said, doing a sarcastic twirl.

"No it can't," Jenkins said quietly, remembering Guinevere, the coming storm. He'd thought he'd won, but he hadn't, setting the stage for his own downfall, but it had been done out of love, a son's love for a woman who wasn't his mother. Yes, the storm was coming, and he would have to meet it head on, reaping the whirlwind he'd sown.

The End

~*~

Author's Note: The sequel, Reap The Whirlwind, can be found under the 'My Stories' section of my profile.