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Library, Monday

As promised, Gabrielle arrived bright and early at the library on the first day of her new shift and before doing anything else (well, setting the scroll she was working on down at the front desk) got the first of two pots of coffee brewing. Nobody had ever told her how much coffee to use, and the instructions about scoops that she'd read on the back of the first can she'd looked at sometime early last semester were not terribly helpful when that can hadn't had a scoop in it, so . . . she used a lot, dumping the grounds straight from the can into the filter with what she thought was a fairly practiced eye by now.

There was something awfully fitting about starting off the first week of a new year -- by this era's standards, not hers at home -- and a new semester in the library, in her opinion.

And the smell of the coffee made it seem a little cozier, which was nice; it hadn't been cold at all while she'd been home for break.

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"Bobby, we must have at least a thousand of those." Gabrielle wasn't complaining, really, more like teasing him, but honestly now. "Could you maybe be a little more specific? And enthused. Enthusiasm would help."

"It's kind of hard to be enthusiastic about accounting, Gabby," Bobby made a face.

"Why would you want to do that?" Gabrielle asked, making a face to match but mostly at the nickname. It wasn't as if she and Xena ever really had more than about 40 dinars to rub together at any given time.

Gabby, Bobby, it rhymed and had slipped out without him really thinking about it. He shrugged. "I don't, really, but it's the family business and what my dad wants for me." And right now it sounded a hell of a lot better than being a superhero.

"I've heard that before." The textbooks could wait a little while. Gabrielle narrowed her eyes and looked at him thoughtfully. "I don't doubt that your father only means well, Bobby, but what about what you want? If you're going to tell me that this is it, you'll need to sell it better than that."

"What I want is a normal life," he said, and that much, at least, he was pretty vehement about. "And something like this? It's just, you know. Part of that package."

A normal life was the last thing Gabrielle had wanted. It was why she'd run away from home, after all, but she had no trouble understanding why someone else would want that.

Normal was relative, anyhow.

"There has to be something else, though," she persisted. "Something you love. You can't just . . . just do what you're expected to do and be miserable in the process, or what's the point, and what do you mean, anyway? Your life doesn't seem that out of the ordinary to me."

"I'm good at math, though," Bobby admitted. "And my other talents? Well, there's nobody out there who's gonna pay me to use 'em, let me put it that way." Oh so neatly (or so he figured, anyway) sidestepping the question about the relative normality of his life.

"So you're going to let them go to waste?" This is what you get for talking to a stubborn idealist, Bobby. "Whatever they are? That doesn't seem right."

"I didn't say that!" Bobby said defensively. "It's just that... it's not a useful talent. I can't make a living off it. Doesn't mean I'm gonna ignore it." He couldn't ignore it, really, thank you weird biology.

"Being a bard isn't terribly profitable either," Gabrielle pointed out mildly, taking the empathy tack that always worked so well for her. "At least not for me. That doesn't mean it's not useful. You call it a talent -- that means it's useful by default. Even if it doesn't pay. The important part is putting it to use where it'll make a difference to someone."

Aw. Didn't you just want to pat her on the head?

Well, now she sounded like Scott.

"What if it's dangerous?" he asked. "This talent, I mean?" You know. Hypothetically.

. . . you're talking to the girl who runs around with the Warrior Princess, Bobby. Not that we expect you to know that.

"That's always a possibility." Gods knew she'd talked herself into trouble more times than she could count, and that was before she even factored in things like Xena's cut-off-the-flow-of-blood-to-your-brain neckpinch and mad chakram skills. "But that doesn't rule out the possibility that you can use it for good."

Gabrielle still believed everything could be used for good.

"Maybe," Bobby allowed grudgingly. "But good doesn't have to mean running around being a hero."

...Nobody said it did, Bobby. That's aaaaaaall you.

"No," Gabrielle conceded. "But what's wrong with that?"

Xena would disagree with the 'hero' assessment, but much to her frequent chagrin Gabrielle pinned it on her anyway, especially in her scrolls. "Personally, I think it's fun. Its own reward, too."

"Why am I not surprised?" Bobby said, cracking a smile at Gabrielle's assertion.

Gabrielle twirled her quill between her fingers and gave him an encouraging grin. "Am I really that predictable, Bobby?"

"Maaaaybe?" he drawled. "Is that a bad thing?"

"Only sometimes," she decided. Like when she was trying to sneak up on Tahiri, for example.

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Library, Monday

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