fandomhigh | The Library Is Very Closed (Locked, NFB)

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The Library Is Very Closed (Locked, NFB)

Janet walked blearily toward the library. She was going in early, while it was still closed, to get the backlog taken care of. As she glanced up from trying to make sure she didn't trip over her own feet, she saw--lightning? Lightning through the library windows? Janet broke into a run, adrenaline pushing away the tiredness.

She pushed open the unlocked doors, dropped her coffee mug on the nearest table, and looked around the lightning and faint clouds of smoke to see what the hell was going on. Janet clasped the straps of her backpack in both hands and brought it in front of her, ready to use as a weapon if she needed to.

The library looked like it had been through a windstorm. Whatever protective spell kept the books from being harmed had held, but they were blown about and littered the floor. Everything else was scattered, torn, splashed or smeared everywhere.

In the middle of it, Methos sat on his heels, drained. A sword was in his hand but the point trailed on the ground. In front of him was the severed head of a blond boy, a bit farther away the body.

Janet's eyes widened and she ran forward, stopping five feet away from the...body. And Methos. "What the hell?"

OOC: This post was jointly written by Janet and Methos; this is posted by Janet with Methos' permission. I'm posting it as I'm in the earlier time zone. Slow-play is our friend here, and you've been contacted privately if you're on the list of people who can comment. :) We'll have another post later today with the library open for more interaction. (Methos? I assumed NFB due to OMG!angst and other IC sekrit stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong and I'll edit.)

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She'd seen a glimpse of this in him before. Only a glimpse, the day she'd shown him her binder and the analyses and test results it contained. Five thousand years is a lot of living, Janet. What you see and what you get are two different things. You know that.

His eyes looked tired and old. Even knowing his age, she hadn't been prepared to see every year reflected in his eyes. His voice was bitter as he spat the words out at her. That's a hard life. "You didn't mention that," said Janet. Her voice was slightly more gentle now, but she was still cautious and alert. "You didn't mention any details. I didn't push. It was your story, to tell in your own time--or not." Her voice became firmer again. "But I think your time was chosen for you."

She glanced back down at the body. It wasn't beyond her to believe that the body of the child housed someone who'd lived a thousand years. "What are you going to do now?" she asked, meeting Methos' eyes again.

He wanted to look away from her gaze, but couldn't. It wasn't disgusted, horrified, repulsed. It was... alert, focused. She used that gaze like a scalpel, to pare through the unnecessary to the vital point. What are you going to do now?

"Body," he managed. "Must get rid of the body." He glanced towards the library doors. "Wonder what the chances are of no one noticing that?"

"Your chances range from 'lousy' to 'downright impossible.'" Janet raised an eyebrow. Her first instinct was to call Rover and the police, let them take the body, and let the school's administration deal with the whole damned issue.

If you can get that much information out of a small sample of blood, Janet, think what the morgue could do with an entire body. She didn't want him to become someone's science project. The thought of the Trust or the NID--much less another Adrian Conrad--getting their hands on him sickened her.

Oh, hell. She was never very good at letting other people handle things for her anyway.

"You owe me," said Janet, reaching into her backpack and pulling out some slightly crushed packets of alcohol wipes and a second pair of surgical gloves. She walked up to Methos and put the packets and the gloves on the counter. She kept her gaze on his and deliberately didn't look at the sword sitting entirely too close to her. "Clean off your hands and put on the gloves first."

Five thousand years old or not, you don't deal with bodily fluids without surgical gloves.

Methos stared at Janet and the medical supplies with a complete lack of comprehension. Slowly, the words penetrated. His hands were steadier, now; he could rip open the packet and pull out the damp wipe, the chilling bite of alcohol against his hands. It stripped the blood that had splashed onto him, turning the wipe reddish-brown but leaving him clean.

With the same sort of dreamlike slowness, he picked up the gloves. "You don't have to do this," he said, finally. "You should go. You don't have to do this." I'll clean it up, and then I'll leave, because who will have a librarian who beheads small boys? "I don't want you to get in trouble."

He's exhibiting symptoms of acute stress reaction. She'd seen it before in troops coming back from offworld. Does he have posttraumatic stress disorder? Is it possible for him to avoid developing it?

"I know I don't have to." Janet shook her head at Methos and stood her ground. "I'm not going. If you get me into trouble, then you can do your best to get me out of it." She looked at the sword on the ground. "You said it was self-defense. You said that--" Not a boy. "--person killed everyone who trusted him."

She hated the thought of not informing the proper authorities. "Does he have family?" she asked. "Someone that will miss him?" If there was going to be someone--anyone--who would need to know what had happened, that changed things.

"None of us has family." Equilibrium was reasserting itself with every passing heartbeaat. The purpose for the gloves finally seeped into his mind, and the futility of them, so he left them where they lay and crossed to kneel beside Kenny's body. "Which doesn't mean we don't have friends. If he did, I don't know about them." Or whether they would be interested in vengence -- or justice.

It was gruesome, scooping up the body into his arms, rising to his feet. In five thousand years, he'd never encountered an Immortal who had suffered their first death so young. He rose to his feet and turned to face Janet. "It's not self defense. It's kill or be killed."

Janet frowned. He has to have family. He was definitively human; his genetic structure was perfectly normal except for an almost impossible lack of mutations. It's not possible not to have family. "Then you make your own family," she said. "A lot of people do."

Janet glanced around. "You need something to wrap the body in," she said. "And to hold the head." She didn't let herself think about the macabre scene in front of her. She didn't think about the fact that this not-quite-child looked to be the same age as Cassie when she'd come to Earth. She had long practice at surveying disasters calmly. She'd break down later. When she could.

"Kill or be killed," echoed Janet. "How is that not self-defense?"

"I don't know," Methos said, rather helplessly. "It just... it's not the same thing."

"A garbage bag, maybe," he said. "Something that will contain the blood."

"If you hadn't killed him," said Janet. "He would have killed you." She paused and stared at him. "Did you start this fight?"

The irony of speaking to a five thousand year old man the way she'd speak to Cassie was not lost on her.

Janet nodded tersely. "Yes," she said, getting several from behind the Collections Desk. She took a pair of scissors and cut them open, then spread them on a clear patch of ground.

Methos knelt to lower the body onto the bags Janet was spreading on the ground. There was a bullet hole in his shirt, and blood soaked the area around it. He laughed, humorlessly. "No. I didn't start this fight. But I was damn well going to end it."

He looked up to meet Janet's eyes. "This is what we do. We kill each other. For the so-called Prize, for power, for vengence, because we're somehow still human enough to enjoy murdering for the sake of it. And it doesn't end, not until only one of us is left."

"So you defended yourself when you were attacked," said Janet. "What were you supposed to do? Let him take your head off instead?" She noticed the bullet hole in his shirt and frowned at it. "You're remarkably not dead for someone with a bullet directly through the aorta and that much blood loss." She walked around the body, knelt down, and reached to examine him. She wanted to make sure he was all right.

His eyes held very little guilt. They were full of regret, though, and no small amount of anger--even some self-loathing, she though, hiding behind everything else. "What an absolute waste of life," said Janet, her eyes darkening. When I think of all the people I've seen who've fought and died in a war and they kill each other over some stupid prize? "What's this so-called prize supposed to be? A trophy? A plaque with 'Immortal of the Millenium' engraved on it?"

She looked down at the body. A thousand years ago, life was different. Harsher. "Did he ever get the chance to just be a child?"

"Huh? Right. He had a gun. Smart way to take down someone bigger than you. Unfortunately for him, I healed before it killed me, so he didn't get a chance to take my head while I was down."

"God knows what the Prize is. And I mean that rather literally. All I know is that I don't want it. But I don't want to die, either, so I have to keep fighting."

"Probably not. If life was fair, he would have grown old and died and never had to fight. But life isn't fair, and he stayed alive as long as he could, and then he lost."

The only way they can die is to have their head cut off? Fascinating. The gruesome aspects weren't lost on her, but Janet had a great deal of practice with clinical detachment.

"I'm glad you're still alive," she said. "And I'm glad you intend to stay that way, despite--" She looked down at the body. "--his worst intentions."

Janet sighed. "Now if only life were fair for all of us." She wrapped the garbage bags around the body and stood.

OOC: OMG. Finally got back to this. Want to have Methos get Rovered after this, Janet can gripe, and then we can end the scene?

"Janet," Methos said. He caught her wrist to get her attention. "Thank you. I... am very grateful for your help."

They both heard the squeaking out in the hallway of Rover coming. "Looks like it's time to pay the piper," Methos said grimly.

She looked up at Methos, surprised when she felt his hand close firmly around her wrist. "You're welcome." There was more underneath the surface of what he was saying, but Janet couldn't interpret it right now.

She glanced at the door. "Good luck with the Dean," she said. "I've heard he's a terror."

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The Library Is Very Closed (Locked, NFB)

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