damned_lounge | Oktoberfest '07 Entry, Of Libraries by Ireny

Title: Of Libraries
Author:bubonicwoodchuk
Beta (if applicable): None. D:
Word Count: 2,142
Rating: PG
Character(s): Thursday Next, Javert, Alec Trevelyan, Volatilus (from the Temeraire series. I can hope, can't I? D: )
Pairing(s) (if applicable): None.
Summary: Thursday the Infuriatingly Stubborn makes another attempt to bookjump.
Notes (if applicable): Plotless wonder! I apologize in advance for the quality. xD;

The problem with getting pulled into a different world, mused Thursday as she hurried down the darkened hallway, was that it was quite different from bookjumping. You knew where you stood with books, because on some immensely deep level they all had something in common, and that was that you knew how they would end.

She'd been in Jurisfiction for twenty years now - before she arrived here, anyway - and she'd never been able to ignore the shock of travelling from the written world to the real one. Her job as an agent had involved making sure that things in books happened the way they should, and going from that to a job in SpecOps, where she never really knew how things would work out, had been disconcerting, to the say the least. But there had always been that pattern - Tuesday mornings she had to make sure Emperor Zhark didn't accidentally annihilate Thraal two chapters early, Tuesday afternoons she had to concentrate when she was driving the car because it didn't just follow a premeditated pattern like it did in the BookWorld, and so on and so forth.

And now there was none of that - just a constant focus focus focus, like living in the real world all the time, which really shouldn't have been a problem but somehow was. She'd nearly forgotten to move the other night, when what looked like a chimera had attacked her Arts and Crafts group, and when she had remembered to dodge, she'd been inexplicably surprised when the thing had laid her arm open to the bone.

In the morning, when she'd woken up to find the wound neatly bandaged, she'd stared at the clean white gauze and wondered why she'd been so shocked. It had taken the better part of a day before the answer came - that sort of thing never happened in books. You dodged, and needle-sharp talons, gleaming in the torchlight, just grazed your arm as the misshapen creature hurtled past. That was how things worked. And now her subconscious had the bloody nerve to think that this was all a book, even if she didn't know how things would end.

Her face, which had gradually slipped into a frown as she made her way through the F-block, lightened somewhat as her torch illuminated the women's bathroom nearest her room and the three men standing by the door. They'd actually come, then - not that she'd thought they'd forget, mind you, but bloody strange things happened around here after night fell.

The tallest of the three nodded briefly at her. "Mme. Next."

"M. Javert." She'd told him several times that really, Thursday was fine, but he didn't seem to be capable of accepting something so casual where a lady was concerned, so stiff formalities it was for the time being. "And good evening, Alec, Volly," she added to the other men, who weren't nearly so insistent on decorum.

Alec Trevelyan nodded back; "Thursy!" said Volly happily, his large blue eyes wide as ever.

"Sorry I'm late," said Thursday. "I fell asleep at my desk, I'm afraid. I didn't mean to, of course, but..."

Javert waved her off. "At least you got some rest before nightfall. Shall we proceed?"

"Yes. Yes, I think so."

"Books?" inquired Volly, twitching his shoulderblades slightly.

Thursday grinned involuntarily - it was impossible to stay annoyed with him around. "Yes, Volly. Books."

"About bloody time," grumbled Alec as he and Javert turned to lead the way, Thursday and Volly close behind.

-----

There was a brawl going on in the Sun Room - there always was - and they'd been noticed, but the library was only a short dash away, and they'd managed to reach it and slam the door behind them before any of them were injured. The bookshelves seemed somehow taller at night - more threatening, if it were possible for bookshelves to look threatening. Here, the four torches made little headway against the darkness, and what little light there was flickered uncertainly, casting eerie shadows along the books' faded spines and worn covers.

"Now, Mme. Next," said Javert, glancing at her, "what was it you wanted to find?"

"A few books. My nurse took my copy of Jane Eyre away a few days ago, and she refused to give it back to me when I asked her for it. Something about my succumbing to dangerous delusions - thinking I could enter books - you know, the usual. She wasn't too happy about my asking to borrow it in the first place."

"Charlotte Brontë, wasn't it," said Alec abruptly, peering at the titles on the nearest shelf, and Thursday responded in the affirmative.

In the end it was, out of everyone in the group, Volly who found the book and presented it to Thursday with a ridiculously proud grin on his face. The grey-haired young man was a bit of a mystery - he had turned up one day (but then, so had everyone), all but clinging to Javert's arm, tripping himself up with every other step and wondering plaintively where some fellow named James had gone. It didn't seem he had the mental capacity to elaborate on the nature of this James, except for the fact that he "looked British," whatever that meant (though Alec had gone absolutely mental). Nor could he fully explain what he meant by his constant digressions on the subjects of dragons and cows. It was all very odd.

But Thursday smiled at him, told him he'd done a very good job indeed - which nearly made him fall over with excitement - and sat down at the nearest table, opening the book at the part where Jane first meets Rochester. There wasn't much logic to her decision to start there, other than the fact that she'd already entered at that point once before, forty-four years previous.

"Wait," said Alec. "What are we - " here he gestured at Javert, Volly, and himself - "here for again? Other than playing at bodyguards, of course."

"You're both fictional," said Thursday absently, keeping her torch trained on the open book. "Well, you and M. Javert are, at any rate. I don't know about Volly."

"Books?" said Volly, nudging the pages with his face.

"I'm quite certain, Mme. Next, that neither of us needed to be reminded of the fact."

"Yeah - er - sorry about that. Look, the two of you are the only patients I've actually talked to who come from a written medium - technically, anyway; Alec's from a screenplay, which I guess counts. Anyway, I thought I could try to bookjump again - maybe having a BookWorlder nearby might make things easier - "

"I thought everyone's powers were dulled," interrupted Alec. "If I recall correctly, you said that you'd barely read two lines before a headache set in."

"What's more," added Javert, "I believe we established that neither of us are the people you remember."

Damn.

The man had a point. She kept forgetting they weren't actually characters as such, as they were in her own world. They were real, for a given definition of the word - people with lives that existed beyond the scope of the film or the book, not actors on a stage aware of the fictional nature of their roles. It was why Javert kept his distance, why Alec tended to speak to her with an almost unnoticeable tenseness about him. And it wasn't just them she forgot about - there'd been the fiasco with Harry Potter, and quite possibly she'd upset Armand St. Just as well.

They all thought she knew too much.

But it was so bloody easy to forget when you'd worked with - if not them, then people like them - for nigh on twenty years. You expected them to be BookWorlders. And now she felt incredibly stupid for not remembering. She would've remembered if she'd been in the BookWorld - you never came up with bloody stupid ideas like this one in books.

Okay. Change of plans.

"Even if I can't fully bookjump, I don't think I'll need to. All I have to do is get far enough into the BookWorld to draw someone's attention to us. Preferably someone I know - hence the classic literature. I don't think it worked at all last time because I was heavily sedated then; it ought to work now."

She paused to take a deep breath, then began to read, letting her voice rise and fall, putting as much emotion into the words as she possibly could. The old advice Miss Havisham had given her, the tips for beginners she thought she'd never have to use again, the closing her eyes and really picturing everything the way Granny Next had taught her - all of it bubbled to the surface again, and she read as she'd never read before.

Halfway down the first page her head started to pound, but she only grimaced and read louder and faster. A paragraph more, and her vision began to cloud at the edges. Two sentences later her hands were shaking slightly, and the world around her hadn't so much as blurred. From a great distance away, she thought she heard someone calling her name, but she didn't dare turn. If she turned, everything would be lost. For the briefest of moments, she caught a glimpse of a rising moon, a frozen path, heard the sound of galloping hooves -

- and then, of course, everything went black before she could react.

-----

She woke to the sound of "Thursy?" and Volly headbutting her inquisitively (at least, she hoped it was Volly; somehow she couldn't see Javert or Trevelyan doing something like that). Strange, she thought; she could have sworn she hadn't started reading in bed. She tried opening her eyes - no luck - and groaned. Even breathing made her head ache more.

"Awake, then?" Trevelyan's voice - ordinarily it might have been welcome, but this time it only sent waves of pain across her eyeballs. "It's best if you don't move - you cracked your head on the table when you blacked out, and it looked like it was already aching before that."

A pill of some sort was awkwardly pressed between her lips. "Ibuprofen," said Javert's voice. "At least, that's what Trevelyan calls it. Don't be surprised if you begin to sprout extra appendages or something similar."

Thursday groaned again, but she swallowed the pill. "Whr'mI?" she mumbled, trying not to move her lips too much.

"Your - ah, well, your room, actually." It was amazing just how much mortification the former inspector could put into his voice.

"Get over it, Javert. It looks exactly the same as yours."

"You - flickered slightly for a moment," Javert continued, ignoring his not-quite-ally. "And then you passed out. Several undead bats attacked us soon afterward - "

"Ew," contributed Volly.

" - naturally, we assumed it would be best if we withdrew."

"Naturally," said Thursday weakly. Her ears were ringing and her headache had only subsided slightly. "Thanks. Owe you," she added, though appreciative as she was, all she wanted was for all three of them to leave.

"Anytime," said Trevelyan breezily; Javert snorted.

"Get some rest, Next. And don't try this again."

"Mm?" She was nearly insensible by now, but she still managed to notice that he'd failed to call her Madame.

"I imagine you're of more help to the patients, fictional or not, if you're conscious."

"Mm."

There was the sound of retreating footsteps, then blessed silence.

Even through the haze of pain, Thursday still managed to think Oh GSD, what a bloody disaster. There were no other words for it. She'd hoped - she thought she'd known - that she'd be able to make some headway - and she had. But it wasn't nearly enough, and that frustrated her more than anything - that, and the thought that she wouldn't have messed up in the BookWorld.

She tried to make herself slightly more comfortable; it was obvious she wouldn't be going anywhere else tonight. But she'd be back in the library tomorrow night with Trevelyan and Javert and Volly, and if they refused to go with her, then she'd find someone else. She'd broken through long enough to feel biting wind on her face; she knew she could do it again. She could get used to the headaches; she could get used to anything if it meant bringing her - and everyone else - that much closer to home. All she needed to do was keep the connection long enough to get help.

Thursday went to sleep, and dreamt she knew the ending to the book.

Oktoberfest '07 Entry, Of Libraries by Ireny

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