AND SHE WAS NOT AN ADVENTURE I FLYNN CARSEN

The Game Is Afoot

The Game Is Afoot

Caught up in a mystery
No one to attend
Back in the beginning
But she started at the end...

Clara cleared away the tea-caddy and sugar-tongs, her hands shaking. After the bomb-shell Eve had dropped, Clara's world had retracted in on itself like a kaleidoscope, before rearranging itself in lines she didn't recognize.

"So you and Flynn," Eve asked in an undertone, "what's that about?"

"What do you mean?" Clara said, confused.

"Did you meet him online?" Eve said, confusing Clara even further.

"No, it was in Starbucks," Clara replied.

"Oh," Eve said, setting her teacup down, "it's just you meet all sorts of crackpots online, so I thought..."

"Me and Flynn, we're not together," Clara said, brow furrowing.

"Sorry, I just thought" -

- "Don't think anything," Clara said, getting annoyed now.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I just didn't immediately make the connection between Clara Hartley and you," Eve replied, "when it seems obvious now."

"Obviously."

Eve raised her eyebrows at Clara's tone.

"There are people trying to kill me and people trying to kill potential Librarians," Clara snapped. "My name is Clara and there's a Clara Hartley on their hit-list. But because Charlene said I was a cleaner, you completely ruled me out when a two year old could have made the connection."

Eve's jaw tightened, but she didn't say anything else, realising she couldn't. She had been insultingly startled to discover Clara was the Clara Hartley on the list, arguing with Flynn for a good five minutes over it until reluctantly accepting the fact.

"Why are you so interested in Flynn anyways?" Clara asked.

"I'm not interested in Flynn," Eve said abruptly, standing up, "I was just curious that's all."

"And curiosity killed the cat," Flynn said, appearing out of thin air.

~*~

Clara stepped through the doors of St. Francis Episcopal Hospital, trailing in Eve and Flynn's wake, feeling like a third wheel again. They were meant to be tracking down the other three potential Librarians, finding them before the Serpent Brotherhood did, but Clara wasn't exactly feeling the love from Eve and Flynn. As Clara tripped over a piece of loose linoleum, Eve and Flynn glared at her in unison, confirming her suspicions they just saw her as a burden they had to babysit, slowing them down and distracting them from their day job of saving the day.

Some medics suddenly burst through the doors behind them, pushing a hospital trolley bearing an unconscious woman, her face slack, eyes shut. "Female, early twenties, collapsed at school, high temperature, BP 140 over 90, pulse 100, temp 102.5," one of the medics reeled off to a doctor as they moved, Clara stepping back to give them some space, Flynn and Eve not showing any such consideration. "Sudden high fever, sore joints, nausea and vomiting," the medic continued as more medical staff joined the procession, Flynn following them, ducking and diving, trying and failing to get a word in edgeways.

Rolling her eyes, Clara grabbed the back of his greatcoat, hauling him back, making Flynn whirl on her as Eve followed the hospital trolley down the hall.

"What are you doing?" Flynn hissed, glancing at Eve's retreating back.

"What are you doing?" Clara hissed back.