The Girl and the Librarian

Annex

The two stumbled about like drunk people for a second. It seemed to take more of a toll on Sara than it did on Flynn, however.

Sara tumbled to her hands and knees. Flynn held her loosely by her sides, keeping her steady. "Are you okay?" he asked.

She barely got the chance to nod when Flynn took off screaming for someone called Jenkins. "I just... need a– Would you stop doing that? You're making me dizzy with your running about."

He stopped on a dime. "Sorry," Flynn then shouted, "JENKINS!"

"I don't think Jenkins is home. Whoever that is."

"Impossible! He's always home, that hermit. Jenkins!"

At last, a tall, semi-long, silver-haired gentleman in a navy blue suit and polka-dotted bow tie came down the winding staircase with an indignant air about him. "What is going–?" His thought dropped off when he saw the young woman, Sara, on all fours and Flynn in a hospital gown and fuzzy slipper socks. "Who in the fresh hell is this? And why are you dressed like that?"

"Told you not to go like that," she said to Flynn.

"Obviously," Flynn uttered hoarsely, put off and gesturing wildly. "I was in the hospital."

"No! Really?" Jenkins sardonically asked, feigning surprise.

Flynn turned to Sara, giving her a knowing nod, the other person whose default setting was sarcastic. "You two will hit it off nicely," he remarked.

Jenkins waltzed up to him, stopping just short of a foot in front of him. "Flynn, we cannot have people from the outside world coming here. You know this."

"Would you relax?" He patted Jenkins' shoulder, almost patronisingly, and headed to a back room. "We're just making a pit stop. I need a shower. Hospitals. Ugh!"

"Yeah," Sara said, tittering. "I might join you," Clocking the ambivalent expression on Jenkins' face, somewhere between slightly mortified and extremely confused, she quickly changed her response. "Uh! I mean, join in on that... thought. Yeah. Wait, this place has a shower?"

"I know what you want to say," Flynn peered past one of the Annex's pillars and stared at her. "It's bigger on the inside!" He turned a corner and disappeared through a red door.

Sara hustled after him, carefully, in her platform trainers. "Is it?"

Jenkins rolled his eyes, threw his hands in the air and let them flop to his sides. "Why, yes, by all means. Make yourself at home," he muttered.

"We will!" Flynn shouted back. "Anyway, no. It just looks that way. The Library, however!" He turned on his heels. "Just you wait," Then he continued on down the way. "There is only one shower, one bedroom–"

"Which is mine!" Jenkins interjected from downstairs.

"– We'll sleep somewhere else. But, after I've gotten squeaky clean, you can wash up and change clothes."

Her eyes narrowed, inwardly wondering where she would get such a thing. "Clothes?"

"Don't worry about it," Now that they arrived, Flynn yanked open the door, pirouetted and faced her a second. "See you in five minutes," he said and backed into the room.

After the door shut in her face, she demanded, "Who the hell can get clean in five minutes?" She didn't get an answer, so she waited outside until she did, leaning sideways against the wall.

Sara reached in the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a few pieces of folded paper; it was Flynn's hospital chart. She studied it carefully, going over each word twice. Then she saw the blood test results. A particular set of tests normally not done on a man, but she insisted that he'd have it done and quick.