The Unknown Librarian *A The Librarians series fanfiction*

Drills and A New Case

The next day, I woke up rather late. Thankfully Baird let me sleep in. Speaking of whom, I heard her talking downstairs. "Which is why we'll run drills again tomorrow and every day until I'm sure I can take you out into the field with even a chance of you coming back in one piece." she said. I got up and walked downstairs. Jenkins was walking with a relatively large globe in his hands. "Oh, how substandard were they?" Jenkins asked, slightly sarcastic. "Good pep talk, Jenkins." Colonel Baird said, frustrated. I chuckled. 

"While you were out, a new page appeared in the clipping book." Jenkins said. Baird offered me the chance to go out there solo, but I wasn't about to go out there without my friends, so I told her I wasn't going anywhere without them. She told me that she had to train them, so I could sleep in when I needed to and join if/when I wanted to. Jake, Cassie, Zeke, and I went over to the book. "Looks fascinating." Jenkins teased. 

"No! Not yet!" Baird said. "Well, this is crazy. Every day, a new page shows up of weird newspaper clippings in this book." Jake said, wrapping his arms around me as I leaned my back against his chest. "And every day, you tell us to ignore it." Cassie added. "We've hardly opened it since the day Flynn left." Zeke said. "Because you're not ready." Baird said. 

"Colonel, is it possible that it's not them that's not ready, but you?" I asked. "Flynn told us we were supposed to help people." Cassie said. "Yeah. Ezekiel's right. Flynn gave us a job. We're supposed too be checking out the weird, not sit around here." Jake said. "Ezekiel's right. I said that." Cassandra said. I pulled Jake's arms away from me so I could follow Baird. I looked at him and he nodded in understanding. 

"Jenkins, stay out-" Baird said, cutting herself off. She looked around the space with fascination. "Marvelous, isn't it? I told you, this is where I do my research. Judson always insists that we just lock the artifacts away, but I experiment on them, study them, improve them." Jenkins said, working on the globe thing I saw earlier. I stood in the doorway, making sure Colonel Baird couldn't see me. Jenkins touched something to the material inside the globe. "Ha." he muttered under his breath. 

"It's hard enough to rein them in without you dangling that clippings book in front of them." Baird said. "Why rein them?" Jenkins and I asked. "You've got to put them in the field sooner or later." Jenkins continued. "I've gone into the field with experienced soldiers with a good plan, good Intel, and still come home with nothing but dog tags. I'm talking soldiers with training who've seen combat. These four... I promised Flynn I'd keep them alive. They're not even close to ready. Violet's the only one ready." Baird said. "But Flynn agrees that we need to have the experience. We need the in-field experience so we even have an idea of what will happen. When the four of us signed up for this, we knew what was expected of us. We know that on any given day, one of us could die like I did a few weeks ago. Librarians get stabbed, shot at, bitten, and cursed all the time. A lot of them manage to survive another day. They got dropped into this and a lot of them survive. It'll be even easier since there's five of us who can protect each other at a moment's notice. We need to be able to do our job and we can't do that if you're sheltering us." I said. Jenkins nodded in agreement. I smiled. 

"I appreciate you wanting to keep them out of harm's way, but Librarians exist to keep magic out of the wrong hands. Their job is to be in harm's way." Jenkins said. "I can't protect four of them at once and three of them can't take care of themselves, not without a lot more training." Baird said. "We used to put Librarians in the field with no training at all." Jenkins reminded her. "Oh, yeah? And how many came back?" Baird said, trying to prove her point. "The best ones." Jenkins and I said. 

I walked back with Colonel Baird, bickering under our breaths when she notices them looking at the clippings book. I smiled behind her. "I said-" Baird started. "Henry Birch, 21. He was on a full scholarship in chemical engineering at Boston University. He went missing two days ago." Cassie said, reading what she read in the article. "Seven other clippings, all missing people disappeared this year." Jake said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. I know I like him, but I don't know how he sees me. I could never admit it though. It would destroy me. "That many, the police are on it." Baird said. "Nope." I said. I've looked at the book every day after everyone went to bed. I saw them when the book put them in. "The victims are from all around the country. The only reason to suspect they're connected is that they all showed up in our magic book." Ezekiel said. "That's eight people gone. Maybe dead. We don't-I mean, you know? And how many more are gonna go missing before we step in?" Jake said.