The Library looked much as it always did. That was strange, in a way, as he half imagined that there would be fire in the streets, and the building in ruins, people running and screaming down the streets. From the papers he had been reading to catch up since waking from his coma, he had imagined the world had all but imploded. Yet the streets were quiet. The buildings were in one piece. The people seemed the same as they always were at this time in the morning. Nothing seemed out of place. He had been lost in a coma, in a dream world, and yet it felt as though he had not missed a beat.

The same old routine, something he should just slide right back into, welcoming him upon his return. And he was hopeful that it would be so easy.

Unlocking the front doors, he moved into the Library, not turning the sign on the door from Closed to Open. They weren’t open, and wouldn’t be for a few days yet, while they got things back in order and Tony caught up on things since his absence. After all, he had been in the hospital before the epidemic of sleep had hit, and thus things were even more behind than ever. He had piles of mail, tons of unsorted and even unchecked in books.

Who had been returning books during all that? He supposed it seemed less comprehensible to him, since he had been trapped in a riddle in ancient England. Library books had been the last thing on his mind, at the time. But not the case here: the returns were full, including the outside drop offs and the parking lot box. He would have to bring them all in and check them in. There would also have to be a lot of backdating: he imagined they would all be overdue, if the library had been closed for the duration of his stay in the hospital.

He’d figure it out.

Limping on his cane, he wondered when his leg would be strong again. Though most of his other injuries, the bruises and the bump on his head, had all healed during his sleep, his leg was still near useless from all the surgeries. It would need longer to heal, at least to the point where he could walk without a cane. For now, he was stuck with it getting in the way of his work. Unused to juggling it and tasks like checking in and rough sorting, he found himself dropping it constantly.

The first couple hours were mostly harmless. He had some frustrations, but he found himself forming a new rhythm, to accommodate. Shelf smaller stacks. Rough sort one row on the cart at a time, spines facing up, pulling one letter off at a time and making small piles on the shelves, rather than struggling to put all the books on properly. Put together carts with only two rows for shelving in the main library, so he didn’t have to bend all the way down to the floor to get the last shelf. Simple things that slowed down the work a bit, but certainly helped him.

Carol arrived around midday, to help sort out documents and periodicals while Tony worked elsewhere. He saw her as she came behind the front desk to put her coat in the staff room, as she always did. Their eyes met and they were both awkwardly forced into idle conversation. A greeting, the typical questions about health and how the day was going. Work comments. Then she went upstairs. To say things were tense, awkward, would be an understatement.

He remembered their last conversation, at least most of it, before the coma had hit him. He had already been in the hospital due to his leg and head injury, and was constantly stricken with the impossible-to-ignore urge to escape. His dear friend Amara was brilliant for getting him out of the hospital a few times, and perhaps that had spoiled him. When Carol came to visit the first thing he asked her to do was help him out of the hospital room. She hadn't been easy to convince, but he promised her he would stay in his wheelchair, and nothing could possibly go wrong. He had done it before, after all.

So the duo escaped, fleeing to the park. A beautiful day demanded it, and the sun had never looked more tempting. They sat out on the grass, Tony breaking his promise immediately, but he was only sitting a dew feet away from the wheelchair so Carol didn't mind. At first it was nice. She brought sandwiches from a nearby vendor over for them, and they ate and talked. Tony was still uncomfortable around her, due to the way she constantly acted at work, but once again, like their short 'date', she seemed rather normal.

She asked him why he had been so weird following that date, but he did not answer her. How could he tell her he dreamed of killing her? That was not something one told their friends. Unless they didn't actually want to keep said friends.

Things were complicated. He had no idea how to treat her. The date had been perfectly pleasant, and this trip to the park was surprisingly nice, but he knew she did not act like this a majority of the time. Normally she was unpleasant, garish and unfathomably embarrassing in her outlandish flirting with him, making him miserable and forcing him to constantly flee or hide whenever she came down to the front desk. He couldn't understand why she was two such very different people, and at length he asked her while they were sitting out under the sun. Which, as it turned out, was a dumb thing to do.

He remembered her stricken face. Perhaps it had been his wording. Something he said to make her look like he had just told her Santa Claus wasn't real. She looked at him with her eyes watering, her face flushed red. Embarrassment? Anger? At that moment he couldn't tell, but soon she was yelling at him and he had no idea how to follow it. Not the most used to fighting with people, Tony often followed the believe that one should be guilty of something before being yelled at. Since he had not, to his knowledge, done anything to her besides a few awkward moments that they were working through, he didn't know where her anger was coming from.

She called him an idiot. She told him he was the most dense man she had ever come across. She told him in no short terms that he was a complete and utter waste of space, time and energy, and if he didn't understand her by now he never would. She then proceeded to slap him hard across the face and storm off, leaving the man, mostly incapable of standing up on his own, sitting in the grass with a stunned, deeply confused look on his face. He called to her, apologizing and asking her to stay or come back, but she left. And then he couldn't remember anything.

Until waking up in that underground chamber. Or perhaps, as it turned out, not waking up at all. It was all a dream, after all, despite how real it had seemed.

Now he offered Carol a small smile before he made to go about his work, and she nodded at him. Some time in the afternoon he made to call after Edward, to see how he had fared in all of this, only to find the number disconnected. A little investigation during his break and he came to find that his close friend, perhaps the only one he truly had from days long gone by, had moved. Without a word he was gone, and Tony had no way of contacting him. No forwarding address. Not even a phone call or a goodbye.

That certainly weighed heavily on him as he worked. But he tried to stay focused, to do his best. He was dropping books more, having trouble picking them up and balancing them as he shelved. Distracted. Troubled.

It wasn't until a few hours before the end of his chosen shift, when she was heading home after putting in her own eight hours, that Carol spoke to him. She didn't mention the fight or the date, the trip to the park. She asked him how he was doing now that he was awake, and told him she had been worried. She went to see him a few times at the start, and saw a girl there regularly before that girl just happened to vanish. Carol had heard from the hospital staff that the young girl, who had said she was Tony's niece, had died.

At the time that information had been correct, though she had no idea it was since discovered to be a mistake.

She apologized for Tony's loss and left him standing at a row of books. She went home, conflicted and upset, and Tony tried to sort out his head. She had obviously meant Elke, but he had no idea... how could she have died? His mind instantly leaped to Virgo, thinking that maybe one of those Negaverse people she had warned him against, or a monster like the Youma that attacked the library, had gotten her. He couldn't fathom it: she was always so careful! No, it was a mistake. Things during that time of chaos were so mixed up, maybe Carol had heard about someone else. Something else. It couldn't be Elke.

She couldn't be gone.

He decided to finish his shift and meet her, as he always did. If she hadn't been in the coma, and by Carol's story of her visiting him it seemed she hadn't been, then she would still be on her normal patrol. She would come by the library, as always, and they would walk home together. It was all just a mistake.

The hours passed slowly after that. He stayed late, but his experience and work ethic slid downhill. Walking around on his cane and doing the work he needed to get down was increasingly frustrating, and he was finding his stress mounting. He threw the last few books he was supposed to shelf across the room, and that was the indicator he needed to go home. There was one last place he needed to check in with, however, and now, with his mood deteriorated, he deeply regretted saving it to the end.

Taking the elevator up, smiling, at least, for the ride as he hoped it didn't break down, he leaned back against the wall and sighed. He hadn't expected things to be easy, coming home from the hospital, and at least he wasn't disappointed in that. In fact, he wished he hadn't been so right about things. Something could have been easy, couldn't it? Hopefully he was just overreacting. Hopefully Carol had gotten things wrong. Hopefully Tony was just overreacting. If she was dead... if Elke was gone, Virgo was gone...

He couldn't even think about it.

The elevator door slid open and he limped over to very back, where his personal collection room was stored away. The door was not locked, as it never was, and he paused in front of it, staring at the handle. He remembered that place, cold and dark, rank with death and decay. That body at the desk, the sealed away wretchedness of his maggot filled flesh left for them to find. He remembered the impact of his foot hitting that door, the wood giving way. The pain and surprise, the blinding horror of that smell that was so burned into his memory even thinking of it made his eyes water. How could it have been a dream, when everything had been so tactile? So vivid. He had experienced everything. He could remember the way his skin crawled when he read that letter, the way his heart raced when they found the map of Camelot. He could feel the goosebumps of excitement and terror as they worked their way out of the corpse filled dungeon, into that grand entry way. He remembered all those faces, those senshi and the others, he remembered their names, their attitudes, their fear and their courage.

They had been as real as he was.

His hand closed around the doorknob and he turned it, pushing the door open. It was soundless, without a creak, though he half expected one considering the mood he was in. He was jumpy, to say the least. As if some monster would be waiting for him in the room, sitting amongst his collection of books.

"You're just being silly," he said out loud, moving into the room. Nothing happened as he walked in. Nothing exploded or fell down on his head. There were no riddles to solve, no rooms to explore. He looked around at all the books he had collected over the years, books of Arthurian legend, of Camelot and Kings, magic and Merlin. He ran his hand over the cover of one sitting on a stand, looking into the glass cases that held his more expensive volumes.

This was the last time he would ever look at them, he told himself.

How could he be so enamored of a place now, after having gone there to find nothing but confusion and fear? He had never felt quite comfortable there, save when he had put that strange helmet on his head, and that calm, unnatural and thus fearful now in retrospect, had washed over him. Whatever it had been, he wanted to forget it. Forget everything that had happened. The boyish fascination with a realm untouchable had been destroyed in him, and in the wake of his coma he had no will to continue his collection of books idolizing it as a fantasy.

Retreating to the door, he pulled it closed and, for the first time in perhaps ten years, locked the door. He considered throwing the key away, but he just put it in his pocket. What if someone else found it? Not that they could possibly know what it belonged to, but still. If the key stayed with him, he would know the room would always be locked. That was simple. Tony liked simple.

Limping away, he returned to the elevator and rode it down to the front desk. It didn't take him long to finish things up for the day. He was dreading this part, he realized, fixing some papers on his desk into a neat pile just to add a few more seconds to his work before having to go outside. Once he went, he would learn... he would know...

He told himself to stop being ridiculous, that Carol was often rife with misinformation, and he would have nothing to worry about once he stepped outside to find Sailor Virgo waiting. He moved to the door, staring at his feet, since it was glass and he didn't want to look outside to not see her. But he had to glance up, to lock them properly, and couldn't help but gaze around. She was waiting against the wall, where he couldn't see her, he told himself. Slowly, he drew himself away from the doors, stepping out into the night air. A chill breeze blew over him, and he looked around carefully, his heart sinking. He had known from the start, perhaps, that she wouldn't be there. Even so, he was not ready for it, his mind leaping to the idea that she had been killed, unable to think of any other reason for her not being there. It was what he had been told, and thus the only feasible explanation in his mind.

It broke his heart.

She was so young, and sweet, and he had become so protective of her. How had this happened? Could he have prevented it, if he had not been in that damned hospital? Had he let her down, by not being there, her surrogate Uncle and company on these nightly patrols? He knew he was nothing but a mortal man, as strong as his muscles allowed him to be, as brave as his being allowed, but nothing in the grand scheme of things. Not enough to stop anything, to help anyone. To do anything. But what if he could have been? If he had only been there... he had no way of knowing, and it plagued him immediately. He wobbled and leaned against the wall.

There was no point going home. He couldn't walk that journey alone, not tonight. Instead, his feet carried him to the nearest bar. It didn't take long for the alcohol haze to settle. At first, the depression felt crippling, and no amount of booze was enough. Yet as he consumed more, losing hours and hours of a paycheck on one bill tab, he found his ability to think blissfully taken from him. It wasn't the greatest tactic to escape from troubles, but it had worked in the past on a few occasions, and old habits died hard. He stayed until the bar closed, stumbling his way back home. After bumping into the wrong door and failing to get his key to open it for some reason, he wandered finally to his own apartment, leaning on his cane and struggling to get the key to fit in the lock for a different reason this time. Such a small target was difficult for a man who couldn't see straight. At length he got it, and moved into his home, slamming the door shut behind him and dropping his cane, his keys, and shedding his coat right to the floor.

Wobbly, he moved into the kitchen to see if he could find more alcohol.

"You up for a night in, Booder? You won't believe the day I've had," he slurred, his words running together a bit as he went into the livingroom, bottle and cup, which was not going to get used, in hand. He looked down at the cage, though, as it sat silently on the table. The little hamster that kept him company on lonely nights like this, his one real friend that was always there, no matter what, was curled in the corner of his cage. Asleep. Tony sat down heavily on the floor, peering into the cage. He carefully opened it, running his finger over the hamster's soft fur to wake him. The little thing, not normally a heavy sleeper, didn't stir.

"Booder?"

Something in Tony bent too far at that moment. He felt suddenly, terribly, all too sober. He gripped the cage with one hand, the other moving to nudge Booder a bit more. The hamster didn't uncurl from the peaceful ball he had made of himself. The drunken librarian's throat tightened, his hand now resting on Booder's back quietly as he stared with incredulous green eyes. It sank in that Booder was not sleeping, though he hadn't needed the conscious thought to really let him understand. The hamster was dead. Tony had never felt more alone than he did in that one horrible second, the moment he realized he had lost all the people, the things, most dear to him. Carol would barely speak to him. Edward was gone without a word. Elke, Virgo, was dead. Booder, his little companion...

A sob left his throat, unbidden and unexpected, and he pulled away from the cage. It rattled, but didn't fall off the table, still and lifeless as Tony stared at it. Water sprang to his eyes and he broke, having no reason to hold back, drunk and miserable. He hadn't cried in years, and never like this. The glass he had brought for his drink, which he hadn't intended to use in the first place, ended up smashed against the far wall in a fit of impotent rage. It was an embarrassing display that he would be glad to forget come morning, tears streaming down his face as he curled into himself on the floor, gasping for breath and sobs wracking his body until he finally passed out.

His dreams were, at first, completely devoid of anything save a sense of awareness that he was, in fact, dreaming this black, and not simply rushing through the darkness toward waking. He lingered there, staring at something deeper than night, trapped with nothing but his thoughts for company. Alone. It was maddening, and he found himself screaming, hitting invisible walls, swatting at nothing, falling through floors that weren't there, blind, aware of only himself. He couldn't live like that. Like this. Things shifted in his mind's eye, and though the darkness did not lift, he could see shapes and forms in the gloom. People he knew, perhaps, obscured and though he walked toward them they only seemed to slip further away. Phantoms in his mind, lingering at the edges of his desperation, taunting him to come to them, to be with them, to be happy. Taunting him because he could do none of those things if he could not reach them, and nothing he did brought him closer to them. Isolated, expelling profound effort to no end, running, crawling, yelling, whispering, demanding, begging. He woke up screaming, someone beating on the door and asking him if he was okay. His neighbor, the one whose apartment he had almost broke into the night before. He blearily called that he was fine, had stubbed his toe, and was fine. Silence.

His head was aching, pounding against his skull like his brain was trying to escape. He sat up, pain lancing up his leg. He looked around, half dazed, but his eyes fell on the cage and he remembered everything with startling clarity. His heart was beating in his stomach, as low as it had sunken, his dark, blood shot eyes lingering on Booder's curled little form, nestled so deceptively, so peacefully against the wood chips. Hungover, but at least more clearheaded than the night before, Tony struggled profoundly to get to his feet, taking the bottle of whiskey with him as he retreated. Away from death and misery. Away from responsibilities, knowing the day was waiting and the library was empty. Away from people he could lose and those he already had. He shut the door to his bedroom behind him, got in bed, and stayed there.

The phone started to ring around noon, but he did not stir to pick it up. His voice mail clicked, beeping, Carol's voice filling the room. The first call was just a reminder that he did, in fact, have work that day. The second was more questioning, probing. He was never late, unless something bad had happened. Where was he? The third and fourth were more concerned, Carol asking if he was okay, if he was upset about something from yesterday. On the fifth call she apologized for being upset with him, and spent a few minutes explaining why she was so conflicted around him. He didn't listen, and missed everything she said. The sixth call included her asking about Elke, if that was why he was not picking up. Seventh promised she would send an emergency crew to his house if he didn't pick up. No more calls got through after that, as he threw his pillow at the phone and it got disconnected, hitting the floor without him even glancing at it.

He was somewhere between hungover and drunk, in a daze that left his mind blank, at least. The addition of the pain killers he had been given for his leg was a dangerous, but potently calming, concoction. He only got up when he actually heard knocking at the door, and people calling for him. That damn Carol hadn't been joking. He convinced them he was fine and they could leave, before he flopped on the sofa to nap, think, and watch television. He never went anywhere without the bottle in hand.

In the back of his mind he knew this was excessive. He knew he had no right to be so miserable, that times were tough for everyone and he was suffering, yes, but there were so many others who must have lost more. Friends, family, lovers: how was his pain any greater than theirs? It wasn’t, he knew, but he selfishly wondered why he should care about them. He was a librarian, not a savior. Not a humanitarian. By going to work, doing his daily duty, what was he offering anyone? A day to read. A late fine. A free computer. No one dealing with this coma, this aftermath, needed a library to get through their day, and he was deluding himself if he thought just being there day in and day out was helping anyone at all.

Yet even as he told himself these things, he knew they couldn’t be true. He had a deeper faith in himself, in the work he did beyond simply checking books in and out. Friendship. People were important. A place to go to talk, to relax, to shelter from worries and woes. He had to be doing something, for someone, even in some small way. And when he was able to stand without wobbling, when he could put the bottle down for a few minutes, he would remember that.

And hopefully it would remind him that he was awake. Life moved on. And he had things he needed to do.