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 Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 2:13 pm
Things settled back into some sort of a routine. She went to school, came home, went to work, and slept to do it all over again. Her mother kept a closer eye on her these days, though. It was a rare moment when Harm was allowed to be alone and though Kyn got her an old car to drive around in she still checked on her daughter intermittently throughout the night. It was a habit she couldn't stop now, even if it just assured her that all of this was real and her baby was home. Harmony, however, had nightmares about the experience and was lethargic at school. She was doing poorly despite being bright and was now being given extra credit to make up for it.
That's why she was at the library on a Saturday. She needed two book on chemistry that she had no idea where they were. It for for an experiment she was supposed to do on her own time. Looking around she decided to go to the front desk to get help. There only seemed to be one person there at the moment, a guy, so she paused and waited for him to be finished with the other people in line.
"Um...excuse me. I need help finding these books."
She didn't recognize him, of course, as Camelot but she was easy to recognize. She smiled her charming smile at him just eager to get this over and done with. If he'd had a card catalog she would have tried that first rather than resort to asking for help. Though she smiled there was something in the eyes that made her not entirely convincing. Then she saw his tag and started laughing.
"So you're the guy!" she proclaimed. "The librarian, Tony. The one my mom has such a huge crush on!"
Crush here a huge understatement but Harm didn't know that. Nor did she knew that crush was supposed to be secret. But if Kyndall ever found out he knew she'd want to sink right down into the Earth. She'd been working very hard for a very long time never to let Tony know how she felt and to have her daughter give her away now was just...wrong. Of course, there was always the hope that he wouldn't know who her mother was. (She didn't know he was Camelot, after all) but that would only last as long as it took for him to see her library card. How many Rosen's could there be in Destiny City that knew Tony?
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 1:21 pm
Tony was busy.
This was a constant state of affairs at work, as things had backed up considerably in his absence. He had too much to catch up on, too much his helpers and colleagues had put to the side for him, and too many things they had just been unable to do. He had messages, what felt like thousands of them, and emails to respond to. So many things to process, to input, to take out of the system, to find.
It was overwhelming but, in an odd way, Tony liked it. It made him feel like he was home. At last. This was how things were supposed to be.
"Excuse me?" he asked, looking at Harmony in surprise. It was very difficult not to react with a smile and a wave, or even moving from around the desk for a hug, seeing her. But she didn't know him, not outside of his powered up persona as Camelot. It would be creepy of the librarian to hug all his patrons.
"I... oh... oh, you must be Kyndall's daughter," he said, turning bright red and staring at the keyboard of the computer in front of him. His brain had shut down and he was just one awkward mass of librarian now. He needed to get to a safer place.
"You... uhm... you need help finding some books?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 4:29 pm
"So she's that obvious?" Harmony asked, offering him a bit of a smile. Sure they looked alike but how else would he know her without knowing her name. She couldn't be the only daughter to ever wander into the library and judging by his looks her mom couldn't be the only one with a secret yen for the librarian. She'd never look at him twice, of course, because he was too old. All the same there was something about him that was comfortable for her. She couldn't place it but she liked him right off the bat.
A line was forming behind her that she was trying to ignore, not wanting to leave him just yet. She saw the swamp of paperwork on his desk and smiled sympathetically. He was in over his head. Her mom was right - he'd obviously been gone a while. Luckily for him she liked him and needed him and was a teacher's aide most of her academic life, not to mention she'd been helping her mom since she was old enough to grade papers. At the very lest she could answer cursory questions and prioritize the rest of it for him to get through.
"You're swamped." she observed. "Tell you what. I'll help you out. I'll be your assistant if you'll work around my school and work schedules. I'll volunteer. It looks good on college applications. In return, you can help me find those books later."
Thankfully for Harmony she didn't really give him a choice once she'd decided. It was unusual and highly unorthidox but she stepped behind the counter and to his desk, rifling through the paperwork to see what she was going to be working with. She took off her uniform jacket and put it over the back of the desk chair, sitting down. If he tried to protest she'd motion to the line that had formed behind her while they spoke.
"That's not getting any shorter. You need help."
And she was good at this kind of work and even enjoyed it. She dove in, quickly organizing everything into three piles. The easy stuff that she could likely do and answer on her own. The stuff she'd need to check with him about before she dealt with it, and the stuff that needed his attention alone which was, admittedly, bigger than she reckoned. She'd also written down his zillions of messages and divided those into stacks according to how old and how urgent they were. Everything was neatly clipped, labeled, and stacked for his convenience.
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Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 12:48 pm
Tony had to make no comment, not even the slightest of indications, that he had met Harmony before, in space, and that he knew her family and her feelings better than she realized. She was teasing her mother for having a crush on him, but Harmony herself had professed loving Camelot for saving her and being a knight in shining armor.
She just didn't realize that the 'old' librarian was the same knight she had loved and lost.
"I'm not too swamp... what?" He looked baffled at her offer, not used to people just volunteering for work straight out. Usually he had to offer, which he was always keen on doing for people who looked like they needed help, or needed something to do, or just a safe place to be. This was different, though, and he arched his eyebrow in amusement as she told him her terms.
"Ah, well," he started, as she stepped into his realm, his fortress of solitude behind the desk. This was his habitat, and usually patrons were not allowed behind the counter unless invited by the master of the domain. She, however, had stepped in and started even sat down in his chair. His chair! He watched in dumb horror and shock as she began to sort the paperwork that had piled up in and around his inbox.
"I... yes... well. I can manage, I'm sure, but if you... ah..." he watched her, slowly realizing this wasn't something he had a choice in. She was volunteering by force. "Uhm. Well, thank you."
He let her work at his desk and moved to another computer, near the drop box, to process the books over there. He had a lot to do away from his desk, so really, the help was good.
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Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 2:12 pm
Thankfully, Harmony didn’t hear anything after her initial offer. Not even his reply. It wouldn’t have mattered if he didn’t agree but he did and she worked silently at his desk. The main thing was that she simply had to keep busy. She didn’t like being by herself and hadn’t taken up with her friends again. This world felt surreal around her because she knew it wasn’t real. She could pretend but it simply wasn’t her world any longer.
This wasn’t her life.
This was the life of someone who knew what was happening all around them. Someone who’d been thrown helpless into the middle of it. This was the world of someone who couldn’t sleep through the night anymore. Who was afraid to sleep. Her friendships suffered. She suffered. She wore a smile on her lips to cover up the fact that she didn’t know how to feel. There was a haunted look in her eyes, however, that said all was not as it seemed. So she threw herself into work to keep busy and her mind clear.
Soon the patronage of the library lulled and she found herself coming to the end of her work. She surveyed what she’d done and felt satisfied. You could see his desk now and all of his paperwork was labeled. She sighed, getting up to stretch after a few hours of sitting. She shook out her mane of mint hair and looked over to where he was, absorbed in his own work. She smiled. At least she could see what her mother saw in him. She came over to where he was, touching his arm gently to try not to startle him. She had a habit of doing that, when she was quiet.
“Mr. Darrow?”
She wanted to show him her work and explain what she’d done. She knew what it felt like to feel like someone was intruding upon your world. She didn’t want him feeling that way with what she’d done. She led him back to his desk and showed him the assorted piles and the things she’d done on her own. She returned messages and emails, identifying herself as his assistant. But the bigger things she’d left for him to do on his own. The pile was somewhat more bearable now thanks to her meddling.
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Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 1:20 pm
Tony watched helplessly. He supposed he was thankful for the help, though it felt more like a full out command than a suggestion to allow her to start rifling through his desk. he wasn't on edge about it, at least, as he really didn't have anything in there that she wasn't allowed to see.
The library wasn't exactly a secretive place.
And he had moved all his money laundering papers home already, he thought ruefully. He could only imagine someone trying to run a mobster-like operation in a library. It sounded like a very sad effort, if it would happen.
In the end, he knew it was more for her than for him. He had a way of coping with his life as a knight, and that was his life at work. It seemed that she needed the same thing, though her ordeal was substantially different than his own. She needed the escape, the distraction, and it would be wrong of him to deny her a safe place to retreat to.
He was moving back and forth from the backroom and taking a cart, pushing books back out to the floor and doing some much needed shelving. There was still a lot to be done, processing that the regular team hadn't been able to do, but he felt they were making progress.
He tried not to jump when she touched his arm, looking at her and hiding his surprise.
"Ah, yes, are you done? It looks much better, I can tell you that. I don't feel like jumping off a cliff looking at it, for one. You can come back whenever you feel you need some time away, or a distraction. And I'll pay you for whatever time you put in here, of course. I don't expect you to sort out my mess and make my life easier without compensation for the work you do." He smiled.
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Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:25 pm
“Yeah. I’m finished.”
She nodded her head at the desk, proud of herself. The library was about to close and she’d passed several hours here without worry. Maybe this was what she needed to do. She didn’t realize she was doing what her mother had done after the death of pretty much everyone in her family. Avoiding the issue didn’t keep it from existing or from surfacing. It simply buried them for a time. It would surface, in a big way, someday.
But she wasn’t thinking of that. She was thinking about her job at the coffeehouse and how pleased he looked with her progress. She was satisfied with a job well done and the promise of more hours to come. Anytime he needed her. If she had known he was Camelot she’d have felt even safer around Tony and loved Camelot like the father figure she never grew up with. Maybe someday she’d come to rely on Tony for the same. He certainly seemed like the benevolent sort.
“Don’t pay me. Just write me a killer letter of recommendation for college and help me find those books, pretty please?”
She turned on the charm now and since there was no line for him to service he had a few free moments. Chemistry was certainly not her subject in school or in life. She was always getting the formulas wrong and someone, usually herself, ended up hurt or embarrassed. Sometimes disappointed. She didn’t know that’s pretty much what the teens are for. And possibly the adult years, too, for some people.
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Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 11:15 am
"I can do all those things," he said with a laugh. He moved to the computer, loading up the search program that had their database of books listed. It was mostly up to date, save what he had to input from his 'trip'. So it wasn't as up to date as it usually was, but he tried not to think about that.
What were the chances that she would want one of the books not in the system yet, or had to be taken out? Small to none, he told himself.
But he would get to work on all that next, now that he was thinking about it.
He aided her in finding the books she needed, or at least the sections in which she would have to look. With the library about to close, he was going to have to stick to the counter so he could check out the last few stragglers and their books, but he told her if she needed help finding the sections he would as soon as he could. He'd just take her upstairs to show her where.
If she wanted to look on her own, though, he recommended the stairs instead of the elevator. As the elevator hated him, and he imagined it would take its terrible attitude out on her, as well. Though, so far, no one else seemed to have any trouble with the blasted thing, and thought he was ridiculous. Or making it up.
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Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2011 2:21 pm
Harmony nodded and moved away from him, moving upstairs as suggested because she didn’t know why he’d lie to her about the elevator. She trusted him and wondered about that as she moved up the stairs. She had no idea that it was Camelot she was now forcing herself upon as an assistant and she didn’t trust people, particularly adults, very easily or well. But she liked Tony and he didn’t seem to muscle in as an authority figure and he certainly hadn’t protested her help very loudly. She could work like that.
She wandered in the stacks a while, not quite getting the whole categorization system he had in place. She’d be lost in the Library of Congress, she was sure of it. As she was alone in the top floor of the library the sounds from downstairs were dull and as she moved inward she didn’t hear any signs of life any longer. She wandered the shelves, hoping to find the books on her own without him having to hold her hand, so to speak.
The lights were on but there was something spooky about the upstairs. The children’s section was downstairs and up was nothing but rows upon rows of shelves and as she wandered she let her imagination run. It was never a good thing these days when it did that. She started seeing shadows stretch longer and the Negaverse darted in and out of her eyesight. She spun quickly, never able to catch full sight of them. Monsters took form, too, and she ran from them, unable to tell herself it was just her imagination. It had all happened before and she knew where it lead.
Before long she was in a corner, holding her knees, trying to calm herself. Her mind knew it was only her own thoughts and nothing more, but her heart and body didn’t seem to take the hint. She closed her eyes trying to slow her heartbeat. “Please go away,” she whispered. “Just go away.”
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Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:32 am
Tony began to wonder what had happened to his knew assistant when she didn't come back downstairs to check out the books she had gone to look for. Even if she hadn't been able to look for them and was looking through the shelves of other ones that might be helpful, it wouldn't take her this long, would it?
He frowned, his nerves getting the better of him. It would not be the first time there was a youma in here, after all, and certainly not the last.
Not minding the fact that he was being absolutely paranoid, he moved toward the stairs and hurried up them as fast as his cane would take him. He knew where he had sent her, at least, so finding her would not be that hard. Or so he thought. He didn't see her in the section she was supposed to have gone to, and looked around the library in wonder. He should have just used the PA at the front desk to summon her.
"Harmony?" he called, then he found her in a corner, looking scared. Immediately thinking youma, he moved to her, kneeling. "Are you alright? Did something attack you?"
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Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2011 8:11 pm
“I don’t know!”
Harmony looked down right terrified by the time he found her. She threw her arms around him, chest heaving as she pulled in deep panicked breaths. Nothing had actually touched her but it was hard to distinguish fact from fantasy these days. It was the same reason she didn’t sleep and didn’t let herself think too many thoughts. She’d even tried to pick up an extra class in school in order to limit her free time. She’d been denied based on the fact that he grades were already slipping from her stress and lack of sleep. Harmony certainly was not doing well now that she’d returned and the one person she could talk to about it, that would believe her and knew what was happening, was no where to be seen.
Or so she thought.
“I’m sorry, I just…” she shuddered in his arms, unable to finish that sentence without sounding pathetic or like a fool. She burst into tears again, the safe feeling of being around people not yet restored. But the panic was starting to subside now that he was here to protect her. She didn’t think about the oddity of this, clinging to a near perfect stranger because she needed someone to cling to. She was scared some monster or some agent of the Negaverse was going to come for her again.
“Just make it go away!” she pleaded softly, her voice muffled as she pressed her face to his shoulder. “I don’t want to die again.”
She froze when she said that, looking at him with wide, terrified eyes. She hadn’t meant to say that aloud. She hadn’t even meant to think it. She usually tried as desperately as she could to put it from her mind, that long stretch where there was nothing. No memory, no sight, nothing but blackness before she suddenly found herself back in her bedroom. Who would believe that? Who would believe she’d died only to appear back where she started again? The last thing she needed was to be traumatized and be thought crazy.
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 9:53 am
Tony watched her, looking around. He was surprised when she hugged him, and he wondered if there really was a youma in the shadows. He didn't see any evidence of it, and she looked thankfully unharmed, but he wasn't sure. He hugged her reassuringly, rubbing her back as one might do with any scared child.
"Don't worry," he said softly, "you'll feel normal again sometime. It's scary right now, and strange, I know. But you'll find peace of mind. And you're safe here, as you are at home with your mother, okay? Nothing will hurt you while you're here."
It pained him to hear her talking about dying again. While it had been necessary and, in its way, it aided them in their victory, it was still difficult to deal with.
He wasn't sure how to react. He knew what she meant, but she didn't know he knew. It was another one of those impossible moments that he absolutely hated about living two lives. He just shook his head, patting her shoulder in an effort to silently say that she had nothing to fear with him, in any regard. He didn't think she was crazy, after all.
He knew very well that she wasn't.
"I think it's time we got you home, huh?"
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Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:35 pm
"Ok."
She didn't sound convinced but she certainly wasn't in the position to be picky. He hadn't called her crazy or anything so that was a bonus. If he thought it he wasn't saying it and for that kindness Harmony was eternally grateful though she wondered why he asked if she'd been attacked instead of simply asking her what was wrong. Were attacks common in a library, of all places? And the strange word something as opposed to someone. It was all very confusing and very suspect. If she wasn't as completely frightened as she was she might have mentioned it and still could in time. It was a long walk to her house, after all. She didn't trust herself to drive with as much as she was shaking.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Darrow. I'm not usually like this. I mean..."
It didn't make the best first impression on her first day of work to completely freak out when left alone for a little while. As he got her up and they started toward the stairs she looked around and saw quiet book shelves full of books and nothing out of the ordinary to be seen. The shadows were traced back to every light and were normal. No Negaverse. No Monsters. Nothing there to terrify her but her own mind. She felt foolish but couldn't shake this feeling. She'd relived it again...as she did most nights in her dreams.
"I don't want you to think I won't be a good assistant. I don't know what happened. I wasn't even hurt...I just...I don't know. I just wish I could talk to someone! My mom won't understand and, no offense, I don't think you will either. The entire world is upside down and I don't feel normal. I don't feel safe. I don't feel like I'm me anymore."
The teen was much more broken than she let on to anyone. Normally the entire world was turned upside down when a boy didn't call or when she didn't have a date. Those were normal things to be worried about. Not monsters, the Negaverse, and dying. But how to explain that to people who didn't even know those things existed?
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 11:08 am
The Squire of Earth watched her, though he was simply a Librarian of Destiny City at the moment. He smiled at her, understanding her fear and wishing once again, as he often found himself doing, that he could comfort her better than he was at the moment. But he was still being careful.
It was just what he had to do.
Kind of.
His instincts got the better of him more often than not, and he was trying to pretend he hadn't asked if she were attacked or indicate that he thought there had been a youma in here. It was silly, since he had very clearly done all those things, but if he didn't talk about them and she didn't bring them up, then they could just move on.
"I know you'll be a good assistant, Harmony," he said patiently, shaking his head, "being scared doesn't effect who you are, not to me. I understand more than you think, at least, but you should talk to your mother. I know she wants to take care of you, she was very worried about you. She'll understand more than you think. And she won't think you're crazy. Neither do I."
He smiled at her softly, though he was sad for her. He guided her back down to the front counter, imagining that they would do better if they just ended the night and he took her home. Everything else could wait for another day.
"Would you like me to walk you home?" He'd offer her a ride, but he had walked into work that morning.
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Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 5:10 pm
"I have my car. I should drive."
She wasn't in a position or mental state to drive and that much was clear. She certainly wasn't going to give up the idea that she should go home, however. In her fragile state she would jump at nearly everything if she were to stay even if she stayed by him the rest of the night. The library was closing, anyway, and she'd mostly caught him up. She'd done her job and though she didn't leave with the books she wanted she didn't care. Her mind was turning things over while his presence was helping to wipe the fear away. She was not alone.
Her body was still trembling as he held her and helped her downstairs to the front counter. She was tempted to curl up and cry again, flashbacks still haunting her. She looked the part occasionally turning her head sharply as if she'd seen something out of the corner of her eye. She got frustrated by this and gave a sharp cry, slamming her flat hand down on the counter tops and wincing as the pain of it lanced up her arm.
She was not acting sane. Or well.
At least he said he understood and wasn't judging her. She was afraid of that and as her violet eyes filled with tears again she knew this was not working. Staying busy wasn't helping keep anything at bay. She was still slipping under the tide. Her mind felt overwhelmed and suddenly switched focus. She needed to change her train of thought and remembered his particular choice of words from earlier. Had he known she would get attacked? Had he planned it? Was he behind it? Was he part of them?
Ok...maybe she was breaking up just a little bit.
"Why did you ask me if something attacked me?" she asked quietly, needing to focus on something else. Something that was not her fear. "You used the word something...not someone. Are attacks normal in the library? Are you part of it? Did you know something was there?"
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