A/N: This is my first foray into this wonderful fandom; unlike so many of you, I didn't see the movies before falling in love with the show. I hope I managed to do the universe justice!

Many, many thanks go to my wonderful beta, SilversunnyD, for making sure this work was fit for your eyes. If it was left up to me, it would probably be a jumble of half-legible scribbles, at least partially in crayon :).

I claim no ownership of the show, characters, or plots. This is all in good fun, right?

Late evening was her favorite time to be in the Annex. The Librarians-in-Training were…wherever it was they went in the evenings. Eve allowed herself a chuckle, remembering how Cassandra and Stone shared a surreptitious look over Ezekiel's shoulder before the redhead announced her plans to go to bed. Stone had only checked his watch a dozen times in the five minutes it had taken his resolve to crumble before he feigned a yawn and not exactly rushed out of the room. Whatever was going on between the two wasn't any of her business.

Jenkins was out for the evening, too. There were times she thought he put on an old-fashioned nightcap, grabbed a blanket and pillow, and folded himself up onto a little bed on one of the bookshelves like one of his books, but she dismissed the irrelevant thought. It was quiet; that was all that mattered.

This was her time. She could un-do her bun, shake her hair loose, and just relax as she tried to come to terms with the craziness of her new life. 98 percent of her education and life experiences told her rational consciousness that things she saw were imaginary, but that skepticism was rapidly changing the longer she remained Guardian.

She passed a wet bar on her way, a recent discovery that she and the rest of the team enjoyed equally. Fortunately, their tastes differed, so there was never a shortage of anyone's particular favorite drink. Cassandra preferred red wines from Spain and Italy while Ezekiel liked expensive vodkas. Jacob was a beer drinker, loyal to his origins through and through, the same way he took a job just a few miles from where he grew up instead of studying art at the finest schools in the world. Jenkins loved cordials whose name she couldn't even pronounce, unless he'd had an encounter with a centuries-old witch that may or may not have been his lover once upon a time. The eye-sex in the Annex when the redheaded bitch stumbled in was so intense she almost blushed. It seemed that Morgan le Fay brought out the Scotch lover in Jenkins.

After tangling with the woman herself, Eve couldn't really fault him.

As for herself, other than the occasional beer, her favorite drink was always whiskey. Being a woman in a stereotypically man's world made her have to work harder to be accepted, and drinking whiskey was one of the ways she blended in with the boys. Over time she'd come to appreciate the drink on its own.

Ha! Blended in drinking blended whiskey. That was a good one. She gave an amused snort before her next sip, feeling the warm, pleasant burn settling down into her stomach. In any event, she'd grown to like both the taste and the reactions as, the woman drinking whiskey usually caused a few raised eyebrows at the least – in her experience anyway.

After another sip of good Irish whiskey (the smoothness made it her personal favorite; she wasn't sure exactly how he'd found out, but thank you, Jenkins!), she walked into the main Annex area, hearing the click of her boots on the stone floor echoing around the emptiness of the central chamber. Eve smiled at the lack of any other noise. She was indeed alone, and free to be herself. Free to be Eve. Just free.

Then her eyes fell on the biggest irritation she'd yet encountered in her role as Guardian. Sure, the Minotaur and the fairy tale mess were life-threatening and she'd had to fight off the Serpent Brotherhood goons time and again, but in terms of pure annoyance, the desk in front of her was easily the worst.

It was re-set, as always. She gave a rueful grin as she strode over to the offending desk. Kindling, an unkind part of her thought. I could make you into kindling, and then whatever would this Annex do?

Swirling her drink, Eve regarded the desk in front of her as if it were one of the artifacts that Flynn and the other Librarians before him had so painstakingly acquired over the years. The way it kept rearranging itself whenever she cleared it off, it might very well have been a magical artifact at one point or another. Or maybe Flynn had just magicked it somehow, leaving it the most annoying piece of furniture in her life.

She'd expected a desk that appeared as old as this one did to be somewhat rickety, but it was remarkably sturdy. More than just a collection of assembled wood and metal parts, it was a rock. It was her rock, the one bit of constancy in her fluid, magic-filled, sometimes intimidating (she would never utter the word 'scary', even in the confines of her own mind) new world. The desk was always there. When she and the Librarians-in-Training flipped through a portal to find enchanted baddies, she knew it would be waiting when they all got made it back, hopefully in one piece.

Some mystical power in the Library kept returning it to the way Flynn wanted no matter how often she tried to clear it off or rearrange it. Jenkins tried to explain how the desk kept resetting itself to Flynn's standards to her, but her eyes glazed over when he started getting into the more arcane bits of magic.

Snorting just before she took another sip of the amber liquid – the water of life – she had another one of those 'what the hell?' moments. Before becoming a Guardian, the word 'arcane' wasn't one she could ever remember using. Now, it was one she found herself saying on a near-daily basis, discussing whether certain bits of magic were of a newer style or an older variety. Still, whether it was old magic, new magic, Minotaurs, or enchanted wolves, her interest boiled down to one single issue: how to kill them, capture them, or otherwise disable their evil powers. Let the Librarian and his LITs research their natures and motivations. She had no interest in the minutiae of their debates.

Her job was to protect and defend them.

Strangely, her faith was the part of her least rattled by the knowledge she was gaining day by day and week by week. Seeing proof of the existence of magic, let alone all the supernatural beings they'd come across since she became Guardian, actually solidified her belief in all the stories she'd heard throughout her years of Catholic education. St. George might actually have slain a real dragon – she made a mental note to ask Jenkins if that was a true story or an allegory. Seeing the Library disappear left her strangely disappointed – she had wanted some time to examine the Spear of Destiny and other religious artifacts she'd briefly seen with Flynn.

Flynn

Librarian and Guardian. The job's more important than what we want.

Her words given to Flynn weeks before returned unbidden to her consciousness.

The job.

She'd gotten off to a bit of a rocky start. Flynn told the Library – she stifled a chuckle at the mental image of him stalking away from her entrance, hiding the fact that he was pointing at her with his other hand, and talking to a seemingly empty room – that he didn't want or need a Guardian. Taking his initial protest as a kind of prejudice against her as a woman, but spending time around him

Flynn told her not to come back after telling the library he didn't need her – she set her jaw. "And don't tell me what to do!"

She looked back at the desk where she most often worked in her new role. In the beginning, it was just Flynn's desk. Another piece in the Annex's collection, something to learn as she learned her new job, if it was indeed her job.

Spoiler alert: it was.

Fighting off a snarl, she settled for rolling her eyes at the way the items on the desk were just as Flynn left them when he went off to find the Library. Unfortunately, he hadn't located it yet. She'd given him a metaphorical kick in the ass when he was slowly bleeding out and giving into depression after Judson and Charlene hid the Library, but it was still gone. There was no way of telling when he would return, either. She just had to bide her time, training the LITs and learning about this magical new world, waiting for him to come back. Hoping he would return in one piece, holding on to the memory of the last time they'd been together.

Remembering his departure brought to mind the rest of that evening, specifically their first kiss. And what a kiss! Eve felt a warm flush creep up her neck and into her cheeks at the memory. To this day she wasn't sure exactly what possessed her at that point. Sure, he was a very good-looking man in his unassuming, boy-next-door type. Since then she'd learned more about this new world, of Flynn's bravery, his search for the library, and what kind of man he was overall, but in that moment all she knew was the desire to crush her lips on his.

It was still Flynn's desk, arranged just the way he left it, during their early case tracking the Minotaur and the descendants of the Minoans (more words she never expected herself to think, much less say), but she was slowly beginning to think of it as her workspace, too. Ezekiel, Cassandra, and Jake all had their preferred areas to do their research – God knew that Jenkins regarded the entire Annex as his – but Flynn's desk was becoming hers.

Jenkins finally tried to explain the desk's mysterious power just before she met Santa. She met Santa. The list of things she caught herself saying these days without the slightest bit of irony or surprise kept growing. In any event, when she got Jenkins to speak using actual modern English words she was able to understand that the Library – the same seemingly sentient Library that recruited her to be the Guardian – had some power to rearrange the desk to Flynn's specifications when he was gone. He was the Librarian, and thus (she had to chuckle quietly at her use of a word that boggled Flynn when he overused it) it only made sense for the Librarian's desk to remain ready for the Librarian to use.

Still, to test it, she spent a week clearing it off and arranging the workspace to her own clear, uncluttered preference. When she got back from helping Santa on Christmas Eve – and actually becoming Santa in that one moment, which was still somehow too big of a thought to really wrap her mind around – she'd been dismayed to see that the desk was back to the way Flynn left it.

By the time they had to deal with the dragons, she'd taken to calling the desk hers, and the LITs understood. When Flynn was there, it was his desk. When he wasn't, it was hers. Librarian and Guardian, they were bonded. Their connection just extended farther than anyone else knew, with the possible exception of Jenkins. The crafty old man seemed to know far more than anyone had a right to. Still, the others were smart enough that they probably at least suspected there was more than just a Librarian/Guardian thing going on between her and Flynn.

Flynn left again right after they'd dealt with the conclave of mystical beings, and again he left just after another toe-curling kiss. Still the desk was reset to his style. She'd hoped that after demonstrating his affection in the Annex, the mystical force that somehow kept rearranging things on the desk would understand that she was the authority in his absence.

Not even close. The desk was still Flynn's, at least according to the Annex.

Leaning back in the chair, Eve took a petty revenge and propped her boots on the desk with a thunk. It may be Flynn's desk forever, but it was hers for now. The thought caused her a fleeting moment of guilt; she'd leaned heavily on the desk for support after a shell-shocked Jenkins, in between slugs of Scotch, told her that by not killing Morgan le Fay and saving a hundred or so science geeks, she might have inadvertently doomed the world. Eve took her boots back down after she remembered how the damned desk held her up when her knees buckled after that little bombshell.

As she looked at the items he had left, she experienced a strange sensation. Intangible, it was a shadow out of the corner of her eye, a twinge in the back of her mind. Shaking her head as if to clear it, Eve couldn't get rid of the feeling that she wasn't exactly alone. She looked around the Annex, but the LITs were still gone, as was Jenkins.

Glancing back at the desk and seeing the way he'd arranged whatever he thought he would need most, the sensation grew. When she reached out and ran her fingers along the worn wood, brushing the scrolls and books, and rearranged the pens in the cup, the presence became stronger.

Closing her eyes and concentrating, Eve called to mind the sense-memory of her fingers keeping his lips pressed closed, the way his mouth felt as it brushed against hers during both their kisses, and a dozen or more other light touches. More than anything else she focused on how just his presence in the Annex calmed her. No matter what they were facing, when Flynn was there, her confidence rose. The trust she had in the man was astonishing, considering how short a length of time she'd known him and how little they'd actually spent in each other's physical presence.

She trusted him.

With that realization, she could just barely sense the touch of his hand giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Eve opened her eyes, but it was still just her in the Annex.

Her and the desk. More than just an annoying desk that wouldn't listen to her – as if an inanimate object could, in fact, listen – it was a touchstone. She felt Flynn's presence – his maddening, frustrating, calming, solid presence – strongest when she sat at the desk.

The thought gave a degree of comfort that surprised her. The desk was a way of not being totally separated from Flynn when he was searching for the Library. It was his desk, set to his specifications.

Sitting down at the desk was like sitting down with Flynn to work, in a way.

Damn it all.

She liked the desk.

It was her connection to Flynn. She blew out a sigh before slugging back the last of her whiskey. Her increasingly alcohol-relaxed body and mind moved from remembering their kisses to her late-night fantasies. Fantasies that stemmed from the memory of running her hands over his face and upper body, jogged by his kind, caring eyes.

An idea wormed its way into her mind…if she could arrange for Jenkins to train the other Librarians on something outside the Annex when Flynn came back, maybe she could somehow convince Flynn to shove everything currently occupying the desk to the floor. Heat bloomed low in her stomach, spreading downward at all the mental images of things she and Flynn could use the desk for… Maybe then the Library would understand it was a shared workspace.

Her raucous laughter echoed around the Annex for long minutes after that particular mental image.

Come back alive, Librarian.

Come back to me.

A/N: And there we have it. I hope you enjoyed it! As always, constructive criticism is always more than appreciated!