Chapter Text
Gertrude is not a good Archivist.
This is a fact that she is proud of. It takes a lot of work to stay human when in a high position in a temple of an evil entity. However, whether she is a good or bad one, at the end of the day Gertrude is still an Archivist, and the Archives are, thus, hers. And that means that when somebody goes down there, somebody powerful, Gertrude knows it. She can almost feel it, like the feeling of bug climbing up her leg. It’s a Saturday. She’s supposed to have the day off. Gertrude does not get many days off, many days when she’s not planning, but this was one of the rare ones she had.
Except now, apparently, she is going to go back into work and deal with whoever or - more likely - whatever has decided to try and crawl into her Archives while she is away. With much grumbling, Gertrude leaves her flat. There is work to be done. There is always work to be done.
The Magnus Institute isn’t locked, although Gertrude did have keys if it had been. Hell, she could pick the lock, and barring that she wasn’t against just destroying the door to get in. Let Wright deal with the damage.
The building is quiet and Gertrude’s shoes echo loudly as she walks. She has a single-minded purpose. There is a chance, she supposes, that it is nothing. Maybe some homeless person has snuck in for a place to be warm for a bit. Or someone from research is working Saturday and had needed something from the Archives. These answers, however, probably wouldn’t leave Gertrude feeling like this. Like she has been intruded upon, like there is a threat all too present. Or is it a threat? It is sometimes hard for Gertrude to understand what the Eye was trying to tell her. This, of course, was just how she wanted it to be, if she wanted to remain human, or well, human enough.
She doesn’t reach for the small handgun in her purse; the action could show her hand too quickly. She descends into the Archives, ready for whatever she’s going to face when she reaches the bottom of the stairs.
There’s always a feeling of being Watched in the Archives, but it’s different today. Not like she’s been more Watched, like one might expect. It almost feels like some of the eyes are distracted, are looking elsewhere. If she wanted, Gertrude could also Look. It is not a skill she’s used before, but some part of her does Know that if she wanted, she could claim the ability. She resists. She has two perfectly good eyes in her face, and she’s going to use those to see what is down here.
The main room isn’t disturbed, the desks of her assistants untouched from the way they’d been left yesterday evening. Emma’s desk is neat and organized, while Michael’s is going through it’s usual cycle of mess-clean-mess, and Sarah’s seems to simply be just a perpetual state of disarray. This was also all fine. Gertrude couldn’t care less about the states of her Assistant’s desks. More and more often, she’s been letting the day to day tasks of being Archivist and maintaining the Archives fall aparat. The annoyed and upset comments from Wright only make her want to do it more. This is all about feeding the Eye, isn’t it? So it’s in her best interest to maintain it as little as humanly - very humanly - possible.
There’s sound coming from storage and Gertrude makes her way closer, slow and steady and quiet as she can be. The lights are on, the intruder apparently so sure that nobody will be here that they're bold and reckless.
Gertrude turns to look down a hallway and-
There’s a child.
There’s a child in the Archives.
Or, Gertrude amends in her own mind, there is a thing that looks like a child.
One of the boxes of poorly maintained statements is on ground, not yet sorted - and if Gertrude had her way, possibly never sorted. Maybe flung into document storage as far back as she can get it. The thing that looks like a child, however, has other ideas. It’s surrounded by statement folders, flipping them open, reading a few lines, and then placing them into two different files. The child-like-thing doesn’t notice that Gertrude is there at first, and Gertrude gets the chance to just stand and observe.
“Excuse me,” Gertrude says, in her best ‘I’m a weak old lady but I’m not afraid to put a child in their place’ voice, “What are you doing down here?”
The child-creature flinches, the file that is currently being held slapping closed. Face turns, eyes looking right at Gertrude, and something akin to relief seems to fall over its face. The relief is quickly schooled into a child’s version of professionalism as the child that must not be a child stands up, careful not to disturb any of the statements, and approaches Gertrude this hands behind it’s back.
“I was worry you wouldn’t come in today. It would’ve been a shame, as considering school and all I can only really come here on weekends. I was ready to leave a note for you and everything, in fact it’s already on your desk. But, nonetheless, it’s nice to see you’ve come. I’m Jonathan Sims.” Jonathan - or so the monster claims to be - holds out a hand to shake. Gertrude, naturally, doesn’t take it. She also doesn’t rise to the bait. Underestimation is one of her strongest defenses, she’s found.
“Dear, what are you doing down here? And where are your parents?” Gertrude asks with a kind yet stern voice.
“Dead, for a long while now, and I already said I was here to meet you. Although perhaps we should take this discussion elsewhere. You don’t have much of a presence, do you?” Jonathan says this with absolutely no respect and then sets off, walking deeper into the Archives.
“If you’re here to make a statement-” Gertrude starts, but Jonathan cuts her off.
“I do not plan to do anything of the sort. Now, are you coming or not?”
Gertrude considers the odds for a moment. It is still clear that this is no child, in the way he speaks and the way he carries himself. Everything about him feels off. Dressed like he may as well be a child from Gertrude’s own childhood, and hair far longer than most boys keep it, though pulled up and away from his face. He walks the Archive with a keen sense of familiarity that sends off so many warning signals in Gertrude’s head. And there’s also the fact that she thinks she knows what the Watching has decided to focus on. It’s him. It’s decided he is more interesting than its own Archivist. That is in no way a good sign.
“It should be about… yes, here it is.” Jonathan starts shoving over some boxes. Or, Jonathan attempts to shove over some boxes with minimal success. At least that’s something of a relief, as the monster is lacking in actual physical muscle.
“What are you doing?” Gertrude asks.
“If you had more of a presence down here, I’d tell you, but you’re a terrible Archivist.” Jonathan says. He continues his futile effort for a bit and eventually Gertrude’s curiosity gets the better of her. She helps him shove the boxes to the side, and then his little child-like fingers scrambled around at the floor. Gertrude sees when he’s trying to grab at. There’s a trapdoor of some sort. She’s had theories, of course, about tunnels, but this is the closest she’s gotten so far to them. She helps him lift the heavy wooden door from where it had fit perfectly-flush with the floor. There’s a ladder, and Jonathan is the first of the two of them to climb down.
“Isn’t it rather scary and dangerous down there?” Gertrude only says in an attempt to keep up her grandmotherly-act for a bit longer.
“If you need a torch, you can go grab one. I wasn’t planning to go very far.” Jonathan says. He has folded his arms. At this point Gertrude decides she is going to see this out, and descends down.
Jonathan has stepped so that’s he’s not directly under the ladder and nods when Gertrude finally comes down at the bottom.
“Alright, what do you want?” She keeps her voice even and unammused. Jonathan reflect that unamusement right back at her.
“What you want: to prevent the rituals from succeeding.” He raises his chin.
“Except for your own.” Gertrude guesses, but he shakes his head.
“Especially not mine. Or I guess it’s especially not ours .”
This does give Gertrude pause for a moment as the assess the not quite a child in front of her. A child, wise beyond his years, could feasibly be something brought about by the Ceaseless Watcher, she supposes. But, as far as Gertrude has seen, the child doesn’t inspire any sort of fear. What is the point of it if it doesn’t feed the entity?
“Why would that be?” Gertrude asks. Jonathan looks Gertrude up and down, tilts his head to the side, and then says,
“Because I’ve seen what happens when the Watcher’s Crown succeeds. It’s…” Jonathan trails off, eyes with a far off look. He shakes his head and there’s something steely in his eyes as he says, “It was bad and it’s not going to happen.”
“So you say. And you’ve, what, ‘Seen’ this?” Gertrude puts her hands on her hips.
“Yes, I have seen it. It’s bad. So I’m here to offer my help in finding a way to prevent it.” Jonathan tells her.
“I’m not nearly so desperate to need the help of a child.” Gertrude says. The child stops his foot, looking annoyed.
“I’m not a child. I’m an avatar, and I know what’s going to happen in the future!” Jonathan insists, and gestures around him, “See, I knew about the tunnels!”
“They’ve clearly existed for a while, that proves nothing.” Gertrude says.
“Well, I know Elias is Jonah Magnus.” Jonathan declares.
“Who?”
“Jonah Magnus, the founder.” Jonathan says, foot tapping impatiently.
“I know who Magnus is. Who is Elias?”
Jonathan blinks, looking thrown for a moment, then closes his eyes, thinking.
“Or, um… Mr. Something Wright? The current Head of the Institute. The Head is always Jonah Magnus.” Jonathan says.
“...” Gertrude considers what he says, tossing the idea back and forth in her head. There’s no proof to that claim of his, but she still doesn’t know what this child monster is trying to get out of this… enemies close and all those sayings. So she decides to just ask him, “What do you want?”
Jonathan doesn’t seem like he was expecting that question.
“Um, hm,” Jonathan hums, holding his chin in his hand and looking off to some corner of the tunnel, “I don’t want the world to end.” He decides.
“And what do you get out of it?” Gertrude pushes.
“I-I,” Jonathan’s eyes are darting around, brow furrowing, “I don’t, I don’t… I just want to help.”
And he sounds his age for a second.
“... come back here Monday. Today is my day off.” Gertrude says. Jon looks at her, hopeful before schooling his expression.
“I will see what I can do. I live in Bournemouth, and I do still have school. My Gran won’t worry about me being gone, so long as I’m home by the evening.” The little professional monster informs her. Gertrude raises an eyebrow.
“Are you saying that just to make me fall for this ‘child’ act?”
“I can give you my Gran’s number and you can talk to her yourself, if you’d like. It proves nothing, really, but that’s all I can give you, unless you’re coming back to Bournemouth with me.” Jonathan holds his head high.
“I’ll take you up on that offer. And if you can’t come Monday, then there’s no real point to working with you, is there?”
Jonathan’s mouth twists to show his disagreement with Gertrude’s opinion.
“Then I will be seeing you, Ms. Robinson.”
They climb back into the Archives, and Gertrude can feel the Watching again. Jonathan’s insistence on speaking in the tunnels makes sense now. If nothing else, she knows she did get the valuable information of the tunnels and how to enter them from this encounter with the not-really-a-child. She closes the hatch behind them and then, for good measure, pushes boxes back over it.
“Have you blinded your pictures yet?” Jonathan asks. He stood off to the side, hands behind his back, watching her work.
“Yes.” Gertrude says and Jonathan nods, like he approves of that.
“Good.”
He doesn’t leave. Instead, he goes back to the box of statements he’d been working on before.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Gertrude asks. Jonathan blinks up at her.
“Sorting the statements, of course. Your Archives are a mess, and it makes me feel…” He puts a hand to his chest, but doesn’t elaborate on any sort of feeling.
“They’re better like this.” She tells him. Jonathan looks at the statements, then back at her. She levels him with a look.
“Okay.” He relents through gritted teeth, standing and following her out of the Institute.
She watches him walk down the street, a supposed child on his own with no supervision, and Gertrude ponders what has happened. He claims to know things, and there is something more than a little off-putting about him, but she’s unclear what. If nothing else, on Monday she will learn more, and then she’ll be able to decide whether or not to go forward with his ‘help’, whatever that may amount to.