When the Power Goes Out, Firehouse Logic and Award-Winning Puns Take Over.
A blackout in a library full of paper is bad enough. Add Theo Morgan, a roomful of trivia teams and Mayor Frost’s enthusiasm for candles, and Natalie King’s carefully organised evening is about to get considerably less organised.
This bonus scene sits alongside Reindeer Games.
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Natalie King was halfway through taping a laminated reindeer to the library noticeboard when the power went out. The lights blinked once, blinked again, and then the whole place dropped into a thick, inky darkness. The heater clicked off. The holiday playlist made a brave little stutter and died in the middle of a sleigh bell.
“Oh,” she said into the silence.
From somewhere behind the shelves, Theo Morgan swore under his breath.
Natalie froze with the tape stuck to her fingers. The library had gone so quiet it almost hurt. Every small sound was exaggerated, from the squeak of her boots to the soft crackle of the tape pulling at her skin, even her own breathing.
Without sight, her other senses intensified, old paper smell crept out, glue and dust, and that faint sweetness from the children’s corner where someone had spilled hot chocolate last week, and she still hadn’t tracked down the culprit.
If she’d wanted to work in a quiet library, she would’ve applied to Merriring, where they ran silence like a religion and were offended by the concept of joy.
“Is that bad?” she called.
“No,” Theo said.
She waited.
“Maybe,” he added.
“That didn’t answer the question.”
Boots thudded along the aisle. He appeared at the end of it, tall and broad, his phone held up in one hand to throw light ahead. The beam caught the glitter reindeer on the noticeboard and made it look alarmed.
Natalie decided she didn’t identify with the reindeer at all.
“They’re working on the transformer,” he said. “Town Hall mentioned it.”
“They mentioned it to you,” she said.
He shrugged. “Firehouse memo.”
“Of course.”
She peeled the tape off her fingers and stuck the last corner of the reindeer down out of pure stubbornness. The thing would be visible to exactly no one in this darkness, but she refused to let the blackout win.
“Trivia night rehearsal starts in twenty minutes,” she said.
Theo angled the phone light toward the main room, scanning chair legs and table corners, then the exits. He did it in a neat pattern, left to right, as if his eyes had a checklist.
“We can delay,” he said.
“We can’t delay,” Natalie said. “There are teams, with puns. One of them is called Quiztopher Nolan.”
Theo’s mouth twitched. “That’s criminal.”
“It’s award-winning,” she corrected.
He took two steps into the main space and looked up. “No motion sensing backups then?”
Natalie swallowed. She kept her tone bright, because bright was her default when something might go wrong. “Okay. That’s fine. Libraries are very safe in the dark. Statistically.”
Theo’s gaze flicked to her. “You okay?”
“Yes,” she said too fast. “I just don’t like not being able to see where the chairs are.”
“I’ll move them.”
“You don’t have to,” she started, because she always started there, even when she liked help.
He was already doing it. He slid tables a few inches to widen the aisle, stacked two chairs where someone had left them tipped at an angle, and nudged a book cart into a neat place by the desk. He nudged the wobble out of a table leg with the edge of his boot, then carried on. The room felt less likely to trip someone up.
Natalie watched him and felt her shoulders drop without permission.
“You’re very good at this,” she said.
“At furniture?” he said.
“At making things feel under control.”
His shrug this time was smaller. “It’s what I do.”
Natalie nodded because she understood that. She also understood the part he didn’t say, which was that he did it for other people before he did it for himself.
“Well,” she said, aiming for casual and landing somewhere near sincere. “Thank you.”
The front door banged open, and a gust of cold air shoved snowflakes into the entryway. Mayor Frost’s voice followed, loud enough to rattle the donation jar.
“Is this atmospheric,” the mayor boomed, “or a disaster?”
Theo didn’t even flinch. “Controlled.”
Natalie stepped out from behind the desk and raised her chin as if she was in charge of the weather. “We can run trivia by candlelight.”
Theo’s head snapped toward her. “In a building full of paper?”
Mayor Frost clapped once, delighted. “Romantic and librarian-approved. I love it!”
“Battery lanterns would be better,” Theo said.
“Candles are already here,” the mayor said, far too cheerful for someone who definitely owned multiple boxes of emergency candles for dramatic purposes.
Theo stared at the mayor for a long beat. Then he exhaled through his nose, the closest he ever came to expressing his feelings.
“Fine,” he said. “Then we do it properly. On tables only. Away from the shelves. Nothing near paper. Nothing left unattended.”
Mayor Frost saluted, which was not reassuring.
Candles appeared from somewhere. Of course, they did. The mayor produced them. Soon the library glowed with small pools of warm light, shadows shifting over book spines, posters and the holiday displays Natalie had spent all morning adjusting by half an inch at a time.
Theo moved without being asked. He headed to the kitchenette in the staff area and came back with six glasses.
He put a candle inside each one. Then, without thinking, he counted the candles again under his breath and repositioned one two inches farther from the edge of the table. A barrier. A reminder. A piece of firehouse logic placed gently into her librarian world.
Natalie stared at the glasses, then at him. “That’s clever.”
“Basic safety,”
“It’s very romantic of you.”
His eyes held hers for a second longer than necessary. “Don’t tell the mayor that.”
Teams filed in, bright with winter energy and damp boots. Someone cheered when they saw the candlelight. Someone asked loudly if this was on purpose. Someone else said, “This is very Snowball Falls,” which made Natalie want to throw a pencil at them.
A teenager in a Santa hat tripped over the edge of a rug and recovered with a bow. Two retirees arrived in matching sweaters that read SLEIGH MY NAME and asked where the cocoa was.
Natalie opened her mouth to answer and realised she couldn’t see her sign-in sheet properly.
Theo was already there, phone light angled down. He didn’t make a big thing of it. He just offered the light and waited.
Natalie’s throat formed a lump. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
He nodded once.
She took her place at the podium, notes trembling slightly in her hands. She told herself it was adrenaline or the dark. It wasn’t Theo. Then Theo moved to stand beside her, close enough that she could feel warmth radiating off his coat. Not touching. Just present. Just there, which was sometimes worse than touching.
“You’ve got this,” he murmured.
Natalie inhaled, tasting candle wax and cocoa powder, and winter air that had hitched a ride in on everyone’s coats. “Welcome to holiday trivia,” she said, and her voice evened out on the first sentence. “Round one.”
Applause broke out. Laughter followed it. The library filled up, the way it always did when something went slightly wrong and the town decided it was now tradition.
Round one went smoothly. Round two went off the rails in the best way. Someone argued that Die Harder was a Christmas movie. Someone else shouted, “Objection” even though this was not a courtroom. Mayor Frost attempted to mediate and made it worse.
Natalie watched Theo watch the room. He wasn’t watching the game. He was watching the candles. He was watching the pathways. He was watching the exits. He looked like the sort of man who could find danger in a bowl of marshmallows.
Still, he smiled once when a team called The Gingerbread Men got an answer right and celebrated with a coordinated fist pump.
Halfway through round two, the power flickered back on.
The overhead lights blazed to life, bright and sudden, and the holiday playlist returned mid-song as if it had been eavesdropping and rejoined the party.
A collective groan rose from the room.
Natalie blinked against the brightness and surprised herself with a sharp pang of disappointment. “Oh,” she said, and she couldn’t even pretend it was about the lighting.
Theo glanced down at her. “Want me to turn them back off?”
She stared at him, then laughed, proper laughter that made her ribs ache. “No. That might be illegal.”
His smile came easier this time. He didn’t hide it fast enough.
Natalie didn’t know what to do with that.
Trivia ended in cocoa and arguments about elf lore. People left with prizes they didn’t deserve and opinions they wouldn’t let go of. Someone tried to blow out a candle, and Theo made a sound that stopped them cold before they’d even pursed their lips.
When the last team finally drifted out into the snow, the library fell back into its usual hush. The heater hummed as it warmed itself up, offended by the interruption. The overhead lights stopped flickering and committed to their job.
Natalie lowered herself into a chair behind the desk, exhausted and glowing in the worst possible way, because she knew Theo could see it. “That went well,” she said.
“It did,” Theo agreed.
Natalie looked at the empty room. At the glasses still guarding the candles. At the last little curls of smoke as the flames guttered low.
Then she looked at him, and the way he was still standing a little too close to the danger, even now that the danger had passed.
“Thanks for staying,” she said. “For hovering.”
“I wasn’t hovering,” he said, which was ridiculous.
Natalie’s mouth curved. “You were. And I liked it.”
Theo held her gaze, steady, ever-present. “Good,” he said.
They stayed like that for a moment, comfortable in the aftermath. The library was a place where people had made noise and made memories and argued about elf lore as if it mattered.
Natalie reached out and straightened his sleeve. There was a smudge of candle wax on the cuff.
“There,” she said. “Library-approved.”
Theo laughed softly, the sound low and warm. “I’ll take it.”
Outside, snow kept falling past the windows, soft and persistent. Inside, the lights hummed. Neither of them rushed to leave.
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