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Abbie was bored out of her mind as she finished up filling out the day's paperwork, in triplicate of course. Crane was sitting in her visitor's chair, all prim and proper looking unless you could see him from her angle and could see that his fingers were stuck in one of those paper finger trap things, a bright purple one no less. She'd offered to show him the trick to getting free of it, but he'd shot her down, insisting on figuring it out for himself.
"So, where are you in your reading?" Jenny had given him U.S. History for Dummies as a joke, but he insisted on working his way through it to catch up on what he'd missed.
"I am still in its early chapters. To my dismay, I have found its interpretation of the settling and founding of our nation to be highly inaccurate and woefully incomplete."
"It's not supposed to be anything more than the basics, Crane," she pointed out, shaking her head. The fact 'for dummies' was in the title should have told him it wasn't going to be all that specific on anything. She should just buy him a damned encyclopedia or something. A big one that she can hit him with when he gets too annoying.
"While that may be the case, some of the facts it professes are laughably incorrect."
"Gave you a good chuckle then?"
He tore his gaze from the finger trap for look enough to give her one of his patented 'yes, go ahead and mock me if you must, although realize that I am aware of what you are doing but am above acknowledging it' looks and she, as always, did her best not to laugh. "I fail to see," he began as he turned his attention back to his fingers, tugging harder and harder to get them apart, "Why we must. Why there is this need today to. Why. What. How do I remove this blasted thing?"
Abbie reached over, grabbed his two fingers and gently pushed them together before removing the finger trap and handing it to him. "Here. Now, if history is pushing so many of your buttons why don't you read something else. Some poetry, maybe?"
Crane looked at her for a second before tilting his head, acquiescing. "Perhaps I shall. Although I feel the need to 'stretch my legs' as you say. May I fetch you some tea, lieutenant?"
"That would be great, thanks, Crane."
"Then I shall take my leave of you for the moment," he said, standing up and giving her one of those slight bows of his before heading off on his quest.
Abbie stared down at the finger trap in her hand and shook her head. "Sometimes, Crane. Sometimes." Then she shoved the trap back in her drawer and focused back on her paperwork. Maybe she'd actually finish it before he got back. Unlikely, but you never know.