Chapter Text
Ichabod Crane heard the shrill, high-pitched human scream before he saw the Ubaldai.
He knew the creature was there in the old graveyard: the oppressive atmosphere, the cloying humidity that made it difficult to breathe, the stench of putrid blood. He pivoted quickly, raising his blazing torch for better visibility, insides dropping with the agony of realizing he was not alone with his prey.
Another terrified scream split the air.
There. There she was, scrabbling across the grass on her back, trying to gain her feet and unable to take her eyes off the horror she had no name for.
What on God’s earth she is doing in the cemetery after dark…. Crane looked from her to the Ubaldai and back again. More than once.
Easily eight feet tall and covered with armor-like crimson-colored scales, the creature advanced, curling fingers with inch-long claws and snarling mouth. Neon green eyes glowed and luminescent liquid shone dripping from sharp fangs in the dark night.
“No!” Crane shouted and threw himself in front of the Ubaldai. An impression of bright brown eyes and a brilliant smile flashed through his mind. Not Miss Penny. He would not let the creature or its acidic saliva get any closer to the vivacious young lady.
“Fft’ai!” he shouted, dodging left to draw all attention to himself. “Run!” He screamed at Penny.
With the corner of his eye he saw that she did not run, then dismissed her from his thoughts. He waved the torch in the creature’s face and retreated farther into the graveyard. He rumbled the charm-word again, almost under his breath. “Fft’ai.”
Crane backed as slowly as he dared, trying to tempt the creature to follow, ignoring his pounding heart. His gaze catalogued the weak spots in the impenetrable crimson scales: back of the knee joint, armpit, groin, eyes. He wondered how many hits the Ubaldai could take before it succumbed. He longed for another hand, another weapon, an additional angle of attack besides his own. As it used to be. Crane shook his head. No time. For now he must simply chase it away if he could. Vanquishment was often a thing of the past, of partners, of….
He did his best. Sometimes it took more than one battle, but, so far, he’d always won, in the end. But, along the way, he often sacrificed too much. He needed….
He needed Abbie Mills. But she no longer stood at his side.
Crane swept her image from his mind’s eye, infuriated at himself for his lapse. The beast required all his concentration if he was going to survive.
He spiked the torch into the ground and pulled his crossbow from the holster at his back. Briefly studied his target. Aimed. The groin shot connected and the Ubaldai stumbled. Crane winced in subconscious, instinctual empathy, forcing himself to take a few more steps away. He needed a better angle at a better target and he would have only one chance.
The creature recovered slightly, taking a long, threatening lurch forward, forestalling the Witness’ maneuver. Crane quickly slammed the crossbow to reload, making himself ignore his restored disadvantage. He had to shoot. Now.
The arrow sailed over the red scaly head. Crane reloaded, but before he could aim again, the Ubaldai swiped a paw through the air, tossing him aside to one hand and his knees. He scrambled away, eyes always on the creature, praying his flight wouldn’t end against a tree or into a hole. The Ubaldai advanced, compelling him to aim from his knees. He panted, feeling a hitch in his side, as he struggled to make the shot. If it didn’t connect….
The air echoed with a different kind of scream this time. Guttural. Furious. Ready to attack. But then the Ubaldai stumbled again, one leg giving way. It collapsed on the ground with an arrow in an eye socket. Tried to get up and fell again. Stopped moving.
Crane supported himself on the nearest tree and gulped lungful’s of the slowly freshening air. Tendrils of smoke leaked out around the edges of the huge, crimson body at his feet. Crane found the strength to be grateful that there would be no traces of it left by morning. Then he straightened, holstered the crossbow, and moved to the torch, pulling it from the ground. He oriented himself and started to trudge back to the edge of the graveyard. The night was not over yet.
He’d gone only about a hundred feet when he saw her again. The blonde was near where he’d left her, now leaning against a large rock, face in hands, and loudly humming something that wasn’t a tune. Crane spiked the torch again and shrugged out of his weapons rig, setting it aside. He crouched in front of the distraught woman and spoke softly, gently. “Miss Penny?” He spoke her name again three times, each more loudly and more firmly. The last time, he gripped her forearm and pulled it from her face. “Miss Penny!”
She stirred and looked up, mucus running from her nose and mascara streaming in lines down her face. Her eyes were empty at first and fear stirred in the pit of his stomach. Then recognition surfaced and she grabbed him around the neck and pulled him against her shuddering body. “Oh my God!"
“Oh my God! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” She cried until her energy ran out and then she just sat there, clutching the back of his coat. He straightened and reached for her arms, disentangling himself. She looked at him. “Crane?” She clutched painfully at his elbows. “What … was that?”
“Miss Penny.” He stood and brought her with him. He pulled his coat off one-armed while he steadied her, then draped it around her shoulders. “Why don’t we go someplace where you can warm up and have something to drink and,” calm yourself down, he thought, “talk?”
She nodded. Crane kicked over the torch into the dirt and stomped out the flame; they were close enough to the street now for ambient light. Penny watched without blinking as he retrieved his crossbow.
Crane led her through the graveyard gate, past the pre-Revolutionary War church, while his mind raced to choose a destination. Choose? There were no choices…. One choice? Any choice. He couldn’t take her to a public venue; she might start remembering … and sobbing. He couldn’t take her to her apartment; that wouldn’t be … proper. He would have to take her to the Archives.
When he’d prevented the destruction of the building last year by having it declared an historical landmark, he’d become custodian. He could come and go as he pleased, let anyone in he wanted. And when Jenny Mills had, perforce, sold the house she had inherited from her sister, he’d found himself homeless. Without a job, without financial support, he’d set himself up in a corner, behind the bookshelves with a cot, a hotplate, and a coffee maker.
Crane really didn’t want to take Penny there. He’d always been rather protective of his personal spaces and possessions. But at least he could offer her a warm cover and a cup of coffee. And it wasn’t too far away.
“What is this place?” she mumbled as he unlocked the door and showed her in. He put her on one of the chairs and went to get a blanket.
“You know I am an archivist.” He stopped to fill the coffee maker with water from a plastic jug, fiddling with coffee grounds. “It is an archive.” No answer. When he turned, he discovered she had risen from the chair and was staring at something on one of the desks.
Hell and damnation.
He’d left his sketch of the Ubaldai on the desktop and forgotten it was there.
Her eyes were large and transfixed and she was breathing too deeply, too quickly. She was going to hyperventilate. He looked desperately around the room. Paper bag. “Bag. Bag. Bag.” Crane grabbed the trashcan, pulled out an Arby’s takeaway bag and ran to her. One arm around her shoulders, he turned her away from the desk. He held the bag to her lips so she could exhale and inhale from it. “Slowly,” he admonished, “slowly.”
She didn’t take his advice right away, but eventually her breathing evened out and she pushed him from her, collapsing in the chair. Silent tears were flowing down her face. When she spoke, her voice was rough. “What is that?”
Wordlessly, he crouched by her chair and offered his handkerchief. He had to say something, explain, rescue her from her shock. He couldn’t leave her to be one of those in Sleepy Hollow who never got an answer, who were left to nightmares, psychiatrists, or self-medication. Not Miss Penny. No matter what the repercussions.
She looked directly at him as he struggled for words. He lowered his head, stared at the floor, squeezed his eyes shut, then looked back up at her. Opened his mouth and closed it again. Who could be more innocent, more refreshingly hoi polloi than Miss Penny? How could he possibly find the audacity to change that?
Suddenly, she jumped to her feet, nearly tossing him to the floor. Anger flared as she waved his own handkerchief in his face. “Don’t try to change the subject, mister. You’re not going to convince me I didn’t see that thing. I saw it. You fought it. You hit it in the eye with an arrow and it… it melted. And … and there’s a picture of it! I never cared that you dress like a refugee from the ride of Paul Revere or talk like the Upstairs side of Downstairs, but what … what… what….” She motioned violently at the sheet of paper on the desk. “Archivist, my ass!”
He straightened, clutching desperately at the remnants of his procrastination. “Coffee?”
She stiffened, but let him get away with it. “Whiskey.”
“Brandy?”
She nodded. Blew her nose heartily and noisily into his handkerchief. “And the truth.”
In spite of himself, he smiled slightly as he turned to get the bottle.
Crane had carefully chosen what to tell her. He couldn’t deny the evidence of her eyes, especially since she had seen the sketch. He called the Ubaldai by name, showed her a picture in the Bestiary of Nineteenth Century America, paced, and warily tried to evade most of her questions.
He was still pacing, hands clutched at the small of his back, when he sensed she was about to challenge him again. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, making up his mind, straightened, and looked across at her. “Are you familiar with the Book of Revelation?”
She shook her head. “I don’t read many books.”
“You work in a library! How can you possibly—”
Penny dismissed his objection with a wave of her hand. “I can count and I know the alphabet. It’s not rocket science.”
Disgruntled, he stared at her for a moment. Her job probably wasn’t that difficult: reshelving books, running errands, making sure the undergraduates weren’t bussing in the basement stacks. He shook himself back to attention. He was tired and his mind was wandering. “Revelation is part of the Bible,” he explained.
“I haven’t read that since I started playing hooky from Vacation Bible School when I was eight.”
“You read Revelation when you were eight years old?!”
“No!” Penny wrinkled her nose and thought for a moment. “We had The ‘Jesus Calling’ Storybook.”
Was she being deliberately obtuse? He couldn’t tell. “Do you want to hear this?” Crane demanded, hands clutched into fists at his sides.
“Of course!”
“The Book of Revelation—”
“Wait, isn’t that the stuff that crazy people read and drink Kool-Aid and shoot up shopping malls?”
“I suppose.” He rubbed at his temple with a long finger, not understanding the reference, and started again. “The verses have been interpreted in many different ways. They detail the End of Days. The Apocalypse, if you will. One verse also describes the presence of two Witnesses who battle Evil, or the personification of Evil, in an attempt to prevent the Apocalypse.”
“You fight monsters.”
“In essence.”
“In the cemetery.”
“Amongst other places. Usually farther from the center of town.”
“Why you?”
“I do not really know,” Crane equivocated and smiled slightly. “For my sins, perhaps.”
She pursed her lips and watched him, as if she was waiting for more. When she didn’t get it, she drained her brandy glass and moved on. “Why Sleepy Hollow?”
He shrugged and paced away from her inquisitive look. “Historically, it is the nexus of many supernatural events that we can trace as far back as the Native Americans. The early settlers brought their own belief systems and agendas … fundamentalists, religious fanatics, witches’ covens, Freemasons….”
He pivoted, watching to see if she was absorbing it all. She was mouthing some of the words after him as if she was trying to glean their meaning, but didn’t interrupt. So he continued. “The British who came here to fight in the Revolutionary War, for reasons I will not at this time explain, had to win. They were willing to go to any lengths and summon any sort of beings to that end. Unfortunately, the Founding Fathers found it necessary to answer the enemy with the same tactics. It did not end there. And so we have inherited thousands of years of warfare between Good and Evil.”
“Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
He blinked. “Pardon?”
“Leonard—He—Never mind.” She flopped a hand in his direction. “Who else?”
“Pardon?”
“You said two Witnesses. Who else?”
The pain spiked between his eyes and arrowed down to his heart. He felt light-headed for a moment.
Abbie. The woman who still held his heart and soul in her hand, who had sacrificed herself so they could triumph against an evil deity.
“No one. At present.” He turned away. “No one. Just me.”
“Are you okay?” Her voice was soft, concerned.
“Yes,” he whispered, then cleared his throat. “I am fine. Is there anything else you wish to know?”
“Yes. But I don’t know what to ask.”
“You are safe, Miss Penny.” Crane tried to reassure her. “This town is safe. As safe as I can make it. Just do not go strolling through the graveyard after dark anymore.”
“I was not ‘strolling’. I was tired. It was a shortcut to the bus stop.”
He glared at her, pointedly.
“Okay, okay. No more shortcuts. No more ‘strolling’.” She pinned him with her own sharp brown gaze. “No more running with demons at my back.”
“The Ubaldai is not a demon. It….”
“Okay, okay.” Penny stood, pulling his coat from her shoulders and handing it back to him. She spat into his handkerchief and wiped the mascara from her cheeks. He winced, but she didn’t even try to return it.
“Are you all right now?” he asked. “Are you prepared to go home?”
“No. And yessss.”
Crane ran after her before she could get to the door and opened it for her. She stopped before she stepped outside. “Thank you.”
He nodded in acknowledgement, then froze, suspicious. “For what?”
“For being honest with me. I think.” Not enumerating what her doubts might be, she hurried outside. He paused to adjust the collar on his coat and followed her.
“If you please, Miss Penny, I do have a query for you.”
“Yeah?”
“What, precisely, is a ‘buffy’?”
Penny hadn’t had anything else to say during the drive to her apartment. Crane had left her to her ruminations, recognizing that she didn’t need any more of his inadequate reassurances. He had stood at her apartment door while she went inside and cleaned up, then watched as she crossed the hall to her fiancé’s door and disappeared inside. Unwilling to abandon Penny just yet, even if she had friends to support her, he had waited there in the hallway. For what, he had been hesitant to speculate.
He still stood there, unconsciously flexing and unflexing his fingers, now unable to keep the consequences of that evening from his thoughts. What was she going to tell Leonard? Was she going to tell him everything? Was she afraid Leonard wouldn’t believe her? Was it fair to put their relationship to a test like this? What would Leonard think? What would he do? What could he do? Would he want to call Crane out, or just punch him in the face?
He stared at the blue door through which Penny had disappeared, then drew in a deep breath and turned away. Four identical doors opened off the hallway, and Crane wondered briefly about the inhabitants behind the other two. What would they think if they found him here, for no demonstrable reason?
Perhaps they would condemn him as a stalker. He had learned the current sense of the word at some point in the three years and odd months since he had awakened in the twenty-first century. They would see him as a stranger who dressed in colonial garb, who spoke and acted like a man from the 1700’s. Who had, for that very reason, spent a night in a psychiatric hospital until he had learned to keep his counsel and not tell the authorities he was a spy for General Washington.
Because he was. Had been. In what felt like only moments before he fought his way, gasping, from under the dirt of his grave, he had been a captain in the Continental Army. He had come to America after enlisting in the British Army but turned his coat when he learned to appreciate the colonists’ grievances and their dreams for a new country. He had been felled in battle by a demon in the guise of an ax-wielding Hessian fighting for the British. Without his knowledge, Ichabod’s wife, a very talented witch who had been told of her husband’s destiny, cast a spell that he might be resurrected as needed in the future.
When he stumbled, terrified and bewildered, into present-day Sleepy Hollow, he had been rescued by Lt. Abbie Mills of the sheriff’s department. For reasons known only to the Lieutenant, she had eventually believed the story of his colonial origins. She had taken him under her wing to help him survive and attempt to understand, gradually and sometimes incredulously, modern times. Together, they had discovered they were the Biblical Witnesses destined to fight evil in seven tribulations until they faced and defeated the Apocalypse at the end of their trials.
He had no prospects of returning to his own time. Which was why he clung so desperately to his identity — his ideals, his diction, his etiquette. Abbie had been frustrated as she endeavored to turn him into a normal denizen of Sleepy Hollow. Although Crane suspected she really preferred him as he was — with the possible exception of his mode of dress. He’d resisted her efforts to outfit him in skinny jeans or yoga pants, while he obtained new shirts and breeches from the seamstresses of the local Revolutionary War Reenactment Society. It was, he had concluded, a symbol of his identity.
But then Abbie had sacrificed herself. To save the world. To save him. Because that’s who she was, who she had to be. And Crane was left to battle on against evil as well as amidst his day-to-day existence, which at times seemed almost more impossible. With Abbie’s death, no one remaining in Sleepy Hollow was aware of his background, his experiences. His life.
Crane scrubbed at his face, pushing his shoulder-length hair from his eyes and dragging fingers through his trim beard. He sighed, then straightened into his habitual ramrod posture, marking him as a soldier even to those who knew nothing about him. He had no intention of telling Penny about his origins, regardless that she was now aware of the rest. She had already accepted him, strange as he was. She had needed no reasons or excuses for the man he presented to the world.
He looked over at the blue door again. Perhaps she could accept the Witness in him as well.
He approached the window at the end of the corridor intending to lose himself in the view of a for-once peaceful Sleepy Hollow. But all he could see was his own reflection, reminding him of the decisions of that night.
Crane retreated to the stairwell and settled down on the lower of the steps leading to the fifth floor. He looked down at his feet for a moment, then snapped his back to attention and stared into the air. “Lieutenant, what am I doing?”
Many of the people he and Abbie had encountered who survived contact with otherworldly creatures were law enforcement. Some they had let in on their secret and taken into what had inexplicably been labeled “Team Witness.” Others had denied the evidence of their eyes and removed themselves from any involvement.
And now Penny…. But in no way would he invite her to join the battle. She was the person he was meant to fight for, not with.
Crane sighed and stirred, leaning his elbows back on a step behind him. Penny had befriended him shortly after she had started a new job at the Tarrytown University Library. Crane had been working for six months as historian in the rare book archive when she came down to the basement. She had been headed to the employees’ breakroom, but poked her head into his department first. She wanted to know if he ever ate lunch.
“I assure you,” he had said, “I have many ordinary habits.” And immediately regretted his choice of words.
But she had laughed. “I’m Penny. I work upstairs in the stacks. And I haven’t seen you in the lunchroom.”
“Oh, I bring my lunch. I eat it here.” He motioned to his desk.
“That’s a little too ordinary, don’t you think? Why don’t you eat your lunch with me?”
And he had. A couple of times a week, now. In spite of the fact that Crane was now successfully supporting himself, little else in his life had been settled since he had lost Abbie. He was barely managing an existence at the archive, reading and studying to stay ahead of the few demons which had manifested themselves. And making a few new acquaintances, but no new friends. Six months without Abbie, without Miss Jenny, without any of those who had supported him in this new world, and he had not yet begun to reach beyond his closed existence.
Penny was a refreshing addition to his life, fussing over his wedge-like cheese sandwiches and warning him of his addiction to pastry. Her life’s ambition was to become an actress on Broadway or, barring that, Off-Off-Off-Broadway. She’d told him a few stories of her boyfriend – himself a theoretical physicist at Tarrytown University – and his roommate, but he suspected many of the tales were purposely devised to amuse him. One thing was patently clear—one thing that appealed to Crane and strangely reassured him about his current reality: she was very much in love with her fiancé.
Now, as Crane again shifted his position on the cold, hard stairs, he realized that she had to depend upon Leonard in this. He had to depend upon Leonard — a man he had never met. Leonard was the one who had to be there for Penny. Whatever happened, it was his place, not Crane’s. But Crane wasn’t going anywhere, not yet. He would hear the screams, the arguments, the activity on the other side of the door when Penny finally told her story. He would see Leonard come running out of the apartment to find the man who had done this. Or he would feel the vibrations of the police or the EMTs thundering up the stairs.
Or not. Perhaps the Penny who had asked questions and cracked feeble jokes would remain in control. Perhaps the vibrant, cheerful young woman who had grown to be important to him would triumph.
“God help us all,” he pled.
After a half hour of silence and the same thoughts tumbling around in his brain again and again, he pulled a slim book from a deep pocket in the lining of his frock coat. His journal. If his mind was to be troubled by the evening’s events, he might as well put them into words while he had the time. He retrieved the stub of a pencil as well, and opened the pages to the end of his last ruminations.
Just as he was delineating what he had revealed to Penny about the Witnesses, Crane heard a muffled scream. He froze. There was another, somewhat louder, longer scream. Voices raised, footsteps, more voices. A light suddenly showed under the door. More silence, then strident tones that were loud enough to hear, but not understand. Silence.
Crane stood, straining his ears for any sound, ready to hide further up the stairs if necessary. He stood like that for nearly forty-five minutes. Then the light went out. Against his better judgment, he put his ear to the door. Voices, fading. Nothing. He let out a heavy sigh. And began to pace again.
When the sun peeked over the horizon, Crane left.
Ichabod Crane should have been a happy man. He was in the rare books archive at Tarrytown, unpacking a new shipment the buyers had purchased from Dreweatts and Bloomsbury. It was the sort of thing he usually reveled in. But his thoughts were scattered, and, if it had not been for his eidetic memory, he would have quite forgotten each of the titles he had read from the fragile spines.
He should also have been happy that he had vanquished another evil creature several nights before, without the aid and support of Miss Jenny or Master Corbin or Miss Sophie or Agent Reynolds or … or the Lieutenant … Abbie…. Everyone he had worked with was gone. Some out of town. Some out of this plane of existence.
Jenny Mills was traveling the world searching for artifacts and arcane knowledge that might help in his own endeavors. Because Jenny couldn’t bear to live in the town where she had finally been happy with Joe and looking forward to … everything…. And, he forced himself to add, she couldn’t look Crane in the eyes and not remember how her sister had died.
The surviving Mills sister was also looking for any sign of the new Witness. Crane couldn’t leave Sleepy Hollow, the Ubaldai had proven that once again. He had thought, perhaps the Witness might come to him, but … not yet.
Perhaps not ever.
After he’d had some promising initial contact with Sophie and Reynolds, the FBI had officially washed their hands of him, preferring Not To Know. Sophie could not actively help any longer, but she had on occasion contacted him about anomalies and abnormalities which had come to the attention of the FBI and the local police. She wouldn’t tell him how she acquired the knowledge, although he did guess her methods weren’t exactly regulation. His own police scanner produced less satisfactory results, but he persevered.
Badly, he had to admit. For even though he had vanquished the Ubaldai, the experience had ultimately been a fiasco. Crane looked down at his hand where he had unconsciously crumpled the shipping inventory. He tossed the paper onto the table, without thinking to straighten it out, and paced away, hands in fists, pressing his fingernails into his palms.
His acquaintanceship with Penny was one of the things he treasured in his new life. She was bright, fresh, and normal. And now she had been introduced to his tainted world. Just like Zoe.
During that long night in the hallway, he had come to accept that the reasons for his confession were not altogether for Penny’s peace of mind. Actually, he had made the most feeble of excuses for selfishly wishing someone knew more about him than his predilection for doughnut holes. The opportunity had been presented to him by Fate and he had grasped it to his bosom, unthinking, with both hands.
But he had since had time to think.
What was he going to do? Keep her at arm’s length? Put her out of his life altogether? Try to explain again? “You probably won’t have a choice, you fool,” he admonished himself. Penny hadn’t been to work for the last three days—he had checked.
He paced again. He couldn’t settle. He couldn’t think about the newly-arrived books. He couldn’t think.
“Crane!”
He startled. No…. He turned.
The woman from his thoughts came running across the room and stopped in front of him. Although she was making the effort to smile, she looked him up and down as if she were upset with him for something. “You look … rough.”
“I—” He frowned. Penny had dark spots under her eyes and a little too much makeup. Her hair was limp and a certain spark was gone from her demeanor. “You do not— How are you? What — ?”
A voice from the hallway overrode his turmoil. “Penny!”
“In here!” she called over her shoulder. Then she froze her lips like a ventriloquist as she still managed to whisper, “Go along with anything you hear.”
“What—?” A man appeared at the door, dressed in a t-shirt with a jellyfish on it and one of those jackets with all the pockets. He had dark hair and black-rimmed glasses and was a few inches shorter than the blonde woman. She stepped over to the newcomer and took his arm. “Crane, this is my fiancé, Dr. Leonard Hofstadter. Leonard, this is Ichabod Crane.”
Crane began his customary short bow, but the man grinned widely and offered his hand. “Jeez, you really do dress like Thomas Jefferson.”
Crane might have been caught off guard by Hofstadter’s presence, but his fingers tightened considerably more than he had intended when he accepted the handshake.
“Leonard!” Penny threw an annoyed look at her boyfriend, then made the effort to smile at Crane again. “Leonard just wanted to meet you and say ‘thanks’.”
“For,” Crane asked hesitantly, instantly forgetting his pique. She didn’t. She couldn’t have. Surely she knew better. He’d told her not to tell anyone. “What purpose?”
Leonard, massaging his fingers surreptitiously, seemed oblivious to the new undercurrent in the room. He put his arm around Penny’s waist. “She was so brave, I didn’t realize anything was wrong. Until she started screaming in the middle of the night and woke herself up. And me.” His voice trailed off. “And … and Sheldon.”
“My sincerest apologies.” Crane looked back and forth between the two, searching his mind for something to say. They didn’t look like they were ready to lynch him, but sometimes he wasn’t the best at reading people. “Perhaps I should have—”
Penny interrupted again, apparently determined not to let Crane explain himself or even finish a thought. “Oh, don’t be sorry for waking up Sheldon. He deserves it after all those disaster drills at two a.m.”
Disaster … drills….
Leonard brightened again. “So she told me all about it and she calmed down and I wanted to thank you myself.”
“Pray, let me express—”
“No—!” Penny shouted.
Crane drew himself up to his fullest height. “Are going to allow me to speak?”
“No. Leonard knows how much the memories upset me. I don’t really want to think about that … that….”
Crane froze.
“That mugger.” Leonard and Penny finished together.
Crane let out his breath. Finally. Mugger.
Penny continued, with a look at Crane that practically drilled through him. “I mean, neither of us really saw him that well, with that dark hoodie and the scarf covering the bottom of his face and how dark it was and how he ran away so fast after you punched him in the eye. And we couldn’t call the cops ’cause there was really nothing to tell.”
“Of course. I wounded him in the eye.” Crane drawled sarcastically, so relieved as to be almost giddy. “And we could not ‘call the cops’.”
Penny laid her hand on Leonard’s chest and squeezed his shoulder. “See, sweetie? I told you he’d be all modest.”
Leonard put out his hand again. “Well, I just wanted to see you … Ich … Ichabod. I’ve got to get to work.”
“Crane.” The shake was much more satisfactory this time. “My friends call me Crane.”
“Great.” Leonard turned to Penny, wiggled his eyebrows, and tilted his head toward the other man. “Don’t forget.” He kissed her briefly on the cheek and left, waving.
Crane was finally free to talk. “Are you really all right?”
“I’m getting there. Leonard’s being really supportive.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry about the story, but I had to say something.”
“It’s fine. It’s good. I am exceedingly penitent for your nightmares.”
Her eyes watered and she reached out to the table to support herself. He tried to take her elbow, but she waved him off. “I’m okay.”
“I would not have left you alone...” Did not leave you alone, he thought. “But—”
“I told you I was all right that night.” She straightened her shoulders. “And I’m really all right now.”
Penny wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. Crane pulled out his handkerchief and offered it to her.
“Leonard’s going to wonder why I have a collection of these.” She dabbed at her eyes so as not to smear her makeup. “But I’ll never tell.”
“What can I do?”
She finished with her nose and tucked the bit of cloth into her pocket. “Come to dinner.”
He was shocked into rudeness. “What?”
“Come to dinner.”
“That is not necessary.” Crane took a step back, to recover his personal space.
“Leonard wants to say ‘thank you’. We both do. And,” suddenly she couldn’t look at him again, “I need to be normal. I need you to be normal. I want to think of you as the nice guy I met at work, not… some….”
“I accept … the invitation.” He interrupted, afraid to hear what she thought of him now. If she could put aside her fears to save their friendship, he would embrace the opportunity.
Her smile returned, this time genuinely. “Just come by the apartment. Leonard’s apartment. Informal. Hair down. Feet up. Pizza?”
“I do enjoy pizza, but let us refrain from becoming carried away.”
She snickered. “Maybe not. Keep your feet on the floor if you need to. Friday night. Seven?”
“It will be my pleasure.” He bowed.