Chapter Text
Penny is just starting to clean the dishes from dinner when her phone rings. Seeing the caller ID, Penny sighs in exasperation, but answers it anyway. She puts the phone on speaker so she can continue doing the dishes, but sets the volume low so as not to disturb Jamie who is watching TV in the other room.
"Hi, Gra-" Penny starts to greet, but her grandmother speaks right over her.
"Penelope Faith Bradshaw, do you know what I just heard?"
Penny swallows her sigh as she leaves the Mac and Cheese pot to soak and gets started washing the smaller pot that she steamed the veggies in.
"What did you hear, Gran?"
"He left one at a school, Penny! An elementary school! What's to stop him from targeting a daycare next?" Gran sounds absolutely horrified in that way only southern women can. But then, she had sounded that way the last four times she had called today. If her grandmother wasn't still healthy as a horse, Penny would probably be worrying about her blood pressure.
"Gran, what news site are you on? The school was a false alarm," Penny tells her as calmly as she can.
"Penny, just please come home for a little while. Just until they catch this psycho. I'm worried about you two," Gran says, completely bypassing the question.
"Gran," Penny starts, unable to hold in her sigh this time, "you know I can't do that. I have work obligations. Besides, we're doing everything we can to stay safe. I have that app to keep in touch with the neighbors who are all being extra vigilant these days. And I got one of those fancy camera doorbells, so I'll be able to see anyone who puts a package on my doorstep."
"Penny-" Gran starts to protest.
"No, Gran, I'm a big girl now. I can take care of myself and my daughter," Penny says and then winces at how harsh her tone sounds. "Sorry, that sounded bad. I just-"
"I know, Penny. Just remember that you have nothing to prove to me, okay sweetheart?" Gran says, sounding so incredibly understanding and sincere, that Penny almost agrees to start packing now. But like she said, she has work obligations.
"I know, Gran. Thank you. I promise I will ask for help if I need it, okay?"
"Okay. So, how is big city life aside from the crazy man with his bombs?" Gran says, moving on as if it's as simple as that.
Penny knows that as soon as more news on the bomber pops up, Gran will be calling her again, but she's willing to play along for now.
"You know, Phoenix isn't exactly a small city," Penny teases.
"No, but we certainly don't have a bunch of crazies like there are in LA."
"I don't know, Gran, a lot of them still think they saw UFOs that one time…"
"Those were real and you know it, Penny!"
Penny finishes cleaning the dishes as her grandmother tells her perspective of the Phoenix Lights story for the thousandth time ("I was there, Penny! It was a massive triangular ship! Right there in the sky!"). Then they move on to the more trivial parts of talking about their days until Penny decides it's time for Jamie to go to bed. Jamie talks a little bit to her great grandmother before saying goodnight.
Penny hangs up and helps Jamie get ready for bed before tucking her in. She must have had a more tiring day than she described, because they only get through a few pages of Goodnight Moon before Jamie is drooling into her pillow. Penny smiles down at her daughter and gently kisses her forehead before tiptoeing out of the room.
She gets into the living room to find they left the television on. A cartoon about a platypus (why is it green?) who is also apparently a fedora-wearing secret agent is playing on the television. She turns the volume down and switches to the news to see if there is any new information on the bomber.
"If you're just joining us, witnesses are reporting that this LAFD ladder truck, belonging to station house 118, was hit with some kind of explosive as it was making its way to a call," the news anchor says as footage of said fire truck on its side in the middle of an intersection is shown. There is fire and people in uniforms are laying unmoving on the ground as a teen struts about with what appears to be a bomb strapped to himself.
Penny watches, eyes glued to the screen as the bomber is confronted by a firefighter and then by a man who probably isn't just a civilian considering the police let him through. Once the bomber is dealt with, the camera focuses on the carnage. Penny's breath catches when they manage to get a close up on the firefighter pinned under the truck.
Those eyes.
Everyone always thinks that Jamie gets her blue eyes from her mother. After all, the blue eyes and pale skin are about the only things they have in common. But it simply isn't true. Penny's eyes are bright blue. Startlingly so, considering her dark hair and pale skin. Jamie's eyes, however, are a more subtle blue. The color reminds her of the ocean. Blue, yes, but sometimes almost green in the right lighting. But they remind her most of Jamie's father.
Most of that night in that little, coastal town in Peru is a blur. But she does very clearly remember the face of the bartender who called himself Buck and thought she "wasn't doing vacation right". The one she shared too many drinks with after his shift and then somehow ended up waking up next to the next morning. She vaguely remembers skinny dipping in the sea as well. But most of all, she remembers those eyes. Because the same ones look up at her everyday. Just, you know, smaller.
She watches the other firefighters try and fail to release the pinned firefighter with tears springing to her own eyes. A maelstrom of emotions crashes over her. Disbelief at the near impossibility of seeing him again. Fear that this may be the last she sees of him. Guilt over the small bit of tentative relief that flits past at that idea. Uncertainty that she should even be feeling these emotions for a man she barely knows.
And the mixed bag of emotions only intensifies as civilians rush in to help save the firefighter. The firefighter. God, she can't even bring herself to think of him as his name. Or at least the name he gave her. Because she doesn't want to. Because she knows that just seeing his face again means her and her daughter's lives are about to change drastically. And she isn't sure if she can handle that.