"Fox," I mutter to myself. "I can't friggin' believe this...or you know what? Actually, I can. Fox never does a show justice."

"Other than Fringe," Nikki pipes up.

Corbin clicks his tongue at her. "That's a mystery that will forever go unexplained - how Fox saw fit to keep Fringe going even when no one was watchin. I'd like to say it was because I was a fan, but..." He shakes his head. "The thing about my fanbase is, well...you think any old fanbase on Earth is a toxic wasteland populated with goons and buffoons? Mine, I'm sorry to say, boasts some of the worst."

"Oh, we've seen some of those," I say.

"I knew one or two in my military days," Joe says. "Those were also the kind of guys you'd expect to run away screaming at the first sign of danger. Cowards, they were, once they realized God..." He pauses, realizing he's talking about the Big Guy as if He's not in the room. "You," he amends with a nod to Corbin, "weren't their one and only suit of armor they would need."

"Foolish men," Corbin says, "have ways of doing foolish things. Like building their houses upon the sand-"

"Matthew 7:26," I say without thinking.

"Favorite among geologists?" Nikki says. The rest of us just look at her until she says, "Sorry, I was quoting a movie. Made by Fox, actually."

"Yes, but we're mostly concerned with what the network is doing, not the film studio," Corbin says. "Where was I? Ah, yes, foolish men. Or women, whatever the case may be." He gives a sheepish smile in response to my own microexpression of irritation. What can I say? I'm feeling a bit touchy today. Salty, even. "They build their houses upon the sand, they're the lawyers with themselves for clients, and they're cocky enough to go into battle with insufficient armor." He breathes a sigh and looks up at a nearby shelf - which, I notice, is laden with historical war texts, including a few editions of Sun-Tzu - one of which, I think, is actually printed in Chinese. Printed modern-style, so likely not a first edition. "You would not believe the antics the Celts would pull, thinking they could fight naked save for their torcs."

"The golden rings around their necks?" I ask.

"I wonder if those would help us in our quest," Joe laughs.

I match his laugh with an even bigger one straight from my belly. "I am not wearing a torc. Especially not if I have to go completely naked otherwise."

"Nobody's saying you'll have to wear a torc," Corbin chuckles. He crosses to the shelf with the war texts and picks a book from the shelf immediately below it - one which happens to be hollow inside. The hollow contains what looks like a tablet - an iPad-type tablet, I mean, and not a wax tablet like what the Romans might write on. He fires up the tablet, swipes the screen a couple of times, and says, "Okay, so, Mr. Crane, officially, ended the last quote-unquote 'season' of Sleepy Hollow by getting invited to join a group of mysterious intent, with no clue as to their identity. That's what's known to the viewing audiences across the multiverse. What they don't know, what I know, is that these people are the Roosters, aka the Church of Atropos, so named not because Atropos has the rooster as a symbol-"

"She doesn't?" Joe asks, bemused.

"-but because they took the name from another section of the overpopulated Fox graveyard that's been largely abandoned for over fifteen years," Corbin says. "It's an X-Files spinoff called Millennium. Great show, gone too soon. Anyway..." He clears his throat. "That show took its name from a so-called 'consulting group' that worked with an agenda fixated on their belief that the turn of the millennium would bring about the Apocalypse."

"Sounds familiar," I say. "Anyone remember Y2K?"

"I barely do," Nikki says. "I was only three when the year 2000 started."

Corbin tilts his head. "So as far as you're concerned, Y2K was nothing but a joke?"

Nikki nods.

"But it was pretty serious business back in the day," says Joe.

"Serious enough to have an entire TV series centering on it for three years beforehand," says Corbin.

"Why don't I remember this show at all?" I ask before answering my own rhetorical question, after a fashion. "I watched X-Files back then. Surely there would've been commercials for it. No such thing as DVRs...although I did used to record the show on VHS, so I could skip the commercials...hmm, right."

"The Millennium Group," Corbin says, "was divided into two factions. The Owls, who were secular in their apocalyptic beliefs - no doubt owing to their intellectual leanings, hence the name. Whereas the Roosters believed the Apocalypse would be something more in my wheelhouse." He places the tablet back in the book, closes it, and files it back away. "My theory is that the Roosters deliberately set this up. They somehow rose up from the dead-"

"Haha, TV zombies," Joe laughs.

"-and manipulated Fox into killing you both off - but especially you, Abbie, being one of the Witnesses - in an attempt to trigger an Abrahamic Apocalypse with all haste.

"Naturally, they're not setting off my anger anytime soon," Corbin says reassuringly. "But seeing as my hands are full with tackling all manner of, pardon my French, quantum bullshit - such as my rebellious eldest son trying to live on his own in Los Angeles, and Heaven help him if Fox gets trigger-happy on his ass..." He finally stops to draw breath, at which point the rest of us close our mouths - I know I'm not the only one whose jaw dropped, hearing God slip so deeply into the role of Corbin that he cussed like the real deal. "I'm afraid I can't just place you back where you belong. What I can do, however, is put you on a mission that'll earn you your wings, as it were.

"Get Nikki back home," he says to me and Joe, "and you'll return to Sleepy Hollow where you belong. Then, from there, you can save Mr. Crane."