First Sleepy Hollow Fic so I hope you like it. Title may be temporary. I kind of like it but it's a bit too literal for my taste. Anyway…
Disclaimer: I own nothing but what popped into my head. Everything else belongs to the owners.
Chapter 1
She stood before him with unfocused, vacant eyes sunken into her skull. Her countenance conjured bile from the pit of his stomach.
They had been working together for over six months and seen more creatures of doom than could be counted over the course of that time, but he had never seen her as haggard and trouble worn as this. She was thinner than the last time he saw her, eerily so considering that was when they'd gotten separated in the woods a mere two hours ago. What could have transpired between then and now utterly baffled him.
His eyes quickly roved over her sweat soaked, pallid skin, which held none of the rich luminescence that usually coated her milk chocolate, smooth skin.
From his distance, he could see that she wasn't present. The light behind her eyes was irrefutably absent. The walking dead came to mind. Worse than all of this, worse than her feeble, staggering from the forest was the blood that soiled her shirt from just beneath her bust to the hem terminating in corpulent drops of the sanguine fluid. Each droplet plummeted to the ground with an inaudible crash that chilled Crane to the marrow of his bones.
"Lieutenant Mills!"
The words never left his mouth nor did his boot, clad feet respond to the mental signal to drop the weapon he was brandishing and go help Miss Mills. Instead, fear gripped his senses rendering him immobile.
"This cannot be happening."
His very tether to this strange world he'd awakened to was dying before his eyes. Before he got the chance – snapping himself from his premature misery, Ichabod abandoned any sense of decorum, tossed his weapon, and ran full hilt screaming and raving like a madman for Lieutenant Mills, Abigail, to hold on.
"I am coming. Please hold on! Abigail," he bellowed uttering her given name for the first time sans title until the wind left his sails. "Please don't die," were the words sputtered under his breath when he saw her weakened frame tumble listlessly into the brush where the edge of the mysterious forest met the free world.
As he watched her legs give way under her, as she crumbled to her knees, as her lifeless eyes rolled into the back of her head, as that very head disappeared behind the bramble to no doubt smack solidly on the winter hardened ground, the air flew from his lungs and his heart stalled. But that didn't stop him. The living relic skidded to the young officer clutching her in his arms, before allowing his usually calmer mind to prevail. Ignoring the eighteenth century man inside of him, the former Revolutionary War spy lifted the woman's shirt to examine the wound, praying it was not as dire as he knew it was.
The sight before his eyes elicited an uncharacteristic groaning growl from the effervescent gentleman. The wound was a gaping hole gouged into her abdomen breeching the layer of muscle beyond her soft flawless skin. It had begun to congeal along the edges giving the appearance of an injury older than humanly possible.
"Please, Abigail, please open your eyes." Crane muttered to himself as he caressed the side of her face. He wouldn't shake her, despite this ardent desire; it wouldn't work. In all the crevices of his eidetic mind he knew nothing he could do at this point would open the bright, peppery eyes of the woman in his arms. Though it might not have been any significant help, he did apply pressure to the leaking wound. Through his grief, stricken haze he remembered to call out for help.
He, Jenny, and Abigail purposed into the woods to track down the week's big, deadly ugly. Stubborn Abbie had ventured off while Jenny and Crane searched one of the many seemingly innocuous caves. When they'd exited the cave, the Brit was instantly consumed with worry when he didn't see his partner, while Lieutenant Mill's sister had been incorrigibly furious. When he'd finally calmed Jenny's bubbling fury, they set off in the direction they thought Abbie might have gone.
After nearly two hours of searching with no sign of the young officer, Jenny called the police with a fabricated emergency that would hopefully hail an ambulance; he could only hope.
Ichabod checked the incapacitated woman's carotid for a pulse, which he found to be faint but present. Sighing in relief, he thanked the heavens there was still life in his dear friend.
Jenny and Crane had bit the bullet and left the center of the forest to make sure Abbie had not found her way back to the squad car. It was a last resort kind of thing that neither really agreed to but did nonetheless. Jenny was returning from the location of the car when his weary eyes finally left Abbie.
"She's…"
"I saw, Ickie. Is she…"
No," he swallowed deeply, always one to speak the truth, "Not yet."
Jenny choked back tears and anger. "My stupid sister just had to take care of things on her own."
Crane didn't have time for Miss Jenny's misplaced aggression. "Help?" questioned the often verbose gentleman too ill at ease to find his beloved words.
"They're behind me with the stretcher." She knelt down beside the emotionally wrought man. "She's going to be okay. My sister's resilient and as stubborn as a mule. She – she'll be okay." She'll be okay.
Thirty seconds after Jenny joined Ichabod, the paramedics arrived making quick work of tending to Abbie's weeping wound and getting her onto the stretcher. Within three minutes they had Mills hooked to an IV and ready to be loaded into the ambulance.
"Ichabod what happened here?" Captain Frank Irving was still in motion as he ran to the ambulance where they were transferring his police officer into the ambulance.
Sure, the captain deserved to know what had occurred; however, Ichabod had more pressing matters to attend. Jenny could handle him.
"Hold one moment, I will be accompanying you."
"Sir, you can't-"
"Travelling physician, I am not leaving her side. Now, if you will excuse me, I will be accompanying Miss Mills to the infirmary." Crane nearly growled grabbing the paramedic's arm.
Not wanting to fight with an obviously psychotic person, the paramedic allowed Crane into the back of the ambulance before securing the doors.
The sounds surrounding Ichabod were deafening. The whirring of the siren, the slow beep, beep, beep of the portable EKG, the loud roar of the engine, and squeal of the wheels as they barreled down the highway was all foreign to him. The only thing he understood about any of it was that these machines were keeping the little spitfire alive.
Blocking out everything except the constant beep of the infernal machine that Crane surmised monitored the rhythm of his unconscious partner's heart, he reached for her hand wishing he could summon the words to bring her back. Wishing for anything that could keep her from passing into the afterlife. He couldn't dream up the solution to this quandary with two of his brains; so, he settled for taking her limp, cold hand into his warm one. He stroked his thumb over her icy knuckles.
Those small knuckles had connected with his arm numerous times in the past. Just this morning as they were leaving her apartment, she'd lightly punched him when he'd, once again, questioned her about her ex, Detective Morales. He was really curious as to whether there were some residual lingerings given their precarious separation. Abigail refrained from answering; she simply rolled her big, brown eyes then playfully socked him in his arm as she'd come accustomed to doing over the past few months when Crane inquired of things she'd rather evade.
Her hand jerked from his hand snatching him from his reverie. Before him, Abbie thrashed about violently; the whites of her eyes flashed him from underneath half closed eyelids.
Shock?! Oh God do not let this be.
Mills flailed disturbingly for a couple of minutes…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Then nothing.
All movement halted immediately.
The only movements Crane observed were the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she breathed laboriously.
Then…
.
.
.
.
.
Nothing.
Her chest didn't rise again.
That blessed machine that alerted him of the life still flowing in Lieutenant Mill's body was no longer keeping time with a beating heart but had settled into one monotonous tone.
Beeeeep.
Thanks for reading. Having problems with Crane's part but I'm trying my best. Hope you liked it and check back for the next chapter.
nakala
