She was back.

He didn't know how, but she was back.

"Are you gonna just stand there and look stupid or are you gonna let me in?" Her voice was incredibly cold, her words, though simple, cutting at him unexpectedly.

He felt as if cold water had been poured over his head. Without a word, he stepped aside so that she could enter and closed the door behind her.

"How?" His words sputtered out from him as if pulled and he found that he could not help but be pulled, almost magnetically, into her orbit.

She ignored him, going to her room and closing the door behind her.

He kept watch, sitting up in his own bed, knowing there was a real possibility that it was a trick. Perhaps some demon was playing him, but it did not appear that way.

His Lieutenant still ate her usual donut holes (one covered in chocolate as she always requested) and drank a caramel latte. Crane felt rather relieved that that had not changed.

"Ask me anything." She said the next morning when she saw him emerge from his room, his face rather haggard and tired in appearance.

"I beg your pardon?"

He felt as if the world had gone faster and he slower, struggling simply to catch up. His mind felt as if it were wrapped in cotton. Nothing was clear to him anymore.

"You haven't been sleeping because you don't think I'm me." Her voice had taken on that same cold tone again and he felt his stomach twist. "Well, I'm not me. I'm not the me that you remember. Most of that is to do with the fact that I jumped into a box that led to some plane where I existed but didn't in some ridiculously misguided attempt to save the world from an immature goddess with boyfriend issues."

Crane might have laughed had not the Lieutenant's words left him feeling so horribly sick. "I...there are not adequate words with which I could apologize to you, Abbie." When she raised an eyebrow at him, he felt as if she might be gazing into his soul.

"You? No words?" She laughed, and Crane almost smiled because it was the closest Abbie seemed to be to the woman he remembered. "Please. Try your best."

Anything he could have said died on his tongue as he realized that Abbie was most likely angry with him. She had every right to be. She'd given more to this fight between good and evil than he had, sacrificed more, risked her life more than he had. When his snake of a wife had returned, his and Abbie's relationship had gone from 50/50 to a despicable 80/20.

"You deserved better," he began. His voice was thick with the weight of having yet to achieve sleep. "You deserved far more than I gave or did not give. An apology, though deserved, will do nothing to change the fact that I broke this...this between us. The fault lies with me."

A smile tugged on the corner of her mouth as she stabbed her fork into a donut hole before dipping it into the latte. "Indeed, it does. But I'm not without blame either. I need to apologize to me for not standing my ground when it came to that fucking sideshow of a family you had! I just...pulled back knowing Katrina had a snowball's chance in hell of meaning anything similar to what I am to you."

Her voice had risen. He widened his eyes somewhat as Abbie stood and disposed of the rest of her breakfast. She turned to look out of the kitchen window at the beautiful day that seemed to be forming outside.

"I believed in you, Crane. I believed you would do anything for me the same way I would do anything for you. But I was wrong, wasn't I? Because at the end of the day it was me who sacrificed my life for you. Again. All I wanted was for you to stop me, beg me not to go. But you didn't. You didn't beg, Crane. Now, I'm back and I have to learn to live with that somehow."

He heard her voice crack, felt her tears as if they were his own. There was nothing he could possibly say. So, he got up and walked over to her. She turned to face him, suddenly quite aware of her proximity to his.

"Nothing I say could ever hope to make up for all the pain I caused you. But I ask now if you will allow me to show you what I was too cowardly to before you were gone."

He'd stepped closer to her, lifting his own hand to meet hers, connecting them finger to finger before engulfing hers. Their bodies were being pulled together by some unseen force.

For the first time since her return, Abbie felt afraid. Not afraid for her safety but afraid of getting hurt again. She felt her eyes drifting down to the floor as she suddenly recalled the feeling of disappointment and emptiness that filled her the second she knew that she would sacrifice her entire being for Crane even if he would not do the same.

She could feel the doubt clouding her now as clear as she could feel his strong fingers to guide her face upward to his own.

"I am here now," he breathed out. "Come to me."

The air felt cold and charged, the two of them trembling under the weight of guilt, disappointment, and self-loathing. Against her will, tears sprung to her eyes, running down her face silently.

Suddenly, she felt warmth on her cheeks and realized that Crane was kissing the tears away from her face. She closed her eyes, allowing more tears to fall as he kissed her forehead and pulled her against him.

"Never again, Abbie. I swear it."

She woke up in the middle of the night, dreams of the other place startling her.

There had been no up or down, no light or dark, no sound. She simply was. After what had felt like hundreds of years, she'd somehow been flung back into the land of the living.

The cold that had crept into her chest in the other place did not appear to be abating. She wondered if it was because she found it harder and harder to care about reality when none of it mattered, not even their fight against Moloch.

What was the point of it all? What were they fighting for?

She thought a lot about this as she padded quietly outside on the porch with a blanket wrapped around her. There was a slight chill in the air, but nothing Abbie wasn't already used to. The moon was positively massive, a huge, bright crescent in the sky. The sounds of nighttime nature filled her ears and she closed her eyes, allowing herself to just feel.

"Is everything alright, Lieutenant?" A groggy Ichabod Crane stood in the doorway, peering out at her with concern etched across his face.

She nodded wordlessly as she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped the blanket around herself. A moment later, she felt Crane sit down next to her, his hand reaching for hers, anchoring her as if she were a helium balloon itching to reach the sky.

They stayed that way for an hour before Abbie decided she needed to go back inside. He followed her quietly to her room, seeing that she was tucked in and wanted for nothing before heading back to his room.

However, as he turned to leave, he felt her hand grasp his wrist, pulling him back toward the bed. Crane looked down at her with confusion on his face. Abbie moved over to allow him room and pulled the blankets back.

Cautiously, he climbed in after her. She turned her back to him and moments later he geard her breathing even out as she fell into a peaceful sleep. He kept as far to the right edge of the bed as possible without falling off, not wanting to overstep his bounds.

Instead, he turned his back toward hers, wondering if their relationship would ever be the same again.

A/N: Hope you all liked this. Until next time...