Summary: Katrina and Jenny find themselves on the outside looking in.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of SLEEPY HOLLOW
Rating: K
Pairing: Abbie/Ichabod
ON THE OUTSIDE:
Katrina watched her husband and Miss Mills conversing quietly, showing each other different texts while the in turn discarded them. She sat in a circle trying to reclaim her powers for their next engagement with the minions of Moloch. Though, each time she tried to concentrate, something Ichabod said and the laugh that followed from Miss Mills distracted her and Katrina found herself watching them once more. She couldn't help but feel a little envious of the camaraderie they shared; of the absolute trust they held in the other. Most of her life with Ichabod had been stitched together with lies. Their love was real, the connection they shared, but their life held dishonesty. Katrina had lied to protect him, to protect herself more. She was a witch and that title alone had condemned many an innocent soul in her time.
"Hey," Jenny sat down next to Katrina just outside the circle she had drawn on the floor. "Can't help but watch them huh?" She asked because she had been doing the same thing for the last hour. Katrina nodded 'yes'. When Abbie and Crane were in the same room everything else, everyone else, seemed to fall from concern for them. It was just them. "Has Crane been sleeping ok?" Jenny asked turning her attention to Katrina. "The reason I ask is because Abbie's been leaving the house in the middle of the night after screaming nightmares." The first time that had happened, Jenny tried stopping Abbie from leaving, tried to get her sister to talk to her, but Abbie fled out into the night, and now she knew where her sister went; to Crane.
Katrina lowered her gaze, "Ichabod has not been sleeping with any peace these last few weeks. He too leaves in the middle of the night." A sigh escaped her. "I know not of where he escapes to." That was another thing festering in her mind. Her husband leaves the warmth of their bed to flee into the uncertain and dangerous night rather than talk to her about his troubles. "I'm feeling less than useful as he doesn't confide in me." She tore her eyes from Ichabod and Miss Mills. "Does your sister share her nightly torment with you?"
"Nope," Jenny tapped her hands on her shins as she sat Indian style on the floor. "She'll scream, wake up, and then leave the house." She sighed deeply and then looked to Katrina. "Tonight I was planning on following her."
"You have such little trust in your sister?" Katrina inquired slightly ashamed that she had contemplated following Ichabod as well. The relationship between her and Ichabod used to be so easy, so fluid, and it used to feel so right between them. It seemed things in this new century were not as certain as they used to be in the old.
"It's not that," Jenny gazed at Abbie as she smiled and chuckled at Crane. "I just want to be there should something happen while she's unprotected and alone." Even as she wanted to hate her sister, to punish her for all time, Jenny still felt the need to protect Abbie from anything that went bump in the night.
Over at the center table Abbie yawned, closed her eyes, and tilted her head from side to side in an attempt to crack her neck. She was doing anything to wake up. Two straight weeks of very little sleep a night was starting to wear her down. Blindly she reached out for, what she thought, was her coffee cup. When she picked it up, took a sip, she discovered that she had taken Crane's cup by mistake. "Sorry," She chuckled setting it back down. "I'm just so tired."
"Think nothing of it," Ichabod said gently taking his cup in hand to drink some of the coffee Abbie had mistaken as hers. "I understand well the toll that's been taken on you. These nights without sleep are causing me some trouble as well, but I have no doubt we'll get through it." He was overcome with the urge to reach across the table and take her hand to show her how much he meant what he'd just said. Ichabod resisted with Katrina in the room. Touching another woman would be an insult to her, to the woman he called his wife.
"I just want to sleep and," Abbie shuffled papers about, "this isn't helping to keep me awake." It was frustrating. She wanted to sleep and at the same time she didn't want to sleep because she didn't know what would be waiting for her. Peaceful dreams that aided in rest or the torment of Purgatory where Moloch waited to chase her and Crane through the dark woods full of lost souls. Last night when she's pulled herself out of the dream realm, she had called Crane as she knew he would be awake. Then, they spent the rest of the night sitting together in the park using the other to level out emotionally. Crane had yet to complain about meeting her, and she guessed she was just waiting for him to tell her to stop calling him.
"Abbie," Ichabod whispered, "We share in this torment; the dreams that plague you are well known to me." He pushed the papers aside so he could give her his full attention. "We have a less than ideal situation, we never know if you'll be pulled into my nightmare, or I into yours. For now, how we cope with it is working for us." In truth he looked forward to the inevitable buzz of his phone letting him know that Abbie was on her way. There was still the part of him that felt guilt over leaving the bed he shared with Katrina, but she couldn't share in the torment of his mind. Not in the way Abbie could. Even though he loved his wife beyond all reason, there was a broken trust between them. He knew all the reasons for her secrets, for the lies she told him to protect them both and yet, there was still the hesitation to confide in her when he wasn't sure she was being fully honest with him.
Abbie closed her eyes, "You only call me 'Abbie' when you want to make a point." She said with a small smile. "I guess, I just feel bad when I text you and tell you I'm half way to the cabin, and I know I can do that because you'll already be awake having suffered through the same nightmare." Abbie was careful to keep her voice barely above a whisper. "You should be sharing all of this with Katrina, not me." Then his words were echoed back to her, 'All we really get in this life is one another.' She wanted to believe that more than anything, she really did, but it was hard. Throwing her hands up Abbie said, "Let's just get back to work." It was her way of saying, 'I'll leave it alone if you leave it alone.' Ichabod inclined his head, and they set about shuffling through papers pulled from files on how to create their own monster to combat Moloch.
THAT NIGHT:
Thrown from a fitful sleep, Ichabod sat up quickly in bed, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He'd just come from another hellish dream where he was locked once more in that plain pine box nearly suffocating. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, he scrubbed his hands over his face and then through his hair trying to rid himself of the terrible chill rolling through his body. Ichabod climbed out of bed to dress for he knew that any minute his phone would buzz with a message from Abbie. Despite her reservations from the afternoon, she would contact him. This time, it had been she who was pulled into his dream. They had been buried alive, struggling for air, and face to face with the possibility of death. In the coffin, every breath they took, they took together. Then, the moment he slipped his coat on, from inside the pocket, his phone buzzed. That brought a smile to his face as he silently left the room where his wife still slumbered in bed.
Katrina woke the moment Ichabod started to toss and turn, the moment his breathing went from even to labored. She knew not to wake him as she lay next to him. After 250 years in purgatory she still was unaccustomed to the helpless feeling that descended upon her. More than anything she wanted to rip the nightmares from his mind, but at the moment her powers were barely anything. Katrina was forced to stand idly by while Ichabod suffered and was forced from her to seek solace with another. She wasn't jealous of Abigail Mills because she knew Ichabod wouldn't dishonor their marriage vows with tawdry affair. Katrina was jealous of the trust he placed within her. She was left with no choice but to let him leave. As Miss Jenny suggested earlier that day, she would follow them, and feel guilty while doing it.
Outside, Abbie stood by her Jeep Cherokee waiting for Crane. Even though she'd sworn she wouldn't contact him tonight, all of her good intentions went right out the window when she woke up from his nightmare. The need to be unconfined spurred her from her bed, from the comfort of her blankets, and out into the cool night air and wide open space. From there she was driving all the way out to the cabin. Relief flooded through her when she saw him walking towards her. Abbie met his half way, and as he'd done before leaving Purgatory with Katrina, he pulled her into his arms to hold her closely to him. "I had no idea." Abbie mumbled tightening her hold on Ichabod.
"It's alright." Ichabod soothed. "Everything will be fine." It was a lie they often told to the other because the genuinely believed it. Gently, up and down, he moved his hands on her back wishing to dispel the chill he knew she had to be feeling. "These shared dreams can't plague us forever." Even as the dreams were designed to make them question reality, to test the bond between them, Ichabod stayed true to Abbie, he never lost faith in her just as he knew she would never lose faith in him.
"Forever is generous," Abbie scoffed. "We only get seven more years." She let that hang between them. Having a ticking time clock on her life should scare her, but she was going to be facing whatever Moloch threw at them with Crane at her side, and that took the fear away. There was nothing she couldn't face with him. It was becoming more and more difficult to force herself from his side, to tell herself that she didn't need anyone when in truth she needed Crane. She found an emotional stability with him that she never would have with anyone else.
Ichabod held her tighter side stepping the issue of their seven years of tribulation and potential death by asking, "Where shall we wait out the remainder of our night?" Leaning back, he rested his hands on her shoulders. They had discussed at great lengths why their dreams linked them until they finally stopped talking about it. "Would you be amenable to sitting on the small dock overlooking the lake?"
"Sounds relaxing," Abbie nodded taking a step back from Crane. He offered her his hand and she readily placed hers in his. Normally she wouldn't be doing this, letting a man guide her around, but Ichabod; this was good manners for him. He walked a little in front of her, looking out for anything that would make her stumble. Though, if she stumbled she knew Crane would catch her.
Sitting with his back resting on one of the posts, Ichabod held out his arm for Abbie to join him. It delighted him when she sat down next to him, stretched her legs out, and rested her back against his side pulling his arm over her shoulder. He took it one step further by lacing their fingers together. Idly he rubbed his thumb up and down her index finger while his face was turned towards the horizon while he waited for the sun to rise. Having Abbie at his side did more for him in his attempt to push aside the anxiety of the dream than talking would have done. With Abbie he didn't have to use words, she already knew. He would have to relive the torment if he shared his dreams with Katrina. Hiding this from his wife, not being able to share it dug a knife in his heart and twisted, but this he could not share with her. Abbie alone knew the full weight of what he'd gone through. Katrina refused to speak of her time in Purgatory, even to him, even when he asked.
Abbie closed her eyes leaning her head back against Ichabod's shoulder. She breathed in and out slowly banishing the rest of the panic she'd felt leaving her house, leaving her sister. Breathe in, breathe out, and let all the negativity leave with the exhale. At least that's what she tried to do. The only way she could calm down was like this, from the warmth of Crane's arms. Moloch had sought to leave them with a lasting scar; nightmares that plagued them night after night. They were nightmares that she and Crane shared. It reminded her of the time they had both entered the dream world to combat the Mohawk dream demon Ro'kenhronteys. Crane willingly put his life on the line for her without her asking him to. "I really had no idea how bad it was for you in that box." Abbie said again wanting to talk about something. "How'd you get out?"
Ichabod drew in a calming breath, resting his cheek atop Abbie's head. "I won't lie; I thought I was to die in my son's coffin. As I lay there I devised a plan using the soil laced with sulfur. I recorded you a message letting you know that I never stopped fighting, that I tried in vain to get to you. Then constructing a rudimentary bomb, I lit the fuse and nearly blew myself up." He chuckled dropping a small kiss to the top of her head.
"You blew yourself up?" Abbie laughed lightly tightening her hand on Ichabod's. When she'd summoned him to Purgatory, he didn't mention his near death escape. She hadn't even asked either. All that mattered was that he was alive and that he was hell bent on freeing her. "I'm glad you're ok." She squeezed his hand.
"Admit it; you appreciate me a little more now." Ichabod teased her as he had when he reconstructed the map. It made him feel good that they were able to joke in the face of impending doom.
Abbie shook her head, "Microscopically." She replied turning in his hold to rest her cheek on his chest, her eyes looking out over the water. "I always appreciate you." Abbie said lightly letting the truth fall between them.
Katrina could not stem the rise of her tears as she watched on while Ichabod and Miss Mills spoke softly to one another. In all her years, whether on earth or trapped in Purgatory, she couldn't have predicted the profound bond the two witnesses shared. She watched as they sat together, aligned perfectly with their hands joined. Was she really free from Purgatory to watch her husband slip away from her? Turning from the sight silently she made her way back to the porch where she saw Miss Jenny waiting for her. Katrina had nothing to say. She was still trying to understand what it was she had seen between Ichabod and the lieutenant.
Jenny stepped out of the shadows when she saw Katrina coming back to the cabin. She felt for the powerful red head. So much time spent in the clutches of a demon only to return to the world that wasn't her world. Jenny stepped outside of her personality for a little while going to Katrina to wrap her arms around the witch. "I know." It was all she had to say. She found it hard to live with Abbie knowing that her sister wouldn't confide in her about what made her scream in terror every night. In the past few weeks Jenny truly thought she and Abbie had made leaps and abounds in their reconciliation of trust.
"I truly did not think it would be like this." Katrina mumbled pulling back from Miss Jenny. "I thought I would be freed from Purgatory and we'd go back to being how we used to be." She confessed to her new found friend in Jennifer Mills. "This must still be my punishment for all the lies I've told him." Now she was just feeling sorry for herself.
Jenny felt for Katrina, all that time locked up in a place she didn't deserve to be, "We're all just finding our feet here." She sighed, "And as much as I hate to say it, working this new balance out is just going to take some time until we're all used to it." It was frustrating, confusing, and downright exhausting trying to balance this life with the impending war against Moloch. "We're all in this together." She said quietly hoping that her words offered her some measure of comfort.
"I fear we will remain on the outside looking in." Katrina replied turning her head to look in the general direction of the dock. As much as she wanted things to return to the way they used to be between her and Ichabod, Katrina knew that it wasn't meant to be, but she wasn't ready to give up. She would fight to reclaim her life with the man she loved. Katrina only hoped that Ichabod wished to live that life with her once more.