Hair Cut
Summary: What was Ichabod thinking, letting Jenny Mills come near him with those pointy scissors? And will Abbie fall right into her mischievous sister's schemes?
A/N: Just a fluffy story featuring tricksy Jenny (we all know she totally ships Team Ichabbie) and general Ichabbie friendship and adorableness. I hope you like it!
….
'Why isn't he answering his phone?' Abbie put her phone back in her pocket, slightly annoyed at her partner.
'It's Saturday afternoon, he better not have forgotten about the game,' Abbie thought, 'Whatever, I'll just go over there and get him, ready or not.'
She grabbed her jacket and her keys and headed out the door.
Jenny had never shared her sister's love for baseball and it just wasn't as much fun to watch the ball game alone. So Crane was the perfect companion. If nothing else was accomplished by their battle against the pending apocalypse, Abbie was determined to make him into a baseball fan.
….
Abbie pulled into the gravel driveway by the lakeside cabin, surprised to see a familiar jeep already parked to the side.
'What is Jenny doing here?' Abbie asked herself, climbing the stairs to the front door, wondering if she should be worried that she had clearly been left out of something.
"Hey Crane!" she called out as she pushed the door open and stopped short at the sight that greeted her.
"What is going on? Jenny, what are you doing to him?" she demanded.
"Hey Abbie," her sister greeted her.
"How's it going?" Jenny asked, too casually.
"Good afternoon, Lieutenant," Ichabod spoke up, but was largely ignored.
"Jenny! What are you doing?" Abbie wanted an explanation.
Ichabod sat straddling one of the wooden kitchen chairs, his forearms resting on the chair back. His light brown hair, normally pulled back into a half-way ponytail, hung loose about his shoulders. Jenny stood behind him, a pair of sharp-looking scissors in one hand and a comb in the other.
"I'm giving him a haircut," Jenny replied innocently.
"Since when do you know how to cut hair?" Abbie asked skeptically.
She walked around so she was in front of Ichabod. "You agreed to this?"
Ichabod nodded but was reprimanded to hold still as Jenny continued her work.
"I've been here for several months now, Lieutenant, and our continued battles against evil are no excuse to let personal grooming fall by the wayside. Miss Jenny has assured me that she is an expert in the matter and graciously offered me her services," Ichabod explained carefully.
He was determined not to let Abbie see him loose his cool, despite the intermittent yanks on his hair and the scissors snipping very close to his ears. He'd gotten himself into this mess and it was way too late to back out now with any dignity.
Abbie raised an eyebrow and said with a smirk, "Jenny, watching a few Youtube tutorials doesn't make you an expert!"
Jenny just rolled her eyes and Ichabod looked concerned. He didn't know what Youtube was but Abbie's comment sure didn't fill him with confidence.
"Have you mislead me?" Ichabod raised his voice.
"No! I told you, I've done this before plenty of times," Jenny retorted, "Hold still. I'm almost done. It's going to look much better. You'll see. Both of you."
"Uh-huh," Abbie sounded less than convinced.
For once Ichabod was not sure what to say. Abbie couldn't help but smile at his barely hidden distress.
"Well, it is about time you got a haircut, Crane," she baited him, sometimes he made himself such an easy target, she couldn't help it, "You were really starting to look like a hobo."
Offended, Ichabod pointed at her defiantly, assuring her that, "I am not a hobo."
"A hobo is what we sometimes call a homeless person," Abbie helpfully explained.
"Thank you, I gathered as much from the connotation," Ichabod interrupted her, to little effect.
"During the Great Depression, a lot of people hitched rides on trains crossing the country and they just lived like that, floating around or living in shantytowns," Abbie continued with a mini history lesson, half-remembered from her high school days, "and that's where the term hobo is from."
"Wonderful." Needless to say, Ichabod was not impressed with her historical anecdote.
"Are you quite finished, Miss Jenny?"
"Be patient, will you?"
Finally, Jenny finished with the scissors. She stood in front of Ichabod, considered for a minute or two, and then judged her work acceptable. She'd cut off about two inches or so, just enough to make him look a little less ragged, and it had actually come out looking even, more or less.
"Hey, go look in the mirror, see what you think," Jenny said, smiling proudly.
Ichabod went to the bathroom to check his reflection.
"Oh! One more thing," Jenny grabbed a can of something from the table and followed him to the bathroom, calling, "Come on, Abbie!"
"Huh?" Abbie had no choice but to follow her sister.
"What is that?" Ichabod asked hesitantly. He'd thought he was free.
Jenny popped the lid off the can and shook it.
"It's called moose. Makes your hair nice and soft," Jenny explained.
"Is that at all necessary?" Ichabod protested, sensing a losing battle.
"Yes, it's absolutely necessary," Jenny replied. She grabbed Abbie's hand and sprayed a large fluff of moose into her sister's palm.
"Whoa," Abbie protested, confused, "but why…"
Jenny gave Abbie her best incredulous eyebrow raise, her expression clearly saying 'Are you stupid? I know you secretly want to run your fingers through Prince Charming's flowing locks! You are literally holding your chance in your hand, don't screw it up now!'
Abbie responded with a glare that clearly said, 'Ugh! You know I can't ever admit something like that! How did you become so tricksy?!' but she didn't protest any further.
Jenny gave one last smug glance back at her sister as she left, saying something about cleaning up the kitchen. Abbie rolled her eyes, 'Why do I always underestimate her schemes? I'm in for it now.'
Ichabod was rubbing a towel over his damp hair, looking at Abbie curiously.
"Am I perhaps missing something here?" He could have sworn that the two girls had just had some sort of telepathic conversation. When he was a child, his younger sisters used to do the same thing. It was more than a little unnerving.
"It's nothing," Abbie shook her head, "Don't worry about it."
She glanced down at the large mound of foam in her palm then looked back up at Ichabod questioningly.
"This stuff really will make your hair feel nice. It's worth a try," she said.
Ichabod sighed.
"Go ahead," he acquiesced. What could it hurt anyway? He'd already come this far. If he didn't like this 'moose' substance, he would simply stick his head under the faucet and wash it out.
Abbie smiled and rubbed her hands together carefully, instructing her partner, "Get lower, you're too tall!"
Ichabod smirked at her, "As you wish," and sat down on the toilet seat obediently.
Abbie placed both her hands, palm down, on top of Ichabod's head, barely containing a laugh. It really was a comical scene. She spread the foamy substance through his hair, a little hesitantly at first.
"You sure are brave, Crane," she said.
"Hm?" It was rather distracting, the way her fingertips ran across his scalp, the unfamiliar scent of the hair-product, the way she pursed her lips in concentration, inches from his face.
"Letting Jenny cut your hair. I'll take you to a professional, a real one, next time."
"It's turned out all right, I think," Ichabod assured her, his words forming a little more slowly than usual.
For one moment, Ichabod almost forgot who he was, forgot the daunting mission before him, forgot how far from home he was. He wasn't Ichabod Crane the misplaced Revolutionary Soldier, he and Abbie Mills weren't the Witnesses of prophecy, he had no one waiting to be rescued, no long-dead friends to mourn.
He was sitting in a small room in a log cabin by a quiet lake with a pretty girl who was soothingly running her fingers through his hair.
"That should do it," Abbie's voice broke into his daydream-like trance and brought him back to reality. She was wiping her hands on a towel by the sink.
"Abbie…" he stood up and once again Abbie had to look up to see his face.
"Yeah?" she asked. Was something wrong?
Ichabod favored her with a small smile, "I must say, your touch is much gentler than your sister's."
Abbie laughed at that, shaking her head, "You don't gotta tell me! I know. I let her cut my hair when I was seven."
"You know I'm still here right? I can hear you!" Jenny yelled from the other room.
Abbie lowered her voice a smidge, "It was hideous. I had to wear a hat for weeks."
"I can only imagine," Ichabod grinned as he followed her back to the front of the cabin.
Jenny stopped cleaning to point the broom handle at Abbie, declaring, "That was a long time ago. I was only six, what do you expect? It's time for you to forgive and forget!"
"It was the night before picture day! How can I forget when it was immortalized in the school yearbook?"
Ichabod raised his eyebrows curiously, "What is this school yearbook you speak of?" pretending it was only a harmless question from a confused time traveler.
Abbie promptly decided it was time to change the subject.
Glancing at her watch, she told him, "Come on, we're going to be late. You remember what today is, right?"
"Of course I remember, Lieutenant. Let me fetch my boots," he replied, storing away the 'school pictures' issue for another time.
"Miss Jenny, would you care to join us at the baseball game?"
"No thanks, Crane. I'll pass. I'm meeting someone later anyway," Jenny replied and grabbed her keys to leave as well.
She waved goodbye and hopped into her jeep.
Abbie leaned against the porch railing as Ichabod locked up the cabin. She was watching him curiously.
"What is it?" he asked.
"You seem unusually…" Abbie paused, wanting to pick the right word, "cooperative today. What's the deal?"
He shrugged and replied lightly, "It's a beautiful spring day and, no matter how important our work is, even Witnesses must take time to relax once in a while. Even General Washington made a point to give his men a few days of leave when he could."
"I'd say we've certainly earned a vacation, even if it's a small one," she unlocked the SUV and they climbed in, "We'd better get going or you'll miss the national anthem again."
Ichabod watched the scenery scroll by his window. The view from a moving car never ceased to amaze him.
He was happy to have a break from the fighting, worrying, and near-constant searching that their daily adventures usually brought, but it was more than that.
He would never admit it out loud, but recently he'd been realizing more and more that he quite enjoyed being the center of Abbie and Jenny's attention. He loved it when they included him in their daily lives, when by all rights they really didn't have to. Every day together was a precious glimpse into their relationship, what they thought about when not fighting evil, how they viewed this strange world.
He'd first realized it in the aftermath of the demon Antclif's exorcism, when Abbie had gone to Jenny and hugged her in what was probably the first time in many years, it had hit him like a physical blow, how utterly alone and lost he felt when no one was looking at him. It surprised him, how badly he wanted to be a part of Abbie's family.
Maybe those thoughts were a product of his longing for his own family, but there it was. Abbie had told him that he was home now, that he belonged in Sleepy Hollow, in the here and now. Could it ever be true? It was difficult to believe. He missed Katrina so much it made his heart ache.
His dream, as ever, was to get her back. He had so many questions that remained unanswered. There were so many wonders that he'd witnessed since waking in Sleepy Hollow, he wanted to share it all with Katrina as well. Maybe, one day, he and Katrina and Abbie and Jenny could all sit down to a homemade meal together in the cabin, passing the rum around, reminiscing over all their wild adventures.
That was a wild dream, he knew that.
But days like this, with the bright sun in a clear blue sky over the green grass, white lines staking out the baseball diamond, Abbie wearing her favorite cap and yelling insults at the umpire, it gave him hope for the future. Somehow, things would work out for the best.
…..
The End.