Just a little something I cooked up during the midseason premier. Standard disclaimers it's fanfiction it should go without saying.

Now She's Gone

It wasn't until he had lost her with seemingly no possible way of bringing her back that his heart began to ache. He remembered the love he had for Katrina and this was nothing like that. What he could recall of his fleeting marriage was a romanticized version of reality that would always be so. Katrina wasn't his first love, but she had been his only.

Abbie had been the best friend he'd ever had, his only true friend in all his lifetimes. He loved her as a friend, yes, but only as such. They were partners, witnesses. Just that and nothing more.

Then he'd mourned his deceitful wife and consequently managed to move past her lies and accept his loss. He would always love her, his Katrina, he would always remember her fondly as his gentle, soft spoken, head strong love. Crane would have it no other way. When Katrina disappeared from his dreams, when the anger subsided, and his heartache dulled he was still blinded. Too stubborn or just stupid, it didn't matter.

She couldn't see or believe and neither could he.

They felt it. Both of them felt the electricity sparking between them. Could almost decipher the smoldering glances. Knew well the meaning behind each gaze, but they were blind.

Abbie couldn't measure up. She wouldn't-couldn't be to him what he had believed his erstwhile wife to be. Therefore, she didn't bother. Crane was oblivious. Had he known the lieutenant had such thoughts he would have told her better. Not that he would have offered himself, he did not believe that was to be their destiny, but he would have told Abbie that she was an exceptional woman, a phenomenal warrior, and a magnificent beauty. Any gentleman worth his weight in gold would have been lucky to have her, he'd say. But he never knew. Not when she traded herself for Katrina and not when she'd said her last goodbye to save her sister.

A month later and he was losing his mind. He missed her with everything he had deep inside of him. Longing dug hard into his soul and desperation burned the edges of his heart. He needed to find her or he'd die. How could he continue without her? He'd lost too much, they'd done too much together for him to ever do it alone. Or forbid with another.

It was in the moment when he'd given up – maybe not abandoned the search for Abbie altogether, but accepted that, for now, Abbie was lost to him - that his eyes finally shed their scales. Perhaps it had been months before then when Daniel Reynolds slipped into their lives in Sleepy Hollow threatening everything that they as witnesses, nay, partners were. Abbie's new boss demanded her time. The strict, watchful eye he kept on her scarcely left her enough time for herself let alone being with him when it didn't directly involve their mission. At least then he had her, but now she was gone and he'd wasted time he didn't know they didn't have.

He could smell her in what he'd began to call 'their' home. Not all over. She had been gone long enough for her un-replenished scent to grow faint and indistinct in most of the rooms, but when he wanted to be close to her, he would venture into her domicile. The one place she'd kept for herself when he'd moved in. The thick fragrance of vanilla and lavender filled his nose and toyed with his senses. Here he could see her in the corner chair by the bow window – hear her laughter floating in the air.

He sat in her room for hours, well into the morning. Most nights he never let his eyes close long enough for it to be considered sleep anguished with himself and furious with her. Abigail Mills. Ichabod would lie in the center of her bed at a complete loss wishing she would come back just so that he could scold her for being so reckless and for having so little care for her own life. Hoping that one day he could hold her in his arms and fall asleep surrounded by her aroma and the feel of her beating heart pressed against his side. He often dreamed of telling her he loved her and apologizing for taking too long to realize he'd loved her much longer than he had once thought.

Most nights.

Other nights he fell into fitful slumber in his room haunted in his nightmares by his future without the woman he loved and of his cowardice for giving up only to startle awake to her voice calling his name.

He would never love her as he loved Katrina, no. He knew Abbie. There weren't any secrets between them that could remain hidden. Their bond was forged in honesty and truth, as ironic as the sentiment sounded to him in her absence because there was one thing he'd realized she'd expertly hidden from him. After reliving each moment they'd shared with his eidetic memory, Crane wondered why he'd only noticed when it no longer mattered.

This revelation kept him up at night in her room pouring over ancient spells and researching artifacts and any supernatural loophole he could hope to find long after his talk with Jenny and especially after working with Sophie. Who, in her own right, was a great agent and strong person, but wasn't his lieutenant. The removal of his idea board at the archives wasn't a pretense, but it did not mean what the others thought it meant. He was finally awake and his enlightenment was the reason he bothered rising in the morning to face another Abbie-less day. Why he decided to keep his portion of the search to himself. It was his sustenance. Abbie loved him, and he would traverse a thousand hells ten times over if only to hear her say those words to him.

Thank you for reading. Please leave a review I value your input (as corny as that sounds).

nakala