Untethered by Jadeblueaferglow17

Spoilers for the Episode Incident at Stone Manor S3x E 9

Disclaimers: I don't own Sleepy Hollow Fox does, if I did, poor Tom Mison would be relegated to yoga pants and be upside down during 90% of the show.

Category: A/HC: Because I needed a little more angst.

Chapter 1 - Broken

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The unyielding sun cast a hollow glow on the place she felt would become her eventual tomb. She had been trapped here in this vast waste land for more than 10 months, 17 days, 6 hours, 3 minutes...but who was counting anymore anyway. The only thing left to break the relentless monotony of the day to day loneliness were her hourly jaunts out of the four walls of her tomb to travel as far as her body would allow her before she needed to return and take metal to fire, and then metal to stone to map her new world on the walls on what had now become her prison. Her attempt to save her sister, to save her fellow witness from certain death, had forced her into this maddening other dimension, where time seemed to march on endlessly.

She'd survived purgatory and the demon Moloch.

She had saved Crane from certain death and kept Katrina from altering the past in the 18th century.

How could she save herself if she wasn't even sure if she was alive or dead?

Did she even exist anymore?

There was no food, no potable water, nothing to allow her weary mind to rest, just the endless yearning to return to the ones she loved, without the means to even reach them.

All she could was try to hold on to the last fragments of her memories of them.

Their laughs...their smiles...Crane's voice. His voice. It was her only tether to the life she once knew.

"Leftenant..."

"Crane?" silence greeted her once again...her new and ever present companion..."I'm losing my mind..." she thought aloud.

"Leftenant? Queen to Knight 4"

"Crane is it really you?!"

"I am close, but I need your help to make the rest of the journey, Leftenant."

"Crane please..." an urgent need for sanity bore of her plea.

"Cling to our bond Leftenant...our partnership. Hold onto it in your mind."

"Please be real...please be real...oh God Crane...I need you to be real." she whispered aloud to herself. As if God himself answered her prayers, Crane's astral form materialized before her. She could not contain her joy, she raced to his lanky frame only to have him vaporize to dust before her eyes. She felt anger swell within her at the injustice of it all.

Abbie felt a plethora of curses welling deep within her ready to make an escape when suddenly his voice echoed...

"I'm afraid only my spirit is here. Leftenant, Ms. Jenny and Master Corbin devised this method as a portal for me to reach you in ...whatever this place is you've been these past weeks...

"Weeks? Crane I've been here nearly a year..."

"Leftenant, that's not possible..."

"Crane after my phone died, I made a sand timer to measure time because the sun never sets here...I never grow tired, or hungry, cold or hot...I just age Crane. My nails grow, my hair grows, time moves, but I do not."

Crane stared at the hieroglyphs on the walls of the tomb.

"This writing...is Sumerian. There must be some ancient magic here...some strange evil at work."

"Evil...yes...maddening, hellish even."

Before they could even consider the intricate details of the ancient text on the wall an twisted wind blew through the catacombs, causing gooseflesh to rise on the nape of their necks. Suddenly a terrifying voice rand out from the depths of the cavern.

"And you shall stay here and rot my dear Napalutus'."

"Pandora...?

"Yes witness...I am here, like your fellow mortal in our astral form, except I didn't have to use a crudely built spirit cabinet to project my astral form, I have the powers of a god at my beck-and-call."

"An ugly one at that."

"I'll have you know that cabinet was built in two hours to precisely..."

"Crane!" Abbie voice warned.

He nodded hastily...and thought "Right probably not the time to quibble over the craftsmanship of his dual world transport system.

"Give me the eye Witness and I will use its power to help send you back home.

"Go to hell..."

"Hell? Oh you have no idea Witness...You are so smart...too smart for your own good."

"There's nothing you can do to me here." she laughed to herself.

"No, witness I can't harm you, but I can hurt him." Pandora balked as she appeared to flicker Betsy Ross' blade becoming whole in her hands. She closed her eyes briefly as her form began to waver in and out. Her physical form appeared in the archives as she came upon the cabinet holding the bodily form of Ichabod Crane,

"I owe you at least this much Witness for toying with my box, she whispered to his unresponsive face as the gentle breath of her abated curses reached his darkened tresses and moved them slightly.

She made a slashing mark across his abdomen just as the Horseman of Death had made some 200 years ago as Crane's body cringed in agony. His astral projection fell to its knees in the Catacombs beside Abbie in the cave as Pandora reappeared.

Crane grabbed a hold of his abdomen heaving desperately as Abbie kneeled before him reaching out to touch but deciding that in his current state he was not there with her in body.

"An eye for eye I suppose you would say mortals. You return the eye to me, and I give you the chance to save your fellow witness."

"What did you do to him?"

"Your witness tethered his body in your Earthly world while he projected his spirit to try to find your miserable soul here in the Catacombs. I merely set a deadline.

"Meaning?"

"I cut his earthly form, and his tether. If you bring me the eye, I will free you from this place and you may save him. If not he'll die there and his soul will float free for all eternity, a terrified soul forever in its own darkness, despair..loneliness the true meaning of hell. A lost and silent soul."

"No!"

"Unless you give me what I want he will die in that cabinet, and you will rot here."

Abby and Crane shared horrified looks. Within each of those looks each shared thousands of memories as Crane's figure began to become more wavered, his spirit flickered in and out.

Pandora held up her bloodied right hand as if to drive home her meaning.

"There is still a chance to save your fellow Witness. I can show you how to use the eye in time to save him before he dies and is lost forever."

Abbie stood and grasped hold of the eye, its crystal now a translucent clear.

"It is not your path to die in these endless battles you plague us with. How long can you stand the solitude?"

"There were times I thought I'd go mad from the loneliness. But seeing Crane again...knowing what you've done to him, I know what I have to do."

Pandora stood with her hands out waiting...wanting.

"I have to do this for both of us..." Abbie said aloud to Pandora. Pandora smiled a gleeful grin as she could almost taste the feast she would enjoy with her god as she returned the eye of providence to her lover and they ravaged the world they hope to remake. Abbie placed the eye in the center of the thicket of brush and took a large rock and smashed the small stone to bits.

The faint glimmer of Ichabod's aura smiled at Abbie as she drew Pandora's ire.

"You fool, what have you done?"

"In chess we call that move a sacrifice. We mortals do that when it's for the greater good." Abbie nearly screamed, with unshed tears in her eyes.

"Well. You enjoy your sacrifice mortal, as you suffer here in madness, for all eternity!" she screamed as she too cut her tether and escaped from the Catacombs.

Suddenly Crane's image completely dissappeared.

She was alone again.

Abbie heard Pandora's words echo through her hollow prison.

"You made your move live with it!"

"Crane?" she cried out in desperation. When she was met with silence, she fell to her knees in front of the moss covered stump she'd gathered and flung the rock pieces from her self-made chess board.

"Damn you Crane...don't you leave me!" she rocked back and forth on her knees staring into the portal, the entrance and exit into her nightmare when she felt it; the tiniest whisper on her soul.

"Leftenant...?"

"Crane?" a tear swiped hastily from her cheek. "Crane are you still there?"

"I'm here Leftenant..."

"Oh thank God..."

"It's so dark...cold." his voice held a tremble she had never heard before.

"Crane hang on...we are gonna find a way out of here."

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