A/N: I felt like Abbie didn't ever really get a chance to express her feelings and this story will be about her trying to figure out how to rebuild her relationship with Crane and herself. It'll be short, maybe 5 or 6 chapters. I own nothing. Onward.

Abbie Mills didn't die.

Ichabod and Jenny were able to get her back. Joe was still dead but at least Abbie wasn't. The 'how' of it wasn't necessarily important. Some long lost spell from some old book had been used to get her back, body and soul. Pandora was gone, as was the Headless Horseman for the time being. For the moment, all was well.

Except it wasn't.

Jenny had gone to Arizona to meet up with Frank, who was restless to get back to serving his purpose in helping with the war against evil. The two were in some obscure part of the country killing any supernatural entities that posed a threat to human life. Thus, it was only Abbie and Ichabod who remained in Sleepy Hollow.

While Ichabod was beyond ecstatic that Abbie Mills was alive and in his orbit again, Abbie was not. She was pissed. Crane would never know that, though. She would actually have to talk to him for him to know how she truly felt.

She lay on her side in her bed staring hard at the wall, as if she could light it on fire with the intensity of her glare. Her jaw clenched in the ever present rage that just would not go away since her return to the land of the living. Her fists seemed constantly clenched and her hands were beginning to ache from the constant action. Lately, she always seemed to be shaking uncontrollably without any way to release her anger.

When she'd been on the other side, watching Crane, she had an epiphany. He must never have cared for her. He must never have appreciated the sacrifices she'd made for him since the moment they'd met. He must have thought she was replaceable.

She'd watched as he learned that the Witness spirit could live on in another. She'd watched as he attended her farce of a funeral. He never shed a single tear.

Now, she was back. Now, she was alive again. He was trying to pretend the world was right again, like she'd never actually died. It made her sick with anger.

She heard his laughter coming from the kitchen and she knew then she'd had enough. For nearly two months, she'd put up with his presence in her home, with his attitude that everything was just fine between them. Well, that would end today.

Abbie slammed the door to her bedroom door hard behind her and she heard a startled Ichabod Crane hang up with whoever he was on the phone with as she stormed through the hallway and to the kitchen. He was standing from his place at the table when he took note of the absolute fury in the eyes of his beloved.

"Lieutenant-"

"Get the hell out." She half yelled at him as her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. She felt her head pulse as blood rushed through her ears.

He felt confusion cloud his brain as he tried to summon a clue to the origin of her anger. For the last two months, everything seemed fine with them. She was back and he was happy. She'd been quiet and withdrawn toward him but he'd assumed she was simply trying to get readjusted.

"What's wrong, Abbie? Why are you upset?" He walked closer toward her, reaching a hand out to touch her arm. She immediately pulled away from him and regarded him much the same as a provoked animal ready to attack.

"I cannot stand your presence anymore, Crane. Get out of my house." She ground out through clenched teeth.

Being this angry made her want to vomit but it was an anger that ran so deep she had no idea how to make it go away. All she knew was that she felt betrayed and unloved by the person who was supposed to love her the most, the one who was supposed to protect her.

Crane on the other hand felt hurt. He could not understand why Abbie wanted him gone so badly but he knew that her anger directed at him hurt him. "What have I done?"

She went to the kitchen and took out all the mugs he loved to use so much, the ones she bought him. "You didn't give a shit when I died. You moved on like I was nothing. You never even tried to stop me from going into that goddamned box."

His eyes widened as his heart picked up speed. "That is most untrue, Lieutenant. I asked you not to go!" His throat tightened as he said the words, knowing already what a coward he had been.

"Asked? You should have fucking begged, Crane!" Abbie picked up his favorite mug, the one she'd bought him for their Christmas together, and hurled it slightly past his head and at the wall, smiling as it burst into pieces.

"Abbie, stop! What the bloody hell are you doing?!" He rushed forward to keep her from throwing anything else and tried his hardest to ignore the fact that she'd just barely missed his head.

She tore herself from his arms and raced away from the kitchen to his room, her room because it was her house. She kicked his night table over, ignoring the pain now coursing through her foot and ran to his closet, ripping clothes from the hangers and tossing them across the room.

"You turned me into an idiot, Crane. I made all these sacrifices, lost people I cared about, all because of you. I took care of you for three years and you treated me like yesterday's trash!" Abbie kicked over a pile of clothes and tripped slightly before she fell back against the wall of the closet, sinking down until she was on the closet floor.

Crane's face had gone pale and his eyes were terribly close to letting tears fall. His chest was rising and falling rapidly with anger at himself. "How could you ever think that? How could you ever think you were anything less than the most important person in my life?" His voice cracked as he raised it and Abbie flinched slightly at the volume.

Abbie buried her face in her hands as she felt a tidal wave of sadness and despair wash over her. She wished, only for a moment, that Crane had never brought her back. "What the fuck else was I supposed to think, Crane? Katrina came back and you treated me like shit. You let her get between our partnership, let her ruin everything! You refused to think clearly. Then you abandoned me for 9 months and came back expecting everything to just pick up where it left off! It doesn't work that way!"

Her voice, though no longer loud and yelling, cracked as she cried and still managed to convey the anger and sadness she'd been holding inside. "What the fuck else was I supposed to think?" she repeated, though it was somewhat less intelligible this time. "When you made me feel like I didn't matter to you, what was I supposed to think?"

The room was entirely silent. The buzzing from the air conditioner went on obliviously, as did the rain that began outside. Abbie was suddenly quite cold, though she was unsure if she felt cold outside or inside. She stared down into her lap as tears blurred her vision. She became aware that she was shaking, sobbing silently.

Crane felt as if his heart had been shredded. He was an absolute idiot and the world's greatest coward. He felt tears fall from his own eyes and felt his hands shake slightly as he sat down in front of Abbie.

She looked up at him with watery eyes. "Why didn't you fight for me?"

He was rendered horribly speechless just then as every moment since they'd met flashed in his mind's eye. Never, in all the time since he'd met her, had Abbie ever looked so broken, so alone. It was entirely his fault. His own fear and cowardice kept him from telling her just how much she meant to him.

Crane took her hands slowly and firmly and pulled her close to him, so close that their faces were inches from each other. "No apology could ever erase the way I hurt you, Grace, but I swear upon my own life that I will spend every day doing so until you no longer require me to. I will always fight for you, Abbie."

She gazed at him, a curious and wary look in her eyes. Her eyes wandered to some space behind him and eventually beside him as she thought of what he'd say. So lost in her thoughts was she that she hadn't noticed as he guided her face back toward his.

"I should have always fought for you, Abbie, from the day you entered my life. Were I a better man, I never would have let you go a single day without knowing how much power you have over me, over my own heart. I am beyond any adequate apology, my Grace." His voice went hoarse as he let out an unconscious sob.

They were incredibly broken, the both of them. Abbie wasn't even certain she could trust Crane anymore. At least he'd acknowledged the way he treated her. She could see in his eyes that he'd never even considered what she must have been feeling.

They stared at each other for what felt like hours. The air conditioner hummed loudly through the vents above them. Breath erupted from them, still hard and fast after the anger had dissipated from them both. They felt every bit as if they'd both run a 10k.

"Please," he breathed out, his hand closing around hers tightly. "Please, tell me you forgive me."

Goosebumps erupted across her skin as she felt like she'd been punched in the gut. No, she thought. No, I can't forgive this.

She never thought she could get to a point like this with Crane, a point where it physically hurt to even be near him. She wanted so badly to trust him with everything in her, but she'd already done that, hadn't she? She'd let him in, him: a stranger. For fuck's sake, she loved him. Yet, as much as it hurt her to be on the outs with him, he needed to know that she wouldn't be disrespected or walked over. He needed to learn that she was irreplaceable.

She took a deep breath and stood, snatching her hands from him as she did so. Abbie swallowed the tears building in her throat and winced at the pain. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and let out a deep breath. She would need to hold herself together now.

"Now, it's my turn to leave."

Abbie didn't care to see the look on his face. She knew it would hurt her even more. She walked to her room and threw all the clothes that would fit into the largest bag she had. She took only what she absolutely needed, including the small stash of emergency money she kept in the floorboard under her night table.

She was done in less than ten minutes and she tried to focus on just getting out of the door without falling to pieces. Abbie didn't care that the house was her house. It held too much pain fot her to be able to stay there.

Crane had told her that he loved her. After all this time, he finally told her. But it hardly meant anything now. If there was any hope for a relationship between them now, it would have to be from the ground up.

He didn't stop her from walking out the door, and for once she was thankful for that. She didn't cry until she got in the car. She cried as she pulled out of the driveway. She cried as she drove down the road and onto the highway. She cried for two hours straight as she drove through the rain and tried to put as much distance as possible between her and Sleepy Hollow.

Finally, she stopped on the side of the road at a rest stop and took her phone out. She thought about Crane, wondered what he was doing right now. Was it like the last time? Did he even care that she was gone again?

Abbie took out her cell phone and dialed her sister's number, hoping she wasn't busy with Frank or some demon. The phone rang five times and Abbie was just about to hang up when she heard her sister's voice on the other end.

"Abbie, what's up?"

She took a deep breath and found that she'd already started crying. "Where are you, Jenny?" Her voice was higher than normal, filled with a sadness Jenny hadn't heard in Abbie's voice since their father left.

"Are you crying? Abbie, what's wrong? Did something happen?" Jenny's voice was nearly frantic with worry. Abbie never cried, and certainly not to her.

"I can't do this anymore. It hurts...so much...it hurts, Jenny. So, just tell me where you are." Abbie was less intelligible this time but Jenny understood her all the same.

"Hyannis. It's in Massachusetts. We're at the Resort Center. I'll get us a connecting suite." Jenny said after a while.

Abbie nodded and took deep breaths to calm down. "Right. Okay."

The line was silent for a time, but Abbie knew her sister was there. She knew she would be there as long as necessary.

"Abbie?"

"Yeah?"

"You're going to be okay."

A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this. I have a feeling it will be quite an emotional journey. Let me know what you thought. Until next time...