A/N| This takes places after the escape from the haunted house in 0.9, Sanctuary.
Ichabod looked like such a mess sitting like a blood-slathered statue in the passenger seat that after delivering Lena into a grumpy Irving's hands Abbie drove him directly back to her place. He was barely responsive when she tugged on his arm to get him to leave the car.
"Shower, right now. Make sure it's hot, it'll help with the shock. Drop your clothes outside the door so I can take care of them, okay?"
He nodded mechanically, went into her bathroom, and closed the door without a word.
Abbie was worried.
She collected the blood-stained clothing pile and ran it through the machine, muttering about him only having one set of clothes because she still hadn't found the time to brave the mall with him in tow. But her heart wasn't in it.
She should have seen this sooner.
Back when the Masons had kidnapped Crane, and Katrina had come to her, the first thing she'd seen was the rolling pram, her attention caught by the wail of an unseen baby.
Crane's baby.
Right by the pram - a crib. And right after that the Horseman had appeared to chase her away from the baby's room. Katrina had told her - "This house in an echo of the home I once shared with my husband."
If she had thought to question Katrina then...
What? What would that have changed? If I found out about his son and told him then, would that have hurt him any less? Abbie pulled Crane's clothes out of the washer with more force than was necessary and shoved them angrily into the drier.
She couldn't get it out of her mind. The way the emotions had played across his face, always so controlled. She'd had to tell him. It had been kept from him for too long, and regardless of whatever monster was hunting them down, she'd had to tell him. He had a son. Of all the things he had left behind from his own time, this was the one he had to know about, the one that pained him most of all.
She knew she'd never forget the anguish in that look as long as she lived.
She realized that although the sound of the shower water had shut off Crane hadn't yet emerged. He'd been in there for an hour. Worry clawed at her insides, sent her darting to the bathroom door. She rapped with her knuckles. "Crane? Are you okay?"
He didn't answer, but she was listening intently enough that she heard the slight shift of body weight. She shuffled her weight from one foot to the other impatiently, but he didn't answer, and he didn't open the door.
"Crane, are you covered?" Still no answer. "I'm coming in."
He was sitting with his back to the bath, thankfully wearing a towel around his waist, although his wet hair was dripping down his chest. Abbie's eyes were immediately drawn to the sharply red cuts along his abdomen and shoulder. "Shit." she breathed, dropping beside him, noticing that the water running off his side was slightly tinged crimson. "Crane, can you hear me? Look at me."
He didn't respond, so she slid her fingers under his chin and tilted his head towards her. His pupils look normal, but his eyes were so huge and filled with such sadness it took all her composure not to reel back.
He wasn't over this yet, not by a long shot.
"She didn't tell me." He murmured, and hearing it in his voice was even harder than looking at it in his expression. Abbie had been careful to remain neutral when thinking of Katrina... up until now. Right then, she felt she could have willingly punched the witch in the nose for causing Crane pain like this. "How could she not?"
"It's okay. It's going to be okay." She told him, automatically, half expecting him to snap at her for the obvious lie. How on earth was this ever going to be okay?
But the anger was gone, drained out as he wielded the axe against the beast that has chased his wife and child into the night. He laughed, the bitterest, most miserable sound that Abbie could imagine. "I fear, Lieutenant, that it will never be okay again."
At least he was talking. She didn't think that he was so much in shock anymore as that the emotions were just too difficult for him to process properly. It was obvious how far out of touch he was when she examined his shirtless chest and got no objection. The double cuts along his abdomen weren't serious, and they didn't appear to be bleeding anymore. The deepest one on his shoulder worried her, and she suspected it ought to have had stitches, but she didn't have the heart to drag him to the hospital. He put up no protest while she cleaned the wound, smeared it liberally with antibiotic cream, and then when she brought him into the kitchen and sat him at the table. She left him with a hot drink between his hands to retrieve his clothes from the drier. He drank no more than three or four sips while she dug out a needle and thread and patched the rip in the shoulder of the shirt. She wished her would rant, or pace, or any of his usual habits.
"I wonder what he was like." Ichabod's voice, a hollow shadow of it's normal timbre, surprised Abbie. She looked up from the last few stitches. She could see the desperation, the yearning in him. He couldn't deal with this on his own.
"I'll bet he looked like you. Your eyes. Your nose." She suggested, the faintest hint of a smile touching her lips to picture Ichabod's familiar features in miniature. "And he would have been smart. He'd probably be debating with you by age five."
He only stared into his teacup, and she felt a stab of pain of her own that he was so far out of reach.
He shirt patched as best her sketchy sewing skills permitted, she handed it back to him. His hands shook at he put it on, then vaguely got up and return to the bathroom with the rest of his clothes, emerging in his usual attire. Noting he'd put his boots back on, with the logical intention to go back to the cabin, Abbie stood up to head him off. "You're staying tonight, Crane." She told him simply, and when a faint flicker of relief crossed his face, she experienced the same emotion. He would get through this. They would get through this. Gently Abbie took his hand to lead him to the room that had steadily come to be known as his room instead of the spare room. "C'mon, sleep, Crane. We'll come up with a plan tomorrow. We'll find the answers." She assured him earnestly, and he looked at her, properly, for the first time in what felt like an age. Exhaustion, misery, defeat - it was hard to find any trace of her Crane in there.
"That's what worries me." He admitted in a tiny voice, swaying a little and worrying Abbie gravely. She worried she really should call him an ambulance, but how were they going to fix the great tears in his heart and soul?
"Crane. Any answer is better than this. I can see you putting yourself through hell, second-guessing yourself, and it isn't your fault." She told him with a sudden fierceness. He blinked as if he were thinking about believing her words, weight tilting to the left, and she hastily guided him over to the bed where he half-lay and half-fell across the mattress, the night's events catching up to him. Abbie methodically lifted one of his legs up, sat beside him, and began painstakingly undoing the lace at the back of his boot. If she was honest with herself that was something she's fantaized about doing for weeks... but this wasn't the time for her imagination to run away with her. Once both boots were off she set them carefully beside the bed where he'd be able to see them, then got up.
"Mnnn." He surprised her when he rumbled a protesting noise and his fingers caught her own. "Don't leave."
She froze, turning to face him slowly. His eyes were open - just - and curse it, that same sadness had her drowning in them.
Of course he wasn't asking what her mind immediately leaped to...
"I've left behind everybody else. Not you too." He muttered, almost incomprehensible in his exhaustion. Oh. Right.
The step felt too huge, too intimate for the short time they'd known one another... but Abbie didn't have the heart to refuse him anything, not like this. She'd have blown off work and maxed her credit card buying him a ticket to London if that's what he'd wanted.
She shrugged off her jacket curled up in the space beside him. Mindful of his injuries, her arm snaked over his midsection, above the cuts on his abdomen, below the slice over his shoulder. His arm coiled over hers and pulled her body closer to his back with more strength than his tiredness ought to have allowed. Abbie's skin sparked, then she melted against him. The way she fit along the line of his neck, back and leg, automatically adapting his exact pose to spoon against him, was beyond her imagination.
If he needs me... just for tonight... already his even breathing and the warmth in his body was lulling her to sleep too.
She was afraid to admit that she needed him every bit as much as he needed her.
A/N| Have I mentioned lately how much I appreciate all my completely awesome reviewers? For me there is no motivation to get to work and write more than reviews, so thank you to everybody who has taken the time to leave feedback :) For you, I give you chapter with excessive fluff, enjoy!
Edited to fix up a stuffup I initially made with the continuity of Ichabod's clothing. From another site I post this fic on a reviewer asked me:
"If he has just had a shower why does he have his boots on?"
Me: "Because I wrote it at midnight and I have a Ichabod-boot-fetish? :)"