Let's Go Home
Chapter 2
Summary: Of course, there was still more to be resolved!
AN: I wrote this switching in between Abbie's and Icabod's POV.
And Now, the Continuation…
The clock on the dash read 10:27 pm as Abbie slowly pulled up to the curb and put her SUV into park, but it felt much later. She looked over at Icabod. He was leaning against the passenger side door, arms crossed under the blanket, mouth slightly open, dead to the world. He'd passed out shortly after they left the hospital.
'Well, the adrenaline has definitely worn off,' Abbie thought.
She leaned her head back against the headrest and rubbed her eyes. What was she thinking? She should have just taken him back to Corbin's cabin in the woods. He'd be fine. But no. Here she was, parked outside her apartment with Crane in the passenger seat, fast asleep. After everything they'd been through that day, really the past two days, and neither of them had slept since finding the boy last night, discovering the ghostly village of Roanoke, Crane falling ill, and yet more journeying through the woods, she just wanted to make sure he was alright. It was her responsibility to take care of him. The cabin was all the way on the outskirts of town and she was fairly certain he didn't have any dry clothes to wear, or anything to eat for that matter.
He did look very peaceful when he slept. Abbie shook his shoulder gently.
"Wake up, we're here," she said.
No response.
Louder, she repeated, "Wake up! Crane!"
Nothing.
Abbie sighed. She took the keys out of the ignition and got out of the SUV, closing her door somewhat less than gently. She walked around to the other side and tapped on the window. His eyelids fluttered and he pulled the emergency blanket a little tighter.
Abbie pulled open the passenger door.
"Hey! Crane! Wake up!" she implored.
Still nothing. Abbie rolled her eyes. She poked his cheek. "Wake up." Poking his face with her pointer finger again, Abbie continued, "Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up."
Finally, Icabod opened his eyes. Alarmed and extremely confused, he grabbed the offending hand and focused on Abbie, bewildered at what was happening to him.
"Come on, sleepyhead. We're here." Abbie pulled her hand back.
"Where are we? You're not taking me to the cabin?"
"This is my apartment building. You can sleep on the couch." Abbie explained to a perplexed Icabod. She yawned and continued, "I'll make some hot chocolate, maybe order a pizza…"
Icabod still looked uncertain about all of this.
Abbie pushed her still damp hair out of her face and crossed her arms. "I'm too tired and cold to drive you all the way across town to a drafty old cabin right now. Really, Crane, it's okay. Just stay here tonight."
"Okay." Icabod got out of the car and followed her up the stairs to her apartment, for once too tired to put up an argument.
...
Icabod trailed behind Miss Mills as she led the way up to her apartment. He trudged up the stairs, legs feeling heavy and soggy and bitterly cold.
'Pull yourself together, Icabod!' he thought to himself, 'You've marched for days in the snow and wind. This is nothing! Keep your eyes open wide, that's it.'
It was rather amusing to see Miss Mills wearing his long blue coat, especially when she fumbled with the sleeves. He wanted to stop and carefully roll the sleeves up for her, but he wasn't sure that she'd take that very well. It could be quite hard to predict how she would react at times. After all, she had threatened him with deadly force the first day they'd met.
His reverie was broken when Miss Mills finally unlocked her door, pushing it open wide and flipping on the lights. Icabod stepped inside.
"Oh! Leftenant, it appears that your home has been ransacked!" Icabod exclaimed as he looked around in shock at the small, but much cluttered room.
"Excuse me?!" He received what could only be considered an incredulous glare from Miss Mills. He was getting quite used to that reaction, in fact.
"This place is a calamity!"
There were brown boxes everywhere, some overturned with their contents spilled onto the floor, piles of books mixed with clothes mixed with pots and pans. The furniture had clearly been pushed aside, standing at odd angles in the room.
Miss Mills rolled her eyes. "I know it's kind of a mess, alright?" she replied, "I was packing to leave Sleepy Hollow and join the FBI, remember? The past few weeks my life's been pretty much turned upside down, in case you haven't noticed."
"I do remember," Icabod conceded. Still, he couldn't help but mutter under his breath, "and so have your boxes."
He looked around for somewhere to sit.
"Here." Miss Mills quickly cleared off the couch, pushing things into an open box and piling it atop another box in the corner.
Icabod gratefully sunk into the couch. It was quite soft. He leaned his head back and looked around. Miss Mills disappeared into the other room to "get some blankets and things."
He should try to be kinder, since he was a guest in her home. Even so, it was dizzyingly full of new sights. 'Perhaps best to close my eyes,' he thought, 'just for a moment.'
It suddenly occurred to Icabod that it may, in fact, be highly improper for him to stay the night in an unmarried woman's home. Social norms had definitely changed dramatically in the past two and a half centuries, but Miss Mills didn't seem to feel uncomfortable inviting him in.
'Questionable issues of propriety aside,' Icabod thought, 'I am grateful for her hospitality. We are really comrades in arms, so to speak. We've faced not one but two apocalyptic horsemen and just narrowly averted true catastrophe.'
He opened his eyes to see Miss Mills returning with a pile of blankets.
"The two of us really do make a good team, Miss Mills," he told her, "I believe you would get along quite well with my childhood friends, Sebastian and Paul. We were quite the terror, always sneaking about and looking for adventure. But that was then. And now…" he trailed off. His thoughts were spiraling around aimlessly and his eyelids were growing heavy again.
"Oh, I'm sure you were." Miss Mills said and dropped the great stack of blankets onto the couch beside him.
She handed him something, saying, "You can try to wear these. I don't think I have anything else that would fit you."
Icabod held up a large blue cotton shirt with a white check mark on the front and a pair of baggy drawstring pants that were very fuzzy and covered in hundreds of little bright red hearts. For a long moment, Icabod simply did not know what to make of what was in front of him.
"You expect me to wear this?" he asked.
Miss Mills was smiling at his reaction. She replied, "At least it's dry. And clean. Just wear it for the night. Nobody will even see you."
She opened a closet he hadn't even noticed was there and put her hand on a large machine inside.
"Just put your wet clothes on here and I'll wash everything, okay?"
Icabod nodded. He yawned. He would ask about the mysterious machine in the morning.
"I'll go ahead and wash up first. Just, ah, make yourself comfortable. Okay?"
He nodded again and she disappeared into a small side room on the other side of the short hall from what he assumed was her bedroom.
Icabod looked dubiously at the clothes in his hands. They were dry and warm. He stood and tossed the emergency blanket on the ground and slowly started to undress. His mind was full of questions like, 'Why does Miss Mills have a shirt this large? Does she wear this or did it possibly belong to someone else? What if Katrina comes to me in a vision tonight? I cannot possibly let Katrina see me wearing these absurd breeches. Better to let headless Death do his work on me with a sharp axe.'
...
Abbie tied a towel around her wet hair. She rested her hands on the edge of the sink and looked at her reflection in the foggy mirror. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she felt clean and refreshed. More than anything, though, Abbie felt relieved.
She'd taken quite a leap of faith today, trusting in her own instincts and Crane's conviction.
Dressed in an old sweatshirt and soft pajama pants, Abbie opened the bathroom door and headed back to her living room.
"Crane, bathroom's yours," she called.
He didn't respond.
Stepping around the couch, she saw why. Icabod was fast asleep, his head barely visible from under her fluffy white comforter.
She quietly sat on the floor in front of the couch, lost in thought. She couldn't imagine what it felt like for him to nearly die and then to wake up in a whole new world where everyone he'd ever known (besides the mysteriously un-dead Katrina) had died a long time ago. It was hard on him, that much was clear, even though he tried to hide it.
Crane was right, her apartment was quite a calamity, but it was her home and even though she still wasn't sure that bringing him here was the best idea, it was certainly too late to change her mind now. Mostly, she realized, she just didn't want him to be alone tonight.
Carefully, Abbie got up and walked to her room.
Her hand on the light switch, she softly said, "Goodnight, Crane," and then turned off the lights.