A/N: at this point what is there to say? i'm a horrible author when it comes to deadlines; I made a million and bypassed each and every one, and for that I am sorry. but you guys are so awesome to keep reading and for giving me so much love despite my suckish ways. THAT BEING SAID I feel like I'm going insane. Did any of you see the BOOK that Fox published based of Sleepy Hollow? I'm probs not gonna buy it, but it is now canon that Crane was born in 1949, which makes him 32! I went back and changed the years in the last chapter bc uncanon facts make me twitchy. And I'm totally loving Season 2 so far! (but for this fic, I will be going by Season 1 canon alone, and won't reference season 2 since I don't know what will happen yet)

-Howl

CHAPTER 5: OLD LOVE

"Crane!" Abbie respired, leaning into Ichabod's space and hanging onto his clothed wrists like a vice; the brass buttons of his new black Colonial garb making her eyes land on his firm chest. "This is really freaking me out and we need to leave now."

He chuckled, looking into her face. It was a strong and jovial sound, one that she could feel throughout his diaphragm as it escaped his lips, "Why do you speak thus? With such strange inflections, like an accent; I do not understand. Are you playing some sort of game with Variety again? You must tell me of it."

Her heart sunk. "What?" She staggered a bit where she stood, unable to keep her balance- the long night shift billowing blithely about her feet and making her stumble.

"Are you unwell?" He reached out, making to grab for her forearm. Abbie tried to pull away. This wasn't time for his joking around- they needed to get back to Graham Antiquities and kick Elizabeth's teeth in for stabbing Abbie in the arm, among other things. The growing list in Abbie's mind was already pretty long.

"I'm fine." She staggered again. This time a pang of vertigo hit the Lieutenant, body betraying her by losing balance and seeking Crane's chest as a suitable port to lean upon.

"You most certainly are not fine, you're- oh my." Ichabod's eyes had trailed down her form and opened widely when they reached her unbridled bosom; they quickly snapped up again, but this time failed to keep eye contact with her as he blushed like a loon.

"You're not even properly dressed!" He wheezed anxiously, looking around for a moment. His flush abated after leaving Abbie's unkempt form, but all the while he searched for another soul among the throng of rooms surrounding them. "Variety!" he yelled, "Miss Freeman!" No answer.

"Cyrus!" Ichabod called again, his strong treble carrying through the halls. A voice did not call back, but from down the corridor Abbie and Crane could hear the quickening taps of feet upon the floorboards, rushing towards them.

"Ichabod, my love!" hailed a voice before them. Katrina turned the corner and descended towards the Witnesses, her decadent skirts flowing behind her like a tail, "You sounded distressed; what ails you?"

Crane lit up at the appearance of his wife (and Abbie stared like an idiot), his back unconsciously straightening and making Abbie's slouch against him a commodity no longer available.

"It was Abbie," he said, still holding the short Lieutenant by her shoulder and showing off her flushed skin to Katrina.

"Oh my dear Abbie!" Katrina cried, words like sweet honey dripping from her lips- Abbie always hated honey. Ichabod's wife stepped closer, inspecting her, "Are you ill?"

"No!" Abbie curtly answered the same moment Crane said "Yes."

The Lieutenant turned her head back to stare at Crane's face incredulously. She hated when people spoke for her (and was relatively certain Ichabod already knew that; he tried his hardest to accommodate her pet peeves, so long as she respected his).

He stared down at her as well, eyes squinting in displeasure for a contemplative moment, and then looked back up to Katrina. "Yes, she is. Dearest, have you seen Variety or Cyrus? I was hoping one of them could lead Miss Mills back to the service quarters for a lie-down until she recovered."

Abbie scowled. The couple's endearments felt like bile in her throat.

"I believe Cyrus is in the stable tending to the horses with Gideon. And the last I saw of Variety, she was with the livestock, finishing her morning ablutions."

Crane sighed, his smile tight as he placed a gentle hand at the small of Abbie's back and attempted to shuffle her down the hall. "Thank you Katrina. I'll lead Miss Mills to bed."

Katrina tutted, walking towards her husband and herding Abbie into her own arms, "Don't be silly, Ichabod. I will lead Abigail to bed and you shall go to breakfast. I will meet you there shortly."

Abbie didn't have the strength to stomach an interjection, for when she took the smallest step forward, the vertigo was upon her again- the rush and unease of her unbalanced feet forcing her knees to collapse beneath her. And as quickly as she had lost consciousness in the witch's shop, Abbie's eyes closed and she couldn't help but wish that this was all just another horrible, shared, magically induced hallucination.

It wasn't a hallucination.

It was real.

The new, overwhelming heat of the bedroom beguiled her into consciousness, skin looking stretched and steamy with sweat. And when Abbie opened her eyes she could finally see the hot fire that she'd felt dance across her eyelids. She pushed off the bed and stood, panicked, the vibrancy of the flames making her pupils contract in pain while she watched them flicker and thrive upon the billowing skirts beneath her. She felt no heat however; and as she touched her own skin to test her somatosensory, she felt nothing but icy chill. Goose bumps rose on her body, the hair on her arms perking from her own cold touch.

The hell-scape extended around her on all sides, seemingly forever, but Abbie had never felt more claustrophobic. Behind the licking flames covering each wall of her horribly bare new bedroom, the fire had engulfed the drapes, and was now eating her linens and tarring the spotless white paint.

Only the modest door leading into the hall remained unscorched by the inferno. Abbie hoped to race towards it, and as her legs began to move of their own accord, the soles of her feet were scorched and blistered by the burning heat of a coal floor. Abbie cried out, her eyes flooding with tears. Any slight movement felt like a blade in the ball and heel of her foot.

Deciding scarred feet were better than burning alive, Abbie risked the injury and ran for the untouched door. The exit stood closed, silver handle shining flirtingly in front of her. Grabbing for it like the answer to her prayers, the moment that polished handle touched her skin, an intensely crude burst of ice shot from Abbie's cold hand and encapsulated the doorknob, the sudden chill feeling like 100 below in the heat of the room. Throughout the cracks and edges of the door, Abbie's touch ignited a spread of arctic frost, surrounding the post and lintel with a white rime.

She was the winter, scaring away the murderous flames. The pain of her feet subsided and was replaced with a dull numb, the place where her toes touched the floor now a slick iced pathway, stretching as far as the bed behind her. The walls erupted in an icy frost, the fire that plagued them extinguished and replaced with Abbie's snow. As the chill reached the tops of the walls, icicles began to form and drop down from the ceiling like stalactites.

A shiver ran down Abbie's spine. Here, in the cold, she felt naked and afraid. The only time she remembered feeling this way was in the woods with Jenny; energy drained and stockings ripped on the dirt floor after waking up in front of the Four White Trees. A shiver had run through her then, paralyzing her with fear and instilling a trepidation of the frigid cold far within her soul. She reached out for the doorknob, tapping at it with the palm of her hand to loosen the lock in from the ice surrounding it. It barely budged, the metal clinging to itself.

As she gripped it with both hands, willing it to open as she pulled, full force. As she worked it open, the candles around her began to go out. The room faded into darkness and now, in the black, she felt more alone than ever. The handle remained locked. She wanted to bang on the door and demand that someone release her from the prison she was in; throw herself upon the wood until it opened. Hitching up her skirts, Abbie backed away and readied herself to kick at the exit- she would force her way through the ice.

She hit it; the impact of her bare foot on the wood shot through her leg and stung at the bone. It was better than dislocating a shoulder, the Lieutenant thought, glad that she'd been trained in forcing her way passed bolted locks. It budged. She kicked again, and this time the lock rattled. Her energy was beginning to drain. Steadying herself, Abbie prepared for one last punt at the door. The old wood splintered outward when she kicked it, fresh air rushing into the bedroom and filling her lungs as she pushed open the door with both hands, stepping into the hall. It felt like a victory, but she couldn't allow herself to smile. There was far more at stake than just opening a door.

Goosebumps rose on her flushed skin again as she entered the service wing. Inside her bedroom the sound of crackling candlelight had covered the void of silence, but in the hall there was nothing to fill the emptiness in her ears. Moonbeams streaked the corridor, lighting her way as Abbie walked through the hall with no particular destination in mind. Old, rotting boards beneath her feet croaked and creaked as she padded over them, bare toes cold on the dead wood.

An undulating hum broke the silence, and an unmistakable breadth of energy swept past her, coming from the far end of the hallway. The vocal tones were rhythmic, musical, hypnotic. From so far away the notes formed no distinct words, but even so, parables of old flirted against her ears; a Siren's song, luring her closer. Abbie's feet began moving before she willed them to, taking it upon themselves to bring her closer to the sweet and alluring vocalities. She stopped before a grand wooden door, snug between the eave and southmost wall of the house. Against the wall at her left stood a lightly ticking grandfather clock, his usually loud clicks drowned out by the voices inside the room. Female voices it seemed, all either alto or soprano, their harmonies and consonance lulling Abbie into a stupor, not paying attention to her surroundings any longer. It may have been hours she stood before that closed door, unaware of any passage of time, and paying attention only to the stories those voices weaved together; tales of religion and sacrifice. None was in English, but Abbie knew perfectly well what they spoke of.

The beautiful crescendo of sound, a climax to their splendor, was interrupted by the chimes of the old grandfather clock. Twelve times it rang, calling for midnight- the Witching Hour- and releasing Abbie from her trance. A shuffling of feet could be seen beneath the door. The orange glow of candlelight momentarily interrupted by the quick flash of feet upon the floorboards inside the mysterious room.

She needed to see inside. She needed the know the secret of their Siren song. Reaching for the handle, this door gave up much less of a fight than Abbie's had. It swung open before she'd even had a chance to touch it, revealing inside seven women sitting around a circular table. Sparse candles were lit, each made with black wax and flickering blithely about the dark room, barely illuminating the small space. The women wore hoods to cover her respective faces, each in a fiercely red velvet, the color of blood.

They moved in tandem, each looking up from the table as one; hands clasped together, eyes entirely white and glazed over. In the center of the table, across from where Abbie stood in the doorway, was Katrina, her pale eyes glinting against the flickering candles, tense and threatening. Beside her, Elizabeth Graham, young and murderous in her scarlet hood.

Each turned their head to meet Abbie's face in the doorway, piercing through her with their gazes. And the seven women said all together, droning and assertively, "Abigail!"

"Abigail!" Crane shouted again, lightly shaking Abbie's shoulder against her mattress, willing her awake.

The right side of her face felt slick and hot, probably covered in an unattractive trail of slobber that had landed there during her dream. Way to go Abs, real cute. Eyelashes fluttered against her cheekbones, opening slowly in the daylight of her room. She brought a hand to her face and wiped self consciously at the trail of spit she thought might have been at her mouth. It was dried at her lip, but she tried her best to get rid of it. It really was unseemly to walk around with a saliva covered face. Her mouth was dry, and as she sat up in bed, a terrible headache revealed itself in the front of her brain.

"Brilliant, you've woken." Crane was sitting at the side of her bed, knees facing away from her and towards the wall on her left.

"Yeah, sorry about that… The whole spazzing thing... and then the whole, passing out thing."

"You really have begun to speak in the strangest dialect Miss Mills, I do not know where you learn these things. Perhaps in one of the many books you always seems to be carrying around. One of these days you must share your findings with me, I do so love to expand my knowledge, you know."

Her face grew a bit too hot for her liking, and she was sure a hard flush was racing across her cheeks. He couldn't just say things like that and expect her to not assume he's flirting.

There had been a time where she thought her feelings may not have been unrequited. It was the way that he touched her sometimes, and in such quantities. And maybe he did flirt with her, if that was possible for Crane. Did he flirt? Decidedly not, he'd said when she'd raised the question. He thought it was unseemly and rude. "One should go through such practices with respect and decorum. Your generation is far too frivolous with their emotions. Discotheques? Disgustingly unsanitary." (For the rest of her life should would always be able to look back and remember Crane's face when they entered a 21-Only club on the campus of a local university for a case, he'd visibly cringed. It was hilarious.)

She snorted, "We're both a bit busy for that, don't you think?" Fighting evil didn't really allow for much down time (except for the rare Scrabble game, which she always seemed to be losing).

"I am positive we could find time; the drudgery of revolutionism allows for it I'm sure. General Washington has consented me a fortnight of leave before our travel southward to Hudson Valley."

She frowned.

"Now you must find your strength again. It had disappeared most suddenly, but I know it remains somewhere within your soul, shining bright as always."

"I'm fine Crane, truly. I suppose I have just been tired." she said, trying to sound as convincing as possible. "Go down to breakfast, be with your wife."

He gave her a wry grin, it twisted his face in a way she was sure was unintentional, full of something she didn't understand, as if he was restraining himself from actually laughing at what she'd said. "As you wish, Miss Mills," he conceded, pushing against his knees to help himself stand. "When you regain your will, perhaps you may help Variety with the menial work this evening."

He straightened the collar of his black jacket. His hair was clean and pulled back with a thin ribbon. She liked seeing him this way; in his own clothes again, and so clearly in his element. Comfortable being at home. She hated to admit it, but that was never something she overtly saw in his behavior back in the 21st century. Her frown deepened. She was alone here, and this was not the Crane she knew. This was a soldier, a professor, a husband.

He filled the glass on her table from the ceramic pitcher beside it, nodded once, and exited the room. She sighed.

Her gaze fell upon the wooden chest at her foot of her bed, which she assumed carried her worldly belongings. Pushing aside her blankets, Abbie climbed out of bed and padded the short ways to its foot, kneeling before the box. The initials stamped on its surfaces glared at her, heavy set in the wood, crafted masterfully so time would not wash away the letters. Their existence anchored her here as well, proof that this was where she was to belong.

She found nothing of significance inside besides multiple dresses, modest in both cloth choice and cut; work kit, undoubtedly suited for a servant.

At the bottom of the trunk however, when she'd removed each item of clothing, Abbie found a jagged slip of parchment, no bigger than the length of her hand.

GAM- You are alone, it read in a neat calligraphy, Do your will. - ELIZABETH.