She saw him disappear through the front door, willingly. His shadow fading into the darkness as he fell out of her sight.
"No!" She screamed loudly. "Crane!"
Her body started to shake as she opened her eyes and shot up in bed. Her body covered in sweat as tears dripped down her face, landing on her hands which were gripping the sheets in front of her.
A dream. She thought silently. Just a dream.
She sat there, trying to gather herself together. Her heartrate finally beginning to come down off its rapid pace when her door flew open suddenly.
He stared at her in the darkness, panting as he looked upon her wearied form.
"Leftanent", he said, still as a board. "Are you ok?"
She closed her eyes, her mouth turning down into a frown as she answered him back.
"I'm fine, Crane."
He opened his mouth to speak and then shut it. Knowing now was not the time nor place to press her any further for what was giving her such awful visions as she slept. But he couldn't stop himself for long.
"Leftanent, in my opinion, you are anything but fine."' He said as he took a step towards her. "This is the second night in a row I have been awakened by your screams."
"Crane… I said that I am okay", her voice becoming more increasingly agitated. "Nightmares happen."
His lips pursed tightly together. "Not to you, Ms. Mills. Not in the 6 months that I have been living in your residence."
He watched as she lowered her head and closed her eyes. "Please, Abbie. Let me help." His voice pleading with her as she shook her head.
"I don't need your help, Crane. I need to get back to sleep. So please…." She said, her voice trailing off as she laid back down onto her bed pillows.
"As you wish…" He said, taking a step back and placing his hand on the doorknob to close it. "Peaceful dreams, Leftanent."
Abbie watched him shut the door behind him, her latest dream still playing over and over again in her mind. She closed her eyes, trying to will the thoughts away but a tear escaped from her eye yet again. This time not because of the dream, but of what the dreams meant. Something she had tried to avoid for all this time but knew would rise to the surface eventually.
…..
Crane wasn't sure what mood would await him when he stepped into the kitchen the following morning, grabbing his mug and pouring his own coffee.
"Before you even start, Crane… I am fine. Slept like a baby the rest of the evening."
"That news gives me great pleasure, Leftanent."
Abbie watched as he barely looked up at her, noticing the coldness of his tone unlike his normal cheerfulness that greeted her in the mornings.
"Crane… Look, I know it seems as though I'm pushing you away but that's not the case. I'm just dealing with it on my own… how I've always done things." She added, as he turned around to face her.
"Is that your sentiment, Leftanent?" He asked incredulously. "After all of our years together, you still feel you need to handle things alone?"
She shook her head and closed her eyes. "Crane, I'm not doing this now with you."
"No, Leftanent", he said, his voice raising to levels he had never before used with his partner. "I implore of you, please afford me the luxury of hearing how you still feel, after all that we've been through, that you are in this thing alone."
She watched as he stepped closer to where she stood.
"The word 'partner' is not just a triviality to me, Abbie. It means we are in this fight together. Through demons and witches, scorned horseman and yes, even nightmares that appear in the night… We are Witnesses. Partners. But most of all, we are friends." He stopped and stared at her intently in the eyes. "Or do those words not hold the same caliber to you as they do to myself?"
Those last words stung her. And he realized how deeply as soon as they left from his lips. Her mouth gaped open, eyes wide, filling with water as she stared back at him in silence.
"Are you fucking serious, Crane?" She yelled, stepping back as if to get as far away from his cutting words directed towards her.
"You want to know what my dreams have been about so badly, well guess what, they're about you, Crane." She said as his face scrunched trying to understand what she meant.
"I've had the same dream for 6 nights in a row. And as much as I keep trying to stop them, you keep appearing in my subconscious, hurting me all over again as you did six months ago when you walked out those doors without a goodbye. Without so much as even an explanation of where you were going or for how long."
Crane's eyes closed in disgust. Of course. Of course she was still angry. Still hurt.
"Abbie…" he said softly.
"Don't Abbie me, Crane. Do you even understand what I went through when you were gone? Did you even care how much I worried? How much I tried searching for you thinking you were somewhere hurt and scared and alone?"
"I cried for days. Weeks. And then you just show up all of a sudden nine months later, in a jail of all places, asking for help to bail you out."
Crane tried taking a step towards her, but she threw her hand up, halting him in his tracks.
"You want to know why I keep you at arm's length nowadays, Crane? It's because I don't trust you. I don't trust the person in my life, who I once trusted the most, not to abandon me again."
She watched a tear fall from his eye as her words cut through him and caused wreckage in their path. But she refused to let up.
"You left me, Crane." She said slowly and painfully. "Do you even realize how much you hurt me?"
He slowly nodded his head as his voice barely creaked out the words "Yes."
"Well… Remember that the next time you start complaining about why I don't let you in."
She turned on her heels, picking up her keys to head to the office, leaving Crane frozen as she had emptied her hurt and anger onto him in a way she had never done before.
He stood in the same spot close to an hour later. Unable to move as he processed the level of his prior catastrophic mistake.
She was right. He had severely hurt the one person for whom he would lay down his life to protect. The only person that understood him and cared for him in a way that he was most grateful and undeserving of.
Ichabod Crane had wounded the one person in this world that he cared for the most.