Thanks so much for the reviews and favorites from so many of you. I hope you are strapped in.
The quartet stood in a haphazard circle in a copse of trees that reminded Abbie of the day that twisted her entire life into shreds. All that was missing were the four oddly pale trees and a man crawling out of the ground.
He stood next to her, hands twitching out of control. Crane wavered between stoic acceptance and heroic hesitance. They marked the desired glyphs and began to speak the incantation.
She decided to not feel anything as the words spilled forth from the witch's mouth. Abbie listened as a woman with very little choices left and fewer golden days to spend them. She held on to his hand and he in returned held tighter as the words from Katrina kicked up a gust of wind that rustled through the tops of the trees where the sun was just beginning to peek.
Jenny and Abbie shared a look as a blue light began to form inside of the small circle they had created on the ground. The glow grew in intensity with the culmination of Katrina's words; the wind had picked up0 too enough that they had to shout to speak to each other.
Katrina finally stopped and moved to where Crane stood next to Abbie. She took his arm in his and gently pulled him toward the light. "It is time ,my love." She cooed.
His shiver erupted into a violently shake and his hand removed the slender fingers of his wife's from his aperture. He fired a steely glare at his wife before speaking. "Katrina, I may be returning with you, but you will find things are markedly different between us once we return."
"You think I don't know what you got up to last night?" demurred sweetly. "I forgive you, Ichabod. Like you should forgive me."
"I need neither your forgiveness nor your redemption." He said with a sour glare that was quickly withering the witch at his side. "I will have a time to say my peace to Miss Mills and you will either go ahead of me or wait over there." Crane pointed to a place at a far distance. "Wither way you will not interrupt me." Without even waiting for his wife's response, he turned to Abbie and took her hands in his.
"Don't say it." She begged with a shake of her head. "Because if you say it now I will hurdle myself through that damn portal."
He nodded, understanding as always. "I have to tell you," he began. "That my time with you…that our time together has meant more to me than a thousand years on this earth."
She nodded, tears burning unrepentantly in the corners of her brown orbs. "Crane, I can't let you go…"
He nodded with a sly smile. "Yes, you can Miss Mills, for I am quite certain that you will. And perhaps, the fates have smiled upon us in this last thing."
Abbie shook her head. "Don't be so sure." She insisted.
"Oh, but I am, it's all I have to cling to." He gripped her hands tighter as he spoke. "Memories, Miss Mills; memories and a fervent hope that something has survived of me in this time."
Abbie shook her head. "It does, Crane. I will never forget you." She could feel the tears rolling down her cheeks; tears mirrored upon Crane's pale cheeks. He grabbed for her then as a man would the last life boat on a sinking ship. He could do without all of the modern era technology and small magicks; but her—He was certain he would die an early death once returned to his own time. A death he welcomed if anything he had been taught about heaven were true.
They held onto each other until a voice from behind them spoke. "Listen, I am the last one to want to break up this Hallmark moment." Jenny spoke with cracks in her own voice that bled the emotion of the scene. She wiped her own tear from her eye before going on. "But the spell was pretty specific about timing. You wait any longer and you might end up in the middle of the Battle of Chickamauga."
He smiled at the taller woman. "I shall miss you Miss Jenny. I have known only two warriors fiercer than you and neither of them matched your fierceness."
"You and your words Ichy." Jenny sniffed with a hand on his shoulder as he pulled away from Abbie.
Crane turned toward the entrance of the portal that seemed to have shrunk in the two minutes he was saying his goodbyes. "Abbie, I love you."
She broke then; it was the last visage, the one thing she had not wanted to hear roll from his lips. Her face contorted into pure pain and agony as she held his hand one last time and choked out her return. "I love you too."
He nodded then!" He took off his coat and lay it across her shoulders, placed one last kiss on her lips that both realized was too fleeting before shuffling backwards. "Until we meet again, my love." He shouted. "Look for me? I will find a way to speak to you across time. I swear it!"
Abbie nodded and held on to Jenny as he marched into the portal with Katrina at his side. When they entered, the opening sealed with a sickening wet pop and suddenly, everything was silent. No wind, no sound, not even the roar of the nearby brook.
Abbie felt her body give as her knees buckled and she hit the ground. Jenny, still holding on, slid with her and the two cried together in the suddenly too empty field.
XxXxXxXxXxXxX
He was right about the end of the apocalypse. Things returned to normal nearly the instance he left. Crane had told her that not only was he a man on borrowed time, but that his wife had gone against the natural order of things by not allowing his death two centuries hence. "She should have let me pass, it would have saved so many lives."
"You don't know that, Crane." Abbie had insisted. "For all you know you would have just died and there would have been someone else to take your place as a Witness. " She had shrugged. "Who knows who or what that person would be like. Or, if I could even put up with them."
He had smiled then and touched her hand. "You put up with me, Lieutenant. In my book that is canonical worthy of your own cathedral."
Abbie smiled as she recalled how she had tilted her head and smiled. How he had grinned back at her and admitted he could be difficult at times.
Now, she would pay anything for one last argument before a tilt at a windmill.
Jenny had been there for her that first two weeks. The two weeks that were the worst of her life. He had saved them all by leaving. Had turned the tide of a war they thought they would never win. Crane's return to his own time had even saved Irving; the evidence against him had evaporated into thin air.
There is no greater love than to sacrifice your life for a friend.
"You gotta get outta this cabin." Jenny groused one day two weeks into her self-imposed widowhood.
Abbie shrugged from the recliner that had once been Crane's favorite, and as she had imagined Corbin's as well.
Jenny huffed as she unpacked the groceries that Abbie hadn't asked for. Jenny was convinced her sister would pull a Catherine Earnshaw and simply stop eating. The very thought sent a shiver through the younger woman's body. "I got some of that tea you like." She offered in passing then cringed at the foolishness of the gesture when a moan came from Abbie's perch.
Crane had gotten her into that tea over a long weekend blizzard.
Abbie struggled to pull herself out of the funk that the remnants of grieving had left her with. When Jenny appeared in front of her out of nowhere, she realized she had been fruitless in her effort.
"We gonna get up today?" Jenny asked in a voice that reminded her of her least favorite psych nurses.
Oh how the worm had turned.
Abbie shook her head no, an improvement after two weeks of ignoring her sister's jabs. Jenny took it as a good sign. "It's just that," Jenny spoke as she carefully moved to stand in front of the recliner her sister had taken to. "It's been two weeks and staying here in this cabin and moping cannot be healthy."
"I got time off." Abbie retorted as explanation.
Jenny shook her head and jammed her hands into her hoodie. "Its not about time off, Abs and you know it."
"Jenny, I appreciate that you are concerned about me. I would be doing the exact same thing you are right now if the roles were reversed." Abbie threw her head back into the seat and sighed audibly. "I am in mourning." She drawled dramatically.
"You want a mint julep and a fan to go with that act?" Jenny fired.
"Jenny," Abbie whined.
"Abbie," Jenny returned.
"Just," Abbie started again. "I just need a little more time." She offered her sister what she hoped was a pleading look.
"Abbie, I get it. Really I do, and I understand you've lost the love of your life. But, I don't think Crane would have wanted you to close off and shut down. I seem to recall he was one for prodding and getting you to live."
She nodded. "It's safe here. I feel safe here. His things are here." Abbie sniffed the air and spoke. "It still smells like him."
"Surprised you can smell anything over your lack of personal care. When was the last time you walked near the shower."
Abbie shot daggers at her sister but folded her arms in retort. "You can leave at any time."
"So can you." Jenny said. The younger woman sighed and decided to try a different tack. She sat onto the arm of the large recliner and rubbed soothingly on her sister's shoulder. "Abbie, listen. I know this sucks, and we more than anyone know about our mutual abandonment issues."
A small spark shown through the older sister's visage; a parting in the thick concrete she had farmed in the last two weeks.
Jenny went on. "I need you to be okay, Abs." Jenny tried with honesty. "Because now? We are all the two of us have. "
Abbie nodded, only just realizing how much of a fixture the odd man had become in both their lives. That somehow Abbie had not realized that in her small way, Jenny had lost Crane too. "It's so painful." She croaked. "I feel so empty."
Jenny nodded. "As well you should, Abbie. But, its been two weeks and life goes on. I can't let you stay walled up in here forever reliving a past. I mean, seriously. This isn't even healthy by our family's standards." Jenny said with a tug on her sister's arm.
"It hurts." the older sibling whispered between cracked lips.
Jenny nodded. "At some point you are going to have to return to work." Jenny pulled with greater force, pulling the smaller woman out of the recliner. "To the real world." Jenny went on with a final pull that got Abbie to her feet. "To the land of the living."
"How?" Abbie asked in a small voice that sounded like a lost three year old. "How am I to do that?"
It was the fear in her sister's voice that scared her more than anything. Jenny knew she could talk a good game; she had the smart mouth and the harder edge to her words. Jenny was tough, but somehow she had always seen Abbie as tougher. The fear edged in her older sister's cadence made her breath catch in her throat and nearly made her gasp out loud. "For one," Jenny said once she caught her own breath. "We get you out of this crypt."
Abbie allowed her sister to lead her to the shower. Jenny even turned on the taps and brought her a fresh change of clothes. The warm water hit her body and made her shiver. Abbie had not realized how long she had been hiding in the cabin. The nights had come following the days, and the silence in the place had been deafening. She had been honest when she told Jenny she was in mourning. She felt like a widow, like the grief of watching Crane walk into that portal had engulfed her soul and left her bereft of any feeling.
Somewhere in one of her psychology classes in college, she had learned the five stages of grieving, that they were a succession of dealing with a loss of any kind but mostly death. Denial had come up until the point that portal enveloped the two out of timers and never reopened. She hit bargaining and anger alternately through the last two weeks, evidenced with holes in the cabin that even spackle would not help. Depression was seated next to her in the small shower and kept acceptance on speed dial.
She emerged from the shower clean and groggy as if she had crawled out of a bad flu. Jenny had made her some soup and a sandwich, both of which threatened to turn her stomach into napalm. "I don't know if I can eat." Abbie groused.
"Then this will be an experiment." Jenny said. "We need to get you back to your place, the mail has piled up and your neighbors are concerned."
Abbie nodded and took a spoonful of soup. It was so good she took another and another until she realized the bowl was empty. The sandwich was gone too and she had no idea how it happened, nor that she had even been that hungry.
"You've lost about eight pounds, and while I commend you on your effort, you still need to eat and keep going."
Abbie nodded and took the second bowl of soup wordlessly.
Jenny picked at her own meal but kept a careful eye on her sister as she powered through a second sandwich.
"Thank you." Abbie said later as they made their way to the Jeep out front. "For coming to get me."
Jenny shrugged and slid into the driver's seat. "Always."
XxXxXxX
She had popped her head out of the hole and realized it was still winter. When she emerged it was late evening and her apartment was in the exact same shape she and Crane had left it in two weeks ago. Jenny had left to go get her own car without realizing the time capsule she had left her grieving sister in.
Even the mug of tea he had not finished that morning still ruminated in its spot. Debating on whether or not to portray Mrs. Havisham, Abbie turned circles in her living room drinking in the mess her life had become.
Three hours later she had erased all but the intentional memories of Ichabod Crane from her apartment. Abbie was surprised with how emotionally draining and healing the act had been. She had even changed the sheets, placing them regretfully but necessarily in the washer.
She mopped the floors of his footprints left in the foyer, his fingerprints on the coffee table and the broken glass from her projectile anger. Abbie was surprised again at her own strength and resolve as she meticulously erased that night from her home without losing it.
"He's really gone." She announced to the empty apartment.
XxXxXxXxX
It was Jenny who got her through, Abbie was nearly ashamed with how much she had come to rely on her sister in the five months since her life came to such a vivid bifurcation. The worst had not been the two weeks she spent comatose in the old cabin. The worst had not been cleaning up after that night nor the shelving of the archives where they
The worst had come four months later as she lay in a hospital bed having lost the last piece; a final casualty of Katrina's devastation.
That night as Abbie shed more tears than what she thought she had left to spill; it was Jenny who held her hand and told her that everything happened for a reason, and that even though the baby was gone it was not the end of her world.
Shew had been so hopeful when she missed that month, then when the test came out positive. A final chance to say that Crane had been right.
Again.
He had had hope when she never did. He had assured her that the universe would align to their will.
She had called Jenny immediately and they shared a three hour conversation about life and hope and family and even names.
Abbie had taken desk duty immediately and promised herself, the universe and all involved that she would be careful. That she would treat this child as the precious gift it was. Jenny had stayed around more, had even gotten a job as a librarian at the Historical society. Somehow, Crane had rubbed off on her as well.
But in the end, all of her promises had been a moot gust of air.
When the last piece fell and Abbie had to admit defeat she folded. Not in the sad or exclusive way that she had when Crane first left. This time, this loss she shared with Jenny and it was her sister who pulled her through it. A month after leaving the hospital, she sat in her quiet kitchen sipping Crane's favorite tea. The ringing of her cell phone was jarring in silence.
"Abs, I had an idea." Jenny spoke.
"I'm listening." Abbie said.
"I've been going through a lot of the stuff here in the historical society and there is nothing here about Crane "
She knew that, it had been the first thing that the two sisters had checked. "Year, so." She shrugged as if her sister could see.
"Okay, so what if Crane and company went back to England?" Jenny posed carefully.
Abbie sighed audibly. "Jenny you and I both know he would not have done that. He was a patriot through and through." Abbie hated the small catch in her voice that seemed to always appear when she spoke of him. Jenny was kind enough, as always, to pretend she did not hear it.
"I know that, Annie. But what if he had no choice? The truth is we exhausted all of our resources. There is nothing about him or Katrina Crane in any records we can find." Jenny spoke quickly trying to sway her sister before Abbie had the chance to be agitated.
Too late. "Jenny, I don't want to do this right now."
"I know the timing sucks but hear me out. I have been putting out feelers in Great Britain, trying to find out anything I can about Crane."
"Jenny…"
"Abbie," Jenny spoke suddenly and sharply. "He was my friend too."
She could not argue with that. For all of her pain and loss, she had again forgotten the other side of the equation. Jenny had lost someone as much a brother as either of them were likely to get. "Okay, sorry."
"Right, so I got a hit from some British guy, sent me an email that he had a lot of information on Crane."
Somehow the sun had come out and the hard tight ball of pain that had replaced the gift begin to uncoil in her stomach. "Really?" Abbie asked like a small child receiving an unexpected Christmas wish.
"Yeah, he uhm…" Abbie could hear papers rustling in the background. "He didn't give me any info, said he would be in Sleepy hollow next month for some sort of conference."
"You got a name on this guy?" Abbie asked, her cop senses kicking in.
"I got his email, he was sort of…I don't know. It wasn't a bad vibe or anything—"
"Vibe, Jenny?" Abbie cast with her first real smile in two days. "Is that the technical term?"
"Shut up." Jenny smiled glad to hear a light tone to her sister's voice again. She had worried that the miscarriage would send her over the edge. "Anyway, no name just an email address. I don't know if this is legit or not, he said he would be travelling and may not be available for contact. Said we should stick to email."
"Send me the email address." Abbie spoke. "I'll see what I can find out myself."
Jenny promised to send her the info then promised to take her out for dinner tomorrow. Abbie wasn;t sure how to feel about the clandestine information. Jenny was the one used to shadowy informants and back alley info. Abbie still had a badge.
XxXxXxX
"Who the hell are you?" Abbie asked the computer in front of her. A month later and she still had not received a return to her initial email to Jenny's historian. She had even checked the conference manifest for that weekend and none of the names seemed to speak to her. Tarrytown was known for having historical conferences and this was one of the larger ones.
Abbie sighed and through herself into her swivel chair. It was nearly lunch time and she could not deny the hunger creeping its way into her periphery. She grabbed her leather jacket and headed for the glass doors. Since Crane's departure, people had pretty much left her alone. When she returned to work after a three week 'vacation,' a couple of officers had asked after Crane, but her glower sent them away with the idea of a failed relationship and a return to England.
She wished that was all it had been.
Abbie crashed through the front doors of the station into the bright sunlight. She had decided to walk to the small diner near the library across the street. Abbie had thrown herself into her work lately, though there had not been much more than stolen cars and lost dogs.
The bright sunlight of early spring hit her like a bullet to the soul. No clouds and unseasonably warm temperature played a smile across her face before she even realized it. She had lived, survived again and somehow she thought it would all be all right.
Somehow.
"Grace Abigail Mills?" Someone had called her name from a small distance behind her. The voice was too fleeting but also too familiar. Before she could turn around it…he spoke again. "Lieutenant Mills!"
It wasn't just the voice that froze her, the familiarity of the clipped vowels and over enunciated constentants coated in honey was bad enough. But, the pronunciation of Lieutenant…not specific to one person but coupled with that voice….
She wanted to turn around, but Abbie found herself frozen to the spot. The sound of advancing feet made her blood run cold. The cadence of step, heavy but light at the same time. "Miss Mills?" she heard again, a hand falling on her shoulder.
Abbie turned then at the touch. The face that greeted her was one she never thought she would see again, but not the same she left in that field six months ago.