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jedibuttercupPG-13; Sleepy Hollow (tv); 3000 words. Timey-Wimey Canon Divergence AU.
Grace Abigail Mills in 1781 had been fierce, determined, a force of nature; Lieutenant Mills of 2015 was still all of those things, but also, Ichabod was not surprised to find, a woman of deep heart and spirit as well.
Title: For Behold, All Things Are Made New
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Sleepy Hollow 2.18 "Tempus Fugit"
Notes: I came back from Cabo with enough energy to pick up the scraps of my abandoned 2018 het big bang and see if they could be turned into something readable. And lo, here it is: a great deal shorter than originally intended, but enough, I think, to get the original idea across. :)
Summary: Grace Abigail Mills in 1781 had been fierce, determined, a force of nature; Lieutenant Mills of 2015 was still all of those things, but also, Ichabod was not surprised to find, a woman of deep heart and spirit as well.
One moment, Ichabod Crane was kneeling in the leaf mould outside Fredricks Manor, the supernaturally heated blade of the Horseman's axe sweeping toward his throat. The next, the world around him seemed to come to a halt, as if catching its breath before extinguishing his. And in that crystallised slice of time, a sequence of startling images flickered across his field of vision.
He had heard of the phenomenon of one's life flashing before one's eyes before, but had somehow not expected it to be quite so literal. Bidding farewell to Ms. Mills in the manor's kitchen; viewing that world-changing moving picture upon her infernal device; trading oddly charged words with Katrina over what appeared to be a spell book in their home; Ben Franklin's decapitated corpse collapsing to the floor; and lastly… the battlefield he had been pulled from, strewn with the bodies of fallen soldiers of all shades of attire. Had it not been for the day's unusual events, he should certainly have been among their corpses… but what logical man could ever have predicted blood magic, or time travel?
The recollections ended there with the last of the changes caused by Ms. Mills' arrival, releasing him from memory's grip as the world lurched back into motion. He tried to pull away, still braced for the fatal attack-- but failed, gasping at the searing pain that carved its way through his awareness. So much effort, only to delay the inevitable by a single day, one that he would not even remember….
The thought rattled oddly against his perception of his surroundings, and Ichabod blinked in sudden disorientation at the light that abruptly flooded the world around him. For day it was indeed: somehow, in the midst of his distraction, he had left the torchlit lawn behind. His foe now stood framed by sunlit battlements and the corpses of his comrades, and the house of refuge he knew so well had vanished while the day's events flashed before his eyes. Ichabod now knelt on that former battlefield instead, thick with gunsmoke and the sounds of war... and it was not his throat the Horseman had just hewn, but the flesh above his heart.
They had succeeded; that was the only explanation. Ms. Mills and her ancestor, Grace Dixon, must have successfully reversed the Traveller spell. The woman from the future had not told him precisely how Ichabod was to have perished had she not interfered, but it seemed suddenly very likely that he was now experiencing that very moment. But if he was truly doomed to die, then at least he had the solace of a sword still in his hand-- and the surety that somehow, some way, Ichabod would see the compelling and enigmatic woman who had called herself his 'partner' once more.
It will be a pleasure to make your acquaintance all over again, Miss Mills.
He lunged, putting the last strength of his arm into the blow, and had the satisfaction of watching the Horseman's decapitated body fall to the earth as he also succumbed to his wound.
After such a disorienting beginning, he might perhaps be forgiven for expecting a slightly smoother transition into the future he had been promised. The moving picture had not been the only image he had viewed on Ms. Mills' device; there had been many still pictures in which he had also appeared, and in none of the ones he had had time to view had he seemed at all uncomfortable or dismayed or even very much dishevelled. Indeed, his expression-- presumably aimed at the woman using the device to capture the images-- was often amused, frequently affectionate, and occasionally concerned, but always as self-possessed as if he belonged there no less than any other denizen of the future.
But apparently, he would arrive at that state of confidence only after yet another ghastly struggle. After an indeterminate stretch of time broken only by indistinct voices, Ichabod woke to choking blackness: dirt in his nostrils, the taste of blood on the back of his tongue, and a very, very pressing need to draw air into his lungs. He put out his hands, clawing through a thin layer of earth into chill air, and gasped hoarsely as he clawed his way into a dank, dark cavern.
Somehow, when Ms. Mills had mentioned 'popping' out of a cave, he had imagined something rather different, not this dirty underground space, decorated with broken jars, occult symbols, and a hole far above admitting only a thread of weak sunlight. He stared around himself in disbelief... and only then did it occur to him that he shouldn't have been imagining anything at all.
Had something gone wrong with the spell? Was he indeed awakening more than a decade into the twenty-first century, or had something gone wrong while he'd slept beneath the earth? And if he did remember, against what he had been told to expect... was he then the only one to do so?
Filled with a terrible sense of urgency, Ichabod struggled toward the ray of sunlight, forcing shaking limbs into hurried motion. Much might have changed between his time and hers, but if their adventure together had taught him anything at all, one thing was very likely to be the same: whatever could go wrong, would go wrong, if given the least opportunity. And after a day in which he had already lost so much... he would not rest easy until he saw Grace Abigail Mills once more.
Ichabod set his hands upon a mossy rock, peering upward into the light, and was relieved to see the hole above widen itself at his approach. As the rocky earth crumbled, it illuminated a steep stair; whoever had hidden him there must have made provision for his awakening, triggered somehow by his movements. It was still bewildering in the extreme to think about the fact that magic was apparently real-- but also comforting to know that there was more to the supernatural than terror and destruction.
He struggled upward, climbing his way over slick steps with the help of dangling tree roots, until he emerged at last in the world above. A terrible thirst rose to his awareness as he perceived that he stood upon the banks of a long-tamed stream; he quenched it hastily with several scooped handfuls of clear water, then reluctantly chose a direction and began to walk. The forests of New York had existed before the arrival of the British and would presumably exist throughout the growth of America as a nation, rendering it rather difficult to tell just by his surroundings whether he had arrived in the correct year, but sooner or later he would have to encounter some sign of civilization.
After some minutes, he stumbled at last upon a flat, hard surface stretching away in both directions like a vast black ribbon, demarcated with painted lines; not a substance that had existed in his era, though its purpose was simple enough to determine. He stepped out upon the dark surface, marvelling at its smoothness-- and was nearly struck down by an unnaturally fast conveyance that seemed to appear without warning.
Clearly, Miss Mills had elided quite a bit in her description of his arrival in her time. And… clearly, she had also had reason to be frustrated with the motion of his carriage. Ichabod shook his head, trying to dismiss the lingering disorientation, and moved to the edge of the road to continue onward.
Several other vehicles passed as he approached what was clearly a large settlement; it was widely lit with a form of steady light that could only be some adaptation of Franklin's experiments with electricity. A brief glance at each conveyance as it passed soon bewildered him with the vast variety of shapes, colours, and sizes; the man-hours of construction each represented, as well as the general wealth implied by the diversity of those visible inside them, generated questions even Miss Mills' presence in his time had not been sufficient to inspire. He suspected he would have been a great deal more lost, had he not first met her-- but even so, he found it difficult not to stare in stupefaction like a lost child.
It was all of a piece with the general confusion when a vehicle surmounted by flashing lights and making a sound like the shrieking of a bain sidhe came to a halt beside him; he could not fathom what rule he might have been breaking by his mere presence, but at least the uniform of its driver implied that he was somewhat closer to his goal.
He met the gaze of the accosting officer, placed his hands atop his head, and followed the rest of the angered man's instructions in the hopes that he had arrived upon the correct course at last.
Ichabod could not have said how long it was before the door to the detainment facility opened once more to admit visitors; he had spent the hours between his arrest and the anticipated advent of the Lieutenant cataloguing the differences between his surroundings and those she had enjoyed during her sojourn in the past. Walls, bars, and bench differed little-- but the other technologies that surrounded him unfortunately rendered it unlikely that he should rescue himself as Miss Mills had done before him.
Given time, he could likely have worked out a method of egress; but that time would not be required, provided he managed to replicate whatever feat had generated their partnership before. Ichabod could only hope that the vague foreknowledge he possessed would not somehow make that more difficult.
He straightened his posture, lifted his chin, and tried not to indulge in the utter relief that seeing her once more provoked, as she and an older man-- long-faced; white-haired; bearded; perhaps the captain she had once mentioned?-- approached the bars of his cell, led by the arresting officer. Her hair was shorter, the warm clothing he recalled replaced by a brown uniform like the others', but it was clearly her, the woman who had upended his entire life. Once, he would have applied that distinction to Katrina, but after what had happened at Fredricks Manor….
Miss Mills' face worked in a complicated expression as she caught sight of him, unknowingly echoing his own thorny emotions; then she turned to murmur something to the senior officer at her side.
"You're sure about that?" the man replied at greater volume. "I agree, it's not the same guy, but they're both dressed like colonial re-enactors. I've seen enough of them over the years, and there aren't any battles scheduled for this weekend. Given what Andy said about his suspicious behaviour…."
The lieutenant shot a tight-lipped glance toward the arresting officer at that remark; Ichabod had seen enough of her to recognize frustration and anger in her expression, and he sucked in a sharp breath. That was not the demeanour of a woman who did not recognize him; she already knew he was unaffiliated with the man he had apparently been mistaken for.
That was impossible. But then, so was his own recognition of her. Hope sprang brighter in his breast; he leapt to his feet, overbalancing slightly as the binders securing his wrists behind him protested at the motion. "Lieutenant!"
She froze at the sound of his voice-- then turned toward him again, eyes widening with the same relief that flooded through him. "Crane?" she said, abandoning her conversation and moving hastily toward the cell. "What did you just call me?"
She'd used his name; she definitely recalled more than she should, as neither of the others had used it. "I said… Lieutenant," he replied eagerly. "Grace Abigail Mills, if I am not mistaken?"
"You remember me?" she asked, voice trembling slightly as she reached out to rest one hand upon the bars.
Not for the first time, he wondered how long a span had passed between his wife's descent into evil and both women's flight into the past-- for there was an intimacy in Miss Mills' addresses to him that entirely belied the neutral language of the term 'partner'.
"If you are asking whether I recall the Year of Our Lord two thousand fifteen… I regret to say that I do not," he replied, as privately as he could given the distance between them and the presence of the onlookers. Had he been in her position, he had no doubt that that would be his first question as well, presuming her experience that day had been as disorienting as his own. "But if you are asking whether my last memory before a certain cave was of Fredricks Manor in 1781… then indeed, I am your man."
She clapped her free hand over her mouth, eyes filling with unshed tears. "Oh my god. Crane."
The exclamation was too much for the other officers to continue to overlook; the older one frowned and took a step forward. "Abbie? What's going on?"
"Keys, the keys!" Miss Mills ignored him to gesture to the jailor, standing in the corner behind the other officers. "We need to let him out of there, right now."
"Abbie, are you sure?" the arresting officer asked, a deep scowl marring his features. "You don't know anything about this guy."
"Yeah, and neither did you before you arrested him," she replied, wheeling on him with sudden ferocity. "What did you pick him up for, anyway, jaywalking while looking suspicious? I told you he wasn't involved, end of story."
He looked like he wished to argue the matter; but the older man intervened, settling a quieting hand on his shoulder. "Abbie, you're not making any sense."
She pressed her lips together in frustration, then shook her head. "I know how it must sound, sir… but trust me on this. Please. I'll explain later, but right now I need him out of there."
Her superior stared at her for a long moment, then glanced past her to Ichabod, expression thoughtful. "You'd be responsible for keeping an eye on him until this thing is solved. One man's already been killed tonight, and I don't think I need to tell you there are more unusual factors in this case than I like."
"Believe me, sir, I know," she replied, fervently. "Thank you."
With no further ado, the keys were produced, the cell opened, and the shackles removed under the considering gaze of the older officer and the puzzlingly dark glare of the one she'd called Andy.
There were other procedures to be performed, but she hurried him through them as fast as possible-- and then drew him outside the police station into the free night air.
"Crane," Miss Mills said again, voice thick with emotion; and then she threw her arms around him, pressing her face against his mud-caked jacket.
"That cannot be sanitary," he murmured chidingly, but found his hands nonetheless settling upon her back far more naturally than when she had first accosted him so, mere hours before.
"Who cares about sanitary," she replied, then pulled back, wiping at her eyes. "I have to tell you, when I realized I was back in that café-- all I could think was that I was somehow back in Purgatory again, or maybe never left at all. Moloch, the demon who rules there, he'd taunted me with Corbin before, and there he was, pie turning into soup like the Horseman had never killed him. But it is real. I saved him. And I didn't have to take you to the mental hospital this time, either. I don't even care what it means right now; just… let me enjoy this for a minute."
Saved him? Then the man inside had been her lost mentor… which meant she was equally as unmoored as he was, now stranded with him in yet another timeline dislocated from both of their experiences.
She laughed; and though the implications were alarming in many respects where they were comprehensible at all, her bittersweet joy was infectious, and lit her from within in a way that he had only before seen in brief glimpses. Grace Abigail Mills in 1781 had been fierce, determined, a force of nature; Lieutenant Mills of 2015 was still all of those things, but also, he was not surprised to find, a woman of deep heart and spirit as well.
Benjamin Franklin had taken one look at this woman and proclaimed her the American dream; and though his wife's betrayal remained a source of confusion and pain, he could easily see how his future?-- past?-- other self might in time have come to an identical conclusion.
"I think it means," he said gently, "that our chance of-- as you said-- 'setting things right' has just been immeasurably increased. If the future you spoke of is truly as difficult as you intimated… then perhaps this is a gift."
"Some gift," she said, grief still shadowing her smile as she looked at him; but then she nodded. "But maybe you're right. After you went outside the manor, Grace said something about our bond; that it was an actual mystical connection between us, not just another term for partners. Which made sense, but… might also affect the spell in unpredictable ways, it existing in two separate timelines. I told her whatever happened, it couldn't possibly get worse; and if you think about it, this is kind of the opposite, isn't it? Like a second chance for us both."
A second chance, indeed. If he had been cursed to lose the one person that had been his foundation throughout the war... then it was only fair his apparently prophesied new union should be supernaturally, even Biblically, blessed to carry him through the next. It would take time to adjust; but fortunately, time was precisely what they had been given.
"Then, Lieutenant, let us change the course of history… yet again," Ichabod replied, reaching to take her hands between his own.
Abbie laughed again, fingers curling warmly in his grasp. "Indeed."
(x-posted on AO3)
Grace Abigail Mills in 1781 had been fierce, determined, a force of nature; Lieutenant Mills of 2015 was still all of those things, but also, Ichabod was not surprised to find, a woman of deep heart and spirit as well.
Title: For Behold, All Things Are Made New
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Sleepy Hollow 2.18 "Tempus Fugit"
Notes: I came back from Cabo with enough energy to pick up the scraps of my abandoned 2018 het big bang and see if they could be turned into something readable. And lo, here it is: a great deal shorter than originally intended, but enough, I think, to get the original idea across. :)
Summary: Grace Abigail Mills in 1781 had been fierce, determined, a force of nature; Lieutenant Mills of 2015 was still all of those things, but also, Ichabod was not surprised to find, a woman of deep heart and spirit as well.
One moment, Ichabod Crane was kneeling in the leaf mould outside Fredricks Manor, the supernaturally heated blade of the Horseman's axe sweeping toward his throat. The next, the world around him seemed to come to a halt, as if catching its breath before extinguishing his. And in that crystallised slice of time, a sequence of startling images flickered across his field of vision.
He had heard of the phenomenon of one's life flashing before one's eyes before, but had somehow not expected it to be quite so literal. Bidding farewell to Ms. Mills in the manor's kitchen; viewing that world-changing moving picture upon her infernal device; trading oddly charged words with Katrina over what appeared to be a spell book in their home; Ben Franklin's decapitated corpse collapsing to the floor; and lastly… the battlefield he had been pulled from, strewn with the bodies of fallen soldiers of all shades of attire. Had it not been for the day's unusual events, he should certainly have been among their corpses… but what logical man could ever have predicted blood magic, or time travel?
The recollections ended there with the last of the changes caused by Ms. Mills' arrival, releasing him from memory's grip as the world lurched back into motion. He tried to pull away, still braced for the fatal attack-- but failed, gasping at the searing pain that carved its way through his awareness. So much effort, only to delay the inevitable by a single day, one that he would not even remember….
The thought rattled oddly against his perception of his surroundings, and Ichabod blinked in sudden disorientation at the light that abruptly flooded the world around him. For day it was indeed: somehow, in the midst of his distraction, he had left the torchlit lawn behind. His foe now stood framed by sunlit battlements and the corpses of his comrades, and the house of refuge he knew so well had vanished while the day's events flashed before his eyes. Ichabod now knelt on that former battlefield instead, thick with gunsmoke and the sounds of war... and it was not his throat the Horseman had just hewn, but the flesh above his heart.
They had succeeded; that was the only explanation. Ms. Mills and her ancestor, Grace Dixon, must have successfully reversed the Traveller spell. The woman from the future had not told him precisely how Ichabod was to have perished had she not interfered, but it seemed suddenly very likely that he was now experiencing that very moment. But if he was truly doomed to die, then at least he had the solace of a sword still in his hand-- and the surety that somehow, some way, Ichabod would see the compelling and enigmatic woman who had called herself his 'partner' once more.
It will be a pleasure to make your acquaintance all over again, Miss Mills.
He lunged, putting the last strength of his arm into the blow, and had the satisfaction of watching the Horseman's decapitated body fall to the earth as he also succumbed to his wound.
After such a disorienting beginning, he might perhaps be forgiven for expecting a slightly smoother transition into the future he had been promised. The moving picture had not been the only image he had viewed on Ms. Mills' device; there had been many still pictures in which he had also appeared, and in none of the ones he had had time to view had he seemed at all uncomfortable or dismayed or even very much dishevelled. Indeed, his expression-- presumably aimed at the woman using the device to capture the images-- was often amused, frequently affectionate, and occasionally concerned, but always as self-possessed as if he belonged there no less than any other denizen of the future.
But apparently, he would arrive at that state of confidence only after yet another ghastly struggle. After an indeterminate stretch of time broken only by indistinct voices, Ichabod woke to choking blackness: dirt in his nostrils, the taste of blood on the back of his tongue, and a very, very pressing need to draw air into his lungs. He put out his hands, clawing through a thin layer of earth into chill air, and gasped hoarsely as he clawed his way into a dank, dark cavern.
Somehow, when Ms. Mills had mentioned 'popping' out of a cave, he had imagined something rather different, not this dirty underground space, decorated with broken jars, occult symbols, and a hole far above admitting only a thread of weak sunlight. He stared around himself in disbelief... and only then did it occur to him that he shouldn't have been imagining anything at all.
Had something gone wrong with the spell? Was he indeed awakening more than a decade into the twenty-first century, or had something gone wrong while he'd slept beneath the earth? And if he did remember, against what he had been told to expect... was he then the only one to do so?
Filled with a terrible sense of urgency, Ichabod struggled toward the ray of sunlight, forcing shaking limbs into hurried motion. Much might have changed between his time and hers, but if their adventure together had taught him anything at all, one thing was very likely to be the same: whatever could go wrong, would go wrong, if given the least opportunity. And after a day in which he had already lost so much... he would not rest easy until he saw Grace Abigail Mills once more.
Ichabod set his hands upon a mossy rock, peering upward into the light, and was relieved to see the hole above widen itself at his approach. As the rocky earth crumbled, it illuminated a steep stair; whoever had hidden him there must have made provision for his awakening, triggered somehow by his movements. It was still bewildering in the extreme to think about the fact that magic was apparently real-- but also comforting to know that there was more to the supernatural than terror and destruction.
He struggled upward, climbing his way over slick steps with the help of dangling tree roots, until he emerged at last in the world above. A terrible thirst rose to his awareness as he perceived that he stood upon the banks of a long-tamed stream; he quenched it hastily with several scooped handfuls of clear water, then reluctantly chose a direction and began to walk. The forests of New York had existed before the arrival of the British and would presumably exist throughout the growth of America as a nation, rendering it rather difficult to tell just by his surroundings whether he had arrived in the correct year, but sooner or later he would have to encounter some sign of civilization.
After some minutes, he stumbled at last upon a flat, hard surface stretching away in both directions like a vast black ribbon, demarcated with painted lines; not a substance that had existed in his era, though its purpose was simple enough to determine. He stepped out upon the dark surface, marvelling at its smoothness-- and was nearly struck down by an unnaturally fast conveyance that seemed to appear without warning.
Clearly, Miss Mills had elided quite a bit in her description of his arrival in her time. And… clearly, she had also had reason to be frustrated with the motion of his carriage. Ichabod shook his head, trying to dismiss the lingering disorientation, and moved to the edge of the road to continue onward.
Several other vehicles passed as he approached what was clearly a large settlement; it was widely lit with a form of steady light that could only be some adaptation of Franklin's experiments with electricity. A brief glance at each conveyance as it passed soon bewildered him with the vast variety of shapes, colours, and sizes; the man-hours of construction each represented, as well as the general wealth implied by the diversity of those visible inside them, generated questions even Miss Mills' presence in his time had not been sufficient to inspire. He suspected he would have been a great deal more lost, had he not first met her-- but even so, he found it difficult not to stare in stupefaction like a lost child.
It was all of a piece with the general confusion when a vehicle surmounted by flashing lights and making a sound like the shrieking of a bain sidhe came to a halt beside him; he could not fathom what rule he might have been breaking by his mere presence, but at least the uniform of its driver implied that he was somewhat closer to his goal.
He met the gaze of the accosting officer, placed his hands atop his head, and followed the rest of the angered man's instructions in the hopes that he had arrived upon the correct course at last.
Ichabod could not have said how long it was before the door to the detainment facility opened once more to admit visitors; he had spent the hours between his arrest and the anticipated advent of the Lieutenant cataloguing the differences between his surroundings and those she had enjoyed during her sojourn in the past. Walls, bars, and bench differed little-- but the other technologies that surrounded him unfortunately rendered it unlikely that he should rescue himself as Miss Mills had done before him.
Given time, he could likely have worked out a method of egress; but that time would not be required, provided he managed to replicate whatever feat had generated their partnership before. Ichabod could only hope that the vague foreknowledge he possessed would not somehow make that more difficult.
He straightened his posture, lifted his chin, and tried not to indulge in the utter relief that seeing her once more provoked, as she and an older man-- long-faced; white-haired; bearded; perhaps the captain she had once mentioned?-- approached the bars of his cell, led by the arresting officer. Her hair was shorter, the warm clothing he recalled replaced by a brown uniform like the others', but it was clearly her, the woman who had upended his entire life. Once, he would have applied that distinction to Katrina, but after what had happened at Fredricks Manor….
Miss Mills' face worked in a complicated expression as she caught sight of him, unknowingly echoing his own thorny emotions; then she turned to murmur something to the senior officer at her side.
"You're sure about that?" the man replied at greater volume. "I agree, it's not the same guy, but they're both dressed like colonial re-enactors. I've seen enough of them over the years, and there aren't any battles scheduled for this weekend. Given what Andy said about his suspicious behaviour…."
The lieutenant shot a tight-lipped glance toward the arresting officer at that remark; Ichabod had seen enough of her to recognize frustration and anger in her expression, and he sucked in a sharp breath. That was not the demeanour of a woman who did not recognize him; she already knew he was unaffiliated with the man he had apparently been mistaken for.
That was impossible. But then, so was his own recognition of her. Hope sprang brighter in his breast; he leapt to his feet, overbalancing slightly as the binders securing his wrists behind him protested at the motion. "Lieutenant!"
She froze at the sound of his voice-- then turned toward him again, eyes widening with the same relief that flooded through him. "Crane?" she said, abandoning her conversation and moving hastily toward the cell. "What did you just call me?"
She'd used his name; she definitely recalled more than she should, as neither of the others had used it. "I said… Lieutenant," he replied eagerly. "Grace Abigail Mills, if I am not mistaken?"
"You remember me?" she asked, voice trembling slightly as she reached out to rest one hand upon the bars.
Not for the first time, he wondered how long a span had passed between his wife's descent into evil and both women's flight into the past-- for there was an intimacy in Miss Mills' addresses to him that entirely belied the neutral language of the term 'partner'.
"If you are asking whether I recall the Year of Our Lord two thousand fifteen… I regret to say that I do not," he replied, as privately as he could given the distance between them and the presence of the onlookers. Had he been in her position, he had no doubt that that would be his first question as well, presuming her experience that day had been as disorienting as his own. "But if you are asking whether my last memory before a certain cave was of Fredricks Manor in 1781… then indeed, I am your man."
She clapped her free hand over her mouth, eyes filling with unshed tears. "Oh my god. Crane."
The exclamation was too much for the other officers to continue to overlook; the older one frowned and took a step forward. "Abbie? What's going on?"
"Keys, the keys!" Miss Mills ignored him to gesture to the jailor, standing in the corner behind the other officers. "We need to let him out of there, right now."
"Abbie, are you sure?" the arresting officer asked, a deep scowl marring his features. "You don't know anything about this guy."
"Yeah, and neither did you before you arrested him," she replied, wheeling on him with sudden ferocity. "What did you pick him up for, anyway, jaywalking while looking suspicious? I told you he wasn't involved, end of story."
He looked like he wished to argue the matter; but the older man intervened, settling a quieting hand on his shoulder. "Abbie, you're not making any sense."
She pressed her lips together in frustration, then shook her head. "I know how it must sound, sir… but trust me on this. Please. I'll explain later, but right now I need him out of there."
Her superior stared at her for a long moment, then glanced past her to Ichabod, expression thoughtful. "You'd be responsible for keeping an eye on him until this thing is solved. One man's already been killed tonight, and I don't think I need to tell you there are more unusual factors in this case than I like."
"Believe me, sir, I know," she replied, fervently. "Thank you."
With no further ado, the keys were produced, the cell opened, and the shackles removed under the considering gaze of the older officer and the puzzlingly dark glare of the one she'd called Andy.
There were other procedures to be performed, but she hurried him through them as fast as possible-- and then drew him outside the police station into the free night air.
"Crane," Miss Mills said again, voice thick with emotion; and then she threw her arms around him, pressing her face against his mud-caked jacket.
"That cannot be sanitary," he murmured chidingly, but found his hands nonetheless settling upon her back far more naturally than when she had first accosted him so, mere hours before.
"Who cares about sanitary," she replied, then pulled back, wiping at her eyes. "I have to tell you, when I realized I was back in that café-- all I could think was that I was somehow back in Purgatory again, or maybe never left at all. Moloch, the demon who rules there, he'd taunted me with Corbin before, and there he was, pie turning into soup like the Horseman had never killed him. But it is real. I saved him. And I didn't have to take you to the mental hospital this time, either. I don't even care what it means right now; just… let me enjoy this for a minute."
Saved him? Then the man inside had been her lost mentor… which meant she was equally as unmoored as he was, now stranded with him in yet another timeline dislocated from both of their experiences.
She laughed; and though the implications were alarming in many respects where they were comprehensible at all, her bittersweet joy was infectious, and lit her from within in a way that he had only before seen in brief glimpses. Grace Abigail Mills in 1781 had been fierce, determined, a force of nature; Lieutenant Mills of 2015 was still all of those things, but also, he was not surprised to find, a woman of deep heart and spirit as well.
Benjamin Franklin had taken one look at this woman and proclaimed her the American dream; and though his wife's betrayal remained a source of confusion and pain, he could easily see how his future?-- past?-- other self might in time have come to an identical conclusion.
"I think it means," he said gently, "that our chance of-- as you said-- 'setting things right' has just been immeasurably increased. If the future you spoke of is truly as difficult as you intimated… then perhaps this is a gift."
"Some gift," she said, grief still shadowing her smile as she looked at him; but then she nodded. "But maybe you're right. After you went outside the manor, Grace said something about our bond; that it was an actual mystical connection between us, not just another term for partners. Which made sense, but… might also affect the spell in unpredictable ways, it existing in two separate timelines. I told her whatever happened, it couldn't possibly get worse; and if you think about it, this is kind of the opposite, isn't it? Like a second chance for us both."
A second chance, indeed. If he had been cursed to lose the one person that had been his foundation throughout the war... then it was only fair his apparently prophesied new union should be supernaturally, even Biblically, blessed to carry him through the next. It would take time to adjust; but fortunately, time was precisely what they had been given.
"Then, Lieutenant, let us change the course of history… yet again," Ichabod replied, reaching to take her hands between his own.
Abbie laughed again, fingers curling warmly in his grasp. "Indeed."
(x-posted on AO3)
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Date: 2018-11-02 06:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-02 09:07 am (UTC)