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jedibuttercupPG-13; Sleepy Hollow (tv); 4400 words. S2 Canon Divergence AU/Time Travel Fix-It.
What had Grace said? The greater magics never interacted without consequences? Somehow Abbie's travel back to the present had stumbled right over the day they'd ripped that first gate into Purgatory.
Title: No Matter What the Course of Fate
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Sleepy Hollow 2.18 "Tempus Fugit"
Notes: Title and a few quotes from the episode. Yes, I'm still writing Abbie/Ichabod fixits. There'll at least one more long one coming for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
het_bigbang this fall!
Summary: What had Grace said? The greater magics never interacted without consequences? Somehow Abbie's travel back to the present had stumbled right over the day they'd ripped that first gate into Purgatory.
Of all the things Abbie had experienced since being thrust unceremoniously back through time, meeting her ancestor had to be the strangest. Not to knock Benjamin Franklin-- who really was an experience all unto himself, Crane hadn't been exaggerating about that at all-- but the woman whose spirit had both literally and figuratively guided the whole course of her life as a Witness? It was both humbling and amazing to actually meet her.
Heart-wrenching, too. Meeting Captain Ichabod Crane, Esquire, all over again, literally hours removed experientially from the one she'd first met and yet somehow infinitely more skeptical and naïve than that early edition of her partner, had been a challenge in more ways than just the necessity of convincing him that she was from the future. But at least he didn't have that on his conscience: the reminder that his son had been the one to end Grace's life, only a few years from this moment. Or the knowledge that she'd been the one to finally close the circle, stopping the threat Jeremy Crane had become before he could endanger the lives of countless others.
If Abbie could only warn Grace... but all that would do was make this meeting even harder to bear. Any caution she might give would only be undone along with everything else that had happened since she'd jumped into Katrina's spellcasting: just like the Horseman beheading the famous Founder, just like Crane not meeting the Hessian with the bow on his hand on the battlefield in the first place. It would break her heart, if the last couple of years hadn't already raked her so hard over the coals. As it was....
Abbie swallowed and put her mixed emotions aside, getting straight to the point as soon as Crane was done summarizing the problem. "Benjamin Franklin said that you would know how to reverse the Traveler Spell."
Grace turned toward the shelf behind her, reaching for a very familiar-looking notebook. The pages were less yellowed than when Abbie had seen it last, the ink crisper on the paper, but it otherwise looked the same. She'd known where the journal came from all along, but it still sent a thrill through her to actually see it in Grace Dixon's hands.
Her ancestor's brow furrowed, though, as she flipped through the pages. "Yes, the Abiero spell should be able to accomplish as much. But you should know, there might be... complications."
"Complications?" Abbie shared a wary look with Crane. Nothing was ever as easy as it should be with them; but the fate of the world was literally in her foremother's hands here. "What do you mean?"
"Well...." Grace glanced between them. "Even in the best case, it will require a great deal of power to cast. I will have to draw on the energies that normally shield this house."
"Which means we'll be vulnerable the moment you start," Abbie concluded, grimly. She'd thought it was a little too convenient that the one means they might have of fixing everything was kept in a place known to be shielded from magical attack. And clearly, Grace didn't think it was the best case, either. "What else?"
Grace bit her lip, eyes straying toward Crane again, and the younger version of Abbie's partner frowned. "Clearly, it has to do with me. But if I am meant to be Miss Mills' partner...."
"But that in itself, I fear, is the problem," Grace replied with an earnest shake of her head. "You're Witnesses. Eternal souls, bound together by prophecy. If you know what you are in your time," she turned her attention back to Abbie, "then a time of Tribulation has come, when the mystical energies are at their strongest. That includes your bond; there must always be two Witnesses, you see. Unravelling the spell will certainly undo everything that has happened in this time, but whether it will return you to the exact moment it was cast, and what effect it may have on Mr. Crane, I cannot say. Only that there will certainly be a cost; the greater magics never interact without consequences."
Abbie glanced toward Crane, as automatically as she had almost from the moment of their meeting; she wasn't sure whether it was more comforting or alarming that destiny might have had a hand in that, rather than them simply coming to know and trust one another so deeply for who they were. But whatever the cause of their bond, even with this inexperienced Crane, it told her even before he opened his mouth what his answer would be. Because she would have said the same.
"Whatever the consequences, it must be done; and I am certain my counterpart in Miss Mills' time would also say as much. And if we will be vulnerable once you begin, then there is no time to waste."
"If you're sure," Grace said with a nod, turning her attention back to the journal.
Watching her with it, helping her put the spell together, made Abbie ache for her family. For lost connections going back centuries, for reasons both magical and horrifically mundane, generation after generation. It wasn't fair. But then, that was life, wasn't it? Most people succeeded as much despite their beginnings as because of them. And there had been blessings, too. "Your journal's still in the family in my time," she said. "From my mom to my sister and me. Your legacy has guided us all these years, helped us fight evil."
Grace smiled warmly, glancing up to meet Abbie's gaze again. "I knew what transpired in this house was important, though it was impossible to know if it would be remembered, saved, or be of use to others. But sometimes all it takes is to put pen to paper to make a difference."
She laughed softly, full of hope and optimism, despite everything. Abbie remembered Franklin saying she is the American Dream, and wondered if her great-great-great-grandmother thought the same of her; if that was why the other woman was so calm despite facing the possible end of everything she'd worked for. If they couldn't get this spell cast before the Horseman and Katrina arrived, they might have just brought the apocalypse more than two centuries early.
It was a lot to take on her shoulders. Before Ichabod Crane had crashed into her life, Abbie wouldn't have believed she was strong enough to face it. August Corbin's ghost had told her that she'd let fear rule her life since she was little, and that it had kept her from seeing who she really was. And he'd been right. But she was slowly coming to grips with the fact that she was strong enough. Whatever had brought Crane to her, she was better for it-- even when, as with that day's events, it brought her grief she wouldn't have faced otherwise.
The crashing of thunder and the neighing of a horse announced the arrival of their foes, and they hurried to get down to business. Crane volunteered to slow them, because of course he did; and Grace insisted that Abbie had to be part of the spell, because of course she did. That left them with only enough time to spare for a brief hug in parting, and no promises for what she'd find when she returned to the future.
Though given what Grace had said about their destiny, it was probably more comforting than it should be that she'd told her the most crucial battles still lay ahead. Abbie let Crane go with stinging eyes, then chanted the words her ancestor gave her, casting them into the storm building outside.
"Quod tempus fugit, restitute tempore." Because time flies, restore time.
"Quod tempus fugit, restitute tempore." Because it hasn't been long enough, and we deserve another chance, Abbie added silently after the second repetition.
"Quod tempus fugit, restitute tempore." Do one selfish woman's desires-- because let's face it, I'm being as selfish as I am altruistic here-- cancel out another's? Or will we be fighting this battle again the moment I return to the future? Or something else altogether? she wondered.
Then the magic peaked, and there was no more time for thought. The last thing Abbie saw in the year 1781 was a series of images seemingly projected around her, glowing against the frozen curtain of herbs Grace had breathed into the air. She saw all of the changes they'd made to the timeline that day, each one reversing before running forward again, returning Ichabod to the battlefield where he'd encountered the Horseman of Death. There was a glimpse of a really gross-looking cave, Ichabod thrashing back to life, and then a few scenes from their first few months together-- but then it all blurred as though swept by a sudden wind, and Abbie felt a great shudder go through her spirit, like the resonance of that witch-making bell they'd been trying to destroy.
+
The next thing she knew, Abbie was standing in front of a portal-- but not the swirling maw of the one Katrina had opened in the old Sleepy Hollow Town Hall. This one looked a lot more like a shattered mirror, leading to an ornate hall backlit with light: a sight she'd last seen on the threshold of Purgatory.
She gasped in dismayed surprise, trying to regain her bearings, then registered the sound of another indrawn breath at her side. It was only then that she noticed the long-fingered hand clasped in her own, materialized there as if she hadn't just sent its owner out to face his demons, and the hard-packed dirt of a neglected forest road beneath her feet. What had Grace said? The greater magics never interacted without consequences? Somehow her travel back to the present had stumbled right over the day they'd summoned that first gate into Purgatory.
That is, if this was truly real. "Crane?" she said, turning her head to seek her partner's gaze. She'd seen false versions of him before; she'd also met a version of him that didn't know her, and was pretty sure the reaction of the man next to her would tell her what she needed to know.
"...Lieutenant?" he replied hesitantly, looking down at her. He was wearing the same style of Revolutionary War coat, though not quite identical to the one from the past-- had he run into that recreationist group yet? The accent was definitely right for the moment, though; the deep confusion wasn't, but he clearly did remember her, and that would have to be good enough.
Bolstered by that foundation, Abbie wheeled around, looking for the other person that had to be there if this was the day she thought it was. Even expecting him, though, that moment in the Town Hall was still fresh at the top of her thoughts as she met a very much alive Henry Parrish's gaze: Ichabod mourning over the son her magically enhanced bullet had just fatally injured. Even after everything he'd done, there was a part of Abbie that still wept for this version of Henry: the apparently kind, spiritually wounded man who'd had to be coaxed into helping, yet saved Ichabod's life, helped them stop the golem, and been invaluable in the hunt for Washington's map. It hadn't stopped her from acting, but she'd understood Ichabod's conflicted emotions more than she'd wanted to admit.
It hadn't just been Ichabod's inability to be rational where his dead wife was concerned that had damaged Abbie's certainty in her new life as a Witness the first time around. Henry had been a big part of it too, pulling the rug out from under her feet and throwing her trust in her instincts into question. He still looked the part of the compassionate older man even now, hours away from throwing his own mother to the Horseman of Death, torturing her and Ichabod, and ripping his next goal out of her sister's mind. "Miss Mills? Is something wrong?"
Ichabod made a low, wounded noise; the Abiero spell had definitely had some kind of effect on him too. "God's wounds. Henry," he said, voice as rough as if the words had been torn out of him.
Henry glanced between them both, a furrow deepening between his brows, but the helpful façade didn't waver. "Did you see something within the portal? Purgatory will resist you, you know this. You must act while there is still time."
"Yes, I must, mustn't I?" Ichabod said, in that same rough voice. Then he threw a sharp, pleading glance Abbie's way and murmured under his breath. "Stay here. Hold the portal."
It was clear he had something crazy in mind, but before she could even say 'and how am I supposed to do that?' his hand was slipping out of hers and he was bolting in the warlock's direction.
Henry fell back an uncertain step, looking startled; if Abbie was confused, he must have been entirely flabbergasted by what was going on. "Ichabod, what...?" he began to say, holding his hands up between them.
Abbie would have followed to back her partner up, request or no-- she knew how much damage that man could do with those hands-- if the portal hadn't clearly started destabilizing the moment Crane let go of her. The shattered edges of the mirror-like boundary between their world and the afterlife immediately began fracturing further, crack by crack, palm-sized fragments of it seeming to fall away and taking chunks out of the portal's expanse with each one. It stabilized a little as she switched her focus back to it, hastily calling the words of the incantation back to the forefront of her thoughts, but a startling wave of exhaustion came with them; the portal was apparently of the type that used the energy of its summoners to stay open. A gateway wide enough for two was just a little bit of a drain for one to hold alone.
Hopefully Ichabod actually knew what he was doing... and wouldn't take too long to do it. She took a knee, bracing one hand against the earth to fight off the black spots encroaching at the edges of her vision, feeling the crunch of leaves and the grit of solid earth under her palm as she tried to follow what was going on. Two pairs of feet audibly scuffed the ground behind her, one forceful, one almost stumbling, like a drumbeat under a melody of confused curses-- and then Ichabod was back at her side, every muscle straining with effort as he all but hurled his son toward the collapsing portal.
Henry seemed to have realized at last that something had gone off-script, eyes flooding with black as his hands shifted from a simple fending-off motion into a recognizable spellcasting gesture. But not quickly enough. He was already tripping over the threshold before he could do much more than freeze Ichabod in place, a victim of his own momentum. He went into Purgatory with a snarl of rage, still reaching back in their direction-- and then vines began writhing after him, stretching inward from the trees flanking the road as if to catch his fall and pull him back through. Abbie hastily wrenched her gaze away from him, freeing the gate to finish tearing itself apart, instinctively holding her breath until she heard the sheared-off ends of the vines hit the earth.
"Oh, my god, Crane," she gasped, a shudder passing through her shoulders. "What just happened?"
Ichabod stumbled and collapsed at her side, breathing nearly as hard as she was. "I suspect I should be asking you that question," he said dryly. "I remember several things-- most of them out of order-- that defy common sense and reason, and I do not only speak of a very strange day following you around whilst havoc unfolded in my Sleepy Hollow. All I knew was that Henry was alive again, you were back by my side, and whether it was a trick or no, I could not risk losing you to Moloch's machinations yet again."
"You remember all of it?" she said, stunned, reaching out to rest a hand on his shoulder. "Crane-- Ichabod--"
He turned toward her as if the touch were a pivot point, then lunged for her nearly as suddenly as he had Henry, pulling her toward him and wrapping her up in the circle of his arms. They ended up more or less in a seated version of the tight hug from 1781, made much more intimate by the way their legs tangled around each other in the process.
"Abbie," he groaned, tucking his face against her hair. "Never do that again. Never let me do that again. We always say we are stronger together, yet somehow manage to justify parting from one another, and it is then that the worst always happens."
"No arguments here," Abbie replied, a shudder passing through her as she pressed her cheek to his homespun shirt. "I have no idea what happens now. We screwed up his revenge, not to mention Moloch's plan-- but he heard the incantation to open the gateway, and Katrina's in there too. She's not exactly rational right now, and if they find each other-- I'm sorry, Crane. I think we might have gone from the frying pan to the fire, here."
He gave a rough chuckle. "Do you know, I told her before she trapped us in the tunnels, 'I pulled you from Purgatory. This path will send you back.' Ironic, is it not? If there is any fault to be had between us, it is I who must bear the larger share, not you. I went to such lengths to rescue her, to reconcile her to this era, and to defend our son when at every step of the way it was at the expense of my bond with you."
He wasn't wrong. But he was only human, and she'd always known that love could be as dangerous to the one loved-- or loving-- as any other form of blinding emotion. There was a reason she'd always held herself in reserve before one determined Revolutionary War soldier had bulldozed his way into her life. "I get it, you know. You loved her. People will do a lot of things they wouldn't otherwise for love."
"And yet in 1781, on the strength of less than one day's acquaintance, a glancing introduction to modern technology, and a glimpse of a curious book in my wife's possession, I was willing to turn my back on her and commit fully to your cause. Did she have me under some form of enchantment, that I persisted so long in despite of common sense? Or was I simply determined to be blind to anything that did not fit the narrative I had committed myself to as a naïve, infatuated young soldier? In either case, comparing the bravery I knew then even in my ignorance to my behavior each time Katrina's wellbeing conflicted with yours in the months between this one and that final encounter...." He shook his head against her hair. "I feel such a fool."
Abbie pulled back far enough to look him in the eye, reaching up to rest one hand against his bearded jawline. "Hey, don't be too hard on yourself. You're here, aren't you?"
"I am, aren't I?" he replied, expression softening. "But only with your assistance. Even when you went where I could not follow, you managed to save me from myself yet again. Benjamin Franklin was right; even when I was trying to look away, you have always been everything I would fight with my dying breath to protect."
Abbie's breath caught with the force of her reaction. She'd spent the last two years fighting a doomed struggle against her own infatuation with this man, knowing that she was never going to be the princess of his story, and managed only to keep from showing it. Seeing him almost every day, hearing him repeatedly make such ridiculously appreciative statements before turning right around and pining over his wife-- it had been a lot. Jenny had blamed him for the rough patches their working relationship occasionally hit, but Abbie knew she was at least as much at fault, alternately soaking it up and retreating in turn. But it was harder now to remind herself of that, given... everything.
Literally even, judging by the fit of his trousers where they were pressed together. She swallowed dryly, then gathered her scattered thoughts to reply. "I don't think that was quite what he meant."
"Regardless of his exact meaning," Ichabod said, earnestness in every line of his expression, "it is the truth. I have struggled for months now to uphold several conflicting oaths at once and managed to fail them all to varying degrees. But Katrina has invalidated my duty to her with her own choices, and I was never given the chance to bear any responsibility for Henry's."
Whatever he was about to say next, Abbie had to interrupt him there; the shock and dismay that had weighed on her ever since she'd fired that flintlock pistol needed to be cleared away just as much as his own regrets, if this was going where she thought it was. "I never thought I'd actually hit him, you know. I expected him to stop my bullet and let the one you'd aimed at the bell go. If I hadn't fired...."
He shook his head again. "His choices are not your responsibility, either. Even if those events had not just been so comprehensively undone... even in the moment, I grieved but could not regret. He prioritized the bell and the spell it was meant to cast above his own life... as I, too, cherished another priority."
Abbie remembered hearing him scream as she'd followed Katrina into the Traveler Spell: calling after her, not the woman who'd just spat on the memory of her own place at his side. The heat in his gaze now, the way his hand rose to cup Abbie's cheek in an echo of her own gesture-- she knew it might be a bad idea to carpe this particular diem, but at the same time it felt like it had been coming ever since the day they'd met. And she wasn't letting fear rule her life anymore.
"I echo that sentiment, Captain," she murmured, gaze dropping to his lips.
She couldn't have said which of them moved first; she stretched up even as he tilted his head down toward her, mouths meeting in a searing kiss. Her whole body tingled where they were pressed together, more aroused than she'd been in years. But then again, she'd never let anyone this far past her defenses either, not even Luke; never been willing to put anyone besides family ahead of her own goals. Until Ichabod showed up, looking at her as though she was the answer to all his prayers.
The thought jolted against something she really should have remembered sooner, and Abbie broke away again with a gasp. The reminder of Luke had brought up what had happened with the Captain. Who still had his soul right now. And had left behind a book. Which she'd given to Jenny. "Oh my god. Crane, the eclipse!"
Ichabod blinked at her, dizzied; then clarity filtered back into his gaze. "Your sister! The key!"
He glanced upward to where the disc of the moon had almost reached the sun, then scrambled to his feet, carefully untangling himself from her. He tugged awkwardly at the front of his jacket, a faint flush reddening his cheekbones, and held out a hand. "I had nearly forgotten. My apologies for the poor timing. We may have delayed War from taking form, but Abraham's mission to stop your sister and secure her for Henry's interrogation must still be in play, and I do not know how much time we may have to intercept him."
The switch from desperate necking to Witness business was jarring, but oddly reassuring. After all the trouble they'd had learning how to balance their bond, they had arrived at last on the same page. "If there's anything to apologize for," Abbie replied wryly, breath still coming a little short as he levered her to her feet, "I think we share the blame equally this time. Rain check for later?"
He didn't pretend not to understand, which made her wonder about that 'struggle for months' and 'trying to look away'. But questioning the exact duration of his feelings for her would not lead anywhere productive; what mattered now was where they went from here.
"Apocalypse check, perhaps," he replied, grinning ruefully at her. "And unlikely to be the last. That is, if you...." He trailed off, abruptly uncertain, as if belatedly reminding himself not to assume.
"Oh, if I," she replied, laughing. "Remind me later to tell you just how long I've been wanting that. In the meantime, though. The horseman went after Jenny before he came here to break the seal, right?"
"Indeed," he replied. "On her way back from your ancestors' church. Then let us rescue her-- and if we are lucky, perhaps prevent several more disastrous events while we are at it."
Abbie bit her lip as that thought provoked another idea. "Maybe even bring her back here; I bet if we look up the binding spell Katrina meant to use to stop War from rising, Jenny and I could cast it on the ley junction instead. Maybe block the gate into Purgatory altogether."
Ichabod's eyes lit up. "Brilliant," he said. "Perhaps that is even what Washington meant by the map being a weapon; for nothing we did with it before ever lived up to such billing."
Abbie laughed again, leaving her hand linked with his as they headed toward the car. "Really, you'd think he could have left you better instructions, if he wasn't going to tell you himself."
"Perhaps he did, and we simply have yet to find them?" he shrugged.
"Well, here's hoping," she replied, squeezing his fingers.
Hoping. Yet another first for Abbie, since that day in the woods all those years ago. Thanks to Ichabod. She thought of Grace again, showing her those empty pages in her journal, and finally felt a little less like an impostor in her own hero's journey.
Somehow, despite everything, she couldn't wait to see what would happen next.
(x-posted on AO3)
What had Grace said? The greater magics never interacted without consequences? Somehow Abbie's travel back to the present had stumbled right over the day they'd ripped that first gate into Purgatory.
Title: No Matter What the Course of Fate
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Sleepy Hollow 2.18 "Tempus Fugit"
Notes: Title and a few quotes from the episode. Yes, I'm still writing Abbie/Ichabod fixits. There'll at least one more long one coming for
het_bigbang this fall!Summary: What had Grace said? The greater magics never interacted without consequences? Somehow Abbie's travel back to the present had stumbled right over the day they'd ripped that first gate into Purgatory.
Of all the things Abbie had experienced since being thrust unceremoniously back through time, meeting her ancestor had to be the strangest. Not to knock Benjamin Franklin-- who really was an experience all unto himself, Crane hadn't been exaggerating about that at all-- but the woman whose spirit had both literally and figuratively guided the whole course of her life as a Witness? It was both humbling and amazing to actually meet her.
Heart-wrenching, too. Meeting Captain Ichabod Crane, Esquire, all over again, literally hours removed experientially from the one she'd first met and yet somehow infinitely more skeptical and naïve than that early edition of her partner, had been a challenge in more ways than just the necessity of convincing him that she was from the future. But at least he didn't have that on his conscience: the reminder that his son had been the one to end Grace's life, only a few years from this moment. Or the knowledge that she'd been the one to finally close the circle, stopping the threat Jeremy Crane had become before he could endanger the lives of countless others.
If Abbie could only warn Grace... but all that would do was make this meeting even harder to bear. Any caution she might give would only be undone along with everything else that had happened since she'd jumped into Katrina's spellcasting: just like the Horseman beheading the famous Founder, just like Crane not meeting the Hessian with the bow on his hand on the battlefield in the first place. It would break her heart, if the last couple of years hadn't already raked her so hard over the coals. As it was....
Abbie swallowed and put her mixed emotions aside, getting straight to the point as soon as Crane was done summarizing the problem. "Benjamin Franklin said that you would know how to reverse the Traveler Spell."
Grace turned toward the shelf behind her, reaching for a very familiar-looking notebook. The pages were less yellowed than when Abbie had seen it last, the ink crisper on the paper, but it otherwise looked the same. She'd known where the journal came from all along, but it still sent a thrill through her to actually see it in Grace Dixon's hands.
Her ancestor's brow furrowed, though, as she flipped through the pages. "Yes, the Abiero spell should be able to accomplish as much. But you should know, there might be... complications."
"Complications?" Abbie shared a wary look with Crane. Nothing was ever as easy as it should be with them; but the fate of the world was literally in her foremother's hands here. "What do you mean?"
"Well...." Grace glanced between them. "Even in the best case, it will require a great deal of power to cast. I will have to draw on the energies that normally shield this house."
"Which means we'll be vulnerable the moment you start," Abbie concluded, grimly. She'd thought it was a little too convenient that the one means they might have of fixing everything was kept in a place known to be shielded from magical attack. And clearly, Grace didn't think it was the best case, either. "What else?"
Grace bit her lip, eyes straying toward Crane again, and the younger version of Abbie's partner frowned. "Clearly, it has to do with me. But if I am meant to be Miss Mills' partner...."
"But that in itself, I fear, is the problem," Grace replied with an earnest shake of her head. "You're Witnesses. Eternal souls, bound together by prophecy. If you know what you are in your time," she turned her attention back to Abbie, "then a time of Tribulation has come, when the mystical energies are at their strongest. That includes your bond; there must always be two Witnesses, you see. Unravelling the spell will certainly undo everything that has happened in this time, but whether it will return you to the exact moment it was cast, and what effect it may have on Mr. Crane, I cannot say. Only that there will certainly be a cost; the greater magics never interact without consequences."
Abbie glanced toward Crane, as automatically as she had almost from the moment of their meeting; she wasn't sure whether it was more comforting or alarming that destiny might have had a hand in that, rather than them simply coming to know and trust one another so deeply for who they were. But whatever the cause of their bond, even with this inexperienced Crane, it told her even before he opened his mouth what his answer would be. Because she would have said the same.
"Whatever the consequences, it must be done; and I am certain my counterpart in Miss Mills' time would also say as much. And if we will be vulnerable once you begin, then there is no time to waste."
"If you're sure," Grace said with a nod, turning her attention back to the journal.
Watching her with it, helping her put the spell together, made Abbie ache for her family. For lost connections going back centuries, for reasons both magical and horrifically mundane, generation after generation. It wasn't fair. But then, that was life, wasn't it? Most people succeeded as much despite their beginnings as because of them. And there had been blessings, too. "Your journal's still in the family in my time," she said. "From my mom to my sister and me. Your legacy has guided us all these years, helped us fight evil."
Grace smiled warmly, glancing up to meet Abbie's gaze again. "I knew what transpired in this house was important, though it was impossible to know if it would be remembered, saved, or be of use to others. But sometimes all it takes is to put pen to paper to make a difference."
She laughed softly, full of hope and optimism, despite everything. Abbie remembered Franklin saying she is the American Dream, and wondered if her great-great-great-grandmother thought the same of her; if that was why the other woman was so calm despite facing the possible end of everything she'd worked for. If they couldn't get this spell cast before the Horseman and Katrina arrived, they might have just brought the apocalypse more than two centuries early.
It was a lot to take on her shoulders. Before Ichabod Crane had crashed into her life, Abbie wouldn't have believed she was strong enough to face it. August Corbin's ghost had told her that she'd let fear rule her life since she was little, and that it had kept her from seeing who she really was. And he'd been right. But she was slowly coming to grips with the fact that she was strong enough. Whatever had brought Crane to her, she was better for it-- even when, as with that day's events, it brought her grief she wouldn't have faced otherwise.
The crashing of thunder and the neighing of a horse announced the arrival of their foes, and they hurried to get down to business. Crane volunteered to slow them, because of course he did; and Grace insisted that Abbie had to be part of the spell, because of course she did. That left them with only enough time to spare for a brief hug in parting, and no promises for what she'd find when she returned to the future.
Though given what Grace had said about their destiny, it was probably more comforting than it should be that she'd told her the most crucial battles still lay ahead. Abbie let Crane go with stinging eyes, then chanted the words her ancestor gave her, casting them into the storm building outside.
"Quod tempus fugit, restitute tempore." Because time flies, restore time.
"Quod tempus fugit, restitute tempore." Because it hasn't been long enough, and we deserve another chance, Abbie added silently after the second repetition.
"Quod tempus fugit, restitute tempore." Do one selfish woman's desires-- because let's face it, I'm being as selfish as I am altruistic here-- cancel out another's? Or will we be fighting this battle again the moment I return to the future? Or something else altogether? she wondered.
Then the magic peaked, and there was no more time for thought. The last thing Abbie saw in the year 1781 was a series of images seemingly projected around her, glowing against the frozen curtain of herbs Grace had breathed into the air. She saw all of the changes they'd made to the timeline that day, each one reversing before running forward again, returning Ichabod to the battlefield where he'd encountered the Horseman of Death. There was a glimpse of a really gross-looking cave, Ichabod thrashing back to life, and then a few scenes from their first few months together-- but then it all blurred as though swept by a sudden wind, and Abbie felt a great shudder go through her spirit, like the resonance of that witch-making bell they'd been trying to destroy.
+
The next thing she knew, Abbie was standing in front of a portal-- but not the swirling maw of the one Katrina had opened in the old Sleepy Hollow Town Hall. This one looked a lot more like a shattered mirror, leading to an ornate hall backlit with light: a sight she'd last seen on the threshold of Purgatory.
She gasped in dismayed surprise, trying to regain her bearings, then registered the sound of another indrawn breath at her side. It was only then that she noticed the long-fingered hand clasped in her own, materialized there as if she hadn't just sent its owner out to face his demons, and the hard-packed dirt of a neglected forest road beneath her feet. What had Grace said? The greater magics never interacted without consequences? Somehow her travel back to the present had stumbled right over the day they'd summoned that first gate into Purgatory.
That is, if this was truly real. "Crane?" she said, turning her head to seek her partner's gaze. She'd seen false versions of him before; she'd also met a version of him that didn't know her, and was pretty sure the reaction of the man next to her would tell her what she needed to know.
"...Lieutenant?" he replied hesitantly, looking down at her. He was wearing the same style of Revolutionary War coat, though not quite identical to the one from the past-- had he run into that recreationist group yet? The accent was definitely right for the moment, though; the deep confusion wasn't, but he clearly did remember her, and that would have to be good enough.
Bolstered by that foundation, Abbie wheeled around, looking for the other person that had to be there if this was the day she thought it was. Even expecting him, though, that moment in the Town Hall was still fresh at the top of her thoughts as she met a very much alive Henry Parrish's gaze: Ichabod mourning over the son her magically enhanced bullet had just fatally injured. Even after everything he'd done, there was a part of Abbie that still wept for this version of Henry: the apparently kind, spiritually wounded man who'd had to be coaxed into helping, yet saved Ichabod's life, helped them stop the golem, and been invaluable in the hunt for Washington's map. It hadn't stopped her from acting, but she'd understood Ichabod's conflicted emotions more than she'd wanted to admit.
It hadn't just been Ichabod's inability to be rational where his dead wife was concerned that had damaged Abbie's certainty in her new life as a Witness the first time around. Henry had been a big part of it too, pulling the rug out from under her feet and throwing her trust in her instincts into question. He still looked the part of the compassionate older man even now, hours away from throwing his own mother to the Horseman of Death, torturing her and Ichabod, and ripping his next goal out of her sister's mind. "Miss Mills? Is something wrong?"
Ichabod made a low, wounded noise; the Abiero spell had definitely had some kind of effect on him too. "God's wounds. Henry," he said, voice as rough as if the words had been torn out of him.
Henry glanced between them both, a furrow deepening between his brows, but the helpful façade didn't waver. "Did you see something within the portal? Purgatory will resist you, you know this. You must act while there is still time."
"Yes, I must, mustn't I?" Ichabod said, in that same rough voice. Then he threw a sharp, pleading glance Abbie's way and murmured under his breath. "Stay here. Hold the portal."
It was clear he had something crazy in mind, but before she could even say 'and how am I supposed to do that?' his hand was slipping out of hers and he was bolting in the warlock's direction.
Henry fell back an uncertain step, looking startled; if Abbie was confused, he must have been entirely flabbergasted by what was going on. "Ichabod, what...?" he began to say, holding his hands up between them.
Abbie would have followed to back her partner up, request or no-- she knew how much damage that man could do with those hands-- if the portal hadn't clearly started destabilizing the moment Crane let go of her. The shattered edges of the mirror-like boundary between their world and the afterlife immediately began fracturing further, crack by crack, palm-sized fragments of it seeming to fall away and taking chunks out of the portal's expanse with each one. It stabilized a little as she switched her focus back to it, hastily calling the words of the incantation back to the forefront of her thoughts, but a startling wave of exhaustion came with them; the portal was apparently of the type that used the energy of its summoners to stay open. A gateway wide enough for two was just a little bit of a drain for one to hold alone.
Hopefully Ichabod actually knew what he was doing... and wouldn't take too long to do it. She took a knee, bracing one hand against the earth to fight off the black spots encroaching at the edges of her vision, feeling the crunch of leaves and the grit of solid earth under her palm as she tried to follow what was going on. Two pairs of feet audibly scuffed the ground behind her, one forceful, one almost stumbling, like a drumbeat under a melody of confused curses-- and then Ichabod was back at her side, every muscle straining with effort as he all but hurled his son toward the collapsing portal.
Henry seemed to have realized at last that something had gone off-script, eyes flooding with black as his hands shifted from a simple fending-off motion into a recognizable spellcasting gesture. But not quickly enough. He was already tripping over the threshold before he could do much more than freeze Ichabod in place, a victim of his own momentum. He went into Purgatory with a snarl of rage, still reaching back in their direction-- and then vines began writhing after him, stretching inward from the trees flanking the road as if to catch his fall and pull him back through. Abbie hastily wrenched her gaze away from him, freeing the gate to finish tearing itself apart, instinctively holding her breath until she heard the sheared-off ends of the vines hit the earth.
"Oh, my god, Crane," she gasped, a shudder passing through her shoulders. "What just happened?"
Ichabod stumbled and collapsed at her side, breathing nearly as hard as she was. "I suspect I should be asking you that question," he said dryly. "I remember several things-- most of them out of order-- that defy common sense and reason, and I do not only speak of a very strange day following you around whilst havoc unfolded in my Sleepy Hollow. All I knew was that Henry was alive again, you were back by my side, and whether it was a trick or no, I could not risk losing you to Moloch's machinations yet again."
"You remember all of it?" she said, stunned, reaching out to rest a hand on his shoulder. "Crane-- Ichabod--"
He turned toward her as if the touch were a pivot point, then lunged for her nearly as suddenly as he had Henry, pulling her toward him and wrapping her up in the circle of his arms. They ended up more or less in a seated version of the tight hug from 1781, made much more intimate by the way their legs tangled around each other in the process.
"Abbie," he groaned, tucking his face against her hair. "Never do that again. Never let me do that again. We always say we are stronger together, yet somehow manage to justify parting from one another, and it is then that the worst always happens."
"No arguments here," Abbie replied, a shudder passing through her as she pressed her cheek to his homespun shirt. "I have no idea what happens now. We screwed up his revenge, not to mention Moloch's plan-- but he heard the incantation to open the gateway, and Katrina's in there too. She's not exactly rational right now, and if they find each other-- I'm sorry, Crane. I think we might have gone from the frying pan to the fire, here."
He gave a rough chuckle. "Do you know, I told her before she trapped us in the tunnels, 'I pulled you from Purgatory. This path will send you back.' Ironic, is it not? If there is any fault to be had between us, it is I who must bear the larger share, not you. I went to such lengths to rescue her, to reconcile her to this era, and to defend our son when at every step of the way it was at the expense of my bond with you."
He wasn't wrong. But he was only human, and she'd always known that love could be as dangerous to the one loved-- or loving-- as any other form of blinding emotion. There was a reason she'd always held herself in reserve before one determined Revolutionary War soldier had bulldozed his way into her life. "I get it, you know. You loved her. People will do a lot of things they wouldn't otherwise for love."
"And yet in 1781, on the strength of less than one day's acquaintance, a glancing introduction to modern technology, and a glimpse of a curious book in my wife's possession, I was willing to turn my back on her and commit fully to your cause. Did she have me under some form of enchantment, that I persisted so long in despite of common sense? Or was I simply determined to be blind to anything that did not fit the narrative I had committed myself to as a naïve, infatuated young soldier? In either case, comparing the bravery I knew then even in my ignorance to my behavior each time Katrina's wellbeing conflicted with yours in the months between this one and that final encounter...." He shook his head against her hair. "I feel such a fool."
Abbie pulled back far enough to look him in the eye, reaching up to rest one hand against his bearded jawline. "Hey, don't be too hard on yourself. You're here, aren't you?"
"I am, aren't I?" he replied, expression softening. "But only with your assistance. Even when you went where I could not follow, you managed to save me from myself yet again. Benjamin Franklin was right; even when I was trying to look away, you have always been everything I would fight with my dying breath to protect."
Abbie's breath caught with the force of her reaction. She'd spent the last two years fighting a doomed struggle against her own infatuation with this man, knowing that she was never going to be the princess of his story, and managed only to keep from showing it. Seeing him almost every day, hearing him repeatedly make such ridiculously appreciative statements before turning right around and pining over his wife-- it had been a lot. Jenny had blamed him for the rough patches their working relationship occasionally hit, but Abbie knew she was at least as much at fault, alternately soaking it up and retreating in turn. But it was harder now to remind herself of that, given... everything.
Literally even, judging by the fit of his trousers where they were pressed together. She swallowed dryly, then gathered her scattered thoughts to reply. "I don't think that was quite what he meant."
"Regardless of his exact meaning," Ichabod said, earnestness in every line of his expression, "it is the truth. I have struggled for months now to uphold several conflicting oaths at once and managed to fail them all to varying degrees. But Katrina has invalidated my duty to her with her own choices, and I was never given the chance to bear any responsibility for Henry's."
Whatever he was about to say next, Abbie had to interrupt him there; the shock and dismay that had weighed on her ever since she'd fired that flintlock pistol needed to be cleared away just as much as his own regrets, if this was going where she thought it was. "I never thought I'd actually hit him, you know. I expected him to stop my bullet and let the one you'd aimed at the bell go. If I hadn't fired...."
He shook his head again. "His choices are not your responsibility, either. Even if those events had not just been so comprehensively undone... even in the moment, I grieved but could not regret. He prioritized the bell and the spell it was meant to cast above his own life... as I, too, cherished another priority."
Abbie remembered hearing him scream as she'd followed Katrina into the Traveler Spell: calling after her, not the woman who'd just spat on the memory of her own place at his side. The heat in his gaze now, the way his hand rose to cup Abbie's cheek in an echo of her own gesture-- she knew it might be a bad idea to carpe this particular diem, but at the same time it felt like it had been coming ever since the day they'd met. And she wasn't letting fear rule her life anymore.
"I echo that sentiment, Captain," she murmured, gaze dropping to his lips.
She couldn't have said which of them moved first; she stretched up even as he tilted his head down toward her, mouths meeting in a searing kiss. Her whole body tingled where they were pressed together, more aroused than she'd been in years. But then again, she'd never let anyone this far past her defenses either, not even Luke; never been willing to put anyone besides family ahead of her own goals. Until Ichabod showed up, looking at her as though she was the answer to all his prayers.
The thought jolted against something she really should have remembered sooner, and Abbie broke away again with a gasp. The reminder of Luke had brought up what had happened with the Captain. Who still had his soul right now. And had left behind a book. Which she'd given to Jenny. "Oh my god. Crane, the eclipse!"
Ichabod blinked at her, dizzied; then clarity filtered back into his gaze. "Your sister! The key!"
He glanced upward to where the disc of the moon had almost reached the sun, then scrambled to his feet, carefully untangling himself from her. He tugged awkwardly at the front of his jacket, a faint flush reddening his cheekbones, and held out a hand. "I had nearly forgotten. My apologies for the poor timing. We may have delayed War from taking form, but Abraham's mission to stop your sister and secure her for Henry's interrogation must still be in play, and I do not know how much time we may have to intercept him."
The switch from desperate necking to Witness business was jarring, but oddly reassuring. After all the trouble they'd had learning how to balance their bond, they had arrived at last on the same page. "If there's anything to apologize for," Abbie replied wryly, breath still coming a little short as he levered her to her feet, "I think we share the blame equally this time. Rain check for later?"
He didn't pretend not to understand, which made her wonder about that 'struggle for months' and 'trying to look away'. But questioning the exact duration of his feelings for her would not lead anywhere productive; what mattered now was where they went from here.
"Apocalypse check, perhaps," he replied, grinning ruefully at her. "And unlikely to be the last. That is, if you...." He trailed off, abruptly uncertain, as if belatedly reminding himself not to assume.
"Oh, if I," she replied, laughing. "Remind me later to tell you just how long I've been wanting that. In the meantime, though. The horseman went after Jenny before he came here to break the seal, right?"
"Indeed," he replied. "On her way back from your ancestors' church. Then let us rescue her-- and if we are lucky, perhaps prevent several more disastrous events while we are at it."
Abbie bit her lip as that thought provoked another idea. "Maybe even bring her back here; I bet if we look up the binding spell Katrina meant to use to stop War from rising, Jenny and I could cast it on the ley junction instead. Maybe block the gate into Purgatory altogether."
Ichabod's eyes lit up. "Brilliant," he said. "Perhaps that is even what Washington meant by the map being a weapon; for nothing we did with it before ever lived up to such billing."
Abbie laughed again, leaving her hand linked with his as they headed toward the car. "Really, you'd think he could have left you better instructions, if he wasn't going to tell you himself."
"Perhaps he did, and we simply have yet to find them?" he shrugged.
"Well, here's hoping," she replied, squeezing his fingers.
Hoping. Yet another first for Abbie, since that day in the woods all those years ago. Thanks to Ichabod. She thought of Grace again, showing her those empty pages in her journal, and finally felt a little less like an impostor in her own hero's journey.
Somehow, despite everything, she couldn't wait to see what would happen next.
(x-posted on AO3)
