Archive of Our Own ^beta

The surface under Abbie Mills' cheek felt cool, coarse and uncomfortably dense, filling her nose with a dry stone scent that reminded her of the concrete floor of an aging warehouse. Not the best awakening she'd ever had, with the fuzz of an exhaustion headache clouding her thoughts, her joints aching from the twisted, mostly face down position she'd landed in, and an uneasy conviction that she hadn't been supposed to wake up at all.

She shifted a little, testing to see if the movement sent up any fresh, stabbing pains, but while she felt bruised and a little nauseous, she didn't think anything was broken. Definitely her least favorite magical traveling experience to date; the door to Purgatory hadn't been violent, just disturbing, and at least when she'd leaped into Katrina's time travel spell she'd ended up on the leaf-strewn earth just outside Sleepy Hollow. Ironic, considering that jumping into an actual tree had thrown her into some kind of indoor space instead.

Belatedly, it occurred to her that almost every time she'd gone through a portal with someone else, they'd been separated at the other end – and that her last sight of Pandora's cavern had been of Ichabod running toward her. If she'd made it through Pandora's door to the underworld, had he?

"Crane!" she called out, bracing her hands and pushing up to a kneeling position.

The floor was definitely some kind of solid stone; she felt grit shift under her palms, and a short distance away she could see the cracked remains of the Shard of Anubis' casing bracketing the now-clear gem that had once contained a god's power. Abbie shuddered at the memories it sparked, then looked up at the walls around her. She seemed to be in an indoor chamber of some kind, walled with another type of stone lighter than the dark gray paving beneath her. Limestone or sandstone maybe? Ichabod would probably know.

She'd fallen almost in the entrance arch of a hall; it ran a dozen or so yards from her position, ending in another open doorway, probably one that led outside. Light poured in through it, bright enough to be sunlight, the kind one might see in a desert: blindingly white enough to bleach the color out of everything it touched, though it didn't seem to carry the usual baking heat. The walls of the hallway were paneled in with a metallic-looking substance that soaked up the light rather than reflecting it, but the markings that covered them blazed radiantly enough to make their shapes easily visible from where she knelt. She couldn't decipher the language, but it looked a lot like the writing on the tablet Ichabod had brought back from England.

"Crane!" she called again as she squinted into the light, heart in her throat. In the text he'd translated earlier, he'd said that the domain of the Hidden One was called 'the place of death', but she didn't feel dead, just kind of wiped from whatever the transit had done to her. So the same should be true for him. Right?

"Leftenant?" a low groan sounded behind her, and Abbie briefly closed her eyes in gratitude. Not to any specific Being – because who knew what might be listening in these days – but just in general, because their luck only occasionally ran that smoothly. Then she gathered her legs under her, pushing the rest of the way to her feet.

In the opposite direction from the light, the chamber was thick with shadows; it was several yards across, with another hallway opening on the far side. It was also entirely empty except for her partner, who'd landed almost exactly across the room from her. He'd ended up sprawled on his back rather than his stomach, and was shading his eyes with one hand as he turned his head in her direction; he looked about as wrung out as she felt.

"Here, Crane," she said, stooping to scoop the quiescent Eye of Providence up off the floor with the corner of a shirtsleeve and drop it in a pocket. Then she made her way over to him, limping slowly as her ankle chose that moment to finally register its displeasure. She must have jammed it somehow in her fall.

Ichabod lowered the hand that had been shielding his eyes as she stepped between him and the light, squinting up at her with a deeply furrowed brow. "Leftenant," he said again, voice thick with relief, then braced his hands on the floor and made to stand, himself.

Abbie grabbed at the nearest sleeve of his jacket as he threatened to topple over, and held onto him as he regained his balance. "Are you all right?"

He lifted a hand to his forehead again, pinching at the bridge of his nose, then shook himself and gave her a wan smile. "Nothing that time won't cure. But as far as mystical methods of transportation are concerned, I believe I would give that experience one star out of five."

Ichabod Crane versus Yelp! had been a source of endless entertainment in recent months; pity they wouldn't have any way to review this experience. Or any of their countless supernatural encounters in Sleepy Hollow, as a matter of fact. Four White Trees? A landmark best avoided; accommodations not ideal. Knockoff Liberty Bell? Ring not, lest ye set off the apocalypse! And so on.

"Here's hoping the exit on this side is something a little less violent," Abbie agreed. Then she frowned, looking up at him. "Speaking of violence – did you see what happened to Joe? I know I got the Shard out of my sister, but after the whole place started to shake, I was too worried about finding a way to stop it to look for him."

He shook his head, blue eyes earnest and apologetic. "I am afraid I was in no position to observe his status, being at first wholly absorbed in my struggle with Pandora, and then focused on reaching you and Miss Jenny once the aforementioned quaking began. But he is a skilled warrior, and well-motivated; I'm certain you need not worry."

The memory of Ichabod's distraught face as he caught sight of her, backing toward Pandora's ugly-ass tree with the Shard cupped in her hands, made her shiver with a fresh echo of the desperation she'd felt at the time. Of the sudden certainty that only one of the Mills sisters was going to make it out again, and that this time, she wasn't going to let the cost fall on Jenny. She'd made that last minute plea to him and Jenny to take care of each other – and he'd acted as though he hadn't even heard, bolting up the stairs and into the portal after her.

"If you'd stayed behind like I asked you to, I wouldn't have to worry, I'd know at least one of you was still mobile enough to get the others out. What if Pandora went after them again the moment we were gone? What were you thinking?" She knew her tone was a little sharp, but that didn't invalidate the point, and she'd defy anyone to be completely put together under the circumstances.

The reassuring note faded out of Ichabod's voice, and there was no mistaking the seriousness of his expression as he replied. "If you must know, I was thinking of very little other than an utter determination not to allow my partner to walk into such danger alone. Again," he replied, primly. "Not to mention that my opponent had already fled; the moment the disturbance began, Pandora caused herself and the Box to disappear, and quite likely the Hidden One as well. I have no doubt she and her partner will appear again to plague us elsewhere, but your sister and Master Corbin ought to be well able to take care of themselves for the time being."

"For some value of 'well' that still includes rocks falling from the ceiling and my sister nearly exploding a few minutes ago," Abbie sighed, then nodded. "But I guess there's nothing we can do about that now, except to keep ourselves safe and find a way out of this place. Survey says, in that direction?" She jerked her chin toward the brilliantly lighted square at the end of the hall.

"Lead on, Leftenant," he replied, bracing one hand at the small of his back and gesturing sweepingly ahead of him like some kind of Austen-era court dandy giving way to a debutante.

Abbie snorted at the gesture, reluctantly amused at the blatant attempt to cheer her up, and drew a knife. She wasn't sure where she'd left her guns – somewhere back during the struggle with the Hidden One, probably – but she'd prepared well and thoroughly before heading out to rescue Jenny. Better safe than sorry. Then she turned and limped down the hall, shading her eyes with her free hand as she walked further into the light.

It took her a minute to adjust as she looked out at what lay beyond; she'd been right, it was definitely a doorway into the outside world, but that world was nothing like what she'd been expecting. It was nowhere near Sleepy Hollow, either past or future, for one thing; and definitely nothing like the creepy, spectral forest of Purgatory. Which had included a lot of Sleepy Hollow landmarks anyway, since it was basically another aspect of reality layered over their own. There was absolutely no resemblance to the Hudson Valley here; it was all sun-blasted rock as far as the eye could see, as if they had been transported to backcountry Utah or Nevada. And there was no sign of life apart from themselves, only vague suggestions of scrubby vegetation on distant ridgelines and a glint of water shining from somewhere in the deeply creased, forbidding landscape.

She stood on a narrow landing made of the same kind of stone as the walls, extending out a few yards past her feet. Beyond that, the structure dropped sharply in a series of graduated steps to the dusty earth far below. When she turned and tilted her head back, she could see that the sloping architecture continued above her as well; she couldn't tell how far, because there was a slight overhang obscuring her view, but she could see giant stone horns curving up into the sky, presumably framing the actual peak. Of the actual pyramid.

"Whoo, boy," she said, marveling at the fact that she was standing in a building that was probably older than most of the civilized world. "We're not in Kansas anymore."

"No; nor New York, either," Ichabod said, very dryly, at her side.

Abbie hoped Jenny and Joe really were fine, because finding the way back was obviously going to take some work.

Over the next several hours, Abbie and Ichabod carefully explored all the accessible parts of the pyramid; it seemed like a good idea to be sure their only apparent shelter was safe before venturing further into the world around it. Fortunately, there was less to search than she'd feared at first; though she knew from those Ancient Egypt documentaries she'd watched over their nine months apart that there had to be secret chambers down lower in the pyramid, there were no obvious stairways or passages leading downward except for the exposed steps outside. Just more hallways branching through the level they'd wakened in, lined in cuneiform panels that seemed to form some kind of ancient religious text, and one other chamber at the back of the pyramid cut with external windows. Its walls were unmarked, but there was enough dusty, cracked furniture in the place to make it clear the pyramid really had functioned once upon a time as a temple.

Ichabod cast an evaluative eye over the windowed room, then began quietly clearing the wooden debris away to one corner, leaving the stone fixtures alone. "This would seem to be the best location to set up camp whilst we explore; though hopefully we will not need it long," he explained. "Even if it were not badly decayed, however, I would as soon not utilize any item once employed in the worship of the Hidden One and his ilk."

"I get you," she said, and settled in to help. "We'll need something to burn anyway, if it gets cold at night."

He paused at that comment, arms full of the flotsam of millennia of neglect, and gave her another calm, serious look. "Perhaps for another purpose. To produce charcoal for writing; or for the calming effects of tamed fire upon the human psyche. But Leftenant – the sun has not altered its angle in all the hours we have passed in this realm. It would appear that night, if it descends at all, will be a long time in coming."

Staring at him in dismayed recognition, Abbie became aware of several other specific discomforts – or rather, the lack of them – as well. Her watch was still ticking, showing that it should be well past dusk, but the quality of the light hadn't changed; her stomach wasn't growling; her throat wasn't dry; and she hadn't even felt the urge to pee since they'd arrived. Even her headache had mostly faded, leaving her feeling just a little jittery, like she'd drunk way too much coffee. Like she wouldn't be able to fall asleep for hours, even if she tried.

"Forget nighttime; what about hunger?" she said, slowly. "Or thirst. Or sleep. You don't think we died after all, do you? I don't feel dead, and this place feels more, I don't know, solid than Purgatory did, but the real world just doesn't behave this way."

She didn't know what her face looked like as she said that, but it must have been concerning enough for Ichabod to breach his usual personal space bubble to lay a hand on her arm. "No; no, I do not believe so. It feels more as though this place is somehow ... removed from the timestream. Magically preserved in some fashion, as though this building and its immediate surrounds were cut away from the demands of commonplace reality."

"That would make sense," Abbie replied slowly, thinking it out, "if the Hidden One was really imprisoned here without his power for thousands of years. Whoever trapped him here wouldn't have wanted him to die and cut his punishment short, but they wouldn't have wanted anyone else tripping over him and freeing him in the meantime either. Or to have to leave anyone here to take care of him."

"You see? We're merely caught in the aftereffects of the binding magic; no doubt all will be well again once we depart," Ichabod assured her.

Abbie took a deep breath, letting the feeling of sinking dread that had filled her drain away with the exhale, and nodded. "I found my way back from Purgatory, and back from the 1700s. You were buried underground for centuries, cast adrift in a world you barely recognized, and survived being poisoned and strangled and buried again by a tree. We defeated the Sandman together, and the Hessians, and any number of other bad guys. We survived all of that; we'll survive this, too."

"Indeed," he agreed, letting go of her again with a warm look. Though strangely, her arm felt colder where his fingers had rested.

She didn't think there was any magical cause behind that, though. At least, not apart from the one she'd been ignoring for years already. Abbie pushed the observation out of mind, then turned back to work with a will.

It didn't take them long to clear a space to use, right in front of the open, rectangular windows. Abbie looked out onto the barren landscape around them, under a sun that did seem slightly off compared to the one back home, and resigned herself to an extended mapping expedition.

"What do you think – split up to cover more ground, or search together?" she asked, tracing what she could see of the distant watercourse with her eyes. That seemed like a good place to start; not only was it a traceable landmark, it had to come from somewhere and go to somewhere else, and confluences of waters were historically places where people gathered and settled.

Ichabod furrowed his brow at her side. "We have seen no evidence of other habitation so far; it seems unlikely that we will encounter any danger here we do not provide ourselves. But on the other hand, if we are to be here for any appreciable length of time ... the effects of so much solitude upon the mind, particularly when the environment will not allow us to truly rest, may make it healthier to remain together."

It sounded pretty reasonable when put that way; but Abbie was 99% certain it was bullshit. She'd learned over the last couple of years that he was pretty adept at obscuring his feelings behind walls built of rationalizations and a well-sharpened tongue when he wanted to; fortunately, she'd gotten pretty good at the word game herself. "You could just say you'd miss me, you know? Sometimes I think you get a kick out of using fifty words when ten would suffice."

He maintained an affronted expression, but his eyes smiled back as he rose to the bait. "And sometimes I think you place a disproportionate emphasis upon brevity and insinuation, particularly via indecipherable 'pop culture' references, rather than bothering with clarity or satisfactory levels of detail."

"TL; DR," she replied with a wide grin, carefully enunciating each letter just to see the face he'd make. He'd progressed far beyond the days of 'it's like watching a chicken cluck' in his appreciation for modern language, but he still puffed up entertainingly at each fresh new abuse of language she hit him with.

Ichabod didn't disappoint; he tipped his chin up with a superior sniff and tucked his arms behind him, looking every inch the refugee from Oxford and the 18th century that he was. "I shall not bother to dignify that with a response," he said, even as he did in fact dignify it with a response.

He held that pose for a moment; then they both broke into a chuckle at the same time and turned to head for the door, automatically falling into step despite their drastically different heights.

They'd very rarely had a problem on the professional front; usually only when the personal snarled them up and interfered. Though the personal arena was where the balance of their time had been spent since his return from England. Her having a new job he couldn't tag along on as much as before was part of that, of course, along with the distractions of him trying to save the Archive and gain his citizenship, but it couldn't be helped. She'd often thought that it was too bad 'Witness' wasn't an official, paying job title ... but on the other hand, maybe it was good that it wasn't. Not if he could just walk away from it – and her – for months at a time without a word.

She wouldn't lie and say it hadn't stung a little to see the flow of texts between him and Zoe Corinth, when he hadn't so much as dropped her a single one during his trip over the pond. Not even a lone selfie of him on a plane, mastering the mysteries of returning the tray table to its upright and locked position. For all that Ichabod liked to talk about the strength of their bond, she'd felt unexpectedly shaky once it had sunk in that he wasn't coming right back, as if half her foundation had been ripped away from her without warning.

She'd ended up treating Danny like a rebound during FBI training, even though there was nothing to rebound from; even though it was incredibly stupid to feel let down at all when Ichabod had just been forced to kill the wife he'd dearly loved to save her. When she'd just killed the son he'd never really been able to get to know. And now here they were, a year later, literally the only two people in the world.

She didn't know whether to view that as an opportunity to finally cross the distance, or a torturous exercise in being constantly within arm's reach of what she'd once desperately wanted and eventually realized she would probably never have. Well, she'd find out when she found out, she supposed; no sense in borrowing trouble when they had enough on their plate already. And in the meantime, they had a whole lot of exploring to do.

Abbie skipped down the steps of the pyramid at Ichabod's side, then turned her feet toward the glint of water in the distance.

The breeze that sent faint ripples over the water and ruffled the dusty, dead-looking trees atop the rocky hills was the only movement they encountered apart from themselves for the rest of the day. Not only were there no humans, there weren't any animals, either. No fish swam in the water they paralleled for most of the day; no birds nested in the uncertain shelter of the brittle foliage; there weren't even any mosquitoes or other bugs to swat away. And no part of the landscape ran flat or straight for more than a few hundred yards; ravines curved and split, rockfalls blocked the easy paths, and sheer, forbidding cliffs reared up in the most inconvenient places.

And everywhere, the frozen sun bleached all the color out of the land. Between the bright glitter of the water and the dark silt of the streambed, the various tans and browns in the native rocks seemed to blur into dull and dirty shades of gray. Even Abbie and Ichabod blended in; she'd geared up in full matte black FBI chic for the assault on Pandora's cavern, and Ichabod was wearing mostly shades of deep navy and slate blue, as though he'd drawn the shadows cast by the rough terrain around him like a cloak.

She checked her watch several times, but no matter how long they walked, she grew no hungrier, or thirstier, or more tired. The faintly jittery, over-caffeinated feeling persisted, but strangely, the further they went, the less her ankle seemed to ache. Hour after hour passed as they left footprints in the wet earth along the banks of the stream, knocked pebbles loose from every rock heap they climbed over, and sought ever higher vantage points only to find no way up, or only higher cliffs blocking every horizon.

Finally, after about six hours of wandering, Abbie shook her head and called a halt, looking back over her shoulder at her partner trailing behind her. "I don't know about you, Crane, but I'm more than ready for a break. The longer we do this, the more monotonous it gets. Even if we can't sleep, we need to refresh somehow."

A flash of frustration passed over his features, but when he looked up to meet her gaze there was no argument in them. "Of course. If we numb ourselves to the task, it will become all too easy to overlook some crucial detail."

"Yeah. And while you might have an eidetic memory, I don't; it'd be easier for me to visualize where we haven't been if we can do that thing with the charcoal and sketch a map on one of the blank walls back at the pyramid."

"A most excellent idea," Ichabod agreed, offering her a faint smile.

Abbie stared at him another moment, wondering if she should bring up his lack of enthusiasm – then wondered what was stopping her. There was no one else here to get caught up in whatever argument might ensue, and nowhere he could really go to retreat; stewing alone in their own negative emotions would only make this whole exile experience worse the longer it lasted. Crossing the distance it was, then; or, at least, making the attempt.

She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows at him. "So what's bugging you, then?"

He blinked, and tilted his head a little, with that furrow between his brows that she usually interpreted as 'what fresh hell is this?' "Apart from this entire ... experience?" he said dryly, waving a hand at the landscape.

"It's something more than that," she pressed. "You're not just frustrated you're here, you're frustrated you're not there. And it's not about Joe and Jenny; you're the one that talked me down from panicking about their situation. What's on your mind?"

The beard and mustache gave less of a reserved impression than they used to with the cute new flippy haircut framing Ichabod's face, but the full mouth-turned-down, forehead wrinkling frown still came off as intensely forbidding. "It's ... nothing."

"Clearly not nothing, or it wouldn't be distracting you this much." It was her turn to frown.

"But very little in comparison to your own troubles," he replied dismissively. "And I know very well I brought them upon myself by following you here, so there's no point in burdening you with my minor, nagging issues."

"Whoa, whoa," Abbie objected, holding up both hands. "First of all, partnership's about sharing your problems, not comparing them. I know we both gotta work on that a little, but regardless of how you got here, this is definitely not the venue to let even the little things fester and just hope they go away. Well, unless it's something extremely private; but if that's the case, just tell me and I'll let it drop."

Ichabod pressed his lips together for a moment, gaze distant and hands clasped behind himself, then sighed. "Of course, you're right. But it is nothing, really. It had simply occurred to me that if our visitation here is to extend indefinitely, then it will hardly matter that I will miss my formal interview for citizenship next week. But there is one who will mind if she notices my absence and interprets that as disrespecting her assistance."

He paused there, but she thought she caught the drift. She winced sympathetically, despite the pang in her heart the reminder of his current sort-of girlfriend induced. "You're missing Zoe."

Ichabod's gaze cut to hers at that, sharply blue and less melancholy than she'd been expecting; more self-critical, if she wasn't reading him wrong. "Not quite. Though I have enjoyed getting to know Miss Corinth, and our 'dates' have been more pleasant than I had anticipated, I realized that I hadn't thought about her once since our arrival; and that, in fact, if I had been left behind in Sleepy Hollow with no notion of where you had gone, I quite likely wouldn't have spared her a further thought. Not precisely the behavior of a gentleman, I'm afraid."

A hot flush ran through Abbie at those words; first in self-conscious pleasure, then in self-focused anger. God, he could be so frustrating sometimes! He'd say these things that came off as more heart-felt declarations of love than anything anyone else had ever said to her, but phrased just so vaguely, and so consistent with the rest of his eighteenth-century behavior, that it was impossible to tell if he meant it as romantically as it sounded. Especially since he'd always talked to her that way, even when he was still married to a ghost, and even occasionally after his wife wasn't a ghost anymore. But she couldn't help but react to it as if he did. And there wouldn't be any possibility of rekindling her fling with Danny to distract herself from it this time, even if he'd been there too – because she'd chosen saving her sister over her job with the FBI, and therefore him as well.

She swallowed hard, and took refuge in words again. "Yeah, no; we call that kind of thing ghosting. When you decide you don't want to see someone anymore, but don't bother to explain; you just stop initiating or responding to any calls, texts, or emails. Not really a tactic calculated to warm a woman's heart."

The words came out more bitterly than she intended, and she saw the moment they struck home; Ichabod looked startled, then cut to the quick as he realized she wasn't just talking about Zoe. "Abbie...."

"No," she said, warding that look off with a raised hand before determinedly picking her way back past him over the rocky ground. "It's fine; we talked about it already; I'm over it. Just, yeah. I'd recommend an extravagant gesture the minute we get back, if you want Zoe to forgive and forget anytime soon."

An appalled silence, broken only by the crunch of boots over loose rock, followed her. She blinked hot, useless tears out of her eyes – well; at least she'd found one biological process the magic didn't seem to inhibit – and marched onward in defiant silence.

Finally, Ichabod cleared his throat behind her and spoke. "Unfortunately, I am rather unpracticed in the art of the extravagant gesture. You have probably noticed, amid all my stories about my past, that I have more often been the pursued than the pursuer, even in matters more revolutionary than romantic. And from my earliest years, I have preferred deflection to confrontation in the face of social difficulty. I don't mean to excuse; but to explain, and perhaps to ask...."

He trailed off there, whether to gather his thoughts further or wait for a sign from her, she couldn't tell. She didn't offer one, though, and after a moment he sighed and continued. "Tell me, what method of expiation would you recommend?"

She snorted as the trail sloped back down along the water, the low heels of her boots leaving fresh divots in the gritty mud. Really? Asking her for advice about that was just rubbing salt in the wound, and she'd lost the knack of not taking it personally since Katrina's death. "Not to disparage Zoe, but I really don't think we have that much in common. You might try asking Joe; I think he had the most normal upbringing out of the four of us."

"No, no, I don't mean for Miss Corinth," he hastened to reply. "I mean ... for you. Grace Abigail Mills."

Abbie did stop at that, turning to look over her shoulder at him. She eyed him sharply from head to toe, remembering the past highs and lows of their partnership, and narrowed her eyes at him. "Do you really want to know?" she said, slowly. "Not just think you should ask, or that it's what I want to hear."

"I've wronged you," Ichabod said, after another brief pause. "'Tis true, a significant part of my identity is still rooted in a world where any communication over a distance was so delayed that lengthy silences were not at all unusual. But it was not only that which motivated my reticence, I must admit. I had at first no notion of what to say that would not seem trite in the face of everything that had occurred; and later, when I had recovered from my need for solitude ... after so long a gap, my every attempt sounded utterly insignificant in my own ears. It seemed easier to wait until I could do so in person. But you have maintained a subtle distance ever since my return, and all the efforts that I have made to repair the breach seem to have fallen short. So tell me, Abbie; what must I do to make it up to you?" He spread his hands wide, as if baring his chest to her.

She bit her lip, struggling with herself, then slowly closed the physical distance between them until she was looking up at him from an arm's length away. She didn't want to hurt him; but he had been the one to push this.

"People have been leaving me all my life, Crane; whether because they chose to, because of circumstances beyond their control, or because of something I did. My dad, when I was a little girl; my mom, in Tarrytown; my sister; Sherriff Corbin; Frank; even Luke and Andy, in a way. And then you. Whatever you meant to do, whether or not you were right to do it – you still left me. For the second time, no less; let's not forget the time you intentionally drank poison right in front of me. I can't ... I can't have that happen again."

They were standing close enough now that Abbie could smell his distinct scent; notes of wool and gunpowder over sunshine on trees and aging books. There was a solemn weight to his gaze that seemed to quiet the jitters of her nerves as she looked up at him; as though he were the one anchor she might dare cling to in their crazy world.

She wanted to trust that. She did; in fact, she had, once. She'd told him more than a year ago, after they'd faced his duplicate in Purgatory, that her faith in him was her greatest weakness. She knew it could be a substantial strength, as well ... but he was going to have to prove it to her before she could go there again.

Ichabod swallowed, then nodded. He moved his hands restlessly, as though he wanted to touch her, then resolutely linked them behind his back. "That's fair," he said. "When I first arrived in your time...." He trailed off, then gave her another rueful smile. "You were the first person in the twenty-first century to look at me as though I were something more than mud to be scraped from the bottom of your boot. I knew you would be vital to my future then; I still know it now. But I fear I took your return regard for granted more than once along the way."

He had latched on rather hard at the beginning, over her initial half-hearted objections; but she'd felt the same connection too, and the same uncertainty in how to deal with it. "And you gave me back my ability to believe, after everything that happened with the four white trees. Sheriff Corbin tried damn hard, and I loved him for it; but even the first week I knew you, I told you things I'd never told another soul. But after we found out about your son, and we brought Katrina back ... that changed. You kept saying our bond was the most important thing, and then prioritizing her, even though she was putting everyone but you first, right up until she finally crossed the line. And then you vanished on me. I'm not sure how to let that go."

"And indeed you should not," Ichabod replied, freeing a hand to brush a lock of hair away from her face. "By all means, hold me accountable; for despite my odd circumstances, I am still only a man – and as events have proven, all too fallible. But I promise that for my part, there will be no further silences; no more secrets between us."

Abbie swallowed, wanting very badly to take that hand and draw him closer to her, but couldn't bring herself to do so. "And if you need to leave again?"

He shook his head, then lowered his hand and reached for both of hers, making that move for her; clasping them together. "I can foresee no circumstance that would require me to leave you for such a length of time, ever again," he vowed. "If I need to leave Sleepy Hollow once more, I shall only do so in your company, or for a very specific purpose of limited duration. I swear it."

And now they were getting to the meat of it, the underlying reason he'd been gone so long without a word; she knew there had to be something more to it than a fear of sounding 'trite' after Katrina and Henry's deaths. Or that if it was, there had to be more to what happened than he'd told her.

"So what were the circumstances that required it before? Not just the facts of what happened," she shook her head, "but what was going on in your mind when you made the decision to leave. I told you my ancestress said that the most crucial battles were still ahead of us; that whatever came next, we would be there for each other. And you said you were ready. But then you left Sleepy Hollow for nine months without a word, and when you came back, you said you hadn't even been sure we were still a team. That you felt adrift in this time. There's a gap there, Crane; one you haven't made any effort to explain."

Ichabod took a deep breath, then let it out again, shakily. "Ah. Yes, I suppose that is the heart of the matter. Not one I intended ever to share ... but I suspect at this point it would be just as detrimental to refrain."

"Well?" she replied, arching her eyebrows at him; handholding or no handholding, he was right, she wasn't going to let him get away with refraining.

He took a moment to gather himself, looking down at the streambank under their feet, then met her gaze again, mouth pinched with unhappy emotion. "As I thought more upon the events of that night, and indeed, the preceding months since our escape from Purgatory ... I realized that I had formed a deeper partnership and closer understanding with you in the brief time since my awakening in that cave, than I had in my six years with Katrina. Despite my efforts to overcome the doubts sown by the discovery of the secrets she had kept from me, and to support her in her faith in our son, it was not my relationship with her that had truly evolved; it was not my wife I chose when put to the test, nor indeed the fate of the world, but you, Abbie. I had been an unworthy husband, a failed father, and a dishonest friend, all the while seeking to – as they say – have my cake and eat it, too. So I left, in an effort not to impose upon you further, as I sought to untangle the mess I had created."

Abbie's breath caught at the pain in his voice, and at exactly what he was putting out there.

She needed time to absorb and untangle all of her feelings on the subject; time he'd already had for his part, while she'd stewed in the feeling of being left behind. But it did explain a lot – a lot more than she'd hoped for, actually – and saying nothing would be as good as a complete rejection. She had no doubt he'd put on a brave face and never discuss it again, and that would almost be worse than never hearing this at all.

"It wasn't – and wouldn't have been – an imposition, Crane. Ichabod," she corrected herself firmly.

"Leftenant ... Abbie...." he replied, eyes widening as the subtext registered.

"So maybe it's better we did have some time apart," she interrupted, squeezing his hands, "to be surer of ourselves. If you'd said anything then – one or both of us would always have felt guilty if something had happened, and that would have damaged our bond. I just wish you hadn't cut me off completely while you were gone. It's going to take me a little while longer to trust that it's not going to happen again."

"Again? Let us be clear. You are saying...?" There was hope in his expression, now, mixed with wonder and apprehension; not coincidentally, pretty close to what she was feeling.

"I'm saying," she interrupted again, giving him a wry smile, "let's get our asses moving, and we'll talk more when we're not standing around out in the open. You gotta give me a little time to digest. It's not like we aren't going to have plenty of time to talk here, anyway." She tugged a hand free to wave at the scenery around them.

"Very well," he said, visibly reigning himself in – then apparently decided to hell with it and lifted the hand he still held to press a kiss to its back. "Lead on, Miss Mills. Your stated wish shall be my desire."

Her cheeks immediately heated again; this time, unmixed with frustration. Abbie bit her lip, trying to stop the bemused grin that wanted to surface at the chivalrous gesture, but was no more successful than he'd been; his solemn expression shifted to something closer to a smirk at the look.

Okay, so maybe they were closing the distance here, entirely unexpectedly ... and she found herself looking forward to it almost as much as she still feared what it would mean if they crashed and burned.

She didn't say anything more, but she did shift her hand in his to interlace their fingers as they turned back toward the pyramid, retracing their steps. Her skin tingled at the touch; and this time, it did not grow cold.

He took her at her word, too. The only time he said anything on the way back to the pyramid was to make an observation about their surroundings, or to make suggestions for crossing a patch of ground they hadn't seen before. They were taking a more direct way back than they'd taken outward, cutting the chord of the stream's arc, though it still took several hours – a long day's worth of exploring since they'd set out that morning. Or whatever the morning-equivalent would be, in a world where the sun never set and never rose.

In the meanwhile, Abbie poked at the novel thought that Ichabod had left Sleepy Hollow because he'd been in love with her, not because he'd actually lost faith in their bond. It had bugged her on a level she'd found hard to think about that he'd claimed in one breath to have believed they didn't have a mission anymore, and then turned right around and enthused about an ancient piece of stone he'd found in his own empty grave as though it held more weight than the markings in Washington's Bible. It made more sense that he'd been grasping for an excuse; that he'd felt he'd failed and needed affirmation that he hadn't fucked everything up.

Which was, of course, a little eyeroll-worthy in and of itself. Despite everything that had happened to him, Ichabod still had a sizeable ego; not really a surprise, considering the Sherlock Holmes-level smarts he had going on and the unconscious privilege he still retained from his 'regal upbringing'. It would be an ongoing challenge, reining in his more stubborn assumptions and occasional steamroller tendencies, given that not even the likes of Benjamin Franklin had been able to put a dent in it. Assuming that she did end up wanting the job....

Except, she was halfway doing it already, wasn't she? Just without the official label.

Abbie thought again about what he'd said about how people looked at him, when he'd been brand new to the twenty-first century ... and how he'd shouldered aside her every doubt and hesitation about their destiny as Witnesses back then. How desperate must he have been to keep the favor of literally the only person in the world who gave him purpose? Yet by the time the Freemasons had talked him into committing suicide to stop the Horseman a few weeks later, she'd clung back just as desperately, for much the same reason. No wonder their bond had become a little unbalanced after such a beginning, particularly once they'd both had other concerns in their lives pulling away the energy they'd once put into building their partnership.

Maybe it really was better that they'd had the time apart, to grow more certain of themselves as well as each other. It reminded her of one of her mother's sayings: if you love someone, set them free; if they come back, they're yours; if they don't, they never were.

Whatever else had gone down, Ichabod had come back.

That didn't mean it was going to be easy. But it did mean that it might be worth giving it a try, after all.

She still wasn't tired by the time they made it back to the pyramid, though her glutes and calves were twinging a little from all the effort. She had no doubt that would vanish as swiftly as the ache in her ankle had, though. Some part of her hindbrain was wondering what the hell was happening to the lactic acid her body was – or should have been – producing, and where her cells were getting the energy to burn in the first place; were they drawing directly from the magic of the place? It was weird. The rest of her attention, however, was focused entirely on staring up at the massive structure they'd wakened in, and the solid support of Ichabod at her side.

"Is it just me, or does it look bigger from down here than it did from up there?" Abbie said in fascination. She'd seen taller buildings before, but never one that massive in person. Even some of those city block sized buildings she'd seen in DC would be dwarfed beside that thing.

"Definitely Sumerian architecture," Ichabod replied absently, probably flipping through the pages of some dusty old text in his mind. "There were pyramidal structures in many cultures of the ancient world, but the outward form of this one is very like that of the Great Ziggurat of Ur, built in the twenty-first century BC. Its original name was Etemenniguru, meaning 'temple whose foundation creates aura.' It had not yet been excavated in my day, but I did a bit of research after discovering the tablet, and the shape is distinctive. Though I don't recall any horns atop the original, as we see here. Or that symbol...."

His voice trailed off speculatively, and Abbie nodded, gaze fixated on the black shape that was painted, or carved, or inlaid on the face of the ziggurat above the entryway at the top of the stairs. It looked like a rune, even bigger than the doorway, shaped like a diamond with two arms extending from its bottom point. It also seemed to call to her, somehow; like it meant something, though she couldn't imagine what, or how she'd know if it did.

"It certainly does have an aura," Abbie replied, shuddering slightly. "C'mon; I want to get started on that map."

"You mean, you want me to get started on the map," he said dryly, arching an eyebrow at her over his shoulder as he set a foot on the bottom stair. "Though I have no doubt you could do an adequate job were it necessary, you've already mentioned my memory as an asset; which makes me curious which of your many skills you intend to employ in order to ... how did you put it ... 'refresh somehow'?"

"Refreshing has a lot of definitions," she replied, equally archly, as she hung back behind him. Had he always been flirting when he talked like that? "Maybe I just want to watch you go," she added, eyes dropping deliberately to his backside.

"Leftenant," he blurted, tone half-delighted and half-scandalized.

"Actually, I thought I'd make a chessboard," she grinned, mood improved by his reaction. "Or didn't you notice me picking up all those colored pebbles? But I won't lie; the view certainly won't be a hardship."

"Well," Ichabod said brightly, smiling back at her. "Then I will make sure to put on a show."

Abbie laughed almost all the way up the stairs; that walk, in that outfit, was ... well, something to be seen, that was for sure. Though they sobered quickly when they reached the top once more, crossing the space where they'd fallen into this world. The angle of light was exactly the same, and the remains of the Shard lay right where she'd left them. Ichabod hadn't noticed them on the way out, but he saw them now; he stooped to collect the pieces of metal, then gave her a concerned look as he noted what was missing. "The Eye?"

"Right here," she said, patting her pocket, then glanced at the walls. "Depowered, as far as I can tell, though I made sure not to touch it with bare skin just to be sure. You think any of this writing talks about it how it works?"

For a second, it almost seemed that a ghostly shape stood between her and the nearest panel; but it vanished before she could make out any shape or definition, and she deliberately turned her attention back to Ichabod. It had probably been nothing, just a trick of the light; anyway, the last thing she wanted was to start having visions in a place with the history this one had.

Ichabod eyed the expanse of cuneiform speculatively, then shook his head and tucked the fragments of the Shard into his own pocket. "I'll have to perform a complete translation later, but I rather doubt that will be the case; this part of the temple would have been public to any who entered. Not a very secure place to detail the workings of a weapon that contained the better part of a god's power. Wherever Washington discovered the Eye of Providence, it must have been in a hidden chamber we have yet to discover."

"Something else to keep us busy later, then," she sighed. "Well, I guess we won't be bored while we're here."

"Indeed," he said, then held out a hand to her; she took it without thinking about it, then smiled as he guided her back to the windowed chamber they'd picked as their temporary home.

It didn't take long to start a fire, even considering that Ichabod insisted on using flint and steel. She still remembered the fuss he'd made over modern methods of fire-starting; he must have found his preferred instruments in a supply store somewhere and added them to the pockets of his trousers. Probably a good thing, since they'd last a lot longer than lighter fluid ... if they were stranded long enough for that to matter.

God, she hoped they weren't. It hadn't been that bad so far, but it wasn't home, and she couldn't forget that it had served as a prison for the last several millennia. Who knew what the weird, creepy energy of the place was doing to them besides messing with the physical processes of their bodies?

"Hey," she said, tilting her head up from her chessboard-in-progress as Ichabod drew a long, dark line of charcoal to illustrate the line of the creek. "Got a question for you. Why does the wood burn?"

"Pardon?" He glanced back over his shoulder at her, then began sketching in the spiky upside-down V's of a line of rocky spires they'd detoured around.

"Obviously, our bodies are getting energy from somewhere to sustain themselves. And there's very little dust up here; there's a certain level of environmental maintenance going on. But the wood still rotted, and it burned when you lit a spark. The wind blew outside, and we made footprints on the streambank. It's not consistent."

"Mmmm. It may simply be that we are dealing with magic; the realm of the supernatural rarely seems to behave according to coherent, logical rules. I daresay we'd have to determine the original intent of the sorcerers who segregated this realm from ours in order to parse out the details of precisely what's allowed and what is not, but our odds of achieving access to that information would seem to be rather low."

Abbie sighed, scratching a final line on the board with her knife and eyeballing the proportions of the resulting squares. Eight by eight; now to cross-hatch some of them to represent dark versus light, and then she could set up her 'pieces'. "And it probably wouldn't do us much good even if we did. It was just bugging me. Which reminds me – I told you I did some reading while you were gone?"

"I believe that was implied, when you indicated you'd learned how to read Franklin's alphabet," Ichabod replied warmly, beginning to mark in a region of gentler hilly formations with graceful sweeps of char.

She smiled. "Yeah, so I looked up a few things. I remembered that conversation we had, that time we got snowed in at the cabin, about things you experienced that don't match up with the history books – Colonel Tarleton's arrival date in the Colonies, and so on. And it made me curious about some of the other things we encountered. Do you know, they didn't actually speak Middle English when the colony of Roanoke was established? Too late by eighty-five years or so, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Not that it isn't kind of sexy that you speak it, but as variances go, that one's pretty extreme. Why didn't you say something?"

He looked back from his drawing again, eyebrows arched. "I'd never thought of Middle English as 'sexy', but I suppose all of those þ sounds...." he began, a teasing light in his eyes.

"Shut up; don't tell me you never got the eye from any fancy British debutantes for showing off in a foreign language, even back then," Abbie rolled her eyes. "And you know what I mean."

"Ah. Well...." he paused, cheeks reddening a little as he thought it over. "I suppose ... it simply didn't occur to me? Or if it did, I thought that perhaps the history I had been taught at the time had been incomplete to some degree? I had just discovered the existence of plastic, if you recall; I hadn't yet had time to read up on modern historical scholarship. It was always possible that he was from a particularly traditional family among the colonists, or that they had all decided to practice the older form of the language for some reason. Or some other implausibility that must, however unlikely, be true; for whatever the explanation, the boy did in fact speak it."

Abbie chuckled at the disgruntled look on his face, then blew the debris off her humble chessboard and began emptying her pockets. "Or, you know ... magic. I eventually figured it must have been part of the curse. So that once Pestilence got the boy out of Roanoke and into our world, there would be less chance of anyone figuring out what was going on and stopping him. Good thing you decided to ride along with me that day."

Ichabod sketched a final line on the wall, then turned toward her, expression serious. "Yes ... I'd say it was a very good thing." He watched her place stones on the board for a moment, then leaned his writing stick against the wall and strode over to sink to his knees across from her. "Abbie...."

She heard the catch in his voice and paused in the middle of laying the final pieces, glancing over the board at him. "Hmmm...?"

He cleared his throat, wrestling with himself, then reached over the board to clasp her hand between his, trapping the last 'queen' in her hand. "I don't wish to press ... but I can't help but note that we are, in fact, no longer standing about in the open."

She eyed him knowingly, uncurling her hand to expose the pebble. "Don't lie; you totally want to press," she replied dryly.

Ichabod reddened a little, then rallied and forged on. "Nevertheless, the decision is yours to make; and you may make it in your own time. But before you do – there is something else I must tell you."

Abbie tilted her head, thinking about that; and about how he'd phrased it. Not something she must know, but something he must say. A subtle difference, but a meaningful one, and very him. "Tell me, then."

"Whatever the outcome – whether you ultimately decide in my favor, or otherwise – one of the first things I intend to do after our return is to communicate my most abject apologies to Miss Corinth. It would be unfair to her to continue our 'dating' when it has become clear that my emotions remain deeply engaged elsewhere."

"You're sure about that," she said, studying his earnest face. "You've been cute together. All those flirty texts every five minutes, dressing up to go out together, speaking your language to somebody who gets it...."

Ichabod shook his head, looking faintly pained. "But does not 'get' me. Not yet; and as learning more would require introducing her to the supernatural, I fear never will. Miss Corinth believes, as does everyone else, that I don my manners and behavior as I do my clothing, as a persona; she simply appreciates it more than the average denizen of your century. But eventually she would ask that I lay that down, to 'be real' with her."

"Which you can't, without explaining everything," Abbie winced. Yeah, she remembered that from the lone, long weekend she and Danny had spent together in Virginia Beach. If it had just been the fact she'd been basically using him to get over missing Ichabod, it would have been one thing; they could have built from that. But the Buffy boyfriend factor had been the deciding double blow for her: any future they might have together would be full of either lies or deadly danger, pick one. Ichabod had already walked that walk from both sides with Katrina; she couldn't blame him for not being willing to consign Zoe to either.

He swallowed, then met and held her gaze, his eyes as intensely blue as the ocean after a storm. "There is but one woman on this earth I can be fully 'real' with; I know that now, and trust that I may leave my heart in her capable hands. It is hers to do with as she will. But in the meanwhile...."

Abbie's breath caught as Ichabod raised her trapped hand to his mouth again; back in Sleepy Hollow, she might have blown that off with a teasing 'be still my beating heart', but if her will to resist hadn't been eroding already, that might have done it. She opened her mouth to say something in return--

--and then he plucked the queenstone from her palm, releasing his grip. "A game to pass the time?" he continued, much more lightly than before.

She shook her head at him, clucking her tongue, and snatched the stone back, placing it where it belonged on the board. "Looking forward to the inevitable checkmate that eagerly, are you?" she asked, extra meaning tucked away in the corner of her smile.

He got it, of course; for all that two people could not be more different, he also knew Abbie better than anyone else in her life. And vice versa, too. She used to wonder if that was just the Witness thing; after all this time, though, she was pretty convinced it was just a them thing. Which could be terrifying ... but terror turned a few degrees to the side could look an awful lot like anticipation, and she was past done letting fear rule her life.

"With bated breath," Ichabod replied, smirking back; and she reached to move her first pawn.

They decided, by unspoken agreement, to keep to a roughly diurnal schedule. Around the time her watch told her she would be getting ready to go into the office back in Sleepy Hollow, they left the pyramid-ziggurat thing to explore some more; and around the time she would normally be knocking off on a double shift day, they retraced their route and enjoyed a few hours of 'down' time. Map drawing, chess, another panel of cuneiform translated ... it broke up the monotony a little, and gave them a routine to cling to.

And off and on, through those endless, drawn-out hours, they talked. About things they hadn't told anyone else before, even each other: little details that filled out a life that were usually too boring or embarrassing to share. Memories of Abbie's family when it had still been whole, like the doll house she and Jenny had salvaged and filled with their dreams, or the taffy her father used to bring them before he bailed. Or of Ichabod's tendency as a child to lift forbidden books from his father's library and sneak them out to the coach house with a candle.

And, underneath all of it ... the flirting. One thing all that old fashioned language was better suited to than the modern version was creative flattery; there were times Abbie thought her cheeks would catch fire from the things he said to her. And not just because of the actual words; from the release of knowing Ichabod really did mean them the way they sounded, and that she was free to reciprocate in kind, as she chose to.

There was no real pressure, though; just appreciation, and a gentle increase in touch. A hand at the small of her back; fingers tangling as they leaned over the chessboard; lingering holds as they helped one another over obstacles. It was ... nice. Even though she'd already decided what her answer would be, Abbie found herself letting it draw out, basking in the dance of words in a way she'd never really allowed herself to before.

In fact, if it hadn't been for the fact that they still had no way of leaving, it might almost have felt like a vacation. Like a romantic weekend away, somewhere a little more exotic than a cottage at the beach, minus the usual physical expectations. Abbie enjoyed a romp between the sheets as much as the next woman, and she'd seen enough of Ichabod's lean, muscled physique to really look forward to prying off the last of his layers and trying it out, but he invested so much intensity in even the smallest gesture, it was hard to feel deprived.

She hadn't forgotten, either, that the word 'casual' wasn't really in his vocabulary. Until her gut stopped wobbling at the thought of what it would inevitably lead to, she was very OK with them taking their time before they took a step they couldn't take back.

The illusion couldn't last, though; eventually the seriousness of their situation had to sink back in. Ichabod got really quiet one 'evening', sticking with the stretch of panels he was translating rather than breaking away at the usual time for a game of chess and verbal footsie. And when he wandered back in to find her staring at the map to plan their next route, the furrow between his brows was deeper than she'd seen it since they'd arrived.

"Hey," she said, casually laying a hand on his arm. "Something wrong?"

"In a manner of speaking," he said, still frowning as his gaze met hers. "I believe I've discovered what happened here."

"With Pandora, and the Hidden One," Abbie clarified. At his nod, she blew out a breath. Obviously, it wasn't pretty, but she needed to know it too if they were going to defeat them. "Okay. Tell me."

"According to the texts on the walls," he began, taking refuge in his best professorial tones. "In an era before history, from a palace that shone with a sacred light – this very temple, I believe; though obviously it went through a remodeling between what it was then and what it is now – the gods of that age ruled over humanity. Their subjects lived lives of servitude and pain, bowing to their every whim. But one of the gods had been cast out, made to live below in the Catacombs of the Dead, hidden from the eyes of all."

"The Hidden One," Abbie interjected. "Or whatever you said his name was – Etu 'Ilu, right?"

"Precisely," Ichabod nodded, a spark of appreciation lightening his gaze. "Only once had all the gods worked as one; they took all the evil in the world, and hid it away ... in a box. And the job of guarding it had fallen to him."

"The box," Abbie realized, rapt. "So how did Pandora get a hold of it?"

"She was one of the gods' servants. Each day, she delivered an offering: a sign of submission and love from her people. But she visited not only the palace above, but the Catacombs below as well. It was forbidden, but she was enthralled by Etu 'Ilu, and wished to bring him joy; and in those dark depths, she was a ray of hope. So he told her of his task, and that that which lay within the box was the only thing that could defeat the power of his brethren above."

"Damn," Abbie swore, feelingly. She hadn't thought anything she might learn about Pandora could make her sympathetic to the woman, but that came close. "He offered her freedom for her people. Of course she took him up on it."

"Indeed," Ichabod replied, gravely. "Pandora, aided by her people, unleashed its contents ... but afterward, they betrayed her and the Hidden One. They cast the god back down, locking him away forever."

"No wonder she's pissed as hell, especially if it's taken her all this time to get him back," Abbie shook her head. Even if Pandora should have known it was coming. In what world would a bunch of newly freed slaves want to trade one set of masters for another, if they had even the slimmest chance of avoiding it?

"And there's more," Ichabod added, reaching for Abbie's hands. He studied them for a moment, stroking long, callused thumbs across her lifelines, then lifted one to press a kiss to it again.

"Okay, now you're worrying me," she said, lifting her eyebrows. "What is it?"

"There's a word used twice in the text, in conjunction with the creation of the box and with the casting down of Etu 'Ilu. The first, paired with symbols for sacrifice; the second, matched with the symbol atop the ziggurat outside. One I recognized from my tablet: Napalatu."

Abbie recognized that word, too; Pandora had used in the hospital, that time she'd shown up to interrogate Abbie and make threats. "Destroyers. Witnesses. That's the connection; why she's so determined to bring her four-thousand-year-old grudge match to us. We're the only thing she knows for sure can defeat him." She shook her head. "Somehow. Does it give any more detail on that part?"

"Unfortunately not," Ichabod replied. "I suspect that if such texts exist – as seems likely, against the possibility that future generations might need to replicate the feat – then they were preserved elsewhere when this place's connection to the rest of the world was severed. The tablet in my possession might have been one of many."

"Then I really hope the rest of them are somewhere we'll be able to get to them before Pandora and her angry boytoy manage to destroy the world," Abbie frowned. "Assuming, of course, we get out of here in time to tell anyone about them. That part would be right up Jenny's alley."

Ichabod nodded. "I hate to say it, Leftenant; but I believe it is time for a shift in strategy. While the Hidden One is without his Eye of Providence, or the hourglass that was the receptacle of his siblings' power, we have time to work; but if we remain here with the only knowledge of how to stop him, and he overcomes that obstacle...."

"Yeah." She sighed, throwing a regretful look in the direction of the chessboard. "I get it. Forget taking breaks; we search until we find a way out, no matter how wearing it gets."

"I am sorry, Abbie," he said, squeezing her hands gently. "If I had been more diligent...."

"You mean, if we'd been more diligent," she replied dryly, then quirked a smile. "Crane ... Ichabod ... a word of advice about wooing a modern woman? Never apologize for trying to make her happy."

Then, before her nerves could get the better of her again, Abbie stretched up on tiptoe to seal her mouth over his.

If Abbie had ever put much thought into how Ichabod Crane would kiss, instead of trying very hard not to think about it, anything she could have dreamed up would still have only been a pale shadow of the reality. He stilled under the first touch of her hands on his chest, his mouth firm and a little reserved, with just a little tickle from the beard and mustache. But then his mouth opened under hers, those wide, long-fingered hands dropped to frame her hips, and the distance between them disappeared entirely. They'd been that close a time or two before – that desperate hug in Purgatory, for example – but the alchemy of intention made those moments as different from this as night and day, lighting Abbie up from within with electric fire.

She didn't know whether that was a Witness thing, or a them thing, or an Ichabod Crane thing; and frankly, she really didn't care. She'd been ready to marry Luke for inspiring a fraction of the emotion in her that Ichabod did ... and though the idea of further tying herself to someone that could affect her that deeply still terrified her like few things could, the compensation just might be worth it. And not just in bedroom antics.

"I'm sorry, were you telling me not to apologize?" he murmured some time later, a smug smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. "Because if so, I'm afraid the message seems to have lost a little something in translation."

"You call that an apology?" she said very dryly, unable to suppress a return smile as she smoothed down the lapels of his old-timey jacket. "And here I was thinking of it as incentive."

"If by that you mean an incentive for anything other than doing more of the same...." he teased in reply, thumbs stroking over her hips where he still held her close.

"...My kingdom for a toothbrush and a towel," Abbie replied regretfully, in amused, half-laughing tones.

Ichabod's eyes widened a little at whatever mental image that had given him; then he sighed and gave her a resigned smile. "Yes, and there is still a certain conversation to be had; I will not be guilty of making the same mistake a second time."

Zoe; right. Abbie smiled tightly back, then forced herself to take a step back. "Then let's get to it. Anything here you'd regret leaving if we find the exit and just jump through?"

Ichabod glanced speculatively at the walls again, then shook his head. "I've memorized all the available text, so I'll have ample time to reconstruct it later if we should discover further clues to Washington's activities here. I have a feeling that we may require access to this place again in future, if we manage to defeat Pandora and her husband. And I brought nothing more with me than what is already on my person."

"Me too, except...." Abbie frowned as she carefully wrapped a fold of shirt fabric around her fingers again and fished the drained Eye of Providence out of her pocket. "If we take this back where all its power was dispersed, it might just absorb it all again, and then we'd be right back where we started on that score. But if we leave it here instead, and we already know Pandora can retrieve things from this place...."

"And as we still have no idea from what hidden corner Washington retrieved it, it would seem that our only option...." Ichabod picked up the thread with a wince.

"...Is to destroy it," Abbie sighed. "It seems like such a waste, though. And not just for us; it backfired on the Founding Fathers, too. I wonder if bringing it to our world and setting it off back in your time is what got Pandora's attention in the first place? Gave her hope she could still get her husband back to what he was? 'Cause otherwise, I can't imagine why it took her four thousand years to make a play."

"It seems likely; though I suppose we'll never know," he made a face. "If you will do the honors, then?" He picked up a baseball sized piece of rocky debris from the floor and handed it to her, the implication clear.

She took it in her free hand, then glanced toward the wall, wondering if she ought to drop the Eye on the floor first – and gasped as the earlier maybe-ghost flickered into sudden, full-color life. A man in an old-fashioned uniform with a profile familiar from the one-dollar bill appeared in front of her, carrying a torch in one hand. He passed between her and the wall, then headed for a shadowed side hallway leading deeper into the pyramid.

The Eye fell from suddenly nerveless fingers, taking the vision with it, and Abbie turned a wide-eyed gaze on Ichabod. "Uh, you were saying about Washington and hidden corners?"

"You saw something?" he asked in surprise, then covered his own fingers with the end of his sleeve and stooped to pick the clear gem back up off the floor. He glanced first at the wall, then along the track Abbie had been following with her eyes, then shook his head at her. "Whatever it is, it's not showing itself to me."

"A vision, then, not an apparition," Abbie surmised, relieved. She knew Washington had survived to leave this place – obviously, since she and Ichabod had seen his actual body in its secret tomb and read words written in his zombified hand from 1799 – but all the same, she'd dealt with enough unquiet spirits over the years to be glad it was only whatever inner sight occasionally plagued her with glimpses of the past. Still, it only happened in places of power, where something significant had occurred to impact her path as a Witness.

"Here, hand it back over," she continued, carefully shrouding her palm again and stretching it out to Ichabod.

"Very well." He carefully tipped it into her hand as though it were a hot potato, and she smiled reassuringly at him before glancing down the hall again.

The wispy form of General George Washington snapped back into her vision, this time with a somewhat smaller form at his side, one that filled out a Revolutionary War soldier's uniform in a decidedly non-masculine fashion. The Founding Father reached for one of the symbols etched on the wall, duller in that part of the pyramid without the sun lighting them up, and pressed it like a button; it glowed under his touch, and then the wall seemed to open, two of the panels swinging inward like a door. Both figures vanished inside, the mystery woman trailing Washington... and then the vision vanished with them, stranding her firmly back in the present.

"Huh," Abbie said, blinking her eyes clear, then pulled a flashlight from her pocket and followed in the vision's footsteps. There was really only one thing to do: reach out to press the same symbol Washington had triggered.

Ichabod flinched at her side as the wall swung open again, giving her an astonished look. "You saw someone else open this?" he said, incredulously.

"Washington – and a girl dressed up in the same uniform. Friend of yours maybe?"

"Betsy, of course," he said, eyes widening further. "She changed after the crossing of the Delaware – which, of course, must have been when this mission occurred." Then he held out his hand for the flashlight. "May I?"

"Knock yourself out," she said, handing it over and gesturing him inside.

What she could see of the secret chamber from there looked vaguely circular, with some kind of window bringing in light and a table-looking thing in the middle; nowhere Ichabod could go that would take him out of Abbie's range of vision. "I'm going to stand right here in case the mechanism tries to close again; you can read whatever's written on the walls. And then I'll go ahead and smash the Eye; secret or not, I still wouldn't dare leave it anywhere Pandora might have access. But there might be something in here that'll help us deal with her Box."

"Indeed," he said, sweeping the beam of the light over the walls and staring around the space in fascination.

It only took him a few minutes to get a full look, brow furrowed as he scanned the new panels of cuneiform text – and then a few more when he spotted something shrouded under a white cloth on the far side of the stone table from the entryway. And because that was how Abbie's luck ran, it turned out to be Betsy Ross herself, in some kind of suspended animation: another should-have-been-long-dead ex with a claim to Ichabod's affections, just when she'd thought they were finally making progress.

"You have got to be kidding me," Abbie said, staring, as he lifted the still body and carried it out into the windowed room they'd been camping in to get a better look. Then she shook her head to clear it; this was no time for the distraction of jealousy. "How is she still here? We know she lived past the war; settled in Philadelphia and had all those kids. Are you sure it's her?"

"Unquestionably," Ichabod replied, a troubled expression on his face as he gently laid the other woman down and brushed wisps of hair out of her face. "Although ... it occurs to me now that though I had much report of her after that particular mission, I never again met with her in person; she sent me a letter terminating our friendship, very suddenly I thought, and our paths never crossed again for the remainder of the war."

There was something a little screwy about that timeline. He'd said before that he and Betsy had been 'trusted companions', but also that at one time she'd pursued him intensively enough that he'd had to hide from her in broom closets. But the window for that kind of thing was pretty narrow. Abraham Van Brunt had been turned into the Horseman of Death in late 1774; Abbie had looked up the Declaration of Resolves, the document Ichabod had said they'd been delivering that day, during her recent research. Ichabod had also said he'd been married six years, which tallied with a 1775 wedding. But Elizabeth Griscom "Betsy" Ross hadn't lost her first husband, John Ross, until that same year. And the crossing of the Delaware had happened in late 1776. So ... it hadn't only been Abbie, and Caroline the unlucky seamstress, who'd pined after the guy while he was unavailable, apparently. She wasn't sure whether that made her feel more or less charitable toward the flag woman, especially considering that both Betsy and Katrina seemed to have been in Washington's spooky inner circle.

"You're thinking the Betsy Ross that wrote you that letter wasn't the real Elizabeth Phoebe Ross?" Abbie ventured, wrinkling her nose. "I don't know about that; this is a place out of time, right? Occam's razor. Which is more likely – her getting returned to her own time somehow from here, or a whole bunch of other people who knew her as well as you did lying about another woman wearing her name thoroughly enough that there was never so much as a rumor about it?"

Betsy stirred, body arching as she gasped suddenly for breath. "General?" she blurted, eyes darting wildly.

"I suppose we're about to find out," Ichabod replied, giving Abbie a wry look, then bent back over his friend. "Betsy, be easy; it is I."

"Ichabod?" the interloper replied in disbelief, as big, thick-lashed dark eyes seized on his face. "Is it really you?"

Abbie sighed, unsurprised to see the concern on Ichabod's face as he responded to the desperation in his former partner's voice with an awkward hug. She'd have done the same in Betsy's shoes, or Ichabod's, even if the other party had been ... say, Andy. But her tolerance had its limits. She stepped up beside him, making sure she was in Betsy's line of vision, resting a hand on his shoulder in silent claim – ahem, support.

"You found my letter, on the river?" Betsy continued, pulling back to look Ichabod in the eye. "Quite the mess! Washington and I were lucky to escape it. Ichabod, you are a sight for sore eyes! Though your hair...." She frowned slightly, eyes traveling over his face.

At the river? Abbie met Ichabod's baffled glance; neither of them had a clue what Betsy was talking about.

"I assume you mean the events that took place after you and the general set out for Trenton?" Ichabod shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with them; Leftenant Mills and I took quite another route to this place. Betsy, how are you still alive?"

Betsy blinked at that, taken aback; then she finally seemed to register Abbie's existence and stared at her in equal confusion.

"Lieutenant? But there are no female officers in the Continental Army. And...." She hesitated, turning alarmed eyes back toward Ichabod. "Washington would only have shared the existence of the supernatural with you under the direst of circumstances. What has happened, Ichabod? Has the war turned against us?"

Abbie could see Ichabod floundering as he tried to find an answer to that; it had been a long damned time since December 1776, and if she really was the Betsy Ross known to history, what might happen if they sent her back home with information about the future? But he'd never been easy about lying to his friends.

"I'm sorry, Miz Ross; but that's information we can't share," Abbie said firmly, inserting herself further into the conversation. "We have our own mission here, to deny a powerful supernatural artifact to an enemy that could use it to enslave the world, if it fell into his hands. Suffice it to say ... that it's been longer than you think."

Betsy's brow furrowed as she took in that answer; she glanced up and down Abbie's form as she spoke, sharp eyes lingering on both her hand on Ichabod and the careful way she'd closed her other fist around the Eye. Then something in her expression retreated like a door closing, and she fell back another step, giving them a stiff nod.

"Then I will not keep you; I must trust that General Washington will answer my questions in their proper time. As he must answer yours; if you do not know how I arrived here, I'm sure it's not my place to inform you. And I should not waste any more time than I have already, regardless; I must have been here months already. Have you perchance seen a ring of stone, caught between water and sky? We did not see any landmark matching that description on our way here, but such was the exit described in the general's instructions."

"Just like that, huh?" Abbie said, surprised.

"Just so," Betsy replied, with a quick flash of a smile that came nowhere near her eyes. "As you said, there is sometimes information that cannot be shared; but also some that concealment does not best serve."

Well, one thing all of Ichabod's women had had in common – even the unfortunate Mary, his childhood betrothed – was their perceptiveness; Abbie could hardly resent Betsy for being quick on the uptake. Or Ichabod, for the quickly hidden flinch he gave at the thought of letting his old friend go again so soon after he'd found her.

"A ring of stone...." Abbie shook her head, regretfully. "I'm sorry, no. The only circular shapes I've seen since we got here were in the room where we found you."

"...Except, perhaps, for one," Ichabod interrupted, expression clearing as his problem-solving mind engaged again. "Which we espied earlier today – do you not recall? It seemed a suitable landmark for continuing our search." He gestured toward a notation he'd made at one edge of the charcoal sketch sprawled across the wall.

"The well?" Abbie blinked, recalling the glimpse they'd had in the distance: a clearly man-made structure on a spit of land bordered by water, at the far end of the plateau. Given the fact that drinking wasn't exactly a necessary activity here, she hadn't thought much of it. But metaphorically speaking.... "Ah; it's not for water, is it?"

The well, or spring, was a powerful symbol in a lot of faiths and mythic structures. It had a variety of meanings, depending on context – but regardless of context, it always meant something. The wishing well; the well of eternal life; even the wounds Christ had received on the cross, given names by one of the devotional cults in the Middle Ages such as 'the well of comfort', 'the well of grace', 'the well of pity', and 'the well of mercy'. And then there was the Sacred Well in Celtic symbolism, believed to represent a boundary dividing the land from the sky and the physical world from the Otherworld. It was hardly a stretch to imagine that a much older culture would also have – or maybe, had been the source of – such beliefs.

"Then we must repair there immediately," Betsy said, with a determined expression. "I will be glad to be shot of this place, after spending so long trapped within that chamber; there are many things that I regretted leaving undone when I thought I should never again have the chance to do them."

Abbie caught the side-eye she gave Ichabod at that; but she didn't try to grab onto him, and didn't the historical record say Betsy Ross had married her second husband in the summer of 1777? That might actually make sense, now; if she was such a valuable agent for Washington, why she hadn't waited until the war was over to get hitched again. Ichabod Crane: unintentional breaker of hearts, across continents and centuries.

"Sounds like a plan," she spoke up again, giving her partner a speaking look. "You guys go on ahead; I'm going to go over this place one more time, make sure we're not leaving anything behind."

Ichabod's eyes dropped to her fist; then he nodded firmly, and gestured Betsy toward the exit.

Abbie waited until the sound of their stilted conversation grew faint enough that any noise she made wouldn't carry, then opened her fist and stared regretfully at the gem. In the right hands, this thing could be a powerful weapon; but if George Washington and Paul Revere's hands hadn't been good enough, whose would be? She'd learned the hard way that you couldn't even trust angels when they appeared right in front of you, and they'd already seen what the Eye could do in the wrong ones. She swept the chessboard clear, then dropped it on the hard, flat surface, picked up a heavy chunk of stone, and brought it down with all her strength.

She'd been half afraid something else would explode when she broke it, or that it wouldn't break at all – but though her vision went briefly white and it felt as though she'd stuck her fingers in a light socket, it shattered with barely any noise at all, like a cheap piece of cut glass jewelry. Abbie sighed, shaking her arm out, and turned to go, leaving the splinters scattered across the gameboard. Let Pandora see it there and wonder, if she did find a way to come back; in the meantime, there were other places Abbie needed to be.

The Well was as ordinary-looking up close as it had been from a distance; about as wide from rim to rim as Ichabod was tall, it came up to Abbie's waist, a perfectly circular yet slapdash-looking construction of fist and head-sized rocks mortared together with dry mud. Twenty or thirty feet away and up a slight rise, a rusted blade had been driven deep into an old tree stump; Betsy swore at the sight of it, then braced a foot against the wood and heaved at the handle until it came free.

"This was my blade; General Washington must have used it for an anchor. But where is the rope? And only look how rusted it is! The weather here must be something awful."

Abbie exchanged another glance with Ichabod behind Betsy's back, then glanced up at the looming cliffs that hemmed the area in, blocking the view back toward the ziggurat – the reason they hadn't found the Well right from the start. The sun hung above them, in the same position in the dusty sky as it had been since the beginning, beating brightly down on their heads. "Yeah, something like that," she said, dryly. "We didn't have any rope with us when we came through, unfortunately; we could try ripping up some of these roots to use?"

Betsy gave up trying to brush the rust off the blade of her sword and sheathed it at her waist with a determined expression. "I cannot deny I would be more comfortable with the additional security; but if this is a door and not truly a well, then I don't suppose it matters how I enter." She bit her lip, glancing over at Ichabod, then stepped up close to the rocky wall and braced her hands on it, boosting herself up to a seat on the well's rim.

She'd kept her distance on the long walk, keeping to herself despite Ichabod's obvious disquiet, but she looked back at him now, on the verge of goodbye.

"You are not the Crane I know, are you?" she said, wistfully.

"Betsy ... if I could safely share more, I would," he replied, wincing.

"For once, I am on the other side of the veil of secrecy," she said, with a wry smile. "I understand, though I dislike the necessity. Keep yourself well, Ichabod." Then she turned her shrewd gaze toward Abbie again. "Take care of him for me, Miss Mills? Put him in his place every once in a while. It will keep him honest."

"It isn't his honesty that's the problem, I find; it's his stubbornness," Abbie replied, smiling back. "But, sure. Someone's got to keep him in line."

Betsy's grin turned a little more genuine at that observation. Abbie had a feeling they'd have gotten along, given the opportunity ... and a few minutes alone without Ichabod to clear the air. But that wasn't the way these things worked; the woman had died a hundred and fifty years before Abbie was even born. "Farewell then, Miss Mills. Captain Crane." She nodded toward her former partner – then leaned backward toward the well's center, and pulled in her legs, plummeting away into its lightless depths.

Ichabod bit off a muttered oath, darting forward in an abortive attempt to catch her, but there was no splash or scream; Betsy Ross had safely returned to the Other Side.

"Damn," Abbie observed, shaking her head. "She's something, isn't she? But, hey – I guess now we know why Washington was so convinced you'd be back that he did the zombie thing to make you a map of Purgatory, and why Jefferson's Fenestella was still waiting for you to find it. That's always bugged me; why would they do all that based only on a vague prophecy about the arrival of a second Witness? But Washington knew about what happened to your wife – and he knew Betsy'd seen you with a partner none of them knew. Crazy."

"That is certainly one word for it," Ichabod said, a painful twist to his mouth as he stared down into the empty well. "The letter she sent me makes more sense now, as well. In part, it reads, 'Where I go, I go of my own accord, and I am at peace with the future that awaits, but know that I curse myself for not being strong enough to bid you farewell in person.' The future that awaits." He fairly spit the last four words as he repeated them, posture stiff and straight and very self-contained in his distress.

She'd seen that posture from him before, when he was hurting and didn't want to show it; fortunately, she didn't have to just put up with it anymore. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her cheek against his shoulder, and held on. "Our future," she reminded him. "Not hers. I know it hurts. But just remember, she lived another fifty-plus years after this, and died with five living daughters and their families around her. She made it out."

"That is true," he said, in a calmer voice, arms clasping hers. "May we be so lucky, as well."

Abbie squeezed her arms again, then let go. "All right, then. Our turn?"

"In a moment." He turned slightly, looking down at her with a furrowed brow. "There was something I read in the inner chamber, that I did not wish to speak of with Betsy present; something vital to our understanding of the current conflict."

"Something about the Hidden One? Or the Box?" Abbie guessed, frowning.

Ichabod inclined his head. "Both. According to the text, the original box required the presence of a pair of Napalatu in its forging. Symbols indicating 'sacrifice' and what I would translate as 'Eternal Soul' were used."

"Damn," she swore as the implications of that sank in. "How much do you want to bet that the 'sacrifice' wasn't entirely voluntary? The more I learn about the gods of that culture, the less upset I am with Pandora's people for backstabbing her and setting the wheels for all this in motion."

"Indeed," He quirked a faint smile. "Though at least it clarifies the alignment of the term; the Destroyers were chosen for the task because an equal force of pure good was required to contain the vilest of energies within."

Abbie snorted. She highly doubted either of them qualified as pure anything at this point; but, sure. She was a little more worried about the 'Eternal' reference, but they could research that later. "Maybe we can use that, somehow; we'll have to look into it. Anything else before we jump?"

"One more thing," he said. "The majority of the panels in that room pertained to the Box; but some few were obviously later additions, composed after the downfall of the Hidden One and his pantheon. The instrument they used to re-imprison him was something called the Emblem of Thura; and more than one of them was made."

Her eyebrows flew up. "Wait, you mean – there might be a secret weapon out there with his name on it? No last-minute, makeshift measures required? The people that imprisoned him actually thought that far ahead?"

"It would seem so," Ichabod replied. "It will undoubtedly require a great deal of research, and drawing upon Miss Jenny's connections once more to track it down, but...."

"There actually might just be a light at the end of this tunnel," Abbie said, breaking into a grin. "Thank God." A tension that had been building in her shoulders ever since she found out they were facing an actual god relaxed at the thought, and she reached up to frame Ichabod's face and drag it down to her level.

If celebratory kisses were this good, she couldn't wait for celebratory sex; she could feel the restrained passion in every movement as Ichabod lifted her to the well's rim for better access, and his mouth moved over hers like a man starving for every crumb of freely offered desire. One hungry kiss became two, became three, became many, pressed to lips and throat and to the dimple at the corner of her mouth.

Her FBI gear wasn't exactly the sexiest thing she'd ever worn, nor were his eighteenth century reproduction togs made with comfortable necking in mind, but that didn't stop her from feeling the evidence of his interest pressed against her stomach, nor every nerve in her body from lighting up with want at even the most careful touch. Abbie hadn't actually been trying to start anything, just let off a little steam, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to remember that at as strong hands stroked up her sides, setting her skin tingling through all the layers between them. It was a good few minutes before the bite of rough stone against the back of her legs and the stir of a fitful breeze against her cheek brought reality back into her awareness, and she put a little more space between them with a sigh, bracing her forehead against Ichabod's to catch her breath.

"Damn," she said, feelingly, trying to ignore the ache between her thighs. "We really do have excellent timing, don't we?"

"If by that you actually mean execrable," he replied, breathlessly. "Though I find I cannot regret it, not one iota. You are the exception to everything I have ever known, Grace Abigail Mills; a destiny I could never have imagined when my journey began, and one I am still not certain I deserve. Promise me that we shall never again allow anything to part us; neither secrets, nor former partners, nor doubts and rumors engendered by others."

He stroked a thumb over her bottom lip as he spoke; and it broke over Abbie like a wave that she wasn't the only one with abandonment issues, here; that she wasn't the only one risking her whole heart to make this transition. She'd already made her choice, come what may, but the realization felt like the ground firming under her feet; like an affirmation that this time, her faith hadn't been given in vain.

She smiled softly at him as she shifted her weight, bringing her feet up on the rim of the well so she could stand. "I love you, Ichabod Crane. You know that, right?"

"And I, you," he replied hoarsely, gazing up at her. "You're more than my partner; you're the keeper of my soul."

"Then let's go kick some Hidden One ass, shall we?" she said, grinning widely at him. Then she pulled at his hand until he stepped up beside her, linked their fingers together, and glanced over her shoulder down into the endless depths of the well.

"Tallyho!"

Whatever Abbie had been expecting on the other side, splashing up out of the river – ironically enough, just about where they'd found the Hidden One trying to strip the Eye's power out of Jenny – wasn't it. Nor was the discovery, after they'd wrung the water out of their clothes and hitched a ride back to the Archives, that as far as Joe and Jenny were concerned they'd been gone just over two days, not three whole weeks.

Abbie threw Ichabod a wry look once she'd pried herself out of Jenny's tight hold, shaking her head. "Well, I guess we managed to make it back in time for your citizenship interview, after all."

"Because obviously, that's the most important concern here," Jenny laughed in disbelief. "I guess we can scrap that quest for artefacts to find people in other dimensions now, but you're going to have to figure out something to tell your boss on your own. Agent Foster's been by already; I think if Crane hadn't been missing too, she'd have been trying to arrest him for kidnapping or something."

"Not my boss anymore," Abbie winced at the reminder. "I handed back my badge and my security pass before coming after you – I couldn't tell Reynolds what was really going on, and he wasn't buying that we had nothing to do with Nevins' disappearance. And I borrowed a lot of ordnance from Tactical on my way out the door. I think that pretty much qualifies as burning my bridges behind me."

Jenny's eyes widened in shock. "But Abbie ... that job ... how long have you been working toward being a criminal profiler with the FBI?"

"Not as long as you've been my sister," Abbie shook her head, then reached out to hug the younger woman again. "I don't know, maybe it's for the best anyway. Crane and I have been lucky so far; all of the really nasty foes we've faced have been based in Sleepy Hollow, for one reason or another. But this is only the second Tribulation; what happens if the next one decides to touch down in DC, or overseas, or something? I'm sure Reyes will take me back on at the Sherriff's Department while we figure something else out. Maybe even tap a certain alternate revenue stream; with Nevins out of business and Hawley still off the radar, there's an opening."

Joe nodded. "That's how Dad kept funding his research. And honestly, I inherited way too much of that to even spend; I don't mind bankrolling you guys until you get on your feet, if you decide that's what you want to do."

The disgruntled look Jenny threw him at that said there were issues on that front; but Abbie wasn't going to get in the middle of that. Not yet, anyway. "It's still early days yet, Joe; but thanks for the offer," she nodded to him.

It was hard to remember sometimes that he was seven years her junior, and that she'd babysat him for Sherriff Corbin more than once after the older man took her under his wing. He'd come a long way since then, and even since returning from Afghanistan as an angry young soldier the year before. Joe really cared for her sister, and she'd seen Jenny open up much more to him than she ever had to Nick Hawley, or any of the other friends they'd met from Jenny's globetrotting days. One of these days, Abbie really might be able to officially call Joe her brother; that made it a little easier to think about accepting money from him. But in the meantime, she had issues of her own to work out; she didn't even know where Ichabod had got the money for his trip to England and back, and she'd rather discuss their joint Witness finances after they'd settled more personal matters.

"Speaking of kidnapping – you guys both made it out of there okay?" she added, belatedly. "The last I saw of the cavern before I jumped into the portal, it looked like Jenny was out of the woods, but we kind of left you guys in the lurch. I actually intended to go alone, but...."

"God, don't even," Jenny snorted, waving that off before Abbie could finish – or Ichabod could add the two cents she could practically see jingling in his mental pocket. "You've never seen Crane without you, so I forgive you for thinking he would have been helpful, but me and Joe would have spent all our time keeping him from going off the rails, and you'd probably have had a harder time getting back without him. So really, it's better for everyone that things worked out the way they did. Pandora and the Hidden One were gone by the time Joe got to me, anyway; the explosion shook the cavern up, but we didn't see anything that might have belonged to either one of them on our way out, and we haven't seen hide nor hair of them since."

"Wait. There was an explosion?" Abbie blurted, eyebrows climbing her forehead.

"I had wondered about the effects of taking the Eye of Providence through a portal, particularly when it appeared drained on the other side," Ichabod commented. "I am pleased to hear that you both made it out without further injury."

"You knew they might have been blown up, and you still told me not to worry?" She swatted him on the arm. "See if I believe you next time you try to reassure me."

"I spoke only the truth when I referred to your sister's and Master Corbin's resourcefulness. And as you can see...." Ichabod began, then paused at the sound of a chime from Joe's phone.

Abbie knew instantly what the text message sound had reminded him of, and papered over his reaction automatically. "Yeah, yeah. I get it. Hey, that reminds me, is your phone still in your pocket? You ought to plug it in and see if you missed any messages, and download the pictures you got before the battery died. I wish I'd had mine over there, but I think I left it on the counter at home."

Jenny's expression twisted strangely as she glanced between them. "You did, but I have it now – here," she said, pulling Abbie's phone out of her pocket along with a set of keys. "You really ought to change the password, by the way. Anyway, we really are fine, but you guys look like you could use a bath ... or two ... and a meal. I left your car where it was to back up the 'Abbie disappeared and we had nothing to do with it' story, so – take mine. And get some sleep, too; you can start helping us find a way to track Pandora and her husband down tomorrow."

Abbie shared another glance with Ichabod, just enough to see the hesitation in him ... and maybe a little of the eager edge she remembered from the early days, when he used to talk about freeing Katrina from Purgatory. She didn't think it was about seeing Zoe again, though; not after that last 'conversation' before they'd jumped into the well. It had to be the eighteenth century guilt in him, wanting to clear his honor before taking things further with Abbie. Like his ego, that aspect of his personality was occasionally very aggravating; but he wouldn't be Ichabod Crane if he wasn't an eternal old-school gentleman, and she knew better than to enter a new relationship expecting something so fundamental to her partner's character to change.

"Or ... if you want to go ahead and run that errand you were talking about, Crane, I can get another ride to the house and meet you there?" She dangled the keys in his direction.

Ichabod gave them a long look, but unexpectedly didn't take them. He reached out to enclose her hand in his instead, giving her a warm, wry look. "'Twould be most churlish of me to put yet another woman's welfare before your own, particularly at a time when your comfort must be more important," he said. "I will text Miss Corinth my apologies when we reach the house, and promise to return her book as soon as may be convenient; that will have to suffice. In the meantime, the idea of a singular bath sounds ... rather intriguing."

Abbie didn't know what was written on her face at that reply; though she registered vague choking noises from Jenny's direction. Apparently, she could still be surprised; and he was a little farther along the adaptation curve than she'd thought. Maybe they did know each other better than anyone else; but there was still plenty to learn, too. A promising shiver went through her body at the thought, and she cocked her head, adopting an expression of teasing interest. "Intriguing, hm? Well, far be it from me to insist you leave a mystery unsolved."

She heard Joe clear his throat, and caught a glimpse from the corner of her eye of him extending a hand in a 'pay up' gesture in her sister's direction; but she blatantly ignored that in favor of the smile lighting up Ichabod's face.

She threw a last, quelling look over her shoulder as they went out the door, mouthing a 'shut up' to fend off her sister's skeptically arched eyebrows; she remembered Jenny's irritation about Ichabod's behavior toward her during the Katrina mess, but that conversation could wait for girl time, later.

Much, much later. At the moment, Abbie had a bath to look forward to ... and a new quest, for the Emblem of Thura, to investigate after. The life of a witness: an endless succession of surprises, mysteries, and tragedies – punctuated by gifts she would never ask for, that enriched her life tenfold.

She smirked up at Ichabod as he let go her hand outside to open the car door, then offered the keys to her with a chivalrous flourish. "This is actually one time I wouldn't mind your reckless driving," she informed him, "but I'd probably better, since I can't revoke your tickets anymore."

"The least of the reasons I have always valued our partnership ... but perhaps it would be best to speak with Sherriff Reyes at your first opportunity," he replied cheekily.

Abbie laughed, brimming over with contentment and joy for the first time in ... God, she couldn't even remember how long. Then she went up on tiptoe to stop his sarcastic mouth with another kiss.

When she'd jumped into that portal to save her sister, Abbie had thought she was ready for it all to be over; that the only thing she hadn't brought full circle was her partnership with Ichabod, and that at least he'd still have Jenny and Joe to anchor him and help him defeat the current Tribulation. But then he'd jumped in after her, and redefined her world yet again.

She'd heard a quote once, that love was friendship caught fire. She didn't know yet whether this would be the kind of fire that burned things down or cleared the way ... but she was very much looking forward to finding out.