Chapter Text
She weeps after they exorcise the demon from Captain Irving’s child. Not great, wrenching, sobs. Not even visible tears. But he feels the grief within her as she holds her sister close. Hears, as always, what his dear Lieutenant Mills does not say. And when they bend together over General Washington’s diary, then, too, he is finely attuned to her every thought, her every emotion.
He did not know it would come to this. That it would come so very soon. They are the Witnesses. They are meant to toil for years. And, yet, Ichabod cannot help but feel that they have mere minutes left on this earth. There is a convergence of events. A pattern unfolding. An inevitability.
So, is it not inevitable that he turns to her? That he draws her close, stealing comfort from her embrace, from her immovable faith in their success? He’s come to lean on her, to depend upon her, to find her his touchstone in an alien world. She is, increasingly, all that he can count on as real.
“We’re gonna nail this, Crane,” she murmurs, settling her head beneath his chin, laying her ear against his heart. “Don’t you worry. I got this.”
Even if it is simply bravado, he is glad for it. For her.
And he is still a married man.
That makes it a mistake when he bends to press his lips to her hair. A breaking of vows to feel steadied by her warmth. And a betrayal to crave her body in waking as much as he does in slumber. And yet he does not stop. Not this time.
He has his own demons to exorcise, his own beasts to vanquish. His own desires, by God, and can he not just have one fulfilled?
Her dark eyes answer the question, and before her lips can even shape the accompanying words he gives in and tastes them. A chaste kiss. A courting kiss. A kiss that damns his immortal soul…no, that binds it.
“Crane…” Her palms push gently at his chest. Her voice is a husky, warning growl.
But he knows her desire mirrors his. Has known for weeks. “Abbie,” he admonishes, indulging in the softness of her skin, stroking her cheek, teasing her with the roughness of his beard against her jaw. “Abigail Mills. Must this only be a dream?”
“If you’re gonna regret this? Yeah. It’s better off a fantasy.”
Ever the practical one, his Abbie. All sharp brows and suspicion.
“I’ve got this,” he promises as he avails himself of her mouth. “I have this.”
As he draws her all the closer.
As he fights the infernal modern fastenings of her clothing, wins and lowers his head to her breasts. As he takes hold of her hips and moves between them, hard as steel and ready to be forged anew in her fire.
“Crane, I need you,” she gasps, both firm and plaintive at once, as he joins with her. “I need you,” she repeats, over and over. “I need you to be with me. To stay with me.”
“I will,” he swears to her. “I will,” he vows, as his world goes perfectly still…
As he wakes up.
Alone.
This dream, so bitterly close to a reality, so impossible to sift from the truth, is the cruelest of them all. He curses, rails, tosses and turns. But he has nowhere to go. No recourse.
Ichabod pounds against the lid of the coffin, tasting grave dirt and fear and regret.
He sheds tears for Katrina, for Jeremy, and for his beautiful, impossible lieutenant. He’s realized it all too late: Leaving her in Purgatory has consigned his own soul to Hell.