An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 2/?
Fandom: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Ichabod Crane/Abbie Mills
Characters: Abbie Mills (Sleepy Hollow), Ichabod Crane, Jenny Mills, Katrina Crane, Moloch, Henry Parish, Jeremy Crane, Frank Irving, Macey Irving, Cynthia Irving, Nick Hawley, Joe Corbin
Additional Tags: Friendship/Love, Sister-Sister Relationship, Exes, Divorce, Alternate Universe, Supernatural Elements, Fix-It, POV First Person, Sleepy Hollow AU, Horror, Romance, Family
Series: Part 1 of Font of Light
Summary:
A new chapter of the first episode of 'Font of Light' is up.
Description: Abbie and Ichabod build their lives and team of allies for the fight to defeat Moloch and his minions. This is an AU Fix-It fic, beginning in Season 2. Katrina has escaped Henry and The Horseman without being harmed. Abbie and Ichabod are closer than ever. Labelled as Mature for eventual adult themes, horror, and erotic content.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The first installment of my Sleepy Hollow AU Ichabbie Fix-It series ‘Font of Light’. Rated M for eventual mature themes. Currently suitable for Teens and Up. This series begins in season 2 after Katrina escapes Henry and The Horseman. No silly Mystical Pregnancy.
Summary: Abbie returns, but moving on is not as easy as either of them have expected. As Ichabod struggles, Abbie tries to hold on.
read it on AO3 or below.
So we plan for tomorrow as we live for today
Like a flower we bloom, and then later fade away
Struggling Man, Jimmy Cliff
Behind her, the front door clicks shut resolutely, but quietly. Still, in the deafening silence that follows, it resonates.
Crane has not spoken a word for hours, not since those fragile moments when she had carefully unfolded herself from his arms. Her tears on his skin have since dried, her choked sobs faded. Crescent shaped marks that her fingernails have left on his sickly pale skin were probably nothing but pink dusting by now, all the ferocity with which she had held on to him merely another shadow of the past (her feet off the ground, her name – just abbie then, not leftenant – distorted by tears, lungs closed up, all of it too much; being alive again).
He shrugs off his coat now, stoically drapes it across the back of a chair.
She stands in a museum, once her home, now frozen in time. The cup of coffee she had rinsed the morning before she died, it still stands upside down on the counter where she left it to dry. That day's newspaper has not been moved an inch on the table. Scattered boots lay astray, in the same chaotic pattern as before. Abbie feels dead again, separated from herself, staring at her own life from the outside; like a ghost.
No dust has settled. Ichabod has kept the place clean, has kept the machine running. But he also maintained the facade. Dry tears burn in her tired eyes when realization dawns on her, cold fingers trailing along the edge of the table as though it belongs to somebody else.
This is how he kept her alive (just as he keeps alive the person he once used to be, and will never be again, with his clothes; out of time, out of place, yet a last tether of hope in a world so frightening).
As Ichabod moves towards the stairs, she finally ends the silence. Why are you punishing me? Anger outweighs the genuine hurt that has settled deeply within her chest at his behavior, a sharp intonation to her words that roll off her tongue louder than intended.
Her question seems to freeze him in place, large hand hovering uselessly over the bannister. His shoulders rise up high, then fall limply back down in a resigned sigh she can hear from across the lifeless room.
She is truly surprised when he turns to face her, and in his features she can spot the heavy conflict. There, in the deep lines on his forehead, the tension in his jaw, the purse of his lips and the sharpness of his eyes, she can see that he struggles. What to reply, whether or not to answer her question at all. After all, he could just turn on his heels, disappear up the stairs, and this book would be shut forever. They could run from this, never mention it again. Just as they have done countless times before.
(his betrayal when he drew the map from his wretched memory, his promise of forged fates in vain. the undeniable hurt when he did not try harder to change her mind as she volunteered to stay behind in purgatory, leading his wife into safety. what changed between them when she killed his only son. the emptiness and disappointment when he shut her out, left her for months without so much as a farewell.)
He makes his choice. Takes a stand, this time. I have lost everything. One step forward. Every friend or acquaintance I have ever had. The future I had envisioned for myself. I lost my wife, in more ways than just one. I was cheated out of being a father, lost the only child I ever had. Another step forward. His voice is strained, and in his blue eyes, Abbie can see the past flicker. Obscured shapes and faces burning and melting away. Everything that haunts him is right in front of her. Then he stops, an arm's length away from where her feet seem glued to the floor. All I had left was you.
(memories of a conversation in the woods. we're not going anywhere. the thought of losing you. a promise she never should have made.) A hint of accusation tints his words, and Abbie feels her fingers tighten angrily into fists, her knuckles pushing against the skin from beneath. Despite the fire that burns beneath paling skin, she remains silent.
And then I lost you, too.
Long fingers fidget against his thighs. Drumming a nervous beat.
That's no reason to act like this. You make it seem like I left. (she bites back the like you did.) I saved your lives. You'd have done the same thing. (the you've done it before pulses between them, unspoken, but not forgotten. she remembers the poison as he gulped it down, remembers exactly how unexpectedly hard the thought of losing him had hit her back then, in the early days.)
Something burns up brightly in Ichabod's eyes, and when he retorts, his voice is louder, not quite a shout but enough to ripple through Abbie from head to toe. And I should like to think you care for me enough to be upset by it.
The blow of his words knocks the air out of her lungs. All tension leaves her body in one rush of breath, arms heavy and limp, her lips parted.
As clearly as he stands before her now, towering and defeated, Abbie recalls her very last memory. The last fragment her mind had held on to before she passed from this world.
Before everything around her, before she herself melted away into shadow, she remembers Ichabod's face. Defeated, not unlike he looks upon her now. She remembers with sharp-edged clarity how his expression had almost changed her mind.
It had been but a look, but in those brief seconds, it had grown fingers. Claws that reached into her chest, dug deeply into her heart. So fiercely, pulling her away from the tree. It had cost her all the strength she could muster to turn away. There were so many things she had wanted to say in those precious moments they were granted to say goodbye to one another. So many things.
But she never spoke them. Because, while it was her last chance, it was not the right moment to say them. Even if it was the last.
There had been so many nuances to his expression. Grief. Sadness. (love, undeniably). Disappointment. Fear. But what truly mattered then, what matters most now, was the one emotion that was absent: doubt. Not a shred of it.
She is alive again, reborn, awoken – she has no name for it.
She is back.
That he doubts her heart now... Abbie takes a tentative step forward.
Ichabod does not flinch away as she gradually breaches the remaining distance between them. His chest rises and falls calmly, just as her own breath now flows steadily through her lungs. The shift between them is palpable.
With sure fingers, Abbie cups Ichabod's face between her hands. She has to reach up high, the strain in her arms and back oddly familiar, yet she pays it no mind. Fingertips graze his ears, thumbs slips over cheekbones. He gazes at her, blinking only a miniscule amount of times.
I'm not dead, she states, finally. The words are too loud given how close they are. But someone else's words ring in her ears so much louder, and she needs to drown them. They make her understand. How does that feel? To know that you're alone now. Alone in this fight of yours. Alone in this world? Pandora's lilting voice echoes from her memory, from a moment when her hands had rested in the same place as now, when she had felt Ichabod convulse beneath her, slipping away slowly. Somewhere she could not follow him.
(he had followed her there, despite the crushing odds.)
How did it feel? To lose her? To be the only Witness?
She had not felt alone. She had not felt at all. But Ichabod had suffered through every second of her loss.
Abbie pulls him towards her deftly; it is a simple task, though, because she is met with no resistance. Ichabod bends to accommodate her wishes, and when their foreheads touch, his eyes soften. His skin is warm against hers, the fingers she has pressed into his cheeks mapping out every small wrinkle, every rise and fall. I'm not dead. This time, it is a delicate whisper. Reassuring herself just as much as convincing him that this is real. That neither of them is alone now, not anymore.
When she kisses him it is not because she wants to.
She needs to, to feel, to make him feel. They both finally let go.
This is not what they are, Abbie knows it. A pestering voice in her head whispers it over and over. But there is no denying something has been there for a while, well hidden beneath the thick layer of the friendship they have built, the bond they tended to, the duties they proclaimed as theirs. Something wholesome and more, with no name of its own.
One of his hands finds the side of her neck where her blood pumps furiously, the other locks into place against the small of her back. Nothing fits between them now, not even their own fears.
She can not say exactly when it changed. Maybe it was always there, from that fateful, blood-tinted night they met. Maybe it grew along the way, mistaken for something different. Maybe it only blossomed after Katrina passed. They will never know. He grows on you. She suddenly recalls her own words, and a careful smile breaks across her face, lips curling against Ichabod's. He responds in kind, fingertips soothing through the hair at the base of her skull. In his arms, she shivers.
(for the first time in years, it is not out of fear or cold.)
It is there, and Abbie is ready to acknowledge that.
But it is not who they are right now, not what they need to be. Dimly, she recalls something Ichabod had once told her. A rule they failed again and again, but one she still stands by, even after every stumble, every mistake. Duty above all else. There are a thousand possibilities for them to make it though the Tribulations, and infinitely more for them to fail. The luxury of taking risks is not one they can allow themselves.
But they can have this small moment, irrelevant in the greater scheme, the twisted game they are playing.
This is a promise, she thinks as they part quietly. A promise for a future.
Summary: Five times Ichabod thought he lost Abbie and the one time he did.
He had been lost every minute of every day from the moment he had awoken from his death-like sleep, had burst out of his premature grave. But now, in this labyrinth that could have fed and clothed and sheltered an entire town for months in his time, he was truly lost.
If only the Lieutenant was just a little bit taller, she never would have disappeared into thin air. How was he supposed to find her in this large, crowded, loud place that seemed to have neither an end nor a beginning?
oh my god!!!! I cant believe you ship ichabbie, my life has been made. thank you. Do you think you'll maybe ever write a fic for them? When you have time, of course! But that would be AMAZING!! There's so little quality fics of them out there, who better to fix up the field than you?
hehe well then my friend it is your lucky day because i have in fact written a fair multitude of ichabbie fic
if i can make it there -- written in season 1, ichabod and abbie go to new york, basically for ichabod to critique times square and fight with a subway turnstile
valley forge -- also written in season 1 where OH HEY LOOK ABBIE AND ICHABOD TRAVEL BACK TO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY AND FIGHT DEMONS AND ALMOST KILL GEORGE WASHINGTON HMMM
it's a harder way [and it's come to claim her] -- post weeping lady minor character piece with ichabod wanting to learn cpr after almost losing abbie
don't think about tomorrow [we've only got today]: total balls-out angst because i have a serious weakness for apocalypse aus
scandale (or, the continuing sexual education of ichabod crane, part the first): basically what it sounds like, teh smuts.
horreur (or, the continuing sexual education of ichabod crane, part the second): moar smut, featuring shower!(ish) sex and horrified ichabod turned horny ichabod.
homecomings: my most recent ichabbie fic, post-series oneshot where abbie takes ichabod to oxford for christmas. if nothing else, read this fic for ichabod vs. the TSA. i am really proud of this one tbh.
Abbie almost choked on her orange chicken. "What?"
Ichabod looked a bit sheepish for asking the question.
"It's just that, now that Katrina and I have declared our marriage null, it feels as if the fog has cleared. It makes me wonder if I ever actually did love her in the first place."
His shoulders sagged, as if admitting those words out loud made the guilt he felt heavier. Abbie looked at him with pity. She placed her chopsticks down and reached across the table so her hand covered his.
"I'm sure a part of you did love her, Crane." She squeezed his hand reassuringly. "There is no need for you to stew over something that once was. All you an do now is move forward."
Ichabod met her gaze and she noted a strange emotion flicker across his face, but before she could place what it was he turned his hand over and grasped hers, giving her a small smile.
"Thank you, Lieutenant."
-
[write a sentence of a story for me and i will give you the next five =)]
Soooo now that Abbie's got Ichabod doing the little exploding hand motion, she decides that it's time to teach him the 'next' step of a proper fist-bump, just to see how many she can add before he figures it out. {/headcanon}
What is this, you’ve gotten me to write an actual SH fic somehow. Honestly was not expecting that to happen, but your headcanon’s too perfect.
Minor spoilers based on summaries of upcoming episodes through 2.10. Mostly gen humor/friendship, though you could certainly read some pre-Ichabbie into this.
.
worth celebrating
.
They’re living in dark times, facing down foes who have them way outgunned, who are capable of truly terrible things. Worse, they’re constantly playing catch-up, this latest horror is proof enough of that. Katrina nearly gave birth to Moloch himself, and though Abbie has faced down a lot of disturbing things by this point she’s not sure anything could quite match seeing those hands trying to push their way right out of the woman’s skin. And as if that weren’t enough, Ichabod and Katrina both are still somehow convinced that there’s good to be found in Henry. Of course they want to think that, he’s their son - but he’s also Moloch’s devoted servant and the thought of trying to empathize with him after all he’s done makes Abbie feel distinctly uneasy.
She doesn’t want to have that argument with Crane right this minute, though. It can wait - times like these, when they’ve just barely held their own against immeasurable odds, these are the moments worth celebrating. These are the times when any success should be celebrated, when rather than dwelling on all the darkness they can’t fix, it’s better to take a breath and smile at one another, to toast the evil they have stopped. If they don’t do that now, they’ll never have the strength to carry on.
So rather than continue debating over Henry, Abbie deliberately changes the subject. “We stopped Moloch,” she says firmly, and holds out her fist. “Today was a win.”
Ichabod smiles, maybe a little rueful, and swings his own fist into hers. Then he pulls it back, opens it up and even makes a little explosion noise between his lips, and Abbie… can’t help but laugh.
(Ichabod makes her laugh far more often than anyone would expect, in times like these. It is a quality that she secretly values just as much as the way he has her back in a fight.)
"Pretty good," she comments. "You’ve almost got the fistbump down."
Ichabod swings his entire body round to face her, hands going behind his back, posture stiffening in that typically overblown way of his. “Pardon me,” he says - more than a little snooty - “but I think I’ve quite mastered the fist-bump.” (She loves the way he over-enunciates the word, with the hyphen audible and the ‘p’ on the end popping indignantly.) “So-called ‘explosion’ and all.”
"Well, yes," Abbie admits with a nod, and turns to go back into the parrish before he can see the smirk on her lips. "But there’s still the slap, and shake, and… well, you’re not quite there yet."
Ichabod huffs behind her, following along close at her shoulder. “Would you care to elucidate, Leftenant?”
She tilts her head up to look at him, and smiles (thinks, these moments with Ichabod, the banter and gentle mockery and all his rantings about historical inaccuracies, these are the things that make fighting on really worth it - thinks, more than anything she’s so grateful she’s not alone in this).
"Next time we’ve got something worth celebrating," Abbie promises… and silently wonders how long it will take him to figure out.
.
In the end it takes him almost three weeks.
That’s pretty impressive, by Abbie’s standards - considering that in those three weeks they manage to kill a succubus, a vengeful spirit with the ability to drive people mad, and unearth vital information on a sword that might be capable of killing Moloch himself (Hawley has been recruited despite Ichabod’s reluctance, and is ‘putting out feelers’ for any information on where it might be found). They’ve also managed to survive two more encounters with the Headless Horseman, though the second resulted in Katrina choosing to go back into his care in an attempt to further confuse his and hopefully Henry’s loyalties.
That’s five victories, five fistbumps, and five new steps added to the now near-mythical proper fistbump, which by step three Ichabod had become a little obsessed with.
He was accepting of the fingers slapping sideways across each other after the explosion, and the following hooking together of the index fingers and tugging gently back and forth likewise met with no more protest than a single eyebrow arched high on his forehead.
After the victory over the spirit, though, and when Abbie brings spirit fingers into the equation, he goes off on a five-minute rant about the ridiculousness of this gesture, the “extended length of which, not to mention the increasing foolishness of each new step in the sequence, only serves to waste valuable time and render those performing the ritual figures of ridicule, surely, Miss Mills!”
Abbie shakes her head sadly, like he just doesn’t get it. She turns to Jenny, who is watching this latest exhibit with lips pressed tight together and utter glee in her eyes.
"Jenny’s not ridiculing us, are you Jenny?"
"Nope," Jenny says in strained voice, then coughs. "No, why would I? That’s just how a fistbump is supposed to go."
(Abbie loves her sister.)
Ichabod stares down suspiciously at the two of them for a long moment.
"All right then, let’s get on with it," he mutters finally, and reaches his fist out towards Abbie’s. They go through the whole long ritual, ending with their spirit fingers fluttering against each other, and his fingers are warm and rough and slightly ticklish against Abbie’s own, and she has to turn away quick when they’re done to keep from laughing outright.
"Well?" Ichabod demands, catching her by her shoulder and spinning her back around. "Is that it, is it complete?"
"Almost," she chokes, and hears Jenny snort behind her.
.
The fourth time then, and occasion of their second Headless Horseman encounter, Abbie decides to go easy on him. Katrina has left again, on what she and Ichabod both claim to be a worthy mission (Abbie’s still skeptical, but keeps quiet for now), but she’s gone even so and despite their victory Ichabod is looking a little down.
So she keeps it simple. After the spirit fingers, Abbie adds just another simple fistbump, just like the first step. She even considers stopping this little game altogether, maybe claiming that this is the end.
But Ichabod stares down at his curled fist in what looks almost like disappointment, and mumbles, “so that’s it then,” in a melancholy little voice…
And Abbie finds herself scoffing incredulously, looking at him like he’s a madman: “Not yet. Soon,” she amends quickly, not wanting to push too much and show her hand, “but it’s not over yet.”
"Oh." Ichabod says, looking up from his fist. And then he repeats, with renewed interest, leaning forward a little, "Oh?"
"Wait until next time," she smirks, and when he smiles back she feels that now-familiar warm flush inside of her.
.
The fifth time is the big one. In just about every sense of the word. They finally have a lead on a real, solid method of disposing with Moloch for good. Not to mention the latest report from Katrina, that she has all but elicited a promise from the Horseman to turn against his master (his growning enmity with Henry, though not exactly what the Cranes were hoping for, has worked in their favor).
They are at the cabin, having just returned from meeting with Hawley, and just finished downing one of several celebratory toasts - because that’s what this is, it’s a celebration, though Jenny may have stayed behind to ‘keep an eye on Nick’ (though Abbie suspects that’s not all she wants with him) and Irving is still in Tarrytown, and Katrina is still behind enemy lines. Still, despite their friends and family being scattered to all corners, the two Witnesses are together (always together, Ichabod keeps promising, will live and die together, and Abbie’s heart doesn’t quite know what to do with that, except to lock the words away deep inside where they’ll be safe and take them out to cling to late at night whenever she wakes up from another Purgatory nightmare).
They are together, and the whiskey is warm in their bellies, and this is another one of those savor this moments of which they’ve improbably shared so many already, and - Ichabod is the one who brings it up.
"Well, Leftenant?" he asks, holding out his fist with one eyebrow raised challengingly and a grin on his lips. "What new step must I master today?"
And, well, that’s - that’s just asking for it, really.
"This one’s easier to just show you," Abbie says, so: they begin.
Their fists bump together, hands pull apart as they make twin explosion noises. Then their hands turn sideways, fingers slapping across and back and then twisting to catch in the middle. One pull towards him, one towards her, then they unhook their fingertips to twiddle them loosely against one another. After the spirit fingers come the second fistbump, and then before Ichabod can react, Abbie grabs his arm to twist him sideways, even as she spins too, quicker than he can react, and - bumps their butts.
Ichabod jolts and actually leaps away, like some kind of startled kangaroo or something, and a loud snort escapes her before she can help it. “Leftenant!”
"That’s the next step," Abbie says, as innocently as she is able (not very, considering how she’s biting her cheek to keep from laughing outright). "You know, the double-jug bump. It’s standard."
Ichabod’s eyes widen in horrified outrage. “Leftenant,” he says, taking a deep breath and brushing back his hair as if to attempt to compose himself (he fails). “I have gone along with this - this nonsense for quite some time now, but this is simply going too far. I cannot believe that, even in such a, a free-spirited time as this modern era, that any such routine could ever be anything approaching standard! This bumping of the buns, yes I said ‘buns’ thank you, demonstrates an appalling lack of respect for both personal space and personal dignity, and quite frankly I would rather be the laughing-stock of town than sacrifice my pride to willingly engage in such a disgrace!”
He is panting by the time he’s done, and more vehement than even he, hothead that he is, would normally be - perhaps that’s the alcohol in his system, or maybe it’s the fact that shortly into his tirade Abbie started giggling madly, and she hasn’t been able to stop yet.
"Okay, Crane," she manages breathily, then makes the mistake of meeting his eyes, and has to grab the back of the couch for extra support, laughter taking over entirely. "No more fistbumps."
When she manages to calm herself enough to look back up at him (taking deep, even breaths), Ichabod is watching his with narrowed eyes.
"It seems I have let this charade go on too long. - Yes," he adds when she lifts her eyebrows at him, "I’m quite aware that this elaborate ‘fistbump ritual’ is nothing more than a prank, I have been for some time."
There’s a little waver in his voice, and Abbie reaches out to pat his arm, grin melting from manic amusement to something much fonder. “I’m sure you were,” she mollifies, and doesn’t attempt to conceal the skepticism behind her words (oh, no doubt he suspected at the very least, but this way is much more fun).
"Do not test me, Miss Mills," Ichabod murmurs ominously. "I assure you, you will not enjoy my vengeance."
"Try me," Abbie says with a challenging grin, because there’s really nothing else she could say to that. Ichabod’s eyebrow goes up, and he nods, thoughtful like he’s already plotting.
(A prank war in the middle of the apocalypse.)
(This could never be possible with anyone else. Only Ichabod.)
"Perhaps I shall… when you least expect it," he says, and Abbie clinks her glass against his in confirmation.
They sip in satisfied silence for a moment.
Then… “We don’t have to abolish the fistbumps entirely,” Ichabod says. She arches her eyebrows at him and he clarifies, faux-casual: “The first bit - until the explosion’s rather nice.”
"Oh, really," Abbie responds, as flat as she can manage, but she’s smiling (of course she’s smiling). "Well, if it’s rather nice.”
She holds out her hand, curled in a fist.
Ichabod meets it with one of his own, and they pull their fingers back in unison, making twin explosion noises.
