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It was so comfortable there.
Corbin. Joe. Talking on the porch of a beautiful old house that overlooked the water.
The sun sparkled on the deep blue dapples of the lake. The ice cream melted in perfect rivulets along the creases of the crust. The pie was just crumbly enough.
They talked of everything and nothing. Waved to neighbors across the street. Children played in the park nearby, their laughter ringing out in cheerful abandon.
No monsters. No darkness. No evil.
Just life in all its beautiful simplicity.
It was strange, this. Peace.
Abbie loved it.
She wasn't sorry. Not once. Her old life was like a bad dream that had faded away to the edges of her mind, the bright sunshine eradicating its horrors.
She was content.
But then after a month--or was it a year?--she saw it.
Just a glimpse. Only the briefest glimpse. Where you almost think your eyes are playing tricks on you.
The swish of an old blue coat with brass buttons.
Abbie sat up a little straighter in the old porch swing, her eyes narrowing as she looked up and down the street.
"Abbie?" Joe asked, looking over at her with that little brother look on his face. "Something wrong?"
The tone of his voice was almost incredulous. As if...what could truly ever be wrong where they were?
But that one little glimpse was all it took.
The simple, sweet melody of the beautiful little life she'd thrust into suddenly swelled with a discordant, angry change of key.
Desperation, grief and sorrow threaded through, bringing in clouds that distorted the sun's cheerful rays, slashing the sky with turbulent blues, purples and deep reds.
His love was an angry, open wound of anguish, ripping through her. Abbie knew without words or explanation it was him and that he was.
And something deep, buried and locked inside, tore open in response.
Her breath stuttered, and her eyes widened.
"Abbie?" Corbin echoed his son's question, a small frown etching his beloved face.
It was too late, though. Too late for simple. Too late for peace.
Her mind was already throwing open doors to hidden memories. The sound of his clipped British tones. The thud of his boots against the pavement. The dramatic swish of that damned old coat.
She could almost see it in front of her as her mind wove the picture of the long black boots, the lanky body, those hands that never stopped moving, the beard so scratchy and yet soft encircling a mouth often smirking upward, and the blue, blue eyes full of mischief.
She'd never fully understood until that moment. She hadn't understood what he'd been trying, in so many ways, to tell her. What she'd fought against from almost the very beginning.
Love ran gleefully through her. Smashing walls. Tearing through locked places in her heart.
And peering around behind old love was hope. Hidden, shy, traumatized hope who'd been contentedly lulled to sleep in this upside down world. Where everything was calm and peaceful.
Abbie closed her eyes, tears filling them.
The savior of Pandora's box. Hope.
Hope that she'd see him again. Hope that no matter what had transpired that she would find her way back to him.
Hope.
"Damn," she whispered.
Corbin looked over at Joe and then back at Abbie and gave her a gentle smile. "There's always another way, Abbie. Always another way."
And his well-loved face was the last thing she saw before the swirl of clouds wrapped around her in a vortex of angry, turbulent passion, tossing her up, up, up until she found herself sprawled on the stone floor of the old cave in which she'd left him.
Abbie sat on the floor, trying to catch her breath for a very long time. Her body throbbed, aching in places she didn't even know she had.
Chaos whirled in her brain as she fought to reorient herself to her surroundings.
Only thoughts of him steadied her.
"If hope's been released from the box," she whispered, "the world's in a bad, bad way."
She exhaled and rested her head in her hands. "He needs me," she said to herself. "He needs me."
It took her several more minutes before Abbie was steady enough to get to her feet. She lurched forward, stumbling toward the exit of the cave, blinking as she stepped out of it into the forest. The sun here wasn't anywhere as peaceful and cheerful as the place she'd left. It slid through the dark canopy of trees, winking at her before hiding again behind another cluster of branches.
All the same, Abbie put one booted foot in front of the other, walking forward with a grim determination on her face. "I'm coming, Crane. Don't give up. Hope is coming."
At that moment, several hundred miles away in Washington, D.C., Ichabod Crane startled himself awake, Abbie's name on his lips. He glanced over to where Diana was talking in low tones with Jake. She looked up at him, then, a softened, almost pitying expression on her face.
He carefully blanked his own face, averting his gaze from hers.
It hadn't gotten better. Not really. Oh, he put on a game face for the good-hearted people who'd joined him in the fight against evil. But in all he'd read and learned over the two centuries in which he'd lived, grief was supposed to abate. He was supposed to be able to move on. Heal. Move forward.
And yet here he was. A raw, aching shell of a man inside. Why, when the witness soul had passed on to Molly, did he still feel as if half of himself was missing?
Ichabod ran a hand over the scar across his chest. She'd been there, in his dream. She often was. He'd tried to reach her again. Like he always did. But she never saw him.
She was happy and free. Safe and loved.
And he wanted to be glad for her. He wanted so badly to be the better man and be content with the knowledge that she was in such a place.
But he was not that man.
He was a man who had lost everything.
And the only hope he had left was that God--wherever and whoever He was--would let him die and be where Abbie was someday.
The mark of the devil burned on his skin at the thought of God and he smiled grimly.
Abbie was most assuredly in whatever passed for Heaven.
And the mark on his arm was only a symbol of what already was true for him.
Hell was where Abbie wasn't.
And Ichabod Crane was most definitely in Hell.