There's Always Another Way (Sleepy Hollow Ichabbie)

Chapter 1 - Waiting

Abbie Mills sat alone at the booth in the diner.

Seeing Sheriff Corbin again had been a pleasant surprise. She felt guilty that she hadn't been able to tell Jenny goodbye, but after her bittersweet farewell with Crane, she was sure that seeing her sister would have been too much to handle.

There was nothing else to do so she ate the rest of her apple pie, savoring the now mushy dessert. When it was gone, she absently pushed her spoon around the sticky plate. The quiet of the empty diner settled around her.

"I guess this is it, then," she said aloud.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and let it out slowly. Everything felt still and quiet. A long moment passed. She felt the same. Nothing was happening.

Abbie opened one eye, then the other. She was still in the diner.

"Any time now..." she prompted.

...................................

Meanwhile on another plane of existence, Jenny Mills was also waiting for the unknown.

She sat on the hard plastic hospital chair next to the bed and held Joe's limp hand in hers. The steady beeps and hums of the life support equipment were reassuring, she supposed. Although it would be far more reassuring to see Joe open his eyes.

Even so, the mechanical ticking was preferable to the panic that had gripped the room earlier. Joe's heartbeat had slowed and stopped, a shrill alarm sounded and a group of doctors rushed in, pushing Jenny aside as they worked the defibrillator. Ultimately Joe was revived and his vital signs stabilized and the doctor had said something about keeping him in the coma a while longer.

Jenny felt like she was in a coma herself, barely able to process anything that was happening around her. All she could do was hold his hand and watch his pale face, desperate for a sign of life.

She'd already lost one person that she loved – if Crane was right, probably forever. She couldn't bear to lose anyone else, especially not Joe.

Ezra Mills watched his daughter from the other side of the room, wishing that he could do more to help, wondering what he could have done differently. There were a lot of things in his life that he should have done differently.

A knock on the window behind him broke that familiar train of thought. Ezra turned his head to see a uniformed officer standing outside the small room.

"I've got this," he said to his daughter, who didn't seem to hear.

.................................

Abbie felt like a ghost, walking around the deserted streets of this otherworldly version of her home town.

The place looked and felt real. It should, since it was created from her memories. The town was eerily quiet without people or cars but it wasn't oppressively silent. A breeze rippled through the trees and her footsteps padded along the sidewalk.

Whatever was going to happen to her was evidently going to take some time, so Abbie decided to take a walk and say goodbye to Sleepy Hollow.

She said goodbye to her beautiful office at the FBI headquarters, then the Archives, her favorite Starbucks even though she'd given it up after the Catacombs, and the park where she and Crane used to watch the Minor League baseball games on the weekends.

Eventually her feet grew tired and the shadows grew longer. Daylight seemed to be fading, which Abbie decided was very considerate. She walked down the familiar streets until she arrived at her house.

Abbie felt at peace, which was remarkable because she'd spent the past months feeling conflicted, like she was being pulled in a hundred different directions at once. Everything had worked out in the end, more or less, and she had fulfilled her duty as a Witness.