Title: when all other lights go out

Author: Jedi Buttercup

Rating: PG-13/T

Disclaimer: The words are mine; the world is not.

Summary: "Oh, I know exactly where my place is," Ichabod hissed. "Between you and my partner. I lost her to your and your husband's machinations once; never again." 3500w.

Spoilers: Sleepy Hollow episode 3.18, "Ragnarok"

Notes: Written for Sumi in Not Prime Time 2016. Title via Tolkien: 'May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.' An unapologetic fix-it, because I thought the Season 3 finale was total [expletive-deleted] too. Originally posted to AO3 on July 11, 2016.

A thousand and one desperate calculations flew through Ichabod Crane's mind as he glanced between the imploring form of Pandora, the partially depowered Hidden One beginning to regain his footing, the intricately chased silver shape of the infamous Box, and the apprehensive, knowing expression on the face of his partner. The stakes literally could not have been any higher; the Witnesses stood against an awakening god, and the one artefact on the planet with the capacity to defeat him was the selfsame object that had just run out of energy.

An energy that, they had learned that very day, could only be restored from one source.

There was an imperious, almost oratorical tone to Pandora's voice as she reached a hand toward Abbie, ignoring Ichabod as though he were no longer relevant. She gestured as broadly as though she stood upon a stage; as though she had envisioned that day's events for millennia, and invested her actions with all the pent-up passion of that waiting. "You're resisting. You're holding onto hope! It hungers for the light at the centre of your being!"

Back in the Catacombs, Abbie had spoken of a void within after the tendrils emanating from the Box had touched her. Ichabod had briefly feared that might mean she had already lost her soul to its grasp, remaining animated only by means of dark magic, as with the turncoat they'd encountered upon the banks of the River Styx. The familiar brilliance, if muted, of her remarkable spirit had given the lie to that conclusion; Pandora's demands were a welcome validation. But the sense of her words, the meaning behind them, denied him any sense of relief that fact might bring.

"It needs a binding agent to hold the darkness together, Abbie," Pandora continued, lowering her voice beseechingly as she continued to gesture the Lieutenant forward. "It needs the rest of your Eternal Soul."

The red light reflecting from the mirrors positioned behind her in the upper part of the cavern lit Pandora's face as though she stood in an antechamber of Hell. Abbie seemed almost transfixed as the woman continued to plead with her, barely glancing in Ichabod's direction as he insisted there had to be another way. There was a gathering quality to her stance now, the sense of a precariously balanced structure leaning toward a tipping point, one he recognised from the last time she had sacrificed herself for another's survival.

Ichabod glanced between two women again, dread curdling in his stomach, and took a sharp breath as his racing mind finally lit upon a discrepancy in Pandora's instructions. She had insisted that the Box could not be reconstituted without the presence of both Witnesses in the Catacombs, the obvious implication being that she had only expected one to return, bearing the evidence of the other's final sacrifice. One pithos; one Eternal Soul given in exchange.

But if that were truly the case, why had Pandora looked surprised when the Box had ceased to draw her husband's power? She could not possibly have failed to notice that both Witnesses still stood before her in the flesh; so there must have been a method by which both could have survived its successful recreation. She had glanced toward him, then Abbie, and only then began to press his partner to sacrifice her life to empower it fully.

When they had cut it off before it could reach its full charge, the process had neither reversed nor failed; merely paused, half-complete, waiting for the remaining portion to be offered. But what if the brevity of those instructions concealed another possibility? What if the second half of the Soul it required could be donated by the other half of the Witness pairing?

It did not seem an unreasonable supposition. They had begun this journey together; it was only fitting that if it was to end, they would face that together as well.

"Save the world, Abbie," Pandora concluded her entreaty, her beatific smile wide enough to expose the ravenous hunger lurking beneath the surface of her motives.

Yet still she continued to ignore Ichabod. Perhaps the infernal nature of her husband had blinded her to the strength of a true partner? Or perhaps she thought the dual pressures of her power and Ichabod's own fears would continue to root him ineffectually in place? It was true, he had not shown to best effect against her in previous encounters. But while he was a Witness in name, Ichabod was also a soldier, and could never simply stand by. He knew the worth of a well-timed sacrifice. He dove for the Box, knocking its lid aside, and stared into its depths, bracing himself for what would follow.

"Crane!" Abbie screamed as he moved. "Ichabod, no!"

He looked up at her, at the dawning desperation writ in the widening of her eyes and sudden lunging motion of her body toward his, and knew with a soul-deep conviction that he'd done the right thing. They had many more mornings yet ahead of them of exchanging artfully made caffeinated beverages for exotic doughnuts; of arguing over the accuracy of the preparatory material for his citizenship examination; of drinking blueberry stout with her sister, arguing over the proper care and treatment of their new succulent garden, and making her laugh with anecdotes about Franklin's eccentricities or the torturous discomfort of skinny jeans. No mere destiny would be allowed to take that from them.

A glowing shell of blue energy knocked Abbie backward, throwing her back at her sister's feet, but their gaze did not break; she struggled back up to her hands and knees, reaching toward him, and he smiled despite the sudden exhaustion he felt. "It's all right, Abbie!" he called back; it did not seem the moment for titles, however affectionately spoken. "Do not give up hope!"

The blue light emanating from the Box intensified, burning in his veins as though he'd inadvertently ingested Greek fire; a confirmation that he had not guessed wrongly. He gasped, throwing his head back as it rushed through him, and endured; he did not see when it latched onto the Hidden One again, but he felt the connection in the backflow of darker power that followed. Death energy, ancient energy; glimpses of knowledge far vaster than even one with an eidetic memory could hope to contain; a sense of rage and entitlement as old as the heavens. He shuddered as it all vanished into the maw of the Box, then slumped as the feeling ceased, the lid falling back into place.

Hoarse, wheezing breaths announced the effect upon the Hidden One. Ichabod did not have enough strength left at the moment to raise his eyes to see, but rejoiced at the results nonetheless; it was done.

Pandora made an indelicate, furious noise, the swish of her dress moving in his direction. "How dare you! You forget your place!"

Ichabod drew a panting breath as she gripped his chin and yanked it upward, glaring up through dishevelled locks of his hair at the woman who had single-handedly brought the Second Tribulation to Sleepy Hollow. "Oh, I know exactly where my place is," he hissed. "Between you and my partner. I lost her to your and your husband's machinations once; never again."

"Love." A sneer twisted Pandora's porcelain-perfect features. "What does love ever bring but pain?" She raised her free hand, fingers hooked in the air as though she intended to claw him across the face.

But before the blow could land, the report of a gunshot rang out in the dimly lit cavern, and Pandora froze in place, whipping her head toward the source of the sound. "No!" she shrieked, even more incandescent than she had seemed at Ichabod's effrontery.

Down on the floor of the cavern, Jenny stood over the slumping body of the Hidden One, lowering her weapon as the tension faded from his frame. Blood trickled from a hole in his forehead no larger than could be covered with a thumb; without his power, the Sumerian deity had been unable to either block the bullet or heal from its effects.

"That was for Joe," Jenny said, a grim satisfaction in the set of her mouth. Ichabod could hardly blame her; Master Corbin had been transformed back into the Wendigo by the Hidden One in punishment for her earlier interference, and the ritual to restore his human form had failed this time, nearly leading to both his death and Jenny's. She and her father had only barely managed to subdue him and transport him to the Masonic cell in the tunnels; his fate was still largely uncertain.

"This was to be my victory!" Pandora exclaimed, letting go of Ichabod as her eyes flashed yellow with virulent emotion.

Her distraction gave Ichabod just enough time to recollect that he still knelt with his hands upon an ancient arcane weapon — one that now contained the raw power of a god. A pity that the only spell he knew to utilise that power was the one that would free a demon from its confines! Though he could not hope to steal it from Pandora, regardless; it belonged to her, answering to her magic and will far more swiftly than it would to another's. With it, she could now become a goddess — and from her manner, it was obvious that she would not be the benevolent sort. But he could not simply destroy the Box, either; the last time they had tried to rid the world of an artefact that preserved the strength of a deity, the release of that power had propagated a disastrous explosion, and there was no way to gauge the damage that might ensue from a second attempt.

Fortunately, there was yet one thing he could do that might resolve the situation that she would assuredly not expect. It was an impulsive, highly risky idea, but there was no time for anything else. And though through the Box Pandora might have access to a god's power, she did not contain that much power in her person; she was merely another long-lived, dark-natured supernatural entity, the very type of being the Box was built to absorb. No further Eternal Soul should be required to trap her.

If it had been constructed with a failsafe to prevent its being turned upon her, then he would be very dead within moments. But if it hadn't...

He put his faith in the arrogance of the god that had created it, then wrenched the lid off the Box once more, all that remained of his being focused upon the woman stalking toward the sisters Mills.

Abbie's face was a study in dismay, eyes immediately seeking his out as the blue glow spilled from the Box once more. But she set her jaw without calling out, stooping for something out of his line of sight, preserving the element of his surprise despite her alarm at the action. Meanwhile, Pandora swept a hand furiously toward Jenny, knocking her flying with an immaterial blow. The weapon flew out of Jenny's hands, skittering over to Pandora's feet … and Pandora turned toward Abbie with an expression that promised pain.

In that moment, the Box's energy reached out again, smoky tendrils snaking toward Pandora; the ancient sorceress halted at their touch as though she had been struck, one hand lifting to curl against her chest. Then she spun in place, raising that hand toward him. "You dare to use my own power against me!"

"This seriously comes as a surprise to you?" Abbie said dryly, rising behind her with one of their cheirosiphons clasped in her arms.

A geyser of Greek fire spouted from its open mouth, licking against the back of Pandora's dress. It harmed her little more than it had the Hidden One, but as it had then, it served as a life-saving distraction for Ichabod's move. Torn between targets, Pandora reacted just a fraction too slowly ... and dissolved into a fine mist, sucked directly into the Box's open mouth.

Ichabod slammed the lid closed as soon as the last of it had disappeared into the Box, then looked up again to meet Abbie's gaze once more. She was still visibly angry, poised with the now-quiescent cheirosiphon held before her like an avenging angel with a sword, but vibrantly alive. He harboured no regret for whatever reaction he would face, given the alternative they had been mere seconds away from enacting.

"...Not that I blame her, because it sure came as a surprise to me," Abbie continued, raising her eyebrows. "What the hell were you thinking, Crane?"

Ichabod was keenly aware of Jenny's presence still in the room, slowly sitting up as she recovered from Pandora's throw, and of the body of the god they had destroyed lying mere yards away. It was not the time and place for what he truly wanted to say to her, any more than it had ever been before. Deferred by guilt — for the intensity of his feelings for Grace Abigail Mills long predated his wife's self-destruction, to his shame; by fear — for he had not lied when he said the sisters Mills were the closest thing to family he had left, and he did not know what he would do if he soured that relationship through any action of his own; and by respect — for during his long absence after Katrina's death, Abbie had sought a new connection, and it had not been his place to interfere in that relationship.

But the cat was already, as they said, out of the bag. Betsy had commented upon it, before leaving the Catacombs; she had once told him that she would like to be there when he at last acted impulsively on behalf of a woman, and, in an entirely unexpected way, she had. Pandora had commented upon it, out loud for both Abbie and Jenny to hear only moments before. Even Zoe had remarked upon it, in an indirect way, when she had severed their relationship. And he had nearly lost Abbie once more.

Ichabod's expression softened as he climbed to his feet, never taking his eyes off her. "I was thinking that there is nothing for me in a world without you."

Abbie's eyes went wide, and some of the anger faded from her expression. "I was ready to do it, you know," she said, the weapon drooping in her arms. "Made peace with my sister, with Reynolds; rocked the job I always wanted; connected with my dad again. The only thing in my life I wasn't ready to let go of, was you. And I thought you of all people would understand."

He set his jaw at that, taking a step toward her. "Understand, yes; accept, never. You are my hope, Lieutenant; I could not allow even Pandora's infernal Box to take you from me."

She swallowed, setting the weapon down, then took a step to meet him. Another step, then another — and then they were reaching for one another, first palm to palm, then pulling in for a full-body embrace. For there was a time and a place for Ichabod to cling to his eighteenth-century manners to protect himself, and this was no longer it.

Some of the exhaustion lifted as they wrapped their arms around one another; he heard Abbie suck in a breath as well as a sudden rush of energy seemed to connect them. Like a circuit closing; like one part of a torn Eternal Soul knitting to another, perhaps. She was, after all, now literally his other half. Abbie was warm in his arms, and smelled just slightly of jasmine bath soap and coffee; Ichabod's breath caught, and he tipped his head down to press his lips against her forehead. Somehow, he doubted one of them predeceasing the other was a possibility anymore, and he felt immensely grateful for that fact.

"But how did you know it would work?" she murmured against his chest.

Ichabod shook his head. "I didn't. I only knew that either way, my fate would be the same as yours."

"We've got a lot to talk about, don't we," Abbie replied, one small, strong hand absently stroking up the length of his back.

A shudder rippled through him, promising physical delights to come — that would have to be delayed, as a third voice interrupted their conversation. "I'll say. But preferably someplace that isn't here, where I don't have to see it. And what the hell are we going to do about that?"

"Miss Jenny," Ichabod blurted, as Abbie stepped back out of his grasp, turning to her sister.

"God, Jenny; I'm sorry, I was just—" she winced.

"I don't want to hear it, either," Jenny waved that away with a brittle half-smile. "Not that I begrudge you; it's about fucking time, and I'm sure Joe will say the same when we figure out how to de-Wendigo him. Because we will. Seriously, though. Could someone let her out of there?"

"It seems likely," Ichabod sighed, reluctantly returning his thoughts to the matter at hand. "We cannot destroy it, and keeping it incurs a strong degree of risk from men like Atticus Nevins and Nick Hawley. One woman's weapon of demon-summoning and destruction being another's prize on a mantle, and so forth. The only way to safely dispose of it permanently..." He trailed off, looking to Abbie.

She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest, but followed his train of thought easily. "Is to take it back to the Catacombs. Preferably with a hell of a lot of explosives, to either blow it up safely there, or at the very least entomb it in the remains of that temple. Then we get the hell out of dodge, and burn Betsy's flag once we make it back to our side. Thus ends the second Tribulation."

"My very thought," he agreed, inclining his head toward her with a wry smile.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Jenny agreed, moving to collect the discarded weapons. "Do we take his body with us, or..."

Ichabod shook his head. "The Sumerians believed that burning the bodies of the dead would burn the soul as well, destroying the person for all eternity. If there is any of the Greek fire left..."

"Oh, I am all over that," Jenny said, a grim smile curving one corner of her mouth. "Go on, then; I'll clean up behind us. Meet you outside."

"Jenny, are you sure you're all right?" Abbie reached out to lay a hand on her sister's arm.

Jenny nodded tightly, then waved a hand toward the entrance again. "I will be. Go on."

Ichabod nodded to her, then moved to pick up the Box, an incongruously light weight given what it contained, and followed Abbie back into the world.

Outside, they found that the clouds that had been stirred up by the Hidden One's presence had begun to dissipate; the sun shone down brightly on the Hudson Valley. On a whole new era. Abbie sucked in a breath, then let it go and smiled up at him again, a warm light in her eyes.

"Two down, five to go," she pointed out. "You aren't planning on leaving after this one, are you?"

He shook his head, smiling back. "No, for I have already found what I sought. Though I am well aware you would be within your rights to do so in turn. Though we have ever been in sync as Witnesses, I find that my timing in more personal matters has been lamentably execrable."

"If by that you mean terrible, I totally agree," Abbie shook her head, then bit her lip. "You really sure it's any better now?"

The words were sceptical, but he thought he knew her well enough to read the longing beneath them, the echo of his own. He set down the Box, then reached to cup the side of her face and leaned down, pressing his lips against hers in the only answer he had to give.

Of all the women Ichabod had kissed before, each of them in their way had made the first move for him; Betsy's observations about his awkwardness had been entirely accurate, and without Katrina explicitly declaring her intentions, he would never have dared stand between her and Abraham. Kissing Abbie was like none of the others; it was a fire sweeping through him, cool water soothing his wounded spirit, a key fitting a lock. He chose her; and the tightening of her arms around him said that she was choosing him in turn, equal partners in this as in all else.

The kiss broke without deepening — this time; there would be time for that later, now. They braced their foreheads together, their breaths mingling, and parted again only at the sound of Jenny's footsteps approaching.

Abbie's eyes were bright as she offered him a fist bump; Ichabod chuckled as he returned the gesture.

"My man," she said.

"Always," he agreed with a full and lightened heart.

-x-