Winner Takes All

Spoilers up through Season 2 finale, ignores Orion arc so Katrina doesn't free Headless to escape him.

AN: Standard Disclaimer! I own nothing (though I would love to get Abraham for a while...)

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It was scant hours from dawn, when the Headless Horseman heard the locks slide from their couches and a sharp squeal of the vault door opening.

One set of soft footfalls came down the corridor, too light to be a man. Has Katrina finally returned?

No.

Abraham felt his lip curl in irritation. It was Ichabod's dark shadow and other half of the 'Witness' duo: the 'Leftenant'.

He tugged at the enchanted chains holding him bound to the dungeon walls. Several moments with his arms free and he could be finally rid of the meddling girl who had trapped him here...

Her face appeared in the armored glass window and he glared at her. There was no satisfaction in the effort since she couldn't see his expression.

He paused.

Something was off.

The woman - Mills, he recalled - was having trouble standing in her shoes. The reason was quickly apparent when she lifted a half empty bottle to her mouth for a long swallow. Her chocolate eyes were hazy when they found him.

"There you are!" she said cheerfully. "I came down here...I caaaame down here to tell you..." She trailed off, as if she had forgotten what she wanted to say. Abraham shifted his weight, impatient for her to get through her speech and be gone again.

"Moloch is dead!" Mills raised the bottle in a mocking salute.

So they succeeded, he thought. He had felt the connection to his demon master fade, but he hadn't been sure if it was just distance or the hexes carved into his shackles. Though Moloch had given him a new purpose, Abraham was not sorry to see the wretch gone. Demons were untrustworthy and dishonorable, it felt good to know he was his own man once more.

As much as a Horseman of the Apocalypse could be his own man anyway...

"Where is Katrina?" he asked.

Mills ignored him, taking another swallow from her dwindling supply.

Abraham cursed. Without the magical pendant to give him an illusory head, he was effectively mute. He could yell three inches from the Leftenant's ear and she still wouldn't hear him.

The girl started talking again. "I still can't believe we finally did it - we beat the bad guy!

"But Frank..." Mills' eyes sparkled with unshed tears, her smile going brittle. "Captain Irving was a hero, he fell while keeping demons off of us."

Abraham couldn't care less about War's puppet, but didn't have a way to tell the girl to be silent. He pulled at his bonds in frustration.

Mills shook herself and continued. She turned the bottle into a prop, brown-skinned hands sloshing the amber liquid around to punctuate her points. "Hawley took a bad cut to the arm, but fought like a champ. Jenny is patching him up, or so she says. Henry. Now, Henry was the shocker. He switched sides, again, and struck the killing blow. The look on Moloch's face was…well, ugly is the word I would use. But I guess he already was hideous."

That was a surprise to Abraham as well, the Horseman of War had always seemed steadfast in the cause of their master. Perhaps Katrina was right and familial influence was stronger than anyone would have believed.

"Henry disappeared though, presumed dead. But I guess you would know better than we would if War was still around."

Not that I would ever tell you.

Abraham wondered if Mills heard him because she went silent for several moments, contemplative.

"I haven't told you the best part yet," she said finally, her voice hollow and flat. "Katrina found a spell to send her and Ichabod home."

Abraham froze.

Dark eyes tracked over to him. "That's right, back to the 1700's where they can live out their lives like none of this ever happened."

She couldn't see his face, but tension was in every line of the Horseman's body.

Her voice became a sarcastic falsetto: "'But Abbie! The tribulations' are supposed to last seven years and we're not even half way yet! What ever shall we do?'" Mills snorted. "Katrina is sure that if they go back with the stuff she learned from this time, she can do…magicky things with her Coven to keep us from getting to this point. I tried to explain to her that cheesy time-travel crap never works, but she's determined and Crane...Well, that man can't say 'no' when it comes to his wife."

Abraham's world was closing in on him. It can't be...Katrina...

"It will take a while to gather the ingredients for the spell, it's not like they can go to Walmart to pick up some of the creepier stuff. A couple months, maybe even a year and then..." A sigh shuddered through Mills' petite frame as she downed another long swallow of whiskey. "I'll be stuck with you, while the people we…well, they'll be gone forever."

The Horseman's hands were tightened fists, denial raking at his insides.

She looked at him, but her gaze was vacant. "I know, right? I had gotten so used to Crane being around. It felt…it felt like he was meant to be here...But I think you had it worse off, honestly. At least Crane never…" Mills took a shaky breath. "Katrina played you. She lied and used you to get what we needed."

Abraham roared, lunging against his bonds with such renewed fury he nearly missed what she said next.

"I told myself I was OK with it: you were a monster. Monsters don't have feelings. You killed Corbin, you deserved to hurt as much as I did…But I saw your face. I saw how you looked at Katrina…You really love her. It made me feel like I was the monster for going along with the plan. It was wrong to do that to you, monster or not."

Some of the rigidity leaked from Abraham's stance, his shoulders drooped.

"Now she's going back to a time where you're dead, I was never born and they get a happily ever after," bitterness wrinkled her pretty face in a frown. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

The Horseman surged forward, snapping the chains at his wrists taut as he clawed the air.

"Yeah, I figured that you wouldn't care." Mills took another heavy draft of alcohol. "Still, I wanted you to know."

She watched Abraham for a few moments, muzzy and thoughtful. "You could probably use a drink too."

The Horseman was still agitated but he watched the cell door open and Mills stumble inside without further outbursts.

"I don't…well, you don't have a mouth, so I don't know where it should go. I could pour it on your…your stump, but then I'd feel like I was watering a plant or something…" The image made her giggle. "Look at us: plants and zombies..."

She frowned as he drew away from her, Abraham's disapproval was palatable. "Fine, be that way."

The bottle was being emptied at a rate fast enough that he was amazed Mills was still standing, let alone lucid. Perhaps this century's liquor wasn't as strong as it was in his day.

"You know…" Abraham didn't like the edge to her sudden grin. "I always did have a thing for a man in uniform. All tied up like that, a girl could get ideas."

The chains clanked loudly as the Horseman startled. Whatever he had expected her to say, it certainly wasn't that.

"Don't worry, I'm not depraved enough to take advantage of you like this. Well, not quite." Mills' laugh was rich as she circled him like a shark. "Still, when Katrina's thing did its thing and we saw what you really looked like…You were much more handsome than I expected a dead man to be."

She plucked at one of the chains attached to his waist. "Aaannd, I bet that blonde hair goes aaallll the way down the rabbit trail…"

Abraham tried to turn as far as the restraints would allow. Disturbed by her comments more than he wished to admit, he didn't want to let the woman out of his sight.

"But that's not really why I'm here." She stopped in front of him again, the mocking grin had faded to melancholy. "I thought, since everyone is off celebrating, you and I were the odd men out. I just...I didn't want to be alone."

Abraham was having trouble following Mills' rapid emotional shifts. We're enemies and yet she would rather choose my presence over the others? And such language! She is worse than a painted whore!

"Can I ask you some things?"

Mills giggled again, reading the exasperation transmitted by his body language.

"Talking would be much easier with the necklace, but how about this…once for 'yes', twice for 'no'?"

He stood there silent, stubborn and suspicious of what she might ask given her recent comments.

"Come on, what else do you have to do? Watch the mold grow?" She ticked the points on her fingers: "Your master is dead, his cronies scattered. You shouldn't expect a rescue any time soon, so you might as well pass the time with twenty questions."

After a long minute, the Horseman flicked the chain on his right wrist.

Yes.

"See, that's the spirit," Mills smiled in triumph. "Of course, I can't tell if you're lying to me, but…"

Yes.

"Well, that's a great start," she grumbled.

He offered no reply. Abraham didn't have any interest in playing this game, but if she wouldn't go away then perhaps he could divine her intentions through what questions she chose.

"Now…what to ask…" She snapped her fingers: "Are you still a servant of Moloch?"

No.

"So, you're saying that you are calling your own shots now? A free agent?"

Her word choice was confusing, but he believed he understood what she meant. Yes.

"But you still want to kill us?"

Yes.

Mills quirked an eyebrow and chuckled. "That's not winning you a lot of brownie points toward your release."

The Horseman shifted his weight in annoyance, she could almost hear him cursing to himself.

No.

"See, now I think you're lying. Not that I didn't think you were lying before, but still…"

No!

"Fine, we'll come back to that."

She took a deep breath. "Did you kill Corbin on Moloch's orders?"

The Horseman was silent.

Mills' temper sparked. "The first time we met, there was an older man with me. Sheriff Corbin. You chopped off his head before busting out of a barn on that white horse of yours. Did. You. Kill. Him. On. Orders?"

No.

"No?" She frowned.

Abraham didn't feel the need to elaborate, but it was clear from her expression that the annoying woman wasn't going to let the matter drop. He jingled the chain on his wrist to draw her attention. The Horseman made a shape with his hand: he straightened his thumb and forefinger while curling the rest inward.

"He had a gun?"

Yes.

"You're saying you chopped his head off because he had a gun?" The incredulous expression wrinkled her face up in unpleasant ways. "You expect me to believe that you killed the man, who was the closest thing I had to a father, in self-defense?"

The Horseman shrugged, the entire iron harness binding his chest clanking. I don't care what you believe.

In a flash, the small woman became a tempest. She shattered the empty whiskey bottle on his shoulder, then accosted him with a flurry of punches and kicks. Mills couldn't truly hurt the Horseman, but her assault would have crippled a normal man. She screamed unintelligible curses at him with each strike.

He didn't know the words, but he recognized the fury.

The punches came slower as she began to cry. Eventually the grief became too much and she could only hold onto him as she sobbed.

Though Abraham disliked the woman, her obvious misery made him uncomfortable. He was headless, not heartless.

After several minutes, she quieted and stepped away from him. She wiped her reddened eyes and took another deep, shaky breath. "Corbin shot you and he died for it." Her voice was raw from crying. "That's why you didn't kill me that night, isn't it? I was too scared to pull the trigger."

...Yes.

"Bet you regret not killing me anyway."

The Horseman just watched at her.

Mills' legs felt like they were different lengths, making her unsteady and vaguely seasick. She slid down the wall to sit on the stone floor.

Abraham heard a last quiet sob: "I miss him."

Before this is over, you shall miss much more than your Sheriff.

Her only reply was a soft snore.

AN: I had never thought about this particular pairing until I stumbled across a fic by Frostbytefire and then it was all over. Not only did I drink the Koolaid, but I had to serve it too. I'm even working on "Brambie" artwork and Tshirts...it's gotten a little nuts.

This is by far the longest story I have ever written. Period.

If you've read my stuff before, you know that I'm lucky if I can get something over 3k words. I've been strapped to the front of this runaway train for over a month now, belting out between 500 and 1k words a day. The unfinished draft is now over 31k with another 4-5k in scene scraps, and feels like it might only be about 2/3rds of the way done.