InsaneJournal

occhi_bella (occhi_bella) wrote in fic_variations, @ 2007-07-14 23:16:00

Current mood:	sick
Current music:	Law and Order: SVU

Cross-posted to occhi_bella and unknown_fandom.

Title: In Dreams
Author: occhi_bella
Fandom: Sleepy Hollow (movie)
Character/Pairing: Ichabod/Katrina
Rating: T
fic_variations Prompt/Claim: the four seasons, fic 2 of 3
Word Count: 1059
Spoilers: Yes
Disclaimer: Sleepy Hollow and its characters do not belong to me.

His dreams always began with a lovely summer day.

Ichabod. Ichabod.

Her voice repeated his name in a gentle, affectionate half-song. A memory of Lady Crane wearing a blindfold, engaged in the same game that Katrina Van Tassel had been playing that first evening when he arrived in Sleepy Hollow. The sun beamed down on her as she slowly turned in a circle on the grass in the small front yard of their home, her arms outstretched to catch young Ichabod the moment he approached her with a small bouquet of purple-blue flowers clasped in his hand. Flowering trees surrounded the grassy yard that she danced in and the soft breeze stirred the pink and white blossoms, prying them loose from their branches and swirling them around her as she spun about.

Beautiful warm brown eyes gazed lovingly upon him when she removed her blindfold, so different yet so very much like Katrina’s. He handed his mother the flowers he’d picked and she smiled, clutching them close to her heart.

She beckoned him inside and he followed, watching as she tossed the purple-blue flowers into the flames that crackled in the hearth then took up a thin branch and drew symbols in the ash, chanting her blessings softly and rhythmically over the fire.

Another memory of her blowing the filaments off the head of a dandelion that she held. The wispy puffs of white floated around her and she began to spin amidst them, twirling faster and faster until she was lifted off the ground. He lay on his back in the grass, warmed by the sun, watching his mother as she stretched and danced in mid-air.

But the idyllic images that his dreams began with always inevitably faded, replaced by shadows and disturbing images that continued to haunt him. A memory of huddling under the covers in his bed, terrified by the sounds of thunderstorms and the flashes of lightning, his mother sitting beside him on the edge of the bed, rubbing his stomach comfortingly. She would draw out his favorite toy, the thaumatrope with the cardinal and the cage and spin it before his eyes. He would stare at the circular pendant in wide-eyed amazement as the cardinal seemed to fly freely while appearing inside the cage at the same time; a trick of optics, as he’d come to learn as a grown-up. Two separate pictures on either side of the disk that appeared to be one when it was spun.

Still darker visions plagued his nightmares. His father’s face, rigid and stern, suspicious and angry, accentuated by the black clothing that cloaked him from head to toe and sharply contrasted his pale complexion. A memory of watching him seize his mother roughly, pull her along and shove her down before the hearth, pointing accusingly into the ground before it where she drew her pictures and charms. Throwing a bible onto the ground and forcing her to read it. Yanking her back on her feet again and dragging her away. The sight of a vivid red door standing out among the stark white chapel of Reverend Crane’s church. Images of a large metal case in the shape of a person’s body, the head eerily resembling a woman’s face. An open slat where eyes would be and familiar warm brown eyes peering through it. He always woke with a start at these sights, sweating and shaken up, struggling to catch his breath.

On this night, though, there was no warm sunny day in his visions, no comforting images of his beautiful mother. This dream began in his father’s severe white church. Ichabod remained crouched in one of the pews, watching as Reverend Crane dragged his mother down the aisle of the church toward that bright red door that always filled him with terror. The preacher reappeared, alone now, walking somberly through the aisle, leaving the red door behind and exiting the church.

Young Ichabod crept through that red door, finding himself in a room full of odd, frightening-looking contraptions whose purpose he could not fathom.

Ichabod. Ichabod.

Her voice echoed softly as he stood before the large metal case with the woman’s visage. An iron maiden. Brown eyes stared at him through the open slat and he stumbled back startled, his hands instinctively reaching back to grasp the chair behind him, to brace himself from falling. Pain seared through his palms as they made contact with the chair, which was covered in steel spikes. He whipped them away and brought them together in front of him, staring in horror at the rows of evenly placed holes that bled freely. The door to the iron maiden swung open and his mother’s body fell forward, rivulets of blood streaming down her face. She seemed to be surrounded by a river of blood.

He cried out as he woke from this nightmare and bolted upright – and into her arms.

The realization that Katrina had been sitting beside him, keeping vigil, and that he was now nestled in her embrace was almost as shocking as the horror of the memory. Reverend Crane had killed his wife, Ichabod’s mother. A deeply religious man, the reverend was suspicious of Lady Crane’s deep connection with nature, her charms and drawings that appeared magical and enigmatic. He’d murdered her because he believed he would save her soul.

Ichabod rested his chin on Katrina’s shoulder, his cheek pressed against soft golden curls, and stared at his hands. Bloody dots covered his palms now where before there had been deep colorless imprints. Oddly, these scars that had been there ever since he could remember were bleeding for the first time since that day in the room full of spiked chairs and iron maidens.

“You were dreaming,” Katrina murmured, stroking his back comfortingly.

“Ah, yes,” he sighed, slowly relaxing. “Of things I had long forgotten. And don’t wish to remember.”

“Tell me what you dreamt,” she coaxed gently.

The sound of her voice, the feel of her arms around him and the kindness she exuded soothed him and he felt the barriers that he’d built up between himself and the rest of the world for so long dissolve. Without a second thought, he told her of his mother’s murder and the loss of his faith, baring his soul for her to see and allowing her sweet presence to lift the sting.