Chapter Text
It's good to be back, the three of them. Well, four, she supposes. Jenny watches Abbie, Crane and Joe as they joke around at their table. Joe glancing her way on occasion and she nods to show she sees them, yes, she's assured they're still enjoying themselves without her there to regale them with her wry humour and wild temper. She bangs the counter because an order of wings shouldn't take this long. "Hey, you killing the chicken back there or what?" she bellows. Mabie emerges from the back, shaking her head.
"New cook," she explains.
"New cook or can't cook?" Jenny cocks her hip and folds her arms.
Mabie winces and shrugs. "Tonight it's the same thing. Doing a friend a favour for her son,"
"That favour is gonna get this place shut down," she teases wickedly and Mabie sucks her teeth.
"Drinks on the house for the inconvenience, Jennifer,"
" Appreciate it" she grins and saunters back to the table to announce their sudden good fortune but frowns at Abbie who is on the phone, brow furrowed. Joe, who's staring off into the distance, and Ichabod, always polite, cordial, attentive Ichabod regarding her with interest. She can understand why women titter around him. All blue eyes and shiny hair. The height helps. His gaze always carries a weight with it, a certain devoted level of focus.
"You are without wings Miss Jenny," he states.
Always did love me a man who can state the obvious, she thinks before smirking at him. "For that reason, Mabie says drinks on the house, what'll you have?"
In classic Crane fashion, his gaze flickers to her sister. He always deflects to Abbie, but his chief advisor on how to enjoy tonight best is still on the phone, cradling it between her ear and shoulder and shrugging on her coat. He instantly begins to frown and Jenny does too.
That damn coat carries with it a set of burdens that are more irksome than Crane's colonial garb. Crane's coat, worn, beloved, time worn---literally---means honour and memories and a life he's lead.
Abbie's coat, or jacket, or blazer, because she's never without one these days--means work. Plain and simple. It means Abbie running off without them, which is becoming increasingly and alarmingly more frequent Jenny doesn't care to admit, and spending late hours and early mornings taking down drug rings and investigating high profile murders and----it's important work, she doesn't deny that, but it hurts.
She knows Abbie doesn't mean to. But this job is becoming her all over again, and it's taking her away from them, her, Crane, Joe---but mostly Crane. Who finds himself in the strange role of waiting up for his wayward partner at the house they share and fallen asleep on the couch and Abbie sneaking in quietly, trying not to wake him.
Jenny knows this because she'd stayed over the last time this happened, just last week. Her and Joe. They'd all been having dinner at the house and off goes that damn phone and Abbie was out the door like a shot. "Be back as soon as I can," she'd hollered before slamming out the door.Car backed out and pulled out the driveway before Crane could offer to tag along, standing on the porch, crestfallen.
Brokenhearted watching the spectacle her and Joe stayed, finished dinner, helped tidy up, distracted him as much as they could from worrying before sleep claimed them, and woke only to the sound of Abbie stealthily putting her key in the lock and looking decidedly guilty that she'd been caught coming back in.
"I can't help it, it's the job,"
Jenny would call bull shit if she had a right to, she'd accuse Daniel Reynolds of trying to monopolize Abbie's time but Daniel's busier delegating his agents and directing missions----he couldn't seduce Abbie on the sly if he wanted to. Abbie's actually out because she works hard, all the time, and she can't help it, that drive is in her sisters blood.
But it doesn't make it easier to bite back her annoyed groan as she watches Abbie suit up to leave now. "Oh come on aren't you guys allowed to be sick?" she asks, regretting it the instant it comes out her mouth, knowing how ridiculous she sounds, but Abbie just shakes her head, amused, and understanding of Jenny's irritation before she gives them all a nod and leaves. Ichabod stood to see her off, but Abbie's back was already turned and striding out the door, oblivious to Crane's overbearing politeness and show of respect. He stands there a moment, mouth slightly parted suspended as if by puppet strings before defeatedly letting his long limbs fold in on himself and back into the chair. A beat passes before Jenny rolls her shoulders.
"Well, I call dibs on Abbie's drink. Pick a drink Crane,"
He pauses, perhaps about to announce he no longer feels like 'revelry on this fair night' or whatever other particular brand of waxed poetic he subscribes to but Jenny shakes her head and beats him to it. "You know what, never mind, I'll surprise you," she glances at Joe. "And you, you up for a surprise too?
He nods the affirmative. As Jenny saunters back to the counter Mabie waits to take her drink order and at last the wings are ready.
"What'll you have?"
"Anything that will make that man over there," she nods toward all six foot God only knows how much of Ichabod Crane, "Sing a raunchy shanty song,"