"We're not talking about this, Crane," Abbie says, her voice authoritative as she turns back to the shelves, looking for a book she swore she just saw yesterday.

Crane sighs, wanting to press the issue, again, but knowing it will only push his partner further into her shell. She has every right to be afraid. More than most.

Katrina died more than a year ago. Though devastated at first, Ichabod Crane emerged a better, stronger person, resolved that Katrina would not want him to fold into himself.

Deep down, Abbie wondered how much of her partner's new-found strength came from no longer having to bear the weight of the lies his wife had told him over the years. No longer having to walk the daily tightrope strung between his duty as Witness and his duty as Husband to a woman who constantly seemed to be trying to redeem people who were, in Abbie's opinion, beyond saving.

Nevertheless, approximately eight months after Katrina's passing, it happened. The Incident. The We Are Never Speaking of This and Therefore It Did Not Really Happen Even Though We Both Know It Did. The Thought That Steals Into Both of Our Brains Alone Late at Night When We Feel Lonely and Are Sure No One Else Knows What We Are Thinking About. The Memory That We Both Play Over and Over In Our Heads, Sometimes Daring to Change the 'Almost' to 'Definitely'.

The Incident That Did Not Actually Happen.

Headless was pursuing them through the forest as they were pursuing the dawn, out of ammunition, out of weapons, nearly out of energy, just trying to stretch out the chase until the sun broke over the horizon.

Abbie tripped, her boot catching a large rock hidden by the fallen leaves. As she was scrambling to her feet, the Horseman closed in on her, axe poised to strike.

Ichabod, noting his partner was no longer with him, circled back around just in time to save her.

He essentially tackled her out of the way, and they landed at the side of the trail, Abbie beneath her partner. Headless raised his axe again to strike just as the sun hit him. He fled, leaving nothing but wisps of smoke and a slight odor of brimstone behind.

"Are you all right?" Crane had quietly asked, his voice low and breathless, loose tendrils of hair falling down around his face.

"I think so, thanks," Abbie answered, looking up at him. It didn't even occur to her to wonder why he hadn't moved yet. In hindsight, she realizes she should have pushed him off, gotten to her feet, and walked back to her car. In hindsight, she also realizes she didn't because she felt warm and secure and safe surrounded by his lanky body.

She does not know what made her reach up and tuck one of the stray curls of hair behind his ear.

Time seemed to stop as they stared at one another in the growing light of dawn, their bodies cushioned by the leaves on the forest floor and warmed by their combined body heat beneath Crane's coat.

"Abbie." His voice is soft, only a breath, and his head is lowering before he even realizes it.

Abbie's lips part slightly, her heart pounding as she unconsciously tilts her chin up to meet him, her eyes sliding closed.

Their lips only a hair's breadth away from touching, an excessively loud caw of a nearby crow jolts them from the moment and suddenly, they leap apart.

Later that day, after they had both gotten some sleep, Crane tried to bring it up, wishing to talk about it. Wishing to address the unspoken Whatever-It-Is that had suddenly appeared between them. Wishing to confess the feelings he had finally acknowledged.

Abbie shut him down, telling him that no discussion was necessary because nothing actually happened.

He saw her uncertainty, how she worried at her lower lip, how she blinked rapidly as she is wont to do when struggling with her thoughts or emotions.

But he let it go, deciding to be a gentleman and respect his lady's wishes.

He tried again after the Policeman's Ball when she had danced with him and, for a brief moment, he was a prince and she, his princess. There were no demons, and everything was right in the world.

He tried again when she was injured and wound up in the hospital, and yet again when he was injured several weeks later and wound up in the same hospital.

How long must we circle one another in this dance? How long will she hide from me? Crane knows she feels the same about him as he does about her. He knows it as surely as he knows his name. He can feel it when she looks at him. He can feel it every time she touches him, no matter how innocently. He can feel it when she follows his movements when she thinks he isn't paying attention.

He is always paying attention. He is attuned to her motions, her patterns. He knows when she wishes to speak or wishes to remain silent. He knows when she is happy or angry or sad or confused, sometimes before she knows it herself.

So when she steps on a rickety wooden chair to reach up for the book she has finally located, he is ready when her poorly-chosen perch gives way and she comes tumbling down, easily catching her small body.

Now that he has her, he doesn't let go. He sits in a nearby chair and holds her on his lap, his arms still securely around her.

"Crane, what the—" Abbie starts, trying to pull away, hindered by the large book in her hand.

"Abbie," he says. Something in his tone makes her stop struggling against him. She turns and stares at him, wide-eyed and slightly wary.

He raises one hand to her face, caressing her cheek before tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear.

"Ichabod…" she tries, intending to sound stern, to give warning, but her voice wavers, giving away the pounding of her heart and fluttering of her stomach.

Crane leans in and softly kisses the side of her neck, his lips slightly parted, his tongue indulgently slipping forward to taste her skin.

Abbie sighs, her body going limp for just a moment. "Don't…" she weakly whispers.

He kisses her again. "I will stop if it is what you truly wish," he answers, his lips skimming her collarbone. Then he kisses her once more.

"Damn it," she answers, her free hand betraying her as it steals into his hair. "I keep telling you I…" she pauses, sighing again as he finds a particularly sensitive spot, "I don't want to talk about this… about us."

"I am not saying anything," he murmurs, lightly nipping her earlobe. Bravely, he moves the arm still holding her on his lap up to cup her cheek.

She could escape now.

She doesn't.

Instead, Abbie looks into his blue eyes as they bore into hers, looking for anything false that would give her a reason to escape. She looks for deception. She looks for dishonesty. She looks for betrayal.

Abandonment.

The only thing she sees is love. Pure, deep, devoted love, love she always knew he was capable of giving but to which she was afraid to open her heart. Love she has known was there for months but had been afraid to accept and return, though it has been building and building inside her for just as long.

She gives in.

The book drops to the floor with a loud thud and her lips are on his, kissing him with everything she has, everything she is, releasing months, years of tightly-held emotion, not just for him but for everyone she has not allowed to get close to her.

She gives him everything.

He accepts it willingly and eagerly, returning it with just as much passion.

Abbie shifts, moving to straddle his lap, her hands on either side of Ichabod's face as they continue to lose themselves in one another.

Finally, she pulls her lips away and leans her forehead against his, her eyes still closed. "Yes," she breathlessly whispers.

"'Yes' to what, my love?" he asks, slightly puzzled.

"To whatever you've been wanting to talk about for the last four months. Yes. I agree," she explains.

"I had a whole speech," he says, pouting.

"I'm sure you did," she replies, softly kissing his lips. "I'm sure it was all about our bond as Witnesses and feelings long denied," she pauses, kissing him again, "and that morning in the woods being an awakening for you..." another kiss, "all topped off by a pledge of eternal devotion."

Crane doesn't know whether to be hurt that she managed to nail each of his main points or impressed that she knows him this well. "It... may have been something a little bit... well, exactly like you have said," he admits. She smiles at him, and he continues. "But, I was also going to swear to you that I will never leave you," he adds, and her smile falters.

He knows me too well. "You can't promise that," she whispers. "I... I love the intention behind your words, but with our lives... what we do..." She sighs. "Mama left me. Corbin left me. Neither of them made that choice."

He kisses her, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "I know, Love. And I know those losses are what have been holding you back. But your mother and Sheriff Corbin were both fighting alone. We have each other." She nods once, but he knows she is still not convinced. "We are at our strongest when we are together, Abbie. We are meant to be together. Our history thus far has proven this to be true. When we separate, when we act on our own, things fall apart."

"The Sword of Methuselah," she quietly says. "We could only retrieve it together."

"Exactly. And it's not only that," he replies, building steam. He pecks her lips, still so close and so tempting, before continuing. "We are... what is that infernal quote from that ridiculous film? Ah. 'You complete me.'" He pauses while Abbie snorts a small laugh. "We are so different, you and I, yet this is precisely what makes us work. You have skills I lack, and vice versa. I... I cannot imagine trying to find my way in this century without your patient guidance. I would still be in the psychiatric hospital at the very least."

"You'd do better than you think," she says. "You're very smart."

"Not in the same way you are smart, Abbie," he counters. "But we have strayed from the point: I will not leave you because it is not meant to happen. If we stay together, we will make it through this war. If we are meant to die, then we die together, Abbie."

"How can you be sure?" she asks.

"I cannot give any evidence to support this claim, yet... do you not feel its certainty in your very bones? Does it not seem as sure as the... well, I was going to say 'as the sun rising in the east', but there was that one day..." he wraps his arms around her, gathering her against his chest. "As sure as my love for you, dear, brave Abigail?"

Abbie is quiet for one very long minute. "Yes," she finally says. "It does. I don't know how, but it does."

"So..." Ichabod says, looking down at her. "We have an accord?"

She chuckles and nods. "We do. Shall we seal it?"

"Mmm, indeed," he rumbles, leaning down to kiss her again, savoring her lips, their plump, lush texture, their sweet flavor, the feel of rightness of them against his.

"Let's go home," she says once they part. She tucks a lock of his hair behind his ear.

"Which one?" he asks.

"Does it matter?" she counters, raising an eyebrow.

Over an hour later, as they lay with their limbs as entwined as their lives in the warmth of Crane's bed, Abbie lifts her head from his chest, kisses him, and whispers, "I love you, Ichabod."

"I love you, Abigail," he immediately answers, a small, sweet smile tugging at the corners of his lips.