Author's Note: This is the final chapter, there is an epilogue after this. Thanks for the lovely comments! Happy Holidays!

Ezekiel Jones frowned at the computer screen in front of him. It was Christmas Eve and his sister was expecting him, but he had something he needed to do first. In the wake of the celebrations of Cassandra's discovery, Jones had noticed something off in his normally bubbly co-worker's demeanor. She, out of all of them, should be the happiest. Yet, she looked like she was going to cry in unguarded moments and when people were around her, her smiles were completely fake. Cassandra never faked being happy.

He hadn't seen that Stone guy around after that day and he finally confronted his friend about it. Getting out of her that she and Stone had kissed, she asked him out, he'd said yes, but when she came back he was gone. On top of that, the historical society had no clue who he was. No one had seen him leave the library, though honestly the security cameras were woefully inadequate.

Ezekiel had had a busier than average holiday season, even for him, and he hadn't had a chance to do basic research. He figured Christmas Eve was as good of time as any to do some before he had to leave.

What he found out stunned him.

"What the hell?" he muttered as the search easily found him newspaper headlines of a terrible car crash. Dr. Jacob Stone had been lying in a hospital bed . . .in a coma . . .the entire time the man who was using his name was helping Cassandra.

An identity thief? Ezekiel found a couple of photos from books and an archived university website. That would normally be the answer but Ezekiel highly doubted that anyone would get plastic surgery to look identical to Jacob Stone . . .to help a library? Unless he had a twin brother, something was really really off.

His grandmother would have said something about angels. Ezekiel wasn't sure about that, but he had grown up in Australia and stranger things than angels lived there, so maybe angels did exist. Whatever the actual answer, Cassandra deserved to know.

Cassandra nibbled on a Christmas cookie while she blankly stared at her television which was playing some old classic Christmas movie. She'd not had the heart to turn on a Hallmark Christmas movie. Not this year.

What had gone wrong? How had she misjudged Jacob so much? The whole thing just seemed odd to her now that she thought about it. No one had seen him leave and why would anyone lie about being with the historical society? It made no sense. She was so grateful to him for helping her, no matter what had happened. But it didn't ease her aching heart. She'd let herself fall for the handsome stranger with the kind eyes and the gentle smile. But he hadn't felt the same way.

She'd saved her beloved library but it was now a shallow victory. The joy, hope and faith that Jacob had awakened within her now . . . . She shook her head. She was not going to do this. She couldn't. She'd wipe her tears away, spend tomorrow with her cousins and she'd move on with her life. A little more empty without Jacob in it, but she could do it. She could.

"Why is it takin' so long?" Stone asked, staring at the golden door that Jenkins had said led to the Library. "I did what ya asked!"

"Patience, Professor Stone. I don't . . . ."

"I know," Stone snapped. "You don't make the rules."

Jenkins lifted an eyebrow and stared at him. Stone had the grace to look ashamed. "I'm sorry, Jenkins. I . . .I said my piece already. I want the pain to end, that's all. I want to think of her and not of what I'm not gonna have with her."

He looked back at the door and didn't notice Jenkins shaking his head and looking to the ceiling. If he had, he would have seen the caretaker's nod as if something had been communicated with him.

Suddenly the golden door opened, the light behind it so bright that Jacob raised his hand to shield his eyes, unable to see what was on the other side. But despite his broken heart, he could feel an intense feeling of peace. He would be healed on the other side. From everything that haunted him. But for some reason, he felt himself frozen in place.

He turned his head toward Jenkins for answers.

"You have a choice, young man."

Cassandra's door buzzer started going off and before she could even get off the couch, the knocking started.

"What on Earth?" she asked as she opened the door to Ezekiel.

"Come on," Ezekiel grabbed her arm. "The Uber's waiting. Get your coat."

"My coat? For what? Where are we going? And no, you're not explaining on the way. Tell me."

"It's Stone."

Cassandra frowned. "What about him?"

Ezekiel sighed, hoping the Uber would still be waiting. "Look, I don't understand it. But the day before he showed up in the library, Dr. Jacob Stone was involved in a really really bad car accident. He's been in a coma the entire time."

"What? That makes no sense, Ezekiel."

Ezekiel threw his hands up. "I don't know! I just know this," he shoved his phone with an article he'd found about the accident with a photo of Jacob Stone into her hands and stepped around the dumbfounded woman to her coat rack. "Come on! We're gonna go see him."

"But . . . ." but Ezekiel had thrown her coat around her shoulders and was dragging her by the arm to the elevator.

"What do you mean I have a choice?"

"I'm afraid we haven't exactly been straight forward with you. You see," he looked over at the storm clouds that were forming on Stone's face. "we tried so many times to reach your heart. Let yourself open up to something more than your work, to love, to life. But sometimes . . .sometimes a near death experience is the best we can do."

"Near death?" Jacob decided to let his anger slide, after all, near death meant that he wasn't dead, right? That he could come back? "So I'm not dead?"

"Not completely, no," Jenkins nodded to the door that they had taken to Cassandra's library so many times. "You have a choice of two doors. A choice that isn't as easy as it seems."

"I don't believe it," Cassandra was whispering as Ezekiel had gotten them to the hospital. "This is Jacob. He's . . . he didn't run out on me. He . . . .he had to have been sent to me. Maybe my mother? Uncle Gale?"

Ezekiel shrugged. "If there's a way to project yourself out of your body into someone's life . . .well your crazy uncle would have been the one behind it."

"He wasn't crazy! Just . . .different."

Ezekiel had to stop her from running when they made it to the right room and she could see Jacob behind the glass. Somehow, and he wasn't sure how he'd managed it, but he'd sweet talked the nurse into letting her into the room.

"It's a sad case," the woman said to him. "His sister is in the chapel making the decision whether or not to take him off of life support. It's actually odd, he shouldn't be as close to death as he is."

Cassandra who had paused suddenly unsure at the door, took a deep breath and pushed it open. Jacob was hovering somewhere between death and life and he'd saved her. He looked pale and sick, but he was the man she knew, she was sure of it. She picked up his hand, the same hand that had grabbed hers a few days ago and ran laughing with her back into the library.

She called his name.

"It's not as easy as it would seem," Jenkins nodded to the light. "Go that way and you will gain peace, wisdom and an eternity of knowledge. Despair, doubt, regret, fear will be forever gone." He pointed to the door that lead to the streets of the real world. "That path is life, but it is also every regret, sorrow, pain as well as joy that's out there."

"And Cassandra?"

"Well," Jenkins winced. "You have been in a coma in a hospital all this time."

"But I can find her? Will she know me?"

"Only if she loves you, will she know you." Jenkins shook his head. "I don't make the rules."

Jacob bit his lip. Cassandra had kissed him, she'd asked him out. But that didn't mean she was in love with him. Not like he was with her. Going back and not having her know him . . .having to win her heart when he was but a stranger to her. That would be true hell. He found that he could move and almost without thinking he stepped closer to the light.

Then he could hear his name being called. "Jacob, Jacob, please wake up. Please."

Her voice. His Cassandra.

"Please Jacob," she brought his cold hand to her lips and kissed it. "Jacob, I love you, please wake up."

"Jacob, I love you, please wake up."

Jacob knew what he had to do. He turned away from the light and put his hand on the other door. He looked at Jenkins, "I hope you get to go to the Library, Jenkins."

The old man smiled. "Oh, I will. And tell my grand-niece . . . ."Jacob laughed, of course, this was Cassandra's Uncle Gale. "Tell her that the library is in great hands, hers."

Jenkins smirked as the professor disappeared through the door. Then a woman appeared, the light fading around her. "You coming, Uncle Gale?"

"In a blink of an eye, my dear." He swung an arm around his favorite niece and dropped a kiss on her head. "I think our darling Cassandra and the library are in great hands."

"I knew you could do it," the redhead grinned. "I've missed you. I have a pot of tea on and I want to hear absolutely everything."

As the door shut behind them, the Annex disappeared.

Cassandra was crying, there was no response. Jacob's sister was asking who she was but she was ignoring the woman. Then suddenly she felt a squeeze of her hand.

"Jacob?" his eyes flew open and alarms started to blare as he reacted to the mask and tubes.

She and Jacob's sister were sent in the hallway as nurses and doctors rushed in, but Cassandra could hear her name being called.

"Which one of you is Cassandra?" a nurse finally said. "He's asking for you, very insistently."

Cassandra grinned and rushed in the room. She grabbed his hand and tenderly touched his face. "I'm right here, Jacob."

"How did you find me?"

Ezekiel waved from behind her. "Ezekiel did. Oh Jacob, we have so much to talk about when you're better."

"I don't know how much I can answer . . .to be honest. But, Cassie, I love you too. You brought me back, I know that much."

AN: Thanks for reading. I really wish I could have stretched this out a bit more, but I hope you enjoyed the ending anyway! It's been a long time since I wrote a Jassandra fic and this was really written to give myself a little bit of Christmas cheer. Again, thanks and Merry Christmas!