This would have been more appropriate last year, but I can't wait another three years to post this, so just go with the idea, since these stories don't really fit into the show's timeline anyway.

In Its Wake

What a day, Blake thought as she trudged her way home from the subway. A day that, some could argue, shouldn't even have existed. Or at the very least should have been spent in a state of frivolous relaxation. A holiday break from life. Today was the day that marked the Leap Year, February 29th.

It should be a day of joyful abandon. What law would it break? Unfortunately, it was not to be. This one additional day and every minute that made it up had turned into one of the most miserable she'd had to endure in a long time. It was a day spent tramping through slush puddles, in 30-degree weather as she and her partner investigated a series of pawn shop robberies.

It was probably a minor miracle that it still was the 29th when Blake had finally left One Police Plaza. Defeated and dejected, she looked forward to crawling into bed and spending the last few hours of this dreadful day in the oblivion of sleep.

Bobby looked up from the book he was reading as he heard the scratch of keys against the door. He was rarely the one left sitting at home to wait. As the door opened, he instantly took in Blake's tired and worn down appearance as she entered the apartment. He reached out, took both her shoulders in his hands, spun her around and marched her back out the door without giving her a chance to say a word, as the door closed behind them. His steps faltered as he the realization hit him that his personal arrow of time and its innate linear flow had been corrupted. He'd covered the distance from chair to door before consciously processing the thought and decision to do so. As he continued to shepherd the confused and protesting Blake Jamison to the elevator, he shook his head. Time had stood still for those few seconds. A bit of late night winter stargazing would help Blake unwind, or so Bobby's theory went.

Pushing herself away from him when he turned to push the elevator button. She noticed he pushed the 'UP' button. Sputtering, "Bobby, what the hell are you doing? Where are you taking me?"

"You'll see." He glanced at her and saw her working to recompose herself.

"I don't want to see. I just want to crawl into bed and go to sleep. Today was a long, horrible day and I just want it to be over." She had long lost any hopeful expectations for this extra day and simply glared up at him. I don't want to play any games tonight."

Bobby remained silent. The elevator door opened and he motioned for her to precede him out. Still sulking, she pulled her coat tighter around her and walked forward as she whined, "The roof? Why? It's only about 10 degrees, it's late and …."

Working hard to keep an enthusiastic tone, "It won't take long." Opening the door to the roof, Bobby stepped aside to grab the fold up lounge chair and blanket that was hidden behind one of the utility boxes just inside.

She sat bundled between his legs, sharing their combined body heat. A blanket draped across them, while her wool gloves protected her fingers and a scarf still coiled around her neck, effectively employing every effort to stay warm. If all these efforts failed, if the cold, late February air still managed to get past winter's accessories, she was sure Bobby would quite willingly turned himself into the best heated comforter she could ever have asked for. Bobby had been massaging her tense neck muscles and shoulders, as the tension of the day eased, her brittleness eased replaced by a warm relaxation coursed through her.

Bobby was leading her through a journey of the night sky. One by one, he cycled through the most visible constellations. Orion, whose whose rising and setting with the sun is used to reckon the year, the mythological Orion and his dogs, off on the hunt, Leo, cast into the sky by Hercules. To the left was Gemini, represented by the twins, who shared a mother but had different fathers. Blake never had been able to grasp how twins could have different fathers, and she had yet been able to convince Bobby to theorize on the mechanics of it all.

He could tell she was feeling much better, now leaning into him, seemingly relaxed for the last several minutes. What he didn't understand though, was why she kept checking her watch.

"Do you have somewhere else you need to be?" he teased, when she surreptitiously pulled her hand out from beneath the blanket, coughing lightly as an excuse to tilt her wrist. "If I am keeping you from another rendezvous," he continued, "please just tell me."

She let out a huffing puff of air at having been caught, and then shoved her hand back down beneath the cover. He captured it with his own, folding her forearm across her midriff. Then he leaned forward, squeezing her with purpose. Even if she did have an impossible meeting at this ridiculously late hour, the chances of him letting her go were even less.

"What in heaven's name is wrong?" he inquired, having no idea what to make of her behavior. "If you are not enjoying yourself, I would prefer that you simply tell me, rather than resorting to ambiguous hints."

"That's not it," she replied, her eyes closing as she shook her head. Her hope for the day had surged again, as he led her up to the roof, but was now wavering . She couldn't believe he was missing this, and truth be told, yeah, it hurt a little. She hated the idea of having to tell him outright. Bobby Goren, the man who knew every irrelevant, arcane bit of history. But, maybe his idea was a good one. Maybe a hint really would do it.

"It'll be midnight soon," she spoke leadingly. "Less than five minutes."

Well, as obvious and obtuse a statement as that was, Bobby at least believed he could decipher a clue from it. "Would you like to go back downstairs? His hands rubbed her sides comfortingly. "I know it's been quite a long day. Of course you would be exhausted."

"I'm not exhausted either," she sighed, realizing how spectacularly that attempt had failed. "And there's no way we'd make it back to the apartment before midnight, so it was probably pointless to bring the whole thing up anyway." Her frustration really was showing. "Aren't you forgetting something? Aren't you supposed to be doing something before midnight?"

Silence, as he stared at her. That he had utterly no clue, was written all over his face. Fine then, she would spell it out for him. It was going to ruin the moment completely, but it appeared she had no other choice.

"Tradition says," she explained in clear defeat, "that the man is supposed to kiss the woman on Leap Day. And Leap Day ends in," this time she studied her watch with absolutely no hesitation ... "three minutes."

At that, Bobby could only dumbly blink. He'd tried so hard to set a mood to make things easy for Blake, only now to find out, she really didn't know what the tradition was. "And just where did you hear that?" he asked carefully.

"I heard it as a child. School, if you must know. Everyone knows it and I thought that you, of all people, would remember it."

Bobby realized immediately that somewhere along the line her memory had twisted the tradition of the day. What she told him now, while fanciful, and certainly sweet, was not the true tradition. Or perhaps a young boy had once woven such a story to steal a kiss from the little Blake. While Bobby could understand a boy's motives in distorting the legend, he hoped it was the former explanation rather than the latter.

The irony was that he still regretted having disappointed her. Inadvertently, as it was. Her belief over what he should or should not be doing on this rare Leap Day evening, were not only wrong, but known only to herself. He'd obviously done nothing to feel guilty about, so then, why did he experience that small twinge?

Regardless, perhaps the truth could at least be retold in a way she might enjoy.

"I regret that I must inform you, that your memory is incorrect," he began. "The custom is indeed old and springs from the fact that February twenty-ninth held no legal status in earlier centuries. To some degree, the day simply did not exist. Therefore, it was 'allowable' for a woman to propose marriage to a man on that day, indeed, throughout the entire Leap Year in some of the more right-thinking nations. And the kiss you speak of was not a kiss of love, but a consolation required from the man if he declined the proposal."

"Oh," Blake replied simply, rather dejected, and obviously not enchanted by the truth.

He leaned forward placing his lips close to her ear, his arms around her tightening. An expression of sorrow over having to disappoint her yet again.

He whispered, "If the man - fortunate though he may be - were to refuse the woman's hand, then he was to kiss her in apology, as well as pay a pre-determined fine, set forth by law. Additionally, many areas also required that he provide either an ornate gown, or a pair of gloves."

Blake just shook her head. "I've been wrong all this time," she said. "Damn. And I thought it was such a fun idea."

Bobby smiled to himself, rocking her gently. Did she not see the silver lining? "Personally, I take your long-standing lack of awareness about this as a positive sign." Once again, he murmured playfully to her ear, explaining, "It suggests to me, that you have not spent previous Leap Days rushing about, asking men to be yours."

That earned him an elbow in the ribs, and he chuckled in response.

"You do raise an interesting request though," he admitted. "That I might kiss you during these last waning minutes of a day that does not exist. Although, of course, I see no need to wait for the traditionally required marriage proposal to invoke the gesture."

His head returned alongside hers, his breath, his lips, so warm as they brushed against her ear. It sent a chill through Blake that had nothing to do with the winter air surrounding them, but saw her pressing back into the curve of his body all the same.

Despite having had to dissuade her from those fanciful yet incorrect notions, he did indeed see a higher point. There were some things even more worthy of celebration. "I would like to believe that such issues were settled long ago," he continued. "Promises made and lives irreversibly entwined."

At last, her true smile emerged, no longer edged with anxiousness that he wasn't fulfilling this unwritten and unknown requirement, nor saddened that there actually was no requirement in the first place. This was Bobby's smile, the one she saved only for him, the one only he could inspire, no matter what the date. When her face nestled into the curve of his neck - whispering her agreement and sealing it with a fervent kiss of promise - well, he certainly wasn't disappointing her anymore.

"But if you wish to receive the legal recompense as well," Bobby teased, "then I feel compelled to honor my debt - The gown, well, I'll need another day for that, it's nearly midnight and all the stores are closed."

She glanced playfully at him. ... "And let me guess ... you're not carrying any cash on you either, are you?"

"For a fine? No, I'm afraid I left my wallet back in my apartment." His face dipped tantalizingly toward hers, tempting a brush of lips. "I clearly didn't expect the necessity of having to pay for the privilege."

Blake couldn't resist the gesture, and was already pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"But you shall have the rest," he murmured. "You shall have the rest."

Around her, his arms lifted as he set to work removing his gloves. At the release of his embrace, Blake adjusted her position; turning as best she could within the constraint of his legs, trying somehow, someway, to get closer to him.

"Your gloves, my lady," he offered, as he placed the large, black leather pair he'd been wearing in her hands.

"But you've never refused me," she corrected. The gloves were accepted politely though, her fingers sinking into the thick softness. A touch she recognized instinctively, even through her own woolen pair. The leather gloves still warm - still filled with his body heat.

"That's true," he promptly acknowledged. "Nor have you refused me. So we will have to rewrite the tradition." His bare hand curved around her chin, one thumb sneaking up to brush across her lips. "You shall still have your kiss."

His eyes found hers; his hands as well, curving around her jaw. Cupping her head as they both indulged in the simplest joy of watching each other.

Then the smile Blake had come to appreciate grew wide with happiness, the man pleased beyond all measure to draw the face of his beloved to his own. "You," he whispered, "have never required a 'true' Leap Day kiss. You do deserve any kiss, every kiss you desire, every kiss that you might ever request. Not because you love, but because you are loved."

A breathy "Ohhhh," was her first response. The second, the nuzzle of her nose to the dull slope of his. His eyes blinked closed at the touch, opening again only an inch away. When her arms looped around his shoulders, her hands rising to cover the back of his head, both recognized it for the protective gesture it was.

"I love you too," she whispered, shifting yet again to fit more tightly against his body. "Always, Bobby. Always."

In the cold winter night, his warm lips found hers. And at precisely 11:59pm, Blake received the kiss she'd been wishing for all day. Even better, in fact, because the world could see this one. The moon could smile and the wind could laugh. The stars could cheer and the snow flurries could dance.

As one day ended and another began, Bobby continued to kiss his love, alone beneath the nighttime sky. Time continued as always, but history was made in its wake.