'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,
That we must curb it upon others' proof;
To be forbod the sweets that seem so good,
For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.
O appetite, from judgment stand aloof!
The one a palate hath that needs will taste,
Though Reason weep, and cry, 'It is thy last.'

Later…..

"Let him go," Abbie warned with a shake of her mahogany locks. "He's his own person, Katrina. Let. Him. Go."

She shrugged her papery frail shoulder with a surprisingly agile twist. "I never had him in the first place, Miss Abigail." She tittered.

Abbie knew this was going to go tits up at some point; she had tried to keep him safe, knowing he had no dog in this fight. But fate was cruel, insistent and rarely bested.

Abbie twisted the gun in her hands and considered the scene in front of her. Somehow, Katrina had Frederick pinned to the wall, high up into the vaulted ceiling of the old great room. Jenny was still passed out on the old moldy rug in front of her and Katrian was as bat shit crazy as usual.

"Let him go, Katrina. Its over,." She moved closer to the old witch, advanced upon her slowly . "Ichabod is gone, and you have lived way outside of your freshness date."

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Earlier….

Abbie moved her fries around the Styrofoam plate in front of her, eyes downcast. She took a deep breath and with it a silent prayer that Frederick Crane was both open minded and did not have the psych ward on speed dial. Fuck it she thought with a shake of her shoulders. "You asked about my interest in Ichabod Crane, I was not as…forthcoming as I could have, no should have been."

His eyes were trained on the woman across from him,. His face an open yet anticipatory visage. "You weren't?"

"I am interested in Ichabod Crane because I know Ichabod Crane. Knew him…I guess that would be the better tense, the proper tense."

He had stopped chewing his mountain of debauchery and fixed her with a glare. "You mean you knew of him?"

Abbie shook her head. "No, I mean I knew him. Personally." Biblically

Frederick pushed himself back in his chair and folded his arms in a way that Abbie was all to familiar with. He was gearing up for a Crane sized rant and she could not help but look forward to it. "So what you are telling me." He began, "Is that you, what, travelled in time?"

Abbie shook her head. "Not me." She smiled as she drew her phone out from her coat pocket. It was the attempt at a selfie from what felt like a lifetime ago. Crane was attempting to take a picture on the phone and failing epically. She brought up the video and pushed it toward the man in front of her.

To his credit, he waited until watching the full video before giving commentary. "Hmnmm," he hedged. "They say everyone has a twin, I am assuming you have found my doppelganger."

Abbie sipped her soda dramatically and shook her head. "I knew this was a bad idea," she muttered then tried to recall why she felt the need to even share her stories with this man

Because he reminds me of Crane, the voice inside her head cut through. Because he is the closest I have been to him in over six months and I am seeing an oasis in the desert.

Frederick sniffed but went on; still watching the video for what must have been the third time. "Why is he dressed like that?" he asked. "Who is he?"

"Your ancestor. Ichabod Crane."

Frederick wore the face of a man who had been told about aliens only after having been abducted twelve times. "It makes sense." He said finally after a too long silence that left Abbie wondering if she could hit Frederick in the head and pretend it was brain damage.

Abbie cocked her head and raised one skeptical eyebrow in the universal manner to let someone know they were full of shit.

"No, no I am not trying to placate you Miss Mills. This," he flourished a slender hand over the still replaying video. "Makes too much sense." Frederick sped over to the still packed box of relics he had spirited over the day before. He tucked the package between his arm and hip and paraded over to the table where Abbie was still trying to believe what she was hearing.

Frederick began carefully extracting the pieces onto the table, gingerly as he had the day before. "You still haven't gone over these things?" he parried with an odd look in her direction.

4A shrug and a shake of her head were small in explaining the multitude of emotion that Crane's ghosts had elicited in her. "It'll keep." She tried flippantly.

"It most certainly will not keep." He asserted arranging the items in front of her. "If what you are saying is true—"

"It is," Abbie asserted. Hands tucked together into her lap. There was a fear edging at her, a nameless breathless alacrity that hedged with the sullen fear that made Abbie both fidget and withdraw all at once.

He stopped when the items were arranged and took a moment to look at the face of the young woman. "What is it?" Frederick asked. "What's wrong?" She did not strike him as the kind of woman who feared, more of the kind who was feared. And yet, here she seemed the size of a kindergartner just pulled into the school parking lot for the very first time.

Abbie shook her head and refused to meet his gaze. The face was the same, oh there were small differences but it was still his face, still his voice. And yet…."I'm fine, Freddy."

He seemed to cringe at the moniker but did not correct her. "He, this Ichabod Crane. How did he get here?"

In for a penny, in for a pound, Abbie mused silently. She told him all she could recall but nothing personal and nothing about that last night. That was hers, theirs. She did not wish to share that with anyone, even someone who walked around Sleepy Hollow wearing Crane's face.

Frederick listened to her story; he nodded when he should and laughed when it was appropriate. Abbie's story remained uninterrupted which left her at the end with her hands splayed in front of her.

Frederick Crane offered her a look of understanding. "You were in love with him." He accused.

Abbie folded her arms and gave her best constabulary stare; the one that usually brokered no argument with rowdy drunks and unrepentant teenage fuckboys. "Are you saying you believe all of this?" she asked with a sweep over the displayed items.

Frederick did not answer, his hand splayed across the old journal and pushed it toward her. "have you read this yet?" he asked.

Abbie shook her head and swallowed. There was only so much she could deny. "I, um…." She shook her head and felt the sting of fresh tears in the corners of her doe eyes. "Wait, you said you haven't looked at any of this."

Frederick stood and grabbed for the old accordion folder to his left. "No, I have notl. But there are some things that at too glaring to be missed." He thumbed the folder and smiled. "Its often the things we try hardest to hide that are the most easily seen. "

Her blood ran cold at his words; they were nearly in the exact same positions as when Crane said those words to her. Even in the same room. "That's not…" she tried meekly.

Frederick shook his head and removed a stack of papers from the leather folder. "This," he flourished. "Is one of them."

Abbie took the papers from his hands and stared. Bank statements. "What is all of this?" she asked thumbing through the documents. Documents with her name on them.

"What do you think it is?" he offered with a shrug. "Apparently, you have had an account at Barclays since 1784."

She tore through the pages, nothing about the length of the account in her name, but it was there, the account balance. "There's over thirty million pounds here." She accused.

Yes, and that has been added to from the initial account started in 1784 of 1 million pounds." He shuffled through some of the documents she had set down.

He smiled then, a dazzling crinkled thing that struck her as so reminiscent of her Crane that she nearly choked, "I would imagine for Ichabod Crane, it was a drop in the bucket. " he shrugged again. "God knows the bulk of his wealth was spent keeping his son out of the Old Bailey. Truly a wonder there was anything left to pass down with that one."

Abbie honed in on that. The allusions to Henry's fate had left her questing since the day before. "What happened to Jeremy Crane?" she asked. Still clutching the bank statements in her hand.

"You've just discovered you are a singularly wealthy woman and you ask about Jeremy Crane?" Frederick asked with a lift of his eyebrow.

"He was…." She shrugged. "Some of the things that Crane and I went through were due to his son."

Frederick nodded in the fading light of the Archives room. She had told him so much of what had transpired in those two years and yet she somehow felt naked in front of him, as if telling him the clinical parts of her life with Ichabod Crane had somehow left her personal side so open, raw and swollen.

"He started out a decent enough fellow." Frederick began nonchalantly, picking at the remains of his lunch. "He was packed off to Oxford, Merton College just like his father."

Abbie nodded; of course the legacy would be wont to continue. She imagined Crane would have moved heaven and earth to ensure doing everything the right way with Jeremy.

And yet.

"The trouble began in his first few months away from his parents. Drinking, gambling, carrying on with…less than desirables outside of his class."

"Heavens forbid," Abbie mumbled, knowing full well that in that time, she would have been classified in that particular description.

As if reading her mind, Frederick shook his head. "No, the Cranes weren't

"Its like that." He insisted. "They would not have cared what station of people their son canoodled with as long as they were…respectable."

"I'm sure," Abbie muttered recalling her BBC drama list on Netflix. "So what happened?"

Frederick sighed and went on. "He barely finished his initial studies, and not at Merton. He was summarily booted for his endless number of brushes with the law." Frederick leaned back into his chair. "He took a commission in the navy, then became a pirate."

"Are you for real?" she asked barely believing.

"More of a smuggler really. The parents had cut him off after too many accrued debts they no longer wanted to pay. He was booted from the navy, for reasons you can only imagine given his…predilections."

Abbie sighed, suddenly sad for Crane. What must he have gone through knowing his only child was lost to him all over again, even with him being there. "So what finally happened to him?"

Frederick seemed uncomfortable recounting the story of Jeremy Crane. "Jeremy Crane finally met the fate his actions had laid out for him. He was hanged at the Old Bailey for murder. Left his parents a string of bastards that turned up after his death. The only legitimate child was a boy, Nathaniel, the child of the woman Jeremy was hanged for killing. He was five when the Cranes took him in"

So much loss and sadness. Crane had done everything right and still, Jeremy did not grow to be the man his father had dreamed of. "That's the saddest thing I have heard in a while." She said.

He nodded in agreement and began to finger the journal again. "You asked how I knew you, when I saw you on the street yesterday?" he hedged with his hand on the journal.

"Something in there you want me to see?" she asked drawing herself together.

He smiled then; his long fingers twisted the journal to face her and pushed the journal closer to her. "I did not read it," he insisted. "But when I saw this picture…." Frederick shrugged and flipped open the cover of the old leather journal. The first page was an intricate drawing of Abbie.

She placed her hands on the page and felt her breath hitch. Crane had always had a penchant for sketching and she could see it was his work. It had to be, the facial expression and detail was so intimately accurate that she knew it was done by his hand. "Yeah, " she nodded. "I can see why you so readily believed me."

"And don't worry, Miss Mills. Abbie." He spoke. "Your story is safe with me. I don't think anyone would believe me anyway."

"Probably not." She grinned, eyes still fixed upon the drawing. Abbie could feel his weighted stare even with her eyes pinned to the drawing. It was the oddest sensation uncovering these mysteries with notCrane staring at her. "But thank you." She said through thick tones. "For this, for all of this." She finally raised her eyes and felt as if she was looking on Frederick Crane for the first time. Not as a man who looked like Ichabod, but as his own sentient person. He had been the most recent keeper of this madness, the one who knew the full story. The first one to know the story since Crane himself.

He nodded then, "It's more for myself, Abbie." He insisted. "I have been obsessed with this mystery since time out of mind." He stretched and rose from his seat, Frederick glanced around the darkened room as if only realizing how long he had been in the room. "And thank you, fort sharing this with me."

Abbie waved him off and shook her head. "I am just sorry you had to be in on such a crazy story. You might need therapy now yourself."

Frederick shook his head solemnly. "Don't do that," he insisted. "Don't make light of something that meant so much to you."

Abbie was struck by the sincerity of his words, his gaze. As if her face was again the open book two Cranes had accused it of being, Frederick stood quickly and seemed offended. He shook his own head and laid a hand on his chest suddenly. "My God!" Frederick swore. "I am such an ass. What it must do to you to see me, here, like this. "

Abbie rose and placed her hands out in front of her. "Whoa, chill. " She insisted. "It's good, Mr. Crane, this, this is all right." She found herself a smile buried somewhere under six months of sorrow. "This is, a good way for me to move forward."

"I see." Frederick nodded curtly but remained standing. Abbie figured he had run right out of crazy and was full up on sad stories. "Just the same, I—"

"Abs!" Jenny's voice broke from across the room. "You really need to learn how to answer your ph—Oh, I see." She said skidding to a stop mere feet away from Frederick.

"Hello," he offered with his right hand.

"Jenny shook his hand firmly and quickly. She let his hand slide from hers and turned on her sister. "Been looking for you."

"Obviously." Frederick's tilted head rendered a sigh from the diminutive woman. With a wave of her hand she made introductions in an offish manner and smiled as Frederick realized he was meeting his pen pal. Abbie moved around the desk and came to stand beside the younger woman. "What's up?"

Jenny looked between the man and woman in the room b before shuddering with a distinct feeling of déjà vu. "Your phone is off," she nodded as if an answer. "And you weren't at your desk." She looked between them again. "Couldn't figure out a reason for you to be here in the archives…sooooo….I checked and Surprise, surprise."

Abbie nodded as she fished her phone out of her jacket pocket not realizing she had turned it off after showing Frederick the video. She had. The phone came to life and displayed Jenny's missed calls and texts along with a host of notifications. She was about to put the phone away again when it rang in her hand.

She did not recognize the number.

"Miss Mills," the airy voice answered on the other side of the phone. She founded far away and the voice came through like an old Victrola player. "I need for you to come. Now."

Annoyed, Abbie turned away from the gathering and began to walk toward the door. "This isn't how this is going to work. I don't come when you call."

The voice took on a harder edge, "Miss Mills, it is for your benefit I am doing this. The least you could do is follow directions."

"Who are you to tell me what to do?" Abbie spit into the phone, not realizing her voice had begun to ratchet toward a fearful crescendo. Both Frederick and Jenny moved toward her as she went on. "You don't run this, Katrina." She jammed the red button to end the call.

"Again?" Jenny asked, arms folded.

Abbie nodded yes and moved to speak but Frederick was faster. "I have to ask, given all the history you have told me of."

"You told him?" Jenny asked with a grimace.

"Focus," Abbie insisted. "One thing at a time." She motioned for Frederick to continue.

"As I was saying," he went on. "There is no coincidence with the name, Katrina?" he asked with that singular eyebrow rebelliously elevated.

Abbie and Jenny exchanged a look before the older sister spoke up. "This isn't something I would have you get involved with Mr. Crane." She said.

He bristled at her rejection. "Miss Mills, it is my family lineage. If this is something involving Katrina Crane then I have a right to be involved."

Abbie shook her head knowing he had some right but not for the reasons he had just laid out. He had believed her story, had not once carried the visage of disbelief and had merely accepted it as fact. He had come across an ocean armed with a litany of evidence of Crane's existence in this time.

He deserved to know; maybe he deserved to go to Fredericks Manor as well. But, he did not deserve to be erased. Of that, Abbie was certain. What right did Katrina have to erase someone for existence? And what right did she herself have to have a modicum of hope to have the man she loved back at the cost of another man's life?

She knew what Katrina was proposing, and she knew that the ancient thing had to be ended before she nullified Frederick Crane. Her Crane would never have allowed it and would not want that guilt to live in . Ichabod Crane had lived an entire life, had made choices and bifurcations in roads both more and less traveled. Frederick Crane deserved to have those choices, those experiences.

Finally, she nodded toward the shade of the man she once knew. "All right, I will bring you with me, but you need to know everything."

"I thought you already spilled all of that," Jenny fumed, hooked her thumb at the man next to her.

Abbie fixed her sister with another death glare. "He knows most of it, not about the Katrina part of it."

"So it is Katrina Crane then?" Frederick mused, slipping his wallet and keys back into his pockets.

"Whoa, so he goes, no arguing?" Jenny said.

Abbie shrugged. "I intend to stop her; I need some kind of back up." She looked at her sister who was sure to explode at any given time.

"I need to know why she needs to be stopped." Frederick asked. "And how in the hell is she still alive this long?"

Jenny's patience had eroded, she held her hands up and spoke. "Whoa, ok, obviously you gave Ditto here the Reader's Digest version." She accused. "And if Freddy gets to go, then so do I."

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