A/N: Thank you to everyone who read this and those who wrote reviews! I so appreciate it! This started out as just a fun little diversion for me and a way to get over writer's block and now I have a story on my hands. There will be more chapters coming! :-)

"Open your eyes, Ichabod."

Her soft words, spoken after so much silence, startled him and his eyes snapped open. What he saw gave him a sudden jolt of hope; like consuming one of those vitality drinks she favored.

"Abbie, how is this possible? Are we…?"

The bleak dollhouse and its sorrow-filled halls were gone. The agonized souls were no longer lurching about, crying in pain. Indeed, all of Purgatory was gone, replaced with, of all things, a baseball field. But not just any field. It was the very field where Miss Mills had taken him not long ago to teach him about "America's favorite pastime." He could smell the grass and the dirt and songbirds flew overhead in an aquamarine sky that seemed to go on forever. It was too perfect to be genuine. He looked over to her, a hopeful yet tentative smile on his lips.

Abbie bit hers and moved a step away from him. "We're not really here," she said, sadness coloring her voice for the first time in a while.

So, it was too perfect, then. He had feared as much, but the hope had blossomed in his heart anyway only for the truth of her statement to crush it into obscurity.

"Then what is this place?" he asked, defeated.

She shrugged and folded her arms across her chest. "I like to think of it as our place." Her voice was small and soft, but so wonderful to hear. "The house was upsetting you, so I thought you would like this better. This is one of my best memories."

Ichabod's face fell. "It is one of my most treasured recollections, as well. But how did you do this?"

Her eyebrows raised. "I'm not sure?"

Abbie said it as a question but he was certain that she did not expect him to provide any kind of answer. So he said nothing and waited for her to continue.

She sighed. "I just thought of it all of a sudden and what a wonderful time we had that day and I thought that I would love to be able to go back there. Then…here we were. Maybe it was the girls' parting gift to us; a thank you."

"What about Moloch?"

He thought he saw her shiver at the mention of the demon's name, but it happened so fast, he couldn't be sure.

"He's still here. He'll never really let me leave the dollhouse. This place is just Purgatory camouflage…for you. It's so you can be more comfortable," she said, looking around at what could have been a perfect day.

"But you told me not a moment ago that it was time for me to leave," Ichabod said, taking a step towards her. As he did, she moved back from him, her movements feline and lithe.

"It is. Jenny is close to you. I can feel it. She will find you."

He moved towards her again and when she feinted away a second time, he halted his movements, took a deep breath and held his hands up as though he were under arrest. "Will you please cease your infernal peripatetic wandering?!"

She smiled then, and put her hands on her hips. "I will if you stop trying to touch me."

He was stopped short by her comment and truly flabbergasted. "Why am I suddenly barred from holding you?" he asked, his eyes winterblue and wounded.

Her smile faded and she sighed. "You're not, Crane. I'm just trying to make things easier for you."

Ichabod was shocked at how completely she had the situation upturned in her mind. How in the world could anything good come out of him staying away from her? How could that be "easy" as she had said? Abbie must truly believe that he would leave Purgatory and just take up some happy existence with Katrina while she floundered here after sacrificing herself for her blasted notion of his happiness and what she thought he truly wanted.

"Will you come with me?" Her simple request broke him from his thoughts.

He hesitated only seconds before closing the gap between them and taking her hand in his. The moment he did, he felt their undeniable connection spring to life and he said nothing as she led him over to the bleachers. He assumed they were going to sit on them as they had done that day at the real baseball field, but instead, she kept walking. Eventually he realized they were going underneath them. Abbie crouched down and scurried underneath, sitting in the damp grass, motioning for him to follow. He looked at her for a few beats in complete confusion and then decided not to question for once; just follow wherever his heart led. It was truly his life's greatest pity that he had learned so late just exactly what it was his heart wanted.

He sat next to her and she immediately took his hand in hers, but seemed careful that no other parts of their bodies were touching. She wasn't even looking at him. This new notion she had about making things "easy" for him was becoming truly maddening.

"When Jenny and I were kids," she began, "and my mother was ranting and raving and being generally crazy and everything seemed hopeless, we would sneak out of the house and run to our local baseball field. And we'd sit under the bleachers and watch the game and watch all of the families that were there and pretend that one of them was our own. You know, like a real family; people who loved each other and laughed together."

"Abbie," he began, but she held up a hand to stop him.

"It's all right, Crane. That's all gone now. I don't even feel it anymore. I guess all of that lifted from me when I gave you my strength…when I…died. It's like, I can remember it, but the pain that always came with it before just doesn't exist now. It's like I said: I don't have to hide anymore."

She turned to look at him, and he could see that she spoke the truth. There were no tears in her eyes, no pain or hurt. They were clear and bright.

"Anyway, sitting under those bleachers always got us out of the dumps somehow. No matter how bad it got at home, we could always come here and lose ourselves in the daydream of a better life. So, I guess that I brought you here because I want you to know that is what I want for you: a better life. It's what you deserve."

He reached out to touch her cheek and was surprised when she allowed it. "Miss Mills, can't you see that I will have no life without you?"

She put her hand on top of his while it was still on her cheek and for a moment, turned her face into his hand. "You will. I've made sure of it. 'Tomorrow was made for some,' Crane, but not me. So when you get back to the real world and you think of me – think of me here. Not back in the dollhouse. Imagine me here and maybe you'll make it happen. Picture me sitting under these bleachers, with the smell of the grass and the crack of a bat behind me. Picture me daydreaming about the amazing life you're going to have – a Revolutionary soldier in the modern world who got a second chance with the love of his life."

He shook his head, feeling anger and hopelessness and desperation welling up inside. "But you are—"

"Stop," she said, holding her hand up, cutting him off. Her eyes were instantly full of tears and the agony that had been previously erased from her countenance was back tenfold.

"Please don't say it. I don't think I could make it one more second alone here if you say it. I know I said I don't feel the pain of my life anymore, but for some reason, I feel everything about you." Her voice broke on the last word and a tear streaked down her cheek; a lightning strike. She reached out and took his hand and kissed his palm softly. Then, after a shuddering breath, she went on.

"I think I feel what I feel for you even more now…here…in this place. It cuts deeper somehow. So if you say what you were going to say, I'm pretty sure my heart will break into about a thousand pieces and I'll just blink out of existence from the agony. I know my body is dead and gone, but that kind of pain…that could kill my soul. That's the only thing I still have to hide from…for eternity now, I guess."

Ichabod's face fell at her words and he felt as though she had shot an arrow into his heart, so great was the ache there. He wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and never release her. He wanted to take away that pain and spend the rest of his life making her feel safe and loved and to know that she would never have to be alone again.

"Miss Mills, don't you see that I feel the same? I will be nothing more than a shell without you. My heart will be crippled. How can it be proper for us to be apart if it will tear our souls to shreds? We are the Witnesses. God has decreed that we be united. How can you question His will?"

Abbie looked at him in such a strange way that for a few moments, he wasn't sure if she was going to kiss him or punch him. In the end, her brown eyes filled with tears that spilled onto her cheeks in endless torrents.

"I know who we are, Crane, ok? I know! Trust me, leaving you – being without you – will be the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm not sure if I'll survive it, but if this is the only way to keep you alive, I've got to try."

Ichabod wracked his brain for another way to get through to her, but found himself at a loss. He had tried every tactic; every way but one. Every way but what he now knew was the ultimate truth of his soul; his very existence. He took her hands in his and held them to his chest; his eyes boring into hers, hoping he could penetrate the wall she had built up around herself.

"I love you, Abbie." The words left him in a reverent hush and seemed to hang in the air between them, thick and ripe with meaning.

Those four words seemed to undo her and her face crumpled as she collapsed against him, sobbing. She grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him closer to her, her cheek pressed against his shirt. He felt her tears soaking through it to his skin. Ichabod wrapped his arms around her and hoped his presence would provide some relief to her and would help her to see that she was wrong in staying in Purgatory. Slowly, her sobs calmed and then ceased and she was silent for a few moments.

When she pushed away from him and spoke, her voice was soft but resolute. "I want you to know you made a difference in my life. You may think you see the real me now, but I could tell you saw her from the first time we met. I got that right away. I think that's why I let you get so close as fast as you did and why I believed you when everyone else thought you were crazy. You took me the way I was and made me feel like I was good enough. Nobody besides Corbin ever did that for me. I will keep that with me forever. Your memory and what you did for me will keep me warm in this place and I know as long as I have that, I can take whatever Moloch does to me. I want to give you something back of what you've given me. I love you, too, Ichabod and that's why I want you to live."

Ichabod looked at her – so brave in the face of tragedy – and only one thought, one question came to his mind. "What is it you most desire, Miss Mills?"

Her brow furrowed and she wiped a few errant tears away. "What?"

"When I first…arrived and Moloch had you, he told you that if you gave him your soul, he would give you that which you most desired…"

Abbie looked at him sideways. "You heard that part, huh?" She nodded, a sad smile on her lips. "Well, it doesn't matter, because like I told him it's something that even he couldn't do."

Ichabod took her hand gently and if he didn't know it was impossible, would have sworn that his heart was black and blue, so mightily did it ache. "And ever since you uttered those words, I have been speculating what in the world you might desire that would be beyond Moloch's powers to attain. Might you enlighten me?"

Her face crumpled a bit and she quickly wiped away a tear that had appeared almost instantly. The moment she did, Ichabod had his answer, but for some sadistic reason, he wanted her to say it. Perhaps as a way to punish himself?

But instead, she reached out and touched his face chastely, her eyes portraits of pain. "Can't you guess, Crane?"

It was him. He was that which she most desired and thought unattainable, and that assumption was his fault entirely. He could barely see her for the tears in his eyes. It almost seemed as though he were looking at her through a thick pane of glass; her image was fractured and broken. Or perhaps that was simply his heart.

"Miss Mills, please…" he faltered, his throat choked with pain, his fingers ghosting across her face.

Abbie smiled at him sadly, wiping some of his tears away with her thumb. "Crane, it's okay. I may not get what I most desire, but you will. You'll be back with Katrina…which reminds me…"

She reached behind her head with both hands and before Ichabod knew what was happening she was holding Katrina's pendant in front of him. "Here. This isn't mine."

He shook his head, fear stealing his breath. "Katrina gave you that pendant for your safekeeping. Without it, you will have no protection from Moloch."

She looked at him quizzically and grabbed his hand and let the pendant puddle in his palm. "She gave me this pendant when I was still alive. She gave this pendant to protect a mortal trapped in an immortal place. Crane, I am dead." Here, her voice faltered, a tear slipping down her cheek and she closed his fingers around the pendant. "You've got to accept the truth and the truth is I don't need this anymore. I'm beyond its help, but the two of you aren't. If it can help either of you one day, then I want you to have it."

He was about to tell her that her assumption was incorrect when she tapped him on his chest, over his heart.

"Take good care of that little piece of me, ok?" she asked. "Know that if it's possible, I will watch over you your entire life. You will never walk alone, I swear."

Ichabod was lost, cast adrift on an ocean of pain and regret and desolation. He could only shake his head. "Please…" he croaked out again, his eyes swimming shut.

"I'll miss you, always and love you, forever," she said, her voice breaking.

Before he could say anything else, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his chastely and he could not escape the feeling that she intended it as a goodbye kiss. Before he could speak, he was assaulted with an overpowering fatigue that permeated his every pore. He fell back onto the grass and reached out for Abbie. His fingers found nothing but empty space and no matter how hard he tried, he could not open his eyes. They felt almost weighted down or filled with sand. Ichabod was about to scream out her name, when her sweet voice cut through the inky darkness that was now all around him.

"Open your eyes, Ichabod."

Her words echoed, bouncing around him as though he were in some deep cavern underground and he tried to move again, to sit up, but was still unable. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn that he was being held down. With a deep breath, Ichabod tried again and was finally able to open his eyes, encountering only endless obsidian that seemed no different than when he had his eyes closed. He knew he should have found such obscurity unnerving, but instead, it felt in some way familiar to him. And where was Miss Mills?

"Why are you here, Crane?"

He tried to turn his head in the direction from which her voice had come, but he could not. Ichabod simply could not grasp what had happened in such a short span of time. One moment, he had been with Abbie at the baseball field and the next he had been pushed headlong into this dark void of nothingness and she had utterly vanished.

She had vanished…evaporated…faded away…blinked out of existence.

Violent nausea rolled over him in waves as understanding dawned on him, a scream working its way out from the depths of his shattered heart.

"You're not dead, Ichabod."

Only her voice stopped him from screaming her name until he was hoarse and his last breath spent. Perhaps if he could still hear her, she was not truly gone and he could find his way back to her. He simply could not bear the thought that she had just ceased to exist the way the girls had. There had to be another way, just as she had once said to him.

He took a deep breath, but found that the air around him had changed and was no longer as easy to bring into his lungs. It seemed damp and heavy and the strange scent that had been ever-present in Purgatory before this was now missing. As he noted its absence, Ichabod was better able to remember the times he had smelled it before…

…In the gatehouse of his father's estate, where their housekeeper lay ill…

…At the foot of a tree into which the hounds had chased a fox…

…In the smokehouse, where the Christmas hams hung from the rafters…

…At the edge of his mother's bed, as he watched her fall deeper into the clutches of Tuberculosis…

Tears welled in his eyes as he realized that the odd aroma he had noticed in Purgatory since he first arrived – the one that had been familiar but elusive – had been the scent of Death.

Everywhere he had been with Abbie in Purgatory, it had been there, clinging, loitering, smothering and enveloping everything in its black presence; including the Lieutenant.

Ichabod felt the scream fighting to break loose again from the deepest part of his soul. Perhaps that was why he had such a burning pain in his lungs? The scream was scorching everything it touched as it passed – branding him the way her love had – the mark a testament to her indomitable spirit and singular strength of character. It claimed him as hers and hers alone and he would accept it proudly. Was it not the least he could do considering all she had sacrificed in his name?

He tried to take another breath, but found it nearly impossible. There was just no more air to be had wherever he was. He wondered if this erased void where everything and nothing existed at once was God's final decision on his punishment for his betrayal of Abbie. Possibly, this was his own personal Purgatory: alone and held still in the horrible presence of his sin. The fact did not frighten him, though he supposed it should have. All Ichabod could think about was that Abbie was gone and he would never see her again, never touch her again, never see her smile. If that were true, what did it matter what happened to him now? The only thing that pained him was that Abbie had made her sacrifice in vain, because he was not to survive the coffin after all. He had never even made it out of Purgatory. Instead, God had simply been expertly cruel and put him in his own hell: existence separate from Abbie Mills.

His breath hitched in his chest and he gasped, barely able to get any air at all. Distantly, absently, he thought he heard a thumping and scraping sound, but he paid it no mind. It was likely his own heart banging against his chest as it lurched frantically to its inevitable crescendo.

Ichabod closed his eyes since there was nothing to see anyway and the Lieutenant's face drifted into focus in his mind. His eidetic memory showed him every detail of her face: the lines of her lips, arches of her brows and the affection that shone in her russet eyes when she gazed upon him. He was grateful that God had not taken that from him, at least. He felt, too, that small part of her that he now carried, curled deep inside. Though that small fragment gave him some comfort, it broke his heart anew, as well, because it was a piece longing for its whole. It whispered her name like a prayer given up to the heavens and although meant to give him strength, it now dealt him a crushing blow. Ichabod felt her absence like a knife's blade and knew that even if he had survived the coffin, he would not have been able to live with the torment of living without Abbie. With every passing moment, that pain chipped away at his heart and soul and made him realize that he was now part of a whole – separated eternally from that which it belonged – and he would forever be incomplete.

With the last few breaths in his body and until his heart was silent, he said aloud over and over the only truth of which he was still certain.

"I love you, Abbie. I love you, Abbie. I love you, Abbie."