Authors Note: I've always loved ghost stories, but wanted to find someone that originated in NY I got a little help from S.E. Schlosser. Although the legend of the headless horseman of sleepy hollow I learned when I was very young. One of my personal favorites.

Disclaimer: I don't own CSI: NY and I don't make any money from it.

Ghost stories

It was another late night at the New York City crime lab and the gang was gathered in the break room trying to make heads and tails of the case when Lindsay let out a huge groan.

"What's the matter, sweetheart?" Danny asked, looking at her with worried eyes.

"It's just all we do is work and I'm so fed up with it," she complained.

Mac looked over at her with a frown saying, "You can always go home to sleep if that helps."

"No, that wasn't what I meant, or in a way, but what I really wanted was to just do something where we did something other than work," said Lindsay.

"I'm listening," said Mac, putting his case folder aside.

"What if we ordered some food and did something to take our minds of things?" she suggested.

"I can go for that, I know it's late, but I'm starving there gotto be a place that still serves food," said Sheldon.

"I have an idea as to what we can do," said Jo with one of her sly grins.

"Really what?" asked Lindsey, looking at the older woman with curious eyes.

"Let's have a contest, we each tell a ghost story and the best win a price?" said Jo, looking at the rest.

"I can agree to that, so what's the price?" asked Danny, looking at her.

"I'll let Mac decide, can you come up with something?" she said, tossing the ball to him.

"I can, but I can enter this as well?" he asked, having a story in mind.

"Yes of course, so how about we get some food and drink and meet back here in an hour, sharing what we got?" Jo said.

"Alright," they all said and headed towards the elevator as Mac looked at her saying, "Ghost stories really?"

"It was the best I could come up with, but I figured if anyone knew a good one it would have to be you," she said with a smile.

"I know some, but I won't go first," said Mac and smiled at her.

"Not to worry, I'm sure you can get someone to do that, if you will excuse me," she said and headed for the elevator as he just shook his head.

It was about thirty minutes later that the team was gathered around the table in the break room, on the table was a couple of pizza's, boxes of Chinese food, some salads, fruit and bags of potato chips and candy.

The light was dimmed as Jo said, "Okay so who will start?"

"I will," said Sheldon, making everyone's eyes turn towards him as he continued, "In the early 1800's the White lady and her daughter were supposed to have lived where the Durand Eastman Park now stands. One day her daughter went missing. Her mother was convinced that her daughter was raped and murdered by a local farmer and she searched the marshy land day and night, hoping to find her daughter's body. She took her two German Shepard dogs in the search for her daughter, but she never found her. Finally, driven apart by grief, the mother threw herself of a cliff into lake Ontario and drowned. Her dogs quickly pined for their mistress and soon joined her in her watery grave.

Even after her death the mother's spirit kept on searching for her daughter. It is said that on foggy nights the white Lady rises from the small Durand lake that faces Lake Ontario. She is accompanied by her two dogs, roaming through Durand Eastman Park still searching for her daughter.

There is said that the White Lady is not a friendly spirit. She dislikes men and often seeks vengeance of those who are in the park on her daughter's behalf. There have been reports of men being chased into the lake, shaking of their cars, and making their lives miserable until they leave the park. She never touches the females that are with these unfortunate fellows."

Everyone's eyes were on him as Jo asked, "Was there ever made a search to see if they could find the daughter's bones later on?"

"No, I don't believe so, after all it is only an urban legend," Mac said.

"Isn't it worth checking out?" she wondered.

"Even if the bones once were there is a great chance most will be gone by now, due to time," said Sheldon.

She nodded as Lindsay said, "Good story, I'm up."

All eyes were on her as Danny smiled to his wife saying, "Let's hear what you got, babe."

Lindsey smiled as she said, "It was midnight. The streets of Cohoes grew silent as the citizens tuned of their lights one by one and went to rest. The night was dark, and the wind was whispering softly, touching the trees and houses and rattling a window pane here and there.

In a house a woman was sitting beside her window, waiting in silence for the doctor to arrive. Her beloved husband is lying in the bed next to her. In the light of one candle she could see his emaciated face. He is in terrible pain, which even drugs prescribed by the doctor cannot abate. She clutches his hand tightly, feeling the cold creeping through it. He's barely breathing now, and she knows he's slipping away. One part of her is thankful, for she cannot bear to see him in so much pain. Most of all she wants to scream out in desperation, begging her not to leave her alone.

Outside the house, the soft rumble of wheels and clip-clop hooves echo through the silent night. The tears her eyes from her husband's face and look out of the window, expecting the doctor's curricle pulling into the street. Instead, she sees a dark, closed coach witch black gaping holes where the windows should be. The shafts on the front of the coach is empty, yet she can hear the sound of invisible horse's hooves as the couch moves slowly down the street.

She draws a deep breath and exhales it slowly. It is the death coach. Her husband has told her it would come for him that night, but she hadn't believed him. Still here it is, rolling slowly up to the front of the house and stopping in front of the gate. The sight terrifies her as she clutches her husband's hand tightly. He opens his eyes and smiles feverishly at her, trying to clutch her hand.

"Is it her," his voice barely whispers. She nods.

"I love you," he says to his wife. She leans down and kisses him, feeling his last breath on her lips. She straightens up, looking tenderly at his dead face through her tears.

A movement at the door causes her to look up. She sees her husband's spirit standing at the door. He gazes first at his dead body, and then smiles at her. Then he turns and walks down the stairs. She moves once to the window, flinging it open, leaning out, and hoping to see him, again. The front door opens, and her husband steps out on the front porch and slowly walks to the Death Couch. The door opens, and he pauses for a moment to look towards the window, knowing she is watching. He waves, and she waves back, tears streaming down her face. Then her husband steps into the coach and the door closes behind him. Slowly the Death Coach rumbles down the street, turns the corner and is gone.

"Goodbye, my love," she calls softly, as the coach disappears. Her husband's pain is over, but hers has just begun. With heavy heart she closes the window and goes down the stairs to call the doctor to tell him that her husband is dead.

Lindsay looked around, they all looked at her with sad eyes, tears was runs down Jo's cheek and Mac reaches in his pocket for a handkerchief to dry them away. She whispers a soft, 'Thanks you,' and he smiles back at her.

"So in time you'll watch me when I go into that coach," Danna finally spoke, breaking the silence.

"Cute and it pends which die the first if you believe in that," said Lindsay with a smile.

"I suppose, so I'll guess I'll go next so we can save the two best for last," said Danny, smiling at Mac and Jo.

"I don't know if out stories will be all that good," said Mac, making Jo push him playfully in the side, before leaning against him. His arm was slowly going around her to hold her close.

Lindsay frowned, and Sheldon smiled, but neither said anything as Danny started his tale.

"He had graduated from Harvard University and was living in Manhattan. He loved the city and was starting to feel at home in its streets. World War II was raging in Europe, and like other good citizens, he followed the headlines daily and did his part for the boys overseas.

Hugging his jacket close, he stood shivering at the corner, waiting for the light to change and wondering where his enlisted friends might be staying on that cold winter night. He hoped they were safe. He shivered, only partially from the cold, and looked around him at the bright lights of Times Square. He never tired of this glittering scene.

His eye was caught by two men who were dressed in the uniforms of the Royal Air Force of England. They must be on leave, he thought. The men stopped beside him, glanced quickly at their watches, and then nodded and grinned at him. The taller of the two asked him, in the clipped accent of the British, if this was Times Square. He suppressed a smile at such a touristy question and said that it was.

The light changed, and the two RAF pilots fell into step with the Harvard graduate as he crossed the street. The three men fell into conversation together as they meandered along the shining streets. The Brits were thrilled to be in Times Square after all they had suffered in the war. They didn't go into detail about their wartime experiences, and he didn't press them. He just enjoyed their pleasure in the scene, which was marred only by the frequent checking of their watches. Finally, he asked if they had someplace to be, but they said they were free for the evening. He promptly invited them to have dinner with him at the Harvard Club, and the RAF pilots accepted with alacrity.

The three men repaired immediately to the Harvard Club, where they had a great dinner and chatted late into the evening. The RAF pilots were good company and told him many stories, although they glossed over their experiences in the war. They continued to check their watches frequently throughout the night, but he decided it was just a nervous habit they had picked up somewhere - possibly in the air force.

As midnight approached, the two RAF pilots excused themselves are rose from the table. They thanked the Harvard man for a memorable evening and started for the door. Then the tall pilot turned back and told their host that they had always wanted to visit Times Square, but never had the opportunity. It was strange, the pilot added, that they had to wait until after they were dead - killed in action when their planes were shot down the night before over Berlin - to fulfill this dream.

The Harvard man stiffened, his eyes widening incredulously and his mouth falling open in shock. He gasped but could not speak. The phantom RAF pilot smiled sardonically at him, nodded, and joined his friend in the doorway. Then the pilots vanished before the astonished man's eyes, just at the stroke of twelve midnight," said Danny with a smile.

The other's smiled as well as this story was in a way happier than the one Lindsay had told them. Sheldon gave him a friendly pat on the back for job well done and Mac praised his story, saying he had heard something similar beforehand.

Lindsay snuggled up closer to her husband and yawned, making Jo say, "Tired already and here I was just about to tell my tale."

"A little, but I am sure I will manage to stay awake for two more stories when I managed this far," said Lindsay with a giggle.

"I'll make sure manage to stay awake," said Danny, tickling her to make her giggle and give him a slap of annoyance.

Hawkes shook his head as he turned to Jo, asking, "So do you have a scary, sad or happy tale?"

"I would say mysterious one, it includes a witch and white deer," said Jo with a grin.

"That sounds interesting," said Hawkes and the other nodded. Mac didn't speak or not, but his eyes seemed to sparkle more than usual as he gave Jo a look to make her start her tale.

"Aunty Greenleaf was a scrawny old woman with a wild thatch of gray hair and a crooked nose. She lived in a hut surrounded by pines just outside Brookhaven, and she sold herbal remedies to the folks in town. Mostly, people avoided her, except when someone got sick because it was said that Aunty Greenleaf was a witch. Her home remedies worked too well to be natural. Folks figured she had to have help from the devil or one of his relatives.

There were many stories whispered in Brookhaven about Aunty Greenleaf. People said she had hexed a farmer's pigs once after he spoke rudely to her, so that they all died, one by one. One prominent citizen dreamed of Aunty Greenleaf, and the next morning her daughter fell ill with a fever and nearly died. It was also rumored that Aunty Greenleaf and her witch friends crossed the Atlantic in an egg-shell and frolicked with the witches in England. Then they put a spell on the egg-shell so that it brought them back home before sunrise.

In the early fall, folks in town began talking about a large, pure-white deer that was seen roaming the woods near Brookhaven at night. Several hunting parties were gathered to go after the large animal, but it seemed to be impervious to bullets, and folks began saying it was a ghost deer. Around about that time, several women in the town began having trouble with their churning and a number of cows and pigs began to sicken and die. Folks blamed the incidents on the phantom deer, though each of the people afflicted with the trouble had crossed Aunty Greenleaf at some time in the last month.

The men of Brookhaven got up a hunting party to chase down the animal. They were gone all day, and well into the night. Finally they spotted the white deer. It was the largest deer any of them had ever seen, and was fast too. They couldn't keep up with it. The men got several good shots in, and swore that at least one of them hit the deer, but it just kept running. They returned home empty-handed.

One local farmer became obsessed with the white deer. Every moment he could spare from his work, the farmer would take his gun and go hunting in the woods around town. He saw the white deer several times, but he his shots always seemed to go astray. Finally, he decided the white deer must be a witch of some sort. The farmer melted silver to make bullets, and then he took his gun and went out hunting the white deer. He managed to make three shots with his silver bullets and the white deer actually stumbled as if one of the shots had hit it. Then it jerked upright and ran away. He tracked it almost to Aunty Greenleaf's hut, but then he lost it in the dark somehow, which was mighty strange, seeing as the deer was pure white.

The next day, the farmer learned that Aunty Greenleaf was ill. From the moment she took to her bed, the local farm animals stopped dying and the families who were having trouble with their churning were back to normal. Less than a week later, Aunty Greenleaf died and the doctor who cared for her told the minister he found three silver bullets in her spine.

After the death of Aunty Greenleaf, the white ghost deer was never heard of or seen again in Brookhaven," Jo finished.

"So you are saying she was the deer?" said Danny, looking puzzled.

"According to the story yes," said Jo, looking at Mac.

"I do suppose if it works to turn into animals in Harry Potter and vampire's and werewolves in Twilight, then it would work for a witch back in the days also. I do however feel bad about they treating her bad if she was trying to help with medicine.

"Didn't think you would he Harry Potter or Twilight fan," said Lindsay with a quirk.

"I am familiar with the concept, mostly due to news," said Mac without elaborating on that further.

"Yes the news, so now we have told you all of ours, what do you have?" Jo said, challenging him.

"I have a tale about a headless horseman," said Mac with a smile. It had always been a personal favorite of his.

"I've heard multiple stories about him before," said Danny with a smile.

"All good," Hawkes added.

"Please do go on," said Jo, nodding encouraging at him, as did Lindsay.

"It was a cold winter's night that a Dutchman happened to leave a tavern in Tarrytown and started to walk to his home in the hollow nearby.

His path would lead next to the Sleepy Hollow cemetery where the headless Hessian solider was said to be buried. At the stroke of midnight the Dutchman can within site of the graveyard. As the weather had been warmer the last week the snow was almost gone from the road. It was a very dark night, and as the moon was not up, the only light he did have was the one from his lantern.

The Dutchman was very nervous about passing the graveyard, due to the rumors of the galloping ghost. He stumbled around, trying to keep his courage up by humoring himself. Suddenly his eyes were caught by a light rising from the ground of the cemetery. He stopped as frozen to the ground beneath him as his heart started to pound with fear. Before his frightened eyes, the mist would burst forth from one of the unmarked graves and form into a large horse with a headless rider.

The Dutchman let out a terrible scream as the horse leapt toward him at a full gallop. He took to his heels, running as fast as he could, making for the bridge since he knew that ghosts and evil spirits did not care to cross running water. He stumbled suddenly and fell, rolling off the road into a patch of melting snow. The headless rider thundered past him, and the man got a second look at the headless ghost. It was wearing a Hessian commander's uniform.

The Dutchman waited a good hour after the ghost disappeared before crawling out of the bushes and making his way home. After fortifying himself with schnapps, the Dutchman told his wife about the ghost. By noon of the next day, the story was all over Tarrytown. The good Dutch folk were divided in their opinions. Some thought that the ghost must be roaming the roads at night in search of its head. Others claimed that the Hessian soldier rose from the grave to lead the Hessian soldiers in a charge up nearby Chatterton Hill, not knowing that the hill had already been taken by the British.

For whatever the reason, the Headless Horseman continues to roam the roads near Tarrytown on dark nights from that day to this," Mac finished.

"You think he exists?" Lindsay asked, looking at Mac with questioning eyes.

"To be honest I'm not sure, but I have no plans of hanging around that graveyard to figure that out," said Mac.

"Why not, it would be an interesting story to tell afterwards," said Jo with a giggle.

"Yes, the story about the headless Mac, if he is in hunt of a head that is," said Danny with a small laugh.

"Very funny, I take it we should get back to work," said Mac with a sigh.

"Permission to go home to rest for a couple of hours?" Lindsay said, looking at him with tired eyes.

"Granted, why don't you all go and I'll see you back a little later," said Mac with a smile, making all but Jo break up and leave. It wasn't until after they left he remembered he should have chosen a winner for the stories. He made a mental not to give them all some kind of reward in the morning as he felt all stories were really good.

"What about you, not tired?" he asked her, looking at her with wondering eyes.

"Not more than you, admit it you could use some rest," she said and smiled at him.

"I could, but we both know I have plenty of cases that need my attention," he said with a very heavy sigh.

"If you rest on the couch I can wake you in a couple of hours, then you could do the same with me," she suggested.

"I do suppose that is and option or we can rest together and set the alarm," he said, feeling badly about keeping her up.

"We only have one couch," she said.

"Then we share it or are you afraid I am going to attempt something, Josephine," he said raising a brow at her.

"No," she said, halfway wishing he would.

He nodded, both setting their alarms, leaving them on the table next to the couch. Max lay down first afraid of crushing her and she lay down half beside and halfway on top of him. She smiled as she whispered, "Just make sure I don't fall on the floor."

"I won't let that happen," he said, holding her close, daring to kiss the top of her head.

She didn't reply to the act or the comment, just snuggled closer, closing her eyes to get some rest. He followed her example thinking how funny it was that ghost stories would be the reason for them sleeping together, hoping it would be the first night of many.

Thanks for reading, feedback is always most welcome :o)